Chapter Seven
“Come with me! Come with me!”
Finally asleep after hours of tossing and turning, Kylie heard the voice, felt the cold, and sensed she was being taken.
Not physically. Yet she recognized this sensation. Her soul let go, left her body, and took flight on a journey. Ghosts often pulled her into their visions, where through them she lived bits and pieces of their old life in hopes of explaining who they were and what they wanted.
Where was this spirit taking her? Was the ghost finally going to reveal her identity, and the identity of the person Kylie needed to save?
She felt a cold kind of numbness as her soul became one with another’s. Then visually she became aware of her setting. Eager to find answers, Kylie started looking around.
The room was small, with only a bed and dresser. Then something wiggled in her arms. She looked down to the baby she held. A blue-eyed infant with dark hair cooed up at her.
“Don’t worry, I will keep you safe. I will always be here for you.” She heard the words leave her mouth, though they were not really her words, but rather the voice of the ghost.
“You will see him when I allow it.” A voice, a deep male voice, spoke from another room. Footsteps neared. “He’s mine. I will raise him as I see fit.”
“You would take your own child from me and let that wild dog raise him?”
Kylie looked around, hoping to see a mirror so she could know the spirit’s identity. None were in sight.
“That wild dog is my son’s mother, and just because you don’t agree with our lifestyle does not mean he will be abused.”
While Kylie had yet to see the man, the voice, like that of the ghost’s, tickled her memory.
“Please, Son.” Kylie heard the words come from her lips. “The life you offer is not a life for a child. If raised by rogues, he will forever be marked, and any chance for a normal life will be gone.”
Kylie looked back down at the baby to check his pattern. Her heart jolted when she saw he was wolf. Then the shape of the infant’s eyes, his chin, seemed strangely familiar. Could it be . . . ?
Footsteps rushed into the room. Kylie raised her gaze to see the face of the man. Her heart tumbled. It was Lucas’s father as a young man.
“Give him to me!” Mr. Parker demanded.
He took the infant Lucas from her arms. The baby started to cry. Mr. Parker stormed out with him. Kylie felt herself leaving the body, floating toward the ceiling. She clung to the vision and was able to glance back. There in the room stood Lucas’s grandmother, looking angry, and lonely. She suddenly gazed up. “Save him. Save Lucas!”
“From his father?” Kylie asked.
“No. From the Council,” she said, but suddenly the woman didn’t stand in the room, but in the midst of trees. Lots of trees. Pine trees. “Hurry. Hurry before it is too late.”
The words grew distant.
Mrs. Parker glanced away, then she dropped to the ground covered in a thick carpet of pine straw, her shoulders slumped over. She looked defeated. “I promised him I would always keep him safe, and now I can’t.”
Kylie started floating up higher, the woman got smaller, older, and she became nothing but a speck on the landscape of pine trees.
Then that image melted away, and Kylie saw Lucas. He lay on the ground, his eyes closed, his bare chest and head covered in blood, and while not visible, she knew. He was dying. If not already dead.
Already in protector mode, Kylie woke up with a jerk.
“Lucas!” she screamed.
Bolting out of bed, still in her flannel pajamas, she slipped her feet into her tennis shoes, grabbed her phone, and rushed to the window to open it.
Her bedroom door slammed open.
“What is it?” Della asked, standing half asleep in her doorway.
“The Council is trying to kill Lucas.”
“Where is he?” Della asked.
“I don’t know. Lucas didn’t tell me where he was going. She didn’t tell me either.”
“She?” Della asked.
“His grandmother. She’s the ghost. I need . . . I need to talk to Burnett!”
She jerked open the window.
“Wait,” Della said. “I’ll come with . . .”
Kylie didn’t wait. She jumped to the ground and took off running. When Chameleon mode didn’t offer enough speed to meet the urgency she felt raging inside her, she turned vampire and flew into the woods, heading to the cabin of her go-to person when in trouble.
Burnett would know what to do. He had to. Kylie couldn’t lose Lucas. He could not die.
• • •
“You need to slow down!”
Burnett, shirtless and wearing only jeans that weren’t even buttoned, stood in the doorway. Kylie had obviously woken them up. She didn’t care.
“Didn’t you hear me? I can’t slow down. She said we need to hurry.”
“Kylie.” Holiday, wearing a pink fuzzy robe, moved around Burnett, pulled her into the living room and pressed a calm touch to her arm. “Just slow down long enough to tell us what happened. What was said. What you saw. She may have given you a clue.”
“I just saw the room and then she was in the woods.” She looked at Burnett. “Go see the Were councilmen and make them tell you where he is!”
Burnett ran a rough hand over his face. “They don’t make themselves accessible to the FRU. But I can reach out to . . .”
“You can’t just reach out!” Kylie demanded, air not quite getting to her lungs, her lips and hands tingling from raw nerves. “You have to find them. You have to stop them before they kill Lucas.”
Burnett looked at Holiday, his expression echoing the same hopelessness Kylie felt. The caterpillar of fear she squirming inside her ripped out of its cocoon and turned into a winged creature slamming into her ribs, making her soul rage with anger.
“I’m going to try to make some contacts,” Burnett said. He flew out of the room, flew back in dressed, and then bolted out the door.
No sooner had the door closed, then it whooshed back open. Della rushed in, her expression one of a best friend who would fight for her and stop at nothing to help.
“What can I do?” The vampire’s stance indicated that she was ready to take on the world.
Kylie stood there wishing with all her heart she had something to tell her, but she had nothing. She felt as hopeless as Lucas’s grandmother had looked. If only . . . if only she had someone who could give her answers. Someone who could—
Then she realized she did have someone. She ran out, went straight to flight, not even offering an explanation. Air hit her face, her hair tossed back by her speed. There was no time for politeness.
Everything in her soul said this was urgent. That Lucas was already facing danger. That if she didn’t do something, and fast, he would be lost to her. Gone.
The love of her life would not share this life with her.
She refused to accept that. But how could she get to him in time? She really needed a miracle.
Flying lower, she continued to the one place where miracles happened.
• • •
Lucas ripped off his light blue shirt. The arrow still buried in his shoulder, he moved from tree to tree, heading back to his campsite. He listened to locate his attackers, using the large pine trees as a shield. Fury, not fear, boiled inside him. Who had shot him? What vampire and werewolf traveled together?
He shifted to another tree, inhaling deeply.
The scents were not familiar. Was he just an easy target, or was he “the” target? He pushed the question aside to focus on staying alive, on finding a plan to bring down his unnamed enemies. On not letting the pain take him down.
Blood spilled from the wound. As much as he longed to pull out the arrow, he knew if he did, he might not be able to stop the blood flow. And that could be fatal. He needed to get back to the fire, hoping a few dry branches were still hot enough to cauterize the wound. As painful as that sounded, there was no way around it.
He darted to another tree, only to have an arrow whiz past. It missed. But the next one might not. He needed to be more cautious. To make sure his moves from tree to tree were unexpected and still led him where he needed to go. He hugged the tree closer, accidentally ramming the arrow deeper into his shoulder. The deep, hot ache had him grinding his teeth.
When the pain became manageable he started moving again. Dashing between trees, he went back and forth, slowly making his way to where he needed to be. A couple more arrows whizzed by.
“Wasting ammunition, aren’t you?” he spoke aloud.
He could almost feel the shooter’s frustration. Which was good. A flustered shooter never aimed as well as a calm one.
The smell of his fire hung in the air and assured him he grew closer to the camp. He ran behind another tree and saw four sets of cold eyes staring up at him. His breath caught, then released when he realized it was nothing but the coyotes. Yet the fact that he’d missed their scent was discouraging. This was no time to let down his guard.
The four larger-than-usual animals crouched close to the ground, studying him. The leftovers and bones he had tossed them lay almost devoured. Coyotes and wolves were not always friends, but neither were they always enemies.
The largest of the four creatures, tan and gray in color and obviously the alpha, started forward.
“No.” Lucas held up his hand. The coyote stepped back. The arrow came flying between the trees, barely missing the animal.
The creature lifted his snout and growled. Not at Lucas but into the dark. Then the creature hurried to Lucas’s side. Lucas extended his hand. The coyote smelled it, licked some blood that had flowed down his arm, then lowered his eyes and head in a submissive gesture.
Behind that animal the three others did the same.
Lucas crouched down, stared the animal right in the eyes, accepting the superior role offered to him. I’m in a tough spot, and if you could help me out that would be greatly appreciated.
The coyote looked back at his pack. Let out a low sound, and they quickly darted off into the night.
Leaving Lucas alone and in a hell of a bad spot.