“Shopping,” was all the huge man said as he took the steps two at a time. They reached the eighth floor, just two flights up, and Cyrus pulled the locked stairwell door so hard that it came off its hinges. In a less violent action, he gently placed it off to the side and strode through it.
Jesse followed and didn’t say a word until they reached the psych ward. “What are we doing here?”
“So many questions you humans have. You’ll see,” was all he said as his dark eyes fastened on him, before he stepped to the side of the entrance and indicated that Jesse should go first.
Since he didn’t have much choice in the matter he strode into the area and immediately stopped. Men of all different ages wandered around, agitated. Clearly, they knew something had happened in town. A nurse hunkered over a phone, begging the person on the other end to go check her house because her kids were home alone.
“In here,” Cyrus intoned. He pulled Jesse into the third room on the right, practically dragging him over to the edge of the bed, and sighed, “Give me your hand.”
Jesse did, but his attention was held by the young guy on the bed. The patient was tied down, yet there didn’t seem to be any aggression in his eyes. Christ, what had the poor sap done to be stuck here? He was going to ask Cyrus about the young man when suddenly he saw nothing but blackness. He felt languid and weightless, like he was floating in a dream state or having an out of body experience. For a moment he panicked, thinking that Cyrus had tricked him and he’d be back in the operating room, then he could see again. But that’s not what happened. No, this time when he opened his eyes and refocused, he saw himself, literally. He was standing beside Cyrus, but he was also lying in the bed. Tied down. How?
Cyrus had no expression as he leaned down and untied the restraints. “Come on, we can go now.”
“Go? Wait. Who am I?” Jesse whispered, holding up the unfamiliar arms and flexing his new-to-him fingers. He stood and looked down at the strange body he was connected to— no, not just connected, but inside of.
In one swift move, Cyrus had the man who now inhabited Jesse’s old body tied on the bed. He threw a sheet over the guy and stalked to the closet. Pulling out a gown, he threw it Jesse’s way. “Put this on.”
Jesse was numb. He wasn’t going to go along with this.
“Don’t just stand there. Otherwise, I’ll return things as they were and you’ll be a useless lump of flesh after you live through the worst imaginable experience of your puny human life.”
Jesse vigorous shook his head. No matter how hard the right thing to do haunted him, he couldn’t do it. He was a coward. Looking down at the man on the bed—at his own face, he started to cry.
God, what have I done?
*****
Wooly held his ground. He knew he was in for a shit storm a mile wide when they learned the truth.
“What do you mean, not yet?” Payden demanded. “We should be out there looking for them.”
“It’s too soon. The ground isn’t steady. You know as well as I do that we have to wait.”
“How long?”
“I have it clocked at twenty more minutes. If they’re not back by then we all go. In pairs, mind you.”
Payden paced and Wooly’s heart went out to him. He cleared his throat and sought to distract him for a minute. “I heard Alt wasn’t in very good shape.”
“He looked like a rag doll.”
Payden stopped and Wooly spied him giving Max a warning glare before he added, “Max is being his usual obtuse self. But yeah, in this he’s dead on. The reporter wasn’t looking too good by the time we got him to the hospital. And we never found the book. Why do you suppose he wanted that particular volume?”
“My guess?” Wooly stacked the dishes in the big farmhouse sink and sighed. “Someone’s looking for the passage.”
Payden snorted. “Humans can’t make that kind of journey. It’s impossible.”
“Who said we were talking about a human?”
Payden stared right at him. “He was human. Believe me. I’ve never counted so many broken bones in my life.”
Wooly turned and crossed his arms over his chest. “What about the snowmobile you both told me about? And the avalanche? Doesn’t that make you wonder?”
Payden shrugged, but sure enough Max nodded and had more to say on the topic, “I’m wondering all right. What the fucking hell is going on around here. I—”
“That’s what I want to know.”
Wooly spotted Reagan plowing through the back door, and he scowled. “I thought I told you to stay put up a Gilby?”
“Did any of you see this?” Reagan completely ignored the question and held up his iPhone, waving it from side to side.
Payden started pacing again and growled, “What?”
Max stepped forward and snatched the phone out of Reagan’s hand. He examined it without looking up and complained, “I want to know why he gets reception and I don’t.” After a second he tilted his head and asked in a bland voice, “What are we supposed to have seen? Something about the avalanche? What it did to the town? We already know.”
“No,” Reagan snatched his cell back and held it up. “It’s that reporter and some other guy.” He looked down to access the information. “Something happened at the hospital. The reporter is missing, only he’s not. Well, his body was all broken up but they think they found him and he’s okay but some other guy is gone. It’s the wildest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Payden looked at Max, but Max was staring at Reagan. While all Wooly could do was whistle.
Payden was the first one to speak. “What do you mean the reporter is missing, only he’s not?”
Reagan looked up and quickly explained, “He was on the operating table one moment. On death’s door, one nurse said, and in the next moment, he was gone. According to the doctor, the guy couldn’t walk and yet he disappeared. They thought there was a UFO involved, given the avalanche and all, but then they found the guy, all healed, as in no broken bones in need of mending, in the bed of a John Doe they recovered earlier in this week from I-279. Crazy, huh?”
Crazy didn’t begin to describe the situation, Wooly was thinking. Because this? This kind of shit was beyond Selig even. He barely had his head around that discovery when Reagan dropped a bomb on them.
“Oh and here’s a bit more crazy for you. Tarantino escaped.”
“What?”
All three men stepped toward the bearer of that bad news at once. Forcing Reagan to hold his hands up in supplication as he quickly explained, “Hey, it wasn’t my fault. He chewed through the wall.”
Wooly didn’t know what to say to that. The wall was brick over stone. All he could do was blink and then pray.
“He chewed through a lot of other stuff too. It was like he was possessed or something.”
Wooly stiffened. He looked at Payden and then at Max. “I may have made a mistake asking you to wait. Screw the twenty minutes. We’ll use caution, is all. The ground—”
Neither man waited for him to finish that sentence before they rushed out the door.
Reagan scowled, “Where the hell are they going?”
“On a search and rescue.” Wooly took a moment to grab some supplies from under the sink determined to go after them. “Well, what are you standing there for? Grab the chains and the collar.”
“For Tarantino? What are the bandages for?”
Wooly waited for Regan to get to the door, before he put a hand on his shoulder. Staring up into the bruiser’s eyes he said, “His lady.”
“Fuck, no. No.”
“Aye, let’s go find her.”
Chapter Fourteen
There was no way Jack could leave Finley’s side to tunnel out. If he did she’d most certainly die. She was too cold. Even now he wasn’t sure how much his connection with her was helping. But then, if he didn’t do something to get them out of here, they’d likely remain buried indefinitely. No one would think to come to this side of the mountain. If they did they�
�d probably spend their time digging through the rubble of cedars.
Maybe it was better this way. At least this time he’d be with her.
He rubbed his jaw along her forehead as he rocked her and spoke of their times together. He knew she couldn’t hear him, but he had to hear himself, in an effort to keep his sanity. It was so quiet, except for the occasional pops of busted air pockets being caved by the weight of the snow. He should have taken advantage of those pockets by now. He should have, but he couldn’t. He wouldn’t leave her.
All the while he kept her close against his body’s warmth, praying that he hadn’t imagined she was shivering less now.
“Mia lei.”
He was just pressing a kiss against her forehead when he heard it. The sound of digging. Thank Christ, they’d found them. Maybe there was still hope. “Stay with me, babe. We’re going to get you out of here. I promise.”
He hadn’t tried to communicate with anyone as he’d been using every ounce of strength he had to surround her with as much warmth as he could. Given how low her body temperature was at the moment he worried he’d failed. It bothered him taking what little he had left from her, even for a few seconds to try to communicate with those outside but he had to. And when he did and was greeted with silence, he figured their rescuers were human.
“We’re here,” he called, but not too loudly for fear of a cave-in. Even still he hoped that whoever was out there would hear his call and continue to dig.
Silence.
Damn. The slightest pause in his attention of her had her violently shivering again. “Shh…shh.” He hugged her tight. He was going to do what he had been doing and talk to her. “Fruien, I—”
The second he’d said her ancient name all hell broke loose. A fierce growling echoed through the snow. The steady digging of a moment ago became a mad series of noises. Furious scrapes and pops. Until a cry broke through into their cocoon and he felt a wet nose press into his back.
“Taren.” Jack’s head fell back with relief and he smiled. “Good boy. For once I’m actually happy to see you.” Unable to turn around, he used Finley’s scent, by moving her leg to the small opening. Knowing that once the beast got a whiff of her there’d be no turning back. “Attaboy.”
Just as he’d predicted, Taren was through the last barrier in less than a minute and forced himself into the air pocket Jack had maintained. Now the challenge was getting all of three of them out before any of the snow collapsed.
“Okay, knock it off. I know, I know,” he gave him a pat but was having a hard time thinking and keeping Taren off Finley at the same time. Holding him at bay, Jack stuck his head through the hole Taren had made and scowled. He judged the only way they’d be leaving was to crawl. Kind of hard to do when he had to keep his mate warm and she was unconscious. He tilted his head and eyed the huge beast. “You did a good job finding us, but we still need your help.”
He had no idea if this was going to work, but he was willing to give it a try. Pushing Taren back through the hole, he fisted a hand in the thick hair at animal’s hip, and shimmied down, threading the top half of himself through the opening, lying on his back.
The sight that greeted him were two big hairy balls. “Just perfect. Stay,” he commanded. Again, he had no idea if Taren would. The kind of relationship they had over the years was a study in tolerance. More on the beast’s side than his. Not that Jack minded, as his mate was better with these kinds of things than he was. But now that she needed them both he was willing to make concessions. Huge—he stared up at those big hairy balls and decided—gigantic concessions.
Shifting and moving until Finley was right on top of him so they were sandwiched chest to chest together, he hugged her tight with one arm and gripped Taren’s fur tighter with the other. He wasn’t sure the animal would understand. His mate had always insisted that the beast was smarter than he was, but judging by what he’d seen over the years he had his doubts. Right now there was no room for doubt. So he closed his eyes and said a prayer to any God that was listening at the moment and ordered, “Go.”
Truth be told, he almost lost his grip when Taren took off. They flew through the snow tunnel so fast that when they reached spots that were too tight, those spots gave way because Taren didn’t let up. He pulled them through with a force that was to be commended. Maybe he was smarter than he’d let on. Jack didn’t have time to examine that. He was too busy keeping Finley covered. Protecting her. Especially in the tight spots and when they broke free in an elevated snow bank on top of the terrace ledge, Jack didn’t thank him either. He just let go and pulled Finley free. By the time he had her over his shoulder and said a prayer that Wooly would be at the manor, Taren was right there beside him. Travelling as fast and in some cases faster than he did toward home.
And although it didn’t take a lot of time, it took enough. Long enough that when he and Taren walked through the high double entrance of Midland, where Wooly stood and waited for them, Jack suspected it was too late. He even guessed that the less than animated Taren knew the truth as well. Finley was all but lost to them already.
Jack didn’t let that register. He was walking on numb legs. Thinking about miracles because he wasn’t prepared to give up yet. Not yet.
“Is she…?”
A tear slid down his cheek, God, not for his loss. For that he’d grieve in private. “Don’t let them see me like this. I’m going to…”
“Jo-Quinn. No. Not again.”
Wooly fell against the door and Jack nearly lost it. Between this and the beast softly crying as it walked at his side he didn’t know how he was going to makeit to their room. The pain and the crushing grief that was to come for all of them weighed him down.
“Don’t let them—” he broke off on a sob. A fucking gut wrenching pull that he couldn’t contain. When all he wanted to do was get to their room. Get to their space. Be with her. Only her.
He stumbled.
“Jo-Quinn.”
Wooly’s anguish nearly undid him as he went through the motions. Making it to their bedroom door.
“I can’t see you like this. Please tell me you’re okay. I—”
He knew the look he shot his old friend was nothing Wooly ever wanted to see. Hell, this was nothing Jack wanted to experience again and yet here he was. Angry. Furious. Once more having to give up the one thing he swore he’d never let go. Confused. Desolate? Yes, he was.
He took a steadying breath and stared at the bedroom door. “Don’t let them in. I’ll try. I swear I’ll do my best to keep her here, but I think we both know,” he looked down at Taren and acknowledged, “I think all three of us know my best isn’t going to be good enough now. We’ve already lost her.”
Taren paced back and forth in the hall as Wooly whispered, “Don’t say that. The—”
Jack pushed the door open. “Not a word. Do you understand? Until…till we know for sure.”
“Jo-Quinn.”
That soft wail stopped him cold. They all thought he was the one with the strength and power. Sure, he could punch through frozen ground. He could deflect tree branches coming at him at a hundred miles an hour, but real strength? It wasn’t in deeds or actions, it was in blind conviction. Every lifetime, without fail, his mate believed in him. She was his pillar of strength. His rock.
He swallowed back the ache of tears and blinked away the moisture because he knew that to others he was the pillar. It was his role to play to keep them all from drowning in grief as he did each and every time he lost her.
He kicked open the door and ducked under the frame as he entered. “Leave us,” he ordered, knowing his briskness would be comforting as he strode toward the bathroom. It wasn’t until he heard the bedroom door close that he fell to his knees, buried his face into her neck and cried a river of tears. She taken her last breath in his arms and he didn’t think he’d survive it.
“You are home. Here in my arms and always in my heart.”
Once again he rocked, but this time it was more fo
r his comfort than hers. Until a rage tore through him so badly he choked on it. Lifting his head, he bellowed out a cry saturated in every molecule of grief he was forced to embrace. His cry was matched by a sharp series of howls as his mate’s other beast fell apart.
*****
Jesse stumbled into the darkened room. “Where are we? What have you done to me?”
“Silence.” Cyrus moved to the floor lamp nestled in one corner of the apartment and clicked it on. At a soft whimper from another corner, he spun around at cyclone-worthy speed.
“Quit cowering, Steven, and get up.” His eyes gleamed as he encouraged, “That’s it.”
“You were–were gone so long. I–I–,”
Cyrus dismissed the little man with a snap of his coat. “Come here, Jesse Alt, I want you to meet my pet, Steven.” Jesse cautiously made his way to Cyrus and when he reached his side, he couldn’t hold back his gasp of surprise. “What? You don’t like my pet? Looks can be deceiving. He has a good mind and he follows orders well.”
Jesse took one look at the waif of man and swallowed hard. The guy’s cheeks were heavily pock-marked and his face glistened in the lamp light, covered with a fresh batch of oily acne. His lips were drawn back, exposing yellow-green teeth. And the smell of him? Well, the rancid cheesy odor made Jesse want to puke, but he fought down the urge and choked out, “Hello.”
Steven scampered to Cyrus’s side. He grabbed hold of the bottom of his coat and started to nervously wring it with his hands. “Hi.”
Cyrus seemed amused and his smile never wavered while he watched this exchange. His interest made Jesse nervous and it took all the courage he could muster to ask, “Why are we here?”
Love Of A Lifetime Page 18