Once A Wolf (47 page)

stop him. But she did not know how.

Footsteps sounded on the staircase at the end of the hall. Felícita darted around the nearest

corner just as Cole descended the last step. He drew Felícita after him with the force of his

hungers, down the hall and to the large double doors that faced the street. She shrank behind

them as he stepped outside.

A man was dismounting in front of the house—one of Cole's hombres, whom she had seen

yesterday—surrounded by a flock of people that included the deputy. Vasquez listened to the

man's rapid speech, pointed to Cole, and disappeared into the crowd. The man ran up the

walkway.

"Mr. MacLean!" he said between heavy breaths. "We found Randall!"

Searing triumph flooded through Felícita's mind as if it were her own: hot, lustful, hating. She

couldn't hear the words Cole spoke aloud; they were lost in the fractured images and emotions

that replaced her own thoughts.

She was Cole. She breathed through his lungs and saw through his eyes; she was a giant looking

down upon a whole world of scurrying ants. Enough of herself remained to feel the terror of

thinking as he thought, seeing every other person as a means to an end or an annoyance to be

discarded. And she saw farther… into a past not hers, a string of deceptions covering death and

treachery. Now that past could never be discovered. The last dangerous link would be choked

to death at the end of a rope.

She looked forward to seeing Randall die.

Felícita screamed without sound. Cole was tearing her apart, scattering the fragile pieces of self

that she had hoarded since Tio's death. She beat her head against the wall, once, twice, three

times, until the pain jarred loose Cole's grip on her mind.

She collapsed to the floor, listening to his footsteps going away from the house. He did not

even know what she had done. He did not know she could get inside his thoughts. For him, she

was less than the ants in his vision. She did not exist.

It is the things we do not see that can destroy us.

She crossed her arms over her stomach and heaved until nothing more would come out. After a

while she heard the sounds of horses, and then quiet. Quiet in the house, in her mind. She

wanted to live in that quiet forever.

There was only one way to do so. As long as she remained among people whose wills and spirits

were so irresistible, what had happened with Cole could happen again. A doorway had opened

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within her—not the small window she could make into people's souls, but a portal that stood at

the very center of her mind. Rowena and Tomás had begun shaping it, and Sim Kavanagh had

built the framework that made it solid and real. Cole had burst through with his deadly power,

and now she did not know how to bar it against further attack.

Until she learned, it wouldn't stop. Other, stronger minds could suck her in; one by one they

would take little pieces of her with them when they departed, and leave the twisted fragments

of themselves behind. Even now she could feel Cole's touch like something rotten crouched on

the inside of her head. She would end a gibbering loca.

A rebounding crash shook the walls of the house. Felícita flinched and curled into a ball on the

floor. She knew where the noise came from.

Rowena was trying to escape.

"I do not want this," Felícita whispered. "It is too much. I cannot bear it. Please, take it away."

The banging came again, less vigorously, and then silence returned. But Felícita knew what

Rowena was feeling. She sensed that Tomás was in danger. There was a bond between her and

El Lobo, a bridge between their hearts. Her fear of defying Cole and losing her last chance to

save Tomás was driving her to her own kind of madness.

Felícita pushed herself to her feet. In one direction was the door that would lead to places far

from here, and rest, and a chance to learn how to shut the world out. In the other…

In the other was the embracing of all she had become. Accepting this ability she had never

wanted. Learning to control the portal, and to touch other spirits without fear.

Living without fear. Was such a thing possible? She had been forced unwilling into the world

and found herself unprepared for the chaos of human minds. What Tio called a gift had become

a curse.

It could be a gift again. All at once she saw how one with courage could turn it into a thing of

wonder and hope. Such a one could feel the pain of others' souls and find a way to do more

than merely endure. If she could learn to speak to their hearts, not only listen…

Was it possible not only to share pain, but heal it… even that of Sim Kavanagh, or Cole

MacLean?

Slowly she turned back down the hall. Lady Rowena was no longer pounding on the doors of

her prison. Felícita tried the doorknob, and then went up the stairs the way Cole had gone. She

found a key lying on a big wooden chest in one of the rooms. She returned to the downstairs

room and fit it in the lock.

The door opened. Rowena sat on the floor, her head between her knees. She looked up,

hollow-eyed with desperation. Hope spilled into her soul like sweet water.

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"Esperanza," she said hoarsely. "It is you. Thank God. When you come in with the tray, I

thought I was dreaming." She struggled to her feet and touched Felícita's cheek with a shaking

hand. "Kavanagh told me he'd let you go, but I never thought to see you here. You seem to be

all right—"

"I am all right," Felícita said.

Rowena's eyes lit. "You can speak! Oh, my dear…" The brief joy left her, and she stared past

Felícita's shoulder at the open door. "There is no time. Cole—the man who was with me—

where is he?"

"He is gone."

"Gone?" She plunged toward the doorway. "Something has happened to Tomás. I can feel it—"

Felícita caught her arm. She closed her eyes, and imagined the portal in her mind opening

wide—easily, freely, sending forth a part of herself to speak to Rowena's heart. I am here, lady.

Rowena flinched. "What?"

The test had worked. She could make herself be heard in feelings as well as words.

Now, if the lady could only understand.

Do not be afraid. Listen… Felícita recalled what she'd learned from Cole's mind and offered it to

the lady, images and thoughts riding on an illusory beam of light stretched between two minds.

Rowena covered her mouth with her hand as if she were about to be ill. She half fell against the

door and stared at Felícita with unseeing eyes.

"I… hear," she whispered. "I hear you. Cole's men have caught Tomás." Her hands fisted against

the wood. "He swore to me—if I obeyed him—" She took a deliberate breath. "You know where

they've taken him. Yes, I see it. A tree. A place outside of town."

Felícita slumped and let the portal close. The lady would take the lead now. All she need do was

follow—until they found Cole MacLean.

"I know how to find them," Rowena said, and the pale golden wolf sprang to life in her eyes.

Twenty

The hanging tree was blasted and bare, an enormous ghost of a cottonwood destroyed by

drought and the changing path of the creek that had once fed its roots and broad trunk and

many branches. Now a single heavy limb projected above a dry wash, creating a perfect beam

for a rope.

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Tomás admired the irony of it from his position a few feet away. He'd once rescued an innocent

man from this very tree, but it seemed unlikely that anyone would do the same for him. The

law could be bought in Las Vegas, especially since the sheriff was still doing business elsewhere

in the county. Judge Lynch was most amenable to men like Cole MacLean. His jury was

currently made up of hired guns who probably ought to be swinging themselves; Weylin wasn't

likely to get a vote. No appeal was possible.

Tomás didn't expect one. He had only two concerns: that Cole should come within his reach

before he died, and that Rowena did not suffer too much at Cole's hands before the deed was

done.

Cole didn't make Tomás wait too long. He rode up with the messenger sent to find him, dressed

as always in an eastern dandy's expensive suit but sitting his horse like the Texan he'd been

raised.

He dismounted and swept the gathering with his gaze, pausing only an instant to note Tomás

before moving on. "I see you finally did what I hired you to do, Beck," he said. "You and your

men will be rewarded appropriately." Beck's smug smile thinned.

"Weylin," he said, acknowledging his brother at last. "I'm surprised to see you among us. I

thought that perhaps you'd vanished from the face of the earth. Did you come to witness the

carrying out of long-delayed justice?"

"This isn't justice, Cole," Weylin said. He stepped out from among the others, holding the pistol

Cole's men had returned to him. "I was taking him to the jail, to stand trial—"

" You were taking him back?"

"It's true," Tomás said. The men around him drifted to the sides, leaving a clear path between

him and Cole. "Your brother caught me, MacLean. Your men had nothing to do with it."

Cole's attention locked on Tomás, dismissing Weylin. "El Lobo. I've waited a many years to meet

you again, face to face. When was the last time? Oh, yes—just after you murdered my father."

"Si. You left me with a few mementos of that meeting. And you MacLeans took some from my

family as well. Do you still have my mother's fur coat?"

"I never met your mother. I heard she was half savage. I know what your father was."

"You'd have good cause to remember him. Do any of your high-society friends in New York ask

how you lost the arm?"

Cole's lips lifted away from his teeth. The expression was shocking in a face so sophisticated

and carefully controlled. "It might be interesting to see how you would enjoy losing yours—

before the hanging," he said.

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Tomás laughed. "Would you take it yourself, MacLean? I'll be happy to give you the

opportunity."

He thought he might have provoked Cole just enough to bring him within reach, but Cole was

too practiced at subduing his impulses. His single hand twitched into a fist and opened slowly.

"So you can die fighting? Oh, no, Randall. I know that's what you want. I'd planned something

much more leisurely. And while my men are preparing your much-deserved trip to hell"—he

signaled to Beck, who brandished the rope with its ready-made noose—"you might

contemplate your final failure. The Lady Rowena has returned to me."

Tomás shrugged. "I knew she'd escaped."

"And you were no doubt pursuing her when Weylin caught you."

"Pursuing her? She wasn't worth the effort. Nothing but trouble, your fine lady. So bony and

vanidosa, like ice; I don't know a man who'd touch her. Except you."

"So you didn't take advantage of her?"

"I, El Lobo? Women give themselves to me willingly." He cocked his head. "Tell me… does the

loss of a man's arm weaken his other members as well? Perhaps that is why you chose such a

cold one to share your bed—she'll not expect anything from you."

Cole took a step forward. So did Weylin. Tomás made himself ready. There would be but one

chance, and he would die right after Cole, perhaps even by Weylin's hand.

Death would come as a friend. He'd prided himself on his love of life, but it was a false love. El

Lobo was by his very nature unfaithful.

When he was dead, the feud would be over. He would leave no children to avenge him into

another generation. Even the people of the cañon, the ninos most of all, would be better off

without him and the dangerous life he made for them. The memory of his parents' deaths, of

the murder he had committed, the meaninglessness of his existence—all would be so much ash

carried on the wind.

And Rowena would be free to find a mate worthy of her.

He grinned and beckoned with his bound hands. "Come, Cole MacLean. Where is the

vengeance in watching from a distance? Why not put the rope around my neck yourself? But

no—it was never you who chased me across the Territory when I stole your cattle and your

woman. Perhaps you were afraid. Perhaps you are still afraid."

Cole lunged at Tomás. His men grabbed Tomás by the arms and shoulders and pushed him to

the horse that waited under the dangling noose.

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"It's too bad you won't be able to give your farewells to Lady Rowena personally," Cole said. "I'll

pass them on for you." He nodded to Beck, who shoved the muzzle of his gun into Tomás's

belly.

"Mount," he ordered.

Tomás glanced down at the gun in feigned bemusement, rapidly calculating his next move. A