WAY OF THE SHADOWS

by Cynthia Eden

  Her hair had fallen over her face, and the echo of her scream seemed to shudder through his whole body. “Noelle?”

  Thomas could hear the other vehicle’s motor growling again. The SOB was going to come at him again. And if the truck hit them, they could easily plunge into the frigid water.

  They had to get out of there, fast. “Come on, baby,” he said, the endearment sliding from his mouth without thought because it was her. “We have to move.”

  The bright headlights were on them again. Coming fast, too fast.

  Noelle’s head lifted. She blinked at him. “Thomas?”

  He yanked her free from the seat belt. He was already out of his, too. He shoved open his door.

  The vehicle slammed right into Thomas’s open door. Metal crunched, groaned—and the door ripped away as the truck drove their SUV harder into the side of the bridge and its old railing.

  “Climb out the back!” Thomas yelled. “Hurry!” He pushed her into the rear seat. He had his weapon in his hands, and he turned back, aiming toward the other driver.

  Who are you? What in the hell is happening?

  His bullets blasted through the other vehicle’s windshield. The truck stopped its advance. Noelle had made it into the backseat. She forced open the rear door, and Thomas followed her, barely fitting in the small escape space because the vehicle was wedged so closely to the railing.

  He’d just cleared the vehicle when—

  The truck hit them again. Only this time, the railing broke. Glass shattered. Metal crunched. And the wooden barrier splintered.

  Thomas grabbed tightly to Noelle, and he lunged forward with her, hurtling them toward the woods near the edge of the bridge. They hit the snow and rolled down the ravine, tumbling again and again as they flew toward the bottom.

  The SUV crashed into the frozen lake, sending chunks of ice into the air.

  Thomas and Noelle finally stopped. They were about two feet away from that lake. Noelle was on top of him, and he quickly reversed their positions, holding her tightly. He could hear the growl of the other vehicle’s engine, and then...

  “He’s leaving,” Noelle whispered.

  Yes, he was. Because he thought he’d gotten his prey?

  The engine’s snarl grew softer as the truck drove away.

  The snow kept falling.

  Noelle pushed against his shoulders. Thomas rose slowly, and he pulled Noelle to her feet. Their SUV was partially submerged and sinking fast. Damn it.

  “Are you all right?” Thomas asked her as his eyes swept over her. He didn’t see any injuries, but he wanted to be sure she was all right.

  “He just tried to kill us!” She sounded incredulous.

  She was also shaking.

  Because it was cold out there. He shouldered out of his coat and pushed it toward her. When she tried to refuse, Thomas just wrapped it around her shoulders. “Senior agent,” he snapped at her, still remembering the flash of fear he’d felt in the SUV. “That means you do what I say. Right now, I’m saying...take my coat.”

  She pulled the coat closer. Thomas yanked out his phone. They’d rolled a good twenty feet from the road. A heavy darkness was already sweeping over the area. He lifted the phone—and realized it had been smashed to hell and back during the tumble.

  “Tell me your phone’s working,” he said.

  “I...I think it’s in the SUV.”

  Hell.

  The temperature was too low. It was getting too dark. No one was going to see them down there, and if anyone did happen to come along that lonely stretch of road again, it could very well be the same jerk who’d just tried to kill them.

  Noelle started to climb back up toward the road. He caught her arm, stopping her. “Was your gun in the vehicle, too?” Thomas demanded.

  She gave a grim nod. “Yours?” Noelle asked softly.

  “You know I don’t need a gun to kill.” She was still shivering. They had to get to safety, fast. “But I’ve got the weapon.”

  “Stay to the shadows as much as possible,” Thomas told her, keeping his voice quiet, too. In this area, any noise would carry easily. “He could come back, but we have to travel close to the road because running through the wilderness sure isn’t an option for us.” Not unless they wanted a slow death.

  “I thought I saw a turnoff, a mile or so before the bridge,” Noelle told him. When she spoke, a small cloud appeared before her mouth. It’s too cold out here. “Maybe there’s a cabin there. Someone who can help us.”

  Maybe. Right then, that turnoff sounded like their best chance. He kept his hold on her arm, and they started walking through the darkness.

  Chapter Two

  “You need to strip.”

  The cabin door slammed closed behind Noelle. At Thomas’s growled words, Noelle stiffened. “Excuse me?”

  They’d been walking for what felt like an hour. They’d taken the turnoff from the main road and slogged ahead until they’d found this place—a rundown, one-room cabin, which looked as if it hadn’t been used in years.

  It was as cold inside as it was outside. Noelle couldn’t stop the shivers that rocked her body.

  “Your core temperature is too low,” Thomas told her flatly. “We have to get warm. The snow wet our clothing, so we have to ditch it.” He was leaning over what looked like one very ancient fireplace. “Lucky damn night,” he rasped. “There’s some old wood here.”

  Uh, yeah, but how were they going to light that fire and—

  He pulled out a small kit from his pocket and went to work. A flame flared seconds later.

  Her breath expelled in a relieved rush.

  Still kneeling in front of the fire, Thomas glanced back at her. “There was no way I’d come into the Alaskan wilderness without a fire kit.”

  She shivered. Again.

  “Strip,” he ordered once more.

  The cabin was deserted, so they sure weren’t going to get any rescue crew out there that night. But if they didn’t warm up, soon, Noelle realized the odds of them making it until morning weren’t going to be high.

  Thomas headed toward her.

  Noelle tensed.

  “There you go again,” he said, and he sounded angry. “When will you learn, I’m not going to bite?”

  “I—”

  He brushed by her and yanked open a small closet. No, he yanked down that closet’s door; the old thing just literally fell off its hinges. “This will have to do for kindling ’cause we aren’t finding any dry wood outside.” He broke the door into heavy chunks. He had the fire flaring even higher when he added it. His back was turned to her as she inched toward that inviting warmth.

  “My clothes are hitting the floor,” Thomas told her bluntly. “Yours need to do the same.”

  Because they were soaked. But...

  He stripped out of his sweater. Dropped the shirt he’d worn under it for layering. When he bent to remove his boots and socks, the firelight flickered over the tight muscles in his chest and arms. He had to work out—a lot. She’d never seen anyone with such sculpted muscles. As she stared at him—probably too long and too hard—Noelle could just make out the...scars on his body. Twisting, sharp, they snaked around his abs and lined his back.

  She remembered the wound notations in his files. He’d been captured on a mission a while back. Held. Tortured. But, by the time rescue had come, all of his captors had been dead.

  Thomas turned then. He still wore his jeans. His eyes met hers. “It’s not personal,” he told her in his deep, dark voice. “It’s survival.”

  She felt her cheeks burn. Well, at least burning was better than freezing. Noelle fumbled and her clothes started to hit the floor. His jacket. Hers. Her sweater. Her undershirt. Her boots. Her socks.

  Her fingers were fumbling, unco
ordinated, as she tried to unhook the snap of her jeans.

  “Let me.” His voice was rougher than before, and his fingers were suddenly working at her waistband. He was so close, seeming to surround her with his strength. Noelle tried to pull in a deep breath, and his scent—masculine and crisp—wrapped around her.

  Her zipper eased down with a hiss of sound.

  She jerked back from him. Nearly fell. Would have, if Thomas hadn’t snagged her arm so quickly. “Easy,” he murmured.

  Easy was the last thing she felt right then.

  His fingers slowly uncurled their grip. “I’ll spread out our clothes to dry. We should try to get some rest near the fire.”

  Noelle didn’t hold out a lot of hope regarding rest. She bent and pushed her jeans down her legs. Then she looked up. Thomas had turned his back to her, but he’d stuck his hand out behind him, obviously waiting for her jeans. She pushed them into his hand.

  “The rest,” Thomas pressed.

  “No way,” Noelle said, aware that her voice held a sharp snap. “I’m keeping on my underwear, and I want you to do the same.” Her panties and her bra were dry enough, and she was absolutely not planning to flash him any more than necessary.

  Noelle thought she heard Thomas sigh, but he bent and finished spreading out her clothes. And his. And—

  “Sorry,” he said, voice a bit wry as she jerked her gaze off him and back toward the fire. “But I’m not wearing underwear.”

  No, no, he hadn’t been.

  Noelle dropped toward the fire. She sat on the floor and pulled her knees up toward her. She was still shivering, and the tips of her fingers and toes were starting to ache.

  A few moments later, Thomas eased down next to her. He reached for her.

  The flinch was instinctive. She’d been withdrawing from people ever since—well, ever since she’d been seventeen years old and she’d woken, terrified, in a cabin that had actually looked a whole lot like the one they were currently in.

  Her shoulders hunched.

  “We need to share body warmth,” he said again. “Don’t worry I think I can control myself here.”

  Okay, now he was just mocking her.

  But his hands gently curled around her, and he eased her fully down on the wooden floor next to him. Then he curled his body around hers. His left arm slid under her head, almost like a pillow, while his right curled around her stomach and pulled her back against the warm, hard cradle of his body.

  “I think that I can,” he added roughly, his breath blowing over the shell of her ear.

  The fire crackled in front of her.

  Noelle swallowed and tried to figure out what she was supposed to do in this situation. Being naked and trapped in a one-room cabin with Agent Thomas Anthony certainly hadn’t been on her to-do list.

  “I think we have confirmation of the senator’s guilt.”

  His rumbling voice seemed to roll right through her.

  “We visit the senator,” Thomas continued grimly, “then less than half an hour later, some maniac tries to kill us. Connecting those dots sure isn’t hard.”

  No, it wasn’t, and Noelle had never been the type to believe in coincidences. She tried to put a little more space between their bodies.

  Thomas just pulled her right back against him. “He left the scene because he thinks we’re dead.”

  “If we hadn’t cleared the SUV right then, we would be dead.” Her own words were quiet and they gave no hint to the terror that had rocked through her as she fought to get out of the vehicle. As cold as it was outside...if they’d plunged beneath the ice in that lake, survival would have been only a dim hope. “But I don’t know if the senator did this himself. He strikes me as more of a guy who hires out his dirty work.” After all, that was exactly what they thought he’d done in D.C.—hired Jack to take out the EOD.

  And as far as getting rid of her and Thomas, well, she was sure that counted as dirty work.

  “He just tried to kill two federal agents,” Thomas’s lips brushed against her neck. Had he meant to do that? Surely not. “Whether he did it himself or he hired someone, we’re getting the guy. At first light, we’re finding a way out of this place, and we’re going after him.”

  First light. That certainly seemed very far away.

  “He panicked.” That was the only explanation she had. “Something set him off during our meeting.” Something they’d said or done.

  “He got set off because the FBI was at his door. The guy’s probably trying to run as fast and as far as he can right now.”

  Noelle wasn’t so sure. If he thought they were dead, why would he bother to run?

  “But I’ll find him,” Thomas vowed. “I won’t stop until I do.”

  The fire surged a bit higher then, sending sparks into the air.

  “We should get some sleep.” His voice softened a bit. “Who the hell knows what we’ll face tomorrow.”

  Since they’d just survived one attempt on their lives, Noelle knew he was right.

  Her gaze drifted away from the fire. She glanced at the flickering shadows lining the walls. This place... It was just like the cabin that haunted her nightmares. Those nightmares chased her wherever she went, no matter what she did.

  “You’re too tense,” he said. “Look, I get that you don’t like me, but—”

  “I like you just fine.” How awkward was this conversation? But he had a right to know... “It’s not you that I’m afraid of, okay? It’s...this place.”

  He was silent behind her. But his fingers moved lightly against her stomach. Almost as if he were caressing her.

  “We’re safe.”

  Her gaze slid to the right. His gun was there. Within easy reach. “Sometimes, I don’t ever feel safe.” As soon as she said the words, Noelle wished she could call them back. She’d never made that confession to anyone.

  “Why not?” His hold definitely tightened then.

  Noelle shook her head. She was feeling warmer, so much warmer now. The shivers and shudders were easing. “Because I’m never sure what waits in the darkness.” But she wasn’t talking about the darkness outside the cabin. She was talking about the darkness in her own mind.

  He was silent behind her.

  And Noelle found she couldn’t stop talking, not to him. Not then. “When I was seventeen, I was...taken.” Just saying the words hurt, but it also seemed a relief to put them out there. “I was missing from my home for over forty-eight hours before the police found me.” She was glad she wasn’t looking into his face when she told this story. Noelle wasn’t sure she wanted to see his reaction. “Forty-eight hours,” she said again, whispering the words. “And to this day, I still can’t remember a single thing that happened during that time.” When she tried to remember, she only saw the darkness.

  “Maybe you’re better off not remembering.”

  That was what her mother had told her, over and over. Her mother had thought it would be better to just move forward. To put those two days into the back of her mind and pretend they hadn’t happened.

  But they had happened. They’d changed her.

  “When the police found me, a dead man was in the cabin with me.”

  Silence. Then, “You think you killed him?”

  “I was tied, bound to a chair. Someone else was there.” The man’s accomplice? Another shudder had her body quaking. But she didn’t know if that shudder came from the cold or from the fear in her belly. “A killer was there, and I can’t remember a thing about him.”

  That scared her more than anything else. Because that man—that killer—he could be anyone. He could be anywhere. She could have met him a hundred times and never known.

  She’d become a profiler because of what happened. Because she wanted to be able to see the murderers out there. To look behind the mas
ks they wore.

  What she’d discovered during the course of her career was that monsters were real. They just wore the guise of men.

  Her eyes squeezed closed. She didn’t know why she’d revealed so much to Thomas. In the harsh light of dawn, she knew she’d regret sharing so much with him. But, right then, she still just felt that strange relief.

  And the fear slid away as the fire warmed her and he held her close. It was odd to feel so secure...in the arms of a dragon.

  * * *

  THE DOOR TO Lawrence Duncan’s study opened with a rasp of sound. Lawrence glanced up, expecting to see Paula, but she wasn’t in the doorway. Still, he smiled when he saw just who had come to pay him a late-night visit. “I take it that you accomplished our task?”

  His visitor took a step inside his study. “Their vehicle won’t be found.”

  “Good.” His eyes narrowed as he studied the man before him. “This shouldn’t have happened, you know. I’m supposed to be clear. Instead, I’m cleaning up your messes.” His breath heaved out. “Noelle Evers. She should’ve died years ago, and we both know it.”

  The floor creaked as the man edged closer to Lawrence. “I didn’t want Noelle to die this way. I wanted—”

  “To cut her throat yourself? Yes, well, I know how you enjoy getting up close, but that wasn’t going to happen.” Lawrence shot to his feet and paced toward the window on the right. When he looked out, he just saw darkness. “She’s not some scared kid any longer. She’s FBI. And if we hadn’t taken her out then—”

  His words ended, cut off with a gurgle of sound because—because a knife had just sliced across his throat.

  “I was saving her for later.” The words were snarled into Lawrence’s ear. “She would have been special. Now she’s gone.”

  Lawrence’s hand flew to his neck, but he couldn’t stop the flow. His knees gave way. He tried to grab for the window curtain, but his bloody hands just slipped over the fabric. He hit the floor.

  His eyes were open and staring up at the killer above him.

  “You were a threat, too,” the killer told him. “Because you knew what I’d done.” He smiled down at Lawrence. “But you won’t tell anyone now, will you? You can’t tell anyone.” His smile faded away. “And I won’t be on your leash any longer. From here on out, no one controls me.”