by Jenna Kernan
“What?” he snapped.
“Lord, a buffalo Skinwalker has restored the wolf’s body.”
“What!” Nagi’s concentration snapped and he slipped from the human host with such jarring force he damaged the human’s brain. Beneath him the woman tried to rouse her husband, but he lay unconscious upon her.
Nagi turned to his ghost hovering beside him.
“Forgive me, Lord.”
Nagi had no time for groveling. “Have they left the Dream Walker?”
“The buffalo is preparing to do so.”
“What of the wolf?”
“I do not know. He has not spoken of it, Lord.”
Why hadn’t the wolf left? It would have been the first thing Nagi would have done in hopes of escaping his pursuers.
“Has the Dream Walker left them?”
“She has not, Lord.”
She?
“The Dream Walker is female?”
“Yes, Lord.”
New possibilities arose. He now understood why a Dream Walker might help a wolf and why he did not flee the instant he was well. Could these two be mates?
“Attack the Dream Walker, but do not kill her. Report back if the wolf defends her.”
“Yes, Lord.”
If he was right, the Dream Walker was the key. But were the wolf’s feelings for this female strong enough that he would reveal the Healer to save her?
Tuff was well enough to sit at her kitchen table for supper. He was a vegetarian, so she cooked pasta with sauce, garlic bread and a fine green salad. Throughout the meal Jessie thought of Nick’s dream and his contact with the ghosts. Did he really see them in his sleep?
Was she in danger?
After the meal, Tuff rose to take his leave and Jessie thanked him again. She kissed his smooth cheek and wished him a safe journey.
He and Nick thumped each other roughly on the back in the way of men.
“I owe you a great debt,” said Nick.
“Just see you do not nip my heels when the snows pin me down.”
Nick laughed. “I promise. I will never hunt buffalo again.”
Tuff laughed. “Liar. But perhaps you will remember the old blessings when you do.”
Nick nodded. “Yes, brother. This I will do.”
“And I will stay close, in case you have further need of me.”
Although his offer was generous, the notion that they would need his gift again chilled Jessie to the core. She hugged herself as they walked with him as far as the pasture across the road. There Tuff walked behind the barn. A buffalo emerged on the other side and continued into the wooded glen, splashed through the stream and straight up the incline beyond.
Nick and Jessie trailed slowly behind him, pausing by the stream as the buffalo turned back and tossed his massive head in farewell, then disappeared over the hilltop.
For some reason, she felt like a couple sending off an old friend. But that was silly.
Nick turned to Jessie, his eyes gleaming unnaturally bright. He was a vision of male power. Just looking at his restored face made her knees liquefy.
“Your life would have been simpler if you had not called me back.”
She suddenly found the exposed earth at her feet especially fascinating.
His voice was velvet. “Why did you?”
She could not look at him. To do so would let him see the truth, that she cared for him much more than she should.
“I wanted to protect the Seer. She’s one of mine, you know.”
His voice held dry amusement. “So, you believe me now?”
“Yes.”
“Is the Seer the only reason?”
She glanced up into his inscrutable eyes, wishing she could tell what he was thinking. She felt so lost and confused by him. She prayed he would not use her words to mock her as she opened her heart the tiniest bit.
“This connection between us frightens me. But I believe the Thunderbirds brought you here for a reason. I want to know what that is.” She swallowed her trepidation. “I didn’t ask to be a part of this. But I am a part. I feel it.”
“Do you? And what about the ghosts?”
She hated ghosts. She found the thought that they might be lurking about both terrifying and repugnant. She put on a brave face.
“Not all ghosts are evil.”
His expression was grim. “These are.”
Her stomach clenched as she recalled Nick’s injuries.
“I never should have come.”
He glanced after Tuff. Nick was well now. He could return to his path. All she had to do was let him walk away. Jessie pushed down the urge to cry.
Perhaps she had served her role in seeing him well. Was that all the Thunderbirds had foreseen?
She had succeeded in keeping her hands off him, except for the disaster in his dream. If he left now, her life could return to normal. Couldn’t it?
A wave of precognition shook her as she recognized she was too changed to ever go back to her old life. Her community, their beliefs, all seemed wrong to her now. But where did she belong if not with her people? He had changed her irrevocably and now he would leave her.
She had no doubt that he would go. He had made it clear that he never stayed anywhere long, nor did he have the faith required to have a relationship. What had he called his feelings for her—a liability? She did not delude herself that he would change his ways for her. She had to decide only whether she would reveal her longing for him or keep it locked forever in her heart.
Regret clenched her stomach until in ached. How bleak her life now seemed.
She didn’t want him to go. “I’ll miss you.”
His smile was cautious and still it made her heart rate triple. “Will you? What changed your mind?”
She glanced about, as if the answer to his question might be found in the lazy flow of water in the stream or the thick grass that lined the bank. She brought her attention back to him. “You’re not what I expected.”
He grinned at that. “You’re such a flatterer.”
Her shoulders sagged. “I don’t know what to do now. This isn’t a dream.”
“No.”
She drew in a heavy breath. “I’m not like you, free to do whatever I choose. I’ve always been a part of a community. And I believe that love and commitment are blessings, not a curse. We are so different.”
“Not so different.”
He glanced to the hillside and she felt him slipping away. She steeled herself for his leaving. Any moment he would change to his animal form and disappear from her life, but not from her memory. No, she knew this man was one she would never forget.
All she could do was to keep her dignity during this goodbye. As she stared up at him, the impulse to beg him to stay tore at her. She wanted him to make love to her, again, only this time here in the real world.
Don’t do something you’ll regret.
Jessie sighed, knowing that whether she slept with him or not, she would face regret. The only question was, which would she regret more, taking this chance or not taking it?
She reached for him but let her hand fall back to her side. “Nick?”
He lifted his eyebrows in question.
She knew she shouldn’t say it, but she was so weary of always keeping her emotions in check. She was no longer that reasonable, rational person. Somewhere in a matter of days she had lost the faithful little Spirit Child she had always been. So what was she now?
She had already admitted she had feelings for him in his dreams, when she thought he would not remember, but now she wanted to say it out loud.
She stared at the face she had grown to love. Great Mystery, she thought, she would miss that face. She wouldn’t see him in the pink light of morning or on a quiet autumn evening when the cool wind blew through his hair.
No, you don’t, girl. You are not falling in love with a Skinwalker. But what if she already had?
She thought of Tuff’s words about a connection he did not understand and how she was
more than her resistance. Then she remembered the raven’s challenge that she would lose Nick because she didn’t have the courage to fight for him.
She stood there before him, terrified to speak and terrified not to.
What if she overcame her resistance and found the courage to speak and he still rejected her?
Chapter 16
Nick had seen that look on a hundred female faces. He knew instinctively what came next and had a thousand clever ways to say goodbye. The difference was that this time he wanted to stay but couldn’t.
Nick’s unease grew as he watched Jessie struggling to speak. He smelled her agitation, a tangy combination of perspiration and uncertainty. She had lowered her defenses to love him in his dream, she had healed him with her gift and now she was poised to make the biggest mistake of her life.
He knew what loving him would cost her. But here she stood, toe-to-toe, clearing her throat and gazing up at him with eyes that offered everything. In that moment, he longed to take what she was about to offer, to end his transient life.
He had always been so careful to guard against attachments, not wanting to give anyone, especially a woman, that kind of power over him. Now he saw he already had.
In other circumstances they might have had a chance. If she were not of a race that hated his kind and if loving her did not endanger her life.
He did not forget the ghosts or their plotting. He had heard them in his dark vision. They were going to hurt Jessie. Attack her, they had said, to separate him from his only ally. But he knew the more dangerous truth: that his feelings for Jessie not only put her in danger, but they also threatened the Healer. For Jessie’s sake, he would reveal his best friend’s location.
His enemies must never learn he cared, or they would use her as surely as his mother had used him.
And that was why he must make her believe she meant nothing to him. It was the only way to protect her from Nagi.
She gazed up at him with such longing. He hated himself already. She had loved him in his dreams, had called him back from the brink of eternity. And as payment, he would cut her in the cruelest way possible.
“Nick, I have to tell you something.”
He clenched his jaw, gathering the courage to do what must be done.
“Yeah, me, too. You were right about the dream.”
“What?”
“Nothing really happened. How could it? You’re not my type. But thanks for dragging me off your lawn and for not killing me like you wanted to.”
Confusion filled her eyes. “Nick, I don’t understand. I thought—”
He cut her off. “Just like the rest of them. No, darling. Sorry to disappoint you. I don’t sleep with the enemy. You were right about everything. My dad and I aren’t so different, after all. Humans are like locusts and the planet is better off without them.”
She wrinkled her brow and then blinked up at him. “But what about the Seer?”
“What about her? She’s one of yours. Why should I care what happens to her?”
She opened her mouth and then closed it. Her eyes glittered with tears. “What about our connection?” she whispered.
“Connection?” He snorted, hating himself. “The only connection we have is the kind I get with every female I meet. But in this case I gotta pass.”
She gasped and faltered, as if he had struck her. He reached for her but stopped himself, lifting his hand in a dismissive salute.
“Thanks for everything, Doc.” He turned to go, thinking he would be haunted forever by her heartrending, grief-stricken face.
“Nick?”
Keep walking. But he paused, allowing her to catch up. She stared up at him with eyes luminous with tears and lifted her hand. He leaned away, but not far enough. She stroked his cheek and his world came crashing down. Heat and pain and desire roared through him with such force it caught his breath.
His eyes widened as she parted her lips.
He dragged her into his arms with a roughness unlike him. He was always gentle with his women, respectful and generous. But something about Jessie made him feel as if he was starving and only she could satisfy him.
Every noble thought and reasonable argument fled like a herd of elk before a pack of wolves.
His mouth slanted over hers and she opened for him. His tongue slid forward, mating with hers. The taste of her was honey.
Still this was not close enough. He placed his hand at the center of her back and flexed his arm, bringing her breasts flush against him. His other hand threaded into her thick hair, angling her head so he could devour her mouth.
The moan of pleasure that escaped her made him painfully hard. She rolled her hips toward him, sliding one knee between his thighs.
He took her backward to the earth with the swiftness of a hunter bringing down his prey. Her lips were fire, scalding the skin of his face and throat. She writhed her hips in an invitation he could not resist. He was so overwhelmed by his own need for her that it took a moment to recognize what he was feeling.
His breath caught in his throat and he stilled. She continued kissing her way down his neck as he held her, unable to believe what he was experiencing.
He had heard tell of this in legend. But until Sebastian described it, Nick thought it only that. But now he knew it existed and not just in the abstract, oh no. It existed here, now, for him, the connection that came only with one’s soul mate.
Nick rolled her beneath him and arched back, pinning her hips to the ground while gazing down at her. Yes, he could feel everything. Every wonderful thing she felt, her burning desire, her need, and her liquid readiness for their joining.
Did she experience his desire as well? Could she sense his thoughts?
“Jessie?”
“Not now, Nick. Please don’t talk now.”
She opened her thighs and wrapped her long legs around him, pulling him toward her, joining them at their sex.
He rose to a kneeling position, lifting her to drag away her shirt and unfasten her bra. She slipped out of her boots and unzipped her jeans, wriggling out of them before tossing them aside. When she stretched out before him on the grass, only a pink scrap of lace caressed her hips.
Now that he was not touching her, he felt the difference. He was still half mad with his own desire, but he no longer sensed hers. He touched his necklace and all garments disappeared, their energy now contained only by the choker about his throat.
She purred. “I like that trick.”
Jessie reached out and laid a possessive hand on the center of his chest. Instantly, he was consumed by her need. He pressed her back to the grass with his body.
His warm flesh melded with hers in the exquisite and torturous contact that could never be close enough. Her fingernails raked his back, causing him to arch in pleasure. She wanted him to kiss her everywhere.
He smiled at the specifics of the instructions as if he heard her speaking, yet all about them were only the calls of birds and the drone of the bees.
Nick followed her directions to her lovely plump breasts, kissing and suckling as she moaned her delight. She could not keep still beneath him now, for her longing burned too bright.
She lifted her hips and he took the opportunity to slip the sheath of lace away, removing the last barrier between them.
Her mind cried out for him. He did not need her mental urging to know what she craved, for she grasped his hips and pressed herself wantonly against his sex.
Jessie rubbed seductively against the long length of him, the slick juices from her body moistening his erection. He closed his eyes in an effort to resist her, for he wanted to bring her to orgasm before taking her.
He moved down her body, kissing the soft flesh of her stomach and savoring the scent of musk that emanated from her sex.
She writhed in an attempt to bring him back to her as her mind cried out her displeasure.
For the first time he ignored her, but her insistence that she would disappoint him rose in his mind. This eavesdropp
ing was a challenging sport.
He took hold of her hips as he buried his face in her silken curls. As he stroked her with his tongue, probed the inner recesses of her cleft, he heard her objections fade. Soon her thoughts were a disjointed jumble, spiked with quaking excitement that built with each caress. He knew exactly which of his tricks she liked best from her wild breathing and the encouragement she silently sent him.
But as she neared her climax, he recognized that he would feel it, as well. Her excitement was his excitement, and for the first time since he was a boy, he knew the cold sweat of fearing he would spill his seed before entering her.
She gasped as she climbed up the final peak and then cried out. The clenching, rippling excitement that rolled through him was like nothing he had ever experienced. He went still and found himself arching with her pleasure.
Jessie grasped his shoulders and pulled, dragging him up to her. She spread her legs wide and guided him into her slick cleft. He slid deep into the warm flesh that still rippled with her orgasm.
It was too much. He pumped hard as she gripped his hips with her strong legs. Her fingers raked his back as she murmured encouragement he did not need.
As he felt himself reach his climax, he reared up on his arms so he could see her face. She stared at him in shock and he knew she felt it, too. She felt the rush of heat and pleasure and this triggered another rippling contraction within her. They came together, staring in wonder into each other’s eyes.
As the pleasure ebbed, his muscles grew weary and he collapsed beside her, still joined at the hips.
“What in the name of heaven and earth was that?” she asked.
Nagi did not understand it. He had taken possession of thirty men and used them to copulate with their women. Five of them were already with child, since he easily upset their primitive methods of contraception.
But not one of these women had borne his child.
Both Niyan and Tob Tob had fathered a Halfling race. True, they did not require possession, having more corporal bodies. Was that the problem?
He went to Tob Tob, on the guise of asking his advice about the running of his circle.