Haze of Heat (16 page)

Chapter Seventeen

Air.

She yanked her hand back, unsure if she felt what she thought she felt or only imagined it. Mistakes happened all the time, especially in the heat of the moment. Or in the chill of a cave. Brain churning, and with a third glance behind her to see what the others were doing, she removed her helmet and set it on the ground next to her feet. Undoing her ponytail, she winced only slightly as she pulled out several strands of hair. Draping them low on the wall so the ends lay partially on the ground, she held her breath, and watched.

Her eyes nearly popped out of her head when they arched upward from a wispy current of air.

Pushing to her feet, Rachel turned, seeking out anybody. Well, not anybody. This wasn’t something anybody should see. This belonged to the Felix family. Only they should decide what to do.

Her eyes landed on Porter—of course!—and she didn’t have a moment’s pause at being stared at by the gorgeous shifter whose face was creased in lines of perplexity, tall and silent and at the peripheral of the group now clustered around a stalagmite near the opposite wall.

“Ria.” Rachel’s lips formed the woman’s name with only a hint of sound. Then she pointed at the brunette beauty and back to herself. “I need Ria here.”

Though Porter was obviously curious, he merely nodded and turned to the woman in question. Rachel couldn’t tell what he did, considering she was now looking at the back of his head, but within seconds she heard Ria say, “Gwen knows more about that then I do. Gwen?”

Impatiently shifting from foot to foot, Rachel waited while the other woman casually made her way over.

“Got ants in your pants?” An amused question, one that Rachel might have laughed at if she wasn’t about to burst.

“You said you’ve not found another exit?” Rachel was cognizant enough of the others to keep her voice low.

“That’s correct.” Though her forehead wrinkled, Ria’s response was equally low.

Rachel nodded. “I’d like to show you something.”

“All right.” It was an agreement bordering on the unwilling.

“You’ve probably seen and heard it all, but please, humor me for two minutes.”

Ria’s stormy gray eyes searched Rachel’s earnest ones for several moments before the half-vampire shrugged. “Sure.”

Relieved, Rachel pointed her flashlight where she wanted Ria to look. “You’ll need to let your eyes go blurry to see it.”

Ria’s head snapped up. “Blurry?”

“Yeah. Like cross-eyed, but not quite.”

With a roll of those eyes, Ria focused back at the spot. When she gasped, Rachel knew she’d seen the marks. “They don’t go any higher than this point, but they do go lower.” Again she used her light as a pointer. “Until this one, which disappears into the rock floor.”

Dropping to her haunches, Ria edged in closer, rubbing her fingers over grooves that could easily have been misinterpreted, especially since they couldn’t be seen unless one was avidly looking for them. “How?” She looked up at Rachel in awe.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Ria cocked a brow. “Don’t suppose a little ghostly help was involved?”

At Rachel’s nod Ria let out a very unladylike curse. “Part of me wants to pout because I wasn’t the recipient of that help, but the rest is simply too excited.”

“Then this will really rev your engines.” Rachel squatted next to Ria, indicated the blond strands strewn on the rocky surface. “I wasn’t sure what I felt, so I used my hair as a test.”

Ria clapped a hand over her mouth at the twisting pieces of hair, her centerfold physique vibrating with that aforementioned excitement. “Oh my God. I never thought...” A pause and then Ria looked up again, eyes wide as saucers as she stared at Rachel. “It’s beneath us.” Then the brunette did something Rachel would never have dreamed. In a swift move, she grabbed Rachel’s head and planted a smacking kiss on her lips.

She was gone a second later, striding across the cave as if she were floating on air. “If everyone’s done exploring, we should start heading back.” Her voice was a little high and a bit rushed, making Rachel grin.

Yeah, the vamp was one happy camper. And no doubt anxious to get digging. How, Rachel didn’t have a clue, but that wasn’t her business. Unbearably curious as to what lay below, she nevertheless slapped her helmet back on, stood, and headed for the tunnel, understanding the other woman’s desire to boot everyone out of the cave at the earliest opportunity.

Like this instant.

Porter snagged her wrist before she could fall in line with the other exiting hikers, immobilizing her until they all disappeared into the tunnel. “What’s going on?”

Rachel glanced at the queue of retreating backs. “Suffice it to say another possible entrance has been located.”

Astonishment etched his face. “No shit?’

She smirked. “No shit.”

Dark brows climbed higher. “You found it?”

Her smirk morphed into a full-on smug grin. “With a little help from my ghostly new best friend.”

Porter’s gaze darted to the corner where Rachel found the second entrance and back. He was grinning as well. “So that’s what the smoking hot girl-on-girl kiss was about.” Before she knew what he was about, he wrapped his arms around her waist, picked her up and spun in a circle. She was laughing when he kissed her, a deep wet one that made her whole body vibrate much like Ria’s had earlier, but for an entirely different reason. Just as fire started to lick through her blood, he broke the kiss, set her on her feet, and, hand enveloping hers, started off after the others in the tunnel.

Back outside, Rachel was met by fifteen feet high walls made of cream-colored brick that rose on all four sides of the ruin. The open sky was the ceiling. Dirt was the floor. The way up, or down, was by a set of stairs at the far corner made of flat stones in varying hues of blues, greens, and grays.

Everyone climbed those stairs, dulled and rough by time and use, and scattered in different directions. Porter moved off toward the horses and Curtis. The others were milling about the clearing as they waited further instructions.

Off to one side, Ria whispered urgently to Gwen while extending one hand up by her head, her fingers waving as if telling someone out in the surrounding forest to come forward. Following the direction of those waggling digits, and after a bit of searching, Rachel located Ria’s target. Very nearly hidden behind the thick foliage was a large jaguar, high in one of the trees. He was stretching now, the vibrant orange, yellow, and midnight black rosettes adorning its fur pulling over a lithe, powerful frame. Though its coloring was similar to a leopard’s, the jaguar was much larger, stronger. With almost two thousand pounds of pressure between its jaws, it could crush a skull in a heartbeat.

Santos was simply stunning. Rachel had no doubt the giant cat was Santos, not if Ria was waving at him. It made her wonder if Rome was around, but no. She remembered he was back at the B&B with his father. Taking their responsibilities seriously, the Felix males had split into two groups, not leaving any of their females unprotected.

Rachel glanced over at Porter, seeing him chuckling with Alex. Unbidden, the thought that he would make a great father popped into her head. Patient, loving, gentle, yet tough when he needed to be. He’d protect his child with everything he had, nurture and raise him up to employ the same generous and caring heart his own parents instilled in him.

Her hand went over her own heart, rubbing an ache that expanded at the thought of Porter’s son. Or daughter. God, he would be such an overprotective ass if he had a girl. He’d probably try and lock her up in a padded room when the boys started sniffing around. Squirm and snarl when she wanted to go out on a date, be stupefied when she despaired over having nothing to wear.

And God help her, Rachel desperately wanted to be part of that experience.

Swiveling and blinking rapidly to quell the dampness in her eyes, she moved to the edge of the ruin and stared down. About four feet of dirt had collected on top of the brick walls. Either an indicator of how long the ruin had sat there, or, per one of Ria’s theories, a purposeful covering to enclose a cellar of sorts.

No more than twenty feet down. Not a great height, but peering over the edge, each one of those feet seemed like a mile. There was a barrier around the ruin. At hip height, the orange mesh netting spanned the distance between the steel poles pounded into the dirt every five feet or so. A warning and a safety net for the young, but not an infallible barrier.

She scowled down at the ruin. It wasn’t the fault of the bricks and stones that caused all the bubbles of happiness at her discovery in the cave to fall flat. It was her reaction to the idea of Porter having a life, a family, with another woman. It twisted her insides until she felt sick. It also made her want to claw out the eyes of the unknown futuristic female.

Mine
.

That single possessive snarl from her feline reverberated in her head, churning her emotions further into a muddled mess. Because she realized it was too late to simply leave, too late to keep her heart from becoming attached. Too late not to fall in love.

Turning around, she startled when she came face-to-face with Beth.

A very unhappy Beth.

Shit. How’d I miss her?

Because you were too busy wallowing in self-pity.

Shuddup.

“He won’t keep you.”

Rachel’s eyes narrowed. “Pardon?”

“Don’t play coy. I know you and Porter are together. I see the way he looks at you.” Beth’s gaze drifted down, settled with a hard glint on the love bite Rachel had covered that morning with makeup. Either she hadn’t done as good a job as she thought, or, and more likely, it had sweated off from the hike.

“But it won’t last. He’ll use you and then dump you. Then he’ll come back to me.” Beth’s lips curled unattractively. “You should leave now before he humiliates you even more.”

Rachel felt a growl rise in the back of her throat. How dare this woman think she had any claim on Porter? Porter was
hers
!

Her hands curled into fists, the urge to strike out physically frightfully appealing. “How strange, then, that he asked me to stay.” Not a lie. Porter had asked her to stay. Sure, it’d been when he returned Magnus to his owner, but he’d still asked her to stay. “So, stay I shall.”

Red flushed Beth’s face, her eyes flashing with rage. “You lie. He never asks a woman to stay.”

Rachel’s smile was nasty, cruel, and unstoppable. As were her words. “It’s you who should leave else face humiliation, because I’m not just any woman. I’m
his
woman. And that will never change.” Then, adding insult to verbal injury, Rachel turned her back on the visibly infuriated female.

An act she never would have done had her brain been dialed to the logical channel rather than the raging emotional one.

“No,” Beth spit out behind her. “You’re a dead woman.”

Two hands shoved at Rachel’s back, knocking her off balance. The mesh barrier wasn’t high enough or rigid enough to halt the shift in her center of gravity, and with a shocked cry, she fell over the edge.

Chapter Eighteen

“Rachel!”

Shell shocked, Rachel didn’t respond to Porter’s bellow, which to her ringing ears sounded more like a gargled whisper through water. From her position on her hands and knees, she stared blindly at the yellow helmet which had fallen off and simply concentrated on breathing.

Her cat had instinctively known what to do to save both their lives, taking over Rachel’s petrified body and twisting it mid-air. However, never having been tossed from a twenty-foot height, Rachel had landed hard, and from the throbbing pain in her right ankle, awkwardly on her feet. Then she’d pitched forward on her hands and knees, the hard ground abrading her skin.

“Baby, what happened? Are you all right?” Porter ran his hands gently over her head and ribs. He had to have raced like the wind to get down to her so fast. She was still blinking at the settling dirt kicked up by the jarring impact.

Thank you.
Sincere gratitude for her feline’s quick reflexes. Without them, she’d probably be dead as Beth obviously wanted. Or at the least, severally injured. As it was, she figured she had a sprained ankle—it didn’t feel broken—and friction burns on her knees and palms.

Large hands cupped her face. “Talk to me, honey. Where are you hurt?”

She coughed, and then groaned as her joints and muscles protested against the wracking movement. “My ankle, mainly. Knees. Hands.”

He helped ease her into a sitting position. She forgot about the flashlight in her back pocket until it dug in her butt, causing her to wince. Porter removed it before she could and then turned his attention to her ankle. Deep brackets of displeasure marred his face when she grimaced at his probing touch. “I don’t think it’s broken. Oh, baby. Your knees.”

Yes, they were lovely. Blood seeped from several scrapes to mix with the dirt coating them. Her palms weren’t as bad as she’d thought. They hurt, but the scrapes were superficial. Not even a hint of blood.

“How the hell did you fall? Jesus Christ. We need a fucking better barrier. She could have been killed.” That last he yelled at whoever was racing down the stairs.

“I didn’t fall,” Rachel said hoarsely, lifting her head to see Ria jump from the middle of the stairs, Gwen hot on her heels. Thankfully that odd ringing had faded and she could hear clearly once again.

“There’s no way she could have fallen into the ruin from a standstill. The exterior ground surrounding the opening slopes up. She’d have to be running to fall
in
.” Ria dropped to her knees, mimicking Porter’s actions by running cool hands over Rachel’s body.

Gwen crouched next to her, pulled off her backpack and reached inside to withdraw an emergency kit. “We need to clean her knees.”

“Her ankle’s swelling,” Porter bit out. “And of course she fell. She didn’t suddenly decide to take a header for the fun of it.”

“Take off her shoe and sock,” Gwen told Ria, shooting Porter a harsh look when he growled at the vamp and took care of removing Rachel’s footwear himself.

“I didn’t fall, Porter,” Rachel reiterated. No reason for Porter to be ticked off at Ria when the truth was far more sinister. “I was pushed.”

Gwen paused as she flushed one battered knee with squeeze bottle of saline solution. “Who?”

Rachel, tone full of derision, looked up to see Beth glowering down at her. “Evidently I shouldn’t worry about stalkers when there’s a jealous, psychotic ex-girlfriend hanging around.”

More footfalls as Dennis, Ross, and Curtis hustled down the stairs, leaving Christa and Alex to peer anxiously from the rim, near Beth.

Porter followed Rachel’s gaze. “No.” Though it was a denial, his tone didn’t convey certainty, and neither did his expression.

“Yes.” A terse confirmation that ended in a soft hiss when she rotated her foot and pain shot up her leg.

“Don’t move it,” Gwen ordered. “Actually, it’s good you can move it, but don’t do it again.” She handed Ria a roll of gauze. “Porter. Hold her leg up. Ria. Wrap her ankle.”

“What happened?” Dennis’s voice, followed by Curtis’s, “She okay?”

Porter and Rachel ignored everyone else as they settled into their own quiet conversation.

“Why would she do that? It doesn’t make sense.”

Rachel rolled her eyes. “She was spitting and hissing, telling me you use women, dump them, and go back to her, so I should just leave now. Since I was feeling snarly myself, I told her that I wasn’t just any woman, that I was your woman and she was the one who needed to leave. Needless to say, she didn’t like that response.”

“Bitch,” Ria sneered, unable to not overhear what was said.

Gwen paused again, and when Rachel looked up, she saw a tiny smile tugging at the corners of the ranger’s lips. As close as she was, tending to Rachel’s knees, she was another who couldn’t help hearing what was being said in hushed tones.

Porter pushed to his feet, slow and determined, like a sea god rising from the ocean depths. “You pushed her? Are you insane?”

Beth’s mouth flew open. “What? Of course I didn’t. She’s lying to cover her clumsiness. I’d never do that, Porter, darling. You know that.”

As if Porter couldn’t smell the lie. The rot was so thick even Rachel could detect it. Power started to leak from his rigid frame, raw and red and unmistakably lethal. Before he could act on the fury pouring from his body, Santos appeared next to Beth. Thankfully in human form and dressed. He wrapped one hand around her arm, startling her.

“Yes, you did. I saw you.”

Beth jerked in his grip. “Let go. I didn’t do anything.”

“Beth?” Christa asked, eyes wide.

“No?” Santos’s tone was cutting, his eyes blazing hot. “Then let’s see what the cameras show.”

“C-cameras?” Beth stammered.

Santos’s smile was not nice. At all. “There, there, and there.” He pointed them out.

“Beth?” Christa said again, goggling at her friend. “You pushed her? Seriously? You could have killed her!”

Beth snapped her mouth shut and shook her head.

“Santos. If you don’t get her out of my sight in the next two seconds, I’m going to do something I’ve never done before.” Feline fury shrouded Porter’s words, making them nearly impossible to distinguish.

But Beth evidently did, or maybe it was the look on Porter’s face, which Rachel couldn’t see as his back was to her. Either way, Beth paled. “P-Porter?”

“I never want to see you again.” Slow, hard, and vicious. If Porter had directed those words in that tone at Rachel, she’d probably crumble at his feet and weep. As it was, Beth appeared crushed, her eyes welling.

“Curtis,” Porter snapped out, his eyes still directed at his devastated ex. “Take everyone back. Leave Frieda and Magnus. And I don’t want Beth anywhere near my horses.”

“Got it.” Instant obedience from the young leopard. He ushered Ross up the stairs and then urged everyone, save Santos and Beth, away from the ruin.

“Dennis.” Gwen spoke calmly, yet loudly enough for her words to reach the tear-stained face of Beth. “Go with them and make sure Beth leaves the house post haste. Otherwise, call the cops and have her arrested for attempted murder.”

“With pleasure. But why aren’t we doing that anyway?” Though the ranger might not appear as frightening as Santos or Porter, he had the authority. It didn’t hurt that he, as did Gwen, also carried a gun holstered at his hip.

Before Gwen could respond, Ria, now finished bandaging Rachel’s ankle and setting it carefully on the discarded sock, pushed to her feet. Face tilted up to Beth, she answered for the female ranger. “Because we want her to worry every second of every day for the rest of her life that we’ll retaliate in kind.”

Rachel shuddered at the cold promise. “Bloodthirsty lot.”

“We protect what’s ours,” was Porter’s fierce declaration. “And vengeance is ours.”

* * * *

“It’s been what, like two hours? And your knees look like it’s been two days.” Apparently fascinated at the rate Rachel was healing, Gwen stared at Rachel’s scabbed knees. Rachel nipped off that open interest by twitching her skirt lower.

“Doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt any less.” Sitting next to Rachel on the couch in her suite, Melinda snapped a hard-sided, dark blue bag shut. Her medical kit. “And with accelerated healing comes different problems. You need to keep your knees bent so you don’t continually reopen the wounds. And make sure your sprained ankle stays elevated.”

“I will. Thank you.” Rachel nodded, aching everywhere. Thankfully the painkillers Melinda had given her were starting to dull that ache and, with the addition of a now full tummy, she was feeling sleepy.

After a quick shower to get rid of the remaining dirt, she’d dressed in a long, lightweight skirt and short-sleeved top. Gwen had arranged the loose pillows serving as couch cushions so Rachel wasn’t slumping and Melinda had slathered some weird-smelling balm on her sprained ankle, telling her it would help ease the swelling and stiffness.

While Rachel rather enjoyed the fussing, she simply hated putting the women out. “Sorry about all of this.”

“It’s not your fault, honey, so there’s no need to apologize. If anything, that horrible woman should be apologizing. On her knees. With her face in the mud.”

When Rachel lifted round eyes to Melinda, the older woman shrugged. “I’m angry at her. What can I say?”

Rachel glanced down at her re-wrapped ankle and generally ignored Gwen’s snickering from the overstuffed chair. One foot was planted on the floor while her other rested on a throw pillow set on top of the coffee table. “I never should have egged her on. Turned my back.”

Two fingers tilted her chin up and around in a not-so-gentle motion. “Once again, you are not at fault. Period. Unless you threatened to kill her. Did you?”

“No!” Appalled and offended, Rachel reared away and pressed deeper into the pillows at her back. “Of course not.”

Melinda gave one sharp nod. “Exactly. She’s been fixated on Porter for a long time, and while I know my idiot son has taken advantage of that interest a time or ten, she didn’t believe him when he finally broke things off.”

“Comes every month or so, making a nuisance out of herself,” Gwen supplied, a repeat of Rome’s statement yesterday in the office.

“Hmm. But no more. While I prefer seeing her behind bars, Porter and Ria are right, if not a little wrong. Seeking vengeance, holding hate in one’s heart, isn’t healthy.” Melinda shook her head. “It will twist you up inside until it colors your world in bitter ugliness. A soul-destroying poison we expect the other person to drink.”

“It’s not like we’re going to sit around the rest of our lives, plotting her demise,” Gwen put in when Melinda pointedly flicked her gaze at the ranger. “But the threat of it will make Beth extremely wary her whole life. A couple of trips to the mall where she works, a few hard glances to reinforce the threat. Done deal.”

Gwen waved that off as if she were swatting an annoying fly. “Frankly, she’s not important. You, on the other hand, are important.” A toothy grin had her eyes sparkling. “You’re also now officially part of the club.”

Rachel folded her hands on her lap, looked where Gwen lounged, one booted foot resting on her opposite knee. “What do you mean, ‘part of the club’?”

Gwen nodded at Rachel’s lower limbs. “You’ve been hurt in the pit of despair. I got banged up when the building on top of it collapsed, then Ria dislocated her shoulder. Though that was actually in the cave. Now you. All by circumstances we couldn’t have predicted and all caused by undesirables.” Her shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Even if Rome hadn’t told me about the mating heat between you and Porter, the love bite on your neck and the fact you were hurt in the ruin would have made me speculate about a future wedding.”

Rocked to her core, Rachel gaped at Gwen, incapable of speech. As the words seeped in, blinders were ripped off, revealing a truth her feline half had been telling her all along. She just hadn’t listened.

As if realizing the magnitude of the bomb she’d just dropped, Gwen mirrored Rachel’s surprise. “You didn’t know? How could you not know?”

“Gwen,” Melinda chided softly. “Stop now before you put your other boot in your mouth.”

Gwen’s eyes flitted from Melinda to Rachel. “No. Really. I’m sorry that I sprang this on you, but you’re a shifter. Aren’t you supposed to know these things?”

Wetting numb lips, Rachel shook her head. “Porter. He said it wasn’t the mating heat.”

No, he only told you what you told him to tell you.

Rachel shut her eyes and groaned as she was reminded, way too gleefully, about that particular distinction.

Now it all made sense. The deliriously strong physical attraction, the constant craving for his touch, the acute reaction to his scent, the mood swings.

And Porter. His hurt and anger when she’d tried to sneak out of his home yesterday, thinking Rachel had only slept with him as an adventure, something to spice up her life. A roll in the hay with the stable boy. If she’d just been another willing female he was attracted to, her leaving wouldn’t have riled his temper like it had.

But from his mate? The rejection would have flayed his self-confidence, his very being, to shreds.

Hell. Hadn’t she thought the same thing? Tried to keep a distance because she somehow knew that loving and leaving Porter would tear her own soul apart? He was a charming playboy. A casual flirt. Never in her wildest dreams would she have imagined she had the ability to hurt him. She’d been too concerned at protecting herself.

Mates. She thought it the ultimate of adventures. To have that special someone at your side for the rest of your life. To love and treasure, to create a family with and grow old together. But now that it seemed emanate, she simply didn’t know what to think. Groaning again, Rachel hunched over and dropped her head into her hands.

“Hey.” Gwen moved to sit next to her, sandwiching Rachel between the ranger and Melinda, and rubbed her back in long strokes. “It’s not the end of the world. I mean, come on. Porter’s a really good-looking guy. He’s sweet and charming and smart. And Ria says he’s got the tightest butt she’s ever seen.”

Rachel peeked at Gwen through her fingers. “Ria’s seen him naked?” It made Rachel’s blood boil. And here she’d actually liked the vamp. Now she wanted to do some damage to that pretty face.

“It wasn’t anything,” Gwen said, clearly unnerved at the growl rumbling in the back of Rachel’s throat. “After a shift. That’s all. In the cave. You know, it was so dark in there she probably didn’t see a thing.” She made a face. “Would it help to say she also saw Rome naked?”

That casually offered information halted Rachel’s temper before it exploded, making her pause and ease down. After a minute she raised her head and met Gwen’s distressed ones. “Actually, I think it would even us out if we both saw Santos naked.”

Melinda choked on a laugh and Gwen hooted. “I totally agree. Ria might have a fit, but an eye for an eye and all that. Or in the case of naked men...”

“Gwen,” Melinda snapped before Gwen could paint a vivid picture. “Those are my sons you’re talking about.”

“Sure.” Gwen nodded. “And when Del gets home, we’ll have five gorgeous men at our beck and call.”

A sigh for the future. “November can’t come soon enough. I so worry about him, tromping off to God knows where doing God knows what. Wait. Five?” Melinda queried, perplexed.

“Definitely. Andreas sure hasn’t lost his looks. He’s smokin’ hot.”

Melinda’s face softened in love. “Yes. Yes he most definitely is.” Then she scowled, pushing to her feet with one shaking finger as a knock reverberated on the door of the suite. “Don’t even think about getting a peek at him naked. He’s all mine.”