by Bonnie Vanak
The phone book twitched. Another ant wriggled through the crack, dropped to the floor.
Nicolas grabbed her wrist. “We have to get out of here, now!” he ordered.
Jerked out of inaction, she followed. A weak bark from upstairs kicked her memory. Fear wrapped icy tentacles around her heart.
“Misha’s still upstairs!”
Maggie scrambled for the steps, heart hammering as she ran into the lab.
Little sunlight filtered into the darkened room. Maggie fumbled for the switch. Light flooded the room. The same dark mass crawled over the windows. But she’d left the windows open to enjoy the breeze.
Ants had bitten through the screen, and were pouring inside like water through a leaky dike. A thick, red stream swarmed over her worktable, down the table leg. A boiling mass of biting army ants marched toward her dog. Trapped against the wall, Misha yipped and shrank back against the invading force.
Red-hot anger erased fear. Maggie picked up the closest object, a medical textbook.
“Get away from my dog, dammit!” she screamed, running for Misha. From the doorway, Nicolas yelled something. She ignored him, slammed the textbook down on the ants. Again. And again. More ants piled onto the room. Maggie reached down, grabbed a terrified Misha as Nicolas ran forward.
“Take her.” She thrust Misha at Nicolas.
“Burn them, Maggie. Fire is the only thing that will slow them down,” he shouted, running out of the room with Misha. He set the dog down in the hallway out of harm’s way.
Maggie spotted a bottle of alcohol. Her shaking fingers twisted the cap as the ants marched in her direction.
She opened the bottle, tossed the contents on them. Matches, matches, where were the damn matches? On the table, she spotted a lighter she used for igniting the Bunsen burner. She picked it up.
One ant leapt, landing on her wrist. Its fangs sank down. She screamed, dropped the lighter. Ants immediately swarmed over it. Instinctively, Maggie went to slap a hand on her wrist.
“Don’t do that!”
Nicolas appeared at her side, drawing her away from the table. He very carefully picked it off her hand, flicked the ant away.
“Their blood will burn you.” His wild gaze whipped around the room. “Do you have any more alcohol?”
Maggie ran to the room’s opposite side, jerked open a metal cabinet. Supplies tumbled out as she pawed through the shelves, locating another bottle. She tossed it to him.
Alcohol sloshed over the rippling pile of ants as Nicolas uncapped the bottle and waved it over them. He reached over, grabbed the lighter she’d dropped.
Nicolas grimaced as several ants jumped on his hand and began biting.
Cold horror filled her as they began gnawing on his exposed skin. Blood droplets welled, splashed onto the table like red tears.
“Oh, God.” Acid bile rose in her throat.
The ants were eating Nicolas alive.
He grimly ignored them, flicked the lighter and tossed it on the table.
A whoosh of blue-orange flames blossomed, raced along the ant trail, eagerly licking the alcohol.
“Go to hell,” he growled.
High-pitched squeals hurt her ears as flames burned the ants. Nicolas flicked off the ones on his hand as he grabbed Misha and herded Maggie down the stairs. They raced out the door. Maggie paused, glanced over her shoulder.
Army ants poured down the sliding glass doors in a red stream. Nicolas placed Misha on a blanket in the backseat and then slid into the driver’s seat of her Ford Escape as she slammed the front door. She slid into the passenger’s side.
Maggie’s hands shook as she fumbled with her seat belt. Nicolas accelerated out of the driveway. Rubber squealed, blue smoke billowed. He hooked a right and drove south, jaw tense as he stared straight ahead.
Inside, she shook violently, her heart thudding in an erratic cadence. Blood dripped from the open, ragged lacerations on Nicolas’s right hand. Risking his own life, he’d saved Misha. Tension rode his jaw. Nicolas hurt, but wasn’t about to show the pain. A mixture of gratitude and confusion poured over her.
Whatever he was, whoever he was, he was wounded. And she had the ability to heal.
“You’re hurt. Let me help you,” she said, reaching for him.
He shook his head, ebony hair sailing about his head. “No! It’s too dangerous to heal me here.”
Not taking his eyes off the road, he lifted his hand to his mouth. Maggie gaped at him as he ran his tongue over the back. Like…an animal licking its wound.
Who was he? What was he?
The driving need to heal drowned out reason and logic. Nicolas was injured. She would see if her newfound skill still worked.
She seized his wrist. Nicolas tried jerking away, but she placed her hand over the seeping wounds and he could not shake her free. It felt as if they were locked together.
Palm trembling, Maggie closed her eyes, concentrated. Absorbing his pain as hers. Seeing flesh close upon itself, blood ceasing to flow. Heal, heal. Ancient chants buried deep inside her resonated through her body.
The electric jolt slammed into her. Burning pain tore into her hand. Prepared this time, she grit her teeth, rode through it.
After a minute she cautiously lifted her hand. Nicolas’s wounds were gone. They appeared on the back of her hand. As she watched in dumbfounded amazement, the wounds vanished.
“Dammit, Maggie! I told you no. Do you realize how stupid that was?” He angled his head toward her in a stern glare. “Do you ever do as you’re told?”
“Thank you, Maggie,” she snapped. “Why, you’re welcome, Nicolas.”
His jaw tightened as he turned his attention back toward the road, zipping past cars as if they were on a NASCAR track instead of the highway. “You just left a spectral trail of magick as bright as neon for the Morphs to follow. It’s damn hard enough to lose them without you making it easier. Each time you use your healing powers, the magick leaves behind particles like a smoke signal.”
Maggie wrinkled her brow. “This is biological and has to be studied scientifically. There’s no such thing as magic.”
“And I suppose the ants shape-shifting back at your house were experiencing a pure biological reaction?” Nicolas snorted. “Listen to me, Maggie. From now on, do as I say. The rules have changed. If you want to live, you obey me, period. Understand?”
“I’m not yours to order around, Nicolas. We have nothing between us. You have no right,” she retorted.
He turned, startling her with a fierce, possessive look. “I have the right more than any other male.”
“You sound like an animal fighting over a female in heat.” Sarcasm laced her tone.
“If I must fight for you, I will,” he said darkly. A low growl grumbled in his deep chest as he bared his teeth. For a wild moment she saw his canines…lengthen? Ridiculous.
Stress caused her imagination to run amok.
Maggie shifted her thoughts to her newfound healing ability. It deserved more study. If only she could truly heal not just small wounds, but larger ones. Diseases. She needed a microscope, samples of her blood. Maybe there was a gene that caused this amazing ability. Chromosome work, detailed analysis.
Misha. Maybe she could even heal her dog. Maggie gasped.
He glanced at her. “What?”
“I need to find out where this ability came from. How can I control it? Is it temporary? And if it’s biological, why did it surface now? Or maybe I ingested something recently.” She began ticking possibilities off on her fingers, and then laughed. His brows knit together.
“I just got attacked by a legion of killer army ants, barely escaped and my house is burning down. My home that I spent every last penny on is turning into ash. I’m on the run, to where? And all I can think about right now is setting up a microscope so I can analyze where this ability comes from.”
A half smile quirked his lips. “Don’t try it again, not until I say it’s safe. Study it all you want after we get you t
he hell away from the Morphs.”
Her pique at his bossiness faded as she considered her enormous predicament. If the neighbors saw the fire, called emergency services and the ants were still there…
“I have to let someone know I’m not home,” she choked out. “My neighbors will see the smoke. If the firefighters go inside and the ants attack them…”
She retrieved her cell, flipped the lid and went to dial 911. Nicolas grabbed her wrist.
“No. Your home isn’t near the neighbors. There’s no danger of the fire spreading to anyone else’s home.”
Ignoring him, Maggie wrenched away her hand. “Those things, they’ll kill…”
“The Morphs won’t appear as army ants anymore. They’ll have vanished. That’s how they work. They’re not animals. They think like humans. They’ll blend in. Their goal isn’t to kill everyone. Just you and me.”
“Forget magical shape-shifting ants. When someone sees the fire, they’ll think I’m still inside and try to rescue me.” Maggie punched in a number. “I’ll call Iona, Tammy’s mother. My neighbor. Just to let her know I’m not home.”
Nicolas jaw tightened. She ignored it. Iona’s normally languid voice answered on the first ring. Maggie wasted no words. “Iona? It’s Dr. Sinclair. I’m driving back to the beach house with my dog, Misha. I have a hall closet to fix, and I was wondering if I could borrow your husband’s drill when I got home?”
“Drill? That sounds convincing,” he muttered. Maggie glared at him. “Miss Sinclair, I do wish you’d be more responsible instead of just running off without leaving word. Your cousin has been quite anxious about you. You should have made better arrangements if you knew you were going to be gone.”
Maggie’s jaw dropped. “My cousin? I don’t…”
Nicolas shot her a sharp look. “Your cousin! David, the one you invited to stay with you for the next two weeks? You told him you’d be at home and he came here, very concerned because he was waiting outside quite a while.”
“But…”
“Wait. He’s here. He wants to talk to you.”
“Put your phone on speaker,” Nicolas ordered. “I want to hear this guy.”
Maggie pressed the Speaker button. In the background she heard Iona hand the phone over, then someone clearing his throat and speaking. “Yes, thank you, Mrs. Whittaker. Could you be so kind as to get me another glass of water? Yes, this Florida heat, my, in October, I thought it would be cooler. Yes, with ice, thank you.”
She dimly heard the distant click of heels on tile. “Margaret Sinclair.” The throaty whisper held a hint of screech, fingernails on slate. Maggie gripped the phone so hard her knuckles whitened. “Run, Margaret. Run away. We’ll hunt you. We’ll find you. And watch you die, very, very slowly. We like it…slow. The better to eat your energy, my dear,” the whisper came. The connection clicked off, leaving the angry buzz of a dial tone.
Chapter 6
Maggie dropped the phone as if red-hot coals suddenly seared her palm.
Nicolas steered the vehicle around a slow-moving BMW, sped through an intersection as the light turned red. She barely registered it. Someone wanted her dead. A distant memory flickered. Threats. Angry voices.
Blood, turning the sidewalk red as it ran…
She pressed fingers against her temples, fighting distant images. Memories? No. Not memories. Horrific images, two people lying on the ground, blood seeping from their wounds. Anger, so fierce it clouded everything, everything, a hazy red until the roaring in her ears echoed with a howl…
No! Her heart hammered with fear and dread. No nightmares. Not again. Breath caught in her lungs. Maggie gulped for air, feeling panic well up.
Nicolas cut to the right, pulled into a grocery store parking lot and into an empty space. Leaving the engine running, he turned to her. She barely registered the concern flaring in his eyes, the worry denting his brow. He cupped her face, forcing her to turn toward him.
“Maggie, dammit, say something,” he urged.
Dragging in a deep lungful of air, she fought for composure. Calm now. Calm.
“Something.” She gave a shaky laugh. “This can’t be happening. It’s not real.”
His voice gentled. “Trust me, Mags, it’s real enough. They’ll kill anything to further their purpose. That’s why they were after Misha upstairs. Not because they wanted her energy. They wanted to kill her because she means so much to you. They’d feed off your grief, your fear.”
Maggie cast a worried glance backward at Misha, who kept licking her front paw as she always did when distressed. Logic. Attack any problem with calm, sensible logic. Analyze. Pick it apart slowly. No emotions. Somewhere inside, ancient instincts clamored for attention. She squelched them. Think, Maggie, think.
“I don’t understand, Nicolas. It doesn’t make sense. Why would they kill me?”
Nicolas rubbed his thumb over her trembling hand. “Listen to me, Maggie, and stop trying to make sense out of what seems impossible. Think back to your childhood, when magick and myth were more real than the corporeal. Morphs shift into animal forms, retaining their human intelligence. When it’s more convenient for them to blend, they shift into human form. They’re masters of disguise. They can appear as old men, young men. In part, that’s what makes them so damn difficult to kill. But they must shift into their true forms to absorb the energy of their dying victims. Believe me, it’s true.”
Believe him? It sounded too fantastical. No, I don’t.
She strove for answers as if the creatures were a new species.
“Are there females? Can they breed?”
“There are a few females, but they can’t breed. Morphs can clone themselves. They learned how to organize themselves into a functioning army, thanks to Jamie, a mortal who recently joined them. That’s why they’ve become more dangerous. Kane, the Morph leader, coaxed them into joining him in a pack so they could be more effective in destroying us.”
Nicolas squeezed her hand, his deep voice soft and reassuring. “And why I have to protect you, Mags. Trust me, I’ll keep you safe. I’m telling you the truth about all of this.”
Surely the voice on the phone was a prank, some kind of sick joke. And the ants, an unnatural phenomenon, but creatures capable of shape-shifting? Impossible.
And why would anyone hurt her?
This.
Maggie spread open her palms and studied them. A tidal wave of emotions washed over her. Confusion. Fear. All threaded with an odd elation in the realization of her newfound powers.
I can heal living tissue.
Her scientific mind roiled over the information. She raced over the knowledge, finding solace in this extraordinary news that soared with possibilities for life. Not death. She stared at the palm that had healed Nicolas’s wound. Not a trace of injury, not even a pink scar.
“Are you all right?”
No time to panic, turn into a mass of hysteria. Not her style, anyway. Maggie nodded, trembling as his knuckles grazed her cheek in a tender gesture. As much as his bossiness irked her, his gentleness made her melt.
Who was this man? Was she safe with him? What if he had instigated all this?
She thought about unhitching her seat belt and jumping out, but just as the thought entered her mind, he shifted into Reverse and backed out. Nicolas headed back on the highway again, driving south. The sharp, even edges of his profile showed a taut jaw, mouth flattened to a tight slash. Eyes straight ahead, he drove, only the rasping sound of Misha licking her front paw filling the empty silence between them. Gradually she became aware of her surroundings as he sped southbound. Alarm tugged at her as they passed familiar landmarks. Naples. The Books-a-Million with its blue-and-white striped awning. Soon they’d pass Tin City, the popular tourist shopping spot. Then where?
Trepidation filled her. Forget the phone threat and the creatures invading her home. She was in her vehicle with a stranger she’d just met yesterday. Was he her enemy as much as these strange Morph creatures?
�
��Nicolas, where are you taking me?”
No answer, but his fingers tightened on the steering wheel. Too much happened, too fast. No time to think, act logically. Now she paid the price. Maggie glanced back at Misha. Oh, boy, we’re in trouble, hon. In a car with a stranger who talks of these witchy things, and I just go along blindly. How could I? Stupid, stupid, Mags! What do you know about this guy? For all you know he could be an axe murderer, a serial killer.
An image flashed…herself, on the roadside, her naked, battered body sprawled in the grass for some tourist to discover.
“It’s not in my nature to hurt you,” Nicolas said softly in his whiskey-smooth voice. “Naked and sprawled on the grass, maybe, after I’ve loved you like you’ve never been loved before. And what I want to do with you would leave you dead tired.”
He was reading her mind. How could he? She swallowed, fear clawing its way down her spine anew. “Nicolas, I told you, it was wine and chemistry. Mere sexual attraction. Biology.”
“We have more between us than you realize. Not biology. Just us. And when I get you to a safe place, I plan on picking up where I left off last night. All night. Kissing you all over. Everywhere. When I’m done, you’ll be exhausted and limp with pleasure. There won’t be one single inch of your lovely body that I haven’t claimed with my mouth.”
Blurring roadside slipped by as she riveted her gaze to the passing ground, unable to respond. In one day they had gone from potential lovers to potential lovers on the lam.
Nicolas turned his head and shot her a look of pure heat. Electric current sizzled between them. Her insides clenched with desire. She studied his full, sculpted mouth, the hard curve of his jaw, the thick sweep of silky hair feathering his collar, his ebony brows. Darkly handsome. Brooding. Dangerous? Maybe.
“Nicolas, what do you want with me?”
“I want you, Maggie. I want you safe. Then I plan on getting you naked and making love to you until you simply can’t move an inch. And you don’t want to, either.”
Maybe not an axe murderer. Just a sex fiend.
“A sex fiend only for you. I can’t even remember the color of the eyes of the last woman I had sex with.” He didn’t even look at her. “But I remember yours. They’re blue. A deep, deep blue, like the depths of a peaceful, still lake.”