Long Shadows: The Lycanthropy Files, Book 2 (18 page)

“Something’s out there.” I looked out the window. “And whatever it is, it wants to hurt me.”

Chapter Fourteen

“What did you feel?” Max took my hand and examined it with a frown. I moved closer to him. Even if there couldn’t be anything romantic between us, as he’d made clear, it was comforting to have his wiry strength beside me.

“Like something cold brushed across the back of my neck, and then burning pain in my palm and heel.” I took my hand back. “What did you do to me that night on the beach? In my dream? You were putting some sort of mark on me when we were interrupted.”

“Ah, that reminds me. I didn’t want to finish it without your permission. I’ll explain in a moment, but first I need to see if I can find what’s out there. Stay away from the windows—with the lights on, you’re an easy target.”

I rubbed my palm and sank to the sofa. He was only gone for a few minutes, but they seemed much longer. He’d left the
Cabin Living
magazine open to the article he was reading, and I tried to turn my mind to it to see what he’d found so interesting, but all I could tell was that it was about beach “cabins,” with one island in the Caribbean featured.

Makes sense considering his accent. Maybe he’s from there.

The look on his face when he came back in kept me from asking any questions. His brows were knit, and his right fist clenched. “Whatever it was, they’re either well shielded, or they got away.” He sat on the other end of the sofa.

“As for what I did to your foot,” he continued, “it’s a marker. It will help me find you no matter where you are, and it will let me know when you’re in danger.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Did it tell you anything this afternoon?”

He shook his head. “It’s not complete. I only had time to finish the part that would tell me where you are.”

“I would think the other is more important.”

He shrugged. “If I don’t know how to find you, what good is it if I know you’re in danger?”

“Touché.” He had me there, but I was irked. I stood, moved to the bookshelves, and picked up a photo. This one was of my mother and Aunt Alicia as children. Each held a stuffed dog. I couldn’t help but envy the closeness they seemed to have—sisters who would always be there for each other.
Even to the end
.

Joanie and I were kind of like that, or at least we were finding our way back.

Now I have to deal with rapey ghosts and the pissed-off wolf-monk stalking my family
.
Maybe I do need someone to watch over me
.

Still, I couldn’t just give in. “Either way, you didn’t have my permission, not even for the first part.”

“Things work differently in my world,” he said and stood. “We do what we have to in order to ensure the safety of those we’re supposed to watch over.”

“Again, I didn’t ask you to.”

He stood and ran his hand through his hair, which I couldn’t help but enjoy since I’d never seen it out of place. Although he wore it short, a red-gold lock fell over his forehead.

“You look very British,” I said, noticing his crisp long-sleeved shirt and neatly pressed pants. “Did you go to a boarding school?”

“In a sense. Why are you changing the subject?”

I shrugged, remembering how he had told me in the woods in Arkansas I had attributes that went beyond my werewolf talents.
And he does always dress me in that ridiculous bikini in his visions… If there’s anything I know how to do, it’s how to get men to do what I want. Fine, if he wants to track me, then I’m getting something from him as well.

“You can finish the mark if you like, since you started.” I looked at him through my lashes. “Might as well do something useful.”

The look he gave me said he didn’t trust my change of mood, but he gestured for me to join him. I walked to him and stood close, tilting my head up at just the right angle that it would be just a little effort for him to kiss me. I wasn’t prepared for my reaction to him, though. Standing this close with just a breath between us, I sensed every plane of his muscle. He was clean-shaven, but a golden haze lined his jaw, and I pictured how he would look after a week of not shaving, the sun on his cheeks.

“I need to get to your foot,” he reminded me, but his accent was thicker, his voice deeper, and the temperature seemed to have picked up a couple of degrees.

“Of course.” I lowered myself to the couch, and he sat beside me. I leaned back on the pillows by the arm and put my feet on his lap. He traced one toe with a finger, and it sent a good shiver up my leg and straight to my core.

“You have lovely feet,” he said. “Even better than in the dream world.”

I could barely answer, so focused was I on the sensation of him caressing my arch. “Thank you.”

“They’re a little rough. Is that from your running around as a wolf?”

I nodded. “It’s hell on the hands and feet.”

He started to massage the right foot, and I didn’t remind him it was the other one he’d marked. I leaned back and closed my eyes.
He certainly knows what he’s doing.

Every stroke and circle of his long, strong fingers made me wish he was caressing me higher. He moved on to the left foot, and once he had it relaxed, he asked, “Ready?”

“Mmmm?”

He laughed, a deep, soul-satisfying sound. “I thought so.”

I looked at him from beneath half-opened lids and resisted the urge to ask about a happy ending. “Go ahead. You have me at a distinct disadvantage, sir.”

“I would never take advantage of a lady in distress.”

“Oh, my distress isn’t of the damsel kind.”

He chuckled, and I decided I just wanted to keep making him laugh, forget about the sexy bits.

Okay, I probably won’t forget about the sexy bits, but he’s got the best laugh.

“Go ahead,” I said. “Do what you have to do.”

He traced an intricate pattern on my foot. Some of it felt familiar, like he traced over what he’d done before, and then the new part. It didn’t burn, but it didn’t exactly feel comfortable, and by the end, I was clenching my jaw with the effort not to twitch my toes.

“There, done,” he said and went back to massaging my foot. “Just one more little incantation, and you’re good.”

“I’m always good.”

His lips quirked like he was trying not to smile, and he whispered something in a language I didn’t know. It was calming, and between that and him rubbing my foot, I was almost asleep when he gasped and crushed my foot between his hands.

“Ow, what?” I sat straight up.

He leaned back. “Your earlier sensation was correct—you are in danger, and it’s closer than I thought.”

Whatever romantic mood had been established earlier by the foot massage had been killed by his announcement and his frustration at not being able to figure out the source. I went into the kitchen to start dinner while he prowled around the outside of the house again, and I’ll admit to jumping when he came back in.

“Exaggerated startle response,” I explained as I soaked up the water I’d spilled when I jumped. “It’s happened ever since the incident in Arkansas.”

“The one that turned you?”

I shook my head. “The one I can’t remember—of being kidnapped and experimented on.”

“You’ve blocked it,” he said. “Wasn’t it hard, then, to go into the cave below? To be trapped there?”

“Yes, but I was curious enough I was able to get through it. Apparently curiosity and survival are my two highest motivators.”

He smiled and started tearing lettuce without my asking him to. “Thank goodness you’re not a cat. You’d be constantly conflicted.”

I just watched his hands dismantle the lettuce and couldn’t help but admire them.

Stop it,
I told myself and turned my attention back to the stove, where I was sautéing onions and peppers for fajitas. I wasn’t sure, though, what I was telling myself to stop doing—staring or falling for him?

The next morning, after I’d tossed and turned from nightmares that escaped my consciousness as soon as I woke, I found Max had beaten me into the kitchen.

“Sleep well?” he asked.

I glared and poured a cup of coffee.

“Are you always this charming in the morning?” he asked.

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether I have to interact with people before I’ve had my coffee. Thanks for making it, by the way.”

“My pleasure.” He leaned against the counter and blew across the top of the black liquid in his cup.

I tore my eyes away from his lips. “So I was thinking today I could retrieve the box that Aunt Alicia left in the cave. Hopefully it’s still under the bottom step.”

“What box? Why didn’t you tell me sooner? That could be important.”

“It’s a family thing. I decided to tell you since I couldn’t figure out a way to go after it without you knowing.”

“Thanks for trusting me, and you’re not doing that alone.”

The sharpness in his tone surprised me. “Don’t worry, I wasn’t planning to, but please don’t tell me I need your permission to leave the house.”

He took a deep breath. “You don’t need my permission, but I’d appreciate it if you’d tell me when you leave and where you’re going. Someone tried to kill you, remember? And don’t forget something tried to get at you last night.”

“I’ll concede something seems to be after me, but apparently I can change if my life is in danger.”

“If you’re conscious enough,” he pointed out.

“Oh, right.” I sighed and wished… What did I wish? That if I were going to have a protector, he would be more than a bodyguard, more than a friend.
I want him to be a lover.

“Penny for your thoughts?”
 

“Ha! No such luck, buddy. Not without some effort on your part.”

He shook his head. “Now I know what it’s like to be the woman in the relationship.”

His comment was a dart to my heart—
what relationship?—
but I kept my face calm and gave him the patented slow, seductive Lonna Marconi smile. He swallowed and looked at his coffee. With the smile on my face, I went upstairs and got dressed.
Time for some further cave exploration, hopefully mild this time.

When I got to the bottom of the metal stairs in the cave, my hand only found empty air beneath them. I swallowed the scream of frustration.

“It’s not here!” I called up to Max, who watched me from the work room. I swung my flashlight in an arc and found something in the dirt that made my blood freeze: wolf tracks.

“What do you see? Do you want me to come down?”

“No, stay up there.” We had marked the tiles with dry erase marker so we could easily remove the marks, but he stood by in case it closed so he could open the door again.

I followed the tracks to the crack where I’d been yesterday, and not interested in encountering the murderous ghost again, I stopped and backtracked.

I climbed back to the house and flopped on the couch, frustrated and discouraged. “Someone stole it.”

“Any idea who?” Max sat beside me and massaged my neck with one strong hand. It was an effort of will not to just relax into his touch.

“There were wolf tracks. Damn, I should have put it back in its original hiding place.”

“If it was a werewolf, they would have tracked your smell to where it was and might have gotten it, anyway.” He frowned. “I wonder if that’s who was outside last night. I doubt it was your aunt or her
fylgia
. They are long gone.”

I bit my lip. “Whoever it was, it’s gone now, and I don’t have my wolf senses to track them.” I hit the cushion with my fist. “Dammit, I hate it when my mysteries stall.”

“Right, you’re a private investigator too.”

“Sometimes. Like I said, curiosity and survival.”

“So follow another lead?”

I sat straight up. “Of course! The scrapbooks at the Forest Preservation Organization thingy.” I couldn’t remember exactly what it was called, but just before that weird couple tried to kill me, the woman—Claire?—had mentioned there were pictures of my aunt and a young Italian man in the books in the mid-eighties.

“Doctor Fortuna,” I said, “would you like to join me for lunch in town?”

“Why, Miss Marconi, I would be delighted. Do you think I’m appropriately dressed?” He gestured to his khaki pants and blue long-sleeved shirt made from some material that was so soft it made me want to run my hands all up under it and…

“Ahem, yes, I believe you are. I think I’ll change, though. Wearing dusty jeans and T-shirt might tip off someone that I’ve been in the cave and discovered their theft.”

“You look cute in cave wear.”

I decided to ponder that comment later and went upstairs to change.

“Are you feeling okay?” Max asked me once we got to town and strolled along Main Street, which circled the old town hall, now the visitors’ center, as a roundabout in the middle. Luckily there wasn’t much traffic because the out-of-county cars had some difficulty managing the “yield before entering” principle, and the late-winter day was punctuated by occasional beeps and screeching brakes. As we approached, we walked on the sidewalk with eyes out for sudden swerves. A chill breeze stirred my skirt.