Enlightened (Love and Light Series) (8 page)

“We don’t know how it works, but he can increase my abilities. Maybe charge my batteries—or something like that. But I can let him experience what I experience.” Rachel pressed one hand to her hip and leaned on the counter. Her long, trim limbs and shag haircut made Loti think of wood fairies and ethereal things. “Apparently, we can still do it.”

“Do you still feel the bond?” Loti’s chest tightened.

Rachel shook her head as she turned to root through a kitchen drawer. “I need you to tell me what happened tonight.”

Subject dropped.

Loti thought about her question. “Well, I had a very strange dream.” Could she remember it? “And when I woke up, the house felt oppressive. Like the air was thick with something.” She ran her hand through her hair in a tired way. “There was something or somebody in the house.” The screen door slammed. Loti flinched and glanced over at Wolf standing just inside the doorway.

“I thought vampires were supposed be quiet.” Loti twisted her mouth.

Wolf grinned, and the tingle in her spine, which had settled to a bearable constant, flared. She just about peed her pants. Squeezing her lips and thighs together, she cursed under her breath.

He shrugged. “I guess I don’t cotton to all that vampire mythology.” He winked at her.

 
Good lord
. Loti rolled her eyes as she turned her back on him. Rachel smiled, a twinkle in her eye.

“He grows on you.”

“What, like mold?” Loti’s tone was snide.

She crossed her arms over her chest as Rachel hooted, clutching her sides. When the tea kettle squealed, Loti stepped around Rachel, snatching it off the burner and snapping the knob to the off position at the same time. Wolf dug his hands into his jean pockets, cocking his head to one side, amused and completely at ease, while she was. . .what was she? Rattled. She was rattled.
Because he’s a vampire
, she told herself. Vampires always made her a little edgy.

“Tea, Wolf?” Rachel grinned as she wiped at the corners of her eyes.

“Sure. It smells good.” He brushed against Loti as he made for the cupboard.

His touch jolted through her like she’d been shocked. Staring open-mouthed at him, she rubbed her arm. Wolf paused, cup and hand mid-air, and then as if nothing happened, he sauntered off into the living room. Rachel glanced up from the tray loaded with tea accoutrements.

“You okay?” She touched Loti’s arm.

“I don’t know.” Loti’s mouth opened and closed as she stared after Wolf’s retreating backside.

Rachel’s fingernail tapped her front tooth between parted lips, a sure sign the gears were turning. Loti wrapped up the dream, surprised that she remembered quite a few of the details.

“He said, ‘Know thyself, be thyself, and—” her eyes widened, “what was the last thing?” She looked away, chewing at a hangnail. The last bit had vanished from her mind. She rummaged through the images and words, but it was gone. She threw up her hands. “I can’t believe it! It was so clear—”

“Trust thyself,” Wolf said in a low voice.

Rachel and Loti both stared at him, mouths gaping.

“Yes,” Loti exclaimed. “How did you know?”

Wolf’s bright eyes roamed Loti. Her lips parted at the prickling in her chest. When their gaze met, he shrugged his shoulders. “I’ve heard something similar before.” He paused, his eyes unfocusing for a second. “‘Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.’ It’s Emerson.”

Loti’s jaw went slack as unbearable tingling flooded her belly and overwhelmed her head.

“You know, Ralph? The writer?” Wolf smirked, but his eyes glowed.

“Yes, I know who Ralph Waldo Emerson is,” she snapped, rolling her hair around her fingers.
What an asshole.
Why did he drive her bat-shit crazy?

“Okay, so what happened after that?” Rachel steered them back on topic.

She recounted the rest of the dream, her eyes returning to his over and over. How she woke up screaming and the ensuing panic, the humming, and the raven in the dogwood.

“I sensed something smothering. The air was thick and too hot. I felt sluggish and shriveled up, like my asthma acted up, but I don’t know.” She bit the side of her index finger, shaking her head. “Now I know something or someone was there, but I can’t imagine why.”

Wolf nodded, his chin in his hand and his index finger rubbing his lips.

Rachel leaped to her feet. “I’ll be right back.” And she took off down the hallway.

Loti reached for her tea to hide behind while Wolf stared at her shamelessly. God, she hated that he could be so unselfconscious. In a fit of daring irritation, she stared back. Her heart beating faster as she focused on his skin in an effort to avoid his eyes. It wasn’t as pale as the other vampires she’d met, but maybe he had a darker complexion when he was human.

“Are you native?” she blurted out. At Wolf’s slow smile, her stomach fluttered.
Stop that.

 “Yes. I am.” One corner of his mouth rose. “Cherokee, as the pale face call us.”

She suppressed a smile, biting her lip and fidgeting in her seat. “Eastern or Western?” She swallowed.

When he did that one eyebrow thing, her legs went limp.
Oh, dear lord.
“We were all Eastern at one time.” He shifted forward in his seat. “But Eastern. You know the history?”

Trying not to move too much, she nodded. In the silence, their eyes locked and the bottom fell out of her stomach. For a second, she was hanging in space: weightless, scared, excited and turned on.

“When were you turned?” She licked her lips.

Wolf squinted, sitting back, an invisible curtain dropping over his eyes. He shifted deeper into the couch. A big chain-link fence with “No Trespassing” written in big block letters flashed in her mind.

“Before the revolution, but after the Europeans showed up.” His eyes shifted away as he drained the mug.

Rachel half ran into the room rattling a small, burlap bag. “Runes.”

 She spread a blue silk scarf on the glass table. Flopping on the couch, she shook the bag a little harder than she needed to. Closing her eyes she prayed, “Mother of us all, guide my hands and my mind. Give me the insight to ask the right questions and to understand your answers.” When she opened her eyes, they glinted with excitement. “Here goes.” With a crooked smile, she dumped the runes on the silk. She turned the terracotta bits over so they were all blank and swirled them around.

“What is the message in Loti’s dream?” Her eyes narrowed and her lips drew into a firm line.

The question surprised Loti. It wasn’t the one she would’ve asked, but she trusted Rachel. Like she had done so many times before in this very room, Rachel turned runes over one by one, arranging them in a Celtic cross. It was how the women worked out the kinks in their lives. Together, they found ways to soothe away the hurt and to assuage their fears over tea or wine. Dragging the orange throw off the back of the chair, Loti cocooned herself. The smell of burning wood, the soft microsuede of the chair, and Rachel studying the runes was all familiar—lulling and comforting.

“Let me tell you what I’m thinking.” Rachel tapped her front tooth. “I asked about the dream because it’s the key—even linked to your visitation tonight. What Wolf and I could sense was not a mark or magic, per se, but cleanliness. That makes me think either something didn’t want you to know it was there or something didn’t care that you knew. If it’s the first option, they didn’t do a good job of covering their tracks. It’s like a gun being wiped off after it’s used to murder someone. It’s too clean.” She fiddled with one of the runes.

“If it’s the second option, then whoever was there didn’t care that you knew, but cleaned up after itself anyway. Which means it’s someone very powerful or something,” Rachel glanced at Loti, “bigger.”

“Bigger?” Loti furrowed her brow. “What do you mean?”

“I think it might be a message. Like from a spirit or some guiding power.”

“You mean God, Rachel. Just spit it out.” Loti rolled her eyes.

“Or the Goddess.” Rachel fixed her eyes on the runes.

“Just tell us what they say.” Loti hugged the blanket tighter, tangling the knitted yarn around her fingers.

Wolf bunched his forehead, glancing between the women and the runes until Rachel gave him a “leave it alone” kind of look. He left it alone.

“The woods represent the darkness you’ve been wandering in.” Her words were hesitant and the look she gave Wolf was pensive. “Loti lost her husband to lung cancer.”

Wolf tilted his head and lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry to hear it.” The hard lines of his face somehow softened. “There are no words, I know.” His gaze did not pity or sympathize. The grim turn of his mouth and the clear but melancholy light in his eyes undid her.

Loti leaned back and twirled her hair around her fingers. She couldn’t make herself look at him as she swallowed back the rising pressure in her chest. Her eyes burned. He’d said the right thing, and she didn’t know how to make that jive with the judgments she’d made. Truth be told, it wasn’t the first time she’d been wrong about someone.

Rachel continued talking, oblivious to the subtle exchange between them. “Losing David in the woods is your situation and the footsteps following you could represent your fear of the unknown. If the dream ended there, I would say that was it. But, the rocky mountain and the black man speak of the future and larger matters.” Rachel pointed to one of the runes. “Feoh. It’s reversed. This is the past and it speaks of overwhelming loss.”

Loti’s eyes stung.
No, no, no.
She sniffed, lifting her chin and sat up taller.

“The end of a relationship.” Rachel’s eyes apologized as she hurried on. Pointing, she said, “See here? This is ur. It implies challenges ahead and these,” she gestured to the runes around it, “suggest a journey, inner and outer, something you need to do to move on.”

Rachel’s head snapped back, her eyes rolling and flicking to reveal the whites and red and blue capillaries. “But Hagall opposes you.” Her voice was not her own. “Beware, for there are those who want to use you. There is no way around what you must pass through; what you would avoid at all costs. But if you can survive, there will be peace for you both.” Loti jumped up to grab Rachel, but Wolf’s hands caught her wrists. An intense bolt of energy zipped through her arms and straight to her chest. She yelped and yanked her hands back, but he held on tight.

“Don’t touch her,” he growled, his eyes menacing.

She nodded, fear constricting her throat. Their eyes held as he released her wrists. Rachel was still talking. What had they missed?

“Suffering is inevitable, but to everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven. Now that you have what you have been looking for, you must trust that there is nothing beyond the now.” And Rachel slumped toward the coffee table. Wolf was a blur as he caught her before her head hit the glass and scooped her up into his arms.

Hugging her tight, he whispered, “Rachel.”

 “Rachel, talk to us,” Loti urged as she brushed damp hair from her sweaty brow. If he was touching her, it must be okay, now. Rachel’s eyelids fluttered, and she mumbled something, cleared her throat and tried again. “Water, please.”

Loti ran to the kitchen and returned with a glass of water, sloshing some on the floor in her haste. “Here,” she said, a bit winded as she lifted the glass to Rachel’s lips. She sipped and reached for the glass with an unsteady hand. Loti held it until she was sure Rachel could, then backed up as Wolf maneuvered her to the couch. Loti stuffed throw pillows behind Rachel as Wolf set her down. Sitting back on her heels, she held one elbow, curling and biting her lips. Wolf’s fingers grazed Loti’s shoulder as he squatted down next to her and this time, instead of a jarring shock, cool pulses eased the tension from her neck and shoulders. She gaped at him.

“She’ll be okay,” Wolf rubbed the back of his neck. “She’ll be weak for a day or so. Channeling is draining.”

Loti nodded, overcome by the more than pleasant sensation at his touch. She made herself focus on her best friend lying pale and limp on the couch

 “I’m feeling better. “ Rachel handed the glass to Wolf. “So you can stop looking at me like that. It’s happened before, and it’s nothing to be afraid of.” She paused to catch her breath. “One of the perks of the job.”