Unleashed by Shadows (By Moonlight Book 10) (37 page)

Max caught him by the hood of his sweat jacket and swung him back around to say patiently, “Again.”

“It doesn’t matter how many times I try. I can’t get through. I don’t understand what you want me to do.”

Max put his hands on the heaving shoulders. “Because you don’t understand the basic truth I’m trying to teach you. It’s not about strength of body. You have plenty of that. It’s all about concentration and the power of the mind.”

“There’s your problem,” Nica drawled, joining them in the side yard. “You’re expecting a brawler to become a philosopher.”

Cale turned to glare at her. “Oh, and I suppose you know all about this.” He reared back, feeling the sting of her hand against his cheek without ever sensing movement.

Max chuckled. “She taught me.”

She stood facing him, not quite an arm’s length away. “Let me show you. Pay attention.” She put her hands up on either side of her head, moving them to almost brush his ears, starting a back and forth motion. “Don’t watch my hands. Look at my eyes.”

He obviously struggled until she gave his nose a sharp snap. He grimaced and held his footing.

“My hands aren’t going to tell you anything. My eyes are. You’re a good fighter. You know about telegraphing punches. I’m going to teach you another kind of tell. Internal energy. Mental direction. Now, relax your body and watch my eyes.”

He shook off his tension and assumed an easy pose. She had nice eyes, a unique dark sapphire blue. Her pupils suddenly swelled, and he caught her wrist just before her palm connected with his face.

“Good. Now you understand. Let’s take it a step deeper. You think three dimensionally. I’m going to show you a fourth where your senses guide you without the distraction of your body.”

“You do it already,” Max added. “You just don’t know how to channel it. You feel the presence of our kind, can pick them out of a room by their signature. You know your mate by the connection you share through bonding. You can learn to link with her mind.”

Cale glanced at Nica. “This is what you were doing this morning. You and Silas were there in my mind, in my memories.”

“Pretty neat, huh?”

He smiled uneasily. “And creepy. But I’m not like you.”

“You want to know a secret?” she teased. “Yes, you are. You’re just like us. Just like Pearl and Brigit, only their strengths are very developed in certain areas.” She looked beyond him to share a knowing smile with Max then studied Cale intently. “Do you want to learn?”

“Hell, yes!”

*

For not having done much physical work, Cale ached all over within the hour. Directing energy took a lot more juice than flinging a punch.

Nica and Max took turns teaching him. Or torturing him, depending on how he looked at it. They forced him to a heightened state of awareness in all his senses. The sound of grass bending under a careful step, the sonar-like vibrations that signaled movement or solid objects, the scent of a telltale droplet of sweat. Seemingly unrelated events that built on one another to expand his concept of spatial limits.

Creepy. But cool.

“Reach beyond,” Max instructed. Cale didn’t get it, his mind still throwing up barriers. “Slow the world around you so that your movements travel faster than it can comprehend.”

Cale shook his head, laughing as he turned away. Until he bumped into Savoie who was suddenly right there in front of him.

Creepy. But very cool.

“How is this possible?” he wanted to know, awed and even a bit afraid of the things he’d been shown. “It’s like some kind of magic, some trick with mirrors and smoke and misdirection.”

“Maybe,” Max allowed graciously. “Bending light, warping space, moving though time, across distance.”

Cale’s eyes rounded. “What?”

“Magic.” Nica humored him with a pat on the head.

“If we all can do it, why do so few know about it?”

Max smiled. “If you owned a pack of dogs that hunted for you, protected you, and obeyed you, would you tell them they could remove their collars, stand on their hind legs, and wear your clothes to converse with you like equals? The knowledge was hidden from us to contain us, to control us, to leash us.”

Nica nodded. “Those in the North understand how the mind works, how to twist it, break and remake it. How to mold it and destroy it with chemicals. But we have the physical power. We can manipulate our form, disguise our nature, use our surroundings as concealment or weapons. We’ve developed our physical being without knowing the potential of our minds.”

“Where did it come from, all these abilities we never knew we had?”

“Magic?” she suggested with a wink. Then she spun him a more palatable tale. “Truth and secrets are like magic if they’re withheld for long enough. We were one in the beginning, and now the gap is closing again. And that scares the hell out of those parasites losing their grasp on our collars. They’re afraid to change, and we can’t afford not to.”

“Magic,” Cale muttered. “I think I’ll stick with that.”

Midday became afternoon and Giles arrived, having picked Oscar up from school. The boy knew something was wrong but Giles left the telling to Max as he’d requested. Not a task Cale envied him.

After speaking with Rico who had no news except, with Babineau’s help, they were taking the Quarter apart block by block, Cale sat on the front steps alone. Heart heavy, he watched fading sunlight and shadows flicker through the stately row of trees shading the long drive, trying to convince himself that all the mystic Shifter bullshit he’d absorbed hadn’t been a waste of time when it came to restoring a mother to her child and his mate to his arms.

Max passed him on the steps, saying, “Walk with me,” as he headed down the lane toward the massive front gates. Cale fell in beside him. He and Savoie had had an earlier go round about Max staying out of it. A two Alphas, one bone kinda thing that Max scoffed at until Cale confessed he’d never be any kind of man in his own eyes or in those of his soon to be growing family unless he saw things through on his own. It was his mess to clean up, his chance to make matters right. That was a stand Max could respect so he reluctantly bowed out. Leaving Cale to hope that wasn’t another mistake he’d have to live with.

“The kid okay?”

“Pretending to be,” Max told him. “He’s tough.”

“I need to bring that boy’s momma home to him.”

“Let’s place a call.”

Cale didn’t understand what he meant but was curious enough to go along as the gates parted. Savoie crossed River Road and headed straight into the thicket on the other side where the air grew clammy and close and the ground uncertain as the woods suddenly opened to the river.

“My father brought me here for our first and practically only father son talk.”

Max’s reveal startled Cale. “I didn’t think you remembered much of your past.”

“It’s coming back, a piece at a time. Never the piece I’m looking for,” he confessed with a toothy grin, “but I’m putting it together. It helped getting away where nothing was familiar but my bride.”

Cale grinned. “I bet.”

Max tried to look offended but couldn’t hold to his wry smile. “It comes back in dreams mostly, sometimes awakened by a scent or a song or a lovely string of pearls.” He fell wistfully silent for a moment, and Cale waited for him to continue. Finally, he chuckled. “We sure lucked out on fathers, yours a bully, mine a liar and a thief. But we learned from them so we’d never have to be like them.”

“Yes, we did.”

“The only truth he ever told me was what I’m about to show you. He taught me what I was. And he was right.”

Max turned to Cale, his eyes dazzling in the fading light.

“It’s beautiful.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

“You’ve been sneaking peeks at it all day,” Max told him. “Now it’s show time. I call it traveling, but those folks who believe in magic might say its astral projection.”

Cale eyed him skeptically. “As in pack light and leave your body at home. Yeah, right.”

Max taunted him with his smile. “After the things you’ve done this afternoon, don’t go all girly on me now.”

That had the desired effect. Cale straightened, his stance going combative. “I didn’t say I was afraid to try.”

“Are you afraid to succeed? Do you want to see your mate, smell her, touch her, possibly speak to her?”

“Those things are possible?” Cale’s attention sharpened. “Show me.”

“It’s tricky. You’re navigating a whole new world, one where all the things you’re used to don’t mean a damned thing.”

“I don’t need a history lesson. Just get me to Kendra.”

Max chuckled and shook his dark head. “It can’t be rushed or even controlled at first. You might not be able to identify where she is. She may not know you’re there.”

“Show me what to do.”

“Breathe”

“What?”

“Deep and slow. Close your eyes. Calm your mind. Do it!”

Cale took a full inhale, releasing it gradually as he obediently shut his eyes.

Max put his hand on Cale’s shoulder, gripping lightly. “Listen to my voice. I’m your anchor here. Don’t let go or you might not be able to find your way back.”

More creepy, scary shit, but to see Kendra, he was willing.

“Let everything fall away but the sound of my voice and the feel of my hand.”

He relaxed, breathing in through his nose and out through slightly parted lips.

“Concentrate on Kendra. Picture her. Take in her scent. That’s it. There’s an even stronger link now. Reach out to your child, to that part of you that’s in her.”

His exhalation shivered with longing. His child. From some hidden spot deep down inside him, he felt that faint, determined pulse. A heartbeat.

“Go to them. Open your eyes. Find them.”

Maybe it was beautiful, just like Savoie said, but Cale wasted no time appreciating the strangeness of his surroundings. Like the hunter he was born to be, he honed in on his target and . . . flew? He didn’t know how else to describe the sensation. Miles and minutes rushed past him in a blink as if on a bullet train moving at impossible speed, everything blurring except for that tiny point of reference growing larger, more clear. Kendra!

She and Tina huddled together in the back of a delivery van, their wrists and ankles zip-tied, sleeping restlessly in their uncomfortable positions. He tried to brake but ended up plowing through the wall of the van like a projected image, tumbling wildly until he found his center again.

Kendra . . .

He was next to her, so close he could see her lashes flicker, hear her breathing. His senses scrambled in odd combinations of depth and solidity. Could he touch her? He reached out, experiencing an icy shiver as his hand passed right through her. Damned creepy shit!  He leaned over her to whisper her name. Kendra. Her eyes flashed open, bright and wide.

“Cale?”

He rubbed his cheek against hers and for an instant, felt the warmth of flesh on flesh. From her gasping reaction, she did, too. But when she reached for him, her gesture slipped through him as if he was water.

It was beautiful. She was beautiful. Tired, mussed, unharmed. Relief flowed thick and tangible. A quick glance assured Tina was equally fine.

A quick pitter-patter of new life controlled his focus. His shaky hand fit to Kendra’s slim middle, somehow feeling the miracle of that strong beat against his palm. His vision clouded and suddenly filled with a younger, softer, sweeter version of his own face, somber grey-green eyes, wispy hair more blonde than red, her mother’s heart-melting smile.

A daughter.  He had a daughter!

Just as Pearl predicted.

“Keep her close.”

Kendra’s hand layered over his. For an instant, the contact surprised them both. He spread his fingers wide and hers laced through. Then, she faded, image dissipating like a fog.

“I love you, Katy! I’ll find you!”

He found cool grass beneath his palms. A sudden harsh cramping twisted through all his muscle groups.

“Easy,” Max soothed, the pressure of his hand keeping Cale on hands and knees. “The first landing’s always rough. Breathe through it. That’s it.”

Cale whipped his head around, stare intense as it fixed on Savoie’s. “Is it real? Is what you see true?”

“Yes. Or at least, an interpretation of the truth.”

He pushed back to crouch on his heels, his system shaking through a strange decompression. But his smile spread wide.

“I saw her. I have a daughter!” His features firmed. “There’s no way I’m going to lose them.”

Cale wanted to go again but Max warned against it as too much for a first time jumper. Tonight, Savoie had business in the city. Tomorrow they’d try again and this time, his focus would be on surroundings and clues to finding where they were.

Cale needed sleep, his exhaustion so heavy he couldn’t hold out against it. He hadn’t believed it possible to rest alone in the bed he’d shared with the female stolen away from him, but he closed his eyes and opened them to a new day.

A day that would bring the return of his family.

Or his own death.

Or both.

*

Kip Terriot couldn’t claim to be a tracker like his brothers. What he did have was the advantage of youth and a manner that didn’t pack the same aggressive scare factor when it came to dealing with cautious Uprights. When he approached them with an easy smile and wide blue eyes, they stopped to answer his questions. Had they seen two women that morning, one small and dark, the other slender and fair, in the company of men either dragging them along or using force?  He got plenty of concerned reactions but no actual help until an arthritically bent, aproned black gentleman emptying trash onto the curb for early morning pick up paused to scratch an iron gray head.

“I mighta. Dis morning. Coupla fellas in a hurry, hanging onto two white girls. They looked kinda scared. If I’da been forty years younger, I mighta stepped in, but they was gone ‘fore I could get a good look. Gots into a delivery van right over there.”  He gestured to an alleyway then rubbed his shoulder. “Sorry couldn’t be more help.”

“A delivery van? Did you see a name or logo on it?”

“Nothing I could make out. But I seen it parked over by the Square, couple times a week. Could be somebody working around there might know them. Them girls in trouble?” When Kip nodded grimly, the old man sighed. “I hopes you find ‘em.”