Dark Refuge (32 page)

Lily remained standing, purposefully invading his space until the waitress arrived with their meals. Aldo stepped out of her way and then left without another word. Lily turned, sat, and raised her eyebrow again as she glanced at Jill.

Jill shook her head. The moment the waitress was gone, she took a sip of her wine. “I do not like that man. Something about him . . .”

Lily nodded. “Makes your skin crawl?”

“Exactly. Why? He’s handsome enough. Well mannered.”

“Rich and powerful.” Lily laughed. “I bet he’s asked you out.”

“He did, and like a fool, I accepted. I couldn’t wait for the evening to end.”

“Did he make a pass?”

Jill shook her head. “Nothing so obvious, but he makes me very uncomfortable. Just a feeling I wasn’t safe with him.”

Lily took a bite of her blood-rare hamburger and swallowed. “You sure you’re not Chanku? You’ve always got good intuition.”

“No. Not a drop. I was tested. Took the nutrients for two weeks. Not even a hint of the need to howl.” She shrugged and turned her attention to her salad.

Lily used her French fry as a pointer. “I’m sorry. I think you could have given the guys in my pack a run for their money.”

Jill sipped her wine. “I still can. I just have to do it on two legs.”

They both laughed, but at the same time, the fact she’d tried the nutrients meant Jill had hoped she was Chanku. Lily was sorry for her, for the fact that her friend had wanted something badly enough to go for it, yet failed.

It was something Jill had to accept she could never have. Lily wondered what that would be like, to want something that was totally impossible, something forever out of reach.

They concentrated on their food for a bit. Then Jill set her fork down. “You know, Lily. I think the world of you, and I really love your folks. You’re good people. All of you, your mom and dad especially. They give generously whenever there’s a need, and they’ve done a lot for this city, even though they don’t live here. I don’t want to see these killings hurt any of you, but if we can’t find the killer, I don’t know how we’re going to keep the anger under control. I worry about your safety.”

Lily glanced toward the crowd of reporters waiting at the front door. The questions they’d thrown at her as she walked into the restaurant had been pointed and ugly. In their minds, shapeshifters were committing rapes and murders and she was just as guilty as the ones actually doing the deed.

The sudden jackhammer inside her head had her gasping.

“Lily? Are you all right?”

Jill reached across the table and took her hand.

Lily pressed fingers to her skull. “Just a minute.”

Her father’s voice filled her mind.

There’s been another killing, Lily. A woman’s body was found about ten minutes ago in Golden Gate Park, not far from the garden your mother designed many years ago. If you’re in a public place, you might want to find somewhere private to finish your lunch with the mayor.

“Shit.” Lily took one more quick bite of her burger and tossed back the last of her wine, taking a moment to consider the consequences of her father’s words. She focused on Jill, one of the few people aware that the Chanku were telepathic. “My father just contacted me. There’s been another murder. The body was found about—”

The mayor’s cell phone rang. She answered the call, but her gaze was glued to Lily. With a soft curse, she asked a couple of brief questions and then ended the call. “That was the chief of police. I’m needed back at City Hall.” She stood up. “I’m sorry, Lily. I’ll do what I can.”

“I know. Thank you. Go ahead. I’ll get lunch.”

Jill was reaching for her handbag. “That’s not—”

“Go. Call me later.”

“I will.” She slipped the strap of her purse over her shoulder and gave Lily a quick hug. “Later. And thank you.”

Lily watched her walk away. A pleasant-looking woman in her early fifties, Jill Bradley looked like someone’s mom, not like the head of one of the nation’s largest, most diverse cities.

She walked as if she didn’t have a care in the world, passing through the throng of reporters with a quick smile and a friendly greeting to the ones she knew.

Lily wished she had that kind of grace under fire. She handed her card to the waitress, signed the tab when it came after adding a sizeable tip for that perfectly prepared, almost-raw burger, and walked toward the back of the restaurant.

There was no way she was going to try and get through the reporters. Nope. She’d take the coward’s exit, through the kitchen and out the back.

And the first thing she’d do when she got back to the office was call Alex. The last murder had been in Montana, but this latest had happened barely a mile from her office.

She wondered where Sebastian Xenakis had been last night.

Keep reading for a sneak peek

at the second book in the

Spirit Wild Series,

Dark Spirit

Chapter 1

It was nothing more than a bare patch of earth littered with trash, but the grasses growing here were magic. And Romy knew she risked a beating for kneeling beside what had become, to her at least, a shrine. A shrine to both love and loss.

But it had been exactly twenty years ago today, and acknowledgment must be made.

Twenty long, lonely years, and if it meant a beating, kneeling beside this trash-strewn patch of dirt, well . . .

It wouldn’t be her first.

She had no idea they planned to kill her.

First she heard the sound of gravel crunching beneath boots. Many boots. Then, before she had time to react, his
voice. “I will make an example of you, Satan’s bitch.”

“What?” Spinning around, she leapt to her feet. “Reverend Ezekiel! What . . . ?”

“Do you dare question me? Question the voice of the Lord?”

His voice rose as if he spoke to the entire congregation. Meaty fingers wrapped around both her arms. Clamped down with bruising strength.

Romy turned away, but his spittle sprayed across her face. She tugged but she couldn’t pull her arms free. This time, Ezekiel had plenty of help. The men she’d turned down over the years, every damned one of them laughing and making jokes, pulling her long hair, squeezing her unbound breasts through the loose-fitting dress, and then dragging her across the cornfield to the center of the compound.

Two bloodstained poles, planted firmly in the ground in the shape of an X.

Dear God!
This would be no simple beating.

The men threw her roughly against the whipping post.

The women stood, heads bowed in prayer. Like that was going to help? Romy glared at them, all of them standing off to one side, eyes down, hands clasped demurely in front of their waists. So many of them pregnant because that’s what women were for.

Their sole purpose in life, as mandated by God, according to Reverend Ezekiel, was to keep the men satisfied, to take their seed and produce more followers. All for the esteemed bastard and self-avowed reincarnation of one of the Lord’s prophets, known to all who lived here in the compound as the Most Reverend Ezekiel, oracle of all things holy, and leader of the Glorious Salvation in Truth.

Bastards, all of them. A bunch of stupid women unwilling to want anything better than the horny old men who’d subjugated them through fear and ignorance. Women so cowed and terrified that not one of them would lift a finger to help one of their own. No, they’d ignored the terrified cries of a six-year-old child, and now they’d stand witness to her death twenty years later, thankful it wasn’t one of them about to have their flesh stripped away.

To hell with them. They deserved their wretched lives!

But I don’t, do I, Mama? I don’t!

“Tighter. Don’t want her breaking free. Samuel! Check those knots.”

“Yes, Reverend.”

She fought them. She knew she was strong—stronger than any of the other women—but Samuel, the little dick, tightened the bindings holding her wrists to the upper arms of the X. Not a cross for punishment. No, Ezekiel believed that sinners didn’t deserve the same as the Christ, so the two polished beams had been planted in the ground in the shape of an X. As tall as she was, Romy’s breasts were smashed in the top V, which was most likely the effect the good reverend wanted. He’d always liked looking at her breasts. Her arms were stretched overhead, extending outward, wrenching her shoulders.

She tugged at the ropes binding her wrists, glared at Samuel as he knelt to tie her legs to the lower section. When he grappled with her right leg, she kicked out, hard, cracking her bare toes against the softness between his legs. But he was hard, too. Erect and straining against his pants.

Romy laughed when he doubled over, screaming like a little girl. Screaming louder than she had when worse was done to her, but he was grabbing his crotch with both hands. She’d bet good money he wasn’t hard now.

“Ahhhh . . . Bitch! You fucking bitch!”

Good. She knew she’d caught him hard in the balls, but he deserved it. No surprise that his dick had been hard. The jerk got off on what he knew was coming.

Sucking deep breaths, she dismissed the man whimpering in the dirt and stared wildly at the ones surrounding her. Were all of them hard? All erect, knowing she’d soon be naked, her back bleeding?

Strong arms wrapped around her thighs, holding them tight to the posts while others tightened the ropes lashed around her legs from her knees down. She felt their filthy hands reaching between her legs, invading her, and she cursed them, furious, twisting and struggling against the bindings holding her arms, against the arms trapping her legs. There were too many; she wasn’t strong enough to fight them all. Eventually they had her, arms and legs spread wide, securely lashed to the smooth wood. She held her head high, no matter the strain on her neck, and stared at the forest surrounding the compound. Instead of the men celebrating her capture, Romy focused on the words she’d read just this morning, the words she read daily in her mother’s diary. Thought of the magic she’d read about yet never mastered.

She knew there was a wolf inside her but she’d never been able to call it forth. She’d eaten the magic grasses, attracted to their sweet flavor, but her skin had never crawled with the sense of her other creature wanting free. Her vision hadn’t changed.

No, only her dreams. Thank goodness she’d had her dreams. Running as a wolf through the deep woods, running beside her mother.

Except Mama was gone. For twenty long years she’d been gone. For twenty years, Romy had waited for the right time to escape, for the time when she could finally call on the wolf and run. Only then would she have a chance of surviving in a world she’d never seen. Not after a lifetime in the compound. A lifetime in bondage to the twisted beliefs of the one they called the oracle, the Reverend Ezekiel.

Romy sensed movement in front of her and raised her head. Her father stood there, glaring at her. He’d taken another wife, one who knew that Romy had been his unwilling bedmate all these years.

Was that the reason for this whole scene? From the way he glanced away when she tried to make eye contact, Romy figured she had her answer.

“Gee, Daddy. All you had to do was tell me you didn’t want to fuck me anymore. I would have gladly stepped aside for your new whore. Isn’t this taking things a little bit far?”

His hand flashed out before she had time to react, catching her across the left cheek hard enough to make her see stars. Romy’s mouth filled with blood, but her father flushed a deep scarlet. It was worth the pain to know she’d pissed him off.

He turned to Reverend Ezekiel and drew in a breath deep enough to expand his skinny chest. “She has sinned and deserves no mercy. I renounce this harlot. She is no longer my daughter. She consorts with evil. Lures godly men to join her and follow the devil’s path.”

“Excellent, Brother Ephron. You may stay or leave. Whatever you choose.”

“I choose to stay.” He stepped closer. Close enough that Romy could see the tiny red lines in his bloodshot eyes. “You’ll pay for your sins,” he said. “And then you’ll burn in hell.”

He pulled out a knife and cut through the thin cotton fabric covering her. Down the front, along the sleeves, a ritualistic evisceration of the dress that had once belonged to her mother.

Romy had worn it today to mark the date.

Someone pulled the fabric away from her. She felt the heat of the afternoon sun caressing her bare back and buttocks, but she felt no shame. Neither did she feel fear. Raising her head again, she looked at the crowd in front of her. Men, women and children, standing silently, waiting for her punishment to begin.

The sense of anticipation sent a visceral pulse through her body, a sensual, sexual reaction that surprised her. After years of almost nightly rape by her father, she’d never felt anything remotely sexual. She’d merely been a receptacle for his seed.