Witching Moon (18 page)

A very small meal. Hardly worth the effort. And food wasn't his primary concern tonight. He was hunting men. Not to eat them, but to sort them out.

Down the block, a dog suddenly howled. Apparently it had caught the scent of wolf. He trotted off in the opposite direction, keeping to the shadows and heading for the historical society.

 

SARA
looked through the darkness toward Adam's cabin. Earlier there had been a light on inside. Now the place was dark. She'd thought about inviting him to dinner, then decided that was being too forward.

After that, she'd waited for him to come over and see how she was doing. He'd stayed away.

Now he'd probably gone to bed.

The sudden image of herself walking over there in only her nightgown flashed into her mind.

She pressed her shoulders against the back of the chair where she was sitting. Where had that come from? She wasn't the kind of woman to throw herself at a man.

But then, it wouldn't exactly be throwing herself. Adam wanted her. That was pretty clear. Yet he'd backed off. And now maybe he was waiting for her to be the one to make the big move.

Well, she had a good reason for going to his cabin. She wanted to talk to him about the conversation she'd had with Rosie. The woman had brought up the subject of the witches, then run away like she was sorry she'd mentioned it.

That was something she and Adam should discuss. But at one in the morning? she asked herself, unable to hold back a shaky laugh. The laugh turned to a groan. Talking wasn't the real reason she wanted to see him.

The image of herself and Adam alone in the cabin came back to her, sending a hot tremor of chills over her skin. There was no point in lying to herself. She wanted him, the way she'd wanted no other man she could remember. He'd said it would be good between them. She knew it would be. But still, she knew on some instinctual level that she'd be playing with fire. He'd brought her here to keep her out of danger. Danger outside the park. But he was the danger close at hand.

 

ADAM
waited a long time before emerging from behind a monument in the cemetery next to the old church that now housed the historical society. Most of his wolf expeditions had been in open country. Being surrounded by the trappings of civilization made him nervous.

Probably he was responding to some primitive animal instinct, he thought as he moved from gravestone to gravestone, then slowly approached the building. He'd heard that the break-in had been through a basement window. He stopped when he got to the boarded up rectangle and drank in a long draft of air.

There were many human scents mingled together. He could distinguish men and women. The men smelled more raw. The women had a dainty aura that always called to him. Some were people he had met in town. Others he didn't recognize.

He got a near-choking draft of Mrs. Waverly's perfume. What had the woman done—crawled through the window on an inspection mission? Or was she the one who had broken into her own precious building, to make it look like something had been stolen?

 

SARA
had just changed into her nightgown when a sense of overwhelming danger closed in on her, choking off her breath. She staggered back, hitting her shoulder against the bedroom armoire, then sprang away, gasping, trying to fill her lungs with air.

Something bad was outside in the night. But it wasn't coming for her. Somehow she knew Adam was in danger.

Not here at the park, but in Wayland. Downtown. Outside an old stone building that shimmered in the vision of her mind. A church that looked dark and forbidding. And ominous.

She reached out and grabbed the bathroom door frame, her fingers digging into the vertical surface. Somehow she was able to ground herself, to ease the tight, sick feeling in her chest. Just a little. Just enough to keep herself from fainting.

 

A
flicker of movement at the edge of his vision startled the wolf, and he whirled. But there was nothing there.

Well, not exactly nothing. He caught the ghost of a shadow image just below the level of his vision. A shadow he could see and yet couldn't see at all. It was something completely beyond the realm of his experience. A phantom image with no scent. No substance. Yet it raised the wolf hairs along his spine.

Not
it.

Them
. Watching him.

He went very still, trying to bring them into focus. But he simply couldn't do it. And then he didn't know if he had made the whole thing up because he already felt like he was treading on broken glass.

He shook his head. This was no illusion. He felt something at the edge of his consciousness where he couldn't reach it.

He didn't like the sensation. And the wolf in him wanted to turn and run away before it was too late. But the man inside the wolf forced him to stay where he was and gather what information he could. He went back to what he was able to detect with his sense of smell.

Paul Delacorte had been here. Of course, the sheriff had been investigating the break-in. And a whole crowd had apparently come by to goggle at the broken window.

Another individual leaped out at him. Miss Sexpot, the woman who had appeared yesterday at the park office and tried to get into his pants. He'd been halfway toward fucking her when thoughts of Sara had stopped him.

Her scent was mixed with a bunch of others, male and female. Because he had been so intimately involved with her, she stood out to him, although her presence here proved nothing. She could be one of the curious or one of the people who had broken in. But he had no way of knowing.

 

SARA
blinked. The image of the church stayed lodged in her mind. But she saw something else as well. Big booted feet stealthily crossing a patch of gravel. She didn't know who the man was or why he was there.

She tried to get a better look at him. Her view expanded enough for her to see a gun in his hand. A dark-skinned hand.

She still didn't know who he was. All she knew was that the gun was pointed at Adam.

Panic seized her.

“Adam!” she screamed. “Adam, watch out.”

She couldn't see him. She didn't know where he was in the midnight picture wavering in her mind. And that was as terrifying as anything else.

 

ADAM
was pawing at the edge of the window frame when a voice rang out in his head.

Sara's voice.

“Adam!” she screamed. “Adam, watch out.”

He whirled around, smelling the strong scent of man. A very familiar scent. Not from earlier in the day.

Now. He strained his eyes into the night and caught a man-shaped shadow standing out against the darkness around him.

He had been so intent on his mission that he hadn't heard the crunch of shoes on gravel.

But Sara's voice had cut through the focus of his concentration.

He leaped back as the beam of a flashlight hit the spot where he had been standing.

“Holy Moses!” a voice rang out in the blackness behind the light. A glint of metal flashed in the man's hand. He knew that voice. Knew the scent. It was Paul Delacorte, probably prowling around for the same reason that Adam was here himself. He was hoping to find out who had broken in.

Only the sheriff was armed with a gun, and the wolf had only his teeth and claws.

Would the lawman risk a shot here?

Adam didn't wait around to find out. He turned and fled into the night, dodging through the cemetery, expecting the hot pain of a bullet slamming into his flesh.

SARA'S HAND CLAMPED
into a fist. She pressed the fist against her lips, trying to hold back a scream—or a sob.

Adam was in danger. Terrible danger. Being stalked by a man with a gun.

She had seen that much, along with the bulk of a large stone church. And something else. Something that raised goose bumps on her bare arms. In the background were flickering shadows. People-shaped shadows. Not solid. She could see through them, like ghosts.

She made a little moaning sound. Could they be the witches? Adam had told her about them. So had Rosie. And she'd started wondering if they were the people who had shouted at her. Now she was seeing them. Well, not exactly. They had been at that place. But they weren't there now. Somehow she was picking up their afterimages. And those images rocked her to her soul. Just like their voices echoing in her mind.

Their forms were blurred, indistinct.

And she hadn't seen Adam. Just a blur of motion like an animal running from danger. And she didn't understand why that fitted into the warning reverberating in her head.

The whole ghostly vision began to dissolve. She tried to clutch onto it, but it was suddenly gone, and she saw only the bedroom of her little house. She had been standing by the bathroom door. Now she found herself sitting on the edge of the bed.

Seconds ticked by. Then endless minutes. She waited for something else to happen. The past few minutes had left her cold and shaking. She should get dressed, she thought vaguely. But she didn't have the energy for that.

All her strength was focused on trying to bring back the mental picture she'd just seen. But it wouldn't come!

For a lifetime she had ruthlessly shoved such visions out of her consciousness. In Wayland that had been impossible because she didn't seem to have any control over the images that came into her mind. Or the images that faded away, either, leaving her weak and shaking. Now she wanted desperately to find out what had happened with the man and the gun, but she couldn't make the dark scene come into her mind again.

Chills rippled over her skin. Wandering into the living room, she snatched up the quilt from the sofa, opened it up, and wrapped it around her shoulders like a large shawl as she moved to the window and stared out into the darkness.

She didn't know how long she stood there before the headlights of a vehicle cut their twin beams through the night.

It was Adam. Or it was Delacorte. Or someone else official coming to give her bad news.

Clutching the quilt around her shoulders, she opened the door and dashed into the night, her bare feet pounding the mulched path to the parking lot.

A vehicle's door slammed. She headed for the sound and saw a man standing beside an SUV parked at the edge of the lot. One of the overhead lights shone down on him, and she could see his face.

“Adam! Thank God. Adam.” She ran toward him as he started toward her. They met on a soft bed of pine needles under a cluster of trees.

The quilt fell from her shoulders as she lifted her arms and reached for him.

 

ADAM
reached for her at the same time. He had been longing to come back to her, yet all the way home he had been dreading the reunion. He had heard her voice shout a warning to the wolf. But she hadn't been there. Not physically.

He heard her breath come out in a gasp as he pulled her toward him, then stopped with his hands on her shoulders.

“You called out to me!” he said, hearing his voice rasp like sandpaper on rough tree bark.

“You were in danger.”

His hands tightened on her shoulders. “How did you know? How did you warn me?”

“I…I don't know.” She stopped, closed her eyes for a moment, then started again. “I had…had…one of those visions that I hate. But this time, I knew you were in trouble.”

He dragged in a painful breath and let it out in a rush. He had to struggle to keep his fingers from digging into her shoulders. “You saw me?”

She stared up into the harsh lines of his face, looking confused. “No. That was the strangest part.”

“What did you see?” he demanded.

“Not you. I saw another man's feet. I saw his boots. And I saw he had a gun.”

“Delacorte.”

“Oh!”

“But you didn't see me?” he pressed.

“No.”

He felt like a condemned prisoner given a stay of execution. On a sigh, he pulled her to him, his arms closing around her.

“Do you believe me?” she whispered.

“Oh yes.” If she had seen him, she wouldn't be in his arms now. Would she?

She lifted her face to his, her eyes troubled. “I told you I've been having strange experiences…strange perceptions since I came here. That dream we had. When I was in your bed. We both had it. It was real. Somehow, it was real. And what happened tonight. That was real, too.” Her fingers dug into his shoulders. “Adam, what's happening to me?”

“I don't know. We'll figure it out,” he promised, because he didn't know what else to say.

“Having…visions is wrong.”

“What do you mean—wrong? Was it wrong to keep me from getting shot?”

She went on as though she hadn't heard him. “My parents thought it was a bad thing. They didn't like it…so I made it stop.”

“Jesus! What did they do, beat you?”

“Of course not. They would never have beaten me. They adopted me because they loved me.”

“You're adopted?”

“Yes. But that doesn't make a difference.” She looked like she was on the edge of tears. “They just made me understand that it made them uncomfortable.”

He swore again. “Don't tell me anything you do is wrong,” he clipped out. “And certainly not tonight. You saved my life!”

“I wanted to help you,” she murmured. “But I didn't even know where you were. Were you outside a church?”

“A church building. The historical society took it over. I was trying to figure out who broke in there last night.”

“And Delacorte thought you were one of the witches come back to the scene of the crime.”

A bolt of tension went through him. “The witches? How do you know it was the witches?” he asked, hearing the strain in his voice.

“I saw them,” she whispered. “I mean…” She stopped and started again. “I don't know what else it could be. I saw that they had been there. Last night I guess, when they broke in. They were like ghosts, flickering in the darkness.”

“Yeah.”

“You saw them, too?”

“Not exactly. I could
almost
see them. And I felt…something strange. I didn't know what it was. I think you just told me.”

She wrapped her arms around his waist, pulling herself tightly against him. “Adam, I was so scared for you. And scared for myself, too. I don't like this.”

She was trembling in his arms, and at the same time running her hands over his back, his shoulders, her touch telling him how relieved she was to have him safely home.

The need to soothe away the remnants of her fear was like a deep, primal longing that seemed to envelop him and at the same time wrap the two of them in a curtain of silk that sealed them away from the world and sealed him to her.

After the heat of their first kiss, he had vowed to take things slowly with her. But her touch and the warm look in her eyes was making that impossible.

He was aroused. And while he'd been holding her, arousal had passed beyond pleasure to pain. It felt as if he had been turned on for days. Turned on since he had first come across her in the swamp and known that she was his destiny. He had raged against that destiny. Some part of him was still trying to outrun it. But how could he fight his own need when she was in his embrace, silently telling him that she wanted the same thing he did?

A thick fog of sensuality was rapidly obliterating his ability to think. Her face was turned upward toward him, and he drank in the honey and sunshine scent of her mouth, feeling each exhalation of her breath drawing him toward her. He didn't make a conscious decision to lower his mouth to hers. It simply happened.

And that first touch of their lips was like a jolt of molten intensity that sizzled its way to every one of his nerve endings.

He drank from her like a man who had crawled out of the desert and found a cool, clear pond waiting in a shaded oasis.

She made a needy sound, her mouth opening to give him better access, and he knew that this time if he didn't make love with her, he would lose his sanity.

He should have warned her to run for her life, but he was beyond warnings. His hand slid down to her hips, reveling in the feel of her silken skin beneath the thin fabric of her gown.

Under the protective canopy of the tree branches, he stepped back long enough to drag the gown up and over her head.

Now there was nothing between the wonderful curves of her body and his hands and lips.

He stroked his fingers over her back, down her flanks, pulling her against his aching erection.

When she made a whimpering sound and rubbed against him, he felt as if his body was going to ignite and set the grove of trees on fire.

He reached up to take her breasts in his hands, his thumbs stroking over the hardened tips, bringing another whimper to her lips.

He needed to get rid of his clothing. She made a sound of protest as he stepped back.

But when he pulled his T-shirt over his head, her hands went to the waistband of the sweatpants he had worn so he could get in and out of his clothing quickly.

He kicked off his shoes, then helped her scrape the pants down his hips.

Naked, he pulled her in against himself, desperate for intimate contact. His cock nestled against her belly; his hands stroked over the rounded curve of her bottom.

He needed to be on top of her. Inside her. Here. Now. He looked down at the pine needles under his bare feet and blinked when he saw a quilt lying on the ground.

Sara followed the direction of his gaze.

She laughed. “It must have fallen off my shoulders. How convenient for us.”

They both knelt, spreading out the quilt. Then he pulled her back into his arms, tumbling her to the makeshift bed on its soft mattress of pine needles.

Their bodies crushed the needles, flooding the air with the pungent aroma of pine mingled with the dark, rich scents of the night.

It seemed right that he was making love with her for the first time out here, the wind a light caress on their naked bodies.

He clasped her to him, hot and hard and needy. He had never wanted a woman more. Yet his own satisfaction was only a small part of what he craved. He ached to give her pleasure, ached to bring her to the same peak of satisfaction that waited for him.

“Sara,” he murmured through trembling lips.

Lowering his head, he caressed her breasts with his face, then turned his head so that he could take one pebble-hard nipple into his mouth, sucking on her, teasing her with his tongue and teeth while he used his thumb and finger on the other nipple.

She arched into the caress, her fingers winnowing through his dark hair. He shifted so he could trail one hand down her body, finding the hot, slick core of her.

When he dipped his finger between the silken folds, she made a low, needy sound and pressed her hips upward, telling him silently that she craved more.

She was ready for him. Thank God, because he knew that he was too close to the edge to wait.

Positioning himself between her legs, he entered her in one swift stroke.

She cried out at the joining of their flesh, circled his shoulders with her arms as he began to move within her in a fast, hard rhythm.

She matched him stroke for stroke, her nails digging into his back, the intensity quickly building to flash point. He felt her inner muscles tighten around him, the contractions like small electric shocks jolting his nervous system. And while orgasm still gripped her body, his own release grabbed him and spun him into a whirlwind of sensation that left him gasping.

He had never felt anything as profound, not with any other woman. Shaken to the depths of his soul, he collapsed against her, his head drifting to her shoulder, and she reached to soothe her fingers through his hair, turning her head so that she could stroke her lips along the line where his hair met his cheek.

They lay there for long moments. On the verge of sleep, he finally roused himself with visions of the staff arriving in the morning to find them lying naked on a quilt under the pine trees.

“We can't stay here,” he murmured.

“A bed might be warmer,” she conceded.

Which bed, he wondered, as he thought about protecting her reputation. He didn't want people in town gossiping that he'd asked her to stay at Nature's Refuge and invited her into his bed the next night.