The Charmer (2 page)

The man shifted restlessly. “Come,” he said,
melting into the trees before she had a chance to argue.

“Wait!” she called, but he ignored her. She
hesitated, wondering if she could possibly retrieve the small
flashlight inside her jacket. No way did she want to go blindly
charging off through the night with a spooky stranger without at
least being able to see what he was doing. She bent a little, and
the lead wolf snarled. “Easy, fella, I just need to get a light.”
His lips pulled even farther back and saliva flecked his muzzle.
The other wolves took their cue from the pack master and stalked
closer, showing hundreds of teeth.

Stumbling through the darkness following a
possibly vicious stranger suddenly held appeal. She picked up her
feet and hurried after the man before she found out if the pack had
a taste for sweaty hikers.

Besides, who knew what else might come
creeping out of the brush?

There might have been three moons in the sky,
but none of them were full, and she’d never had the best night
vision. The second time she nearly went sprawling while jogging
after the stranger, she decided to call a halt. If she didn’t slow
down one of the branches hitting her in the face was going to put
out an eye, and then where would she be? Besides, Lemming could
always track him.

The wolf things had other ideas.

“Look,” she tried to explain to one of the
creatures that inched slowly closer, growling, while Lemming nearly
backed up her leg, “I’m trying, but I can’t see where I’m going.
Just give me a minute, okay?”

A hand shot out of the dark and gripped her
upper arm, making her shriek.

“This way.”

She gasped for breath, trying to calm her
frantic heart while the stranger hauled her through the woods. “Did
you have to do that?” she demanded, but he didn’t answer and didn’t
slow down. She tried again. “Where are we going?” Still no answer.
“You’re a real jerk, you know that?”

His grip on her arm tightened and he picked
up speed. “I will return you to your place come morning.”

She dug in her heels and threw every ounce of
her weight into it, jolting them to a stop.
No way, pal.
She
didn’t know what he planned, but when a strange man without an
ounce of courtesy told her he was going to keep her for the night,
she panicked.

As he spun to face her, she shot her fist
into his nose, snapping his head back, then grabbed his shirt and
rammed her knee into his groin with all her strength.

Or tried to.

The next moment he was holding her on her
toes with two frighteningly controlled hands around her biceps.

His voice, when it came, was rough with
menace. “You think to deny me anything?” His body was very tense,
as if he longed to either choke the life from her or hurl her from
him. Even so, she tried to kick him. Swearing, he shook her, making
Lemming snarl. The stranger snapped something in a language she
didn’t know and Lemming subsided with a whine.

His eyes bore into hers. “You’re fortunate
you are a woman, or I would snap your neck and have done with it.”
As suddenly as he’d grabbed her, he released her, causing her to
stumble. “You go back come morning.”

Jasmine trembled, not daring to move for a
long, sick moment. Never before had she felt so threatened by a
man, so completely aware of her inferior size and puny strength. He
had her alone, completely at his mercy, and if he decided to hurt
her there was nothing she could do to stop him.

Lemming whined and slid up to her, seeking
reassurance, and in that seeking, gave Jasmine a measure of
strength. She wasn’t a coward, and she was smart. There had to be a
way out of this. Wiley needed her.

Chapter 2

He was overreacting.

Keilor watched her tremble, chiding himself.
The girl was young and scared, barely even a woman by the looks of
her, and he was a stranger who deliberately frightened her. Of
course she would lash out. As he watched the girl gather her
courage, her remembered that his cousin considered her a friend. He
didn’t have to like it, but he could refrain from terrorizing
her.

He wiped the blood from his battered nose and
his anger flared again. Blight that! He would if she would.
Nevertheless, his touch was gentler and his pace slower as he
guided her through the darkness. Remorse stabbed him when she
shrank a little at his touch and he ruthlessly repressed it. They
didn’t want her to like it here, nor to feel welcome, no matter
what Rihlia thought. She would come to see the wisdom of remaining
separate from the human world soon enough. If he and Jayems had
their way, the girl would be going back this instant. Only Rihlia’s
need to reassure this girl that she was fine stayed their
hands.

The memory of her stripping off her heavy
clothes strobed through his mind, provoking a flash of heat. She
glanced at him in surprise and a little fear when his grip
tightened on her arm. He forced it to relax.

It was only the unexpectedness of it that had
caused his body to react, he reassured himself. He hadn’t expected
the girl to start stripping. It hadn’t helped to discover that her
outer wrappings had concealed an exotically pretty
woman—
girl
, he corrected himself firmly—underneath. His
cousin had claimed they were of an age, but this female was barely
up to his chest, with a youthful face, besides.

Not that it mattered what she looked like;
the girl was going back as soon as Rihlia said goodbye. It was time
for his cousin to rediscover her real family.

He ducked to avoid a branch, thinking how
fortunate they’d been to find the long lost Rihlia at one of the
rare gates between worlds. He shook his head in amazement. After
years of fruitless searching, only to discover the child she’d been
had crossed worlds! But now she was home and it was time for her to
take her rightful place among her people and her family.

He glanced at the dark haired girl in
irritation, the night no barrier to his keen vision. What Rihlia
didn’t need was reminders of the past weighing her down while she
tried to readjust to her home world. Even if they were sweetly
curved and just the right height to—

“I cannot see what she could possibly want
with you,” he burst out in frustration.

The girl’s head snapped up and she stopped.
“She? Are you talking about Wiley?”

“Her name is Rihlia,” he corrected stiffly,
stopping as well. He was annoyed at his outburst. It wasn’t like
him to be this edgy around a woman; even a beautiful woman;
especially
a beautiful woman, and he didn’t like it.

“She’s my age, very dark hair, oriental
looking?”

“I know who she is,” he said coolly, “And her
name is Rihlia.”

Her eyes snapped fire as she jerked her arm
away, fear apparently forgotten. Really, for such a tiny creature,
she was full of passion. Had she been anyone else, he would have
relished that knowledge; but she wasn’t staying.

“Her name is Wiley, you misbegotten—” she
broke off and took a deep breath. “I need to see her.”

“Then come.” He took her arm again and set
off. The sooner this chore was accomplished, the better. He had
more important matters to attend to.

Apparently she wasn’t content to travel in
silence, for she said, “What is this place?”

“The Dark Lands,” he answered shortly, hoping
she’d be quiet. He glanced off into the trees and toyed with the
idea of having the volti show themselves again to frighten her
speechless, but refrained.

“Why is it called that?”

“To frighten off unwanted humans?” he
suggested with exasperation. Were all humans this bothersome, or
was it just her? She tripped over a plainly visible rock in the
path and swore, forcing him to steady her yet again. He added
clumsy and unobservant to the list of things he didn’t like about
her.

“What do you mean, ‘humans’?” she asked
suspiciously.

“What you are, and what I am not. What Rihlia
is not,” he informed her with satisfaction. That ought help drive
her off. Humans were notoriously fearful of anyone alien, even
their own kind. She would be no different.

“
Wiley
is as human as I am,” she
gritted out. “I ought to know. We were raised in the same
orphanage.”

The remembrance of how his cousin had been
kept in a sterile home for abandoned and orphaned children enraged
him anew. “She was raised there, but she wasn’t born there. Your
kind put her there.”

“Yeah? Well, she wouldn’t have been there if
your kind
hadn’t lost her,” she snapped back.

He grabbed her arm and jerked her to him,
angry on such a deep level that he could barely verbalize his
emotion. “You have no idea what you are saying, creature. Beware
lest you test my mercy,” he warned her softly, almost relishing her
trembling. Hatred of humans was old and instinctive. Though he
could not have named all his reasons, he wanted this one to fear
him. He wanted her to leave.

There was something wrong about her.

Before he could identify what his instincts
told him, his nose caught her scent, bringing with it a desire that
flooded his senses in an entirely alien way. For a moment his mind
stalled, and the closest he could come to breaking away was to
shift his hand down her arm. Spellbound, the only thing that he
wanted in that moment was to let his body speak to her in a
language entirely its own.

Lightning traveled up his arms from her
frozen body and he let go with a gasp. “Charmer!” he hissed, and
gripped the hilt of his blade. It was all he could do not to kill
her on the spot. Of all the woman in the world Rihlia had to call
friend, why one of
them
, one of the few guaranteed to be
trouble to the males of his kind?

“What?” She looked confused. Could she be
ignorant of her curse? It would not save her. He had sworn not to
harm her, but it would not stop the others. They would kill her. A
charmer was a temptress, a siren, poison.

He needed to get rid of her, fast.

He reached out to tow her along again,
thought better of it, and pointed with an unsteady hand. “There is
the trail. Follow it.” He thought of prodding her along with his
blade for good measure, but perhaps that was going too far. After
all, it wasn’t as if she’d leap on him and attempt a seduction
right there.

Probably.

Her head turned to follow his pointing finger
and she squinted in bewilderment. “Where?”

“Right there,” he repeated, wondering what
was wrong with her. Could she really be this helpless in the
dark?

The sultry wind ruffled her limp hair as she
gave a weary sigh. “Look, I can’t see a thing out here, ok? I can
barely see you, so if you plan on getting where we’re going
tonight, you’ll have to lead the way.”

It was not worth arguing. The sooner begun.…
He started walking—not so fast that she couldn’t see him, but far
enough ahead to ensure zero contact. One couldn’t be too careful
with a charmer.

For thousands of years, her kind had been
used by humans to lure and trap the men of the Haunt. The best of
their warriors had been enticed by the unique, bewitching scent of
the charmer and killed by their masters until there were few of
them left. That combined with the unrelenting fear and hatred of
humans had driven his kind to seek their own world, free of the
hunters.

And now one of them was here.

Jayems would be furious.

As they approached the forest entrance to the
hollowed volcanic mountain that served as the Haunt fortress, he
kept a wary eye on the female, remembering Rihlia’s unfortunate
reaction to her first sight of the warrior Haunt. This girl was no
different. The moment she saw the shadowy guards she stumbled back
with a gasp, which was at least an improvement over the
ear-shattering shriek he’d been braced for. Reaching back, he
grabbed a fistful of her shirt and dragged her through the door.
Once inside, he propelled her down the hallway with a business-like
hand at her back.

“Wh-what.…”

Badly shaken, she could barely get the words
out. At least she wasn’t hysterical. It had taken much longer to
calm Rihlia down enough to make her believe the Haunt were not a
danger to her. But then, she belonged to this world.

He would make no such assurances to this
human.

“Wait here,” he told the girl sternly,
pointing to the cushioned bench set in the alcove opposite his
lord’s rooms. She sank limply onto the bench, obeying him without a
murmur, but it wasn’t him she was looking at. He turned to the pair
of Haunt guards flanking the massive double doors and eyed them
wryly. She was unlikely to attempt any mischief while under their
baleful stare, but just to be sure…

“Eat her if she moves,” he ordered, and
watched with satisfaction as her eyes widened. Hiding his grin at
the guards’ puzzled glances, he entered the room.

“She is here,” he reported, stepping into the
large room.

Jayems looked up quickly from where he sat at
his desk of polished, dark wood. The heavy ledger he’d been reading
closed with a muffled thud, but his boots remained crossed on the
desktop as he waited for more details.

Rihlia wasn’t nearly as calm. She leapt off
the couch where she’d been sitting and demanded breathlessly,
“Where?” Her long dark hair had been braided with pearls and topaz,
and someone had gotten her into a white silk robe. He wondered
who’d worked the miracle. The last time he’d seen her she’ll still
been stubbornly clinging to her old clothes.

Keilor smiled slightly, amused. For all she
looked like a princess, she was as bright-eyed and eager as a much
younger girl. It was easy to see in her the child she’d been.

Grimness replaced his amusement as he
recalled her friend. “There’s a problem,” he informed his lord
darkly. “She’s a charmer.”