by Rebecca York
When a rock stabbed into his foot, he winced, but he didn’t slacken his pace. He was a werewolf. That was his heritage. His hard-won right.
Since he had fought through the pain of his first change, he had transformed from man to wolf whenever he wanted. He had hunted as a wolf. Eaten his kill as a wolf. Fought as a wolf. Gloried in his secret strength.
In a terrible moment of recognition, all that had been ripped away from him.
He was like a man who had both arms lopped off. A man who couldn’t unzip his pants to piss. Or feed himself. Only this was worse, because arms were only part of a man. Takingaway the wolf had stripped away everything that he was and everything that he could be.
He thought he had found his life mate. Years before the traditional time of mating, but true nonetheless. Now his feelings for Quinn were only a cruel joke on both of them.
He laughed, the sound echoing through the chill of the early morning.
Quinn couldn’t be a werewolf’s mate because he was only the dried husk of what he should be.
He had been a ghost, and he had taken the body of a man who had just died. He had felt reborn. And he had started making plans.
He had taken a chance—and lost everything.
He kept running, trying to escape from his utter and completedespair. But as he ran, he began to feel dizzy. Sick. And another suspicion began to creep into his mind. He had tried to make the change and something had happened. Not just his lack of success. Something more.
Nausea clogged his throat. He stopped running and bent over, heaving up the food he had eaten earlier. When he moved on again, he began to shake. He was limping now, his foot throbbing from the place where the rock had dug into his flesh, and he cursed the man who had such tender feet that he couldn’t even walk through the woods without shoes.
The shaking grew worse, and finally he could go no farther.He sank to the ground, propping his back against the trunk of a tree, his body alternately too hot and then too cold.
His head began to pound. And when he tried to hold on to any thought, it skittered away from him.
Wrapping his arms around his shoulders, he struggled to cling to consciousness. But it was a losing battle.
QUINN crashed through the underbrush, looking for Caleb. But he had disappeared into the forest, and there was no way she could find him. When she scratched her ribs on a bramble,she realized that she was running naked through the woods at night.
She stopped, panting. She wanted to call his name again, but that would probably drive him farther from her. This was his territory. Not hers. And she was going to get lost in the dark.
Turning around, she was relieved to see light in the distance.Hoping it was from the lodge, she started walking back.
As she plodded along, she knew that she was in over her head. She needed help. And there was only one place where she could go.
To Logan. But she didn’t even know where his house was in relationship to this place.
Cautiously, she approached the building and was relieved to see that no cars had pulled up in the meantime. With a littlesigh, she climbed the steps and walked inside. Caleb had said they would leave this place the way they had found it. But there was no time to clean it up now.
She ran back to the bedroom where they’d slept, picked up her clothes from the floor and pulled them on. Then she started opening drawers. In another one of the bedrooms, she found a cache of coins, which she stuffed into a fanny pack she also found.
It flashed through her mind that she should wipe all the surfaces they had touched. She remembered from a show she’d seen on television that you could find people through their fingerprints. Hers weren’t on file anywhere. But what about the man whose body Caleb had inherited?
She didn’t know, but she was going to have to take a chance because she didn’t have time to deal with something she couldn’t even see.
Instead, she grabbed the T-shirt Caleb had worn and stuffed it into the fanny pack. Then she walked out and closed the door.
Shoulders slumped, she trotted down the narrow road that led to the house. When she came to a wider road, she didn’t know which way to go. So she turned right, sticking to the gravel strip at the edge of the blacktop. A car passed her, and honked, making her jump. She remembered that you were supposed to walk facing oncoming traffic, so she crossed the paved surface.
At least she was used to traveling long distances on foot. She had gone two or three miles when she came to a small community. It had a convenience store that wasn’t open yet. But a telephone stand was outside. She hurried up to it and put in the right amount of change, then called Logan’s number.
Rinna answered.
"Quinn, where are you? What happened? Are you all right?”
“I’m all right. But I don’t know where I am.”
“Did you get kidnapped? What?”
Logan took the phone away from his wife. “Are you all right?” he repeated.
“Yes.” She gulped. “But I need your help.”
Cars were starting to pass the store, and she knew that the world was waking up. And every moment she left Caleb alone in the woods was a moment when something terrible could happen to him.
“Tell me where you are.”
She ordered herself not to panic, then pulled on the phone cord so that she could look at the store. There was no address number, but she spotted a small sign on the sliding glass door of the store. “I’m at a little store. It says it’s operated by James Pendelton in Henderson, Maryland.
“Okay. That’s not too far. We’ll be there soon.”
“Don’t bring Zarah or Rinna.”
“Why not?” he asked, his voice sharp.
“It could be dangerous.”
“I guess you’ll explain that when we get there.”
“Who is coming with you?”
“My cousin, Ross.”
“Okay.”
After she hung up, she sat down at the picnic table on a grassy strip beside the store and lowered her head to her hands. Then a car passed, and she decided that would make her too conspicuous. In fact, maybe sitting in the open wasn’t a good idea. So she walked to a patch of woods and stood leaning against a tree as she waited for Logan.
When his SUV pulled up in the parking lot, she breathed out a small sigh and ran over.
Logan rolled down his window. “Get in.”
She climbed into the backseat, looking neither at Logan nor Ross, and shut the door.
“This is the second time you’ve had us worried sick,” Logansaid.
“I’m sorry.”
Logan pulled the car to the side of the parking lot and cut the engine. “What happened?”
Both men turned to look at her as she struggled to organizeher story. So much had happened that it seemed a long time ago when Caleb had last summoned her.
“The ghost called to me. He told me he needed help. I ran back to the place . . . I guess where his grave is, and he told me two men had come and buried another man alive. They had left their shovel, and I dug the man up. But he died.” She hitched in a breath and let it out before telling the next part. “Caleb got into his body.”
“What?!”
“His . . . his spirit had departed. I gave him . . .” She stopped and flapped her arm. “I can’t remember what it’s called. It’s when you breathe into someone’s mouth.”
“Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.”
“Yes, that. He was dead, but then Caleb was able to take over the body. We were still there when the men came back for the shovel, and he scared them off, pretending to be the man’s ghost.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet that scared them,” Ross said. “Who were they?”
“We don’t know.”
“What did they look like?”
Impatiently, Quinn answered, “One was big with a barrel chest and a balding head. The other was smaller with dark hair and a nose that looked like it had been broken.”
“You never saw them before?”
“No!” She continued the story of what had happened to her and Caleb. “We ran through the woods to a hunting lodge that Caleb knew about. We stayed there. Then Caleb tried to change to wolf form, but he couldn’t do it. He ran out into the night, and I knew I couldn’t find him.”
She gave Logan a pleading look, feeling compelled to be brutally honest and hoping he would understand. “I think he wanted to hunt you. I tried to plant a suggestion in his mind that he shouldn’t hurt you. I was going to try to warn you, but he got up in the middle of the night to change.”
“We found the new grave,” Ross said.
“You did?”
“Yes. We talked to Zarah, and we were worried about you.”
“I’m so sorry.”
He laughed. “You’re like Rinna when I first met her. I guess you can’t stay out of trouble.”
“I didn’t mean to make trouble.”
He waved his arm. “Don’t worry about it. That’s old news. We went looking for you. But we couldn’t follow your trail because the rain washed the scent away.”
She unzipped her fanny pack and pulled out the T-shirt. “Caleb was wearing this. Maybe you can follow his scent.”
“And what? Let him attack us?” Logan asked.
Ross put a hand on his shoulder. “Imagine what it would be like if you suddenly found you couldn’t change to wolf form.”
Logan nodded. “Yeah. Maybe I’d go crazy.”
“Maybe he did,” Quinn whispered.
“Take us back to the lodge, and we’ll see if we can follow his trail.”
“Thank you.”
“We haven’t found him yet,” Logan said.
“Thank you for trying.” She swallowed. “I’d better tell you—he doesn’t look anything like he did. The body he took over has blond hair and blue eyes.”
“Jesus,” Logan muttered.
“It was a shock to him.”
Logan made a sound of agreement.
All the way to the lodge, Quinn kept hoping that Caleb had come back. Running inside, she checked the rooms. When she didn’t find him, she felt a giant knot twisting in her stomach.
Had he run away because he couldn’t stand to face himself?Or was this something worse?
Logan called Rinna on his cell phone to tell her what they were doing. Then Quinn showed them the place where she’d fought with Caleb.
The two men conferred, then disappeared around the side of the house. When they returned, Logan was carrying a backpack, and Ross had changed into a handsome gray wolf.
When she handed him the shirt, he sniffed it, then trotted off into the woods. Quinn and Logan followed.
He kept his eyes straight ahead. “How was he? Other than not being able to change? What else did he do?”
She felt her face turn warm and was glad Logan wasn’t looking at her. There was a lot she could say about what Caleb had done, but she didn’t want to talk about the intimatedetails of their relationship.
“He was weak at first. Then he was happy to have a body.” She swallowed. “He found out he couldn’t eat raw meat.”
“Christ!”
She kept her gaze focused on Ross, who was now fifty feet ahead of them, partly hidden by the underbrush. “And he liked bread with jam.”
“Yuck!”
They detoured around a patch of what Logan had told her was poison ivy. When she looked up, Ross had stopped in front of a large elm tree.
Quinn’s heart leaped into her throat. It looked like the wolf had found something. Would Caleb know who he was? Would he be angry enough to attack?
She ran forward, and fear shot through her as she saw a pair of bare legs and feet motionless on the ground.
Dashing around Ross, she found Caleb sprawled naked and unconscious.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Quinn knelt beside the still form, looking for some kind of injury. She ran her hands over his arms and legs, findingno breaks. And when she examined his skin, she found no new bruises or cuts or bites from animals that might have found him while he lay unconscious.
But his skin was gray and his breath was shallow, as though some sickness had taken possession of him.
“Caleb? Caleb?”
She knew that Logan was standing behind her, but he faded into the background of her awareness as she bent down to press her ear against Caleb’s chest. She could hear his heart, but it was slow and shallow.
Fumbling for his hand, she squeezed his fingers.
“Caleb. It’s Quinn. Caleb.”
She raised her free hand and stroked his cold cheek, fear threatening to swamp her.
With no warning, his eyes snapped open, and she gasped.
He focused on her, his gaze sharp but bloodshot. “Quinn. How did you get here?”
“I had help,” she murmured, afraid to tell him that his werewolf cousins had come to his rescue.
As he stared at her, his features softened, and he raised his hand to touch her hair. His fingers lingered there for a moment before his arm fell to his side.
“Just rest,” she said. “You’re going to be all right.”
“Am I?” he asked, sounding truly puzzled. Then he gave her a warm smile. “My life mate,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
Her heart gave a sudden jolt inside her chest. She had heard that phrase before, and she knew what it meant. In this world, werewolves were different from the kind she knew back home. Rinna had told her that the Marshall werewolves found the right woman—then mated for life.
She leaned down, pressing her cheek to his chest, overcomewith joy at what he had told her. She had known it in her heart, known her feelings for him ran deeper than anythingshe had ever experienced.
“Oh, Caleb. I love you so much. I knew that finding you was the most important thing that had ever happened to me.”
Her happiness overflowed, until his next words shattered her. “No. That is impossible . . . now.”
She raised her head, staring into his eyes. “It’s true. We both know it’s true.”
“But I am no wolf,” he said, his voice broken. “I can have no life mate.”
A kind of hollow desperation rose inside her. She had dared to think of her own happiness. And he was snatching it away. “You can! You told me it was true.”
“Before I remembered.”
“If you want it—we can have it.”
“No.” His body jerked, and he began speaking again, only now she couldn’t follow his thoughts. “The cold is coming.It swallows me.”
“Caleb, what?”
“The old car needs a new distributor. That’s going to cost a lot of money.”
She stared into his eyes. They had turned misty, his gaze far away.
He kept talking, on a completely different subject. “He and I wanted the same woman. He asked me to meet him in the woods, and we would settle it.”
He looked past her, his gaze falling on Logan.
“Aden! You bastard. What are you doing here? Have you come back to kill me again?”
Snarling, Caleb lurched up, his hands curled into claws as he lunged at Logan.
Ross was coming around a tree, tucking his shirt into his pants. When he saw what was happening, he leaped forward, catching Caleb by the shoulders and pushing him back to the ground.
“No, get off of me.” His eyes widened as his gaze bounced from Logan to Ross. “There are two of you! You never did fight fair.”
Ross held him down. Logan pulled Quinn out of the way.
“Don’t!”
“You’ll get hurt,” Logan answered.
She looked down, seeing Ross struggling with Caleb. Ross was breathing hard, and Caleb’s breath sounded like the rattling of canvas in the wind.
He couldn’t keep up the fight for long. Or, if he did, the exertion might kill him. Yet she knew Ross had to protect himself.
“Don’t hurt him,” she shouted.
“He’s trying to hurt us,” Logan answered. He pushed her behind him, then came down beside th
e naked man, holding him from the other side. Caleb struggled against the Marshallcousins for a few moments, then went limp, his eyes still open.
Though he lay still, disjointed words tumbled from his lips.
“I live in the woods. In the light of the moon. The animals know me. But no man can see me. Only Quinn. Only Quinn. My life mate.”
She felt tears sliding down her cheeks.
His life mate. He still thought that, even when honor forced him to deny it to her. Or maybe it was worse than that.
“Leave him alone. He’s sick. Please.”
“He’s dangerous,” Logan answered, but both men eased the pressure on Caleb’s shoulders.
“He’s sick,” Quinn said again.
“Sick in the head,” Logan growled.
“We have to help him,” Quinn said softly. She knew Loganhad heard her private conversation with Caleb, knew he had heard the part about being his life mate.
“What can we do for him?” Ross asked.
She gave him a grateful look.
When Caleb’s body began to shake, she asked, “Do you have a blanket? Something to keep him warm.”
“In the car,” Ross said. He turned and ran back the way they’d come.
Quinn was left alone with Logan and Caleb again. She leaned over Caleb, trying to stop his shaking. Then suddenly he went still again, his face pale as death.
She kissed his neck, then closed her eyes, and hung on to him.
It seemed to take forever before Ross returned with a blanket. Quinn draped the covering over Caleb’s still form.
“He sure as hell doesn’t look like one of us,” Logan said. “No Marshall has blond hair and blue eyes.”
“Because this is not his original body! I told you what happened.”
“Not many people would believe you,” Logan muttered.
“It’s the truth. Why would I lie?”
“You tell me,” Logan challenged.
“Everything I said is the truth,” she protested.
“But you snuck out of the house again.”
“I told Zarah.”
“Okay, let’s not argue about what’s already happened,” Ross broke in.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“Do you know what’s wrong with him?”