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“I was supposed to protect those people who died. That’s my job. Now what? You do whatever the hell you like?” he said. Then he paused to regain the strength in his voice. “If not exactly like you, I’m no longer like them, either. Not like those people.”
Like the aftershocks of an earthquake, a series of low growls shook the ground beneath him. Darkness wavered. Leaves rustled. This beast’s rumble was terrible, threatening, ominous, but the monster stayed in the shadows.
When Gavin let loose a responding growl, the creature stepped forward on legs the size of a grizzly’s. Transfixed, unable to get a handle on the creature’s exact size and girth, and fairly sure he didn’t want to, Gavin jumped back. This was a damned nightmare.
“Son of a...”
Gavin tried to ignore the tingling in his hands. Angling his head, he heard a crack of bone on bone. Licks of white-hot fire made every joint ache as a wave of lightheadedness washed over him, twisting his stomach into fits. He knew this feeling, recognized these sensations, and they came as a shock.
The beast in front of him was able to call forth Gavin’s beast, and maybe even set it free early. Was that because what stood across from him had created him? Blood calling to blood?
Through a slowly revolving whirl of turmoil, Gavin heard his own growl of angry protest. “I’m not like you!”
And though it seemed impossible for anything else to get through the pain and shock of what he was experiencing, something else nipped at his attention, dragging him away from the outrageous situation at hand. Too riled up to put a name to that distraction, and feeling too ill to respond to it, Gavin kept his focus riveted to the beast less than ten feet away from him. He was close enough to hear it breathing. He heard its giant canines snapping, and the memory of teeth like that tearing into him, ripping the flesh from his bones, made his stomach turn over.
This was no werewolf. This truly was a demon. And Gavin’s mind warned that he might not be able to get out of this in one piece. Not this time.
When the creature’s growls suddenly ceased, the world went deathly quiet with a silence that seemed surreal. Though Gavin’s muscles ached to transform and his fingers stung with the threat of popping claws, the grip this specter had on him loosened. It, too, had noticed the distraction, and turned its mind elsewhere.
The enormous werewolf, which could have squashed him like a bug, advanced no farther. After waiting out several hundred of Gavin’s thunderous heartbeats, it turned away from him. Uttering a low roar of grumbling displeasure, it drifted away as completely and swiftly as if it had merely melted into the night.
Sounds from behind made Gavin spin around, afraid the creature had reappeared at his back. Lunging forward, taking the advantage, he rushed toward the sound, striking an object hard, taking it to the ground.
His breath whooshed out. His muscles screamed for the strength necessary to do some damage to the thing that had damaged him so very badly.
“This ends here, one way or the other!”
The moment he said those words, Gavin realized it wasn’t the beast he’d tackled. The body beneath him was small, fragile, and it squirmed beneath his weight, smelling like soap and the soft fabrics covering it.
Closing his eyes, Gavin fought back an oath. This wasn’t the monster. Not even close.
When he reopened his eyes, he found a familiar face looking back. A small white circle of features that were pale enough in the moonlight to be almost transparent.
“What the hell?” was all he managed to say between deep, rasping breaths of mortified relief.
Chapter 6 (#ulink_d61eb986-c0dd-50ec-8e07-a6148c46590d)
“You can get off me now.”
Breathless from the momentum of the attack, Skylar shook so hard, she stuttered.
Without being able to see Harris’s expression in the dark, she felt every racing beat of his heart through the chest pressed to hers.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded.
“Following you.”
“I asked you to stay inside.”
“About that. I seem to be going through a rebellious streak that makes me impervious to reason. I’m sorry if I startled you.”
“Hell, woman, my warning must not have been nearly strong enough to convince you of the danger.”
“I was pretty sure you could handle one lone wolf.”
“Lone wolf? You have no idea...”
Maddeningly, Harris didn’t finish the statement as he fought for his breath.
“I thought you heard me coming,” she said. “You were speaking to me, weren’t you?”
“I was talking to myself.”
“Is that a habit rangers often pick up?”
“Yes.” He took some time to go on. “It’s not safe here. Not safe anywhere near here. It was foolish of you to ignore me.”
“Yes, well, right now the problem is being able to breathe.”
Harris only then seemed to realize he was on top of her. Slowly, he backed onto his knees. Seconds later, he offered her his hand and a word of caution. “We have to get you out of here.”
Skylar took his hand and let him pull her to her feet. The man was little more than a dim outline in the dark, but she saw him turn his head as if expecting someone else to appear.
Holding tightly to her right wrist, he said, “I can’t do my job if people run all over these hills in the dark. There are always a few who think they’re above the rules.”
Skylar stumbled forward when he snapped his arm. “Meaning I’m one of those.”
He didn’t challenge her remark.
“Did you find the wolf?”
“No.”
He was lying again. She could tell by the way her inner radar was going off.
“I’ll go with you to look for it,” she suggested.
“You’ll do no such thing. You can leave this place as quickly as possible. In fact, I’ll take you.”
“I don’t need a chaperone.”
“On the contrary, I have every reason to believe you might.”
He began to walk, more or less dragging her with him. “Please listen to me, Skylar. There’s a dangerous animal on the loose, and that’s no joke. If you’re out here, I’ll worry about you. Distractions can make these situations so much worse. Surely you can understand that?”
They slid in a damp patch of dirt on the slope, but righted easily enough. Skylar resolved to pay more attention to her feet. She wasn’t going to be the bimbo of horror flicks who always tripped and fell in the scary scenes. She had always been fleet.
She wasn’t afraid to be out here with Harris beside her, yet she felt uneasy, and as if they were being watched.
“I think my father might have been chasing a wolf when he died,” she confessed, matching Harris’s lengthy strides. “If so, then I want to see it skinned.”
Harris’s sharp intake of air wasn’t her imagination. Something out here had bothered him, and bothered him still. He was wired and on edge. He kept looking around.
“I’d like to hear about that, but this isn’t the time or place for conversation. You’ll have to trust me on this.”
“Okay,” she said.
The relief in his voice was evident. “Good.”
The odd feeling of them not being alone stuck with her on their steep downhill descent until she had to speak of it.
“I think we’re being followed.”
His response was to utter a choice four-letter word and to walk faster. Skylar wasn’t going to argue with him about getting to safety this time. The new presence she sensed was heavy enough to siphon some of the air from her lungs. The night had grown colder, and each breath she struggled to take felt icy after the day’s heat.
“Maybe it’s a ghost,” she whispered.
Harris urged her into a jog.
Thing was, she thought, if ghosts existed, this one hovering in the woods might turn out to be what was left of her father. But if it was her father, why did the spirit feel so dark? Why was she suddenly afraid?
She let Harris lead her through the night, clinging to his hand. She’d been right. They were being followed, and the man in front of her knew this as well as she did. Clearly whatever he had been chasing out here now stalked them, and it was something Ranger Harris feared.
Halfway down the path, Skylar resisted the impulse to stop and face whatever tracked them. Only then would she confront the awful fear building inside her.
Her guide didn’t seem to share her impulse to stop. His hold on her wrist remained unyielding as he led her over rough, unfamiliar terrain ignoring holes and vines as though he saw every detail in the dark.
She couldn’t see a blasted thing.
He didn’t produce a flashlight, either, seeming to rely on his own internal GPS system. She supposed that rangers had to be familiar with the areas they patrolled and that Harris walked these same paths over and over on a daily basis. All she saw were glimpses of his back, highlighted whenever the moon peeked out from the clouds.
Deliberately, she didn’t offer the use of the flashlight she’d used to find him in the first place, now tucked inside her pocket. She was fascinated by how Harris maneuvered and afraid that if she shone that light behind her, the sanity she presently held on to might desert her. She was sure something otherworldly lurked on this hillside.
She thanked God that Harris wasn’t the kind of creature she’d almost expected him to be—though the voice he shared with the man in her dreams continued to plague her. He didn’t use that voice now, though there were questions that sorely needed answers. Questions having to do with wolves being bold enough to stalk two humans, or if it might be some other Colorado animal. Mountain lion. Bear. Recently escaped homicidal human.
The icy sensation of being tracked didn’t ease up as they ran. Traversing the downward path, Skylar felt positive she heard sounds of the creature breathing beyond the two of them.
She kept as close to Harris as possible and his grip on her remained a comfort. But although they had gone a fair distance already, the cabin’s porch light didn’t appear. Were they lost?
A gravel road suddenly loomed up out of nowhere, noticeable by its ghostly gray color.
“Stop,” she said, tugging at Harris’s hand. “This isn’t anywhere near the cabin. The road to Dad’s place is dirt.”
“Just a few steps more,” Harris urged.
When she saw the car, Skylar remembered what he’d told her about leaving it there. “We’re on the opposite side of the hill. Are we driving to the cabin?”
“I’m thinking it might be better to take you someplace else for the rest of the night.”
“You heard that stalker, too?”
“What stalker?”
More lies, in the form of withheld information. The rigidity of Harris’s arm gave away the fact that he knew much more than he let on.
“Answering a question with a question won’t get us very far,” Skylar pointed out.
“Maybe not, but my Jeep will.”
They reached the car, found the doors unlocked.
“That’s all you’re going to tell me?” she challenged, facing him over the car’s roof.
“I don’t want to scare you.”
“It’s too late for that. Is the rush in honor of a dangerous outlaw on the loose? I have a right to know.”
“Would that make you get into this car?”
“I’d just like to know what we’re running from.”
Harris blew out a breath. “I don’t know what it is for sure, okay? I only know that something is out there, and my job is to keep you safe.”
The moon was brighter here, away from the trees. Ranger Harris gestured for her to get into the car.
“I’ll take you to town, where you can get a room for the night,” he said.
“You, too?”
“Afraid not.”
Did he sound regretful about that? Skylar wished she could see his face more clearly.
“Should I trust you?” she asked. “We’re running from the unknown, but I don’t know you, either. Is it wise to get into a car with you?”
“True. I am a stranger to you. But at the moment, I solemnly promise you that I’m the lesser of two evils on this mountain.”
Cooperating, Skylar climbed into the vehicle. The worn leather seats smelled like the great outdoors. Like dirt and greenery and Ranger Harris.
She said, “Maybe I should have taken a closer look at that badge on your shirt.”
He pulled the badge off and tossed it to her as he slid into the driver’s seat. “Be my guest.”
Without a doubt, this guy could be infuriating. But what he had tossed her felt like a real badge. She’d seen a few in her time, so this probably meant Harris was one of the good guys.
Skylar closed her fingers over the metal as if it were a talisman to wield against things that went bump in the night.
“Anything you need we can pick up at the store,” he said. “I have an account there.”
