Authors: Unknown
ON the other side of the portal, Vandar felt an icy knife of alarm stab into his chest.
Something had happened. Although he couldn’t be sure exactly what, it left him cursing and shaking as he tried to probe for information.
He’d made Kenna think that he had an open connection with her from this side of the portal. That was only partly true. He had little direct control over her, but he had planted strong wards inside her head so that she would behave as he wished while she was in the other universe.
On her previous trip, when he’d sensed her struggling to break away, he had been able to call her back by activating one of his wards.
While she’d been here, he’d doubled the automatic triggers in her mind. And he’d been satisfied with his control.
But now . . .
He knew something was wrong.
Had she actually broken away?
He gnashed his teeth.
If she’d severed her tie with him, then his fail-safe mechanism, the talisman, had done its work, and she was dead. She wouldn’t have known what was happening until it was too late. There was no way for her to save herself.
But was she really dead? Or was she simply beyond his reach?
He wanted to believe that the talisman had killed her, and she was no threat to him.
Still, he had lived too long and coped with too many emergencies to bet everything on that assumption.
After wiping away any visible trace of his uncertainty, he sent out a mental call to Swee, Wendon, and Barthime.
A few minutes later, there was a knock on his door.
“Come in.”
His three key men stepped into the chamber. “Yes, master?” Swee asked, his voice obsequious.
Vandar wanted to smack the fawning expression off the man’s face, but he kept his emotions under control. He had worked with Swee for years. The man was strong, but he was loyal because he’d long ago had the power to resist driven out of him.
“I want the soldiers’ quarters moved near the portal.”
“Sir?”
“I want the entrance to the other universe under constant guard.”
“Yes, master.”
“Half of the men will be on duty at all times. The rest will be sleeping nearby.”
“Yes, master.”
Before the adepts could leave, he stood and walked toward them, placing a hand on each of their foreheads in turn, checking their ties to him and giving them new instructions.
“YOU are very strong,” Antonia said to Kenna.
“No, I . . .”
“You don’t have to be modest about it. You were strong to survive your time with the monster. No one else has ever escaped from him.”
Kenna didn’t know how the other woman had come up with that assessment, but it sounded true.
“It’s hard to imagine so many slaves doing his bidding,” Renata muttered.
“Many of them are adepts—some much stronger than I am. Swee, Barthime, and Wendon are his three chief men,” Kenna answered. “He’ll use them and the others to fight us with their powers at the same time his soldiers are attacking us.”
“But he can’t be all-powerful,” Ross said. “Tell us his weaknesses.”
She shuddered. “I spent months with him, and I couldn’t see any.”
“Because he made sure his slaves never saw anything but his strength,” Talon muttered. “And if he didn’t like something his slaves did, he killed them. No wonder you were scared. Anyone would be.”
Hating the whole conversation, Kenna looked down at her hands. “Don’t make excuses for me,” she whispered.
“Don’t beat yourself up!” Ross replied. “It was an impossible situation for you. Maybe if you share your experiences with us, you’ll say something that we’ll interpret differently.”
Before she could speak, Talon jumped into the conversation. “I
have
shared her experiences,” he said. “When the women helped her free herself from Vandar, I was inside her head, and I saw Vandar up close and personal in a way Kenna can’t convey with narrative. He’s more ruthless and more powerful than any of you can imagine.”
“Yeah, then it sounds like we’re stuck,” Logan muttered.
Conversation swirled around her as Talon tried to explain the problem they’d face if they went up against Vandar and his adepts.
Kenna hardly listened. Something else was tugging at her, something that she’d been too busy to focus on until now.
When she shifted in her seat, Talon looked at her questioningly. “What?”
She swallowed hard. “Now that I have a little breathing space, I realize there’s something I haven’t told you about.”
“Oh yeah?”
She hated the edge she heard in his voice and hated the way everyone was suddenly staring at her, but she said, “I think there may be . . .” She broke off, wondering how to tell them the news. It could be good or bad. She wished she knew which. “Another . . . factor.”
“What?” Logan asked.
“Another being of power.”
“Jesus!” Logan shot back.
“I don’t know his name, but I’ve felt him.” She dragged in a breath and let it out as she looked around the room, hoping that this group of people was open to what she had to say. And hoping again that she hadn’t brought another disaster on them.
Starting again, she said, “Or, it’s more like he sensed me after I came through the portal. He’s the one who made the connection. I felt him, but I didn’t know what he was. Now it’s getting . . . more specific.”
Renata gave her a sharp look. “You’re not talking about someone from your world. You mean someone who’s already on this side of the portal?”
“Yes.”
“A man?”
She shuddered. “I’m not sure. I can’t tell.”
Renata stood up and walked to the window, then turned and faced them. “Jacob and I were stalked by a being of great power. A demon. He came after us time and again, down through the ages, every time we were reborn. Over and over, he destroyed us. Is this being you sense something like that?”
Kenna gave her a helpless look. “I don’t know!”
Jacob leaned forward. “You’re willing to trust this thing?” he pressed.
“Of course not!” She flapped her free hand in frustration. “He may be out for himself. He may be evil. He may be good, for all I can tell. The only thing I know for sure is that he found me—somehow. And he reacted to my thoughts about Vandar.”
“We may be in worse trouble if we contact it,” Logan muttered.
Kenna didn’t want to say what she was thinking, but she knew that she had to be totally honest with these people who had broken Vandar’s hold on her.
“I don’t think we have any choice,” she said in a barely audible voice. She swallowed. “Or maybe I should say, I don’t have any choice.”
“How so?” Ross asked.
“I think he’s trying to find me, and I believe he will, because we’re tied together in some way. Maybe through Vandar.”
“How is that possible?” Talon pressed.
Her voice rose in frustration. “I don’t know!”
Letting go of his hand, she stood. “I’m sorry. I know you were trying to help. And you did. But apparently I’ve gotten you all into more trouble than you bargained for. I’d better leave. Because if he finds me—he’ll find
you.
”
When she took a step toward the door, Talon also stood and grabbed her arm, holding her in place. “Sweetheart, I think it’s the other way around. This is my house. They’re the ones who are going to leave.”
The words sounded like a challenge, and she thought from what Talon had said about his family relationships that he was protecting his territory.
Kenna looked from him to the rest of the group, seeing the sudden tension zinging back and forth among the Marshall men. Talon had told her that each werewolf was the head of his own pack. She hadn’t quite understood what he meant, but in this charged moment, she was seeing the theory in action. They couldn’t stop themselves from responding to the challenge.
The men all stood, their arms stiff, their hands balled into fists at their sides as they each looked at the others. She was sure they were evaluating their chances of a successful attack.
She tried to absorb what was happening. One minute they’d been part of a group. Now they were separate. And they looked like enemies.
A low growl came from one of them, and she wasn’t sure which, or if it was more than one reacting to the challenge Talon had thrown out.
But she sensed that if any of them did or said the wrong thing, they would be at each other’s throats.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
AS KENNA WATCHED, the rest of the women also got to their feet, each of them stepping to the side of her mate and putting a restraining hand on his shoulder. Only Ross was alone among the men, but Kenna had already seen that he had the best control.
Apparently, the women had already agreed who would speak if they found themselves in this situation.
Rinna stepped forward. “Settle down,” she said in a voice that was commanding but low. “We don’t have time for a turf battle. Or for werewolf grandstanding. We all know this is Talon’s house, and we’ll leave if that’s what he really wants.”
She paused and looked around at the men. “But we’re facing a common enemy. Maybe more than one enemy. We know about Vandar on the other side of the portal. And there may be someone over here, too, who could hurt any of us.”
All the men looked at her. Her husband, Logan, shifted uncomfortably beside her.
When he cleared his throat, Kenna tensed, because she’d decided he was the one most likely to cause trouble.
But his words surprised her.
“I tend to get hyper,” he muttered, glancing at Kenna, then back to his wife. “But I know you’re right. I’m glad I have you to keep me in line.”
The tension in the room went down a couple of notches.
Grant also spoke. “Family is important.”
“Yes,” Antonia murmured, snuggling close to him.
Ross’s voice turned businesslike. “So let’s get back to the real problem. It’s not us, it’s a monster from the other universe. And maybe a monster here.”
After hearing the sobering words, they all sat down, but now Kenna hoped she wasn’t going to cause another flare-up.
“I created a bad situation for all of you by coming here,” she murmured.
Ross turned toward her. “You didn’t create anything bad. You warned us of something that’s going to happen—an invasion.”
She answered with a tight nod, not quite sure if she followed his logic.
He added, “The Marshall family has always been this way. Each of us wants to protect his own territory. But we’re learning to adapt to the modern world.”
Kenna hoped she could say the same thing.
“Can you find this man, or whatever he is?” Ross asked. “The one who’s living in our world.”
“He’s . . . you’d call it out West. I know he lives somewhere in the big mountains.”
Logan laughed. “That’s a lot of territory to cover. I think you have no idea how big the United States is.” He picked up his laptop computer from the floor beside his chair and typed on the keyboard, then turned the machine around. “Here’s a map of the United States.”
She’d seen hand-drawn maps that showed where Breezewood was in relationship to nearby cities, but she’d never seen anything like this before, and she stared at the colored patches on the screen, trying to make some sense of them.
“This is a map?”
When Talon heard her confusion, he said, “It’s the whole United States. There are no details—just a color for each state.”
“Um.” She had learned in her prep sessions that they were in the United States. She didn’t really know what that meant.
Logan tapped the screen. “We’re over here in Pennsylvania—this pink area along the East Coast. The Great Plains are in the middle of the country. The mountain states are over here—a couple of thousand miles away.” As he spoke, he swept his hand across to another area.
Talon looked from him to Kenna. “I don’t think that means too much to her.”
It didn’t.
“My point is, there’s a lot of territory between us and him,” Logan said.
“You think we’re safe because of distance?” Renata said.
“Maybe.”
“The demon always found me and Jacob. It didn’t matter where we were,” Renata said. “I don’t think we should just wait for this thing. We should meet him head-on.”
Kenna gave her a grateful look. “If we got closer, I think I could . . .” She lifted one shoulder. “I think if I used trial and error, I could find him.”
Logan laughed. “Sure.”
“Maybe we should test the theory. We could fly to Denver,” Ross suggested.
When everyone stared at him, he shrugged. “You want to stay here, like sitting ducks?”
“We’d be on his turf if we go to him,” Logan argued.
“Which will protect our homes from him,” Ross said.
Kenna felt her gratitude swell. She could have been in this alone. Ross was assuming that they would help her.