The Covert Wolf (25 page)

Sienna closed her eyes and laid her hands on the purse. A faint vibration shimmered through her. Then it faded as quickly as it began.

But this time she felt a tugging inside her, like a child yanking on his mother’s skirt. Insight hit her, along with fresh hope. “This cabin is blocking the magick. If Tim used a spell to hide the Orb, he drew on the elements of nature to fuel his power. There’s a lake sacred to the Fae. If we go there, maybe it will help clear the air. And my mind.”

* * *

Shifting his backpack, Matt concentrated on the hike to the Fae lake. Wind blew through the Olympia pines, rustled through the valley as they ascended the steep path. The narrow trail was a straight vertical climb, accented by glimpses of heart-stopping views through the sun-dappled pine boughs. Huckleberry and juniper shrubs clustered along the pathway and the outcroppings of granite.

Sienna climbed steadily on. He admired her determination, her toughness, as she scampered over rocks and through small caches of muddy earth. The blue jeans stretched tightly over her round bottom. He ground down his arousal, remembering how he’d clutched her ass, lifting her for his mighty thrusts as he’d slid into her hot, tight wetness….

“The lake at the summit is lovely,” she called over her shoulder. “But this time of year, it’s well below freezing.”

He could use a dip in an icy lake.

He’d sealed her to him, bonding to her in the flesh. And for the first time, he wanted more, craved more. Craved her in his bed, coaxing a smile to her face as he pleasured her, yes. But waking up with her in the morning, teasing her, laughing with her….

Dream on,
he thought grimly.

Some time later they reached the summit. Sienna led the way around the oval-shaped lake, to a fallen log on the shore.

Wind skittered across the deep blue water, pushing it into waves of shimmering ripples. Leaden clouds scudded across the sky. Near the fallen log, granite rocks marched across a small clearing like a fence. Long, narrow slashes gouged a dead tree.

Dense stands of ponderosa pine and Douglas fir ringed the still waters. Sienna sat on the fallen log, scuffing her hiking boot heel in the pebbled ground. Lily pads floated on the clear water. Through the trampled, yellowing grass, he saw paw prints.

Not deer, but wolf. Matt squatted down, examining it, detecting a fragrant scent.

“No wolf packs in these mountains. Not for years. Odd, a lone wolf, pausing at the lake to drink. Same set of prints, but here more than once. Several times. A favorite habitat.”

Sienna stiffened.

“Come here often?”

She turned, defiance flaring in her green eyes. “It was a good place to practice my glamour.”

Beneath the scrutiny of his steady gaze, she crumpled. Shoulders sagging, she slumped over, tracing a pattern of odd symbols in the earth. Fae symbols.

He sensed the inner war, the struggle for identity. Matt’s heart ached for her. Damn, he knew the kind of struggle, trying to find your footing in a world where you didn’t know quite where you belonged.

He was a respected navy SEAL, but considered mysterious and aloof, left alone by all outside his team. He was a Draicon werewolf, but to his family, bewildering and foreign.

“It is a good place to practice. I can see why the Fae revere it.”

Sitting beside her, he placed a hand on her shoulder, gave a reassuring squeeze. Gratitude shone in her eyes.

“This place, it calls to me. There’s something about it, so serene and yet riddled with memory.”

“You shifted into wolf to try recovering those memories,” he said gently.

“It hasn’t worked in Fae or human form. In my dreams, I see this lake, hear the wind pushing at the tree limbs. I’ve known this place a long time.” She looked up, and her anguish cut him like a hot blade. “A place of serenity and violence. Something terrible happened here long ago. And I can’t remember anything. Tim came here, as well, but never shared anything with me.”

After removing the purse from her backpack, she set it on her lap and concentrated. A few minutes later, she opened her eyes. “Nothing still. Maybe there’s something here that Tim left that can help. Something he touched, that I can touch and channel his energy.”

She paused, her eyes huge and beseeching. “Matt…I need your help, as wolf, your sense of scent. Can you please shift and search? I don’t know if you recall his scent…”

“I remember,” he said shortly.

Never would he forget the traitor’s scent. It was stamped into his mind like a brand.

The change came swiftly, man to wolf. The breeze drifting over the lake ruffled his thick fur. He pawed at the ground, senses exploding with awareness. The earthy scent of animals hiding in the brush a mile away, decaying vegetation. He concentrated, pushing aside the scents, digging beneath the layers. Tail pointed straight out, chest thrown out, muzzle to the snowcapped mountains, he inhaled.

Smelled pure, white magick, mingled with dark. Yet overriding it was a dark scent, tainted and foul. He caught Tim’s scent, but out in the lake. Odd.

Near the shore, a small granite boulder sat in the frigid water. Matt leaped from the shore to the rock, paws scrabbling for purchase on the slippery surface. The Tim scent was stronger here.

Something else as well was present. Faint and masked partly by bird droppings and mud.

Blood.

He drew his nose closer and studied a thin streak that blended into the natural red striations of the rock.

Something died here violently, fought for its life and fought hard. Trace elements of old magick lingered in the stone. Powerful magick to have survived this long. Like a marker.

He gazed into the clear water. Seemed normal, unthreatening. Only one way to tell.

Matt jumped in.

“Wait,” she cried out. “It’s freezing.”

Intent on searching for clues, he pawed through the muck, silt muddying the clear water. The frigid water bit through the thick layer of muscle and fur. But the cold to a wolf was nothing compared to hours in the Pacific in human form he’d endured during BUD/S training.

Concentration at maximum, he focused on the objects buried in the mud. Something was down there, and he’d find it. He pawed furiously, spraying droplets and mud over his muzzle, his fur, the rock surface.

Then, something solid. Not a rock. Very carefully, he loosened the object with a paw.

Bracing himself, he shifted into human form. Needles of ice stung his naked skin as the wind howled down the mountain. Teeth chattering, he dug into the soft muck and pulled free the object.

Matt lifted it out. Hard and yet porous. Water cascaded from one end, plunking like raindrops into the lake. Covered with a layer of fine grit and silt, it was small, but unmistakable.

A human bone.

* * *

Sienna threw a wool blanket over Matt’s shaking shoulders. The temperature dropped as the sun began to slide downward into the ice-capped mountains.

If she didn’t get him warmed soon, he’d slip into severe hypothermia.

Yet he seemed steady on his feet, no sign of the disorientation or the wobbly muscles. Matt grimly marched down the dirt pathway, clutching his backpack, now hiding the object he’d retrieved from the lake.

He didn’t show her what it was. She was afraid to find out. Anxiety coursed through her as she followed him down the path. Dark secrets lived in the lake. Matt had just unearthed one.

The icy wind cut like a knife. Sienna knew the land, didn’t fear it, but this wind mocked and howled, as if whatever Matt found had unleashed dark forces.

A branch overhanging the path slapped her face, bringing hot tears to her eyes. She heard an eerie sound, like a low cackle. Enough of this.

She turned, facing the winding pathway leading to the lake. The wind was howling with a banshee cry, sending grit and dirt into her eyes. Tree limbs snapped, flying toward her.

Sienna dodged them and held out her hands. She closed her eyes and spoke the ancient Sidhe words to calm the weather, restore peace to the land. But the words were a babble now, their cadence not lyrical, but a stutter.

The wind still howled, an angry vibration humming in the air. Matt frowned. “Let’s go. It’s not safe here, pixie.”

But it was. She wasn’t sure why.

Sienna held up a hand. “Please,” she told the wind. “Stop. Be at peace. I will find what happened here.”

The wind began to die. And then she heard a faint whisper coming from the direction of the lake, echoing through the valley in a ghostly whisper.

“Sienna. My beloved.”

* * *

“Are you all right?” Matt asked as he came into the living room. The hot shower had felt good and finally warmed him.

“Did you hear it? Someone called my name on the path,” Sienna said. She’d changed, as well, and was now wearing the long, flowing dress of the Fae, her hair pinned up in a severe twist. Armor, he realized. A defense mechanism.

He shook his head. “All I heard was the wind, and then you calmed it.”

“Maybe it was an ancient Fae spirit, watching over the land.” She rubbed her cheeks. “What’s up there, Matt? What did you find?”

“Let’s sit at the table.” When they did, he unwrapped the bone.

Blood drained from her face. “A human bone.”

“Part of a hand. It’s been buried there for a long, long time.”

“I don’t understand. This mountain, and the valley, they’ve been Fae territory for over two hundred years. Are you saying someone got murdered and the body was dumped in the lake?”

Matt covered the bone with the napkin. “Not a human. Someone who was in human form when they were killed. Or they shifted back to their human form just as they died. Maybe as a message.”

“A Fae? One of my people?” Sienna shook her head. “Aunt Chloe would have known of it. She would have buried the body and cast a cleansing spell on the lake.”

Matt intensely disliked Sienna’s aunt. What kind of ruler kicked out an innocent because of her mixed blood? The woman wasn’t a Fae, but a witch. The Hollywood kind that rode broomsticks and cackled.

“Tell me about the lake. How long has it been since anyone but you visited?”

She tilted her head. “Longer than I can remember. The Fae said it was a sacred place, but never went there. Maybe because it was outside their colony.”

“Or too damn hard to climb up that path in those fussy robes.”

The joke failed to coax a smile from her. “What’s going on, Matt? You felt it, as well. Something’s at the lake, dark and ancient.”

“Someone lost their life up there, and the residual energy, combined with the long-buried magick, surfaced when you went there.”

“I haven’t been to that lake since I was shunned from the community.”

Things were starting to make sense. “Most paranorms come into full power when they turn twenty-one. Maybe whatever is buried up there reacted to your powers.”

“Or maybe it’s part of a memory I’m starting to regain.”

Their gazes caught and held. In hers he saw a flare of hope mixed with deep worry.

“What if I can’t recall this memory, Matt? What if it’s something I don’t want to recall because it has something to do with…” she pointed at the bone “…this?”

The only way was to pull that memory free. Remembering the nightmare she’d suffered in New Orleans, he hated the idea, but perhaps it might work.

Matt gathered her hands into his. “Sienna, I can help. I’m a telepath. If you’ll allow it, I’ll go into your mind and pull these memories free.”

Her skin felt cool beneath his palms. “Invade my mind?”

“It won’t hurt. I won’t try unless you give me permission.”

Her gaze darted around the room like a hummingbird. “You’ll pry into my memories. All of them. What if you find something dark?”

“I won’t change your memories, Sienna. Only free them.”

Tension knotted her body as a trickle of perspiration beaded her temples. Damn, this wasn’t turning out as he’d hoped. “It’s not easy, I know. But it’s the only way to find out what happened. Do you trust me?”

When she nodded, they settled on the sofa. Her eyes were huge and anxious. Gently he closed them with his palm.

“Just relax. Think of something pleasant and soothing.”

Matt laid a hand on her forehead, keeping contact. He tunneled into her mind, connecting their thoughts, and saw them last night on the bed, tumbling together in erotic abandonment.

Then he pushed on, deeper and deeper, digging out her years like a miner with a shovel, tunneling deeper until he met with a dark dead end. A wall, solid as granite.

With extreme care, he pushed at the wall, seeing glints of light. He picked at the fragmented edges, and then saw another glimmer of light.

Burning orange, flames, the intense heat seared him, it was growing closer, it was…

“No!”

Tears streamed down her cheeks. Matt pulled out.

“It’s okay,” he soothed. He gathered her close, rocking her against him.

For a few minutes he held her, until she pushed away. A wildness surged in her eyes, and she seemed almost panicked.

“I have to get out of here. It’s too much. Let me go, I need air.”

He shook his head. “It’s not safe out there, Sienna. Not alone. You need to walk and get air. I’ll go with you.”

“No. I don’t want you with me. I have to be alone. You were there…inside my mind.” She gulped down a breath. “I just need to walk, feel free. Let me go, Matt.”

He thought of what he’d seen last night. “Until I find out what’s happening with your people, you’re not setting foot outside the cabin alone.”

Blood drained from her face. “You can’t be serious. I know these woods, these people. When you were in my mind…it was as if I were wolf.”

“Is that such a bad thing?”

“It is for me.”

“Are you saying that because you’re scared of what happened when we made love?” he asked quietly.

Her lovely mouth wobbled. “Last night was so…wonderful. You’re an incredible lover. I’ll always cherish the memory of making love with you. I’ve never felt like that before. But you’re…”

The look said it all.

Matt checked his irritation. “I’d never harm you, Sienna.”

She didn’t answer, but her gaze darted to the bedroom door. “Maybe we should walk. I’ll get my coat.”