Frostfire

He made a strangled sound. “I’ve taken enough from you.”

“It’s not something you can take.” She shifted closer, and curled her hand around his. “This, I have to give.”

She saw the faded bruises on their wrists, remnants of the hours they’d been cuffed together. In another day they would likely be gone, but Lilah thought she would always see a ghost of them there. And now he had dropped his hands and was looking at her, his expression so bleak it tore through her heart, and gave her the strength to tell him the rest.

“I didn’t track you just so we could talk about last night,” she told him. “I came after you because I’m in love with you.”

He didn’t move a muscle. “You don’t know me.”

“I don’t know a lot about you,” she corrected, “but from the way I understand it, you don’t fall in love with someone’s past, or the mistakes they’ve made, or whatever they think of themselves. You fall in love with them, and that makes them the most important person in the world. That’s who you are to me.”

She pressed her lips together until she could control their trembling, but she couldn’t do anything about the tears that refused to stop filling her eyes.

“I don’t know why or how this happened, but it did.” She had to tell him the rest. “Walker, you’re not just the man I love. You’re the love of my life. That’s why I’m here. If you die on me, if you kill yourself, I’m going to be alone forever, and I can’t … I won’t … ” Her voice broke.

“Lilah.” He hauled her across the bench and onto his lap, and bundled her in his arms. “I won’t die.”

“Okay. Good.” She buried her face against his chest and sobbed.

He let her cry all over him while he held her and stroked her hair. When the tears ebbed, he brought a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it in her hands. Lilah knew she wasn’t a pretty crier, and red splotches probably covered her face, but he didn’t look away as she mopped up and blew her nose.

“Thanks.” She rested her cheek against his shoulder and released a shuddering breath. “I almost wish we were back on the truck. Things seemed a lot simpler when we were naked and handcuffed together.”

“Things will never be simple with me,” he said softly, and for the first time she heard the shadow of an accent coloring his words. “There are things about me that you must know. You will find them difficult, if not impossible, to believe.”

“I just stole clothes from a woman I put to sleep telepathically,” she reminded him. “Trust me, my belief system is wide-open.” She remembered the tracks outside. “Were you really going after that thing that killed the men?”

He nodded. “I tracked it here and came inside to see if it was occupying the cabin. From the window I saw more tracks leading away toward the peaks.” He glanced around. “Someone from town has been using this place as shelter. The hand pump works, and there is soap and towels. I also found clothes, stacked firewood, and a radio.”

“But you didn’t find any food,” she guessed, thinking of the shape of the tracks at the end of the older trail. “Did you?”

He shook his head.

She thought for a moment. “It hunts out in the open with a group of others like it. They drag off their kills, probably to a place where they can hide them from other predators, or maybe the townspeople. So they’d only need to come here to wash and change.”

“Change what?”

“Their bodies,” she said. “Walker, that thing wasn’t an animal. It’s human, or at least it is part of the time.”

He regarded her steadily. “How do you know this?”

“I’ve tracked a lot of animals, and this one has five toes on each foot, weighs maybe two hundred pounds, but can run so fast it doesn’t sink into the snow,” she said. “It can also walk erect on its hind legs. The cabin says it can take shelter, chop firewood, wash, and use a radio.”

His expression grew skeptical. “You cannot believe an animal has been living here.”

“No,” she agreed. “I think what made those tracks and uses this cabin is a human who can change into an animal. I think you’ve been hunting a werewolf.”

Lilah must have expected to be derided for her werewolf theory, as she hurried into an explanation of the tracks outside the cabin and the reasons they couldn’t belong to a dog or any other large, wild predator.

“There are no wolves in Colorado, according to Annie,” she added quickly, “and I read an article once about how they were exterminated back in the forties by cattlemen who wrongly blamed them for attacks on their livestock. But whatever is out there is leaving canid and biped tracks, moves like lightning, and is probably the size of a pro wrestler. Since we’ve only seen it at night, it could be nocturnal. Maybe the shifting process takes place after dark, and then during the day, the werewolf takes human shape… . ” She made a face. “Feel free to tell me I’m crazy any time now.”

“You know these animals better than I.” He considered telling her about all the strange things he’d seen during his lifetime, but she would not believe him. That, along with other revelations, would keep for now. “Whatever is using this cabin will not care to find us here. We will return to the inn.” When she started to protest, he said, “We are unarmed and certainly outnumbered. Besides, you need food and rest.”

Her expression turned stubborn. “I need you. I’m not leaving without you, Walker. Where you go, I go.”

She thought herself in love with him, and while he knew that wouldn’t last, he couldn’t resist basking for a time in the pleasure of it. “Then you are going back to town with me.”

Lilah put on her coat, but when she reached for the snowshoes, he took them and tucked them under his arm.

“I need those,” she warned.

“Not with me.” He held out his hand.

She grumbled as he banked the fire and led her outside. “I can’t slog through the snow like you. My legs will turn into icicles and fall off.” She frowned as she took a step onto the surface of the drift nearest the door. “I’m not sinking. Why am I not sinking?”

A flicker of movement caught his eye, but before he could catch sight of what made it, Lilah stepped in front of him.

“I know sunlight melts the top layers, and the cold air freezes them again, but not this fast.” She tried to push her boot through the snow. “It’s not budging.”

Instead of walking down the slope, she went around to the back of the cabin, and peered up at the peaks above. As she moved around to get a better view, she stumbled over a pair of planks sticking up out of the snow.

“Look at this.” She brushed the snow away from the surface of the crude cross. “Josiah Paul Jemmet. It’s a grave marker.”

He found three others hidden by snow and brush and read the names from them. “Anna Peterson Jemmet. Daniel Ethan Jemmet. David Nathan Jemmet.”

Lilah stood. “Why is everyone in this town named after dead people?”

Chapter 15

“Idon’t know.” He took her arm. “But we’d better I go.”

Something was watching them from the cover of the trees; he could feel the eyes tracking their movements. There was also something about the watcher that crept inside him and pulled at him, as if trying to lure him away from the woman. He turned his back on it and hustled Lilah around the cabin and down the slope, boosting her over obstacles and steadying her with his arm when she stumbled.

“Your mother should have named you Runner,” she grumbled breathlessly as the trees thinned and the back of the inn appeared. “I need a bath, and coffee. Lots of coffee. Maybe a bathtub filled with coffee. Are you a coffee or tea person in the morning?”

“Neither.” He glanced up at the mountain. Whatever had been outside the cabin had followed them. He was sure of it.

“Walker?”

He forced himself to look at her. “I will have whatever you like. Come.”

Once inside the inn, he helped her put away the things she had borrowed from Annie before he led her back to their room. He secured the door, and then stood beside it listening for any sound.

“Hey.” She came to stand beside him. “Don’t worry, Annie won’t wake up for a couple more hours.”

“Good.” He pulled off the knit hat from his head, and hair fell into his eyes—hair that was twice as long as it had been last night. He could not be seen like this. “Are there scissors in the bath?”

She nodded, and reached up to brush the black tangle back from his face. “Do we have to cut it?” She rubbed some strands between her fingertips. “I like you with all this Goth hair.”

He smiled a little. “Goth?”

“I can’t call it coal black; that’s too cliché. Tar is too gross.” She slid her fingers up to his scalp. “Onyx isn’t this silky. Neither is lava rock.” She dodged his mouth. “Oh, no, mister. I smell.”

“You smell of me. I like it.” He pulled her against him. “I want to kiss you.”

“You can do that.” She tugged him toward the bath. “But you have to scrub my back first.”

The same wild, unreasonable desire for her flared inside him, but this time he would show her that he was not a beast. He let her draw him into the bathroom, but when she began unfastening the buttons on his shirt, he stopped her.

“That will wait.” He bent to attend to the tub, and once it was filling, he began to undress her.

“A shower would be quicker,” she said.

“Not everything must be fast.” He took care not to tear at her damp clothes, but drew them off with all the care of a personal valet. From the basket on the counter he took the bow, untying the ribbon and gathering her hair up with it until it spilled from her crown like a fountain of fire. He helped her into the tub, and when she settled down, he quickly stripped off his own clothes and stepped in behind her. The water rose around them as he slid down and cradled her between his legs. ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">