by Misty Evans
Snapping a lid down on his overactive hormones, he guided Keva toward the old yellow ’65 Chevy Chee had loaned him and chanted, appropriate behavior, appropriate behavior in his head.
Keva gave the truck a once over as Rife opened the passenger door. “This is yours?”
Her tone was incredulous and rightly so.
Besides the beat-up and rusting exterior, the bench seat was covered with used coffee cups, gum wrappers and out-of-date newspapers. A whiff of old coffee and even older plastic wafted out. Rife used his arm to clear a path on the seat, chucking some of the larger pieces of the collection into the truck bed. “My grandfather’s. He likes things with…character.”
Keva chuckled softly under her breath and ran a hand along the side of the truck. “I haven’t seen one of these in years.”
“Probably because these were made way before you were born and there aren’t many left on the road. Grandpops calls it a classic. POS is more accurate.”
“I don’t know,” she said, tugging the edge of his shirt down as she stepped on the running board. She gave him a pointed and meaningful glance. “Classics come in all shapes and sizes.”
Whatever. Rife touched her elbow again to help her keep her balance, forcing his attention off her long legs and locking it on the Hank Aaron bobblehead doll glued on the top of the dash. Once she was settled, he shut the truck door, wincing at the high-pitched squeak of hinges.
On the driver’s side, he tucked his briefcase behind the seat, undid the button on his suit coat and cranked the engine over. It whined and died. He pressed his foot into the gas pedal and turned the key again. The engine made a whirring noise before gasping. It took three more turns of the key and some of Rife’s creative swearing before the engine caught.
It was like the truck refused to help him kidnap Keva.
She laughed at his swearing and he grinned at her. Instinct told him she was a victim. His head told him otherwise.
And the paperwork—or lack thereof—in the file he’d labeled with her name told him Keva had at least one epic secret she was keeping.
As he pulled out of the parking lot, he told himself he wouldn’t let her out of his sight. Whether she was a victim or the killer, it was a good thing he’d ignored the nurses and gone to her room. She could have taken off and got herself killed or disappeared into the woods.
“So you like classics, huh?” He shifted and pushed the accelerator down as far as it would go, pointing the truck back to Wolf River. The Chevy’s speedometer reluctantly rose to thirty. “That’s some collection of Madonnas you have.”
Her face went serious. “Were any of them destroyed or stolen?”
“The crime scene was relatively clean outside of the blood…” He stopped himself and glanced at her. “Sorry.”
She stared straight ahead and gave a little nod. She’d pulled her hair over her right shoulder, exposing her sleek neck. The spot right under her ear beckoned to him, and Rife wondered what it would be like to kiss her there. Shifting again, and ignoring the tightening in his crotch, he coaxed the truck to forty miles an hour. “Didn’t look like anything was stolen. Electronics, Madonnas, everything looked to be there. Once the scene’s released by Chee and the Feds, you can do an inventory.”
“I thought you were one of the Feds.”
Explaining the situation might lead her to believe she could pull his strings. Which she probably could. No sense letting her know that, though. “Agents from Eugene will be joining the investigation tomorrow. They’ll do their own sweep of the crime scene.”
The highway was empty, blacktop sparkling in places where the sun danced on it. Tall pine trees flanked both sides of the road, green grass giving way to layers of needles. Keva stared out the window, and except for the noise of the truck engine and the tires, silence engulfed them.
Something stirred in Rife. Something he couldn’t name. Peace? Not quite. His mind was too filled with the pieces of this latest puzzle and a dread about what truth he might uncover.
This feeling was more like…contentment.
Contentment was a foreign emotion and for a couple of spins of the truck’s tires, he resisted it. Then he heard Keva humming softly beside him as if she were content too, and the sound made him relax. The hard questions—and answers—were coming soon enough. Five minutes of sunshine and casual conversation on the drive back to Wolf River wouldn’t kill him.
“Where did you get all those Madonnas?”
Keva stopped humming. “I’ve traveled and collected them for years from various places. They remind me of my mother and some of the other women in my family. Strong, serene…”
“Saintly?” Rife added,
She smiled into the windshield, as if picturing her mother with a halo. “Not saintly. More like, honorable. Worthy.”
“What about your father?”
“My father was a war—” She bit off the word, searched for a different one. Rife understood. He did the same sometimes when it came to his father. What was there to say about a man he’d never known? “My father was a great man. Very passionate. He and my mother had an interesting marriage. A lot of arguments, but deep love. He carved the totem in the church with the raven as a wedding present to her.”
“Are they still alive?”
She glanced down at her lap, worried a ring on her hand, and shook her head. “They both died young. I keep that totem to remember their great love for each other.” Her eyes slid to the left to look at Rife. “Did you recognize any of my statues? Catholic or otherwise?”
He glanced at her, saw expectancy on her face and wondered why she thought he might recognize a particular one. Maybe she was referring in a general sense to the collective feminine common in all religions, Christian or native. He shook his head. “Me and religion never got along.”
The disappointment was there and gone in a flash. Her gaze ran over his suit. “But you and law enforcement do?”
He shrugged, scanned the road. Being a small-town cop like Chee never appealed to him, but he excelled at profiling killers. One of the reasons he was having a damned hard time placing Keva in that category. She didn’t make so much as a blip on his radar. “It’s in my blood.”
“I’ve been in Wolf River with my relatives for a couple months, but don’t remember seeing you around. Were you already here working a case?”
Rife ground his teeth. “Vacation, actually. Chief Chee, my grandfather, asked me to help with this—with your—case.”
“Lucky for me.”
The sound of her voice brought Rife’s head around. She was smiling, sweetly but with an edge to it. Like she really did think it was her lucky day.
“Let’s start with an easy question.” Rife stared at Keva’s hands instead of her eyes in order to concentrate. The half-hour ride into Wolf River had gone by too fast, but the time for cutting her slack was over. Chee had notified him that two agents from the Eugene FBI office were en route. They’d be in Wolf River in two hours, tops.
If he was going to prove Keva was innocent—to himself and to them—he needed answers and he needed them fast. “Who are you?”
The beautiful woman sitting at his grandfather’s kitchen table, still wearing nothing but his shirt, pointed at the papers in his hand—her life summed up in a few sentences of technical jargon. “You know who I am.”
The moment she’d walked in the door, she’d turned uncooperative. Rife saw now he’d been a fool to believe she was going to tell him what he wanted to know like she’d promised. She’d only agreed to tell him everything so he’d get her out of the hospital. But why?
She’d looked so helpless, seemed so helpless, all he’d wanted to do was take care of her. When she’d looked at him with those big, brown eyes, his common sense had puddled to the floor. He’d wanted to believe in her innocence so badly, he’d been duped.
Problem was, he still wanted to believe in her innocence. Still wanted to help her. Only, she wasn’t cooperating and that spelled bad news.
&
nbsp; And raised his hackles as well. Whatever she wasn’t telling him was big. His radar was now pinging like she’d fired a scattergun at it.
He hated himself for it, but there was nothing he could do but turn on his FBI persona and go after her like a dog on a soup bone.
Calling on his training, he drilled her with a look that made most suspects cringe. “What I know is you don’t exist. Your birth certificate is a fake. Your social security number belongs to a man who died fifty years ago. You have no job and outside of that abandoned church five miles north of here, you own no real estate. You have no school records. Not even a parking ticket in your past, Miss Moon Water.”
He leaned back on the island counter, crossing his arms over his chest. “If that’s even your real name.”
Exasperation darkened her eyes, but she didn’t shy away or cringe at his sudden demanding tone. “Keva’s my name, and if you believed I was guilty of killing the women living at my church, we would be having this conversation at the police station instead of here in your grandfather’s kitchen.”
She was right. It wasn’t just her performance in the hospital, either, that had suckered him. From the moment he’d seen her at the church, he’d lost all perspective with her, with this case. She’d slid under his skin when she opened her soft, doelike eyes and set his blood on fire, dividing his loyalties. Even if he knew without a doubt she hadn’t committed the murders, he should have been interviewing her at the station.
He dropped the papers on the table, frustration getting to him. “Just tell me who you are, Keva. Tell me what happened in that church.”
Raising her chin, a spark of defiance flashed across her face. Sensing danger, Rife’s nerves jangled a warning. It was beyond weird. Every time she was within spitting distance of him, white-hot energy flooded his senses. She looked at him as if she were peering into his soul, reading his mind.
“You know who I am.”
The thought came in the form of her voice, startling him. He narrowed his eyes at her, blinked. What the hell?
“You know I didn’t kill those women. I was guarding them. Protecting them. Training them in the ways of our people.”
Rife gripped the counter behind him, sure he was losing it. This quiet, self-possessed woman with a mysterious past was his prime subject in the brutal, ritualistic slayings of five women, and instead of arresting her, he was hearing her voice in his head.
Shit, maybe I do need a vacation.
She rose from the chair, stepping toward him, and he fought the urge to step back. He couldn’t have even if he wanted to. The counter had him pinned.
Keva’s voice again infiltrated his mind. “They were the last of a line of great shamans, but I failed them like I failed you.”
He shook his head in an effort to clear it. What the devil was wrong with him? It was like he’d been drugged or dropped into the Twilight Zone. Normal people did not hear voices inside their head.
I’ve got to get her out of here. Out of my head. He tried to move his feet, but they were frozen in place.
Stepping closer, she continued to watch him, waiting for his reaction. Ignoring his instincts, and still unable to move, he locked eyes with her. A challenge.
The spark of defiance flamed to life in the dark orbs of her eyes. Challenge accepted. “Do you always use your telepathic abilities on cases?”
No. Yes. What?
He stuttered nonsense, cleared his throat. “Cut the crap, Keva.”
Her mouth quirked. She stopped moving but her gaze still held him captive as if she were charming a cobra with mind control.
Mind control. God, was that possible?
No fucking way.
Without warning, his senses exploded as a vivid image of her standing in front of him—naked—pushed all other thoughts from his mind. Fire leapt behind her, illuminating her skin, sleek and taut over slim legs and muscled stomach. Her breasts, high and firm, beckoned to him.
Seeing his lust, she smiled at him, one corner of her lips tipping up—only now, her lips were red as blood.
Rife tried to move, to break the trance, and found his arms tied. He was naked too, strung up to an ancient spruce tree like the ones in the woods further north, rawhide strips cutting deep into his wrists.
This can’t be happening.
But it was.
He scanned the rest of his body. His skin was dark with tattoos and fresh ceremonial wounds and he was hard as a rock. Keva sang a sacred song, her bewitching voice raising his member another inch. He smelled the scent of sex and skin and all resistance inside him crumbled. Overcome by it all, he suddenly knew he was a warrior in a forgotten time.
A warrior who wanted nothing more than to tear his arms from the restraints and bend the sorceress in front of him to his will.
Keva drew a short, fat knife from the fire. Flames reflected on the blade as Keva drew it across the tattoo over her heart. Again, a new understanding dawned on him. She wasn’t just a sorceress. The mark denoted her as Chieftess. Of the entire Salt Coast Clan.
Watching her blood rise, another wave of white-hot electricity ran through his muscles like quicksilver. He wanted to lick the sweat from her body. Taste her blood. Mark her in ways that proved she was his and his alone.
The sting of the blade as she carved a matching mark on his chest didn’t even make him flinch. He flexed his muscles and felt the increased strength in them.
She drew a finger through her blood and then through his, mixing them. “Our souls are bound forever, warrior.”
Primal power raced through him and he ripped the bonds around his wrists free from the spruce. His muscled arms encircled her, forcing her to the ground underneath him. As she opened her legs to him, he drove inside her. She cried out, but it was with pleasure and passion.
He slammed himself in to the hilt, loving the feel of her hot flesh surrounding him. “Forever, Chieftess,” he ground out between clenched teeth.
The sound of his voice, guttural and ragged, jerked Rife out of the vision. The room reeled around him as though he was drunk, and he clutched the counter for support. His breath came in jerky hitches. His skin burned as if he’d stood inside the flames.
Keva was now a mere inch from him, cheeks flushed and eyes darkened with lust. She too was breathing hard.
Her breath was warm on his lips as she spoke. “Was that your memory or mine?”
The room came to a stop, but Rife’s heart continued to pound in his chest like a timpani drum. I don’t know.
Keva reached for the button of his jeans. “Guess we better find out then.”
Chapter Seven
Keva flinched as Rife’s hand closed over her wrist and jerked her fingers away from his button fly. The heat from his touch was so hot it felt like he was scalding her.
“Show me the tattoo,” he said. His voice had dropped even lower and was rough as sandpaper. The sound of it sent a ripple of apprehension down her spine.
In his eyes, she saw the shadow of the warrior he had once been. Forceful, passionate, demanding and deeply male. This could work—seducing him was her best chance of awakening Kai’s soul. And if her suspicions were right, she needed Kai, the warrior, to help her stop the ghost shaman, whoever he was.
Using her free hand, she slid her fingers under the fabric of the chambray shirt and peeled it back. The act revealed the swell of her breast and the round circle tattoo, a thousand years old and ingrained in her heart as much as on her skin. Inside the circle, a small crescent moon, a dot, and a set of waves crowded together. The moon over water represented her birthright. The dot, like a tiny period, her soul.
A thin, white scar cut through the circle, the mark of her and Kai’s soul-binding ceremony.
Carved under the Chieftess tattoo, and still pink from her attacker’s recent assault, were the flames. They danced upward, as if to engulf the Moon Water mark.
Rife released her wrist, his fingers drawn to the knife wound. “What does it mean?”
This touch wa
s whisper soft, careful, as he outlined the flames with the very tip of his finger. The cells in Keva’s body trembled under her skin, her blood rushing to the surface to welcome it. “Destruction of my family.” She hesitated, then spat the rest out. “By yours.”
Raising his gaze to hers, he searched her face for an explanation, any explanation. “Who are you?” he repeated.
He still didn’t understand their connection beyond his murder case. Still didn’t realize the Universe had put them together. But he would remember—was already remembering, if the vision, still fresh in his mind, was any indication.
One thing Keva knew after a thousand years of immortality was that the past was never dead. It was a living, breathing entity that never left you alone, even if you’d been reincarnated.
Appealing to the man Kai was now, Keva answered. “I’m the only person who can catch the killer.”
Calculating appraisal replaced his curiosity. His hand left her breast, dropped back to his side. “You.”
It was a statement, not a question. “Yes. Me.”
He crossed his arms, guarded again. “And why is that?”
Seduction time was over. For now, Keva thought.
Perhaps a dose of the truth might trigger his soul’s awakening. “I still don’t have a complete memory of what happened at the church, but these flames indicate the killer we’re both looking for is a member of the Red Fire Nation. And he’s after my soul.”
Her heart beat three times in the ensuing silence. Rife stared at her nonplussed. “Come again.”
Drawing in a deep breath to bolster her courage, she forced herself to tell the basic facts of their complicated story. “A thousand years ago, I was High Chieftess of the Salt Coast Clan. My duty was to marry Enann from the rival Red Fire Nation in order to bring peace between our peoples. But along with being the High Chieftess, I was also a shaman whose prophetic dreams revealed Enann’s half brother, Kai, was my destiny and my tribe’s only hope of survival. As the Red Fire War Chief, Kai’s mission was to enforce my marriage to Enann—or kill me. Still, because of my dreams, I refused to follow my duty and delved into a passionate affair with Kai.