by Unknown
After waiting half a minute, she grabbed another sheet and wrote: ANOTHER. She would have added WORLD, but that was all she could do now. The pain was starting to build up too far.
Scrabbling the notes into a pile, she carried them down the hall. But now the sheets of paper burned her hands.
All she could do was throw them on the dresser and back away.
Her breath coming in gasps, she staggered out of the bedroom, struggling not to pass out. It felt like the atmosphere in the lodge was thickening in her lungs, and she knew she had to get out of the house.
Since Talon was out front, she slipped out the back door, heading for the big rocks along the river where she sometimes sat by herself.
TALON stopped to wipe his sleeve across his forehead, then added another shovelful of dirt to the wheelbarrow he’d brought from the storage building. Luckily, the guy hadn’t gotten too far with spreading the gasoline. A lot of it had evaporated. But some had sunk into the soil, and Talon knew that it would eventually get to the water table and contaminate the river down the hill. So he was digging it up and storing the dirt—until he could get it to a toxic waste dump.
He clenched his hands around the shovel handle and uttered a low curse. Fouling the environment was a sin, as far as he was concerned. But, of course, that thought hadn’t entered the bastard’s mind when he’d been trying to burn down the house.
Until Kenna had stopped him.
As her name leaped into his mind, he looked up at the lodge, wondering what she was doing in there. After they’d made love in the woods, he’d been more sure than ever that she was his life mate. He’d have to explain that to her, if they could ever have an honest conversation. Dammit.
Kenna was still lying to him. Lies of omission, if nothing else, and he had to figure out how to make her stop without making things worse. Yeah. And maybe she’d explain to him why she’d stolen a bunch of stuff from their neighbor. They hadn’t even gotten around to that yet.
“Shit!”
He shoveled furiously, then picked up the shafts of the wheelbarrow and trundled it into the storage building, where he spread a large tarp.
When they made love, it was fantastic. Then . . . she kept shutting him out.
Or maybe . . .
What?
He thought about the times she’d tried to speak to him and the pain that had struck her so suddenly.
Was that it? Something was in her head that kept her from speaking?
What the hell could that be?
A phrase came to him. “Posthypnotic suggestion.”
Jesus. Was that what was wrong with her? She’d been ordered not to reveal her background, and if she did, pain made it impossible for her to speak?
He cursed again.
Who would have done it to her? Was she part of some secret government project? Or did she belong to a cult that used hypnosis to keep their members from breaking away and revealing their secrets?
He had just started toward the lodge when his cell phone rang. Pulling the instrument from his pocket, he saw that the caller was Ross Marshall.
Did he want to talk to Ross now? He was about to put the phone back into his pocket when he changed his mind and flipped the cover open.
“Talon, this is your cousin Ross.”
“Yes?”
“I’d like to talk to you about Kenna.”
“You are talking to me!” he snapped.
“I’d like to have this conversation in person.”
His stress level made him growl, “Why don’t you start talking—and I’ll decide whether we need to have a face-to-face.”
“Because there are things I can’t say over the phone.”
“Fine!” Talon pressed the “off” button, then shoved the phone back into his pocket. He didn’t want to talk to Ross. He wanted to talk to Kenna.
Jaw clenched, he stomped up the front steps and into the lodge.
“Kenna,” he shouted.
When she didn’t answer, his chest tightened. First he looked in the kitchen and the living room. Then he started down the hall. When he saw his office, his breath caught. His files were all over the goddamn room.
What the hell! Had she been tearing the place apart while he was outside?
Or was it the guy looking for information?
Jesus!
Confounded and burning to confront Kenna, he sped down the hall, searching the bedrooms.
When he found the rope and the phone cord in one room, he cursed low under his breath.
His alarm grew when he couldn’t find her anywhere. But on her dresser, he found a pile of printer papers and a marking pen.
She’d been writing on the papers in big block letters. One word per page. SPY. SLAVE. PORTAL. ANOTHER. What in the name of God did any of that mean? And why had she used so many sheets?
Was she a spy for a foreign country? Was that it? And that’s why she had a strange accent? Sure! A foreign spy in Bedford, Pennsylvania.
“Kenna!” he called again, but the lodge remained silent.
Anger, confusion, and panic warred inside him. Taking a deep breath, he tried to follow the trail of her scent. When it led to the back door, the hairs on his arms prickled. She’d gone!
Alarm bolted through him. Without giving himself time to think, he opened the back door and tore off his clothing, then began to say the chant that would transform him.
When he came down on all fours, he howled, then charged through the door, pausing to pick up Kenna’s scent.
She had gone into the woods. Was she leaving because she couldn’t bring herself to reveal her secret? Was she going to steal stuff from another neighbor? Or had she taken something from the office? He couldn’t discount that. Maybe the mess was a smoke screen so he wouldn’t see what was missing.
If he had been a man, he would have shouted his curses aloud. Instead, he only howled them silently in his head as he trotted along the trail she’d made. It was as plain to him as if she’d sprayed dye along the ground. He knew her unique scent. It had sunk into the pores of his skin, the fibers of his heart, and it would lead him to her. And then what? Was he going to change to human form and confront her?
He didn’t know. But he did understand one thing in the fevered depths of his brain. He couldn’t allow her to leave him, no matter what was going on with her.
Stepping into the woods, he wound his way down a trail through the hardwood forest toward the river that ran through his property.
His heart stopped, then started up again in double-time when he spotted her through the foliage. She was sitting on a rock, her shoulders hunched, and her arms slung around her knees. She was rocking back and forth, and as he approached, he heard her moaning.
The sound propelled him forward.
When she looked up in alarm, he stopped in his tracks as the realization struck him. He was a wolf, not a man. What the hell was he going to do now?
And what would she do?
She had seen the wolf before. Now it was facing her, only a few feet away.
He tensed, expecting her to jump up and run. Instead, she stared at him with reddened eyes, her features taking on a look of wonder.
“Talon?”
The fur on his back bristled as he heard her speak his name. She recognized him?
“Talon, it’s you, isn’t it? The wolf is you. I should have figured it out. But I just couldn’t see it until now. Is it because I know you better?”
He had no way to answer. Maybe she’d realized who he was because she was his life mate. Was that the way it worked?
Her voice drew him forward until he stood inches from her knee. When she reached for him, he crept forward, laying his head in her lap.
She stroked his head tenderly, scratched the soft places at the base of his ears.
“I didn’t know they had werewolves here,” she whispered. “How is that possible?”
He couldn’t ask what she meant by “here.” For the time being, all he could do was keep up the contact
with her, marveling that she had accepted him as a wolf.
Never in a million years would he have imagined this situation. It sounded like she came from a place where werewolves were part of the landscape.
Where the hell would that be?
She bent to gently stroke her lips against the top of his head, and he made a low sound of pleasure.
“A wolf can’t talk,” she murmured.
He nodded against her lap.
“That first time, when I was caught by the tree, you came and found me.”
Again he nodded.
“And when that man tried to burn down the lodge, you chased him away.”
Once more he acknowledged the truth of her words.
She started speaking again in a voice so low that he had to strain to catch the words.
“Now I know your secret. And you don’t know mine.”
When she hitched a little sob, he raised his head so that he could meet her gaze.
He could see tears glistening in her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
He felt as though he were poised on the edge of a sharp blade.
“I want to tell you, so much. I tried to tell you. I can’t say it, but I tried to write it down,” she whispered.
He nodded, thinking about the sheets of paper on her dresser. She had written some words. But he had no way of connecting them. Not unless she gave him some clues.
She continued to stroke him, and now he felt her hand shaking.
“Vandar won’t let me,” she said, her voice thick with the tears.
Vandar. She had said that name before.
He saw the track of moisture slipping down her cheeks.
Delicately, he stretched out his tongue and wiped them away.
“Oh, Talon. Oh. You’re so strong, and yet you can be so gentle.”
He stood before her, wishing he could ask the question that burned in his throat. Vandar? Was he the leader of the group where she lived? Or the head of a secret project? He wanted to tell her she was his life mate, and they would get through this together, but speech was denied him.
“He . . .”
Every cell of his body strained to catch the rest of what she was poised to say.
But before she could utter another syllable, her whole body began to shake.
Kenna, what is it? Kenna, he shouted inside his head, the words emerging from his mouth as a series of strangled growls.
She grabbed her head with both hands and screamed, “Gods!”
As he watched in horror, she fell off the rock and lay shaking on the ground.
CHAPTER TWENTY
A THICK, CHOKING fear engulfed Talon as he crouched beside Kenna. Oh God, it’s happening again. The same thing that he’d seen before. She’d said she was having a migraine to cover the truth—that an attack seized her whenever she tried to talk to him about herself.
Kenna, I’m so sorry, he silently shouted, then moaned in frustration. This time he was getting her to the hospital. But he couldn’t do it as a wolf.
He had to change, then get her into the car.
Or would she die while he was making the transformation?
Whatever happened, he couldn’t stay a wolf. He was about to say the chant when he heard footsteps pounding down the trail he’d just taken.
Christ! Was the guy with the gas back? This time with his gun? He’d thought he’d scared the bastard away for a while.
Stopping in his tracks, he turned to face the enemy and blinked as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing: a dark-haired man, a wolf, and a petite woman running toward him.
He’d seen the man a long time ago. It was his cousin Ross Marshall, who had come to tell him that the Marshalls had started getting together—and would he like to join them for a family gathering? He hadn’t wanted to hear about it then. He didn’t want to hear it now.
The wolf must be another Marshall.
If he could have spoken he would have shouted at them. Ross must have understood the look on his face because he stopped to catch his breath. “Sorry. When I phoned you, I wasn’t far away,” he called out. “Logan changed and tracked you. I can’t let this go. I have to talk to you about Kenna.”
The woman gasped when she saw Kenna lying on the ground. “She’s hurt.” Sprinting around him, she knelt beside the crumpled figure.
“What happened to her?”
I don’t fucking know! Talon shouted inside his head.
Ross kept his voice even. “I’ve brought your cousin Logan and his wife, Rinna. Rinna is from the same place as Kenna. I think she can help you.”
Talon goggled at the man.
When Ross pulled a knapsack off his shoulder, Talon growled and bared his teeth.
Ross held up his free hand, palm out. “Okay, I know we invaded your territory. I know that’s a breach of werewolf protocol as far as you’re concerned. But I’m hoping you won’t attack us. This is urgent. You need to hear me out. Rinna and Kenna are from an alternate universe, and we need to know the reason why she’s here. It’s not an accident. Something’s going on.”
He felt as though the ground had tipped under him, and he had to fight to stay on his feet.
He wanted to shout that Ross was talking garbage, yet too many strange things had happened with Kenna for him to simply dismiss his cousin’s words.
“There’s a world that runs parallel to this one. It’s similar but different. Rinna came through a portal to this universe a couple of years ago.”
The word “portal” stopped him. It was one of the words Kenna had written on the pieces of paper.
“She’s having some kind of attack,” Rinna called out. “She needs help.”
Talon swung toward his life mate, pawing the ground in frustration. What the hell could he do in wolf form?
“I carry clothes with me,” Ross said, leaning over so that he could toss the pack gently on the ground. “Go change and put them on, so you can help her.”
Talon hesitated, then snatched up the pack in his teeth and dashed into the underbrush, where he silently pushed through the chant of transformation. As soon as he had hands to do it, he pulled out a pair of sweatpants and dragged them on along with a T-shirt, then ran barefoot back to the stream. While he’d changed, the other wolf had, too.
They eyed each other with barely checked hostility.
Talon pushed through the crowd and knelt beside his life mate. Her eyes were open and fixed on him.
“Thank God. Are you all right?”
“Yes, now,” she whispered.
Rinna was holding her hand. “It’s okay,” she said in a steady voice. “My name is Rinna. I’m from your world.”
Kenna’s eyes widened in shock. “How?”
“It’s a long story. I was running away from a man who was a strong adept, a man who wanted to control me. He’d come through the portal and set a trap that would catch a shape-shifter. It caught Logan. That’s how I met him. He’s my life mate and my husband now.”
Talon was still struggling with the concept of another universe. He wanted to demand proof, but for the time being he’d just have to accept this crazy situation.
Kenna’s gaze darted from Rinna to Talon and back again. “I saw Talon as a wolf. You are, too?”
“Yes. And Logan and Ross. They’re Talon’s cousins. All the men in the Marshall family are werewolves.”
“I thought that here—” She stopped abruptly and winced.
“I can sense that you have your own talent. What is it?” Rinna asked Kenna.
Fear and pain clouded Kenna’s eyes.
“But you can’t talk about it,” Rinna said.
“I want to,” Kenna answered, then cried out as her face contorted.
“Someone’s preventing it?”
“Y-yes,” Kenna gasped.
“It hurts her,” Talon shouted. “Leave her alone.”
He scooped her up in his arms and started back toward the lodge. Without looking over his shoulder, he knew the others were following.