Beauty's Beast(22)

Perhaps if she explained. But what if she was wrong? What if the connection ran deeper? What if she couldn’t manage it? What if she was never rid of this wanting? The hairs on her head rose up and she shivered with dread.

He was like Pandora’s box, enticing but dangerous, and once opened there would be no easy way to shut that lid. She sensed it in the same place that urged her on against all reason. She should be grateful one of them showed some sense.

But she wasn’t grateful. She was cold and covered with dew and shamed by her need.

Worse than that, she respected him. He did the honorable thing. He had taken her in even knowing what some of her people were doing to his, and he had kept her safe. He was a magnificent fighter.

Samantha pressed her forehead to her knees. She rocked back and forth at the horror of her thoughts.

What if Alon was truly her soul mate?

She wouldn’t tell him. He couldn’t see the aura. She’d just pretend it was a mistake. Well, wasn’t it? Yes, the worst mistake she had ever made. Rivaled only by her stupidly removing that evil ghost from that little boy. This mistake, at least, did not endanger her family.

But it threatened everything she ever believed was true.

How often had she dreamed of finding her soul mate? But never in her wildest imaginings was he a fearsome Ghostling who could steal her soul as easily as kiss her.

Samantha pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, but still the images of Alon hungry and wanting flashed before her.

Even without him here, even without that electric attraction that came with each touch, she still wanted him.

Gradually she became aware of the breeze cooling her skin and the damp ground drawing away her heat. She dragged herself up and dragged off the Jacuzzi cover. Sinking down in the hot water and warm jets relaxed her tense muscles but left her skin smelling of chlorine.

She headed toward the house.

By the time Samantha showered and found a suitable bed in the upstairs of Alon’s home, she had nearly convinced herself that the flare of auras she had seen was nothing more than a roaring physical attraction manifested in a blaze of light. She burned hot for him, and that she could not deny. But that was all it was.

With that settled in her mind, she crawled beneath the covers. Tomorrow she must convince Bess Suncatcher to bring her children into the battle against Nagi.

Her dad said that Bess was fierce and opinionated. Would she be willing to endanger her children to protect the Balance?





Chapter 11



Alon had made a full search of the perimeter, flying low through the pines and finding nothing but the expected game in the woods. A few elk and one less mule deer now that he had eaten. With his belly full and his patrol ended, he returned to the house.

The need to see her beat inside him like a drum. Letting her out of his sight was harder than he expected. The urge to protect her grew stronger by the minute. It made no sense to him. It didn’t seem to matter that she loathed his kind or that she belonged to a race of sneaky child killers. He billowed in disgust. She mixed him all up inside. All he knew for certain was that sleeping with her would make everything worse.

In the blackest, longest part of the night, Alon flew around the exterior searching for ghosts.

He hovered before Samantha’s second-story window. None of the windows in this place had curtains. There was no need for there was nothing to look through the windows to see until now.

She had left hers open to the night and lay in a tangle of bedding, her dark hair fanning the white cotton sheets. Now he knew how thick and silky her hair was and how soft and warm her skin was and how absolutely perfectly she fit against his body.

Alon billowed through the window, under her locked door and down the hall to his own room. Once there he transformed to his final form, the one that so aroused Samantha. The one that was a lie.

He lay in bed naked, knowing he must sleep but not knowing how to put his need for her out of his mind when she was within his grasp.

Samantha had wanted him. He’d made that happen and could do it again. He could make her forget what he was, at least temporarily.

He’d been willing to let her pretend that he was a handsome lover there to meet her every need, instead of a harbinger of death.

Perhaps that was where the name Toe Tagger came from, for certainly none who lay with one avoided a toe tag. Alon rolled to his side and thumped the pillow. Yet he still wanted to have sex with Samantha. That only made him more of a monster.

Avoiding her would be more difficult now because he had seen her, felt her, tasted her.

Alon groaned and closed his eyes. Images of Samantha filled his mind. His body grew hard with need.

Nagi wanted her and he wanted her. Who was the bigger threat?

He placed his hand on his needy flesh, wishing her hand was there instead. Perhaps this would satisfy the relentless thirst to taste Samantha once more.

A familiar prickling began at his neck and spread rapidly over his flesh. He bolted up, knowing what it meant.

A ghost.

Alon was on his feet when Samantha’s scream tore through the darkest part of the night.

Halfway down the hall he recalled he was naked. He changed to his fighting form as he kicked open her door.

His vision penetrated the blackness of the interior, turning the low light to shades of gray. Samantha sat upright pressed against the headboard, clutching the bedsheets to her chest. Her pale nightie twisted about her, showing her long, toned legs drawn up as she huddled in the dark. Her gaze flashed to him and then back to something beside her bed. He had not seen it at first because the evil ghost sank half through the floor. Pure souls were as transparent as plastic wrap. A dull, sickly haze clung to this one like smoke from a cigarette. Wicked and likely one of Nagi’s vanguard. Alon’s hackles rose and a growl rumbled deep in the back of his throat.

“What is she?” asked the ghost.

Alon roared and charged toward the apparition. He lifted both hands, summoning the power that erupted as a bright green flash of light from each palm. Alon had meant to send it to judgment, but he couldn’t control the rage that poured out of him at this thing who threatened Samantha. Something changed. The soul was not cast to the Ghost Road. Instead it writhed in torment before him. The hazy, diaphanous body turned to swirling particles of charred dust. Consumed like paper, still screaming in his head, the soul contorted once more as the last vestige of existence stubbed out.

Samantha clamped her hands over her ears. Could she hear it, too? The ash sizzled like a raw steak hitting a hot grill, and then came the echoing silence. The lifeless particles hung like dust motes in the cold morning air but the soul was no more.

Samantha hunched, bracing as one does when trying to avoid being hit with flying debris. Her hands slid from her ears but remained raised to shield her face. She straightened and turned to him, her eyes seeking answers to what she had witnessed. Now did she understand how wrong he was for her?

She could heal any injury. He could extinguish an immortal soul.

“It’s terrible,” she whispered.

“I’m terrible,” he corrected. He stood in his fighting form, letting her witness what he was. Did she see the creatures that had attacked her family, mauled her father, hunted her even now? He was one of them, just as surely as she was a Skinwalker. It was there in the marrow of his bones, the viciousness and the danger. He needed her to see it and remember it, because he could not resist her any longer.

He would need her to resist him. He knew it and he feared for her. Be strong, Samantha, and be wise. I am not for you. All I bring is death.

At last she looked away, huddling against the headboard in the nightie that revealed clearly what he could never have.

“There may be more. Get dressed. We’re leaving.”

* * *

Samantha climbed into the truck as Alon tossed a cooler, duffel bag and a heavy sack in the truck bed. His shoes he threw behind his seat. Barefooted and hastily dressed in his favorite trousers and close-fitting dove-gray sweater, he looked tousled and appealing in his human form.

Appearances were deceiving, she remembered.

A moment later dirt and gravel spewed behind them as he fishtailed back out the driveway and through the opening gate.

Samantha peered behind them. “Are there more?”

“Didn’t see any.”

“Will it... It can’t tell, can it?”

“It’s gone, Samantha. I finished it.”

She’d known it. Seen it. Understood even as her mind objected. Alon had not sent the soul to the Ghost Road. He had destroyed it.

“I thought souls were immortal. That they could never die.”

He cast her an impatient look. “They die.”

“Have you done that before?”

He glared out the window. “No.”

And now he had because of her. Samantha realized she still wore her coat in the form of a flimsy pink nightshirt. She brushed her hand over the garment, focusing her energy on what she wanted. There was a crackling sound, like static discharging from warm, dry laundry, and then she sat in jeans, worn brown cowboy boots, a frilly flowered blouse and a faded denim jacket.