Ghost Moon (26 page)

“Then you have to let Caleb Marshall do it,” Pamina whispered. “He is the only one who can. But first you want to make love with Quinn. You want that so much.”

“Yes.” His face contorted and he went back to his self-destructivetheme. “If she still wants the thing I’ve turned into.”

“Not a thing. A man!” she shouted. “My man. My mate.” He made a snorting sound.

“Of course I want you!”

“Let him feel you.”

Quinn caressed him, sensing that they had almost won. She had connected with him physically. And the healer had used his desire for revenge to strengthen his need to return to this body.

“You can have Quinn. You want her. Your body and your soul tingle with wanting. Every nerve ending is screaming for her. And after you make love, you can attack those men.”

“Yes.”

Quinn’s eyes brimmed with unshed tears. He wanted her. And she wanted him to come back to her. So much.

It looked like he was almost there. They trembled on the brink of something magical. Then in the next breath, he dashed her hopes as he came back to his own despair.

“But she won’t want me like this. Who would want this pitiful excuse for a werewolf?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Quinn leaned over
Caleb. “You’re wrong. I want you. More than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life. Not just the sex. That was so good. But I want you for my life mate. I want to live our lives together. I will be like a walkingdead woman if you don’t come back to me.”

When he tried to speak, she hurried on. “I’ve gone through Carfolian Hell to save you. I crossed the badlands alone. I was stopped by soldiers who thought I was trying to invade the city.”

She gulped in air. “Slavers almost picked me up, and I had to shoot them. Please—don’t make it all for nothing. Don’t turn away from me now. Please.”

He made a moaning sound, his head swinging back and forth on the bed as though he were trying to escape from some awful nightmare.

“He’s almost here. Don’t let him draw back. Make him feel you. Make him want you. Tell him how much you want him in this body.”

“Caleb, please. Come back to me. I want you the way you are. I want to make love with you. I want to live with you and grow old with you. Don’t take that away from me.”

“No.”

Somewhere in this strange encounter, Quinn had passed beyond embarrassment to desperation. She turned Caleb loose so she could rear up and pull her shirt over her head. When she was naked from the waist up, she slid onto the bed, her legs wedged against his as she rubbed her breasts against his chest, the salve she had spread over him prickling against her own skin, making her nipples tighten and throb.

Caleb cried out and his eyes blinked open.

“Quinn!”

“Yes. Make love with me.”

She took him in her hand again, sliding her fist up and down, feeling him harden even more. And she felt the power of their connection like a psychic spark jumping back and forth between them.

“You’re very close. But you must finish it—to anchor him here,” Pamina said.

The woman drew back, and the music stopped. Then, to Quinn’s profound relief, she heard the door open. A shaft of light knifed in. And then the door closed, leaving only two people in the room. Her and Caleb. Thank the Great Mother.

Her own need made Quinn clumsy as she wiggled out of her pants and kicked them off the bed, then clasped Caleb’s shoulders, pressing her body against the length of his.

The salve that transferred itself from his skin to hers made her nerve endings jump as arousal coursed through her blood.

She slid herself against him, rocking him in her arms. And when his arm tightened around her, she moaned.

His eyes blinked open again, and he stared at her in puzzlement.“Quinn? Where did you come from?”

“I’ve been here all the time. Except when I had to leave you in the badlands.”

“I don’t remember.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Lowering her mouth to his, she devoured him, drinking his essence and the taste of him as she slid her hands over his slick body.

When she finally raised her head, they both gasped for breath.

“Quinn! God, you’ve made me so hot.”

“Thank the Great Mother.”

“I’ve got to have you.”

“Yes!”

He reversed their positions, pressing her down into the bed with an urgency that made her head spin.

Clasping her tightly, he ran his hands over her arms and shoulders. “Where was I?” he asked, his face pressed against her neck.

“Does it matter?” she answered as she touched him everywhere she could reach.

“Not now.” He gave a harsh laugh. “Jesus, open your legs for me before I explode.”

Gladly, she did as he asked, guiding him to her, crying out as his cock slid inside her.

The salve was in her, too, inflaming her beyond endurance, and as he began to thrust, she matched his movements, franticfor release.

Nothing so intense could last for long. And when he cried out, pouring himself into her, she slid her hand between them, pressing against her clit so that she could follow him.

Climax rocked her, and she clung to his slick body, gaspingout her thanks that he had come back to her.

CALEB
collapsed on top of Quinn, breathing hard, then rolled to his side, taking her with him, stroking her face, her shoulders.

She snuggled against him, stringing little kisses over his hot skin.

He had come back because he wanted her. She had pulled him back to the world. And now he wondered if he had made a mistake. Was this right? For her? And for him.

“I can hardly believe I’m here—with you,” he whispered.

“Believe it.”

“I should be dead.”

“Don’t say that!”

"I would be . . . nowhere . . . without you,” he said in a gritty voice.

But he was still struggling with reality. He had satisfied his overwhelming sexual need, but when he thought about the future, he felt a kind of desperate blackness stretching endlessly ahead of him.

“Nothing’s changed. I’m still . . . damaged goods.”

She sat up and looked down at him. “Your life will be differentfrom what it would have been. You have to come to terms with that.”

He clenched his jaw, then made an effort to relax the muscles. “What if I can’t?”

“I’ll help you.”

He didn’t like her looking down at him, so he sat, making himself taller than she. A petty assertion of power? Yet what he had to say was important. “I could have gotten you pregnant.”

Her face softened and she laid her hand on his arm. “I don’t mind.”

“But whose child would it be?” he spat out.

She kept her gaze steady. “Don’t keep looking for excusesto turn away from me. I love you. It would be a child we created—making love together.”

His hand clenched as he struggled with too many emotionsall at once.

“Do you love me?” she asked.

He wouldn’t lie. Couldn’t. “Yes. But I should not.”

She looked sad, and he braced to hear some kind of argumentfrom her. To his surprise, she changed the subject.

“Where did you go . . . when you weren’t here?”

His gaze went unfocused as he struggled to answer the question. “I was somewhere else. A place with no light. And no feeling.” He shuddered. “Nowhere.” Honesty forced him to add, “I could have stayed there forever—if you hadn’t pulled me out.”

She slid her arm around him, holding him to her. “You’re here now.”

He nodded, still thinking about that empty place. “I talked to Wyatt Reynolds.”

Her breath caught. “You did?”

He ran a hand through his hair. “Well, I think I did. But it’s like a dream now. Or maybe it was just the memory of him—in my brain. Neither one of us had a body. But somehowwe recognized each other. I wonder now . . . why wasn’t he in heaven, or whatever the afterlife is?”

“Maybe he came there . . . to meet you.”

“Maybe.”

She pressed her face to his shoulder. “What did he say?”

“The most important thing to him was why he left his body. He wanted to die. That’s why he didn’t try to come back after you dug him up.”

“Why would a perfectly healthy man want to die?”

“His wife, Beth Ann, had . . . something called an aneurysm. It’s a place where . . . a blood vessel in the brain is weak. It can break, and you bleed to death inside your skull. One day she was perfectly fine. Then, suddenly, she was dead. He missed her so much.”

“I understand that,” she whispered.

She lifted her head, and he looked into her eyes.

“No. You are strong,” he said. “You could go on. But he couldn’t endure life without her. That’s why he took a dangerousassignment. Maybe he was
hoping
they’d kill him. Maybe he was even careless.”

She winced.

Something else was nagging at him. Slowly, he began to speak. “But then he realized he’d made a mistake. He was sneaking around the farm, and he found something out. He knew he should have stayed on earth and . . .”

“What?”

“He had to tell the . . .” He stopped and made a frustrated sound. “I don’t know!”

She pressed her hand over his. “Maybe it will come to you.”

“It’s important. I know that much. An attack on . . . somethingimportant. A lot of people are going to die, if I can’t remember.”

ROSS
Marshall turned away from the computer and looked at his cousin.

“I may have found something.”

“What?”

"I’ve been putting in license plates where an
L
or
I
could have been altered. And I’ve come up with something interesting.A car registered to a Colonel Jim Bowie.”

“You mean, like the guy they named the bowie knife after?” Logan asked.

“I think that’s right.” He laughed. “There’s a singer with that name, too. But it’s David Bowie. I looked the Jim Bowie character up. He’s got a place called Flagstaff Farm outside Frederick, Maryland. And he’s gotten into trouble with the law.”

“Like how?”

“Disorderly conduct. Assault. Nothing too big. I did a littledigging. He doesn’t do any farming. But he has a lot of men out there, and they’ve been seen doing military training. It sounds like he’s got a paramilitary group.”

“Nice.”

“So maybe the guy who used to have Caleb’s body was one of his men.”

“It might be time for a couple of wolves to prowl around Flagstaff Farm.”

“Or maybe not,” a voice said from the doorway.

They both turned to see Rinna standing with her arms folded and watching them with narrowed eyes.

“How long have you been there?”

“Long enough to hear that you’re planning something dangerous.”

“We’d be careful,” Logan said quickly.

Rinna looked from Logan to Ross and back again. “If he has a military organization, they have guns. Maybe they even like to shoot wild animals for fun. I don’t want you anywhere near there. This isn’t your problem.”

“Maybe it is.”

“How?”

“Maybe they’re planning something big,” Ross said. He’d been careful not to step on his cousin’s toes, but he felt he needed to make that point clear.

“But it’s not worth putting my life mate in danger. Or Megan’s,” she added, giving Ross a pointed look.

Logan sighed. “You may be right.”

“Of course I’m right.”

“So why did they kill the guy?” he asked.

“Because he stepped out of line? Like, he’s one of the colonel’s men, and he got to be too much trouble.”

“I don’t think so,” Ross mused.

“Why not?” Logan asked.

“Because they could have just shot him. But they wanted him to die a slow, terrifying death.”

“Yeah.” Logan agreed. He tried to put the pieces of the puzzle together. But he was missing too many key elements.

“I’d like to know his name,” Ross said. “Then we could look him up, too.”

“At least we can drive out there,” Logan said.

“If you do, I’m going along,” Rinna said.

“To help us spy on them?”

She crossed to Logan and laid a hand on his shoulder. “To make sure you don’t get into trouble.”

CALEB
watched Quinn stand up.

“Where are you going?”

“To take the roast off the fire.” She moved the meat from the fireplace and laid it on a plate.

He sniffed. “Beef. Yeah. It smells good. I’m hungry.”

“That’s good. We can eat. Then we can talk about how to jog your memory.”

“Okay.”

He nodded and stood. She cut him some meat, and he ate a few bites, then rubbed his hand over his chest, making a face. “Um, what is this stuff all over me?”

She laughed. “Do you remember the other woman who was here?”

“Yes.”

“She had me smear it on you. It’s kind of like itching powder.She wanted you to have as many sensory experiences as possible.”

“And she had you . . . give me a . . . uh . . . intimate massage?” he asked, unable to keep a little teasing tone out of his voice.

He saw color come into Quinn’s cheeks. “Yes.”

Turning, she crossed to the basin in the corner, dipped a cloth in the water and rubbed soap on it. Then she started washing. In the warm light from the oil lamps, she looked very sultry, and he told himself not to get trapped into wantingher again. He had to think through what had happened to him—before he could put her into the equation.

He joined her at the basin, washing off the sticky stuff.

“That woman was a witch?”

“An adept. With a skill in healing.”

He laughed. “She knew what would lure me back to earth.”

Quinn nodded, then dipped her head away.

“Are you embarrassed?”

“Yes. But I would have done anything it took to get you back.”