Unknown Touch (19 page)

Daniel said,
Tell Zac and Tessa, without speaking aloud, not to kill him.

I put that information into their minds. Zac questioned holding back, but agreed to follow Daniel's orders. It was unlikely that Stephen would attempt anything further that day. An invisible line divided the five of us from Stephen, standing alone as a single, rogue, werewolf. No one on his side. No one to back him. His pack, who had left Daniel's circle of protection, wasn't even behind him on his actions. Maybe David could be influenced by Stephen to run wild with him, but we hadn't confirmed that yet. And that was something we had to keep our eyes open for.

Suddenly, Stephen transformed into a werewolf. He looked so desolate, miserable, desperate in what to do next. He paced back and forth, on the edge of the woods. I felt pity and sorrow for him. I tried again to connect with his mind and all I got was those flashes of emotions and a few images of running through the woods. Nothing that was solid for me to work with. He definitely had a mental block against me. He sensed what I was attempting to do with connecting our minds, and violently shook his head. I did feel confident that I was actually getting closer to opening that little door into his mind.

He didn't like the fact that I kept persisting to gain access to his mind. Stephen took a few steps towards us, I believe towards me, in retaliation. Dominic decided this would be a good time to make use of one of his skills. As Stephen took another step, Dom stopped him in his tracks with his mind. Stephen could not move forward at all. It was strange to see him try again and again and not get anywhere. It reminded me of someone placing their hand on my forehead and then I would try to walk towards them, and couldn't. Dominic was doing a great job keeping Stephen at bay.

After about five tries, Stephen looked totally defeated, turned on his haunches, and launched himself into the woods.

Daniel stated, "He's gone. Zac, Dom - good job. Now we need to burn Cassius's body. We don't need anyone to come across another dead body in the area."

I went running to Daniel, almost in hysterics, "Daniel, you're slashed up and bleeding. What can we do?"

He lifted up his ripped, bloody shirt to show proof that he would be perfectly fine. The four slice marks in his skin were still visible, but the bleeding had basically stopped. His heightened healing ability had kicked in and saved his life. I was so relieved and let out a big sigh.

Eli popped his head around the building. Everyone had forgotten that he was sitting in the truck this whole time. When I made my mental call for help to Daniel, they decided to leave Eli in the safety of the truck and come to my rescue.

"What's going on back here? Did I miss out on something?" Eli asked. Daniel pointed to Cassius's body. Eli's jaw dropped to his knees in astonishment. He also took note of the blood all down the front of Daniel's shirt.

Zac replied to Eli, "Go get the gas can. It's time for a bonfire."

Chapter 15

Regroup

The cold, drizzling rain was not easing up. The only one who seemed unaffected by the weather was Daniel. The rest of us were chilled to the bone, damp and tired. Within an hour, the sun would set, and we'd be in the dark. Daniel had encouraged everyone to inspect the grounds for any telltale signs that there had been a fight resulting in someone or some thing being killed. Daniel and Zac had carried Cassius's body further away from the restroom facility. They located a fire pit, placed his body in it and proceeded to ignite him. Tessa was sweeping over the ground with a rake where all the blood had pooled and remnants of body tissue had splattered. Since Cassius had been shot in the head, it was a rather disgusting mess. A few times, I had the urge to throw up. I kept reminding myself to be strong and to get through this so we could leave and go back to the comfort of Daniel's resort. Hopefully, very soon.

The immediate threat from Stephen had passed. None of us felt or sensed he would return or try anything else today. We won this battle and Stephen knew he had been defeated. But that didn't mean he would give up his reckless behavior. I was worried the loss of Cassius could actually fuel the fire, the loneliness and rage he felt. Thankfully, there were no other visitors around to have witnessed this nightmare. Eli was keeping a watchful eye out for any people who might decide to drive through the campground. He was standing by the truck and would alert us if someone approached.

Finally, our cover-up of the incident was complete. We briskly walked back to the truck and climbed into the nice, dry, warm interior. Daniel was trying to decide whether he should change from his bloody, torn shirt into a new one.

I said, "Why don't you wait till we get back to the resort. Then you can take a shower, tend to your injury and put on a new shirt. There's no point in putting a clean shirt over your filthy body and ruining it."

"Gee, thanks for the compliment," Daniel gave me a crooked smile. "But you're absolutely right. Soon enough, we'll be back and I'll take care of it then. I'm sure Abigail has started to wonder why we haven't returned yet. Knowing her, she's got supper ready, trying to keep it warm for us. She's a great niece. I don't know what I would do without her."

All of us chimed in with similar compliments for her: "She is so sweet." "Man, can she cook up a storm and enough for an army." "She has a charming personality." "She's so at ease with us and has a good sense of humor." These honest, positive statements made Daniel break out into a huge smile.

The drive back to the resort didn't take long and by that time, the sleet had stopped. The roads were still in good shape, as the ground temperature was too warm for anything to stick or get icy. We arrived at the resort with Abigail standing at the main door, arms crossed in anticipation, a look of worry on her face. One of us should have called her on a cell phone and given her an estimated time of arrival.

She saw Daniel's shirt, the blood had almost dried on it by now. It was a dead giveaway that we had encountered a problem with our day.

Abigail exclaimed, "Oh my lord, Daniel. Are you okay? You've been gone so long; I knew something bad must have happened. Let's go inside and you can tell me all the details."

The Liaison team decided to go to our cabin and freshen up a bit. Our clothes were damp and dirty as were our bodies. Daniel recommended using an additional cabin's bathroom since we all needed to take a shower at the same time. This would speed things along so we weren't waiting as long on one another to get out of the bathroom. Abigail retrieved a key to a cabin situated next to our original one.

I mentally connected with Daniel,
I'll see you in an hour. Get cleaned up.

He answered,
I'll fill Abigail in on today's events. You get yourself dry and warm.

Everyone divided up, going to their designated locations to get clean before settling down for supper. Since women take longer than men in the bathroom, Tessa and I decided that if speed was of the essence, then we would each go to separate cabins. Eli, Tessa and Zac were in one cabin, Dominic and me in the new cabin. We wanted to return to the dining room as soon as possible.

Dom and I were done first since there were only two of us. We walked over to the other cabin to fetch the remaining team members. Eli was questioning me about any new developments with reading Stephen's mind. He wondered if the closeness I had with Stephen finally made a difference in my ability to psychically connect with him.

I suggested, "Eli, let's wait till we can include Daniel, and even Abigail, in on this conversation. I will say, though, to hold you off, I am making some progress in that direction."

Dom touched at my mind,
Kara, I can read you, don't forget. You still aren't able to completely access Stephen's mind in order to influence his behavior yet. To manipulate his emotional state.

I'm closer than before, Dom. Tomorrow, I want to practice my abilities, as long as we don't have something else to do,
I stated.

No problem,
Dominic offered himself up for practice.
I am a willing candidate for you to experiment on,
He just loved to play around with double meanings as he nudged me with his elbow.

We entered the dining room. Abigail had arranged a huge spread of food, again. I would have to start watching how much I ate down here; otherwise, I could easily see myself putting on several pounds. I remembered having this same thought over the last few days. Daniel was standing by the table, popping some edible appetizer into his mouth, looking as healthy as ever. You would never know he had almost been sliced open by Cassius's claw. And, of course, another shirt was donned for the evening.

Everyone was famished by this time of the evening, regardless of the horrendous day's endeavors. I thought Zac was going to take my arm off as we both went in for the same piece of chicken. It was hilarious as he pretended several fake pokes at my hand with his fork. At that moment, I felt at peace. It was nice to be able to joke around and tune out some of the tension we had all been experiencing. I had people, and werewolves, around me that I truly cared for and enjoyed being with.

I remembered something that was bugging me. I asked Daniel, "Daniel, you really have a clothes issue, don't you?"

"What do you mean exactly?" he questioned.

"Every time you transform, your clothes get ripped apart and fall off. Then, when you go back to human form, you're left standing there naked. Two problems I see here: 1) you're naked, and 2) you have to buy a lot of clothes," I giggled.

Everyone, including Daniel, was laughing intensely. "Yes, those are problems lately. Under normal circumstances, I'm not transforming that often. And when I do, it's been planned and thought out ahead of time. So, I simply take off my clothes in advance, lay them aside, and poof - change to my werewolf form. For example, if I was out taking a run through the woods, then I'd come right back to where my clothes are, transform to human shape, and get dressed. And I had packed some extra clothes to take with us today. I had some in that duffel bag when we were at Stephen's cabin, thankfully. Plus, I always keep a set of clothes in the truck in case of some unlikely event, where I would have to transform, then I'm prepared. I would merely keep my body in wolf form until I ran back to the truck where the clothes are."

Eli had been patiently waiting to ask me, with everyone at the table, "Well, Kara, tell us how your ability to mentally connect with Stephen is coming along."

I gave my answer, "Ever since Stephen touched me, and believe me, he had a death grip on my arms; I have been seeing more flashes into his mind. I cannot do a complete mind merge with him yet. But I keep picking up more and more all the time. It's like a broken connection. I think it has become much harder for him to block me out. If he puts all his focus into the mental block, I believe he's able to completely keep me from connecting to him. But, he can't keep that up all the time, twenty-four hours a day. I don't think he had any idea that the physical contact he had with me would actually increase my psychic ability to read his mind, to feel some of his emotions. But, as I said before, it's more like flashes, bits of his thoughts I capture, not totally reading his mind or being able to mentally have a conversation like I can with all of you. I want to try a more concentrated effort by psychically linking myself, Dom and Daniel together again. I want to do this tonight."

"Hmm," Eli began, "Nothing like diving right into the fire. If the others feel like it after supper, go for it."

Within fifteen minutes, we hastily gathered in the conference room. Daniel approached me with a look of concern on his face. "Let me see your arms. I want to see how badly Stephen hurt you."

"I'm fine, Daniel. Don't make a big deal out of it," I tried to skirt the issue.

He persisted, "No, slide your sleeves up; you're going to show me now."

I pushed up one sleeve of my shirt. I knew Daniel would have a fit when he saw my arms. They were starting to show the signs of large, red and purple bruising from Stephen's rough hands. Stephen had brutally held me up against the wall long enough to cause damage to my arms, even if it was temporary and would fade away in a week or so. Daniel inspected my arm thoroughly. Without bothering to ask my permission, he reached for the other arm to discover that it looked just as bad. I sensed his anger raging at Stephen for having hurt me. He also felt disappointed with himself for letting this happen in the first place. Immediately, I merged with his mind to calm his emotions. If we were going to attempt to connect with Stephen tonight, Daniel had to get his head on straight and be more relaxed.

Suddenly, Daniel drew me into the protection of his arms. He held me gently, so as not to cause me any additional discomfort. I instantly responded by hugging him back, his cheek rubbed on the top of my head. In the meantime, everyone was getting situated in chairs and trying not to stare at us. They were not sure what to say or do about the affection Daniel was giving me. And, I was openly returning the affection, not at all concerned about their reactions.

Daniel and I released each other and sat down in the chairs provided. Dominic was not thrilled about our behavior, but he would just have to get over it. It was time for the three of us to get serious with the next move in this game. On my right was Daniel and on my left was Dominic. The rest of the team stayed many feet away so as not to cause any distractions.

"Okay, guys, let's do a little mind merging," I smiled deviously at each one before I closed my eyes. First, I entered Daniel's mind, waited a moment, and then sensed Dom's presence. We put into motion the ability to keep linked together as we sought out Stephen's mind. This time, I didn't need as much guidance as compared to the first time we tried this out. Of course, during that experiment, I had not had any form of contact with Stephen at all. It was a different story this go around.