Stallion of Ash and Flame (Siren Publishing Classic) (4 page)

She gave him a troubled frown this time, yet didn’t dispute his words. Heading toward her front door, she glanced over her shoulder. “Whoever the enemies are, they could still use him to blackmail me. Besides, if they did remote view him, why didn’t they remote view me and find out the location I discovered?”

“They could have. However, if there are no recognizable landmarks, they may not be able to pinpoint the location.”

She halted so abruptly at the bottom step, he came close to colliding against her apple-voluptuous ass. His cock lengthened, then strained, fighting his zipper. Trail clutched his rifle, diving one hand inside his jean pocket to stop himself from grabbing her. His stud erection complained against the painful restraint of his jeans.

Half-turning toward him, she scowled and he witnessed her thoughts. “Are you saying there’s
more than one group of enemies? Like when one mafia group wars against another?”

“Yep, exactly.” Hell, he hoped she didn’t look down and see ‘exactly’ what she did to him.

Instead, her gaze remained on his face. Worry shadowed her eyes, and he longed to suggest she swallow down a shot of whiskey to return some color to her ivory-carved features. Obviously, she was used to dealing with emergencies, and he admired how well she functioned while in shock. Still, he doubted she’d been shot at before. Later she would collapse and fall apart. Trail planned on being there for her, despite knowing it wasn’t a smart move.

“You might as well check out Rory’s add-on after you go over the place. And I’ll start contacting the people who aren’t due today.” Heading back up the steps, she muttered, “At least I’ll have the excuse of Rory’s accident to fall back on. It’s too bad, since I really like most of them. They’re good people.”

Once they walked inside, he waited as she placed the rifle beside the door, positioning it for ready use. He laid his down next to hers, then gripped her shoulders firmly, halting her. She flinched, yet didn’t twist out of his hold. “Let me have a look around first.”

“Fine, do the macho thing. I’ll just stand her like the little helpless woman and wait.”

“Don’t shoot me in the back.” He teased the words in her ear as he skimmed by her beautiful curvy body. Trail grinned, immensely enjoying himself. He wouldn’t ask now, but he’d find out why she’d flinched.

Extending all of his senses again, he gradually moved though the four main rooms, including her bedroom. Her female fragrance blinded him blissfully for an instant before he shut off his reaction and moved on. He liked the atmosphere of her airy bedroom, comfortably messy, as was most of the house, except for her office area, which she kept tidy and organized.

He swiftly found where she’d kept the shoebox, on the shelf of a cherry wood cupboard. He knew by the vibration that the late forties piece of furniture had belonged to her grandmother. Yet he didn’t get a sixth sense hit on who had stolen the amulets. Suddenly, his forehead buzzed, the psi-hit coming from an old wooden file cabinet in her office. Opening the top drawer, he stared down at the loose stack of ‘8 by 10' photographs. He shuffled through them noting they were mostly artistic landscape shots. Hearing her footsteps, he asked, “Before the age of digital?”

“Yep. Old hobby of mine.”

Picking up the large stack, it flashed before his mind’s eye. What she hadn’t told him, or anyone. And what Rory would never have divulged, either. Handing them to her, he asked, “Any missing?”

Taking the stack, she moved to her substantial desk and sat on the edge with the ease of having done it often. Leaning against the sturdy file cabinet, he watched her focus her full attention

as she began going through the pile.

Moments later, she uncurled her body and looked at him, her eyes glazed. “Two of them are missing,” she announced. “I have the negatives, though.”

“The area where you found the amulets,” he spoke quietly to her, then took the stack from her tight grip. She’d instinctively crushed them against her chest as he moved toward her.

“Yes,” she answered on her next rapid exhale of breath. “How did you know?”

“Medicine man skills.”

“With all your tracking skills,” she mocked, “why you need this job makes no sense.” Before his gaze, she snapped out of her stunned state

to eye him sternly.

“Tracking isn’t always a full-time gig.”

“Gig? Now you sound like a musician.”

“Sang in a few bands. You must have missed my karaoke performances.”

She grimaced, a twist of her mouth he knew would intimidate most men. “How do you know you still have the negatives?” he asked, curious. Besides, he needed to know everything to protect her.

“They’re buried,” she murmured so softly he almost didn’t hear her. “Why am I trusting you?” Crossing her arms with defiance and vulnerability, she collapsed back on top of the desk and hugged herself.

“As long as you’re trusting me, where did you bury them?”

She flashed her gaze briefly at him like a mare deciding where and how hard to punish him with her hooves. “What if this place is bugged? I mean, it’s not like anyone knew about those pictures.”

“Who looked at them last?” When she threw an impatient glance at him, he added, “No need for bugging devices these days. Just a van and a listening dish. Or hack inside your computer. Or use remote viewing,” he reminded.

“The pictures are on the hard drive, dammit. Rory went through a craze of scanning in all the photos we had because of...never mind. But, if that’s how they had access to them, why bother to steal the originals?”

“Did you write anything on them that could be useful?”

“Just the date. I don’t recall anything else.”

“These have the name of the area or the closest town.”

“Yeah, that’s why they knew which ones to steal,” she sarcastically answered. “I didn’t write the closest landmark on the back of those two photos, so that was the big clue.”

“Could be.” He finished checking the backs, then placed the stack inside the drawer. “They could have remote viewed you or Rory looking at the pictures.”

“Crap,” she muttered sourly. “Before I—” She shook her hair and by the look she gave him, she didn’t want to tell him anything. “I would go...go there, the place, I’d look at the photos to remind myself.” She drew in a large hiss of breath. “Just to get it fresh in my head.” She gazed fully at him, wariness glittering in her eyes. “The route.”

He trained his gaze on her face. “Selling artifacts?” he softly asked.

She shook her head emphatically. “No.” The word burst out of her. “Like I said about the amulets, I would never do that, unless it was a major life and death emergency.”

“What did you find?” he asked, even though he’d clued into it already.

“Coins. I thought they were stashed there from some late 1800’s train robbery, by the dates. But it turns out they were probably stolen from a private mint.” Huffing out an exasperated but resigned breath, she pivoted on that delectable ass of hers and faced him. “We, Rory and I, did find the bags of coins together. We’d been hiking and taking pictures. I thought we might be able to sell them as framed prints.”

She lifted her shoulders, a quick shrug. “Anyway, we found several bags. It was a thrilling sight, all those shiny coins. We weren’t sure what we’d found, so we decided to leave most of them. We found a better place to hide the bags and only took a few of the coins. We also figured it wasn’t as dangerous. If anyone discovered what we’d found, well, I guess what happened today could have happened then. Probably would have. We figured out a plan and a story. We were even patient enough to bury the coins in dirt for a few months. We just said we’d found them after a rainstorm while hiking. Of course, we didn’t tell anyone the right area.”

She sighed deeply, and dropped her head forward. “We weren’t greedy. Just a few coins at a time. We found this antique dealer who also knew coins and was willing to pay ‘under the table’, so to speak.”

“Then you found the amulets.”

She nodded, her gaze staying on the colorful rug beneath her feet. “I’d gone in the cave to check on the coins, take a couple of the silver ones,” she whispered. “I heard this strange sound.” She raised her head, her memory obviously vivid. “Why I didn’t run out, I’m not certain. It was this eerie rustling wind type of sound. I’ll never forget it. Then I thought I saw the shadow of an animal running inward. Not a big one, smaller than Luke and Spook, and like a dog. Of course, I thought coyote, maybe even a wolf. Or a wild dog. Then this howl...mournful, like it needed help. So, like a fool, I followed, creeping along. Then I found myself inside this amazing cavern.”

She paused, glancing at him, her eye haunted and wondrous, both. “I don’t think it’s natural. There’s even this odd illumination. It’s not large, no larger than the living room. But there are stone altars with artifacts.”

“Why take the amulets?”

“That’s the really paranormal part. The dog, actually it looked like a jackal, suddenly appeared again. He trotted toward one of the lower altars, then sat down, and looked alertly at me. When I finally moved toward him, he vanished...just vanished. The two amulets were laying there. I...I took it as a sign, a good sign. And I took them. I suppose,” she mused, “it could have been like the trickster. Or it was the trickster. Yep, I got tricked. Definitely.”

“Maybe not,” he murmured.

“Medicine man knowledge?” she asked, hope flickering beneath her depressed voice.

He nodded. “Let me think about it.” But he didn’t need to, he knew. The amulets were being used as bait by Spirits who wanted an evil exposed and stopped. He and Seneca had been chosen to fulfill that destiny and end the unscrupulous use of the ancient technology.

There wasn’t any point in furthering her fright by telling her yet. But he would have to, and soon. Appreciating the downright sexy and slow dance of her curves, he watched her stretch her spine before she stood up.

“I’m going to check on Luke and Spook. Put some coffee on or something, if you want. I don’t use it, but Rory does.”

“I’ll secure the perimeter, as they say.”

“Just how are you planning on doing that?” The thrust of her hip challenged him, not to mention the sparks in her eyes.

He gave a lazy patented grin designed to bypass her defenses. Her small intake of breath and the slight flush of her cheeks told him she wasn’t immune.

“Look for entry points into the house, design a way to—” He paused at her impatient gaze. “I worked security for a small firm before I came to this area.”

“Whatever.” She gave him the one-eyed glare. Pivoting, she headed for her dogs.

Reining in his libido, he strode for the front door and grabbed up the rifle. Once outside he did a slow walk around the house, which had probably been built in the twenties, and had eventually morphed into three wings, the latest addition being Rory’s add-on. There were seven doors, and windows for every room, so he took his time examining them all.
He hadn’t lied about working security. He’d been on another mission from his world. The security job gave him access to the corporate business he’d needed to investigate
.

Rory had done some excellent work preserving the structure. Only the cosmetic care that had gone wanting. Now all he had to do was talk her into paying for the improvements he wanted to make, since he had to maintain his cover.

Rounding the back corner, he saw her hug Spook. Even from this distance, he could tell her tears flowed from the great relief she felt. Both of her dogs tottered about slowly, much improved. Deciding it would be best to let her be, he headed toward Rory’s section of the house.

The partial print of a man’s booted foot in a shaded area beside the house caught his eye. The unusual sole and square-shape of the toe had not been designed by anyone in the normal human population. Crouching down, he concentrated, excluding everything else. Whoever the being, he’d been at least seven feet tall, yet slender in build. From the imprint, the male had been stealthily on the move.

After committing the physical characteristics of the print to memory, Trail sent his awareness into the being’s leftover energy signature. Instantly, he knew the man, and the other two he’d been with, had stolen the photos believing they could psi-sense the frequencies of the location and find the other artifacts.

Taking a risk, Trail slid his awareness directly into the man’s energy body. In the next moment, the being sensed his intrusion and he backed out swiftly. However, he’d gained a sense of him as a hybrid human who was in league with one of the factions they were up against.

Rising upward, he frowned. He hadn’t been able to tell if the photos’ frequencies had been accessed or not. Heading back inside, he set the rifle down and moved to Rory’s entrance located at the back of the great room area. The backside of the medium-sized hearth had been left as an outer wall with the entrance placed on the right side.

He smiled briefly, appreciating the masculine paradise Rory had set up for himself, especially the heavy-duty, no-nonsense furniture
.

While cluttered with his motorcycle gear and his hunting and fishing gear, nothing moldy green grew anywhere. Plus, the place looked freshly vacuumed. It was well known in town that Seneca
laid down the law several years earlier, refusing to clean up after her brother anymore.

People also understood why they stayed together. Their parents had been killed in a head-on collision during their middle teenage years and they’d taken care of each other ever since.

Walking into the bedroom, he noticed the spectacular view of the mountain peaks. The sun had just begun its afternoon descent, and the strong yellow rays ignited the mountainside. It looked like the blazing light shone on glass. Automatically, Trail latched the window closed. Opening the sliding glass door, he strode out onto the small deck. From his higher position, he had a three-quarters view of their acreage.

The stable sat in his direct line of sight, along with the fenced off grazing areas. He noted the overall contentment and happiness of the horses because of his equine nature and because he could see their body language with his human sight
.