Beauty's Beast(23)

He lifted a brow at her transformation.

She folded her arms protectively across her body as the truck picked up speed.

“You want to talk about it?” she asked.

He hunched over the wheel. “Talk changes nothing.”

His silence was more deafening than a steam whistle. Did he think he was the only one who carried regrets?

He stepped on the accelerator as if he could not reach his destination fast enough.

She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing, trying to calm the fear of seeing that ghost in her bedroom. Alon had saved her. He’d protected her again. Gradually the tension in her shoulders drained away and she opened her eyes to a light show of their auras.

His glimmering silver with flashes of bright blue sexual energy. It reached across the wide distance that separated them and hers stretched to meet his. They blended in a shimmering curtain of violet and gray punctuated with tiny pops of light, like the last bit of a sparkler burning bright on a warm July night.

She stared in slacked-mouth wonder. As he sat there, hunched over the wheel, eyes fixed on the road, some essential part of him reached for her. But it wasn’t the soul mate connection. Or at least not like her parents’ connection. Their auras never twinkled. Theirs simply found the other in a wash of light that reminded Samantha of a watercolor painter’s palate. Her mother’s a golden hue of all Spirit Children and the violet unique to Seers blending with her father’s rich nutmeg brown and vivid navy blue. They came together in tones of copper and deep purple.

Samantha’s aura crested most vividly with cinnamon tones in a gilded cap. Beneath them both the violet beamed close to her skin.

“What are you staring at?” he asked.

His voice startled her out of her trance.

“Our auras.”

He growled. “What about them?”

She continued to watch the sparks. “They’re dancing.”

He glanced at her and then into what must seem to him empty space. Alon returned his attention to the highway before he spoke.

“What does that mean?”

She shook her head in bafflement. “I don’t know.”

Outside the truck the stars winked out and the trees that lined the highway appeared in silhouette. The sky turned deep blue as dawn approached. Samantha drifted between dreams and wakefulness. The hypnotic monotony of the road lulled. Her head lolled and she forced herself back awake. The dashboard clock read 5:00 a.m. When she opened her eyes again it read 7:32 a.m. The sun was well up and the truck rode half on the shoulder of the road.

“Alon!”

Alon’s head snapped up. He gripped the wheel and steered them back onto the pavement as Samantha clutched the dashboard.

“You need to sleep,” she said.

He nodded wearily. Samantha’s eyes burned with fatigue and Alon blinked at her with red-rimmed eyes.

“I’ll find a place to pull over.”

According to Alon, his parents were traveling in a large RV with the Alpha Pack and possibly any twins they had located. Aldara was also there with the Beta and Gamma packs. If Alon was as weary as she was, they’d never make it.

It took another hour for Alon to find a suitably isolated spot on a long stretch of dirt road that seemed to lead nowhere. Once parked, he walked to the rear of the truck and removed his clothing. Samantha watched him in the rearview mirror, lapping up the sight of his bare chest and muscular shoulders.

“Stay near the truck. I’ll make a quick pass to see if we are alone.” He gestured toward the truck bed. “Eat something.”

Before she could answer he was gone, billowing up into the sky. She left the truck to relieve herself then walked the kinks out of her muscles. Returning to the vehicle, she explored the cooler packed with nothing but bottled water. The sack held a neatly ordered variety of dehydrated food used for camping, canned food and prepackaged crackers and oatmeal. There was even a single-burner camp stove, two fuel cartridges, mess kits and a series of aluminum pots that stacked one inside the next.

She realized she was famished. After about twenty minutes, Samantha’s stomach no longer grumbled and Alon returned. He approached from the direction of the truck, pulling on his sweater. She caught a glimpse of his ripped torso. The flash of pale skin and contracting muscle made her stomach flutter.

“I ate all the tuna,” she confessed. And most of the crackers and all the diced ham. The water boiled and she added the oatmeal and stirred.

“The area seems clear of ghosts. Did you find the sleeping bags?”

“No.”

“In the back container with the chairs and tents. Do you want a tent?”

She glanced up at the blue sky. “Seems unnecessary.”

He retraced his path, returning with two tightly rolled bags.

“Do you camp often?” she asked.

“Aldara keeps this truck ready for extended outings. It gives us another base on our expeditions.”

“When you search for other Ghostlings?”

He nodded and accepted a bowl of oatmeal. His pale skin revealed dark circles under his eyes. He ate quickly, blinking as if struggling to stay awake.

Surely that wasn’t all he was going to eat. He’d provided the bounty. The least she could do was fix it for him. “Can I get you anything else?”

“I ate at the house. I just need a few hours’ sleep.”

She rolled out the bags and set them side by side with a respectable distance between them. She’d be damned if she’d cross that distance again.

Alon crawled inside his bag. A moment later he pulled his trousers and sweater from beneath. Knowing he was naked and sheathed in only nylon and down batting did funny things to her insides. Samantha forced her hand away from her chest, where she had placed it to keep her heart from beating out of her ribs.

“Would you prefer I remain dressed?” he asked.

She shrugged. “What’s that to me?”

“I don’t know, but your pulse is rising and there is much color in your cheeks and neck.” He pointed in a manner she found very rude.

Samantha thrust her legs into her sleeping bag and rolled to her opposite side.

“You really are the most disagreeable man.”

He propped himself up on one elbow. “Not a man. It’s why I sleep alone.”

She found his tone condescending and annoying as hell.

“You’ve seen my true form, Samantha. You would do well to remember just what it is you almost took to your bed.”

She thought of their dancing auras and feared that his words would not be enough to keep them apart. Whatever was between them, it was strong and growing stronger.

“All I want to do is get you to my mother.”

“And be rid of me,” she finished.

He said nothing to this.

She knew it was true and his refusal to say so only upset her further. How could she convince him to bring his family to fight with her father? How could she convince her father to allow the Naginoka to join him? Samantha knew what was needed. But she had no idea how to make it happen. With her mind spinning like a top, it took some time to relax enough to sleep.

He woke her at dusk.

“We’re going,” he said and left her there. She watched him return to the vehicle and replace his neatly rolled sleeping bag to the box in the truck bed.

She crawled out of the bag and sought a little privacy before returning to find Alon waiting in the driver’s seat. She climbed in and swung the door shut. He handed her a box of granola bars and a bottle of water.

From there Alon stopped only for gas and food. The following morning, he pulled off the interstate just before the Canadian border.

“Can you make it across?” he asked, indicating the woods.

“Don’t see why not.”

“I’ll meet you on the other side.”

Samantha transformed and loped off into the forest. Her trek took a family of hikers by surprise but was otherwise uneventful. When she reached a paved road, she stopped. Alon descended in his vaporous form then transformed to human for the time it took to tell her where to meet him.

She made her way to the rendezvous thinking of little but how Alon looked naked. When she arrived it was to find him dressed and sitting in a cream-colored four-door Jeep.

She closed her eyes as the energy ripped through her, bringing her to her human form. A moment later she stepped into the Jeep in the same clothing she wore that morning.

They made it through Calgary and headed west on 93 and entered Kootenay National Park.

Samantha grew hopeful that they’d arrive soon, but it was another hour before she spotted the camping sign. They bounced over the gravel road at dusk and into the primitive camping ground. The sites were all empty except for one mammoth RV. A string of lights hung from the awning, casting bright light all about the camper like the perimeter of a high-security prison. Samantha wondered where the three packs might be and kept close to Alon.