"How?" Jonas asked, frowning.
How, indeed? If they'd known the answer to that question, perhaps they might have stopped him before he'd gone this far.
"I'm not really sure," she admitted, then shrugged and looked up at him. "But somehow, he's draining the strength from everyone in town and taking it for his own. He grows stronger daily while the rest of us can do nothing to stop him."
Jonas shifted his gaze from her and looked beyond her to the snowcapped mountains. Her words rattled around inside his head and he felt himself stiffening up. He'd never liked bullies, no matter what they called themselves. Sheriff. Bartender.
Warlock.
Jesus, a part of his brain still refused to acknowledge that any of this was happening. Warlocks and witches, for God's sake.
Rubbing one hand across his face, he asked, "Why don't you stand together against him? I once saw a town rise up against a bullying sheriff and ride him out of town on a rail." He lowered his gaze to hers again. "One man alone couldn't do it. But surely a whole town of witches could handle the job."
She inhaled sharply and her mouth twisted down at the corners. "People are afraid. Maybe we could have defeated him," she said. "At the beginning. But back then, we didn't know what he was up to. We welcomed him to Creekford as one of us." She wrapped her arms around her waist and squeezed tight. "It wasn't until much too late that we discovered he wasn't there to live as one of us. But to crown himself head of the Guild and rule everything from a seat of untouchable power."
"Why don't you all leave?" he asked.
Her gaze snapped to his. "Quit? Then what? Where do we go? What do we do? Do we keep running from Blake?" She shook her head and pointed toward the corral, where the voices of the men were raised at their work. "You said you couldn't quit when you got thrown from a horse or you'd never have a decent animal to ride."
Jonas winced slightly. He had said that.
"Well, if we quit, what would we have?" she demanded, moving in on him until he took a hasty step back, instinctively retreating from the fire in her eyes. "Centuries of tradition thrown at the feet of one greedy man? Our lives ruined? Our town deserted and dying?"
"What do you expect me to do about this, Hannah?"
"I expect you to claim your birthright."
"Which is what, exactly?"
"The leadership of the Guild."
"And do what?"
"Help us," she said flatly. "Help your brothers and sisters rid themselves of a warlock who wants to destroy them and everything they know and believe in."
"What if I can't?" he asked, remembering that tree in the meadow. Half straight. Half nothing changed. Could he stand against a powerful warlock and win when he didn't really believe most of this nonsense himself?
Hell, did he even want to try?
Those people in the Guild meant nothing to him. Oh, he thought, Hannah did. Despite his best intentions, he cared for her. More than he wanted to admit. But could he, even for Hannah, give up who and what he was to fight a battle that had nothing to do with him or his life?
"Can‘t?" she asked tightly as if reading his mind. "Or won't?"
She gave him one quick look up and down, then stomped past him, the dirty laundry forgotten in her angry frustration.
Jonas moved fast, though, and caught up with her in one or two easy strides. Grabbing hold of her arm, he whirled her around to face him. Her green eyes looked like flashing emeralds, glittering with the sun and the fine, high temper riding her.
Well, he wasn't through yet. He wanted to hear it all. Only then could he decide what to do about this.
"There's more, isn't there?" he demanded, remembering his dream and Wolcott's obsession with having Hannah. "Something you're not telling me."
"Isn't that enough?" she snapped, wrenching her arm free of his grasp.
"He wants you, doesn't he?"
She paled. He watched the color leach from her face, leaving her eyes two brilliant spots of green against milk-white skin. "Yes."
An invisible hand closed around his heart.
"Why?" He congratulated himself silently on squeezing that single word past a throat too tight to breathe through.
The fight went out of her. He saw it in the slump of her shoulders and heard it in the soft tone of her voice. A sheen of water sparkled in her eyes and he hoped to hell she could keep those tears from falling.
"Because I'm a Lowell," she said finally. "The last of the Lowells."
"So?" What the hell did her name have to do with any of this, for God's sake?
She gave him half a smile. "The Lowells were a powerful family in the Guild. We—Eudora and I—are the last. He knows that by marrying me, he'll strengthen his own powers by being able to draw on mine." At his look of disbelief, she added, "Oh, I'm not a very good witch, I know. But as a Lowell, the talent is there and would be passed through me to my husband. And my children."
"So you came to me," he said tightly, trying not to flinch at the words husband and children.
"Yes," she reached up and scrubbed the tears from her eyes with the tips of her fingers. "You're our last hope, Mackenzie. You're the only one strong enough to defeat Blake Wolcott."
The tree, he reminded himself and thought maybe he should tell her.
"And when we marry, my family's power will be yours, strengthening you further. And the child we conceive will have the strength of both our lines."
Again, he thought, groaning silently at her words. He remembered all too clearly the last time she'd spoken of marriage and children.
She'd been stretched out naked atop his bed, offering her virtue for the sake of this damned Guild. His fingers curled into fists to keep from reaching for her. His body tightened, thickened with the memory of her smooth skin and the desire she quickened inside him.
Briefly he gave into her fantasy, imagining her round with his child, and surprised himself by enjoying the image. But in the next instant, old memories reared up to strangle him with fear and he let that mental picture go.
She lifted her chin and stared at him, that green gaze spearing into his. Apparently, she had no trouble guessing what he was thinking, because she assured him, "A marriage between us would only help you."
"Maybe," he said and briefly touched her cheek with his fingertips before letting his hand fall to his side. "But it might kill you," he added. "And that's one chance I'm not willing to take."
* * *
"If I never see another train, it'll be too soon for me," Eudora muttered and brushed one hand across the wrinkled fabric of her skirt. Good heavens, by the time she finally reached Hannah, she would look no better than the poor disheveled men she saw stealing rides in the boxcars.
Temper flaring, patience almost exhausted, she half turned in her seat to look at the man she'd begun thinking of as her shadow. Ed Thistlewaite no longer bothered to hide from her. Clearly, subterfuge expended too much energy to suit Ed.
Her gaze touched his and he inclined his round head regally, like king to peasant. Eudora's gaze narrowed. It really wasn't wise to irritate her when she was already feeling tired and cranky.
Just above Ed's head, tacked to the back wall of the train car, hung a coal scuttle, with enough black lump, inside to feed the potbellied stove in the corner. Staring at it, Eudora lifted one silver eyebrow and the bottom of the scuttle dropped out.
Coal clattered from the bucket, bouncing off Ed's fat head and scattering across his full belly amid a cloud of black dust. The lazy man was forced out of his seat with a yelp and as he brushed ineffectively at the grime covering him. Eudora smiled and turned back around to face front.
She shouldn't have done that, she told herself firmly. It was an abuse of the magic, pure and simple. But, she thought, stifling a yawn behind a dirty glove, she was, after all… only human.
A few more days, she thought with an inward sigh. A few more days and she would be able to join Hannah and, she hoped, leave this train behind her forever.
* * *
The dream came again. Jonas twisted and turned in his sleep. Groaning, he lost himself in the battle that raced to meet him.
"Don't try, Mackenzie," Blake Wolcott challenged as he strode across the dark emptiness toward his enemy. "You'll fail. You're not the warlock who can defeat me."
"Now," Jonas taunted, glancing over his shoulder for Hannah. He had to protect her. Had to keep her safe. "We won't know that till we try, will we?"
Wolcott laughed and the sound boomed into the stillness, creating a thunder of noise that crashed around Jonas, pushing him down into the blackness. "I'm too strong for you," the man said and waved a hand, plucking a lightning bolt from the sky to hurl at Jonas's head. It flashed past him as he bent low and rolled out of range.
"Jonas!" Hannah shouted and ran toward him.
"Stay back!" he yelled and glanced at Wolcott before turning back to her. "Stay away from him."
"I can help," she called out, still running, hands outÂstretched as if offering him a gift.
Another lightning bolt speared through the perpetual night, flashing brightly, then dissolving when it missed its target.
"Hannah, run, damn it! Run!" Jonas lifted one hand, palm out, toward her, hoping to stop her before she came too close to the madman closing in on him.
But Wolcott was somehow beside her now, holding her, turning her face up to his. The warlock spared Jonas a smile before he bent his head to claim Hannah's mouth. He took and took from her until she slumped in the man's arms. Then slowly, she faded from sight, until she was no more than a memory.
Wolcott laughed.
Jonas screamed, "No!"
And woke up.
* * *
Hannah raced from her room, across the hall and threw open the door to Jonas's bedroom. A wash of moonlight lay over him, bathing his skin in a silvery light and glistening on the sweat dampening his flesh.
"Jonas?" she whispered from the doorway.
His head whipped around and even in the darkness she felt the strength of his gaze, pinning her to the spot.
"Hannah?" A world of fear and panic colored his voice. An instant later, he jerked the tangled sheets from his legs and leaped off the bed naked, crossing the room in two long strides.
Grabbing her, he yanked her up close to him and buried his face in the curve of her neck. She held him, her hands smoothing up and down his back. With her touch, she tried to ease the pounding of his heart and the rapid, shallow breaths shaking him.
"Jonas, what is it?" she asked, tipping her head back to look up at him.
"A dream," he muttered thickly.
His fingers tangled in her hair, cupping the back her head. His gaze moved over her face, defining every feature, caressing every line.
"I need you, Hannah," he whispered, his mouth just a breath away from hers. "God help us both, I need you now. Tonight."
Her heartbeat skittered and she felt the heat of him soaking through the thin fabric of her nightgown. Her breathing quickened to match his and she shivered as a liquid pool of warmth settled low in her belly.
Knees weak, pulse jumping, she trailed her hands from behind his back and brought them up to cup his face in her palms. Whatever ghosts plagued him tonight she would ease them—and find peace herself in his arms.
Staring up into the blue eyes that haunted her every waking and sleeping moment, she whispered. "I need you, too, Jonas. So much."
Then he picked her up and carried her to the bed and, laying her down on the mattress, he began the ravishing he'd promised her so many nights ago.
Chapter Fifteen
Silently, he laid her down on the bed and Hannah breathed deeply to quash the sudden rush of butterflies in her stomach. Calmly, she reminded herself that this was why she'd come to Wyoming. This was her destiny.
The Mackenzie. No, she corrected herself silently. Not just the Mackenzie. Jonas.
Staring up at him, her gaze moved over his so familiar features. His strong, whisker-stubbled jaw, dark hair falling across his forehead, and those blue eyes that reached into her soul with every look.
Moonlight bathed him in a soft, hazy light. He reached to smooth her hair back from her face and she turned her head into his touch, relishing the gentle scrub of his hard-won calluses against her skin. In the indistinct light, his eyes were haunted, his mouth tight.
Then his gaze swept lower, sliding across the high-buttoned neck of her gown, to the swell of her breasts, and down. Again, that swell of almost liquid warmth swirled wildly through her. Looking into his eyes, she saw his desire for her flickering in their depths. His mouth just a breath—a kiss away from hers. She smoothed the pad of her thumb across his bristly jaw.
His eyes closed and he rested his forehead against hers.
"Hannah," he said on a muffled groan, "I didn't want to need you."
"I know," she said and rose up, meeting his kiss.
His lips moved over hers with a hunger she'd never known before. Her hands slid around his shoulders to the back of his head and fisted in his hair, feeling the black silk slide between her fingers. Another groan rumbled from deep in his chest at her response and his tongue smoothed across the part in her lips, searching, demanding they open.
When she obliged, his tongue swept into her warmth and Hannah gasped at the intimate invasion. Her nipples puckered against his chest and a curl of need settled low within her.
Again and again, he stroked the inside of her mouth—exploring, tasting, delving into the heart of her, willing her to respond in kind. And when she returned his caress with more enthusiasm than skill, his arms tightened around her until she thought her ribs would break. Yet she didn't care.
She didn't care about anything except the next wash of sensation. Hannah held his head to her, silently demanding more of him. She tasted his mouth, the edges of his teeth, took his breath for her own, and gloried in the rush of emotion that swamped her.
This was what she'd been waiting for most of her life.
This connection. This incredible feeling of belonging.