by Неизвестный
Talon stepped in front of his mate, baring his teeth in a snarl as the dragon plummeted toward them.
The sharp whistling sound of the monster’s descent filled Talon’s ears. Every self-protective instinct urged him to run for the cover of the rocks, but he stayed where he was in front of his mate as the thing dived.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
AS THE DRAGON shot down from the sky, Talon could see its red eyes focused on him and Kenna. Before the beast reached them, Ross, Jacob, and Grant came charging out from behind the rock, automatic pistols in their hands, firing at the dragon.
Talon saw bullets bouncing off the creature’s silver scales. He howled, trying to tell his cousins to go back, but they kept firing.
In response, the monster gave a great roar, raining fire down on the three werewolves.
“No!” Renata screamed, running toward her mate.
Jacob whirled and pelted back toward her, and Ross and Grant followed, dodging and weaving through the trees to keep from getting burned.
Reversing course, the dragon came at Talon and Kenna again, sending another blast of fire down from the sky, but this time it seemed to hit an invisible barrier above their heads and bounce back at the beast.
Kenna had put up a shield!
The creature roared again, circling them, but now it didn’t try to attack. It kept flying around them, flapping its great wings, and Talon thought it must be considering some other strategy.
Centuries passed as the thing circled them. Finally, it landed on the road, about twenty yards from where they waited.
It could have advanced toward them. Instead, it stood looking at them for a long moment, then backed away. Turning, it disappeared from view around an outcropping of rock opposite where the rest of the Marshalls and their life mates had taken cover.
Long seconds passed. Then, to Talon’s astonishment, a man wearing only a pair of jeans stepped out from behind the rocks. He was tall and well-built, with long dark hair, deep-set eyes, a strong chin, and well-shaped lips.
He kept his gaze fixed on Kenna. “I picked up from your mind that you come from somewhere else. Where is it?” he asked in a rough voice.
“From another universe. It runs parallel to this one.”
Instead of challenging her, he nodded thoughtfully. “There is a creature like me there, and he surrounds himself with slaves?”
“Yes.”
The man turned to Talon. “You showed great courage, standing with your mate. Go change. So you can join the conversation.”
Talon answered with a low growl.
“I won’t hurt her,” the man said. “She was talking to me, in her head. I could pick up a lot of it, but not all. We need to sort this out.”
Talon used his teeth to snatch up the pants he’d discarded. Dragging them across the ground, he disappeared behind a tree, where he silently said the chant that changed him from wolf to man. When he had transformed, he pulled on the pants and dashed back to the road, where he put himself between the man and Kenna.
“If you’re a shifter, where did you get a pair of jeans?”
The man laughed. “That’s your first question? I picked this place of confrontation. I left clothing here. My name is Ramsay Gallagher. Now. I’ve had a lot of names over the years.”
“Yeah. Well, you were going to kill us. Why did you break off the attack?”
Gallagher gestured toward Kenna. “She stopped me. Not by force, but when I read her thoughts, I knew I had to talk to you.”
“Why should we trust you not to kill us when you get what you want?” Talon demanded.
The man turned his hands palm up. “I could have killed you already. You and your friends.”
“Kenna put up a shield.”
His expression hardened. “Do you think that would have stopped me if I’d wanted to blast you?”
The other men had come out from behind the rocks. They were still holding their guns, pointed at Gallagher.
He flicked his gaze toward them. “You might as well put your weapons away. They won’t hurt me.”
“You could be bluffing,” Logan challenged.
Gallagher shrugged. “Go ahead and shoot if you think it will do any good.”
Logan raised his automatic.
“Put that down, you fool!” Talon shouted.
Logan glared at him. “He just challenged me.”
“And you don’t know if he’s got some kind of shield, or if he’s going to hurl a thunderbolt at you.”
“Let’s try to stay calm,” Ross said.
Logan lowered the gun.
“We should get off the road,” Gallagher said. “Why don’t you all come to my house?”
“Where is it?”
Gallagher gestured toward the nearby mountain, where Talon had seen the chalet perched on the side of a cliff.
“If we go up there, we’ll be trapped,” he said.
“I think we’re going to have to trust each other,” the dragon-shifter said.
“Easy for you to say, when bullets bounce off your scales.”
“What can I do to prove my good faith?”
“Let me see inside your mind,” Kenna answered. “Let me find out who you are.”
His gaze shot to her. “That could be dangerous.”
“What can I do to you?”
“I don’t know.”
The tension pulled taut as they stared at each other. Then Gallagher lifted one shoulder. “See what you can do.”
“Can I touch you?”
When she took a step forward, Talon put a hand on her arm. “Stay away from him!”
“Whatever he can do, he can do it from there. I’m the one who doesn’t have enough power to bridge the distance between us.”
“You can get the other women to help you.”
Rinna must have heard. From the corner of his eye, Talon saw her step out from behind the rock.
Logan growled deep in his throat. “I want the other women to stay where they are.”
Talon nodded, knowing that his cousin was within his rights to insist on protection for his mate. If it was protection. Gallagher could probably reach them from where he was standing.
While all that was going through Talon’s mind, Kenna stepped forward. It was all Talon could do to stay where he was.
There was an awkward moment when she must have been trying to decide where to touch Gallagher. Finally, she put her hands on either side of his face.
Somehow Talon stayed where he was as his mate pressed her hands to the monster’s cheeks.
How she could stand to touch him was beyond Talon, but he watched in silence as she closed her eyes, breathing deeply.
Gallagher also closed his eyes, and Talon tried to imagine what was going on between them. They were two enemies trying to reach some kind of agreement. Or were they? Did their psychic abilities give them something that he and Kenna could never share?
Maybe she heard that thought in her head, because she opened her eyes and looked at him.
“This has nothing to do with us,” she murmured.
He answered with a tight nod.
“Let me do my job.”
He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. She was right; the sooner she could finish with this Vulcan mind-meld, the sooner they could settle things with Gallagher.
Talon folded his arms. He might have turned away, but he found he couldn’t take his eyes off the sight of his mate touching another man so intimately.
No, not a man. A monster, he reminded himself, then struggled to put his mind into neutral so as not to interfere with what Kenna was doing.
Time seemed to stretch as she stood very still, her fingers moving on Gallagher’s face, pressing a little.
Suddenly, she gasped, and her eyes snapped open. Gallagher’s eyes opened, too, and they stared at each other with an intensity that made Talon’s insides churn.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“IT’S A TRICK. You’re him.” Kenna lowere
d her hands and stumbled backwards into Talon’s arms. She was breathing hard, and he could feel her whole body trembling as he wrapped his arms protectively around her.
“I’m sorry. So sorry,” she whispered, twisting to look at Talon, then back at Gallagher. Talon could feel her struggling to steady herself. Still her voice was high and strained when she said, “He’s Vandar. Somehow he’s Vandar—here. He was trying to fool me, but I figured it out.”
“Christ!” Talon looked toward the rocks, wondering what their chances were of making it to shelter. And then what?
The dragon-shifter shook his head. “That’s wrong. I’ve been here all along. In this universe. This is my home. I’ve never heard of this Vandar thing, until I picked him up in your mind.” He gestured toward the chalet. “I live up there. I’ve lived there for fifty years.”
Kenna had stiffened her legs. “But you could go back and forth. Vandar sent me here. And he called me back again.”
Gallagher kept his voice even. “Whatever you think, I’m not him. You lived with Vandar for months. Has he disappeared for long periods of time?”
Kenna swallowed. When she spoke, doubt crept into her voice. “I . . . don’t know. I suppose it’s possible. I just did the job he assigned me—preserving books. I didn’t see him on a regular basis. Except for the ceremonies where he killed one of us.”
Talon looked from the dragon-shifter to Kenna and back again. “Why do you think he’s Vandar?”
She shuddered in his arms. “Vandar told me about his early life. Gallagher’s life is the same. He was the slave of a man named Halendor when he was a boy. So was Vandar. I mean, there was just one slave, not two.”
Renata stepped out from behind the rock. Jacob was right behind her, gun in hand.
“Maybe both of you are right,” she said in a voice that cut through the thickening atmosphere.
“How?” Gallagher demanded.
“I’m from this world,” she told him. “But I’m the reincarnation of an ancient goddess who came back to the world over and over. You don’t know it, but the timeline split in 1893.” Quickly, she related the story of the Chicago World’s Fair and how Eric Carfoli had thrown the world into chaos by giving people psychic powers. She turned her hand palm up. “This is the confusing part. I was reincarnated in both universes until Carfoli changed that other world. Then I was only here. So, if you’re the same . . . being . . . who was alive in 1893, there would be two versions of you now. One here and one there.”
Kenna made a wheezing sound.
Gallagher tipped his head to the side, staring at Renata with an all-consuming focus.
“You’re saying that there are two of me, one in each universe?” he asked, emotions seething under the calm of his voice.
“I can’t say for sure. But it would make sense. If both of you had the same early life.”
His gaze turned inward. “In 1893, I met someone who . . . affected my life.”
“Maybe Vandar didn’t. Or maybe he did. And it came out differently.”
He nodded. “We should get out of the middle of the road. Come up to the chalet and talk about it.”
Talon gave him a questioning look. “You mean where you can take us prisoner?”
“Yeah, why should we trust you?” Logan asked.
Gallagher looked at the two werewolves who had challenged him. “Because I think we need to sort this out.”
Renata looked at the other women. “What do you think?”
They all gathered together, holding hands, and Kenna could sense power surging among them. The sensation awed her. Since they’d first joined together, she could feel their group power building. Enough power to fight off Ramsay Gallagher? She didn’t know, but she had never felt anything like that among Vandar’s slaves.
One by one, they nodded.
The men stared at them.
“You have to be sure it’s safe to go with him!” Logan said.
“How can we be?” Renata asked.
Ross cleared his throat. “We need to set some ground rules. Like we agree that we’re all on the same side.”
Talon laughed. “That will last until we have a disagreement.”
Kenna jumped back into the conversation, addressing her mate and also Gallagher. “From what Renata said, I believe you’re not him. And since that’s true, we are on the same side. Vandar is planning to invade this world. If he establishes a base here, he’ll come looking for you.”
“And if you aren’t as ruthless as he is, he’ll destroy you.” Logan said.
Gallagher nodded. “If what you say is true.”
“It is!” Kenna insisted.
Far above them, a jet plane cut across the sky, reminding everyone that they were still part of the modern world.
“Come inside,” Gallagher said. “I’ll be waiting for you at the chalet.” He turned and walked behind the rocks. A few moments later, the dragon leaped into the air, flying back to the chalet.
“You trust him?” Talon asked Ross.
“Yes. To a certain extent. He needs us.”
“And when we’ve destroyed Vandar?”
“From Kenna’s description of him, we can’t do that by ourselves. Not if we hope to fight his adepts at the same time. I think we need Gallagher. So let’s hope he’s honorable.”
“You think he’s not a killer?” Logan demanded.
Ross turned to him. “I think he’s dangerous when cornered. I’m sure he’s killed to protect himself.” He looked at the other werewolves, each in turn. “We’d do the same. It’s part of our nature.”
There was a moment of tension before the other men nodded.
“I think he doesn’t kill for pleasure,” Ross continued, “or to assert his power over others.”
“What makes you think so?” Logan demanded.
“Instinct. And he could have already gotten us, if he’d wanted to.”
“He wants information.”
“And our help. Maybe he even wants to be friends. I’m guessing he’s been alone for a long time.”
“If you’re wrong, we’re in trouble,” Logan muttered.
Ross turned back to him. “Any way you look at it, we’re in trouble. Apparently, he discovered Kenna long before we got here. He knows about all of us now. He could come after us if he wanted, but I don’t think that’s how he operates. So we might as well try to set the ground rules for the relationship. While we still have some bargaining power.”
There were murmurs of agreement.
“Maybe we’d better go in one car,” Antonia suggested.
After Logan pulled the other vehicle to the side of the road, they all squeezed into the SUV Ross was driving.
Two of the men had to sit in the back. When they were all settled as best they could, the vehicle started up the narrow road that led to the chalet. They didn’t get very far before they came to a heavy iron gate blocking the way. The mountain rose on one side, and a sheer drop fell away on the other.
“Well, I guess you don’t get anyone to deliver pizza,” Talon said.
“Just a moment,” Gallagher’s voice issued from a speaker on the gate.
The gate swung open, and they drove through. When they were on the other side, it clanked closed behind them.
“Or escape with the family jewels,” Logan added.
They drove up a winding gravel road that was probably deadly in winter. Even now, the loose gravel and the lack of a guardrail made the journey treacherous.
Fifteen minutes later, they pulled into a parking area in front of the chalet. “At least there’s room to turn around,” Ross said.
Kenna studied the house. It was built of stone, with a high peaked roof, and she thought that it was probably bigger than it looked, with some of the structure below ground or built into the side of the mountain. She saw no other vehicles, but there was a wide garage door in front.
All of them got out, the men with their guns in their hands.
Gallagher came out the front door. He was
wearing well-worn jeans and a navy T-shirt and looking totally at home in this world.
“Come in.”
They followed him across the porch and into a large reception area. Kenna looked around and gasped when she saw one of the pictures hanging on the wall.
Gallagher turned toward her. “What?”
She pointed. “That picture. Vandar has the same one in his cave.”
Ross walked up to the painting. “It’s a Monet. Where did you get it?”
“I bought it at an auction in Paris, in the mid-1800s.”
“Before the timelines split,” Renata said. “So he’s still got it, too.”
“You’re an art collector?” Ross asked, looking into the sitting room off the reception area where several more paintings hung.
Gallagher gestured. “Yes. I’ve got several Picassos, some Van Goghs, some Modiglianis. As well as artists who didn’t turn out to be as famous.” He looked back at them. “Come in and sit down. I’m sorry that I can’t offer you any refreshments besides water.”
“Because you drink blood,” Kenna said in a gritty voice.
The room grew very silent as all of the werewolves instinctively moved closer to their mates.
Gallagher turned toward her. “Yes. In my early life, I did live on the same food as humans, and I wasn’t very healthy. Then I discovered that blood was my natural sustenance.”
“And you kill to get it?” Logan asked.
He gave the werewolf a hard look. “I did. But my life-style has evolved over the years. I don’t need to kill. And I don’t need to drink human blood. I maintain a herd of deer up here in the mountains. I tap them for food. Much as the Masai tribesmen in Africa tap their cattle.”
Kenna stared at him. “Vandar always kills. He wants the people to be scared of him.”
Gallagher turned to her. “I went through a period like that. I . . . changed. I discovered morality.” Before anybody could ask another question, he said, “Let’s sit down.”
They walked into what Talon would have called the living room, although it was furnished much differently from his own lodge, with elegant chairs and sofas that must have come from earlier ages.
Each of the werewolves sat with his mate. And Ross and Gallagher took chairs by the window.