by Dawn, Autumn
Lemming growled and pressed so tightly against her that she nearly tripped as the eyes evolved into wolves with eerie, alien faces.
Slowly she reached for the 357 Smith and Wesson revolver strapped to her hip. She’d brought the thing as a bear deterrent, but there was no reason it couldn’t take down a wolf.
The fur on the creature directly in front of her hackled and it snarled a warning that made her own hair stand on end. Lemming responded with a vicious bark that made her jump.
“Touch it and they’ll rip your throat out,” a man’s voice said mildly. It came from the dark, behind the wolves.
Jasmine emitted a strangled yell. Her nerves were on the crawl as she thought of someone watching her. She searched the darkness, but couldn’t see beyond the animals. “Who’s there?”
As if in a nightmare, a man stepped away from the camouflage of dark trees. He stood less than ten feet from her and seemed to study her with faint distaste. Maybe she didn’t measure up to his twisted fantasies. Maybe he liked tall girls, like Wiley. What were the odds he knew where she was?
Her jaw hardened. She itched to draw and cock the gun, but the slight movement of her hand brought the snarling beast before her a step closer.
“Call off your dogs,” she demanded hoarsely. All the moisture that should have been in her mouth decided to run down her back instead. Who’d turned up the heat?
“Give up your weapon,” the stranger ordered, and his words were brushed with an odd accent. “They don’t trust you.”
“The feeling is mutual, pal, but I’m not doing it. They’ll eat me alive if I do.” She’d watched TV. She knew what happened to the idiots who dropped the gun.
He glanced at the creatures. “Your choice.”
Long moments passed while she held his gaze. Sweat plastered the hair under her hat to her scalp. For all she knew this guy had kidnapped Wiley and was keeping her somewhere nearby…if she was still alive.
It was that thought more than anything that made her give in. Swearing one of Wiley’s favorite words, she gave a curt nod. Careful not to make any sudden moves that might set the wolves off, she unfastened the safety strap of the holster and eased the gun out. Surprisingly, she wasn’t snarled at until she hesitated at the last moment.
“You’ll never kill them all,” the stranger said with a trace of impatience.
Reluctantly, she tossed down the gun.
While she’d been stalling, the heat had turned killer. That was one heck of Chinook blowing, or he’d done something to cause it. There was a faint shimmer in the night behind him, an odd pressure in the air. She’d swear she smelled ozone.
Fearful she’d die of heatstroke at any moment, she yanked off her hat, then unzipped her heavy coat and shrugged it off. If she had to die, at least it wouldn’t be from the sudden thaw.
She glanced at the wolves, but they were no longer snarling. In fact, the one she thought of as the leader had backed off. He kept his eyes on her while the others wove in and out of the huge trees.
Huge trees?
Jasmine paused in the act of stripping off her Norwegian sweater, all the fine hairs on her body standing on end. Huge trees? There were no trees like that in Alaska. But there they were, gleaming in the light of the triple moons….
For a bad moment Jasmine’s world tilted, threatening the first faint of her life. Just in time, her innate good sense kicked in. Now was not the time for wilting.
As she stared, ferns sprang from the undergrowth and the trees moved closer, as the shimmer behind the stranger seemed to grow, marching forward as if swallowing her world whole. She hadn’t moved, but that shimmer behind him, that otherworldly window, had grown to encompass them both. She was afraid to look behind her, afraid to see it consume all the earth.
First things first. The heat was humid and tropical, murderous to blood thickened by a cold climate, and she was overdressed. With a deep breath to calm her jangled nerves, she sent the man a defiant look and pulled off the bulky sweater, tugging the black T-shirt underneath to keep it from riding up. Then she just stood there in the redwood-scented air and tried to make sense of the moment. Sweat rolled down her back, and she wished she could ditch her wool socks and the long underwear. Her feet were sweltering in her heavy boots.
The man shifted restlessly. “Come,” he said, melting into the trees before she had a chance to argue.
“Wait!” she called, but he ignored her. She hesitated, wondering if she could possibly retrieve the small flashlight inside her jacket. No way did she want to go blindly charging off through the night with a spooky stranger without at least being able to see what he was doing. She bent a little, and the lead wolf snarled. “Easy, fella, I just need to get a light.” His lips pulled even farther back and saliva flecked his muzzle. The other wolves took their cue from the pack master and stalked closer, showing hundreds of teeth.
Stumbling through the darkness following a possibly vicious stranger suddenly held appeal. She picked up her feet and hurried after the man before she found out if the pack had a taste for sweaty hikers.
Besides, who knew what else might come creeping out of the brush?
There might have been three moons in the sky, but none of them were full, and she’d never had the best night vision. The second time she nearly went sprawling while jogging after the stranger, she decided to call a halt. If she didn’t slow down one of the branches hitting her in the face was going to put out an eye, and then where would she be? Besides, Lemming could always track him.
The wolf things had other ideas.
“Look,” she tried to explain to one of the creatures that inched slowly closer, growling, while Lemming nearly backed up her leg, “I’m trying, but I can’t see where I’m going. Just give me a minute, okay?”
A hand shot out of the dark and gripped her upper arm, making her shriek.
“This way.”
She gasped for breath, trying to calm her frantic heart while the stranger hauled her through the woods. “Did you have to do that?” she demanded, but he didn’t answer and didn’t slow down. She tried again. “Where are we going?” Still no answer. “You’re a real jerk, you know that?”
His grip on her arm tightened and he picked up speed. “I will return you to your place come morning.”
She dug in her heels and threw every ounce of her weight into it, jolting them to a stop. No way, pal. She didn’t know what he planned, but when a strange man without an ounce of courtesy told her he was going to keep her for the night, she panicked.
As he spun to face her, she shot her fist into his nose, snapping his head back, then grabbed his shirt and rammed her knee into his groin with all her strength.
Or tried to.
The next moment he was holding her on her toes with two frighteningly controlled hands around her biceps.
His voice, when it came, was rough with menace. “You think to deny me anything?” His body was very tense, as if he longed to either choke the life from her or hurl her from him. Even so, she tried to kick him. Swearing, he shook her, making Lemming snarl. The stranger snapped something in a language she didn’t know and Lemming subsided with a whine.
His eyes bore into hers. “You’re fortunate you are a woman, or I would snap your neck and have done with it.” As suddenly as he’d grabbed her, he released her, causing her to stumble. “You go back come morning.”
Jasmine trembled, not daring to move for a long, sick moment. Never before had she felt so threatened by a man, so completely aware of her inferior size and puny strength. He had her alone, completely at his mercy, and if he decided to hurt her there was nothing she could do to stop him.
Lemming whined and slid up to her, seeking reassurance, and in that seeking, gave Jasmine a measure of strength. She wasn’t a coward, and she was smart. There had to be a way out of this. Wiley needed her.
CHAPTER 2
He was overreacting.
Keilor watched her tremble, chiding himself. The girl was young and scared, bare
ly even a woman by the looks of her, and he was a stranger who deliberately frightened her. Of course she would lash out. As he watched the girl gather her courage, he remembered that his cousin considered her a friend. He didn’t have to like it, but he could refrain from terrorizing her.
He wiped the blood from his battered nose and his anger flared again. Blight that! He would if she would.
Nevertheless, his touch was gentler and his pace slower as he guided her through the darkness. Remorse stabbed him when she shrank a little at his touch. He ruthlessly repressed it. They didn’t want her to like it here, nor to feel welcome, no matter what Rihlia thought. She would come to see the wisdom of remaining separate from the human world soon enough. If he and Jayems had their way, the girl would be going back this instant. Only Rihlia’s need to reassure this girl that she was fine stayed their hands.
The memory of her stripping off her heavy clothes strobed through his mind, provoking a flash of heat. She glanced at him in surprise and a little fear when his grip tightened on her arm. He forced it to relax.
It was only the unexpectedness of it that had caused his body to react, he reassured himself. He hadn’t expected the girl to start stripping. It hadn’t helped to discover that her outer wrappings had concealed an exotically pretty woman—girl, he corrected himself firmly—underneath. His cousin had claimed they were of an age, but this female was barely up to his chest, with a youthful face, besides.
Not that it mattered what she looked like; the girl was going back as soon as Rihlia said goodbye. It was time for his cousin to rediscover her real family.
He ducked to avoid a branch, thinking how fortunate they’d been to find the long lost Rihlia at one of the rare gates between worlds. He shook his head in amazement. After years of fruitless searching, only to discover the child she’d been had crossed worlds! But now she was home and it was time for her to take her rightful place among her people and her family.
He glanced at the dark haired girl in irritation, the night no barrier to his keen vision. What Rihlia didn’t need was reminders of the past weighing her down while she tried to readjust to her home world. Even if they were sweetly curved and just the right height to—
“I cannot see what she could possibly want with you,” he burst out in frustration.
The girl’s head snapped up and she stopped. “She? Are you talking about Wiley?”
“Her name is Rihlia,” he corrected stiffly, stopping as well. He was annoyed at his outburst. It wasn’t like him to be this edgy around a woman; even a beautiful woman; especially a beautiful woman, and he didn’t like it.
“She’s my age, very dark hair, looks Asian?”
“I know who she is,” he said coolly, “And her name is Rihlia.”
Her eyes snapped fire as she jerked her arm away, fear apparently forgotten. Really, for such a tiny creature, she was full of passion. Had she been anyone else, he would have relished that knowledge; but she wasn’t staying.
“Her name is Wiley, you misbegotten—” she broke off and took a deep breath. “I need to see her.”
“Then come.” He took her arm again and set off. The sooner this chore was accomplished, the better. He had more important matters to attend to.
Apparently she wasn’t content to travel in silence, for she said, “What is this place?”
“The Dark Lands,” he answered shortly, hoping she’d be quiet. He glanced off into the trees and toyed with the idea of having the volti show themselves again to frighten her speechless, but refrained.
“Why is it called that?”
“To frighten off unwanted humans?” he suggested with exasperation. Were all humans this bothersome, or was it just her? She tripped over a plainly visible rock in the path and swore, forcing him to steady her yet again. He added clumsy and unobservant to the list of things he didn’t like about her.
“What do you mean, ‘humans’?” she asked suspiciously.
“What you are, and what I am not. What Rihlia is not,” he informed her with satisfaction. That ought help drive her off. Humans were notoriously fearful of anyone alien, even their own kind. She would be no different.
“Wiley is as human as I am,” she gritted out. “I ought to know. We were raised in the same orphanage.”
The remembrance of how his cousin had been kept in a sterile home for abandoned and orphaned children enraged him anew. “She was raised there, but she wasn’t born there. Your kind put her there.”
“Yeah? Well, she wouldn’t have been there if your kind hadn’t lost her,” she snapped back.
He grabbed her arm and jerked her to him, angry on such a deep level that he could barely verbalize his emotion. “You have no idea what you are saying, creature. Beware lest you test my mercy,” he warned her softly, almost relishing her trembling. Hatred of humans was old and instinctive. Though he could not have named all his reasons, he wanted this one to fear him. He wanted her to leave.
There was something wrong about her.
Before he could identify what his instincts told him, his nose caught her scent, bringing with it a desire that flooded his senses in an entirely alien way. For a moment his mind stalled, and the closest he could come to breaking away was to shift his hand down her arm. Spellbound, the only thing that he wanted in that moment was to let his body speak to her in a language entirely its own.
Lightning traveled up his arms from her frozen body and he let go with a gasp. “Charmer!” he hissed, and gripped the hilt of his blade. It was all he could do not to kill her on the spot. Of all the woman in the world Rihlia had to call friend, why one of them, one of the few guaranteed to be trouble to the males of his kind?
“What?” She looked confused. Could she be ignorant of her curse? It would not save her. He had sworn not to harm her, but it would not stop the others. They would kill her. A charmer was a temptress, a siren, poison.
He needed to get rid of her, fast.
He reached out to tow her along again, thought better of it, and pointed with an unsteady hand. “There is the trail. Follow it.” He thought of prodding her along with his blade for good measure, but perhaps that was going too far. After all, it wasn’t as if she’d leap on him and attempt a seduction right there.
Probably.
Her head turned to follow his pointing finger and she squinted in bewilderment. “Where?”
“Right there,” he repeated, wondering what was wrong with her. Could she really be this helpless in the dark?
The sultry wind ruffled her limp hair as she gave a weary sigh. “Look, I can’t see a thing out here, ok? I can barely see you, so if you plan on getting where we’re going tonight, you’ll have to lead the way.”
It was not worth arguing. The sooner begun… He started walking—not so fast that she couldn’t see him, but far enough ahead to ensure zero contact. One couldn’t be too careful with a charmer.
For thousands of years, her kind had been used by humans to lure and trap the men of the Haunt. The best of their warriors had been enticed by the unique, bewitching scent of the charmer and killed by their masters until there were few of them left. That combined with the unrelenting fear and hatred of humans had driven his kind to seek their own world, free of the hunters.
And now one of them was here.
Jayems would be furious.
As they approached the forest entrance to the hollowed volcanic mountain that served as the Haunt fortress, he kept a wary eye on the female, remembering Rihlia’s unfortunate reaction to her first sight of the warrior Haunt. This girl was no different. The moment she saw the shadowy guards she stumbled back with a gasp, which was at least an improvement over the ear-shattering shriek he’d been braced for. Reaching back, he grabbed a fistful of her shirt and dragged her through the door. Once inside, he propelled her down the hallway with a business-like hand at her back.
“Wh-what…”
Badly shaken, she could barely get the words out. At least she wasn’t hysterical. It had taken much longer to calm Rihli
a down enough to make her believe the Haunt were not a danger to her. But then, she belonged to this world.
He would make no such assurances to this human.
“Wait here,” he told the girl sternly, pointing to the cushioned bench set in the alcove opposite his lord’s rooms. She sank limply onto the bench, obeying him without a murmur, but it wasn’t him she was looking at. He turned to the pair of Haunt guards flanking the massive double doors and eyed them wryly. She was unlikely to attempt any mischief while under their baleful stare, but just to be sure…
“Eat her if she moves,” he ordered, and watched with satisfaction as her eyes widened. Hiding his grin at the guards’ puzzled glances, he entered the room.
“She is here,” he reported, stepping into the large room.
Jayems looked up quickly from where he sat at his desk of polished, dark wood. The heavy ledger he’d been reading closed with a muffled thud, but his boots remained crossed on the desktop as he waited for more details.
Rihlia wasn’t nearly as calm. She leapt off the couch where she’d been sitting and demanded breathlessly, “Where?” Her long dark hair had been braided with pearls and topaz, and someone had gotten her into a white silk robe. He wondered who’d worked the miracle. The last time he’d seen her she’ll still been stubbornly clinging to her old clothes.
Keilor smiled slightly, amused. For all she looked like a princess, she was as bright-eyed and eager as a much younger girl. It was easy to see in her the child she’d been.
Grimness replaced his amusement as he recalled her friend. “There’s a problem,” he informed his lord darkly. “She’s a charmer.”
Jayems’ feet uncrossed, dropping with unnerving deliberation to the floor. He slammed his palms down on the desk and leaned forward. “A what?”
Keilor shook his head slowly. “She could be nothing else. I’m certain of it.”
Jayems swore and got to his feet, pacing with barely controlled anger.
His reluctant betrothed looked between them in angry confusion. “What’s the matter? You told me she could go home.”