CHAPTER 24

A sudden chill made Gina wrap her arms around herself and hold on. “You can’t have me any more than he could.”

“We’ll see about that,” the Nahual murmured, gaze on Teo.

Gina didn’t like what she saw in that gaze at all.

“You think I’ll let you touch me? You’ve been buried in the ground for centuries. You were bones, dust, smoke. You aren’t really alive now. You’re a parasite. You’re living off his body.”

Jase’s shoulders shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I’ve got a body now, thanks to you.”

“Stop saying that!”

The Nahual laughed, and the chill deepened. That wasn’t Jase’s laugh anymore. It was the laughter she’d heard on the wind, in the trees, and echoing through the mountains for nearly half her life.

“You’re right,” he said. “Alive isn’t the right word, since I’ll never die. But without sacrifice, without blood, I lose form.”

“He becomes smoke,” Teo murmured.

“Only death can bring me back.”

“Which is why the werewolves watched but didn’t kill us,” Teo continued. “Until he’d gained form, stolen a body, recovered his magic,” Teo kept his gaze on the monster that inhabited Jase’s skin, “he needed all the murder juice he could get.”

“Like I said, Moldy’s not so moldy,” the Nahual repeated. “The more willing the death, the more murder juice I get.” He switched his attention to Gina. “How do you think I had enough oomph to call your name all these years?”

Gina swallowed thickly. “You killed my parents.”

“I was confined. I was smoke,” he mocked. “I didn’t even have a body.”

“That didn’t stop you from killing Mel and Ashleigh.”

“It didn’t, did it?”

He was maddening. “What did you do to my family?”

“I gave them a choice.”

Gina’s chill increased along with her understanding. “Me or them.”

“A sacrifice freely given.” He breathed in and out again. “It was wonderful.”

“And all the other deaths that happened on that land?”

“Guilty.” He spread his hands. “I needed some form of sustenance.”

“I didn’t think you could die.”

“There’s death and there’s a strange realm in between. I went there sometimes. Years, decades, maybe a century would pass. But eventually, someone always wandered near my tomb and died.”

“Why did you call me?” Gina asked.

“Why not?” The Nahual shrugged. “Your parents gave up their lives for you. Both of them without the slightest hesitation. I was curious. Then, when you came at last, you released me, and I knew I had been right to call. Once I inhabited this body, I understood how I could get everything that I wanted.”

He tapped Jase’s finger against Jase’s temple. “There’s all sorts of great information in here. Took me a while to understand—the phones, the satellites, computers, the technology—but now I see … I’ll have no trouble gaining the trust of thousands, turning them into my army, then taking over the world.”

“What are you going to do with the world?”

“Whatever I want.”

Gina rubbed her forehead. “Fine. Whatever.” She couldn’t be bothered with saving the world right now. Let Edward deal with it if he ever showed up. Right now she had to save Teo and the others. That was the only reason she’d come out here.

“You said you’d spare them if I came with you.”

“Them,” the Nahual agreed. “Not him.”

Gina didn’t like the sound of that, but then she hadn’t liked the sound of much in years.

“Which him are you talking about?”

The grin was back, less like Jase than ever before. “You choose.”

Gina was starting to get a very bad feeling. “No. Uh-uh.”

The Nahual ignored her protests as if she hadn’t even made them. “Willing sacrifice gives me strength.”

“Got that.”

“I want to rule the world.”

“Heard you the first time.”

“With you.”

“Huh?” Gina gasped.

“He’s me; I’m him.” The Nahual rubbed his bare chest. “He wants you. I want the world. If I make you like me, I’ll be your maker. You’ll never leave me. Him. Us.”

“No, thanks.”

“Come to me freely and your lover lives.”

Gina shot a glance at Teo. “No, Gina,” he said. “Don’t.”

She yanked her gaze back to the Nahual. “Where does the choice come in?”

He tilted his head, the movement more like a dog than a human, and she saw again those beloved eyes in a vicious lupine face. Would she ever be able to look at that without feeling ill?

Maybe. If her own eyes were set in an equally furry face.

“You become like me,” the Nahual explained, “and lover boy lives. Best buddy…” He stroked his own chest again. Ick. “And I become one forever. No going back. To separate us would kill him.”

“What if I choose best buddy? You gonna let Jase go?”

The Nahual shrugged. “Sure. There’s another body right here, and I’m certain he’ll be happy to accommodate me to save you.”

“Great idea,” Teo piped up. “All for it.”

“Shut up, Teo,” Gina said.

He didn’t. “I’m a better choice. You think there’s a lot of info in that head, you oughta see mine.”

“No.” Gina kept her gaze on the Nahual’s face. “He isn’t going to let me or Jase go just because he takes you.”

The monster’s lips curved. “You know me too well.”

“I’m starting to. Even if he jumps ship,” Gina waved between Jase and Matt, “he’ll still need me, or someone else, to sacrifice themselves so he can bond, or whatever the hell he needs to do, with a body.”

The Nahual spread Jase’s hands. “You got me.”

“The sacrifice has to be willing, Gina. Don’t be.”

“If you won’t give willingly,” the Nahual said, “I’ll just take. You’ll still grow a tail beneath the moon forever. Then I’ll mow through everyone at the house until I find someone who’ll give in. I’m sure the kid, or maybe his dad, even the woman who birthed this body would be happy to give his or her life for someone they love.”

Derek. Tim. Fanny. Isaac. Melda. People Gina loved and people who trusted and depended on her. She couldn’t let them die and/or become a werewolf because she didn’t have the guts to give in.

However …

Gina glanced at the sky where the sun blazed only halfway up the eastern horizon. There was still a good long time until dusk. Maybe Edward would arrive, find them, free Jase, then kill that thing and they’d all live happily ever after.

Hey, it could happen. There were werewolves running around, and an Aztec sorcerer had possessed her best friend. In Gina’s opinion, reality was up for grabs.

“I need to think,” Gina murmured.

“And here I figured that the instant I threatened lover boy you’d be signing right up.”

“You can’t turn me until nightfall anyway. What’s the rush?”

The Nahual lifted Jase’s face to the sun. “I crave the moon,” he agreed. “Only beneath it can I increase my army.”

“Bummer for you,” Teo said. “You’d think an unkillable sorcerer would have more control over the environment.”

“But I do,” the Nahual whispered.

His gaze swept the ground; then he snatched up a sharp-edged rock and grabbed Gina’s arm.

“Hey!” She tried to pull away, but he slashed her palm, then clapped his own to the blood that flowed.

When he released her, she held her stinging hand to her chest. However, the wound was the least of her worries as the Nahual smeared her blood over his palms, then lifted them in glistening supplication to the heavens.

He shouted in gibberish as the earth began to shake. The sun dimmed, swirled, then shifted from yellow to white.

Gina glanced at Teo. “Nice one,” she said.

And the cerulean sky went black.

Gina recalled the man-wolf figure on the wall of the cavern lifting its arms to a sky that contained two circles—one gold, one silver—and understood.

The bastard could bring the moon.

Okay, new plan. The Nahual was going to make her a werewolf, and there was nothing she could do about it but agree.

Fine. To save Teo she would do anything. Maybe once she was one of them she could figure out how to end the creature. She didn’t believe there wasn’t a way. The world didn’t work like that. Nothing was unkillable. Everything died eventually. Besides, what choice did she have?

Gina peered at the moon. Right now? Absolutely none.

“No.” Teo attempted to get to his feet, but they were bound as tightly as his hands. One shove of the Nahual’s bare heel against his chest and Teo landed on his rump, then banged his head against the ground as the momentum carried him backward.

“Untie him,” Gina ordered, and when the Nahual hesitated, she snapped, “You said you’d spare him, so untie him, and let him go.”

“And if I don’t?”

“As soon as I’m furry, I’ll kick your ass.”

Jase laughed the Nahual’s horrible laugh. “You can try,” he said, but he untied Teo.

Teo lunged, and the sorcerer backhanded him. One quick flick of the wrist that didn’t even appear to have much heat behind it and Teo was lifted off his feet, then thrown into a rock. His head cracked against the stone, and he landed in a heap at the base.

Gina cried out, starting toward him. The Nahual stepped in her way. “Time’s up. I brought the moon, but I can’t hold it there forever.”

“You said you wouldn’t hurt him.” Gina tried to scoot around.

The Nahual grabbed her elbow. “I said I wouldn’t kill him.” His eyes began to glow. “I never said anything about you.”

“Wh-what?”

“The first thing you’ll need to do after you change is…” His smile was terrible, all teeth becoming fangs, changing a face she knew and loved into something almost unrecognizable. “Kill.”

“I won’t,” she insisted. “Not him.”

Now the Nahual really laughed. “You think you’ll care? He’s meat. Running meat if he wakes up.” The brow that had begun to recede creased. “I probably shouldn’t have knocked him out. It’s better when they run.”

“I love him,” Gina said. She’d meant for the words to come out strong and sure; instead her voice wavered.

“Love means nothing to a monster.”

The thing that lived in Jase’s body threw back his head and howled.

“Teo!” Gina screamed. “Wake up!”

The Nahual released her. Kind of hard to hold on to someone’s arm when your hands are paws.

He dropped to the ground on all fours as dark hair sprouted from every pore. Fingers and toes became claws; his nose and mouth melded into snout. The crinkling and crackling, the popping of bones sharp as firecrackers in the still, silver air.

Gina was unable to do anything but watch. Why run? This beast would catch her, and she wasn’t going to leave Teo alone and unconscious.

No matter what the Nahual said, she had to hold on to the belief that her love would survive the coming change. That belief, that love, might be all she had left of herself.

Man had nearly become beast, except for the tail, which unfurled last, like a treacherous snake from the glistening black wolf that had once resembled Jase McCord.

Gina shrieked as the creature’s fangs sank into her thigh. It shouldn’t hurt that much. She’d been bitten by horses. They had a helluva lot bigger teeth. However, the werewolf’s seemed red-poker hot; she imagined poison rushing through her veins already.

He withdrew, resting on his haunches to watch, mouth open, tongue lolling, as if grinning. Gina wanted to kick the beast in the head, but she couldn’t lift a finger, let alone her leg. Everything was so heavy.

She fell to the ground like a sack of bones. The sky above was a kaleidoscope of stars, so much brighter than they should be. The moon called; she craved its sheen. The silvery light soothed her burning skin.

Her teeth itched. She managed to drag her hand up to touch them. They were definitely longer, sharper; as she lowered her arm, she caught sight of her nails. They were longer and sharper, too.

Suddenly this world disappeared, and she was running through a forest of trees not common anywhere near here, thick and cool, with a carpet of moss beneath her paws. She chased something big and tasty, something that smelled like …

Ted.

Gina jerked free of the … What the hell had that been?

A delusion? A hallucination? Perhaps a fever dream? Because right now her skin was so on fire she thought she might explode.

It had certainly not been a memory. No matter how much it might have felt like one.

And who the hell was Ted?

Her senses heightened. She heard the dirt sifting beneath her as she moved, smelled her own blood on the breath of the Nahual that continued to watch, eyes so bright they hurt her head.

Gina looked away and became distracted by hair the shade of mahogany, which had sprouted all the way up her arm.

Slam.

She left her body again. This time she flew across familiar terrain, past the crooked tree and the place where her parents had died. Ahead two blond girls giggled and sang as they walked toward a tent.

Her body was a wolf’s, yet she was smoke. She called out, a howl of triumph and hunger, then swooped low and carried one of the girls off. The shrieks of the other were music to Gina’s invisible ears.

And the blood. The texture, the scent, the flavor—glorious. It had been so damn long.

The smoke that was also a wolf lifted his head and howled to the moon, the sound echoing across the plain. He was weak; he needed sustenance to fuel both his body and his magic. The creature swirled lower, gaze touching on a boy, an old woman, an old man.

Duck. Duck. Goose.

Gina crashed into her own body once more, the memories of the Nahual when he had taken first Ashleigh and then Mel alight, and very real, in her mind.

Her spine arched, bones reshaping, realigning. She didn’t fight; instead she gave in to the change. She welcomed it; she’d begun to crave it as she craved the moon. Those thoughts that had been like memories had brought an understanding of what the Nahual had meant.

Monsters don’t love; they lust—for the kill, the blood, and that blessed, silver moon. Beneath it they became something nearly indestructible. Once Gina was a wolf very little could hurt her. If someone tried to take away her ranch, she’d eat them.

Problem solved.

She sniffed at the air, recognized the scent—oranges and sunlight—and her stomach contracted with need. There was still enough of her left to fight that need, but that part was shrinking fast. Once she was a wolf, all she would care about was the blood.

“Gina?”

Gina lifted her head. Her eyes met Teo’s, and the voice that came from her moving, changing mouth hovered between woman and wolf.

“Run.”

*   *   *

The Nahual made a hacking, snorting, wheezing noise that sounded like laughter—or as close to laughter as a wolf could get. Matt didn’t wait around to see what was so funny; he already knew. The Nahual was riding McCord’s brain, and Matt had no doubt McCord would find it hysterical when Gina killed him.

He wasn’t going to get away. A human couldn’t outrun a regular wolf, let alone a werewolf, and Matt wasn’t at his best. His head felt like it might crack open and spill agony down the front of his face.

But Matt ran anyway. He couldn’t help himself.

The moon shone like a beacon, lighting his way, revealing the dips and rolls of the rocky ground. He began to duck behind one rock, then scoot to another. Staying out of sight might keep him alive a few seconds longer, though he was certain Gina could follow his scent without too much trouble.

He had little memory of how he’d gotten here, which meant he had no idea how to get back to the ranch. Not that he’d ever make it that far.

No, he was stuck here to face—

A triumphant howl lifted to the moon.

Her.

Would Gina remember him if he spoke of his love? Of hers? He doubted it. When she’d lifted her face, when she’d told him to run, that had been the last bit of Gina left.

A low, rumbling growl rippled across the night, bringing to mind a stalking lion instead of a wolf. The click of claws against half-buried rocks announced her arrival an instant before a shaggy reddish-brown head appeared around the edge of the stone formation to Matt’s left.

“Gina,” he began, but further words stuck in his throat. He couldn’t speak of love when her eyes followed him as if he were a choice piece of steak.

Her mouth open in a canine grin, she stalked him. As a cloud danced over the moon, throwing that horrible human Gina gaze into shadow, she reminded him of a dog ready to play fetch a bone.

Then the cloud went away, and that gaze very clearly said the bone was him.

Matt had planned to face his death like a big boy, stare Gina straight in the eye; maybe that would reach her. But while the eyes were hers, the being behind them was not, and so he decided …

There was something to be said for turning away.

He spun around just as a tall, dark figure stepped from behind the nearest rock. Matt was so dumbfounded, he just stood there, staring into the barrel of a gun.