chapter 6
Alon sat beside Samantha on the bench.
A quarter-moon crept over the tall trees, the silvery beams pouring between the mighty trunks. It was not enough to illuminate the dark places on the forest floor.
All that he had told her had made a difference. She still saw the Ghostlings as enemy, but now she also saw them as something more than feral, evil interlopers. Could they also be victims of Nagi’s reckless need to control the Living World?
She didn’t like to think of them that way. It would make it harder to kill them when the time came, and she would need to kill them when the fighting began.
Samantha glanced at Alon. Which side would he take—that of his adoptive parents or that of his real father?
She rose and walked to the rail of the balcony. The chorus of peepers filled the air and leather-winged bats darted through moonbeams in pursuit of their next meal.
He followed her, standing close enough so she could detect his presence, but not so close that she could feel his heat. Her aura flared at his proximity, shining violet and cinnamon. She did not think he could see auras, for he never glanced to the place where one would find them.
His fair hair seemed to glow as pale as spun silver in the moonlight. She glanced toward him and then forced her gaze away and then finally gave up the battle and turned so her hip rested against the rail and her eyes rested on him.
The disturbance he caused her had changed from fear to something more troubling. Now she felt him on her skin like the wind before a storm. She breathed in his scent and found herself hungry for more. He was invading her senses as surely as his kind had invaded her world.
She wouldn’t have it. She would not be controlled like a human possessed by some evil ghost. Her heart went cold. Was that what he was doing, some sort of possession? Samantha gripped the rail until her fingers ached.
The dampness of her skin and the heat of her face worried her. She met his steady gaze, refusing to be the first to look away, knowing the wise thing was to break this spell.
Alon moved closer and Samantha resisted the urge to step back. Why was she always running?
“It’s late,” she said, or she’d meant to say it. Instead her words were a low, hushed murmur, as if she feared to wake some sleeping tiger between them.
Alon was more dangerous than all that. She knew it. He was the stronger and he compelled her in some way that she did not understand. He made her breathless with only a look, and she wanted to touch the intriguing planes of his cheeks. But that was only one of his faces, she reminded herself.
Instead she pressed back to the rail, holding on with both hands as her control thinned until she feared a single breath might break it. She looked away. It wasn’t a retreat, exactly, just a moment without looking into his blue eyes. Her attention fixed on the false security of the bedroom she had chosen on the second floor. Poised between the unfamiliar woods and the unfamiliar home, she felt lost.
She turned again to Alon and found him a step closer. She never heard him move. Her skin prickled a warning. He reached, and she leaned away in a halfhearted effort to evade. A moment later he had captured her just above the elbows. Her gauzy shirt did not cover her arms, and she felt the heat of his hands on her bare skin. His earthy scent intoxicated. She rolled her weight to the balls of her feet, knowing she appeared too eager but unable to hold herself back.
Dangerous and alluring all at once, she decided.
“I have to go,” he said.
She nodded, wanting him to go and wanting him to pull her near. The urge to press herself to him beat in her with the rapid pounding of her pulse. “Stay in the house,” he ordered. His voice, now low and full of a gravely tenor, vibrated through her deliciously.
She shivered and pressed closer.
Alon glanced toward the bedroom above, glowing now with the soft artificial light she’d left on. She followed his gaze.
“Is that the room you have selected?”
She nodded.
“Interesting that of all the rooms in this house, you have chosen the one that I once occupied.”
His room? She had picked his bedroom.
Samantha couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t swallow.
She’d be sleeping in Alon’s bed.
“You’ll be safe here. My siblings know not to come into the house. Stay indoors until I come for you.”
She wanted to tell him that she did not have to obey his orders. Instead she nodded her consent.
“How long?”
“Until morning.”
He lifted a hand and stroked her head, running long pale fingers down her shoulder. When he reached the middle of her lower back, he eased her forward until their bodies met at the hip.
“Then you’ll bring me to your mother?” she asked.
Alon did not answer. Instead he held her with one hand while the other gripped the rail, as if he needed it to stay upright.
“Will you?” she asked.
“Once I know where to find her, yes.”
She reached for him now, eager to put her hands about his neck, angling her mouth to meet his. But he captured both her wrists, staying them for a moment until she realized what she was doing and had time to reconsider.
“Don’t, Samantha. I’m not this face or this form. I have three shapes. This one is a lie. Think. Remember what I am.”
Then he let her go.
What was she doing? This was no friend and certainly no lover. Alon was a Toe Tagger. The fact that she’d forgotten, even for an instant, only emphasized just how dangerous he was.
He nodded his approval. “Now go in the house and stay there.”
She backed toward the French doors, wanting to run and wanting to object all at the same time. He was treating her like a child, treating her just as her parents had done. She didn’t like it. Samantha’s shoulders sagged as she realized she was still acting like a child.
When she bumped the glass, she fumbled for the handle. Samantha gripped it as she looked to Alon, but he was gone and all that remained was a pile of discarded clothing. How had he vanished like that?
She made it inside and locked the door, knowing the ridiculousness of that as a method to keep Alon out. If he chose, he could break any lock more easily than she could.
It was a long time before she left the window, before her heart returned to a normal rate, before her skin lost its tingle.
Samantha made her way upstairs and prepared for bed as if this was any normal night, but nothing was normal. She checked her email again and discovered that her mother had arrived safely in New York and had already met with the chief of the Northeastern Council. Blake’s second email said that Chien’s father-in-law, a Peacemaker, would bring him to meet the chief of the Northwestern Council in Spokane, Washington, tomorrow. There was still no word from her dad. But Nicholas Chien was tracking him. That gave her reason for hope.
Samantha slept restlessly. She woke with a start to find the room bathed in sunlight and Alon standing at the foot of her bed. Or was it his bed?
She startled up and back, hitting her head on the wooden headboard.
“Are you trying to scare me to death?”
“I just have that effect on people.”
“I’m not people.”
“Right.” He lifted a mug. “Coffee?”
She extended her hand in acceptance, using the other to cover herself. She had fashioned her cloak into a cotton shift on the chance that something like this might happen, but it was short and sleeveless and Alon had a way of making her feel exposed even when she was fully dressed.
Alon backed away and Samantha took a sip. The coffee was black and sweet.
“How did you know I take sugar?” she asked.
“I could smell it in the mug you used downstairs.”
“I washed that mug.”
He shrugged. He was more handsome today than she remembered. The dove-gray shirt and darker gray trousers made his eyes seem bluer than she recalled.
“How long have you been standing there?”
“Only a moment, unfortunately.”
She drew up her knees and used both hands to embrace the mug. Should she order him out or ask him to sit?
“You should have knocked.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s impolite to enter a woman’s room without permission.”
“It’s my room and you are not a woman.”
She narrowed her eyes. “But I am still your guest. Or am I a prisoner?”
“I have no hold on you. I only try to keep you safe out of respect for my mother. But you interfere with my work.”
She leaned back against the headboard, took another sip of coffee and then cradled the mug between her hands.
“But you’d rather be left alone?”
“Yes. It would have been better for me and for you if the Great Birds had not carried you to me.”
On that, at least, they agreed.
“How did you disappear like that last night?”
“My second form is a kind of vapor that resembles smoke or mist.”
He could turn into smoke? “Is that how you caught me in the forest?”
“Yes, but I could have run you down.”
“You said second form. How many do you have?”
“Three. The one that you saw at your home, the vapor and this.” He waved a hand over the front of his body. “Our final form.”
He rubbed the back of his neck and glanced toward the balcony as if planning his escape.
“I heard from my mother,” she said.
“Is she well?”
“Yes.”
“But you have not heard from your father, the great bear. And so you are worried.” Alon looked away.
She knew what he thought. But he was wrong. Her dad wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be.
“When can we go find Bess?”
“Perhaps tomorrow.”
She slammed the mug on the side table, threw back the covers and slipped from the bed. Only when she noted him staring at her legs did she remember she was not well dressed for a fight. Or perhaps she was perfectly dressed. He was obviously distracted.
“I can’t sit around the house doing nothing.”
“I have already written to my mother of your arrival. She has yet to reply.”
“Tell me which way she went and I’ll find her myself.”
“Much as I would like that, I must bring you.”
Had she really almost kissed him last night? She couldn’t believe her own stupidity. Frustration seethed within her and she lashed out.
“My dad needs help. He wants your mother to join us. I need to bring her his words.”
His voice fairly dripped with scorn. “Why would she join you?”
She lost it. “Because she’s a Skinwalker and because the Toe Taggers attacked my dad!”
At the phrase Toe Tagger, Alon’s face went stormy. He glared at her with such loathing that she drew up short. An instant later she recognized what she had said, and regret pooled in her belly. “I’m sorry, Alon.”
He headed for the door and she followed, matching his quick stride. “I forgot, Alon. I said I was sorry.”
He spun on the stairs. The muscles of his jaw bunched and his mouth tipped down at both corners, and still he was the handsomest man she had ever seen.
When he spoke, it was through gritted teeth. “Don’t forget. Don’t ever forget for a second what I am.”
He continued down the stairs at a lope.
“Alon, don’t you dare leave me here again.”
But he was already in the foyer and out the door.
Fine. The Thunderbirds might have dropped her here, but that didn’t mean she had to stay. Nicholas Chien was not the only one who knew how to track someone.
* * *
Samantha followed the long driveway that wound through the woods. She only had to find civilization to access her accounts and get the money needed to go anywhere she pleased. She’d consult with her mother just as soon as she got clear of this compound. A familiar scent reached her. She paused, debating between following Alon and getting clear of this place.
The hell with him, she decided and continued, stopping again when she found his clothing, folded and stashed in the crotch of a tree. His scent now became more difficult to trace. It hovered in the air, but she could not find it on the ground. Likely he had turned to smoke. She shook her head and returned to the road. Sooner or later that would lead her to people.
She’d try to stay out of any large communities. The bigger the population the more chance she’d see ghosts. She didn’t need one of Nagi’s spies finding her before she could find her family.
* * *
Aldara had found the trail of the Beta Pack last night and reported their whereabouts to Alon before returning to them while he continued to hunt for the Gammas. The ten sets of Beta twins were old enough to understand and obey the rules their parents set out for them. His parents had left him and his sister in charge of their siblings. That meant guarding against vigilante Skinwalkers and Nagi’s ghosts. His mother long suspected that Nagi used the evil ghosts to find his kind. Samantha’s arrival required that they notify the packs not to attack her. It had taken half the night, but he and Aldara had finally located both the Deltas’ and Gammas’ trails. She’d taken the Gammas.
That left him the Delta Pack, youngest and most difficult. They still struggled with control. They had no natural enemies, so the concept of danger was as foreign to them as it was to a shark. Six twins all under two, feral and deadly as loaded weapons. The Delta Pack could not yet reason, could barely speak and were ruled by a voracious appetite that made it dangerous even for him to seek them out. He didn’t know if he could make them understand that Samantha was not here to kill them. But he had to try. Damn her for coming here. His parents had drilled into his and his sister’s heads that Skinwalkers were dangerous, especially if they traveled in packs. They’d known for years that vigilantes had been hunting the newborns. It was a miracle he didn’t kill Samantha the instant he recognized her for what she was, Skinwalker, hunter, killer of infants. Only she wasn’t like them any more than he was like Nagi’s Ghostlings.
The sooner he got her out of here the better. But he couldn’t leave the others unguarded. He needed to take the Beta, Gamma and Delta packs to the only mother they’d ever known while keeping them from killing Samantha. It seemed impossible.
The Delta Pack knew to stay away from the house and somehow recognized their parents as other than food. But would the house protect Samantha once they scented her? He didn’t know.
He had to hurry.
His mother’s information had been right. Since his parents’ departure, some ten days ago, Aldara had seen evil ghosts drifting in the woods. If they had not located any of the three packs yet, it was only a matter of time. He and Aldara were in a battle against Nagi’s lust for his children to join his cause.
Something moved behind him. He changed to his fighting form and reversed course. Was it a vigilante? Was it one of Nagi’s Ghost Children? Was this the day that Nagi’s vanguard found their hiding place?
Alon did not get far before he scented Samantha. Damn her for not staying put. He wheeled and followed her trail.
He should have explained the danger. He had not, for to do so was to reveal completely what he had been. Still was. Always would be.
He’d been too weak to let her see his true self, and now she was here. He scented the air to assure himself that the Gamma and Delta packs were not near. When he closed on her position, he shifted from his flying form, moving swiftly to one of the many caches of clothing he had about these woods. In a few moments he wore the damp gray sweater and black jeans.
Then he changed course again, running to intercept her and bring her back to the house. The fear for her safety bolted through him like a thunderstorm. He had always felt protective of his family and responsible for the actions of the others. But this was something new, because until this minute he had never been afraid.
Samantha made him afraid.
Why should he care?
He didn’t understand it. But since the moment she had appeared from that storm, she had consumed him. He craved contact of her flesh to his and longed for that trembling emotion that he felt vibrate through her each time he pressed his body to hers. She knew what he was, but she could not know what he was capable of. If she did, she never would have stayed the night.
Somehow he had kept away. But each time he saw her, the urge to have her grew stronger. He wanted to devour her. Taste her skin on his tongue and feel his body joining with hers.
Samantha exposed his weakness and his corporal need.
Anticipation and worry beat in his chest. He would find her, ensure her safety and then...Alon’s speed quickened.
He found her a moment later hurrying along the footpath his Alphas used to run their territory. The trail ran parallel to the curving drive that led to the highway.
“What are you doing here?”
Samantha startled. The thick rope braid swung over her shoulder and settled between her breasts. Today she was dressed for the woods in a scooped-neck shirt and light fleece vest that hugged her bosom. His skin itched as he looked at the generous curve of her hips emphasized by her tight jeans.
“I...I...”
“Go back.”
She recovered quickly. Color still flooded her pretty face, but now she was scowling at him. It didn’t help. He still wanted her. His attention fixed on her raspberry-colored lips. What would it feel like to brush his mouth to hers, press her soft curves to his hard ones and meld together like hot metal?
“You are not my keeper.” She managed the words with just the right amount of indignation.
“Obviously, or I would have locked you up.”
She gasped at that. He smiled, picturing her locked in the bedroom he once occupied, waiting for him there in that short little cotton nightie.
He moved closer. The lecture he had given himself, the knowledge that his very presence here endangered her, was not enough to stop him. Not enough to drown out the roar of need she roused in him.
He captured her easily, so easily that if he did not know better he would almost guess that she came here only for this.
Then he recalled that she had never seen his fighting form. He should show her now. No. He never would.
Samantha would know only the handsome, virile form that drew human females like nectar draws bees. She would know only the lie. He could take her if he wanted, and she’d let him unless she discovered what he was inside. Then she’d run screaming. He drew her closer.
Someday she’d realize what he was. Then he’d let her go. But for now he was just selfish enough to take what she offered—consequences be damned.