by Неизвестный
Gallagher turned to Kenna. “From your mind, I picked up a lot about Vandar. He thrives on power.”
“And he wants more territory. Which is why he plans to come here.”
“I don’t really understand how he’d do that if this universe is separate from the other one,” Gallagher said.
Rinna answered. “He’d come through a portal between the worlds. The way I did. A strong group of adepts can open them.”
When his brow wrinkled, she went on quickly. “Nobody here could open a portal. The other world is more primitive on an industrial level, but the psychics there are strong because they’re recognized in childhood and taught to perfect their talents. Still, it takes more than one person for a task that big.”
“Vandar has adepts who did that,” Kenna said. “If we attacked his stronghold, they’d fight for him.”
“Why?”
Talon could tell she was struggling to keep her voice steady. Gallagher might not be Vandar, but he was too close for her comfort. “Because they fear what will happen if they defy him. But it’s more than that. If you’re one of his slaves, he gets into your mind and forces you to do his bidding. You might want to resist, but you can’t. He sent me here to spy on this world in preparation for an invasion—before Renata and the other women freed my mind from his power.”
Ross said, “He wanted her to bring back guns for his soldiers to use in a conventional fight. But we don’t know exactly what he has in mind. I’m assuming he’d come through and start taking over people’s minds, the way he did in his own universe. We want to prevent that from happening.”
“So what are you proposing exactly?” Gallagher asked.
“I wish I knew,” Ross answered. “For right now, I’d like to know you’re on our side.”
The dragon-shifter kept his gaze steady. “Let me think about it.”
“For how long?”
“You’re asking me to risk my life by challenging him.”
“I guess that’s right,” Ross answered. “Vandar has to be stopped from establishing a beachhead in this world, one way or the other.”
“You should go home. I’ll contact you in a few days,” Gallagher said.
“Go home? So you can attack us there?” Logan asked.
“I can attack you here. I’m not going after you.”
“But you may not be willing to join us,” Ross clarified.
He sounded sincere when he said, “I’m sorry. I have to consider my options carefully.”
RAMSAY hoped his face didn’t reflect the turmoil churning inside him. The Marshalls had come here to ask for his help in exterminating a beast called Vandar, and he believed what they’d told him about the monster, especially because it wasn’t all talk. He’d shared Kenna’s memories, and he understood what she’d been through during her months of slavery.
He repressed a shudder. It was a little inconvenient that he was the beast in question—if you believed that timeline business. Although he had never gone as far in his hostile relations with humans as the thing that had captured Kenna, he’d come closer than he’d like to admit. But he had fought the monster inside himself and won.
Ross’s voice intruded into his thoughts. “Don’t wait too long.”
He kept his own tone even. “Give me forty-eight hours.”
“If you fly out to Pennsylvania, will it be under your own power, or do you take a jet?” the one named Logan asked, his tone mocking.
“A jet.” Ramsay forced a laugh. “I don’t want to end up getting shot down as an unidentified flying object.”
Ross glanced at Logan, then at Ramsay. “I think we’ll stay in Colorado for a few days rather than going home. That way, if you decide to join us, you can get in on the strategy session. I’ll give you our hotel information when we get settled.”
Logan looked like he wanted to object. But he didn’t buck Ross, who was obviously the leader of the wolf pack. Ramsay wanted to ask about their relationships, but he figured there was no way to bring up the subject with the werewolves. Maybe one of the women would be willing to tell him. Or not.
It was a long time since he’d formed any close relationships with people, and he wasn’t certain he could start over again.
They skipped the usual pleasantries that humans exchange on parting. Instead, the Marshalls and their mates turned and quietly left the chalet, then climbed into the SUV and started down the access road.
As he watched, he was certain they were discussing him. And the monster.
Having the Marshalls in his private refuge had been an invasion of his privacy, and he allowed relief to flood through him that they were gone. He had options. He could pull up stakes and simply disappear, and they would never find him. He’d done it before. It would be easy enough to do again.
But was that his best course of action? He thought about the extraordinary and disturbing conversation they’d just had, starting with the time line that Renata had given him. From what she said, things had started diverging in 1893. The chaos she described hadn’t happened here. Thank the gods. If it had, would he have ended up like Vandar?
And what did he mean by the question?
He pictured himself walking down the hall and throwing belongings into a suitcase, like a thief escaping from the police. He could blow this place up with the charges he’d set long ago at the base of the foundation. That would obliterate any clues to his presence here—before he moved on to one of the other properties he owned.
Could the Marshalls find him?
That was an interesting question. A few years ago, the answer would have been “no.” The Internet had made it more difficult to vanish into the mass of humanity.
But he wasn’t going to disappear without carefully considering his options. That was why he’d asked for the forty-eight hours.
He wanted to think about the monster. And about himself. And the irony of his situation. For years he had considered that he had no enemies who could defeat him. Now there might be one—and it was himself.
Hadn’t there been a cartoon character about twenty or thirty years ago who had said something like, “We have met the enemy, and it is us”?
CHAPTER THIRTY
“WILL HE HELP us?” Renata asked as the SUV headed down the narrow gravel road with the steep drop-off on one side and the rock face on the other.
“I don’t know,” Ross answered as he focused on the treacherous track. “Let’s see if we can get past the gate before we start speculating about anything else.”
“We can shoot the hinges,” Logan muttered.
“It’s better if we don’t have to destroy it,” Ross answered.
“Yes. If he lets us go, that will be a good sign,” Kenna whispered.
They stopped talking, riding in tense silence to the iron gate. Kenna felt her heart pounding. She glanced at Talon, then looked out the window, scanning the sky, half expecting to see a great winged creature circling above them.
But Van—She stopped herself from calling him by that name and started again. He wasn’t Vandar. He was Ramsay Gallagher.
What did a change of name mean, really? Or a change in where he lived?
She felt her heart blocking her windpipe as Ross rolled down the window and reached for the button on the stanchion.
For a moment, nothing happened, and she sat stock-still in her seat. Then the gate began to swing noiselessly open on oiled hinges.
When they drove out, she felt like a fifty-pound weight had been lifted off her chest.
Nobody spoke for several minutes, then Talon asked, “How much is he like Vandar?”
She moistened her lips and answered, “I’ve been trying to figure that out. He looks like Vandar. I mean, when he’s in his dragon form, you’d think it was him. When he’s a man, he’s the same in a lot of ways. The same dark hair, but Gallagher’s hair is a lot longer. And the look in his eyes is different.”
“You mean he doesn’t look like he’s deciding whether to eat you for lunch?” Talon asked
.
She gave a nervous laugh. “I guess that’s a good way to put it.”
“The question is, can we trust him?” Logan said.
“Or, more to the point, can we work with him?” Ross amended.
“What if he turns on us?” Logan asked.
“He could have done it already.”
“Agreed,” Talon said. “I guess the big question for me is, can he defeat Vandar?”
“Maybe they’ll end up killing each other. Then the trust problem will be out of the way,” Logan answered.
Kenna shifted in her seat. “I don’t like to plan on using him.”
“Maybe he’s thinking in terms of using us,” Logan said.
She nodded, wondering how this was all going to turn out. “The problem is, we have to get rid of Vandar, whether Gallagher will help us or not.”
There were murmurs of agreement around the car.
“So we’d better start making plans,” Grant said.
“We can’t. Until we know if Gallagher is on the team. Because he has to be an integral part of any attack,” Antonia said.
This time the riders were not in complete agreement. Some of them seemed to think that they could go up against Vandar on their own.
Kenna knew they were fooling themselves. “You do it,” she blurted, “and we all die. Or end up as his slaves. Then he’ll get into this world, and there will be nobody to save the rest of the people.”
Talon gripped her hand.
“Let’s be optimistic,” Ross said into the silence that followed her pronouncement.
They drove to where they’d left the other SUV, and half the team piled out and into the second vehicle.
“I’ll head for Rocky Mountain National Park,” Ross said. “There are some towns between here and there. We’ll look for a comfortable resort in a quiet location, preferably with cabins. That way, we’ll have more privacy for our planning session.”
She saw Talon glance at her and felt a sudden jolt. He was thinking about privacy, but not because he wanted to make invasion plans. He was thinking about the two of them.
They rode through the unfamiliar scenery, so different from the land around Breezewood or Talon’s lodge. Maybe there was no way Vandar could conquer this whole, vast land, but she didn’t want to leave that to the gods—not when it could go the wrong way.
They stopped at the Mountain Escape Lodge. It had the same kind of name but it was a lot bigger than Talon’s lodge. In addition to the main building, cabins were scattered in the trees around the grounds.
When Ross got out and went into the office, Talon followed. When the two werewolves came back, they both looked pleased.
“We’ve got a group of cabins up there,” Ross said, pointing to a ridge overlooking a lake where boats were tied up at wooden boardwalks.
“It’s been a long trip, so why don’t we all try to relax for a few hours. I’ve got a larger cabin, where we can bring in dinner and have a planning session.”
He dropped each of the couples off at a cabin. The moment they were inside the door and Talon had kicked it closed with his foot, he and Kenna fell into each other’s arms.
She should have been thinking about how to defeat Vandar. Instead, she’d been thinking about this, because every moment alone with Talon was precious.
When he lowered his mouth to hers, she met him with an intensity that seemed to explode in a burst of heat.
They devoured each other as their hands worked at buttons, buckles, and zippers.
She hadn’t even taken a look at the bedroom. All she’d seen was the rug on the wooden floor in front of the fireplace. They made it that far, falling naked together, where they held each other and rocked.
He was inside her almost as soon as they were horizontal, and she was ready for him, her hips moving as frantically as his as they pushed each other to an explosive climax. Afterwards, they lay breathing hard.
Still joined to her, he rolled them to their sides, kissing her tenderly as his hands moved over her.
She had thought the storm was over, but as he stroked and kissed her, she felt her arousal building again. He was still inside her, and she could feel him hardening again as her inner muscles made involuntary little clenching movements around him.
He grinned down at her. “That’s nice.”
“I didn’t know it could be like this,” she whispered.
“Neither did I.”
She stared at him in wonder. “But you must have . . .” She let the sentence trail off.
“It’s never been like this. Because we belong to each other—a werewolf and his life mate.”
She couldn’t stop herself from saying, “What if it all ends in a few days?”
“It won’t!”
“But what if it does?”
“Then we will have had this together.” He gave her a fierce look. “I thought I was going to lose you on the road when that thing came swooping down.”
“I thought I would lose you when you jumped in front of me. You couldn’t fight him!”
“But I had to try.”
She felt her desperation surging as she found his mouth again and began to kiss him with an urgency that shocked her. He was her mate, and she was going to lead him into danger. Perhaps fatal danger.
“No,” he answered, and she knew that the intimacy had given him access to her mind. “We’ll win.”
She let herself absorb his certainty, because maybe that would be enough for the two of them.
He bent to suck one of her taut nipples into his mouth using his lips, his tongue, and his teeth while he pulled and twisted the other with his thumb and forefinger, building the heat rushing through her veins.
As he did, he moved his hips, just a little, just enough to inflame her.
When she surged against him, he slipped one hand down her back, clasping her hips. “Stay still.”
It was difficult to obey when she wanted to push for completion. But she did as he asked, letting him build their need slowly, until it was impossible to simply stay passive.
She reached around him, stroking and kneading his ass, hearing his growl of approval.
They made the decision at the same time, both of them suddenly moving with frantic urgency. Climax rolled over them, pressing them together as it lifted them into a place high above the mountains where the air was almost too thin to breathe.
They clung to each other, finally drifting off to sleep in each other’s arms. Some time later, a ringing noise woke her, and she blinked, trying to remember where she was.
“The phone,” Talon said, getting up and answering.
He talked for a few moments, then hung up. “Ross is getting the meeting started in half an hour.”
“Then let’s hurry. I don’t want to walk in late and have everybody staring at me again, knowing I’ve been making love. They’ll think that’s all we do.”
He laughed.
“I see that doesn’t bother you at all. You’re a man.”
“Yeah. But I’ll hurry up, because that’s what you want to do.”
She grabbed her clothes and made a quick trip to the bathroom, then combed her hair, wishing she had a little of the makeup women used in this world.
Talon appeared in the mirror in back of her. “You’re beautiful.”
When she looked uncertain, he turned her toward him. “Never doubt yourself.”
She met his eyes. “I had the confidence beaten out of me by Vandar. Well, not literally. He didn’t actually hit me. But you know what I mean.”
“Yeah. And we’ll make sure he doesn’t do it to anyone else—ever again.”
They walked to Ross’s cabin, where they were the first to arrive. And that made her uncomfortable, too.
“Can I help you set up the meal?” she asked Talon’s cousin, amazed that a man was doing domestic work.
He answered easily, “Sure. I’m not that great at this kind of thing. But I knew what to buy at the grocery store down the road—from get-togethers
my mate and I have had. Plastic plates and cutlery. Meat for the guys. Salads for the women.”
He began setting up. After watching for a moment, Kenna made herself busy helping put out the plates and utensils. As the other women came in, they joined her, and she felt good about the way they worked together.
When the others had all arrived and helped themselves to food and drinks, they pulled chairs and sofas into a circle where they could discuss the problem.
“Are we talking about opening a new portal?” Rinna asked.
“Is that too difficult a way to start off?” Ross asked.
“I’d prefer to use my energy to fight the adepts,” she answered.
Ross looked at Kenna. “How many does he have?”
She considered the slave population. “Maybe fifty or sixty. But only a few have great power.”
“And how many soldiers?”
“Also fifty or sixty. Swee, Barthime, and Wendor are the chief adepts. They opened the portal.” She stopped and thought. “With help, I guess, because they told me it took ten men. They also prepared me for the trip here.”
Ross nodded. “They’re not the only ones who opened a portal. There’s one near Jacob’s home in Maryland.”
Her eyes widened. “I didn’t think about there being another one.”
“That’s where Rinna first came through.” Ross paused for a moment. “But in this case, I don’t think we should use it, given the difficulty of traveling through the badlands. That would also drain too much of our energy.”
“Okay. Let’s assume we’ll use the portal that Vandar’s adepts opened.”
Ross turned to Kenna. “Do you think he’ll have adepts at the portal, or just soldiers?”
“I think he’s not expecting adepts from our world. So I’m guessing he’ll just have soldiers. But I can’t be sure,” she added quickly.
“Then let’s assume we can overpower a conventional force with wolves and our superior weapons,” Ross said.
“Then what?” Logan asked.
“Then we subdue the rest of the soldiers and the adepts.”
“How?”
“We’re going to need Sara and Olivia,” Ross answered. “Those are the wives of my brothers, Adam and Sam. Sam changed his last name to Morgan when he moved to California.”