Deep IsThe Night: Haunted Souls

by Denise Agnew

  “Uh…” Sorley swallowed hard. “Well, not quite giddy. Maybe mildly interested?”

  Lachlan smiled. “You could knock, you know.”

  Ronan felt surly, his temper up after his two encounters last night with Clarissa Gaines. He shrugged. “Since you invited me over your threshold a long time ago, why should I bother?”

  Erin’s frown said he’d pissed her off. “Hasn’t anyone ever taught you manners?”

  “Just long enough ago for me to forget them.”

  Lachlan turned to Ronan with curiosity written on his face. “What’s going on with you? Since the last fight with the ancient one you’ve been moping.”

  Sorley laughed, his high-pitched noise grating on Ronan’s ears. “He’s goin’ for a particular attitude, don’t you know? All dark and pensive and vampirish.”

  Lachlan peered at Sorley. “Vampirish? Is that even a word?”

  “That’s not it.” Ronan scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I’m hacked because we haven’t finished the job. We know we didn’t kill the ancient one. He will walk the streets again before Halloween. And if he absorbs the amount of power I think he’ll absorb on Halloween, then we’re all buggered.”

  “Sounds like we need another caucus to decide what we’re going to do,” Erin said.

  Deciding he should let the group know about Clarissa, Ronan said, “I met the woman last night.”

  “See, see, I told you,” Sorley said with a huge grin.

  “Discussing my love life again, I see,” Ronan said.

  Sorley shrugged. “Nothing else better to do around here.”

  “Who is she?” Erin asked, anticipation in her voice and on her face.

  Ronan groaned inside, unsure how much he wanted to reveal. He explained how he’d met her in the graveyard, but conveniently left out the part about them becoming cozy.

  Erin crossed her arms, then looked into the distance with concentration. “She sounds perfect.”

  Sorley snorted. “Even if she does decide Ronan’s an all right chap and she doesn’t mind doing the nasty with him, we still don’t know how havin’ sex with him is going to solve our problems with the ancient one.”

  “The seer wasn’t specific,” Ronan said. “She simply said the power would manifest once the woman and I have sex.”

  Ronan saw the displeasure on Erin’s face, but decided it wouldn’t do any good to gloss over the facts.

  Lachlan’s expression held concern. “At the community center you disappeared before any of us could talk to you. Where did you go?”

  “Out for fresh air. So many mortals in one area suffocate me.”

  Erin strolled toward him as she wiped her hands on a towel. “When do we get to meet Clarissa?”

  “Today. Tonight if you wish.”

  Lachlan’s eyebrows lifted. “Wow, that was fast work.”

  Ronan’s frown deepened. “It wasn’t my idea. She was at the community center meeting last night and wants to meet you.”

  “Why?” Lachlan asked.

  “She told me it was none of my business.” It irritated him, her defiance. “Wench.”

  Sorley laughed. “Sure, and she must be mighty comely if she can get that reaction out of him.”

  Ronan glared at him. “Shut up.”

  The much smaller vampire did as told.

  Erin leaned on the kitchen counter. “Do you think she’s trying to get a story out of us? Maybe she’s a reporter in disguise.”

  Ronan prowled back to the other side of the room, his impatience grinding inside him. “No.”

  “Have some of this.” Erin took a mug of coffee to Ronan.

  Ronan took a sip of the brew, then put it down on the kitchen counter. “Clarissa asked me to give you her number so you can call. But I could bring her here.”

  Erin smiled. “Now wait a minute. Do you think a woman who doesn’t know you would go with you? Especially with everything happening lately?”

  Damned if he hadn’t thought of that. “Of course not.”

  Lachlan rubbed his chin. “Ronan, why don’t you feel out this woman’s intentions?”

  Ronan felt a rare laugh emerge from him. “Feel her out, eh? That shouldn’t be much of a hardship. Although I’ll have some work to do to get her to trust me. Besides, that, I may have competition. She talked with a pansy-assed mortal from out of town while she was still at the community center,” Ronan said with distaste.

  “Sounds like a lick of jealousy to me,” Sorley said matter-of-factly.

  Ronan admitted in his heart it felt like jealousy, but he refused to allow the sensation to build. He prowled the room like a restless animal. “I listened in on their conversation. The man she was talking to is a paranormal investigator from a university in Denver. Apparently the blighter was her boyfriend in high school. I get feelings about people. He’s dangerous, perhaps to Clarissa.” His gut burned at the thought of her being hurt. An odd, almost forgotten ability to feel tenderness made him pause. A strange yearning entered his undead heart. “I don’t want her near him.”

  “You want to protect her?” Erin asked, a smile teasing the corners of her mouth.

  Ronan slipped into his cloak again, tossing the hood over his head so that his hair and a good portion of his face stayed covered. “I must. That is, if she doesn’t try to stake me first.”

  Erin’s eyes widened. “You think she’d do that? But—”

  “No.” Ronan waved a hand in dismissal. “She doesn’t know about vampires. But she’s stubborn and will get into serious trouble at this rate.”

  Erin tilted one eyebrow. “Ronan, you were nice to her, weren’t you?”

  Nice. Feckin’ yes. And it had felt damned good. “Very nice. But it frightens her. I frighten her.”

  Lachlan appeared grim. “It frightens her?”

  “When I touched her I felt her emotions. She loved and hated the heat moving between us.” His groin stirred at the thought of what she’d felt like in his arms. “She felt out of control.”

  Sorley’s face screwed up. “Ewww. I don’t know about the rest of you, but this is too much like listenin’ to your parents havin’ sex. Please don’t share.”

  Lachlan and Erin smirked at Sorley, but Ronan ignored the pesky immortal. “Clarissa is very, very strong. Whether she understood she was doing it or not, she resisted my powers of persuasion. It takes a very strong woman to hold off a vampire in any way.”

  Lachlan’s expression lightened. “And you didn’t like that, did you?”

  “Hell, no. Being with her was challenging. She’s stubborn and tough.”

  Erin crossed her arms. “Sounds like someone I’d like to meet.”

  Sorley’s irreverent expression said what he thought about the statement. “Pfft. You can convince any woman to spread her legs and—”

  “Shut up,” Lachlan said.

  Not appearing the least chastised, Sorley snatched a piece of bread as it popped from the toaster.

  “What time do you want me to bring her by?” Ronan asked.

  “I’ve got to go into work today,” Erin said. “What about inviting her to dinner?”

  Ronan’s bowed slightly at the waist. “It shall be done.”

  Without so much as a pause, Ronan snapped into invisibility. He heard and saw the last of the kitchen conversation.

  “He’s feckin’ leavin’ me behind again,” Sorley said around a bite of toast.

  Lachlan sighed. “Of course he is. You don’t think he wants your hairy hide around if he’s romancing a woman, do you?”

  Erin threw Lachlan an appreciative grin as he slipped an arm around her waist and tugged her against his body.

  “I know I wouldn’t want Sorley around anywhere if you were romancing me,” she said.

  Ronan heard the small vampire ask, “Is that all anyone thinks about lately? Love and hearts and sticky things?”

  Lachlan’s mouth hovered over Erin’s parted lips. “Go away, Sorley.”

  Still grumbling, the wiry vampire disapp
eared with an audible snapping noise. His disembodied voice echoed around them. “Bloody hell.”

  Ronan laughed and heard his mirth ringing in the air before he, too, disappeared into the ether.

  * * * * *

  Clarissa wandered down a murky tunnel, the night enshrouding her with pinpricks of fixed dread. She smelled damp earth, felt soil moving beneath her booted feet. Her breath came quickly, her heart pounding a frantic beat. She wouldn’t escape now that she’d entered.

  Something would come for her soon.

  She couldn’t breathe and her hand went to her throat.

  She jolted awake with a semi-shriek. As her eyes popped open she saw sunlight streaming under the curtains. She’d fallen asleep on the bed last night fully clothed. She remembered stumbling into her room after talking with the police, then feeling so exhausted she decided to lie down one minute. Obviously she’s slept more than a minute.

  A knock on her hotel room door startled her. She took a deep breath to regulate her heart, then went to the door. As she ran her fingers through her tangled hair, she figured she probably looked like something the cat had dragged in for a meal. She checked the peephole and opened the door to Jim Leggett.

  “This is a surprise.” She smiled, trying not to feel angry with him and failing. “I thought we were meeting at the cemetery at St. Bartholomew’s last night?”

  Jim smiled ruefully. “I’m sorry. I got a call from Denver and by the time I got off the phone and headed toward the cemetery I realized you’d probably already left.”

  “How did you find me this morning?”

  “I saw Chessie and she told me where you were staying.” He took a big breath and let it out slowly. “I had to see if you were all right.”

  Frowning, she backed away from the door and gestured for him to enter. “Worried? Why?”

  He stuffed his hands in his pockets as she closed the door. A flush spilled over his cheekbones. “I saw you with that man in the alleyway near the community center.”

  “Ronan Kieran?” She put her hands on her hips. “I don’t know if I like you spying on me.”

  The flush increased, easy to see with his pale skin. “I wasn’t spying. When I drove away I saw you there with him. I noticed him at the meeting, and when I asked a couple of people about him, they didn’t know who he was. So when I saw you with him it worried me.”

  She crossed her arms. This was getting better and better. “Yet you left the parking lot. You didn’t stop and check on me.”

  Guilt crossed his features. He licked his lips. “I figured you’d pull one of your independence routines and yell at me.”

  Not impressed, she twisted her mouth into a semblance of a smile. “You’re probably right.” She sighed. “Ronan is visiting friends in town. He’s harmless.”

  “You knew him before you came back to town?”

  “It’s a long story, Jim.”

  His eyes took on a harder mien, as if he didn’t quite like what he heard. “I also saw him give you the fanny pack you lost at the graveyard.”

  She rubbed a hand over her face and decided to tell the truth. She reported a quick run down of the mugging in the graveyard and the fact Ronan came to her rescue.

  Jim didn’t say anything for a second, then he leaned back against the dresser and shook his head. “Why didn’t you tell me last night at the community center what happened?”

  She decided being candid again would be the answer. “Because I was tired. I didn’t think it was important.”

  His frown reminded her of the night they’d broken up not long before she left Pine Forest. She saw the same stubborn expression. Twelve years ago they’d fought about her beliefs and what she saw in the future for Pine Forest. She knew for certain things couldn’t be different between them.

  When he didn’t speak, she said, “Jim, this isn’t going to work if you’re intrusive into my personal life.”

  As he nodded, he rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. “I know our breakup went pretty badly. But we can start fresh.”

  She made a small sound of disbelief. “A professional relationship only. And I’m not even sure if we can have that.”

  His eyes narrowed. “We’re not the same people we were then.”

  She glanced at the digital bedside clock and it read eight-thirty in the morning. God, she hadn’t slept this late in a very long time. “Can’t we talk about this later? I’ve got to take a shower and get dressed. Can I call you?”

  “Sure.” He didn’t sound too pleased. He gave her his cell phone number and she scribbled it on a hotel message pad on the small desk.

  She opened the door for him, and he turned as he stepped out. He took her hand in his and grasped her wrist for a moment as if he couldn’t stand to let her go. When his fingers tightened in one of those sharp, man-doesn’t-know-his-own-strength ways, she winced and pulled her hand from his grasp.

  Without another word, he went down the hallway. She flipped the lock when she closed the door, then leaned back against the cool surface and closed her eyes.

  Just wonderful. Barely a day in town and two men seemed intent on driving her batty. She ran her hands over her face and yawned. She needed to get moving but she still felt exhausted. Falling face downward on the bed, she groaned. This expedition to Pine Forest had started with a bang. Maybe, if she was really lucky, nothing more exciting would happen.

  If she could only believe that.

  She rolled over on her back and sighed. Tiredness won out and she fell asleep again. She didn’t know how much longer it was before she realized someone was in the room with her. On the bed.

  Her eyes popped open in panic.

  Ronan Kieran’s face appeared in her line of vision, and she flailed at him instinctively. With one hand he pinned her wrists above her head, then put his other hand over her mouth. He used his leverage to hold her down.

  “Quiet,” he said with a low, soft voice. “Someone will think you’re being harmed.”

  Oh, my God! How did he get into my room?

  As if sensing her compliance, he took his hand away from her mouth and released her wrists. Even with his immobilizing grip he hadn’t hurt her.

  When she dared look at him, his eyes burned with a fiery gold more breathtaking than anything she’d seen. She moaned as a strange sensation slithered through her midsection, then bolted straight between her legs. In an instant her senses went on high alert. Her breathing quickened, her skin heated. His musk, a combination of his leather coat and something uniquely male, made her heartbeat stutter. Every long, hard muscle in his body seemed to touch her. She could feel his chest moving, his body poised on the verge of action.

  Danger, she’d heard, could heighten the sexual appetite, and this man spelled perilous in capital letters. He must be throwing hormones off in spades, because all she wanted to do in that one, startling moment was to spread her legs for him.

  Sharp and breathtaking, the instantaneous sexual feelings upset her more than his appearance in her room. When she’d encountered him twice yesterday and experienced the same insane excitement, she thought maybe her imagination played tricks on her.

  Yet he appeared in her bedroom, almost lying on top of her and she liked it. No, she craved his warmth and hardness and unbelievable musculature pressed along her body.

  He shivered against her and whispered, “Mother Mary, that’s incredible. So hot and new.”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “Your sexual needs. I can feel them in my body.” He closed his eyes, and his sinfully thick, dark lashes fanned downward. “You haven’t had a man in a very long time.”

  Astonished at his straightforward, outrageous statements, she gaped at him. “I beg your pardon?”

  He opened eyes. Without smiling he said, “You sound like an outraged virgin.”

  A gasp escaped her before she could think how it sounded. “Ridiculous. I may be outraged, but I’m not a virgin.” Her face blazed with embarrassment. Damn him all to h
ell.

  A laugh, half-mocking, half-enjoyment, slipped from his mouth. “Some would say I’m already in hell.”

  Shock silenced Clarissa better then a slap in the face. He read my mind.

  Heat flickered in his eyes and restarted that stunning fire deep in her groin. Whether she liked it or not, whether she wanted it or not, it seemed this man attracted her on a deep, primitive level.

  He frowned. With a feather-light touch, he brushed his fingers over her jaw line. “There’s a tiny bruise here. Does it hurt?”

  “No.”

  Feral intent erupted in his eyes, vengeance clear in the tilt of his mouth. “I might reconsider harming the pirate that did this to you.”

  Fear jumped past the arousal, and she twisted on the bed and tried to knee him in the groin. Growling low in his throat, he settled his long, powerful leg over both of hers, drawing her thighs together in a tight grip.

  “Stop struggling,” he said near her right ear. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

  She trembled as genuine fear struck inside her body like lightning. She swallowed hard. He twitched one eyebrow and she knew he’d thought of it already.

  “If you’re not here to hurt me, why didn’t you just knock on the door?” she asked with venom.

  “Funny how that theme has run through today.” He smiled wryly. “I was asked to use the door earlier by a group of friends. I guess I need more finesse.”

  “I’ll say. Now get off me.”

  “I apologized, now you need to calm down. Next time I won’t pop into your room like this. But I needed to see you, to talk to you.”

  “How did you…how did you get in this room if you didn’t use the door?” She heard her voice trembling and hated the fear plain in her tone.

  “Trade secret. I’ll tell you later.”

  “Oh, and that’s supposed to placate me?”

  “I doubt much would appease you, beautiful one.”

  His compliment spoken in that husky, sexy voice made her toes curl with forbidden delight. This guy screamed sex and secrets.

  I’m pleased you think I’m sexy. His exotic voice trickled into her mind.

  Fascinated and discomfited all over again, she stared up at him in awe. “You’re a mind reader of some sort?”