Rising Darkness (Game of Shadows #1)(31)

He was traveling at such a high speed that he shot past the exit. The Ford screeched onto the road’s shoulder. He reversed and gunned the engine until he could take the ramp. Then he drove the side road with more care as he followed the terse commands, for he had to translate everything from a hawk’s perception into information that he could use on the ground.

At last he cruised down a country lane. In the sweep of headlights a red-tailed hawk sat motionless on a low-lying limb of a huge oak. Huge golden eyes flared as the hawk turned its head and stared at his car. The oak tree grew beside a one-lane gravel drive.

He made the tight turn gently onto the gravel road. The forest was thick with night sounds, tangled underbrush and overhanging trees. His headlights picked up a dark parked Toyota yards ahead. At least thirty wolves surrounded the car. They rose to their feet and turned to face his vehicle with bared teeth. A few were half-grown pups.

He took a careful breath, put the Ford into park and killed the engine. Whatever he might have expected, it hadn’t been this. He touched the nine-millimeter in his shoulder holster then opened his door and got out, leaving the car’s headlights on.

Along with the quiet rush of chill spring air came the flutter of a small wind spirit. It batted around him like a trapped and bruised butterfly.

Dying, it said. She’s dying—

Hush, he told it. He brushed it away gently with his mind.

The alpha wolf of the pack paced toward him. He stared down into the powerful male’s steady gaze. The wolf said, Warrior.

He replied, I will pass. Let me do so in peace. I do not want to hurt you.

The alpha male said, We have answered her call for help, and we have promised to protect.

It was another loyal beast. His mouth tightened. Your clan is an honorable one. Can you heal her as well, or save her life?

The wolf remained silent.

I will pass, he repeated.

The alpha male turned to his pack. One by one the wolves moved out of his way. He walked to the Toyota and looked at the woman who curled in a crumpled heap in the driver’s seat. She was small with a snarled braid, her shoulders two thin, vulnerable points under her jacket, but he couldn’t make out any other details in the indirect light.

The old woman had taught him well. Staring down at the woman, he remembered the eight-year-old boy he had been. He thought of all the reasons that his old mentor had for being ready to kill him should it become necessary.

Those same reasons applied to this young woman.

He must be prepared to kill her if she wasn’t salvageable.

Chapter Eleven

DRIFTING.

A bloodred petal in twilight.

She felt as empty and dry as a drained chalice. An abundant golden river flowed into her. Her parched soul soaked up the current. It was as strong and rich as burgundy wine, and as warm and nourishing as summer.

She surfaced from the black pit and became aware, as if from a great distance, of details around her. She was no longer hallucinating an out-of-body experience. Instead, she lay on the cold gravel between her Toyota and another parked car. Her body felt heavy and weak on the sharp rocks.

The unfamiliar car’s headlights threw a slant of harsh illumination on the scene. A pack of wolves ringed the area. Someone knelt over her, dark head and broad shoulders silhouetted against the angled light. Large, heavy hands rested flat on her torso, one at her sternum and the other on her abdomen.

The car headlights seemed thin and white, and as dim as shadows, compared to the man who shone from within like the sun.

The golden river poured into her.

A powerful sense of recognition flooded her, along with an incandescent joy. She took a breath and sighed, an easy expanding movement, for the moment free from fear and pain. Moving one hand across the uneven gravel toward the man, she smiled with relief at waking up from the long dark.

“There you are,” she said in a blurred voice to the radiant silhouette. “I’ve missed you so. I had the strangest dream. . . .”

Déjà vu swept over her, and her half-conscious mind groped after the feeling. Hadn’t she said this before? Hadn’t she said it many times as a small child, as she blinked up at her mother’s bewildered, frightened face?

Mommy, I had the strangest dream.

I dreamed I was—

She slammed awake for real. The brilliant radiance faded.

An unknown man knelt over her, silhouetted against the headlights of a car. She looked from the strange man to the ring of watching wolves and knocked away the hands that rested on her torso. Quick as a cobra, he grabbed her wrists and pinned her to the ground. She strained against the restraint, her heels scrabbling for purchase on the loose rocks.

The man shook her once, then again, harder, as she continued to struggle. “Stop it,” he ordered. His voice sounded harsh and rough as the rocks upon which she lay.

She was bewildered at the strange tricks her own mind played on her. She didn’t recognize this man. She had never seen him before in her life.

He was not Spring Jacket or Sport Coat. He was someone different. Someone new, bigger. Stronger, more deadly.

She made a terrified sound, bent her head and tried to sink her teeth into one of those iron hands shackling her wrists.

With an agile twist the man avoided her bite. The world pitched as he heaved her body up and around. He was so strong and fast, panic surged all over again at how easily he manipulated her weight.

She kicked and clawed for his eyes but somehow ended up sitting between long, powerful jeans-clad legs, crushed back against the man’s hard chest, her arms crossed in front of her while he held her wrists. She tried to butt her head back into his nose. He hugged her tight and buried his face in her neck.