His eyes sparkled with brief amusement. Warmth washed over her. It was a small thing, but it had never happened before. Dahlia crossed her arms beneath her breasts and turned toward the warmth of the tablet, refusing to look at temptation. It didn't last long.
Nicolas began to deposit weapons on the wooden box that served as a table. Two boot knives. Two knives that had been tucked into a harness lying flat against his ribs. Another knife produced from a sheath between his shoulder blades. A nine mm Beretta and a belt filled with ammunition. She stared at it all. "Good grief. You certainly believe in having an edge."
"A person can never have too many weapons."
She studied him, the fluid way he moved, his watchful eyes. Everything about him screamed lethal. "You are a weapon."
He gave a small, fleeing grin that didn't quite reach his eyes. "There you go. It's called being prepared."
She was all too aware of him stripping off his wet clothes and tossing them aside. The man had absolutely no modesty, and her gaze kept straying to him in spite of her resolve. His size dwarfed the room, and her. He was tall with wide shoulders and obvious muscles. He turned slightly and she caught sight of the nasty wound on his side, up high, near his heart.
"You're hurt."
He shrugged. "A few weeks ago. It's almost healed." He dragged the first aid kit from his pack.
The wound didn't look healed or several weeks old to her. It looked raw and painful. "You should have told me." His black eyes moved over her face. She couldn't tell what he was thinking but something in his gaze disturbed her.
"What could you have done about it?"
"I would have tried harder to keep from passing out."
She watched him apply a powder and ointment before he pressed a large pad over the area.
"Can you do that?"
She shrugged. "Sometimes. I pushed my limit this time, but maybe with more incentive I could have forced myself to keep going." Even now her arms and legs ached from the long swim. She rubbed her hands over her biceps. "At least you wouldn't have had to drag me along with your pack and rifle."
"You don't weigh enough to notice."
She turned away from him, back to the warmth of the tablet. She knew she was small. Even Jesse teased her about needing to grow. It was a sore subject, but she tried never to show it bothered her.
"Here's some face wipes. Instant cleanup and then we can eat."
Dahlia turned just as he tossed the small box of wipes to her. She snagged them out of the air and knew immediately he was testing her reflexes. "I'm fine, Nicolas. I passed out from the overload of energy, not because I wasn't strong enough to continue. It happens a lot. I stay away from situations that can cause it. Really, you don't have to worry, I'm perfectly fine now. As a matter of fact, because I can utilize most energy, I last longer at physical things than most people."
He studied her averted face as he pulled on a much drier pair of jeans. She didn't look fine. She looked pale and sad. He had no idea how to comfort her. Women weren't his forte. She was doing a lousy job wiping off the streaks of mud. He took the wipe from her hand and awkwardly did it for her.
Dahlia's survival instincts shrieked at her to pull away, but she stood her ground. Nicolas was never awkward, not in any situation she'd seen him in. Yet she could feel how uncomfortable he was and recognized that he was trying to soothe her.
"Whitney's dead. He was murdered trying to protect the men in my unit after he experimented on us. After his death, several tapes were found. You were in them, that's what led us to you. In all the tapes of you learning martial arts you attacked or defended ahead of your partner. You felt the energy coming at you before they moved, didn't you?" He brushed more mud from her face, his touch so gentle she could barely feel it, yet electricity crackled in the air between them.
There was admiration in his voice and respect. Dahlia tried not to show it affected her, but her heart did its funny little flip at the unexpected comment. She nodded. "That's pretty much how it works. Everything gives off energy, including emotion. So when I'm practicing with someone, I can feel the force of the attack before it actually reaches me. And I can take that same energy and use it myself."
"That's pretty incredible, even for a GhostWalker. But you aren't telepathic?"
"Not strong. I can't ordinarily initiate, even with Jesse, and he's a very strong telepath. You warned me, didn't you? I heard your voice warning me off. You must be a very strong telepath as well." She glanced at him, at the shadows in his eyes. "Why do you call yourselves GhostWalkers?" She didn't object to the title, in fact, there was something very comforting in knowing others were like her. That she wasn't entirely alone, but part of a group, even if she didn't know them.
"We call ourselves GhostWalkers because we were put in cages and no longer considered human, or alive. And we knew we could escape into the shadows, into the night, and the night would belong to us." He tilted her face up for his inspection, two fingers beneath her chin. "There, I think I've got it all." His hand slipped away, taking his warmth with him. She watched him scrub the mud from his own face.
"Who are we?"
"Whitney thought his experiment failed because all of you from the orphanage were children and you weren't old enough or disciplined enough to cope with the effects of what he'd done. He waited a few years, believed he refined the process, and drew from a military pool, thinking highly trained and disciplined men would fare better."
"I take it they didn't." She took the wipe from his hand and gestured until he bent down. Dahlia wiped the streaks of mud from his face.
Nicolas felt the breath leave his body. She wasn't touching him, not with her fingers, not skin to skin, but it felt as if she were. His lungs burned for air, or maybe his body burned for something else. Something far more intimate. He didn't dare move or breathe in case she stopped. Or didn't stop. He was uncertain which would be safer. His reaction was so unexpected, so foreign to his nature, he stilled beneath her hand, a wild animal gathering itself for a strike. He could feel himself coiling, waiting. The strange part was, he had no idea what he was waiting for.
For a moment the room crackled with tension, with arcing electricity. It jumped from her skin to his and back again. "Stop it." She said it in a low voice.
His black gaze collided with hers. Air rushed into his body and took her scent with it. He should have smelled the swamp, but instead he smelled woman. Dahlia. He would always know when she walked into the room. He would always know whenever she was near. It had to be a chemistry thing. "I didn't realize I was the one doing it. I thought it was you."
"It's definitely you." She handed him the dirty wipe and stepped back, putting space between them.
She was giving them both the opportunity to drop the subject. She wanted to let it alone. Nicolas wasn't so certain he wanted the same thing. Her moving away from him didn't stop the flood of awareness. He rubbed his hand over his arm. She was there, under his skin, and he had no idea how she got there.
"Do you really have food in that pack?" Dahlia asked.
Nicolas let the heat in his gaze burn over her face. She stood her ground, but he felt her tense. He let the air escape his lungs. Dahlia was not prepared to accept any part of him. He relaxed and smiled at her. A quick, deliberate, male grin that said all kinds of things and yet said nothing. "And coffee or cocoa."
"I think you're a magician." Dahlia eased away from him even farther, moving around the makeshift table to put the rickety piece of furniture between them as if that would stop the strange awareness that was growing with every moment. Her heart was beating loudly, a hard, steady rhythm that told her she was in trouble.
What happened between them? She didn't know. She didn't want to know, but she wanted it to go away. Dahlia didn't trust anyone enough to share such a moment of total awareness. And there had been something proprietary in the energy rolling off of him. An element that was both male and very confident. Very determined. Extremely sexual. She glanced at him, then away
. He was a hunter, a man who took months to single-mindedly follow a target and never missed. Dahlia shivered. She didn't want him to focus on her.
"I think cocoa would be perfect. A hot cup so I can sleep." She doubted she could do so even with the warm drink. She couldn't remember ever sleeping with someone in the same room with her. The idea made her feel slightly ill.
Nicolas pulled out the MRE, a sealed bag of prepared food the military provided for troops in the field. "There's plenty of food, Dahlia."
"Is it edible?"
"I eat it all the time."
A faint smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. "That isn't saying much. You probably would eat lizards and snakes."
"They can be quite tasty, cooked the right way. I often ate snake with my grandfather on the reservation where I grew up."
He didn't look at her, but kept busy preparing their meal. Dahlia had a better sense of him now. The conversation seemed casual enough, yet something in his voice told her he was imparting information he rarely shared with anyone. He was wearing only a pair of jeans. His bare chest was bronzed and heavily muscled. She couldn't help her gaze straying occasionally in his direction.
She cleared her throat. "Your grandfather raised you?"
"I never knew my parents. They died shortly after I was born. Grandfather was a spirit guide and believed in the old ways. It was fun growing up with him. We spent months in the mountains tracking animals and learning to be a part of nature. He was a good man and I was lucky to grow up with him."
"You must have learned a lot from him."
"Everything but the one thing that mattered."
The regret in his voice was genuine and it tugged at her. "What would that be?"
"How to heal. I know all the chants and the right herbs and plants, but I just don't have the gift the way he did." Nicolas divided some of the food and put the rest away. He had the feeling they might need it later, and he believed in being prepared. "He taught me that all lives are important and before we learn to take life away, we should learn to give life back. And he could. You should have seen him. He was a good man, highly educated. He also knew the history of my people and the old ways. He respected nature and life and he could bring harmony to a chaotic situation just by being there."
Dahlia sighed. "He sounds like a very intriguing man. I had Milly and Bernadette. Bernadette was the medicine woman in the bayou. Quite a few of the locals would come to ask her to help them. She delivered babies and treated all sorts of things, mostly with plants and herbs. She was a trained nurse, but she told me her early and best education was here in the bayou with another woman who knew medicine. She taught me quite a bit. I liked being in the bayou, out in the open, away from everyone."
She had to turn away from him, away from grief and anger. She had to be in control at all times, as long as she was in his company. He helped ease the bombardment of energy, but more than once, Dahlia had lost control and others had suffered the consequences. "I'm very tired. Do you think we should take turns being on guard?"
"I doubt it's necessary. There are enough natural alarms around us. We'd both probably wake up immediately. I sleep light."
She didn't doubt that he slept light. There was something very self-contained about Nicolas Trevane. He exuded confidence and authority. "I'm going outside for a few minutes. If something does happen tonight or tomorrow, there's a boat tied up just around the bend. It's old and it leaks, but it has gas in the motor and will get you out of here." It was one of the many avenues of escape she kept out of necessity.
"We're sticking together, Dahlia. I hope you don't think you're going to hightail it out of here and go after Jesse on your own."
She shrugged. "We're adults, Nicolas. I have to do what's right for me, and I guess you have to do the same. I'm not leaving Jesse behind, and I'm not about to ask you to risk your life going after these people to get him back."
"My job is to keep you alive and escort you back to Lily. I guess we're going in the same direction."
"There's a small condo in the French Quarter Jesse showed me once. We can go there. There are clothes and money and ID stashed for me." She opened the door, let the sound of the rain into the small cabin, pausing in the open doorway to stare out into the bayou. "Do you think they know who you are?"
"I doubt they'll ever find out," Nicolas said.
Dahlia took a deep breath as she stepped outside, closing the door behind her. The rain had lessened in strength, falling in a light drizzle. The moment she was alone, she sagged against the wall of the cabin and pressed her hand to her mouth, afraid she might choke. She'd never been so off balance in her life. The man had risked his life to save hers. He'd hauled her through the swamp and provided clothes and food for her. She couldn't very well run off like a rabbit because she didn't know how to be in the company of people.
Maybe it was his company she was afraid of. She'd never had such a reaction to anyone before. She wanted to put it down to extreme circumstances, but Dahlia knew herself far better than that. She'd lived most of her life under difficult conditions, and she'd never had such an awareness of a man before.
Determined to get through the rest of the night without making a fool of herself, Dahlia went back inside quickly. Nicolas was the type of man who would come looking, and she didn't want that. There was dignity in returning on her own, unafraid, or at least giving the illusion of being unafraid.
Dahlia went directly to the mattress. She wasn't going to be a baby about sharing the only place he could stretch out in either. That, too, was beneath her dignity.
"You want the wall or the outside?" He didn't look at her, giving her space.
Her first inclination was to take the outside, but he was far better with weapons, and she was smaller. She could easily crawl off the mattress without disturbing him, whereas he didn't have a hope of doing the same. "I'll take the wall." She hoped she didn't suddenly develop claustrophobia.
Nicolas waited until she was lying on the thin mattress. He knew what it took for her to allow him to have the outside. It was more practical, but she had spent her life away from people, living a solitary existence, talking only to a couple of older women and Jesse Calhoun. Nicolas wanted a long talk with Calhoun. The man had to have been working for the same people who had used Dahlia as an operative. Just what had they been using her for?
Nicolas felt Dahlia shrink away from his body when he settled his weight beside her, stretching out fully. "Are you going to be able to do this, Dahlia?"
She closed her eyes, wishing he hadn't asked her. Wishing his tone wasn't so gentle, almost tender. Wishing the warmth of his body didn't envelope her and drive away the shivering she hadn't been able to stop since she'd found Milly and Bernadette dead. Murdered, execution style. "What did you bring in the pillowcase?"
"The pillowcase?"
"From my room. I saw you had a pillowcase from off of my bed."
"I picked up as many things that looked like they might be of sentimental value to you and shoved them in it. A few books, a sweater, a stuffed animal. I didn't have much time."
Dahlia turned her head to look at him. "That was very considerate. I doubt if too many people would have thought of it under the circumstances."
Her drowsy voice conjured up images of satin sheets. He'd never laid on a satin sheet in his life, but he suddenly had visions of her looking up at him, naked, her dark hair spread out on the pillow, candlelight playing lovingly over her body. He didn't trust himself to answer. And he didn't trust his body to behave, even as uncomfortable and as tired as he was.
He turned away from her, on his side, giving her as much room as he could and took command of his breathing, slowing it down so he could fall asleep. Once he touched the rifle that lay beside him and the Beretta that was next to his hand. He could feel the outline of his knife, sheathed, but unhooked in case of quick need. He was ready should her enemies find them.
CHAPTER FIVE
In his youth, Nicolas spent weeks alone, fa
sting in the mountains, waiting for the vision to come to him, to tell him of his special gifts. His Lakota grandfather said he needed patience, and Nicolas had done everything required of him, yet he could not interpret his dream. The prophecy came to him when he swayed with weariness, when he was sick or wounded, but it had never come to him while he actually slept before. The vision made no sense. There was nothing tangible to hold on to. It left him frustrated and feeling inadequate, unable to live up to the potential his grandfather had "seen."
In his dream, there was the steady beat of the drum. He smelled the smoke of the sacred fires. The healing lodge opened for him, waited for him. He knew the words of the healing chants, and he recited them over a man with the great wound in his chest. He passed his palms over the wound, felt the cold breath of death against his own skin.
Small hands covered his. Warmed his hands with the breath of life. The small fingers held an object he couldn't see, but knew was important. His voice rose in the prayer of life. He sang softly to the spirits, asking them to aid him in healing the terrible wound. He felt the object pressed into his palm, felt it grow warm as if gathering heat from an outside source to pass to him. He saw the red-orange flames dance through his fingers. The object was gone before he could identify it. Once again he placed his palms directly over the gaping wound. The smaller hands slid over his. A thousand butterflies took flight, wings brushing against his stomach at the touch of skin against skin. His singing rose with the smoke and drifted upward toward the sky. Beneath their joined hands, all around the wound, flames danced a ballet, and the wound slowly closed until the chest was unmarred.
He tried to see who aided him in the healing, but he could never see beyond the smoke. He could never see whom he healed. He felt the caress of those small hands sliding over his bare skin and looked down to see a wealth of shiny black hair sliding over his belly, gleaming like strands of silk, teasing and taunting him until his body hardened with urgent demands.
Nicolas frowned and reached for her, determined to know who she was this time. His fingers tunneled into the mass of hair. He came awake instantly, aware his fists were bunched in Dahlia's hair and his body was as hard as a rock. Her head lay on his stomach and she moved restlessly, fighting nightmares. He suppressed an aching groan of sheer frustration. If he woke her, she would be embarrassed. If he didn't, her nightmare and his discomfort would more than likely escalate. He lay motionless, his hands in her hair when her breathing changed abruptly. He knew instantly she had awakened.
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