by Nina Croft
“What are you hiding?” Darla asked.
A sharp pain blasted her in the brain. Obviously, Darla hadn’t tried very hard up to now. A hot poker probed Keira’s mind, dropping her to her knees as the agony threatened to overwhelm her. She had to keep up the wall. She couldn’t let Darla see the wolves inside her head.
“Let me in,” Darla murmured. “And I’ll stop.”
Blood trickled from her nostrils as the pain kept up, unrelenting. Keira knew she should shift, but her wolf cowered somewhere deep inside her, and she didn’t know if she had the power to call her. Darkness encroached on her mind, blotting out the light until all that remained was a pinprick. She knew if that went out she would be dead, and she fought to concentrate on the tiny spot. She collapsed to the ground on all fours, clumsy in the handcuffs, her fingernails digging into the soft soil.
Would Connor arrive only to find her already dead?
“Shit,” Darla growled. “Stop being so fucking stubborn.”
Then the night exploded around her. Guns and growls filled the air.
And the pain cut off abruptly.
Keira pushed herself up. Next to her, a huge black wolf crouched on top of Darla, its teeth close to her throat.
“Connor, don’t kill her,” Keira said.
The wolf backed away a little but kept one front paw resting on Darla’s chest. Blood oozed from a wound at her shoulder, but she managed to turn her head to stare into Keira’s eyes.
“Tell him to let me up or I’ll burn your brain out,” Darla snarled, her voice hoarse with pain.
Agony flooded Keira again. But this time she knew how it was done; she’d seen into Darla’s mind, and she countered with a blast from her own.
Darla screamed and rolled onto her side away from her and the pain in Keira’s head dimmed. The power pouring from her swelled and grew until Darla’s screams shrank to whimpers and then nothing.
“Keira, it’s okay, you can stop. She’s unconscious.” Hard hands gripped her shoulders, pulled her to her feet, and held her close. “Come on, stop. You don’t want to kill her. She’s your sister.”
She forced the power back into her own mind and slammed the door, breathing hard as she stared down at the woman on the ground.
“Is she alive?”
Connor released her, crouched down and touched his hand to Darla’s throat. “Just. But I bit her—she’ll be a wolf if she survives.”
“Not good.” Darla as a werewolf was something she really didn’t want to think about right now.
Connor straightened and turned back to her. He was naked and Keira had never seen anything so beautiful in her life. He held out a hand and she slid her palm into his and allowed him to pull her close.
“I thought I was too late,” he whispered the words against her skin. “I thought she’d killed you.”
His voice was rough with remembered panic. She buried her head in his chest and reveled in the knowledge they were both alive and—for the moment—safe. But who knew how long that would last. Raising her head, she stared into his dark eyes. She needed to say this just in case…
“I love you, Connor.”
He dropped a too brief kiss on her lips. “I love you too. Now, let’s get out of here.”
Letting her go, he turned back to Darla, rummaging in her pockets and producing a small silver key. He un-cuffed Keira and rubbed her wrists. “Are you okay?” Reaching up, he wiped her face with his finger. “You’re bleeding.”
Her head ached a little but happiness was bubbling inside her. “I’m alive. Right now, that’s way more than enough. How about you?”
“I’m okay as well. More than okay. Fantastic.”
Keira glanced around. The guards were all down. Dead she presumed. And there were wolves everywhere. Some paced, some sat on their haunches. All were focused on Connor. “Who are they?”
He followed her gaze. “They’re my pack.”
She heard the pride and acceptance in his voice. At last, Connor knew who and what he was.
“I’ve been thinking,” Connor said. “How would you feel about coming back here to live? I don’t mean in the keep. But we’d find somewhere close to the moors.”
“I thought you hated the moors,” she said but hope grew inside her. Those days and nights in the cell had made her realize how much she loved the wildness of Rannoch Moor.
He wrapped his arms around her and turned her so they faced to the east. Dawn was coming, the sun rising on a new day, streaking the sky with color, casting a warm, almost welcoming glow over the desolate moors.
“Let’s just say, it’s growing on me. In fact, I think it might be a bloody good place to live.”
Epilogue
“So what do we do with her?” Sebastian murmured to the room in general.
Connor stared at the woman on the monitor and felt a rush of hatred. She had come so close to killing Keira. The memory still had the power to make his heart skip a beat.
At the same time, she looked so like her twin he couldn’t completely separate his feelings.
How could two sisters be so different?
What had been done to Darla to make her as she was?
He’d studied genetics, but he also knew people were way more complicated than a few strands of DNA. As much nurture went into the forging a character as nature, and he reckoned Darla hadn’t had much nurturing in her life. All the same, he found it hard to feel sorry for her.
Darla was awake but lay on the narrow cot in the room they had built for Keira, staring straight up at the ceiling, her face expressionless. She’d recovered from Connor’s bite, now her wolf lay dormant inside her.
“Leave her here for now,” Jack said. “We’ll take care of her.”
“Nothing like the company of vampires to make you consider the error of your ways,” Sebastian said dryly. “Just make sure none of them screw her. I don’t want her turning werewolf until we’ve decided what to do with her.” He turned to Connor. “So what do you plan?”
“We’re going back to Rannoch Moor. Apparently, everything that belonged to Logan is mine, including the house and the pack. And they’re a mess.” He wanted to ask Sebastian’s help. He’d been in denial so long, he knew next to nothing about how a healthy pack should run, and he wanted to know. There were people relying on him now.
Anya nudged Sebastian in the side and he grinned. “I have to ask—do you want some company? Anya wants to spend some time with Keira—”
“And us,” Tasha interrupted. “We want to come as well. Just for a little while.”
That meant the vampire. He’d have to check the house had a basement. But the thought didn’t upset him.
“And we would like to go through the notebooks with Keira,” Jack said. “There must be names in there that will give us a lead on the Agency.”
Connor realized that while he might be moving on to a new life, these people would always be his family, willing to answer if he called.
He had a future.
Keira’s hand slipped into his and she squeezed. They had a future. One he’d never dreamed possible at the start of all this. And that was all due to the woman at his side. He pulled her closer.
Mine
The word echoed through his mind. His wolf approved.
The End
About the Author
Nina Croft grew up in the north of England. After training as an accountant, she spent four years working as a volunteer in Zambia, which left her with a love of the sun and a dislike of 9-5 work. She then spent a number of years mixing travel (whenever possible) with work (whenever necessary) but has now settled down to a life of writing and picking almonds on a remote farm in the mountains of southern Spain. Nina’s writing mixes romance with elements of the paranormal and science fiction.
http://www.ninacroft.com
Books by Nina Croft:
Sisters of the Moon series
Bound to Night
Bound to Moonlight
Bound to Secrets
Break Out
Deadly Pursuit
Laws of Segregation
Chosen
The Calling
Enchantment
Exiled
Harlequin Nocturne Bites
The Prophecy
The Darkness
Contemporary
Blackmailed by the Italian Billionaire