She watched them mentally preparing themselves. She was pretty sure the two adepts would help her. They wanted to get home, and they knew she was their best chance.
But she didn't know about Falcone. He didn't trust her. And if he couldn't cooperate, her plan was doomed to failure.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
"FOCUS ON THE wall with the bookshelves," Rinna murmured. "Picture the plate behind it shifting so a doorway can open."
As she gave the direction, she prayed that she could make it happen.
All the men except Falcone did as she asked. And she could feel them sending energy her way, feel them pulling for her to get them out of this place. The contribution from the soldiers was minimal, since most of them had little psychic ability. But the two adepts added considerably to her power. Still, it wasn't enough because Falcone only stood back, watching.
She took what power she had and directed it toward the wall, imagining the plates between the worlds, imagining that she could focus a beam on them and carve out a hole in the barrier—opening a doorway between this world and another one.
As she directed the energy she had gathered, her head began to throb. And she knew that she couldn't keep up the attempt for long. She was too spent from the effort she had put out defeating the adepts when they had tried to zap her brain.
If she didn't break through the plates quickly, she wouldn't be able to do it at all.
Sweat dripped down her neck, and her body went rigid as she threw everything she had at the barrier, straining to open a door in the wall.
It didn't work.
"What's going on?" Falcone growled.
She shook her head, unwilling to spare any part of her resources for an answer.
"She's lying to us. She's stalling so the police can come in," Falcone muttered.
"No," Avery answered. "She's trying to open a doorway. I can feel her trying. But it's not going to work unless you help."
"For gods' sake, do it!" Brusco shouted.
Falcone gave him a murderous look.
"Do it," Rinna whispered. "Please," she added, hardly able to choke out the word.
She waited, feeling her fate hanging in the balance. Finally, Falcone gave her a threatening look, then joined the others, sending a mental boost to her efforts. But she knew he was holding something back.
Still, she accepted his help with a tip of her head as she focused on the wall, willing the plates to slip and the portal to open, but still nothing happened.
Falcone turned to her, anger contorting his features. "This is a trick."
"No," she gasped out, then struggled to make her voice more normal. "Give me all of your energy. If you do, you'll see the doorway opening."
"You'll make me weak," he bellowed.
"Do it!" Avery commanded.
Through her own pain, she sensed more power coming from Falcone. "Give me all of it," she demanded.
He grimaced, and she felt a barrier tumble down. As he lent her the psychic energy she needed, the bookshelves across from her began to blur.
Some of the soldiers shouted their approval, breaking her concentration, and the image wavered.
"Quiet," she whispered, redoubling her focus, desperate to open the doorway before she lost her ability to function on any meaningful level.
Putting everything she had into the effort, she focused one last monumental blast. The bookcases seemed to dissolve before her, And then she could see a forest on the other side.
"Hurry," she gasped. "Hurry through."
The soldiers were more than ready. Like a panicked horde, most of them made a mad scramble to leave this world and go back where they belonged. She watched them fighting each other in their haste to get through the doorway before it closed. A few held back, and she knew some would rather take their chances here than with the Iron Man of Sun Acres. Some rushed for the basement, and she silently wished them good luck.
As she watched, the majority ran headlong into the trees. When the doorway was clear, Avery and Brusco followed.
Brusco disappeared quickly. But when Avery had gained the other side of the doorway, he turned and stared at her, his face suddenly contorting.
"No!" he shouted. He tried to run back to her side of the barrier. But his body jerked, and he grabbed his throat as he sank to his knees.
Falcone stared through the doorway. "What in Carfolian Hell have you done?" he screamed at her.
"Nothing. It must have been too much for him. Go. Get out of here."
"Not without you," he growled. "You're coming with me where I can deal with you the way I should have in the first place."
When he reached for her, she pulled out the gun that she had concealed in the cushion beside her. "Get away from me. Or I'll shoot you with this thing."
He stopped short, staring at the weapon. "You wouldn't dare!"
"Yes, I would. Get back."
He must have decided she didn't have the guts, because he kept advancing on her, and she squeezed the trigger the way Logan had showed her. But nothing happened.
GREAT Mother, something was wrong. Logan had told her all the things she needed to know to make the gun shoot, but the weapon wasn't firing. Then she remembered—only the Glock worked with the safety inside the trigger guard.
As she frantically looked down at the weapon, Falcone pulled out his own gun.
Before he could fire, a tremendous booming sound shook the house. It took a moment to realize it was outside the building.
"What the hell?"
As Falcone focused on her again, a gray form leaped from the darkness and collided with him.
A wolf! Logan.
The gun went off, sending a bullet into the wall.
Falcone screamed and tried to point the gun at the wolf, but two more animals leaped from the shadows. One grabbed his hand, biting down until he dropped the weapon. The other knocked him to his knees.
Falcone screamed again, kicking and clawing at the wolves, fighting them with what looked like more than human strength.
The air on the other side of the portal stirred, and something drifted toward Rinna, tugging at her. She got up and tried to stumble toward the opening, compelled by a terrible force that clawed at her mind.
It wasn't pulling her into her own world. She had lied to Falcone. She had never intended to open a portal to safety. Instead she had found the world of the Suckers. And the mind vampires were trying to drag her and Falcone through. To join the others who had rushed to their destruction.
She'd thought she could get out of the room before they attacked her. But Falcone had kept her close to the portal.
She stared at the doorway. It couldn't stay open for long because she only had enough power to gain a temporary opening. Now the Suckers were making a desperate attempt to grab the remainder of their prey before the doorway closed.
Hurry. Come to us. Before it's too late.
She forgot any plans she'd made about getting away. The seductive call of the Suckers offered her everything she had ever wanted in her life. But as she took a shaky step forward, the wolf she recognized as Logan leaped up and blocked her way. Snapping and snarling at her, he caught her attention, pulling it away from the creatures beyond the portal.
"No!"
Didn't he understand
? No, maybe he didn't, because she dimly remembered that the Suckers hadn't affected the werewolves' minds the way they affected someone in human form.
Falcone obviously felt the same tug she did. He picked himself up and staggered toward the portal. He was halfway through the opening when one of the wolves grabbed him by his jacket and pulled him back into the room, throwing him onto the floor.
Lance kept her from reaching the opening, moving her steadily back as he snapped and snarled. He pushed her across the room, holding her down as the portal begin to close.
"Nooooo," Falcone shrieked. While she watched in horrible fascination he threw off the wolf and lunged for the disappearing doorway. But it was too late. The opening had shrunk to the size of a port hole.
As it snapped closed, Falcone grabbed his head, crying in agony. He sank to the floor, shrieking as though someone had stabbed him in the heart, and she knew a Sucker had sunk its claws into his mind. The abrupt snapping off of the connection had zapped his brain. Lance had kept her from suffering the same fate.
The door between the worlds had disappeared, leaving the five of them still in the room—the three wolves, her and Falcone.
Lance let her up, and she sprawled on the rug, panting, relieved that the terrible pull on her mind had vanished. Now if only the blinding headache would go away.
The wolves looked at each other. Logan gave some sort of signal, and the other animals ran for the hall. She heard them on the stairs going down to the basement, and she realized they must have come in the back way under cover of darkness and the explosion outside.
Unable to move, she lay against the soft carpet her head feeling like it might split open. Logan nudged her with his muzzle and licked her cheek.
She raised her hand, stroking his fur. "Thank you," she murmured.
He made a sound low in his throat, then began to tug at the pants she wore as though he were trying to tug them off.
He couldn't talk. Yet he must be sending her an urgent message because an idea formed in her mind. She must change from woman to wolf or bird. Change and get out of there before the police came in.
She brought the room into focus, then looked at Falcone lying on the floor, curled up like a child on his side. His thumb was in his mouth and he was sucking it.
The wolf nudged at her again, and she started pulling her clothes off.
When she was naked, Logan snatched up her shirt and pants in his muzzle.
Somehow, around the throbbing in her head, she imagined herself in wolf form. At first nothing happened, and panic grabbed her by the throat. But she struggled to keep her concentration, and her body flowed into the familiar pattern.
She came down on all fours, then followed Logan into the hall, downstairs, and out the back door—into the darkness of the woods.
The wolves streaked through the overgrown backyard and through the woods to a place where land had been cleared but no houses built.
Rinna ran to the other side of Logan's car, changing form where the men couldn't see her.
Then Logan was beside her, taking her in his arms, holding her tight. And she clung to him with a gladness that threatened to burst her heart.
"You did it," he whispered. "Thank God, you did it."
"I… I sent them to the world of the Suckers. Then the creatures tried to drag me through."
"Yeah. I figured all that out."
She lifted her head. "Thank you for saving me. But why did you hold Falcone back?"
"So the cops would find someone in the house."
A throat-clearing noise made her look around. From the other side of the car, a voice said, "Maybe you'd better get some clothes on, so we can get the hell out of here. Before the cops figure out that explosion was just a diversion."
She felt her face heat.
One of the men tossed a pair of pants and a shirt to their side of the car. Logan pulled them on and Rinna dressed in the clothing he'd brought from the house. When they were dressed, they climbed into the car—she and Logan in front and the others in back.
As Logan started the engine, he said, "My brother Lance. And my cousin Ross."
"Thank you," she breathed.
"Logan went crazy when he knew you were gone," Lance said.
She looked from him to Logan. "I'm so sorry. I knew Falcone would hunt you and kill you. I had to get him away from you."
"I figured you were going to do it your way."
"You used the explosion to get past the police?" she asked.
"Yes," Ross answered. "Lucky your mate carries equipment for blasting rock."
She winced. "I'm sorry I caused so much trouble."
"We've had worse. And we owed you—from when you helped us get Boralas," Lance answered.
She nodded, then asked. "What will the police do?"
"They'll try to figure out what happened, but they won't get too far," Logan answered, "unless they round up some of those soldiers who dashed out the back door." He reached for her hand. "I know it's a lot to ask, but I'm hoping you can do one more thing."
"What?"
"That cop, Jake Cooper, probably thinks we're involved in some way. Can you send him a suggestion that he doesn't have time to check up on us for a couple of days. That will give Ross time to get you an ID."
She leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes. "I can try," she murmured.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
JAKE COOPER KEPT thinking he should go have a chat with the Marshalls. But he had a lot of details to take care of after the hostage situation—and the explosion in the woods that had drawn a lot of his men away from the house. Had some guys from inside gotten out and set off the explosives? Or had it been someone else?
The only man they'd taken into custody had been lying on the floor, unable to speak. Maybe he'd rotted out his mind with some designer drug, because toxicology couldn't figure out what he'd taken.
Jake had tried to get an ID on him, but he hadn't had any luck with that either. With one thing or another needing his attention, he didn't show up at the Marshall house until two days after the hostage crisis was over.
As he stepped onto the front porch, he eyed two pairs of dirty tennis shoes—a man's and a woman's—tossed onto the wooden boards, like the couple had been gardening and taken off their shoes before they came in.
He rang the doorbell. After a few moments, Marshall answered. He was casually dressed in sweatpants and a T-shirt. But his eyes were wary, and his shoulders were tense. He looked like a man with something to hide. What exactly?
"Is your wife at home?" Jake asked.
"Yes."
"So you found her okay?"
"Yes." The man didn't elaborate.
"What happened?"
"Just a misunderstanding," Marshall replied.
Jake was sure there was more to it than that. "Do you mind if I come in?" he asked.
Marshall shrugged and stepped aside.
"Did you hear about the hostage situation in Mount Airy?" Jake asked, watching the man's face.
Marshall kept his gaze steady. "Yes."
"You know anything about that?" Jake asked.
Marshall shrugged again. "Just what I saw on television."
"When I was here the other day, I didn't check your wife's ID," Jake said.
"Is that routine?"
"No. But I'd be remiss if I didn't see some identification."
Marshall turned toward the back of the house. "Honey, the detective we met the other day is here. Can you come out here and bring your purse?"
Moments later, Rinna Marshall stepped into the room, a worn leather purse slung over her shoulder.
"He'd like to see your ID," Marshall said.
The slender dark-haired woman reached into her bag and pulled out a leather wallet that had obviously seen a lot of use. From the card case, she extracted a Maryland driver's license.
Jake looked it over, noting the vital statistics.
Rinna Marshall was twenty-two, five feet six inches tall with green eyes and brown hair. The picture matched her perfectly.
Still, he should take the license out to the car and check it through the motor vehicle administration's computer. But something kept him standing there.
He should…
He forgot what he had been thinking about. He didn't want to hassle these people.
The woman held out her hand, and he gave back the plastic card.
"So… everything's okay here…" he managed to say.
"Yes. Just a misunderstanding," Mrs. Marshall said, using the same words as her husband.
Jake nodded. He should ask more questions. But somehow the things he'd wanted to know had evaporated from his brain.
Marshall shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
"What?"
"I've been thinking about what you told me about the Easy Shopper, about the invisible men."
"You still think they're from another… universe?"
Marshall winced. "I guess I've been watching too many science fiction shows, and my imagination started running away with me. But what if a bunch of druggies were burning some kind of hallucinogen in the woods, and, you know, you breathed some of it in."
Jake had thought of something like that himself.
"My cousin, Adam, is a forest ranger in Georgia, and he encountered something similar," Marshall continued. "A bunch of retro hippies were having parties in the park. That would explain what happened to you. Maybe that big white bird you saw was a figment of the smoke."
"Uh huh," Jake muttered. He still wasn't sure what had happened, but he'd lost the urgency to find out. And he was still feeling a little confused.
"Thanks for your time," he said, then turned and left the Marshall house, thinking what a nice couple they were.
AS they stood at the window watching the detective climb into his car and drive away, Logan slung his arm around Rinna.
"You did good. Does your head hurt?" he asked.
"A little. But not much. That wasn't… a big job. I just had to push him in the right direction. And your drug story was good."
She leaned her head against his shoulder.
He stroked her arm. "It helped that you bought us a couple of extra days to get the ID. And a birth certificate to match." He swallowed, "And a marriage certificate."
She nodded against his shoulder. "He was suspicious. And my fingerprints must be in that house."
"But they're not on file anywhere. And I guess we took care of the prints at the house where we broke in."
"Yes."
"We'll just have to stay out of trouble in the future."
He cleared his throat. "About the marriage certificate. It looks legal. But I want to have a ceremony. Where we stand up in front of a minister and tell the world we belong to each other."
She swallowed. "It's still hard to believe… that I'm here living with you."
"Believe it. We can fly to Las Vegas with Ross and Megan and Lance and Savannah and some of the others… when you feel comfortable enough to fly in an airplane."
"Give me a little time." She rushed ahead. "I mean… about the flying. I'm sure about the marriage part."
"That's progress."
She gave him a serious look. "Megan and Savannah helped me a lot."
"Good."
"Not just about being married to you. They got me to the point where I felt like I could face that detective and not fall apart."
"You could have done it without them."
"Maybe not."
"You did a wonderful job with him. You looked like you've lived here for years."
She turned to him, and raised her face to his, and he saw the moisture shimmering in her eyes.
He touched her cheek with a finger. "Don't cry."
"It's hard not to. I feel so… blessed by the Great Mother. In a thousand years, I never could have imagined finding you, living with you."
His own vision blurred. "You'll get used to it. We both will."
She swallowed. "I wish Haig could have lived to see this."
"He betrayed you."
"Falcone forced him. And…"
"What?"
"The badlands changed him. He couldn't live that way. I wish you had known him years ago. When he was himself. He was a good man. He kept me going when I was in school."
"Keep the good memories of him, And share them with me."
"I will. I'll share everything with you."
"Everything."
He kissed her cheek and held her close. When her arms crept around his neck, he smiled, then slid his own arms around her back and down to her hips.
"I think we should celebrate," he murmured. "I mean, celebrate getting that cop off our backs."
"He knows we were involved with Falcone… somehow."
"But he can't prove it. And he'll leave us alone."
"Yes."
She captured the back of his head and brought his mouth down to hers for a long, hungry kiss. When he broke the contact, he was as hard as one of the soldiers' spears.
"I talked to Megan and Savannah about… sex."
He tipped his head, waiting for her to elaborate.
"They told me how good it is between a werewolf and his mate."
"Oh, yeah! But they don't know how good it is when the woman is also a werewolf."
She flushed. "I don't have anything to compare that to."
"Well, we can compare it to how we were a few days ago." He slid his hand up her ribs, along the outside of her breast, and then inward, stroking her hardened nipple.
"It keeps getting better," she whispered.
"I guess we'll have to keep practicing. Maybe we can make the Olympic Sex Team." He grinned. "The events are… bed, chair, outdoors, against a wall, in the shower, in the bathtub, in the kitchen, the gym, and… anywhere else you want to try."
"They have a team for that?"
He laughed. "That was a joke." Then, because she had turned him on beyond endurance, he dipped his head and captured her mouth again.
"Come out. I want to show you something," he said, knitting his fingers with hers.
He hadn't taken her to his secret garden yet, the one he'd designed when Grant had built the house.
It was along the back wall, a twelve-foot area that looked out over rolling Maryland woodland. The garden was bordered by large rocks that he'd brought in with trucks and cranes. Among the rocks he'd planted dwarf pines and beds of wildflowers, so that it looked completely natural.
They stepped out the back door into the garden, and Rinna caught her breath as she gazed around.
"This is so beautiful." She turned toward him. "And you designed it."
"Yes. For you."
"But you didn't know me."
"No. But it was thinking my life mate and I would come out here and enjoy the beauty—and the solitude."
He watched her brush her fingers against the branch of a small spruce, then walk to a flower bed and stop to cup a purple cosmos. "I still can't believe I'm living in a place like this."
"You'll get used to it."
While she had her back to him, he kicked off his shoes, then took off his shirt and sweat pants and tossed them away. Naked, he stepped up behind her and kissed her neck, then slipped his hands under her shirt and gently slid it up and over her head, muffling her surprised exclamation.
"What!"
"I want to hold you—out here."
Turning her in his arms, he pressed her body against his as he worked his fingers into the elastic waistband of her pants and pushed them away.
She gave him a breathy laugh. "Hold me? Or make love?"
"Make love. But get rid of your shoes first." He led her barefoot across the soft grass to a tiled area beside a large rock formation, then reached out and turned on the rain shower he'd had installed in the wall of the house.
"A shower? Out in the open?" she asked.
"Well, it's got a practical purpose. I come in this way when I've been working in the mud, and I don't want to get the house dirty," he said, as he adjusted the temperature.
When it was hot, he stepped under the cascading water and pulled her in with him, holding her, rocking her in his arms.
"Oh!" she exclaimed.
"You should turn around and look at the view," he said, working to keep the grin out of his voice. "It's pretty good for a shower stall."
When she did, he reached to the shelf in back of him and picked up a cake of soap. Not his usual brand, but he'd asked Megan, Ross's wife, to bring him something a woman would like.
Still grinning, he lathered his hands.
Rinna smelled the flower fragrance immediately. "What's that?"
"Just soap."
He pulled her back against his front, then ran his soapy hands down her sides, over her hips and slowly up again, his slippery fingers caressing her breasts and gliding over her nipples.
"Logan! What are you doing?"
"Washing you. Relax and enjoy it."
The soap had made his hands slick as he made a slow, sensual journey over her silky flesh.
Reaching for more lather, he slipped his hand between their bodies, gliding his fingers over the curve of her ass and into the crack between the cheeks.
She stiffened. "You shouldn't do that."
"Why not? Does it feel good?"
"Yes," she breathed.
"I told you, we can do anything together that feels good."
She stood there for several moments, her breath accelerating, and he slid his hand farther down, into the sensitive folds of her pussy. Her hands clenched and unclenched. Then she turned in his arms, and reached for the soap in back of him. "Do you have the words 'what's good for the goose is good for the gander'?"
He laughed. "Yeah, we do."
Her hand was soapy when she clasped her fist around his erection, then slid up and down, the slickness making him exquisitely sensitive to her touch.
"Oh Lord!"
"You like that?"
"You know I do."
She explored him with her soapy hand, running h
er
finger around the head, then sliding her fist all the way up again to the root. After two trips of her hand, he felt like he was going to explode.
"Enough." He gasped.
She let her hand drop, and he washed off the soap under the hot water.
"When you planned this garden, did you figure out where we could make love?" she asked in a breathy voice.
He clasped her in his arms, and stepped toward the bench at the side of the shower, bringing her down to his lap as he sat.
She slid back and turned to face him, then brought him inside her.
"Like the first time," she murmured. "But now I know what I'm doing."
"Oh yeah," he agreed as she raised up, then slowly, slowly brought him fully inside her again.
The water cascaded over them as she kept up the slow pace of long in-and-out strokes, driving them both to a high peak that didn't quite bring them to climax. When he couldn't stand it anymore, he reached to press his fingers against her clit, and she gasped, then picked up the pace.
They both cried out as orgasm washed over them, along with the sluicing water.
She went boneless in his arms, dropping her head to his shoulder, breathing hard. Then she turned to kiss his cheek.
"Thank you… for this. Thank you for bringing me here," she whispered.
"Thank you for trusting me," he said, his voice rough with emotion.
She raised her head and looked at him. "I never thought I could."
"But here you are. In my arms—in my world."
"I'm still nervous… about the world part."
"But you'll get used to it. You're smart and you're very adaptable."
"And I have you to tell me what I need to know," she whispered.