Once she changed her clothes, getting home would be no big deal. Out here in the desert, the moon and stars were brilliant, more than enough to light her way. Yet the idea of climbing out of the car sent a shiver up her spine.
As she peered out the window, she saw headlights in the distance. Someone was coming, and hopefully she could get a ride.
She climbed out, waving a manicured hand as the lights approached. Whoever was in the other car roared past, leaving her standing in his backwash. Did he recognize her? Was he one of the people in town who thought the Thalia sisters and cousins were witches because of the way they retained their youth and beauty?
She allowed herself another curse as she walked to the back of the vehicle and clicked the trunk release. The casual clothing was where she’d left it, in her carry bag. After changing into the running shoes, she reached to shrug off her suit jacket, then changed her mind. The idea of getting undressed on the side of the highway had her nerves jumping again.
To calm herself, she took a deep breath of the desert air. It smelled clean and fresh and reassuring, and she wondered why she was so spooked.
After slinging her purse over her shoulder, she started up the road, her eyes fixed on the white sign for the turnoff to the spa. It was a refuge for her and the other women of the Ionian Sisterhood who had come here long ago, seeking a place where they could practice the ancient arts they had brought from their home in Greece.
As she walked, she heard the crunch of footsteps on the gravel shoulder behind her, and all her vague fears came crashing down on her.
She started to run, wondering if there was any chance of getting away from whoever was stalking her.
He answered the question by streaking past her at speeds no normal human being could attain, stopping about twenty yards in front of her, blocking her path.
In the darkness, she couldn’t make out many details, but she saw he was wearing a white T-shirt and tight-fitting jeans. His hair was dark, but the shadows hid his features as he walked slowly toward her, young and cocksure in the moonlight.
In that terrible moment, she knew who he was. Not his name. But everything about him told her that he must be a Minot, one of the men who had hounded the Ionians down through the ages, since they had made a devil’s pact with the ancient warriors.
None of them had attacked the Sisterhood in years, and perhaps that had made them too lax in their security measures. Of course there were wards around the property and a guard at the gate, but now Sophia was alone and vulnerable on a dark desert highway. Like in that Eagles song.
Her throat was so tight that she could barely breathe, but she kept her eyes focused on the man who advanced toward her. Even while she kept him in sight, she sent her mind toward the resort, hoping to get a silent message to Tessa, her real sister, the one who was closest to her in all the world.
I’m on the highway. Just a few hundred feet . . .
Before she could say more, he raised his hand. He was holding a small cylinder, and when he pressed on the top, a mist whooshed out and drifted toward her.
The second she breathed it, her head began to spin, and her body stopped obeying her commands. Her mind told her to turn and run, but her legs wouldn’t move. She was rooted to the spot, like a desert animal frozen in the headlights of an advancing vehicle.
The man waited a moment for the cloud of gas around her to dissipate. Then he tossed the cylinder away where it clanked against a rock as he walked purposefully forward, his gaze never leaving her.
When he stepped in front of her, she should have been able to see his face better, yet each feature was blurred. Still, she sensed that his eyes were large and dark, his brows heavy, his lips curved into a smile that was as arrogant as it was sensual. If she had met him at the spa, she would have seen him as a vital, desirable man.
And she might have made love with him. Totally on her terms. Because that was the Ionian way.
Yet she wasn’t the one in control here, and she knew she was in danger.
“I have you now,” he murmured, touching her lips with one long finger.
She tried to speak, but no words came out of her mouth, and sending a mental message to her sisters had become impossible.
All she could do was stand facing him as his hand moved to her cheek in a sultry caress.
He smiled again, showing her his gleaming white teeth, while his hand slid down her neck, pressing against the pulse pounding there—and sending a shiver over her skin.
She hated responding to him, but sensuality was part of her being, and she was helpless to fight against the waves of sexual energy rolling off of him—augmented by the paralyzing mist he’d sprayed on her. She knew it was affecting her senses—and her judgment.
Making a tremendous effort to speak, she managed to say, “Leave . . . me . . . alone.”
“That’s not what you really want, is it?” he answered in a confident voice as he slid his hand lower, pushing back one side of her jacket so that he could cup her right breast through her blouse. “You’re a sexy, dynamic woman who needs a man to complete her. At his pleasure, of course.”
She closed her eyes, trying to shut him out as he rubbed his thumb back and forth across her nipple, making it stiffen.
Don’t. Please don’t.
She shouted inside her mind, but she couldn’t make the words slip past her lips.
This was so wrong. It wasn’t the way any woman should be treated—being aroused against her will.
Somehow she managed to speak again. “Get off me . . . you . . . bastard.”
He laughed, a rough, grating sound, and moved in closer. Keeping up the maddening caress on her breast, he slid his other hand lower, finding the juncture of her legs, then pressing through her skirt against her clit, sending an unwanted jolt of sensation through her body.
“You’re as lovely as I knew you’d be. But all your sisters are so tempting. So young. So vital. So desirable.”
What was he planning to do? Rape her out here on the highway?
She prayed that another motorist would come along and see what was happening.
Or was this like so many instances of modern life when strangers weren’t going to get involved? Even if you were lying on the sidewalk bleeding.
Teeth clenched, she steeled herself against the man whose hateful touch sucked her into a vortex of his making.
Desperately, in her mind, she said one of the ancient supplications that had sustained her Sisterhood throughout the centuries. Once they had prayed to the Greek goddesses, but their thinking had evolved so that they had come to see one divine force in the universe.
Spirit of the Earth
Hear my plea
I am but a mortal woman
Standing before you.
But I humbly ask for your aid
In the hour of my need
As the Ionians have done through the ages.
Even as she clung to the ancient words, she could feel herself falling further under the attacker’s spell, bending to his will no matter how she struggled against the unwanted arousal coursing through her body.
He tipped up her head, staring into her eyes, and she heard him gasp. “You’re not . . .”
Before he finished the sentence, everything changed with the suddenness of a lightning bolt spearing out of the sky.
CHAPTER
TWO
SOPHIA CAUGHT HER breath as another man came streaking out of the darkness and into the scene. Like the attacker, he was dark haired and well muscled, although he wasn’t close enough for her to see his face.
His voice was loud and commanding. “Take your dirty hands off her.”
“What the hell?” The attacker whirled to face the newcomer.
“Get away from her.”
“You dare interfere.” It wasn’t a question, it was a statement of outrage.
“I do.”
“I think you’ve made a mistake. She is mine.”
“No.” He bit off the one syllable as he charged forward, his fist flashing out, striking a blow to the first man’s chin.
At least she thought she’d seen the punch, because it happened in a blur of motion, the way both men had come out of the desert.
The man who had attacked Sophia struck back, but her champion was prepared for the counterassault, dodging aside to avoid the fist before leaping onto his opponent, throwing him to the ground with bone-rattling force.
They rolled together in the red dirt, like two ancient warriors fighting without the need of weapons, each testing the weaknesses of the other and grappling for advantage. They moved with the speed of the wind, so fast that Sophia could barely follow the action. One slammed the other into the dirt with enough force to break the bones of an ordinary man.
When he picked himself up and sprang back into the fray, she knew it could be a fight to the death if they both kept up the intensity.
She heard the breath rushing in and out of their lungs, felt bits of grit spray in her direction as they kicked and scrabbled for dominance.
One heaved himself away. She couldn’t tell which it was, but she saw him scramble to his feet. While his opponent was still on the ground, he took off across the desert, running as fast as a speeding train, then climbing into the red rocks. The other clambered up and followed, putting on a burst of speed, almost catching up. They raced up a steep outcropping, taking a route that would have sent any other man toppling to the ground.
Sophia watched until they disappeared from view. She still didn’t know whether the second man was really her champion or simply trying to steal what the first one wanted, but she must take this chance to get away. Before one or the other came back to claim his prize.
With every ounce of will she possessed, she struggled against the effects of the gas that had immobilized her, dragging in great lungfuls of the clean desert air as she strove to clear her system of the poison.
To her relief, she found she could move her arms, then her legs. She shook her head and shoulders, before taking a couple of wavering steps away from the spot where she had been rooted.
But she was still out in the open, and she knew she didn’t have the strength to run. The best she could do was get back to the car. Lock herself in. Then use her powers to call for help, if she could make her brain function well enough. And pray that the vehicle would be enough protection until some of her sisters could come from the spa.
Doggedly, she staggered back the way she’d come.
As she wove her way toward the vehicle, she struggled to reach her sister’s mind and caught a stuttering of contact, as though she had almost closed the circuit but couldn’t quite do it. Not in her present condition.
What she needed was to get back to the safety of the spa where the collective power of her sisters would protect her.
With gritted teeth, she picked up her pace, hurrying to the vehicle as fast as she could. But not fast enough, apparently.
When she heard a sound to her right, like wind rushing down a canyon, she felt her heart thud in her chest.
One of them was coming back.
Which one? And did it matter?
She was reaching for the door handle when a voice spoke out of the darkness. “The bastard’s gone, but you won’t be safe until you get back home.”
The words were both gentle and forceful. She knew that it was the one who had saved her from rape or worse. But she still didn’t know
his
intentions.
Since there was no point in trying to evade him, she turned, backing up so that her hips were pressed against the car door as she and the man stared at each other across three yards of charged space.
He appeared to be standing in shadow, if that was possible, when the world was all darkness except for the stars and moonlight shining down. All she knew was that she couldn’t see him any clearer than the first one.
Still, she could make out his dark hair. The outline of his head and the shape of his supple body. Like the other man, he radiated an aura of power and raw sexuality. Yet he stopped a few yards from her, keeping his distance, making no attempt to dominate her.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She flicked her gaze into the distance, then back. “Yes. Where did he go?”
“He ran away. Like the coward he is.” He spoke in a low, grating tone as though he were worried about her discovering his true identity from his voice. He paused, then added, “You should not be out here alone.”
Although she’d had the same thought earlier, she raised her chin. “I take orders from no man.”
“Sorry. I was just making a practical suggestion.”
She swallowed, remembering what he had done for her. Risked his life, she was sure, to free her from the man who had stopped her on the road. Now he was keeping his distance.