“Yes. I’d be a liar if I said you shouldn’t.”
“Why?” She held her body in check. It wanted to run, but she wouldn’t give in to its demands.
“Because I’m not easy to know.”
It sounded regretful, as if he wished he was a nerdy accountant in a nondescript cubicle somewhere rather than a powerful Supernatural wandering the night.
Nothing about him seemed “easy.”
He was closer now and she could detect the tension in his shoulders. Though his movements were careful and casual, though each step slid into the next with liquid grace, she sensed his tension. Suddenly, she was reminded of a virgin trying to lure a unicorn from the forest. It was his untamed intensity that made her want to know him. Had she taken a walk to escape her dreams or had she been out trying to find them?
She heard the warning in his voice. Of all the Supers, werewolves were the most feared. Hunted. Trapped. Hated. Wasn’t she shaking in her sneakers even as she found him almost painfully alluring?
“I’m tougher than I look,” Tess replied and then she wished she could reach out and grab the words and swallow them back. Her hands actually twitched.
Her throat grew hot and the heat of a flush spread up to her face. Thank God for shadows. There was no way he would see the blush that clarified the invitation her words only hinted at.
Shadows or not, he drew in a breath and paused. Her words had surprised him. She knew, shadows or not, he sensed the heat on her skin.
“And more vulnerable than you know,” he cautioned.
He resumed his movement in her direction. Tess caught a hint of pine, fresh and sweet. She realized the free scent came from his skin and hair. She didn’t stop the urge to breathe it in. He had brought the wilderness with him into her safe, manicured garden. It was suddenly darker, more mysterious and magical than before.
Chapter Three
Tess held herself very, very still as he approached. If he was a unicorn, he was a stallion, unpredictable and fierce. If she ran now, he would catch her before she could even cry for help. Part of her, the part that her old instincts directed, wanted to run and hide. Part of her, the newer, braver Tess, waited…for what, she wasn’t sure.
He came into her personal space and then he came closer still. It was a challenge, but it was also a temptation. He didn’t stop until she had to tilt her chin so her nose wouldn’t touch his chest. The warmth of his pine-kissed skin washed over her. The natural response to his closeness would have been to step back or twine her arms around his neck. She did neither. She wanted to do both and couldn’t decide.
“More vulnerable than you know,” he murmured, softer this time. His breath came warm against her forehead.
Tess didn’t cringe or faint or run. She figured that was enough to reiterate her own words without actually speaking, which was good because she didn’t think she could. Her lungs functioned, but she was breathless. Her heart beat, but every cell of her body was paused, waiting for his touch.
She was shocked and she knew if it weren’t for the blessed cover of moonlight her face would be glowing. It was one thing to decide not to hide anymore. It was another thing entirely to meet danger with anticipation.
“There aren’t any chains for you to cut. You can walk away. I won’t stop you.”
His arms stayed at his sides, matching her stillness. His chest brushed against her breasts with each quiet rise and fall. His thighs, heated from running, warmed hers. His mouth was so close her skin felt his words, but he didn’t touch her. He tempted. He dared. He seduced with his nearness. But he didn’t touch.
Could she walk away? Did she even want to?
Her body answered by swaying toward him. As soon as her body fully touched his, she knew it wasn’t fear making her knees weak. It was desire.
Though his hands still didn’t move, hers did. She caught herself with the best available prop, and his shoulders proved steady and strong beneath her hands. They also proved warm and smooth and firm. The heat and the silky steel of his skin made her gasp.
“Steady,” he spoke into her hair and, amazingly, laughter bubbled up and burst out of her lips against his neck.
Finally, he wrapped his arms around her.
He took the laughter, the fear, the desire and her pain and somehow made it partly his. Tess stiffened. She hadn’t had anyone to lean on since Lily, and she had always leaned on Lily too much. Their parents had died when they were only sixteen. Her sister had taken charge and Tess had let her. Lily of the confident visions had easily encouraged her sister with the amorphous dreams to follow wherever she lead.
Lily had used her abilities to put on a show. Tess had feared her own talents, hiding from them and avoiding the dilemma of how to act upon them after the tragedy of her parents’ accident.
Until the government had claimed Lily’s freedom. Until the military scientists had stolen her soul.
Tess held Colin. Gradually, her muscles relaxed. He was dangerous, but she held him. Coming out of hiding could be frightening, but it could be exhilarating as well.
His kiss shouldn’t have been a surprise, but it was. Cool, at first, the lips that touched hers were chilled from the night and the forest air he brought with him. Tess warmed them quickly with hers, responding as if they weren’t strangers, as if this wasn’t crazy and dangerous, and maybe a little with the thrill that it was.
Unlike the brush of a kiss they’d shared earlier, his lips lingered. He tasted. He caressed. He coaxed an ever more heated response from her lips. Tess held the lean length of his body with steady, sure hands and soon the night’s chill faded.
Earlier, she had seen his intensity. She had sensed it. It had filled her dreams with power and heat and a magnetic call she didn’t refuse. Now, she shared it. Deep inside she knew when a dormant spark she’d never allowed to burn began to flame up in response to the fiery man she held in her arms.
It wasn’t safe.
It wasn’t mousy.
It was bold and daring and…
Later, Tess would wonder if anything short of Armageddon would have interrupted them. The roar of approaching helicopters and a convoy of huge, black SUVs screeching into the parking lot forced them apart. She took a couple of automatic steps toward her apartment building before Colin grabbed her hand.
“Looks like it’s my turn to play savior.”
Pulled and coaxed by her sister, Tess had once ridden an especially fast and swooping roller coaster. Colin was faster. Before she had time to protest or grant permission, he had lifted her into his arms.
He avoided moonbeams and clearings. From shadow to shadow, he flew. Twisting, turning, jumping, sliding, until Tess had to close her eyes against the bite of the wind and sting of branches. As if sensing her discomfort, even as he ran for both their lives, Colin reached to press her face against the sheltered hollow of his neck.
In no time, the commotion was far behind them. Colin slowed to a brisk walk.
“I have to warn the others,” Tess gasped. If the military had discovered her, surely other members of H.A.E.S. were at risk.
“We’ll send word as soon as we can, but it’s probably too late,” Colin warned.
“Most of them haven’t done anything illegal.”
“And I have? Or my father or Elizabeth or Charles or Warren? Jacob is only fifteen. They took him just before they took me. Fifteen. His biggest crime was…is a poor taste in music, for God’s sake.”
He held her tightly as if he could prevent the government from taking her with his two strong hands. Tess touched the side of his face to remind him that she was breakable. His hold eased immediately.
“My sister’s name was Lily.”
For some reason, it felt like a confession.
“I didn’t save her,” she continued around a sudden lump in her throat.
Tess had complained of nightmares for a week before Lily was taken, but none of them had been clear enough. Lily had laughed them off because her own visions showed no sign of
danger.
“You saved me,” Colin reminded her.
“H.A.E.S. saved you,” Tess corrected.
He squeezed her again, tight to his chest like something precious he wouldn’t allow to fall.
“I remember who cut the chains.”
Although Colin’s people lived in RVs instead of colorful wagons, they were a lot like gypsies. They welcomed her with barbeque and campfires and old southern rock music. It soothed her nerves and made her tense all at the same time because they had so obviously carved out a place for themselves in a world where they didn’t fit in. Now that they were actually being hunted, what would they do?
“None of that Supers mumbo-jumbo ‘round here, mind ya’. We’re wolves plain and simple.” An elderly “uncle” spat into the fire as he spoke. The reflection of flames danced in his eyes. “Just different. Born different. Live different. Die different.”
“But why?” Tess wondered.
“Why’s a daffodil different from a tomato? Genes. Fate. You be the judge. There’s good and bad wolves. Good and bad psychics. Good and bad shifters. There’s good and bad humans. There’s good and bad in us all.”
Tess ate with the old man as Colin spoke quietly with some of the others. A few shot her furtive glances. One or two glared at her as if she had brought trouble down on their heads. She felt like a Carrier must have felt back during the Outbreak.
Several young children chased fireflies between campsites. Their laughter made her eyes burn.
She knew Colin was telling the others to leave without him. She knew he was telling them what to do if he didn’t come back. It bothered her that she knew his plans. She wasn’t Lily. Her dreams weren’t reliable. Still, she couldn’t shake the certainty.
Colin was going to try to save the latest member of his pack to be taken. He’d mentioned Jacob, and when he had, she’d seen his young face in her mind and she’d recognized it from past dreams.
One older woman approached “Uncle” with a bottle of beer in her hand. She nodded at Tess with quiet dignity, but there were tears pooled in her dark eyes. She twisted the cap off the bottle and handed it to the grizzled man. As he drank, she smoothed gray hair from his forehead.
“He’s the last of the Masterson line. He has to survive. We’ve lost too much. We can’t lose him too.”
Tess knew she was talking about Colin. Goosebumps rose up on her arms and the fire heated the skin of her face. She wanted to go back home and pull her sheets over her head.
A young boy came up to Tess with a steaming cup of fragrant coffee. Tess shivered again, this time in appreciation as vanilla sweetness hit her tongue. She looked across the fire, over the jumping flames and saw Colin watching her drink.
She knew the coffee was a gift from the Alpha wolf. She cupped both hands around the hot mug and sipped again, accepting the warmth of the gesture. And the dangerous attraction implicit behind the seemingly innocent offering.
She was not going to hide anymore. She was going to help Masterson save Jacob. And she was going to make sure he made it back
Tess thought back to a night eight years ago when she’d known her parents were in danger. She’d woken from the worst nightmare of her entire life only to begin living it immediately in horrible detail. Her dream had come too late for her to prevent her parents from getting into the wrong taxi at the wrong time. Frantic calls to their cell phones had been sent to voice mail again and again. Lily had fainted, overwhelmed with a sudden vision, even as Tess continued to try to punch in their parents’ numbers.
It didn’t console Tess that Lily’s vision hadn’t come soon enough either. She only knew she had totally failed to save her parents because her dreams were unreliable.
For eight years, she’d ignored her abilities. She’d been almost glad when she caught the flu because it practically proved her dreams were worthless. She welcomed the long-running fever and the body-racking aches as justifiable suffering.
Then, she’d lost Lily.
Her dreams still weren’t dependable, but she had to try.
The wolves needed her. Colin needed her. And she needed to do something, anything, even if she risked failing again.
Tess finished her last swallow of coffee and placed the empty cup on a nearby tree stump. The stump was already graced with a forgotten wine glass and a pretty vase that held a bouquet of daisies, as if someone had decided to proclaim this nature’s bistro. Such determined good cheer made her smile in spite of what lay ahead.
Suddenly, the children flowed around her in laughing waves of reaching hands and skipping feet. Fireflies winked off and on, always flitting above the children’s heads just as their fingers tried to grasp. They didn’t care. It wasn’t the catching that was important. It was the joy they found in the effort. Their energy and enthusiasm spilled over into Tess and she found herself jumping up to be swept along on the chase.
Chapter Four
It must have been almost dawn when Colin came to her.
Tess knew the others would be heading in a loose convoy to another camp, pulling out one by one in increments spaced about thirty minutes apart.
“It isn’t safe to go with them and it isn’t safe to stay with me.”
Colin sounded frustrated as if her lack of safety plagued him.
“I haven’t been safe for a long time. I told you I’m tougher than I look.”
Tess got up and moved to sit in the loose circle of his arms. With Colin at her back and the dying fire in front of her, she was warm for the first time since he had held her earlier in the night.
“Jacob’s alive,” he said softly.
It wasn’t a question, and her mind hiccupped because it was so conditioned to hide who and what she was from a world that wanted to hurt her.
“How did you know?”
She wouldn’t deny it. She had been building the courage to talk to him about her dreams all night long.
“Your reaction to his name when I mentioned him and the way you drank those cups of coffee tonight. Like each was your last.”
His arms tightened around her as if in preparation of protecting her from dangers they had yet to face.
“Cappuccino deserves to be savored,” Tess teased lightly even though it was a serious moment.
“You know where he is.”
“Yes.”
“You know how we’ll get him out.”
“Yes.”
“You’re psychic.”
Tess couldn’t say “yes” again. She wanted to warn him not to count on her. To list her failures.
She didn’t.
Colin needed her to be better than that. Jacob needed her, too. She placed her hands on the strong arms wrapped around her waist and vowed to be just as strong herself.
“My dreams haven’t saved anyone. Ever.”
The words came in spite of her resolve. She had never spoken about how weak her hazy dreams made her feel. How impotent she felt in the face of imperfect visions that pushed her to act.
“Before you cut those chains, I was helpless. Helpless. And Jacob was lost. Even unbound I have nothing but teeth and claws and strength. Without you and your dreams, I’m like a weapon without a target.”
Tess moved her hands to his, where they had fisted as he spoke. She understood his frustration, but she was amazed to be able to compare herself to the powerful man at her back. He was so confident and so bold. And yet, he needed her.
“I’ve seen Jacob in my dreams. It’s almost as if I forget until the memory is triggered. When you said his name, I knew. I remembered,” Tess rushed her words in an effort to sooth Colin and to share what she knew before she lost courage. “He’s at the same lab where they held Lily, so I know it well. I’ve been there in nightmares many times.”
Colin opened his hands and turned them up to hold onto hers as she spoke.
“If you can guide me, I want to get him out of there before it’s too late.”
Tess stiffened and her fingers tightened where they were entwined with hi
s. She’d always been too late. Always. Though she knew they still had time, she was plagued with doubts from the past.
“Have I told you how beautiful you looked when you pulled those bolt cutters out of your pocket?” Colin had leaned closer and pressed his face into her hair. His words and his nearness became the perfect distraction.
“I felt like Little Red Riding Hood without a Woodcutter in sight,” she replied, trying to remember how to breathe as he nuzzled even closer.
His laughter rumbled his chest against her back and his lips tickled the nape of her neck as he finally found his way beyond the hair that had shielded her skin from his touch.
“I don’t bite, Tess. Much.”
The thrill she felt at his words turned to a jolt of desire when he illustrated just what he meant with a sudden nip that made her gasp. He chuckled again at her reaction, then teased across the tender spot he’d made on her skin with his tongue.
They were alone. The sky was still dark. The pinkening of dawn wouldn’t happen for another hour. The fire glowed warmly in front of their feet, but it had become mere embers so the dark of night wrapped them in more and more privacy as the flames died.
She tilted her head to the side to offer Colin greater access and he took full advantage. All playfulness forgotten, he gave serious attention to her exposed skin with his lips and teeth and tongue.
She had hidden away for eight long years. She had closed herself off from everyone and everything. Now, she opened herself to Colin. She allowed him to fire her blood and awaken the dormant spark of her spirit.
She had cut his chains. She had walked out at midnight to find him. She had gone with him into the forest and into the night. With every step she took, she had left the old scared and frozen Tess farther and farther behind.
Colin stood up and pulled her gently by the hand to the nearby sleeping bags, but it was Tess who placed both hands on his chest and pushed him first onto the big down-filled, makeshift bed. It was Tess who smoothed her hands over him, encouraging him without words to lay back and stretch out beneath her.
Wilderness Page 2