by Sharon Page
Luc, of course, always took the lead, with Tinker faithfully by his side. Mik and AJ, lovers for many years, generally yielded to Luc without question.
Luc, of course, would always defer to Tia. Love and the order of the pack was an amazing combination.
Tia yipped once, turned, and raced up the trail. The rough-and-tumble ended immediately as the four males fell into position behind her. This was the time she usually loved most, the freedom she felt when they raced through the forest as Chanku, the occasional hunt for deer or rabbit, the clean night air and the solidarity of their pack.
Most nights her human worries faded into the background, much like the hum of traffic on the nearby freeway. Tongue lolling, tail streaming behind her, Tia bit back the howl that might alert the locals there were wolves in the forest. She picked up the pace and raced into the darkness.
Tia truly loved the night, loved the freedom of Chanku, the freedom of running at the head of her pack.
Usually.
Tonight, though, Tia raced far out in front of the others, heart heavy, Chanku eyes alert for any danger, her human mind unwilling to release its hold. In spite of the call of the wolf, the woman worried about her father.
2
They ran for more than an hour, five wolves in the moonlight, when Tia suddenly pulled up, eyes wide and mouth gaping. Luc! I need to get to Dad. Now!
What’s wrong? Luc skidded to a halt beside Tia, his sharp nails kicking up clods of dry turf. She looked frantic. Her ears lay back against her skull. Even her hackles were raised, as though something threatened her.
I don’t know. Only that something is terribly wrong. I need to go to him.
Luc nodded at the others. Go ahead, guys. I’m taking Tia home.
Do you need our help?
Tinker, concerned as always, waited for Luc’s answer. Luc shook his head. No. Enjoy the night. I’m sure everything will be okay.
Tinker nodded and then whirled and chased after Mik and AJ. Luc and Tia raced back to their car. Within minutes they’d shifted, dressed, and were heading back across the Golden Gate Bridge toward San Francisco.
Tia wrung her hands, obviously upset about something, but her mind was blocked to hide her thoughts, and she stared straight ahead, as if willing the heavy traffic to clear and the car to move faster.
When they reached Ulrich’s home in the Marina District, Tia was out of the car and racing up the walk before Luc even had the vehicle parked. He followed Tia up the steps, feeling her fear, sensing her overwhelming concern for her father.
He felt nothing from Ulrich. Nothing at all from the man who was his closest friend.
It all made horrible sense when Luc stepped through the door. Tia kneeled at Ulrich’s feet, a loaded revolver in her hand. She was carefully removing shells from the chamber.
“Why, Dad? Why would you even consider …”
Ulrich shook his head. From the slur in his voice it was obvious he’d been drinking. “I’d already decided not to, sweetheart. I’m sorry you had to find me like this.”
“Oh, Daddy….” Tia set the empty revolver on the table, leaned close, and wrapped her arms around her father. Luc stayed back, not wanting to intrude on such a private moment. Guilt ate at him. If Camille were still alive, Ulrich wouldn’t be here alone, drinking, with a loaded gun.
Ulrich raised his head, his eyes suddenly clear, and stared at Luc. That’s not true, Luc. This isn’t about you. He swept his hand over his daughter’s tangled hair and held her close. Sweetheart, will you and Luc do something for me?
Tia raised her head and stared at her father through tear-filled eyes. The misery on her face tore at Luc’s heart. “Anything, Daddy. Whatever you want.”
Ulrich sighed. “I had a long talk with Anton Cheval tonight, with regard to a letter that arrived from him this afternoon. Please don’t think I’ve lost it, but I want you and Luc to go back to Montana with me. Anton thinks he can contact your mother’s spirit. He said Keisha has felt Camille in her dreams, that she’s near, that she needs to communicate. The thing is, Anton wants to try something that will bring your mother back, if only for a short time.”
Tia sat on her heels, obviously stunned, and definitely unsure. Luc shifted his gaze from Tia to her father. What Ulrich said sounded impossible, but the Chanku alpha, Anton Cheval, had managed the impossible on more than one occasion. Luc wasn’t going to be the one to say the man couldn’t do anything he claimed.
Not only was Anton an alpha Chanku, he was a powerful wizard with abilities well beyond those of anyone Luc had ever seen. In fact, it was common knowledge among them that Anton already had been a powerful wizard when he discovered his Chanku heritage while researching ancient, arcane rituals.
If anyone could bring back the dead, it would be Anton. Tia obviously had come to the same conclusion. She nodded, agreeing. “Whatever you want, Dad. When?”
Ulrich pulled an envelope out of a drawer in the table beside his chair. He opened it slowly and showed it to Tia. “It has to be done this week, on Halloween night, if we’re going to try it at all. On Samhain.”
Tia frowned. “Sow-in? What’s that?”
“Basically it’s another name for Halloween. According to Anton, that night is the time when the veil between the living and the dead is open the widest. The period lasting from just before midnight to dawn. Anton thinks he can contact your mother during that period, but only if we’re all there, all of us calling to her.”
Ulrich looked directly at Luc when he spoke, though his words were obviously for Tia. Luc felt a shiver run along his spine at the intensity in the older man’s voice.
“We are the people who meant the most to your mother. Me, as her husband.” He brushed Tia’s hair back from her face and planted a kiss on her forehead. “You, as her only child.”
Then he turned to Luc once more. “And, you, Lucien, as the man who ended her life. No. Don’t look at me that way. Camille brought it on herself. Her actions caused her death, not yours. It wasn’t your fault. Still, all of us felt a loss with Camille’s death. Sometimes I think you, Luc, lost more than either Tia or myself. You lost your innocence, your sense of purpose…. Though, I hope, by gaining your Chanku heritage, you made up for some of that loss.”
Luc sat down on the couch, hard. “I don’t know what to say.” He wiped his hand over his eyes, as if he might sweep away the memory of the breathtakingly beautiful wolf staring at him across freshly mowed grass, the bright flower of red when his bullet pierced the animal’s shoulder—the broken body of a beautiful woman lying on the ground.
Luc raised his head and looked into Tia’s eyes, expecting condemnation and finding only love. She spoke to her father, but her gaze never left Luc. “When do we leave, Dad?”
Ulrich cleared his throat. “We go tomorrow. Anton will send his private jet. He needs a couple days to prepare and wants us close. He said he’s never attempted this before.” Ulrich’s voice cracked. He coughed and then sighed deeply. “Thank you. Thank you both. Whether or not he is successful, we’ll know that at least we tried.”
Tinker didn’t join them that night. Tia heard his door open and close across the hall, heard Mik and AJ’s laughter, and realized the three men had elected to spend the night together. Tia lay alone in the big bed with Luc, glad that only her mate was with her tonight.
She’d felt her father’s pain, if only for a moment, and then he’d shielded, hiding the worst of it from his only child. Tia’d been shocked by his anger, the fury he carried in his heart over his wife’s death. He missed her terribly, he loved her still, but he’d not forgiven Camille for her foolhardy decision to run as Chanku during daylight, when risk of discovery was high.
Ulrich had never before allowed Tia to see so deeply into his true feelings. Always he spoke of Tia’s mother with love and admiration. For the first time Tia sensed the anger that boiled just beneath her father’s calm surface.
He’d carried that anger for twenty years. Let it seethe and fester, while a
ll the time speaking of Camille with warmth and love. Tia lay awake, dissecting her own feelings. Yes, she missed her mother, missed the hugs she couldn’t remember, the bedtime stories that had framed her childhood. Missed the warm smile and the unconditional love only a mother could give.
But did she really remember that love? So much of Tia’s childhood remained a blank in her memories, a great void where the good thoughts should lie.
Her memories, the little vignettes she thought about, were mere fantasies Tia had created over the years, events and images of things she knew she must have done with her mother; but they lacked the conviction of reality. Mixed with those childhood fantasies were strong feelings of anger, of rejection. Feelings Tia had never before wanted to explore.
Tonight her father had shocked her enough that Tia forced herself to face the truth. Camille had risked all for the freedom of running as a wolf. Not satisfied to run only at night, she’d condemned her daughter to grow up without a mother, condemned her husband to a life without his mate, condemned an innocent young man to a life of guilt over a meaningless death.
The reality of her feelings washed over Tia like a cold shower. She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered.
Suddenly aware of a sense of distance between herself and Luc, Tia reached for him. He came to her willingly, eagerly, and she knew that he worried about the trip to Montana. Worried that Anton might actually be successful.
Now shame mingled with her repressed anger. Luc’s memories would be horrible. How could she have missed what must be passing through his mind?
Luc feared facing the ghost of the woman he had killed.
Offering her own absolution, Tia turned to him with her arms wide and her mind free of barriers.
“I love you,” she whispered. “Whatever happens, I love you.”
A sense of peace swept over Luc, a feeling that no matter what they might face, he would always have Tia’s love. Luc nuzzled the soft skin beneath her chin, trailed kisses along her throat, found her left breast with her heart beating steadily beneath the golden flesh.
For a moment he hesitated, remembering the sight of Camille lying in the wet grass, the red spatter of blood spreading across her chest, the sightless eyes a tragic parody of her daughter’s, which were always so filled with life.
Just as Camille’s must have been before that day so long ago.
Tia wrapped her arms around Luc’s neck and drew him close. Her lips were warm, her tongue alive with passion, licking at the crease of his lips, entering the moment he parted for her.
Luc smiled against her mouth, sensing her arousal, her body’s desire for his. There was no reason for extended foreplay, no need to tease or titillate. This time he reached down, found her wet and ready folds, and grabbed his cock in his fist. With one thrust Luc entered her, felt her muscles clasp him in greeting, knew she was ready.
His second thrust took him deeper, hard against the tight ring of her cervix, the solid mouth of her womb. Luc withdrew slowly, caught in the warm grasp of her sex. Once more he thrust deeply and then withdrew.
He felt Tia’s fingers fluttering across his thighs, over his buttocks. One finger found the tight crease between his cheeks, traced the sensitive flesh from his ass to his balls.
He felt her fingers beside his cock, sweeping through the fluids that lubricated his slow thrusts. She trailed damply around his balls, across his perineum, back to the crease in his butt.
Luc groaned, his entire body sensitized to Tia’s light strokes, when suddenly she found the tight ring of his sphincter, rimmed the sensitive muscle, and penetrated him as deeply as she was able with her cool, slick finger.
He hadn’t resorted to doing his multiplication tables in years, but Tia’s probing finger, sliding deeper with each thrust, finding a rhythm to match Luc’s slow but steady penetrations, took him higher, further than he’d imagined.
Suddenly she pressed against something, some small part of his anatomy that seemed to contain every nerve ending in Luc’s entire body.
An electric charge surged from butt to balls to cock. Luc’s climax shot through his lower half like a screaming comet. He arched his back, shooting deep inside Tia, shouting out as she added a second finger, filling his ass, pressing down on whatever magic button controlled him.
Luc’s climax went on and on. Tia joined him, crying, trembling, her fingers slipping free of his body.
They clung together, both of them shivering in the aftermath of orgasm, unsure what tomorrow would bring but totally certain of the power of their love, their commitment to one another.
They met Anton’s private plane at San Francisco International Airport. The wizard’s personal valet, Oliver, welcomed them aboard. Luc, Tia, and Ulrich settled into their comfortable seats for the flight to Montana.
Luc found a blanket for Tia so she could rest. He’d kept her awake most of the night, making love to take her mind off the trip. Now, sated and sleepy, she curled up in a comfortable seat with a blanket wrapped snugly around her.
Ulrich sat alone, his face set, his thoughts unreadable.
Once he got the others settled, Luc found Oliver in the forward cabin. He’d actually grown fond of the tiny man of indeterminate age and heritage who managed such a wide range of jobs for the powerful wizard.
One day, Luc thought, he’d learn Oliver’s story.
The two of them played cribbage all the way to Montana while Tia slept and her father stared silently out the window. By the end of the trip, Luc and Oliver had evened their score.
3
Luc and the others had been to the home of the Montana pack more than a month ago when Ulrich had been kidnapped, but the changes in the surrounding landscape in that short time had been dramatic. Brilliant splashes of orange, gold, and red mixed now with the dark evergreen forest. The emerald meadows had gone to brown, and there was a hint of frost in the air.
A transformation had occurred in Ulrich as well, merely over the course of the flight. He walked into the sprawling house like the confident alpha Luc knew him to be. Tia, however, seemed quiet and withdrawn, her mental shields tightly closed.
She didn’t brighten until her cousin, Keisha, appeared on the front deck, holding tightly to Anton Cheval’s arm.
Luc paused, almost midstep, sensing something secretive about Cheval’s mate. He studied the tall, slim African American woman long enough that Tia turned back and looked at him with a question in her eyes.
Keisha obviously was carrying something more than a secret. Though her slim waist appeared almost unchanged, there was something in the light in her eyes and the way she held her hand protectively over her abdomen that gave her away. When Luc cocked an eyebrow at Anton, the wizard couldn’t control a wide grin.
“Keisha?” Tia suddenly picked up on the silent communication. “You’re pregnant? Oh, my goodness!” Tia raced up the long steps; the women hugged, Tia cried, Anton glowed.
Luc followed Tia up the stairs at a slower pace and watched Tia hug her cousin. Without consciously willing it, he imagined Tia growing his child, her slim waist thickening, her breasts swelling.
Need slammed into Luc, a sense of wanting, of urgency so powerful it rocked him. He paused a step, caught his breath, and shook off the feeling; then he turned and, smiling broadly, shook Anton’s hand.
“Congratulations.”
“Thank you. We’re very excited, but …” Anton glanced at Keisha, who was totally wrapped up in Tia, and walked Luc and Ulrich to one side. “I’m glad you’ve come. Both of you. I’m guessing Ulrich’s filled you in somewhat, Luc, but there’s a lot more to this than I’ve told either of you. The visitations, and that’s all I can consider them, began shortly after Keisha conceived. At first she merely dreamed of her Aunt Camille. The dreams have become more intense; the strength of Camille’s presence is very unsettling. I’m worried about my mate, Ulrich, concerned as to the reason your late wife has seemed to fixate on her.”
Ulrich shook his head, obviously perplexed
. Luc studied Keisha for a moment, comparing her to Tia.
Other than Keisha’s much darker complexion, the resemblance was phenomenal. “Did Camille look like Keisha?”
Ulrich nodded. “Very much so. The resemblance is striking.”
“Could Camille’s spirit be fixating on Keisha’s unborn child, remembering her own daughter? Maybe she sees Keisha and thinks of herself when she was pregnant with Tianna.”
Anton turned to study his wife and then looked back at Luc. “I hadn’t thought of that, but it makes perfect sense. It’s definitely been unsettling. Her presence is strong enough that even I’ve seen her. I know she’s unhappy. Something ties her to this plane, but she can’t seem to tell us what or why. We need to find out what’s holding her back, what’s keeping her from moving on in the natural progression of all spirits after death.”
Ulrich turned away from Luc and Anton and stared out over the meadow. His voice was measured, defensive. “My wife was an amazing woman. Vibrant. Brilliant, stubborn, and uncontrollable in many ways, but very loving. I can’t imagine she would harm your wife or your child.”
Anton stepped beside Ulrich and grasped his shoulder. “I don’t believe she means harm, but she obviously is very troubled. I want to help her, not harm her. Plus, I want my wife and I to get a decent night’s sleep without waking to Camille in our bedroom.” Anton chuckled softly and shrugged his shoulders. “Your wife needs to find peace if we’re going to get any. I’ve been studying the rituals, looking for solutions good for everyone involved, including your wife’s spirit.”
Anton glanced back at Luc and then spoke very softly to Ulrich. “However, what I ask may be very painful for you. I want to try something I’ve never attempted. I’d like to send you through the veil that separates life and death, the corporeal world from the ethereal. I’m asking you if you’re willing to spend one night with Camille, to cross over to the spiritual plane and see if you can find out what holds her here, what we need to do to give her peace.”