Nocturnal Part 35

Reule felt the group of target minds shut down all at once and there was an instant whiplash effect, impacting him physically so that he fell back as if he'd been playing tug-of-war and the other team had suddenly let go. Darcio caught him, but Reule was no light weight, his build thick with a warrior's muscle and his height stretching to over six feet. Darcio was determined, however, to at least keep his Pack leader from landing in an undignified heap, easing him to the floor.

The death was gone, purged from Reule's mind with the break in his concentration, although the metallic ghost of it would cling to him for a long time to come. Darcio knelt on a single knee beside him, steadying him even though he sat, a disturbed furrow creasing his brow.

Darcio had every right to be concerned. The Packmates had seen Reule do some pretty amazing things over time, had even come to expect to be amazed regularly by the sheer potency of their leader's unique power, but never had Darcio seen any one man strike such a devastating blow to an enemy at six-to-one odds. The Jakals weren't just comatose, they were dead dead. Dead by the power of Reule's thoughts. Darcio felt the heavy silence of the Pack, only the captive Chayne making noise as he rasped for breath. Otherwise, the Pack guarded their thoughts from Reule. However, because they were a Pack, Reule would be aware of their collective discomfort.

It wasn't his Pack's disturbance that struck Reule's weakened mental defenses, though. His mind was now stripped of the strength to defend itself, and that allowed the desperate sorrow to bombard him again. Reule had also carefully blocked out Chayne's agony and humiliation so it wouldn't interfere with his concentration. Now it washed over him in burning waves, clearly differentiating itself from the sadness that swirled around him. No, it wasn't his suffering Packmate that Reule felt in deep, a.s.sailing eddies. There was another, and whomever it was had to be close.

"Reule, don't do it," Darcio warned him, his kin now free to exchange thoughts with him as his mental walls lay crumbled. "It could be a trap. You will end up like them." Darcio flicked a hand at the pile of dead Jakals.

"No," Reule rasped as he struggled to regain his balance and physical coordination. "This is something else. Someone is in pain."

"It's no concern of ours," Darcio hissed softly, his worry coming through despite his attempts to be coldhearted. Reule knew Darcio well. His Packmate had one concern in all the world, and that was Reule's safety and well-being.

"Darcio, if it were you, would you appreciate others turning their backs on you and abandoning you to your fate? She is close. In this house, I believe." Reule stopped suddenly, realizing that he was right. What he felt originated from a female. Strange he should know that. Stranger still that he could sense only this tide of one particular feeling, but no others. No thoughts, nothing to identify her, just...sadness.

"You see?" his companion persisted. "Even your own mind tells you that something is wrong about this."

Reule frowned irritably, disliking the defenselessness of his mind, which allowed Darcio to read his every thought. He struggled to erect even the slightest of barriers against the intrusion, a filter at the very least. To his surprise he got a monumental wall of protection. It was so strong and abrupt that he felt Darcio stiffen with shock as he was booted out of Reule's mind with perfunctory force. Reule quickly reached up to grasp his friend's shoulder, giving it an apologetic squeeze.

"Your advice is always valued, Darcio. Remember that. But I will act in accord with my instincts on this." The gesture of camaraderie seemed to ease the other male's bruised feelings, and Darcio reached to help haul Reule to his feet. No easy task that, Reule weighing several stones more than the leaner man. He felt Rye under his other arm helping to steady him within moments, though.

"Chayne?" he asked.

"We won't know until we get him back home. The apothecary will tell us the whole of it," Rye said softly.

"Go, help Delano with Chayne. I'm well enough," he instructed Rye. To prove the point, he took his weight onto his own two feet and pushed Rye away with a guiding hand. Rye hesitated only a moment before nodding and moving away to do as his Pack leader commanded.

Feeling increasingly steady, Reule directed his focus away from the fearful, paralyzed Jakals that yet remained alive, and the noisy thoughts of his Packmates. It wasn't hard to hone in on the sorrow. Adjusting his vision once more to detect heated shapes, he began to scan the house more slowly. He was in the central-most point of the structure, one floor above him and one below. Wherever she was, she was close. He might have mistaken her for a Jakal in his first scan, but it was clear from the depth of her emotion that she couldn't be.

Yet nothing stood upright in the house save his Pack. He looked upward once more and realized there was another floor above the third. And there, up in the farthest corner, he spied a small ball of the dimmest heat.

"Darcio, did you encounter anyone upstairs?"

"No, My Prime. I only sought the one stray you noted."

"Then this is the female I'm sensing. Lord and Lady, but she has strong emotions," he marveled as he stepped over an incapacitated Jakal.

"One emotion, My Prime. One bound to attract a man of good conscience," Darcio said suspiciously. "It's magnified just as you magnified death to the Jakals. What manner of creature can do that besides yourself?" And even Reule shouldn't be able to do such a thing, And even Reule shouldn't be able to do such a thing, he thought. No man should hold death in the power of his thoughts. Reule had always been fair and just with his power, but things like this had a way of changing a man. Even a Prime. he thought. No man should hold death in the power of his thoughts. Reule had always been fair and just with his power, but things like this had a way of changing a man. Even a Prime.

"You're mistaken," Reule said as he moved with increasing surety out of the room. "There is no magnification. It's...pure." The word kept springing to his mind. He decided it suited and left it at that. Darcio didn't say anything, but Reule could feel him repressing arguments because he didn't want to contradict his Prime again. Darcio was a good man, ever his voice of caution and conscience, always advising him to consider carefully. Reule valued him beyond measure and he made certain the thought made it through to Darcio before they took off up the stairs together.

They made it to the third floor of the ramshackle building, clearly abandoned long ago. The roof had leaked and the ceiling was rotted through, as was the wooden floor they now negotiated. Reule and Darcio took care with every step as they edged toward another stairwell, this one narrow and stinking of the closed-in must and mildew surrounding them. Gypsy Jakals were always roaming the lands, scavenging and causing trouble, squatting wherever they could. This band had been around long enough to make this hovel a home. Homey enough to bolt a chair in a central parlor for the purpose of torture. It meant they'd been here for some time. Reule would never have known it if Chayne hadn't accidentally stumbled into capture during their hunting trip.

Reule tested the narrow little attic stairs and wondered how anyone could be up in the garret. Getting there seemed a dangerous task. Then again, it made its own sort of prison, which was a far more likely case considering who had occupied the house and the distressing feeling was.h.i.+ng through him.

He made his way to the head of the small stairs, Darcio his ever-present Shadow as he pushed open a heavy, stubborn door. He instantly was confronted with a chasm of missing flooring. A wide, dangerous section had rotted out. Reule and Darcio could see straight down to the storey they'd just left.

"You're lucky these stairs even held," Darcio muttered as Reule entered the room one careful sidestep after another. His Packmate was right. The hole in the floor came to within a mere foot of the door and stairwell.

And of course his target was all the way on the opposite side. Even though it was all one large room, he still couldn't see her. There was a crowd of crates blocking his view of her, though he could still sense her dim heat.

"I'd really like to know how she got over there," Reule said in honest curiosity. Darcio nodded his agreement as they tried to plot the best course of action.

"I should go. I'm lighter. Less chance of the floor giving way."

Good point, but Reule didn't want to relinquish the task for some reason. Her pain was so bittersweet, beautiful merely by virtue of its purity and depth. Anyone who could feel pain so deeply, logic reasoned, was used to accommodating its ant.i.thesis. Reule only hoped that pain wasn't all she could could feel after this. feel after this.

"No," he responded after a moment. "There's a strip along the wall that looks st.u.r.dy enough even for me. Since this is my folly, I might as well be the one to risk breaking my neck."

"My Prime," Darcio protested.

"It's a joke, Shadow. Take ease."

"I will once we're out of this dangerous h.e.l.lhole," Darcio countered sullenly.

Reule turned away to hide a smile. Leave it to Darcio to take all the fun out of an adventure. Still, he wasn't swayed so easily. His blood rushed with adrenaline as he negotiated wet, creaking boards that were maybe days, or even minutes from rotting away completely. He tried not to touch the dank, mildewed wall running next to him as he went. Some molds in the damplands were poisonous or flesh eaters. An ominous crack sounded through the room, and Reule abruptly realized exactly how unstable the entire building was. The Jakals were insane to risk staying in such a place. If the floor inside was rotted, he could just imagine the state of the roof above them. He glanced back at Darcio and they exchanged a mutual understanding that they needed to get out as soon as possible. If nothing else, they were agreed on that.

Reule exhaled carefully when he reached the other side of the gaping hole, unwilling to relax so long as he stood on water-stained boards. He gingerly made his way over to the boxed crates and peered into the dark corner behind them.

The only thing he could see was the palest little hand. His heart skipped a beat as he realized that this was probably a child. A renewed sense of rage flooded him and he began to think of the Jakals left alive on the lower floors. When he left this property not a one of them would be left breathing, he vowed to himself fiercely. They had feasted on their very last victims.

Very carefully, Reule grabbed one of the crates and slid it a little aside. The frightening creak of the protesting floor halted him instantly.

"To h.e.l.l," he muttered, planting both hands on another crate and effortlessly leaping over its four feet in height as if it were nothing. His feet hit the only clear piece of flooring available without landing on the girl. He heard Darcio curse baldly when his weight met protesting floorboards.

Reule ignored him and squatted down to better see her through the darkness. He reached for her hand as he bent forward. Her pain had become like a repet.i.tive tune singing through him, no longer reaching extreme highs or lows. It wasn't that it weakened, only that he was adapting to the force of it.

Reule had no idea what he would find, but he certainly didn't expect to feel a second hand spearing into his hair from the darkness to grip him with surprising strength and drag him downward until his face was pressed against a baby-soft cheek that should have been warm, but was instead icy cold. A pair of lips, both rough and supple at once, rubbed over his ear as finally something warm, her breath, washed over him. The contrast gave him an involuntary chill, aided by the hoa.r.s.eness of her voice when she whispered to him.

"Sange, bautor mo bautor mo."

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Ginny Jones wrapped a clean kitchen towel around her torn fingers and glared at the screeching cat she'd finally managed to shove into the carrier.

Her cousin Markus leaned over her shoulder and sighed. "Poor Tom. I sure hope he's not rabid."

"No s.h.i.+t, Sherlock." She glanced at the blood-soaked towel and then at Markus. "And what do you mean, poor Tom? Did you see what that cat of yours did to my hand?"

Markus shook his head, sending his long dreads flying. "I don't understand. Tom's a sweetheart. He's never even scratched anyone, much less bitten before."

"Tell that to your neighbor. She's going to need st.i.tches in her leg, not to mention what he did to my hand. C'mon. We need to get him to the vet so they can quarantine him before animal control shows up, or they might just take him and put him down."

Markus grabbed the keys off the hook by the back door and picked up the carrier. Tom screeched, a long, low banshee wail that sent gooseb.u.mps racing along Ginny's arms and raised the tiny hairs on the back of her neck. Tom didn't sound anything like any cat she'd ever heard. Why did that screech sound so eerily familiar?

Like it was skirting with the edges of her memory?

She stared at Tom glaring back at her through the bars of the carrier, but nothing clicked. She'd never seen a cat with eyes like his. They flashed blood red. When he snarled, she was almost certain he had extra rows of teeth.

She s.h.i.+vered again and wrapped her arms around herself. Beyond weird. Beyond weird. Everything about the stupid cat was freaking her out. Frowning, Ginny followed Markus at a safe distance through the back door to the garage and watched while he stowed the st.u.r.dy carrier in the backseat of the Camry. Everything about the stupid cat was freaking her out. Frowning, Ginny followed Markus at a safe distance through the back door to the garage and watched while he stowed the st.u.r.dy carrier in the backseat of the Camry.

Tom howled again. Ginny shook her head. "I don't like this one bit. Shouldn't we maybe put him in the trunk?"

Markus ignored her suggestion and got into the driver's seat. "Get in. No cat of mine rides in the trunk."

Ginny stared at the red-eyed cat. Tom returned her stare.

Markus glared at her. "You scared of a cat? Cripes, Ginny. Get in."

She took a deep breath. The last thing she needed was to look like a coward in front of her baby cousin. "Well, if he gets loose from the carrier, you're putting him back in-and I'm outta here. I've bled enough for the cause." Ginny slammed the door and reached for her seat belt, wondering for the hundredth time what she was doing visiting her cousins in Sedona anyway. It wasn't like they were all that close, but for some reason she'd gotten a wild hair, packed her bags, and headed to Arizona without any plans or advance notice at all.

So far, her timing sucked. She'd barely parked the rental at her aunt's house when the s.h.i.+t hit the fan. Old Tom, the fattest, laziest-looking cat she'd ever seen, had suddenly launched his porky b.u.t.t off Aunt Betty's front porch, screaming like the devil was on his tail.

He'd practically flown over the six-foot hedge separating Aunt Betty's house from the one next door. Every hair stood on end and he looked like a flying furball with fangs. He'd gone straight for the poor neighbor lady who was just getting out of her car with her arms loaded with groceries.

The bags had gone one way, the woman the other, but Tom latched on to her left leg and buried his teeth deep. It had taken both Markus and Ginny to pull the cat off the poor woman, and then he'd taken off, still screaming. Aunt Betty had freaked out, grabbed the two little ones, and as far as Ginny knew, she was still hiding in the bedroom with the kids.

Markus, with typical teenage thinking, had gone after the cat with a big ba.s.s net like it was a four-legged fish. Ginny'd been the one who finally cornered Tom against the fence, but he'd gotten her good with claws and teeth before she managed to shove him in the carrier and latch the d.a.m.ned thing.

Not quite the entrance she'd imagined on the flight from Sacramento to Phoenix. If she had to go through a course of rabies shots, she was going to kill Markus, and anyone else who gave her grief.

Like Alton. Especially Alton.

Now why in the h.e.l.l would she be thinking of her friend Eddy Marks's tall, drop-dead gorgeous, egotistical jacka.s.s college buddy Alton? They'd barely met, though for some reason Ginny kept a.s.sociating him with her being here in Sedona, which made no sense whatsoever.

Neither did the fact he'd kissed her the first time she saw him. For some reason, her memories of that kiss were all fuzzy, but she knew they'd locked lips, if only for a moment.

And very nice lips they were, in spite of his bossy att.i.tude. He was a spectacular kisser. She remembered that much, but little else.

Like why. why. She couldn't recall anything leading up to the kiss, or even what happened directly after. This wasn't like her. Not at all, but confusing memories of Alton were all jumbled up with boarding a plane for Phoenix and grabbing a rental car for the drive across the desert to Sedona. She couldn't recall anything leading up to the kiss, or even what happened directly after. This wasn't like her. Not at all, but confusing memories of Alton were all jumbled up with boarding a plane for Phoenix and grabbing a rental car for the drive across the desert to Sedona.

And now she was headed to the local vet's with a crazy cat, her crazier kid cousin, and a hand that was bleeding through the dish towel she'd wrapped around the scratches.

If this was a vacation, she'd definitely had better.

"Is it always this busy?" Ginny rewrapped the towel around her hand while Markus drove around the block again, looking for a parking place. All the slots at the vet's clinic were taken and there wasn't a single empty spot along the road.

Markus shook his head. "Never. Especially on a Tuesday morning."

He finally pulled into the parking lot in front of a grocery store a block away. "I'll carry the cat." He glanced at Ginny and seemed to notice the blood soaked rag for the first time. "Is that still bleeding?"

"Yes, it's still bleeding. Your sweetheart of a cat nailed me good." She got out of the car and started walking toward the clinic. Markus fell into step beside her with the carrier clutched in one hand. Tom had quit screeching, but his incessant growling and snarling was almost as bad.

Markus was big for eighteen-at least six-foot-six with broad shoulders and legs like tree trunks. As tall as she was, Ginny had to look up at him. He might not be the sharpest tack in the box, but she figured if he couldn't protect her from a stupid cat, no one could.

Though, come to think of it, she was the one bleeding, not her cousin. She was still thinking along those lines when Markus grabbed the door to the clinic and held it open for her. Ginny stepped into total pandemonium.

The small clinic reeked of sulfur, which made no sense at all. Usually vet clinics smelled like cat pee. This one was filled with crying kids, screeching animals-most of them in cages, thank goodness-and a couple of staff members who looked as if they were ready to run and hide. Ginny turned and looked at her cousin.

Markus stared wide-eyed at a large cage holding a big blue macaw. The bird spread its beak wide and screeched. It sounded just like Tom. Markus swallowed with an audible gulp. Ginny took a closer look at the macaw. Teeth. Rows and rows of teeth.

Now, she was no expert, but she'd never heard of birds with teeth. Ginny blinked and refocused, but the macaw's mouth was still filled with way too many razor-sharp teeth. A sharp yip caught her attention and she glanced down at a scrawny little Chihuahua that was, thankfully, wearing a muzzle.

More teeth. Not just sharp doggy fangs, but rows of s.h.i.+ny, razor-sharp teeth filled the little mutt's mouth. A lop-eared bunny in a cat carrier just like Tom's snarled and hissed and curled its lips back. More teeth. Every single animal in the clinic looked like something out of a cheap horror film, all of them snarling and screeching and trying to take bites with mouths filled with way too many rows of sharp teeth.

And just like that, her memories crashed back into her head. The big concrete bear chasing her that night back home in Evergreen, her best friend Eddy's dad, Ed Marks, and Alton-though she hadn't known him then, that tall, good-looking friend of Eddy's from college-rus.h.i.+ng out of the darkness and attacking the impossible creature, saving her life.

She saw it like a movie on fast-forward-Alton carrying a huge sword made of gla.s.s or crystal, jabbing it into the concrete bear like the thing was made of b.u.t.ter. Jumping up on the creature's back, riding it like a bucking bronco, with the bear screeching and wailing.

Screeching and wailing, just like the animals here in the veterinarian's clinic.

Ginny sucked in a breath as images flowed into her mind. Alton lopping off the concrete bear's head with a powerful swing of his sword, the crystal blade flas.h.i.+ng by in a slas.h.i.+ng arc.

The bear crumbling, just turning into a pile of rocks and dust and sulfuric stink, like it had never been alive at all. And the smell. That horrible stench.

Just like this vet clinic in Sedona.

She remembered Alton and Ed walking her home. How could she have forgotten that night? That was the night Alton kissed her! A girl didn't forget a night like that. It made no sense at all.

Except she was remembering now. Remembering it as clearly as if it had just happened. The bear, the battle...Alton's lips. Oh, Lordy...his lips, warm and full and so sweet, pressed against hers, moving over her mouth in a whisper of sensation and seduction.

The noise, the screeching animals, the stinky veterinarian's clinic all faded away as Ginny pressed her fingertips against her lips and let the memories flow.

There'd been another night, too. She blinked as it came into focus. Just the two of them, walking arm in arm down the street to her house, standing on her front porch. She was thinking of inviting Alton in. He'd been just as bossy and arrogant as the first time they'd met, but she'd laughed with him, too, and even though they'd only met the night he'd saved her life, he was really very nice under all that bl.u.s.ter.

How could she forget that he'd offered to stay the night on her front porch? Offered to protect her. That was sweet, even though she didn't need any protection. Not in her little town of Evergreen on the slopes of Mount Shasta. Safest place in the world.

She remembered saying goodnight and for some reason she'd kissed his cheek when she'd really wanted nothing more than to drag him inside and take him straight to her bedroom. Her toes actually tingled, remembering. Her womb felt heavy, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s full, recalling now how she'd gone in alone and closed the door. Leaned against it, thinking of Alton. Hearing his voice.

Hearing his voice? How could she have forgotten his voice in her head, that s.e.xy whisper...giving her orders? How could she have forgotten his voice in her head, that s.e.xy whisper...giving her orders?

d.a.m.n it all!

Telling me to come to Sedona.

Ginny clenched her hands into fists and bit back a scream that would probably have shut up every screeching animal in the room. It was Alton's fault! Somehow he'd hypnotized her. That had to be it. He'd hypnotized her and made her forget the bear and his kiss and...

She growled. The macaw shut its big mouth and stared at her, but all Ginny could see was Alton. That insufferable jacka.s.s had sent her here. He'd saved her from a bear made of concrete with rows of razor-sharp teeth, a bear that couldn't have been real, and he'd sent her down here to frickin' Sedona, Arizona, where the cats and bunnies and birds had the same kind of impossible teeth.