by Donna Grant
The day was bright and warm, and the foothills were alive with animals. Several times as they walked, Cristian spotted deer, squirrels, and birds. Four hours later, he halted and looked around him.
“What is it?” Jules asked in a soft voice as she came to stand beside him.
An uneasy feeling came over him, a feeling that only someone such as himself could understand. “Do you hear that?” he whispered.
She glanced at him then looked around the forest. “Yes, I hear nothing. Absolutely nothing. What happened to all the animals?”
“I don’t know.” Cristian’s instincts came alive. His heightened hearing told him there was some type of creature out there, but what exactly, he didn’t know.
Then he remembered Jules had said her father had written to her about his find. By the look of fear in her hired men, Cristian decided to wait before he asked her about it. The last thing he wanted was for her men to leave, because the more members of their party, the better.
It was entirely too easy for the creature to capture two people traveling alone than it was to take them from a fairly large group.
“This isn’t natural,” one of the men said in Romanian.
Jules looked over her shoulder at him, then turned to Cristian. “What did he say?”
Cristian looked down into her sherry eyes to see the uneasiness and fear lurking in her depths. Strands of dark hair hung about her face, making her look more irresistible than ever.
He inwardly shook himself. She put her trust in him, and he wouldn’t betray her now, not when there was evil so close.
“He said it isn’t natural,” Cristian finally answered.
She blew out a nervous breath and shook her head. “No, it isn’t. Can we leave?”
As she started forward, Cristian reached out and grasped her arm. She turned to him, her brow furrowed in worry. “Jules, it would be a lot safer for you back in Brasov.”
“I know.” She attempted a smile and failed. “But my father is all I have. I can’t leave until I know where he is. He may be injured and in need of help.”
Cristian released her reluctantly. He’d liked the feel of her softness, her heat. Her nearness. “I don’t know what’s out there.” He leaned in to whisper so the men couldn’t hear him.
“Neither do I, and if my father was searching for it, I can guarantee it’s not something we want to encounter.”
He longed to touch her again, to gather her close and inhale her soft fragrance of mint and lilacs. “Stay close to me,” he warned.
She nodded and fell in step behind him as he moved deeper into the eerie mountains. There wasn’t a need for him to carry a weapon, not when he was a weapon himself. But he never thought to make sure Jules had one. Though, if she ever saw what he really was, she might decide to use the weapon on him instead.
And that wasn’t a chance he could take.
He might not be human, but he wasn’t evil. Most people didn’t see the difference, and he didn’t have time to figure out if Jules was like most people.
The deeper into the mountains they went, the more whispers he heard from the men. Their fear ran in a thick, swift current around them, and he wasn’t surprised when one of them turned around and headed back down the mountain without a word to anyone.
Cristian hurried after him and tried to tell him it was safer to stay in a group, but the man refused to listen. The others seemed to debate whether they would continue on with him and Jules or go with their friend.
“I’ve only paid you half the money,” Jules reminded the five remaining men. “If you leave now, I won’t pay you another penny.”
That made their decision. For the moment. Cristian knew that frightened men would let their fear rule them sooner or later. There would come a time when nothing he or Jules said could convince them to stay.
He turned back the mountain and she walked beside him. “Should I let them go?”
“No. We need them.”
She bit her lip. “They’re frightened, Cristian. They know something is out there.”
“So do you, but you aren’t running back to the village.”
She smiled wryly and looked up at him through her lashes. “True, but I’m an Englishwoman.”
Cristian found himself chuckling at her response. “You might not be so brave once that thing out there finds us.”
“I have you to be brave for me.”
He glanced at her, surprised at her words. They warmed him deep in his chest. It was an emotion he both craved and feared. “You don’t even know me.”
“I’m a good judge of character. I’ve learned to be since my father never was. He gets buried in his work and would forget to eat if I didn’t set a plate in front of him.”
“So, without him you don’t feel needed.”
She gave an unladylike snort. “Lest you forget, you don’t know me either. I won’t deny, however, that I do feel needed with my father, but that isn’t why I’m looking for him. He gave me stability when my world was knocked off kilter. He was the lone person who stood beside me when others turned their backs. What kind of daughter would I be if I didn’t look for my father?”
He didn’t have an answer for her. “You seem the type of woman who does what she wants, regardless of society’s rules. I gather that’s what made others turn their backs on you?”
She lifted a shoulder in a nonchalant shrug. “It doesn’t matter now.”
But he could see that it still affected her in more ways than she realized. He admired her strength and courage in an age where women were dictated to by society. She was a rare gem, one that he was surprised hadn’t been snatched up by a man already.
If he was in the market for a wife, Cristian admitted that he would fix his gaze on her. There was something about Jules Little that made his blood heat and his cock thicken with raw need and wild longing.
But he wasn’t looking for a wife.
His parents had been lucky when they’d found each other, but it had been a chance meeting. In all his thirty-two years, Cristian had never found a woman that wouldn’t run screaming from him once she learned what he truly was.
* * * *
It wasn’t until the sun lowered in the sky that the men began to grumble again, not that Cristian could blame them. The higher they had climbed on the mountain, the less and less animals they had seen. To make matters worse, he had lost his parents’ trail.
All in all, it wasn’t a good sign. If he was honest with himself, he’d make Jules return to the village – even if he had to carry her there himself.
At midnight, Cristian stood to take his watch. He paused beside Jules to see her on her side facing the fire. The need to touch her was so great, he fisted his hands and remained still.
Once he was in control, he drew in a deep breath and stepped out of the firelight. He blended into the darkness, searching for a sign that the evil was near. There was no doubt it was out there watching them, waiting for a chance to strike.
The farther up the mountain they climbed, the deeper into its territory they walked. But Cristian had no other choice. He had to find his parents, and their trail led this way. Although deep down, he knew they would have returned had they been able.
Whatever had gotten them, he intended to make it pay.
* * * *
Jules woke after a restless night of hearing what she was certain had been growls of something that wasn’t an animal. So, when she turned over to find Cristian watching her with solemn green eyes, she quickly looked around their small camp and noticed they were alone.
Fear’s icy fingers clawed at her chest, turning her blood cold.
“They’re gone,” he said.
Jules looked into his eyes, his calm demeanor helping to soothe her ragged nerves. With her heart pounding in her chest, all she could do was thank God Cristian hadn’t left with the others.
She blew out a breath as she sat up. “What now?”
“I should take you back to the village,” he said.
Jules�
� temper immediately rose, pushing aside her fear. “I paid you quite handsomely to help me find my father.”
He quirked a dark brow. “I said I should, I never said that’s what I’d do.” His Romanian accent thickened with his anger.
Jules loved his accent as much as she loved to look at him. She tucked a strand of hair that she had loosed from her braid the night before behind her ear and gazed into the dying embers of the fire.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
His eyes narrowed before he looked away. “My parents came up here two weeks ago and never returned.”
“You think whatever is out there got them?”
He shrugged indifferently, but it was telling. Jules pretended a lack of interest as she ran her fingers through the thick mass of hair.
His sharp gaze moved to her. “You said your father wrote you. Did he say what the creature was?”
Jules hesitated. How much to tell him? Most thought her father a freak or completely insane for what he did, but she had seen enough to know there were unexplained events and beings out in the world.
She decided since Cristian hadn’t left with the others, nor refused to take her onto the mountain, that he deserved to know what her father had discovered.
“There are some people who believe in ghosts and demons,” she said as she gathered her hair in her hands and began plaiting it. “They spend their days and nights tracking these beings. Upon occasion they even remove them from people’s homes.”
“You’ve seen this?” he asked.
Jules chuckled. “Oh, yes, I’m afraid I have.”
“Does it frighten you?”
“Of course, but my father taught me how to fight them and protect myself.”
He nodded absently. “He came out here looking for a ghost?”
“No,” she admitted. “He came to Romania because there were rumors of a supernatural being in these mountains.”
He sighed and all but rolled his eyes. “You aren’t talking about vampires, are you?”
She held back her laughter. “No, not vampires, although the lore your country has on those creatures is amazing.”
“I know,” he said with a frown. “So, what was your father after?”
She finished braiding her hair and turned her gaze to him. “There is a small community of professors and others who have seen creatures not quite human. My father has chronicled many such findings, and what prompted the surprise trip to Romania was a creature that has never been seen, a creature that many thought only myth.”
“Until now,” he finished.
“Exactly.” She couldn’t hold back her excitement. Her father had found something astonishing, and if he wasn’t missing, she wouldn’t be holding back her enthusiasm.
“What kind of creature?”
Jules sighed and prayed Cristian didn’t bolt once she told him. That is, if he knew what it was. “It’s called a Wendigo.”
He didn’t bolt, but he did sit straighter, his eyes intense as he stared at her. “Are you sure?”
“That’s what my father wrote in his letters. He said he was close to discovering for certain, but he was also terrified because everything he’d found and seen proved the creature is here.”
Cristian rose to his feet and began to pace in front of her. His normally fluid body was tense, his jaw clenched. “If it’s a Wendigo, you shouldn’t be here.”
“I’m not going back.” The dread in his green eyes had nearly done her in. Not only did he know exactly what a Wendigo was, he knew how dangerous it was.
He stopped pacing and glared at her. “You don’t understand, Jules.”
“I most certainly do,” she said as she climbed to her feet. “I may very well die on this mountain, but it’s a price I’m willing to pay to find my father.”
He raked a hand through his hair in frustration. “We need to get moving.”
She kicked dirt on the dying embers and gathered up her things. When she straightened, Cristian was waiting for her.
“Do you have a weapon?”
She touched her bag. “I have a pistol, but if it’s a Wendigo, it won’t do much good.”
“I’d rather know you have some kind of weapon,” he said and turned away from her.
Jules hurried to catch up with him, while her fear settled around her stomach like an iron manacle. “And what about you? Do you have a weapon?”
“Yes.”
She waited for him to say more, but only silence met her glare. “What kind of weapon?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It most certainly does. It’s just us versus this evil. My weapon won’t be much good, if any at all. Will yours?”
“Yes.”
Jules nearly growled, she was so irritated with his one-word answers. “Cristian-”
He suddenly stopped and faced her. “I swear to you, Jules, I’ll protect you.”
She didn’t move as he walked away. His words penetrated her mind and helped to put a lid on her growing terror. But she had seen something in his eyes, something that made her pause. She couldn’t shake the feeling that Cristian was more than just a man looking for his parents.
He seemed more like a man on a hunt.
Chapter Four
They spent another full day moving as quickly as they could up the mountain. Several times Cristian had to make himself slow down so Jules could catch up with him, but never once had she complained.
After he had vowed to protect her, she had closed herself off to him. It bothered him more than he had wanted to admit. As he listened to her talk about her father’s work, he began to hope she might understand what he was, understand that he wasn’t evil.
It was a hope he should never have felt, for now that she had distanced herself, he felt her loss keenly. How one small woman, after only a few days, had come to mean so much to him, he didn’t know.
Maybe it was because they each searched for someone. Maybe it was because the Wendigo had taken from both of them. Maybe it was because she put her complete trust and faith in him to keep her safe, but whatever it was, he had felt a connection.
Cristian didn’t want to sense that connection, but it was there – intense, powerful. Tangible.
There was no getting away from it. He knew because he’d tried.
He glanced over his shoulder to see her breathing heavily and immediately stopped. “Are you all right?”
“I’ll be fine,” she said between ragged breaths.
He sighed. “You’re a stubborn woman.”
She chuckled and pushed a strand of chestnut hair from her face. “My father says that to me quite often. I got it from my mum, though my father has a stubborn streak as well.”
“Where is your mother?”
Jules sat on a fallen tree and pulled a canteen from her bag. She drank deeply before answering him. “She died from a fever when I was ten.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “It’s life, I suppose.”
He leaned back against a tree and watched the sun sink in the sky. It would be dusk soon. He needed to find them somewhere safe before nightfall.
“I thought I’d get used to not hearing the animals,” she murmured uneasily. “The silence is…deafening.”
Cristian opened his mouth to reply when he sensed something move behind him. Immediately he was next to Jules. He yanked her to her feet and pressed her back against a tree to shield her.
He looked down into her upturned face and nearly groaned to find her breasts pressed against his chest. He only had to dip his head to take her lips, to taste the sweetness of her mouth, but the threat around them kept him from doing just that.
In the stillness, nothing moved. Being this close to Jules, he couldn’t stop the desire flooding his body. His cock swelled and blood roared in his ears. Her lips parted and her eyelids lowered, tempting him to take what was near, to sample her lush curves and willing body. Cristian told himself to step away, but the yearning in his body refused be ignored.
His head began to lower to hers, to kiss her full lips. Her soft body was pressed against him from knee to chest, making his blood sing with a lust so powerful the world faded away.
Her chest began to rise and fall rapidly, and her fingers dug into his arms. Cristian gripped her hips and bit back a moan as she shifted her body, rubbing against his aching shaft.
His body exploded with desire and the uncontrollable need to take her, to bury himself in her wet heat and thrust into her until they were both sated and weak with pleasure.
And just as his lips were about to touch hers, something moved out of the corner of his eye. Fear and anger that anything would dare to harm Jules replaced the desire rushing through him. Instantly, his claws lengthened as he raised his head. He could feel the beast within him yearning to be released to face the evil tracking them.
“Cristian?” Her voice held a note of fear.
“It’s here.”
It moved deftly, and near silently. All he had seen was a blur, but even then he had known it was the Wendigo. He stepped away from Jules and hurriedly looked around. He had precious few moments to get her safe before the Wendigo attacked.
“Get on the ground,” he told her.
She did as he instructed without complaint or question. Cristian threw down his bag and set about marking the ground with the ancient symbols his parents had taught him when he was just a child.
“What is that?” Jules asked.
“They’re markings,” he answered without looking up. “They will keep the Wendigo away from you. Just don’t leave the circle.”
He finished the second marking and moved on to the third. Even then he could hear it approach. He hurried to the final point in the circle to dray the fourth symbol. Once it was finished, he stood and faced Jules.
She rose and moved toward him. “Aren’t you getting inside the circle with me?”
“No.” He clenched and unclenched his hands. This could well be the last time he spoke with her. He hated that he hadn’t been able to taste her lips, to know her body. “Jules, promise me no matter what you hear, no matter what you see, that you won’t leave this circle. I can’t fight the Wendigo if I don’t know you’re protected.”