Lynx Destiny (19 page)

Do what you have to,
his father had written him.

And Kai would.

* * *

Regan opened her eyes at dawn to discover Kai already awake, and to discover her body rueful both from such vigorous lovemaking and from a night on the ground.

He had no such problem from what she could tell. As she sat, he stretched hugely beneath the luxury of the blankets, his nakedness a reminder of his haste to meet her the night before, when she’d radiated such distress.

And the evidence of his ability to hear her, and of her own to reach out through the voices she didn’t even want to acknowledge in the first place.

She looked sharply at Kai, but he seemed totally caught up in waking—yawning to stretch again, revealing the play of muscle to the early light, the shift of stretch and beauty. His eyes were sleepy within the faint lining smudges of color, their blue dark and clear beneath strong brows, hair black in the diffuse light and mussed to a high degree.

Her fingers had a pretty good idea how it had gotten that way.

But as he rolled out of his stretch to sit, the blankets falling away from the unnecessary bandanna to reveal the entirety of his torso, she frowned—reaching out to touch the silvery hair on his chest, to touch a face with clean lines and faint hollows beneath his cheeks and the long dimples that showed at the faintest hint of a smile.

A face without stubble, or even the hint of a shadow.

He held for her touch with such stillness that she understood the effort she asked of him—
wild thing, fighting all his ingrained responses to her—
and withdrew. A nearly invisible tension flowed away, and she thought it wasn’t her imagination at all.

She thought she’d felt it as much as seen it.

“I still have to go,” she said, quite simply and without truly planning it.

He looked sharply at her, eyes darkening...silent. Understanding that
go
meant not just back to the cabin, but away from this place altogether.

She shifted, stiff and aching in unaccustomed ways. Aching
inside,
which she hadn’t expected.

“Last night...” she said. “It changed everything.” She closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to see his expression, already far too aware of the pain she would cause him. “Last night changed everything,” she repeated. “But...it changed nothing.” Now she did look at him, finding his steady and silent regard, his body so still he might have been carved. Utter attention. “There’s something wrong with this place. It drove my mother crazy—it
killed
her. But, Kai—” she took the deepest of breaths, meeting his gaze in what suddenly felt like a shared misery
“—it can’t have me.”

He leaned over, curling a hand around the back of her neck with such smooth intent it took her entirely by surprise when he drew her in for a kiss. Not fierce, not primal...but gently caressing. When he released her, she had the startling sensation that he was stepping back in all ways.

The thought brought a stab of unexpected grief, and she almost didn’t hear his low words. “Regan, I
am
the mountain.”

But she did hear him, and she took a deep breath. “I know,” she said, and she did.

She didn’t try to make sense of it, or to defy it. There wasn’t any point, not after what she’d felt the night before. She felt the tears come to prickle at her eyes, but she didn’t look away from his face, not even when it blurred or when she had to blink so hard or when her voice cracked, coming out barely more than a whisper. “I
know.
”

* * *

They hadn’t spoken much after that. They hadn’t needed to, in their shared and somber state. Kai had gone, promising a quick return—standing naked and unabashed to shake the blankets free of pine needles and head off into the woods.

By the time Regan had pulled on her clothes, brushed away a number of inexplicable buff and silver hairs, finger combed and braided her hair and had a rough toilet, he approached again, clad in tunic over breechclout and leggings, and damned well taking her breath away.

She made herself pretend not to notice and finished policing the spot as he arrived, greeting him with mundane words. “All clean,” she said and added, in case he hadn’t followed, “Leave no trace.”

He shook his head with the faintest of wry smiles. “Not quite,” he told her, and she flushed at it, looking away. She didn’t have to see his fist hover over his heart to know what he meant.

And she still had to go.

So it was Regan who shouldered her pack and led the way, her stomach growling about food and her body somehow now hypersensitive to the brush of jeans and shirt and jacket against her skin...and her own heart aching.

But he hadn’t tried to talk her out of going. He’d said, briefly, that he would spend time at the cabin, making sure animals were fed and the place stayed warm enough to avoid frozen pipes in what remained of the late-spring nights. And now he came along so she could show him the details of such mundane things.

She smeared a tear off her cheek and tackled a particularly steep part of the trail with more vigor than strictly necessary.

But Kai, when he came to the top of that slope behind her, hesitated. Regan turned back to him—and her question faded in her throat.

Kai, and not. Kai, and more. He stood with such simmering potential, such imminence of action, his expression and entire body so utterly focused—

She sucked in air and stumbled a step back, her heart suddenly driving into overtime—the most primitive of reactions, deeper than instinct and beyond all thought.

His gaze flicked toward her, and everything changed.

Wild.

Truly and entirely wild, and capable of...

Anything.

She stood stiff and still as he closed the distance between them, frozen in the stark wonderment that she’d made love to this man,
touched
him and been touched...had been so arrogant as to think she knew him.

If he had any inkling of her reaction, it didn’t show. His voice emerged a low growl. “It isn’t safe here.”

She managed to say, “You’re not talking about the voices.”

His gaze went out over the woods. “Something else—something that changes how the voices speak to you.” When he shook his head again, this time it was with frustration. “I can’t explain. But you’re right. You should go. I’ll—” He took a deep breath, fraught with tension that didn’t quite make sense with the words to follow. “I’ll get help.”

She touched his arm, sensing his struggle—not understanding and not able to help...and frightened by it. “I wish I knew what you were talking about.”

He didn’t even pretend to answer, but he caught her gaze and held it, as direct as ever. “If I make it safe again, will you come back?”

She froze again, slapped not only by the fear of it, but by the yearning. She managed to whisper, “It will never be safe for me here. You know that.”

“Be with me,” he said, “and I can show you how.”

Tears spilled over and took her by surprise again, and this time sparked her temper. “Dammit,” she said, wiping one cheek and turning away from him, surprisingly close to stomping her foot. “I never cry like this!”

He put his arms around her from behind and rested his cheek on top of her head. “Neither do I,” he said, and it startled her to realize his voice held more than its usual hint of rasp.

So they stood for a moment, and at some point Regan took a deep and shaky breath, and Kai kissed her hair, and she managed to say, “I can’t promise. But...I want to.”

“Then I’ll promise,” he said. “And I’ll be here.”

Rather than cry again, she struck off along the game path, no finesse in her steps. The lay of the land looked familiar again—the stark lines of a dead tree against that south slope, the jumble of limestone tumbling off the side of the ridge to the north.

Kai moved with increasing caution, straying off the game path to parallel her—ghosting in and out of sight and only coming in close again as they approached the cabin clearing.

Then he came close enough to stop her—not with his touch, but by coming in to crowd her, his expression troubled, searching hard, one hand reaching as though he might just tug her to the ground.

Beware!

She startled, her gaze darting through the trees. “What?”

BEWARE!

Kai caught her glance, and she knew suddenly that he’d heard it first, that he’d never stopped listening at all. “Kai...” she said, not sure if she was warning him or pleading with him—taking a step back from the rising of the wild in his eyes, and from the sudden impression he was on the verge of turning on her, driving her back down the hill—

He jerked, astonishment on his face. Regan stood startled and stupid as he stumbled back to lose his balance, falling against the rough rusty bark of a massive ponderosa. His gaze caught hers for an instant of what looked like inexplicable
pleading.

Then the booming report of a large caliber rifle echoed between the ridges, and the blood bloomed up high on his chest, and Regan understood.

She might have stood stupidly for another instant—but as Kai’s eyes rolled up and his knees gave way, she lurched to catch him. His weight took them both down, surprising her with his solidity—with the instant memory of how he’d held himself so lightly over her the night before, loving her with every fiber of his being.

Run...hide...beware...

She didn’t waste time looking wildly for the shooter. She hooked her hands under Kai’s arms and dug her heels in, straining to get him behind the tree.

Because the one thing she did know was where the shot had come from, and he still lay right out in the open.

All the same, she got nowhere. Not until Kai groaned and rolled away from her, first to his hands and knees and then rising with a snarl, surging away in blind intent.

She snagged him as best she could. “Kai! Over here!”

He escaped her grip, staggering, and she leaped up in sudden inspiration, plastering herself behind the tree where she wanted him. “Kai, I need help! Please!”

And then she knew.

For
her,
he could do it, even through stunned confusion. He made it back only as far as the tree before falling again, but it was far enough.

For now.

“Let me see,” she demanded, first nudging and then shoving him, drawing frantically at her artist’s familiarity with anatomy—the arteries, the ribs, the lung housed up high under the collarbone. But he was remarkably uncooperative, bent over himself to clutch at the wound and then so suddenly turning on her—that snarl on his beautiful face, that wild look in his eye.

Regan shrieked, scrambling back against the tree in a purely visceral reaction. “It’s
me,
” she said, and—more desperately than she’d ever imagined—reached out to the place the voices lived inside her.

Somehow she’d come to take them for granted. Somehow she’d gotten used to them, learned to
use
them. Learned, so deeply, that connection with Kai.

When she encountered the solidity of his silence, it hurt. Her own voice bounced back at her in a distorted echo, evoking from her a breathy gasp; her whole body recoiled from that blow.

And she knew, looking at that wounded, wild eye, that he hadn’t done it deliberately.
I am the mountain,
he’d told her.

Except now, somehow, he wasn’t.

“Hey,” she said, making her voice no-nonsense—the same one she would use on the spooked mustang...or, when she was twelve, on her mother during a bad moment. “It’s me. And whoever did this is still out there.” Her mind flashed to the men she’d seen at the dry pool and with Arshun in town.

Men who liked guns. Who
didn’t
like Kai. And who wanted this land.

Kai pressed the heel of his hand against his brow, panting like the untamed thing he’d become. “Regan,” he said, the rasp pronounced in his voice.

“Get over here!” she said, filling her voice with authority she didn’t feel. “We’ve got to get into the house and call for help.”

“Core,” he told her, not moving—just swaying there. Every word came from a distant place, as if he had to fight his way through something other than pain. “The phone won’t work.”

“It’s voice-over internet,” she said, baffled. “Satellite provider. It should work just fine.”

“It
won’t,
” he said, grinding the words out. “They wouldn’t let it—”

“Okay, okay—” She couldn’t let him waste energy on the point. Either the phone did or it didn’t, and he
still
hadn’t truly taken cover, even if no one had taken a second shot. She darted out into the open to wrap a light arm around his waist, guiding him to the tree. When they got there, he put his back to it, and only the rough bark kept him from sliding down. “Look, before the satellite connection, we only had CB radio. I bet it’s still stuffed in Dad’s closet. Either way, the house is still the best bet.”

He gave her a blank look. “I don’t know
CB radio—
” and then lifted his lip in that snarl, folding over to clutch at his shoulder. When he looked up, the wild was back in his eye, the rasp back in his voice. “Core poison,” he said. “Workings. I can’t—”

“Let me see,” she said, using her firm voice. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but that’s going to take a lot more than a bandanna.”

“Won’t heal,” he said vaguely, fingers curled over the blood of his tunic as if he might rip the bullet out by force, or at least by force of will. “Take it
out—
”

She pulled his hand away, taking liberties—getting her first good look at the wound’s location and cursing with it. He wasn’t having trouble breathing yet...but he would. Breathing...and
living.
“The house,” she said. “We’ve got to reach the house—”

“Why?” Kai lifted his head to look at her straight on, and she didn’t understand at first, because wasn’t it just obvious? The house was shelter, the house was their only chance to call for help, the house held her shotgun and the .22 and maybe her father still had his .30-06 tucked away somewhere—