by Jenna Kernan
Bess interrupted her carnal thoughts.
“Sebastian has set me on a little mission.” She set her teacup aside and rose.
Sebastian pushed off from his resting place and Michaela trailed them to the door.
Bess paused at the threshold and rested a hand on Michaela’s. “Don’t travel alone. You have powerful enemies and that calls for powerful friends.”
With that she swept through the door.
Sebastian followed her with his eyes, and then met Michaela’s. “You’ll be all right for a few minutes?”
She nodded, not wanting to tell him how rattled she really felt, not wanting him to see she was a coward.
“You’re safe in this house, so stay here this time—promise?”
She nodded and he gave her a smile before following Bess.
Michaela watched them through the glass windows wishing she could read lips.
“She’s in real trouble,” said Bess. “The damage is spreading.”
Now Sebastian’s spirits fell. “I checked it this morning. It looked better.”
“Because you see only the physical injury, not her aura. Hers is a pretty violet, with a touch of turquoise near her head. I’ve never seen that combination before. I’m not sure what it means. I can tell you it is unique. But the wound is emitting black energy and it is growing. Soon it will push her aura away from her body. If you don’t do something now, she will be lost.”
“Dead?”
“I’m not sure, perhaps worse than dead. I’m unfamiliar with this kind of possession.”
Bess’s powers dealt with the soul, while Sebastian’s strengths lay with the body. If she said the danger was growing, he believed her.
“I was waiting until she was stronger to take her to Kanka.”
Bess shook her head. “By the time she is physically strong, her soul will be eternally damaged. Sebastian, I know you care for her.”
He was about to deny it, and then recalled that Bess could see attraction between souls as clearly as he could smell Michaela’s arousal for him. Bess had described it once, an aura that glowed for only one soul. Could Michaela be the one for him?
He longed to ask her, but feared that she might deny any connection. She had not said Michaela cared for him. He squeezed his hands into fists, knowing his relationship with Michaela would end badly; it was inevitable. But he wished, just this once, things could be different.
“I don’t want her to die.”
Bess’s expression turned all doughy with sympathy. For once he was not angered by her show of emotion. Rather, he was grateful for her help.
Bess gripped his hand for just a moment. It was the first time she had ever touched him.
“I have her father’s name and I have seen her aura. So I will fly to the Spirit World and call to him.”
“Bess, do you actually enter the Spirit World?”
“No one can do that until death. I merely fly to the edge of their territory, the shadow land between dreams and waking. Wandering Spirits answer me. Perhaps one will know of him. I can only try.”
“How long will it take to go and return?”
“I never know. Time is funny in the Spirit plane. But I will make haste and I will find you when I return. Go quickly to Kanka.”
“Bess, do you think it possible that she is not just human?”
“Many things are possible.”
“She’s seen the whirlwind and Nagi and other ghosts. Don’t you think I could—”
Her smile vanished, replaced by a look of ice. “Stop. Humans do not know of us and that allows us to fulfill our purpose. You are attracted to her. That is not dangerous in itself. We’ve all had human lovers. But we don’t tell them what we are.”
Sebastian nodded.
Bess gave him a misty stare. “Be careful, my friend. Their lives are short and this one’s is perhaps shorter than most.”
“No.”
“There are limits even to what we can do.”
Sebastian set his jaw in stubborn determination.
Bess sighed. “I see my warnings come too late. I will hurry. Good luck, my friend.”
She walked down the stairs and out of the sight of Michaela, watching before the bank of windows. Once well away, Bess stretched her arms wide. Feathers sprouted from her spread fingers as she burst into the air, crying her farewell. He followed her progress with his eyes until she was no more than a black speck upon the blue sky, and then he could not make her out at all.
Bess was right. They must go to Kanka today.
Sebastian paused on the stairs, needing time to think before returning to Michaela.
As he walked away from the house, he thought on Bess’s warning. Halflings kept their natures secret. He knew it, and never before had he even considered telling a human. Michaela should be no different.
But somehow she was.
Sebastian kept the house in sight as he walked to the edge of the lake. Why did he even want to tell her?
True, she was the first human to ever show him compassion and the first to cause him to reveal his tender side. And she was brave throughout this ordeal. He admired her courage.
And there was no denying the heat between them. It pulsed with life whenever he got within sight of her. No, he didn’t have to see her; just the scent of her aroused him.
But to tell her what he really was would not only jeopardize the anonymity of all Inanoka, no, the danger was greater even than that. For to tell her was to kiss her goodbye. Past experience taught him that revealing his nature would drive her off. He’d made the mistake before and seen the revulsion.
So why did he have this irrational longing to bare his soul to her? He had thought the same once before and been so wrong. That was why he did not understand this stupid, wrongful impression that she was somehow different.
Perhaps she was, but not so different as to accept a Skinwalker in her bed.
Seeing him transform would mark the end for them, and he would be alone once more. He should prefer her confusion about what he was to the certain results a confession would reap. Her speculations did not venture near the truth, for such thoughts were too far outside the realm of her reality for consideration.
To humans, Skinwalkers were folklore. Few of them ever thought to question why such myths pervaded every culture. Silkies, werewolves, Skinwalkers, shape-shifters—each one based in fact.
He picked up a smooth stone and skipped it across the water, then glanced back to the house. Was she watching him through those windows?
He longed to return to her, longed for Michaela to know his secret. No, that wasn’t it exactly. He ached for something more, yearned so deeply he barely dared to bring the thought to consciousness, because to do so was to admit the impossibility of his need and to recognize that what he most wanted. He could never possess and then have to live all the rest of his days without it.
He wanted her to accept him as he was.
How would that feel? He held the sweet possibility for an instant, like sugar dissolving on his tongue.
“No,” he growled.
She would never know, because in reaching for that kind of intimacy he risked losing her forever. So, he would take a page from Nicholas’s book and enjoy what she offered, while keeping her at arm’s length. His world must stay beyond her line of vision.
This was best for them both.
But once he brought her to Kanka, he knew she would have no further use for him. The sense of loss crept through him, like a killing frost. Was that why he delayed? Was his avoidance to do what must be done more about his needs than hers? It shamed him to recognize the truth he had hidden even from himself. He delayed, not for her to grow stronger, but to put off having to let her go. Why he was delaying even now, dawdling out here instead of returning and preparing her for the journey.
He knew that he could not keep Michaela. But he was not ready to give her up.
His thoughts were broken by a distinctive yipping sound that came from the south. Se
bastian cocked his head and returned the call with a low growl. A moment later, a gray timber wolf loped into the open, his sides heaving as if he’d run all day.
His long pink tongue lolled as he stretched until his head sank low between his paws in a stately bow. Sebastian nodded in return, recognizing Nicholas’s scent. The wolf drew forward, circling Sebastian once. He lifted his head as if to howl and rose into the form of a man.
“How goes it?” asked his friend.
Sebastian formed his question, then hesitated only a moment. Nicholas was less particular about mating and might know something that he did not.
“Can you read their thoughts?”
“Whose thoughts?” asked the wolf.
Sebastian didn’t appreciate the phony show of puzzlement. “What do you mean whose? Humans.”
“Theirs or just hers?”
“Only hers.”
Nicholas glanced at him with an expression that seemed like newfound respect. In addition, all the irreverence had disappeared from his tone. “I have heard of such a connection only between soul mates.”
Sebastian was suddenly glad he was sitting down. The hope that swept through him lasted only as long as it takes to smash a glass bottle against a brick wall. He huffed. “That’s only a legend.”
“Perhaps.” Nicholas stroked the skin above his upper lip for a moment as he thought and then glanced back to Sebastian. “Are you sure she is only human, this little one you have found?”
Sebastian snaked his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know.”
He lifted his nose and inhaled the breeze. Instead of the fresh scent of pine, he noted something else on the wind, the stench of rotting meat and innards bloated and putrid. He glanced skyward, wondering why the buzzards had not found such a ripe carcass.
“Do you smell that?” he asked.
Nicholas glanced behind them. “I do.”
When Sebastian realized the stink came from the direction of his lodge, he was on his feet. She hadn’t left the house again, not after she had promised him.
His uncertainty forced him into a run.
Chapter 14
S ebastian thundered up the trail, as uncertainty ate him alive.
He saw the empty deck first. Charging on, he spotted her, standing motionless on the very bottom step, her eyes riveted on something in the underbrush. She was safe—wasn’t she?
“Michaela,” he called.
Her absorption broke at the sound of his voice and she retreated back up the stairway, pointing. He targeted the scent of death, following it to the yellow-eyed coyote. He ran at it in fury, forgetting that she watched. It scrambled clear of his swinging arm, but he struck the young pine beside it, tearing it in half a foot from the base. The coyote tucked its tail and ran into the underbrush, but Sebastian heard it stop at a safe distance. It had not gone far.
He vacillated between continuing to charge and returning to protect Michaela. The pull of the woman won over his wrath and he halted.
Sebastian was halfway up the stairs before he realized that she was retreating from him. Why did she look at him like that, with eyes round and white?
“Michaela?”
He glanced back, checking for threats, and instead saw the ragged stump of the ruined pine. He had attacked the coyote at full speed, moving much faster than a man could run.
Damn, he was not good at concealment. It was one of a hundred reasons he lived alone.
He looked at her, shamed by the fear he now saw reflected on her face.
“Michaela.” He reached out. “Are you all right?”
She shook her head in answer. “You broke that tree like a swizzle stick. How—how?”
“I’m stronger than I look.” Change the subject. “You stayed on the porch.”
She nodded, but her eyes pinned him warily as her ears drew back almost imperceptibly. He smelled the fear on the light sheen of sweat now forming on her flushed skin.
She pointed. “There are two now.”
He turned around, trying to spot the other coyote.
“In the tree.”
He did not see the thing at first, but then homed in on the steady stare of the Cooper’s hawk. He would not have known it was possessed.
“Are you certain?”
“She murdered her children. Drowned them in a bathtub. The older one was three days from his second birthday.”
It was his turn to stare at her. “She told you that?”
“Her thoughts. She wants to please Nagi. She wants to stay in this world, even as a hawk.”
“Preferable to the Circle.” He realized now that Nagi could send a hundred ghosts at a time, a thousand.
“We need to get you to Kanka.”
“The Sorceress?”
“You know of her?”
“Only from stories my mother told.” Her bottom lip trembled. “I never thought she was real, too.”
The sight of her about to weep caused his insides to constrict as her pain became his pain. He stepped closer to bring her into the safety of his arms.
But she backed away, her wary eyes upon him. What was she thinking? He needed to touch her to know.
“I’m afraid,” she whispered.
He opened his arms to her. “Then let me comfort you.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m afraid of you, most of all.”
His arms fell to his sides. Last night she had given herself to him—trusted him in a way he did not know a woman could trust a man. It had been the happiest moment of his life. But now she had seen behind his mask. He was to her what he had been to all humans—a threat.
He straightened. “We must leave this place. Gather up your clothing.”
“They’re still wet.”
“We’ll take them.” He ushered her inside and stuffed her jeans, shirt, socks, boots and undergarments into a knapsack that he slipped over one shoulder.
Together they left the house, to find a patch of open ground. He turned his attention on Michaela.
“Ready?”
He did not need to touch her to know her mind. Her wide eyes and accelerated breathing showed her rising panic. “I can’t breathe past the wind.”
“You just are not accustomed to it. You must try.”
“Can’t we go some other way, something with a layover, maybe?”
He was sorry to disappoint her, even in this. “There is water and we must make haste.”
“But in a few days I might be stronger.”
“We go now.” He wondered if he should tell her the rest. It was her life, after all, but perhaps it was best for her not to know that the wound was now attacking her soul. He wondered how much damage had been wrought already.
He held her in his arms, protecting her from the winds. At the contact he read her turmoil, her desire to escape him and even the flutter of excitement as some small portion of her mind recalled their lovemaking.
He lifted one arm, calling the whirlwind. First came the cry of the Thunderbirds as the dark clouds rolled in from the west.
Sebastian’s powerful arms gripped her, and Michaela glanced up for reassurance against her growing terror.
“Take a deep breath now and remember to breathe as we travel. You can do it.”
Michaela inhaled deeply as the storm swirled above them. The wind battered her, again trying to tear her from the safety of his arms. But she clung as they rose into the sky, and this time she opened her eyes.
Dark shapes swirled and swooped through the billowing clouds, coming nearer, but still too far for her to make out what they were through the billowing storm. All about them lightning flashed and thunder boomed. Her lungs began to ache until she grew dizzy with the effort of containing the air.
She released her breath only to have it ripped away. She battled to draw another, but she could not.
The air smelled strongly of lightning and was as cold as a January blizzard, freezing her lips and mouth. She trembled in his arms as she wre
stled for air, panic seizing her as spots danced before her eyes. Was this the blackness of the storm or her mind losing consciousness?
He tightened his grip, and she looked up to see him trying to speak, but any sound was eaten by the terrible wind. It roared and screamed like a locomotive barreling past her.
She read his lips.
Breathe.
She tried. The cold air frosted her throat but some reached her starved lungs. The wind was too fast, too cold. She was losing herself to the tingling darkness.
Her teeth chattered and her body ached. Gradually, awareness returned. She blinked open her eyes.
Sebastian held her in his arms, staring down with worried eyes.
“Michaela? Have you returned to me?”
She looped her arms around his neck and pressed her face into the warm folds of his heavy fur cloak.
The roaring wind had ceased. Something cold touched her face. She glanced up. It was August, yet a light snow fell. Where were they?
“Have we reached her?” she asked.
“Not yet. I brought us to earth when you went limp. I need to make one more trip of similar length. Are you ready?”
She shook her head, ashamed by her weakness. “I am still dizzy.”
He sat with her in the light dusting of snow cradling her beneath his cloak like a child, the heat of his body keeping her warm.
She glanced around, at the tall narrow pines, their thin, spindly forms an indication of the harshness of this place. The clouds hung low, so she could see nothing beyond the silent sentries of black spruce.
“Where are we?”
“Near the Arctic Circle. A wild place in the Brooks Range.”
He did not even shiver from the cold, yet he wore only a thin flannel shirt and the hulking brown cloak. She added it to the growing list of things that told how unnatural he was. Whatever he was, he had done nothing but try to protect her. Even without understanding his true nature, she found she trusted him and wished he could trust her. What was the secret that he so feared would turn her from him?