She held onto Grant with one arm, slid the other around John’s neck and leaned toward him. She kissed him, tasting the musk of her body on his tongue. The beginnings of a third orgasm began to rumble inside her like distant thunder. Impossible! She’d never managed more than two in a row, tops. Multiple orgasms were an urban legend as far as she was concerned, the stuff of articles in women’s magazines that claimed to know the top ten tricks for enhancing your sex life. But then, until yesterday, she hadn’t believed in werewolves or panther shifters either.
She couldn’t deny the growing thunder that rolled through her. She pulled away from John’s mouth to suck in a breath of air and caught a glimpse of Grant’s face twisted in a scowl of ecstasy. At the same moment she felt him come inside her, a strong burst of fluid. He snarled like an angry tomcat, and her inner muscles clamped around him as her mounting urgency bloomed into another powerful climax.
This time the power churned through her with unstoppable force. Not a mere bodily reaction but something much more—too big to be contained inside her fragile human body. The energy burst forth from her—from all of them—like an electromagnetic wave. Her hair crackled with electricity, and the wave swept outward from their threesome as if they were ground zero of an atomic bomb. Air rushed away, leaving them in a temporary vacuum that devoured all sound. The ground trembled. Loose stones and rocks tumbled away from them at the force of the wave.
Sherrie’s chest compressed, and she couldn’t breathe for a moment, but then the air came rushing back in, filling the void. She heard the crash of falling rocks. When she looked toward the wall of rubble that had sealed them into the ravine, it had blown outward from the force of the blast, leaving a gaping hole and air full of swirling dust.
As the dust sifted through the air, powdering all of them from head to toe, Sherrie clung to the two shifters and gaped at the destruction of their prison wall.
“That was unexpected,” she murmured, and the understatement made her laugh even as the last quakes of her climax shimmered through her.
Grant lifted her off his flagging cock and set her on the ground. John slipped a supporting arm around her waist, which was a good thing because her legs were trembling. All three of them coughed and brushed grit from their eyes.
“We’d better get moving.” Grant stooped, picked up Sherrie’s jeans and tossed them at her.
John caught the jeans and handed them to her then cupped her cheek and looked into her face with his soulful brown eyes. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, touched at his unrelenting concern for her. She couldn’t remember the last time a guy had been so protective and sweet. Maybe Ryan a little, at first, until he’d turned out to be a jerk, ditching her in L.A. in an apartment she couldn’t afford with household bills in arrears. She smiled at John.
“I’m fine. Fantastic, actually.” Her body felt supercharged, like she was a superhero or a junky on a high. “I feel like I’m ready to take this guy on. The only question is how.” She stepped into her underwear and jeans, pulling them up her dust-smeared legs.
“First thing is to find him then we’ll figure out how to break him.” Grant was already half dressed in jeans and boots. He delved in the backpack and threw them each a bottle of water.
Sherrie guzzled most of hers and used a little to rinse her face. She dressed quickly, but even so the shifters were both waiting for her by the time she’d tied her shoes. She wished she had a moment to process what had just happened, but there was no time. They should leave the ravine before their nemesis realized they were free. Nemesis—not a word she’d ever expected to use in her lifetime. What would be next?
Minions? She shuddered and hoped not.
Grant shouldered the backpack this time and forged ahead. John took Sherrie’s hand, helping her climb over the remaining rubble blocking the path. They went back the way they’d come, down the steep slope, as the path leading up had been virtually destroyed. Besides, they could be picked off one by one by anyone watching that pass.
“Now what?” Sherrie panted as she trotted along trying to keep up with John’s long, loping gait.
“We’ll go around, find another way up.”
“And then?”
He shrugged and continued walking fast.
“Could we hold up a minute?” Sherrie called out to Grant, who was yards ahead of them and disappearing into the undergrowth. “Maybe make some kind of plan before we go any farther?” The panther shifter glanced over his shoulder. “Soon. I want to make sure we’re safely out of range first.”
She took a deep breath, pain lancing through her side, and ran on. Her feet ached from the chafing of her new shoes, and her panties were soaked with come, a sticky, uncomfortable sensation. But other than those discomforts, she was still glowing inside. She wondered if she possessed some powers now. Could she punch a fist through a brick wall? Shift into animal form like her companions? Fly? It was pretty obvious she couldn’t suddenly run faster, since she was practically staggering along behind John in her efforts to keep up.
At last Grant led them through a thicket of bushes into a grove of trees and stopped. Sherrie bent over, hands on her knees, and gasped for breath. The men weren’t even winded. She sat on the ground, stretching her legs before her and leaning back on her arms. She exhaled a long, ragged breath, wincing at the stitch in her side.
The woods were quiet except for birdsong, the buzz of insects and the rustling of leaves. Sherrie tilted her face up to the shafts of light spearing the canopy overhead. A breeze cooled her sweaty face, making her skin feel stiff from salt and grit.
So, here they were, and somewhere out there was their enemy—a being powerful enough to control peoples’ minds and maybe cause an avalanche. Was she now equally powerful? Sherrie reached out a tentative tendril from her mind, willing the leaves to shake. At that precise moment, the breeze rose and the branch she was staring at swayed, causing the leaves to tremble. Coincidence? Maybe.
She looked over at John, who was taking his shoe off and pouring pieces of gravel from it, and at Grant, who paced the perimeter of the clearing, stopping occasionally to listen. She felt a wave of affection for each of them and a sense that she knew them intimately, although they’d been acquainted such a short time. John’s caring warmth and Grant’s exciting energy were like two sides of a coin—both of them indispensable. You couldn’t spend half a coin. She wanted and needed them both.
“Sit,” she commanded Grant. “Let’s join hands while I try to locate our guy with my mind again.” Although she made the offer, Sherrie hoped one of them would think of an alternative. She didn’t want to meet this entity again, not in her mind or in person. He had a scary, off-balance vibe she imagined serial killers possessed.
Grant jumped on the suggestion. “That’s a good idea. Clearly you gain some power from joining with Walker and me. Use it to try to find our enemy’s weakness. If we feed you our strength, maybe you can even take him down with your mind.”
Not what she wanted to hear, but even John didn’t protest that it was too dangerous. He nodded agreement and scooted closer to take her hand. “Be careful.” Grant gracefully dropped down beside them and seized Sherrie and John’s hands. The warmth of his big palm engulfing her hand and John’s hard, callused grip on the other made Sherrie feel much more secure. Their union was strong. She could do this.
Sherrie felt like she was on a Tilt-o-Whirl. The world flashed by, too many things she’d thought she knew were turning topsy-turvy, and she was forced to stay on the ride until some cosmic operator turned it off. Exhaling a deep breath, she closed her eyes, attempting to relax and center herself.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Slow the heart rate. Just like in her yoga class. Her instructor Kamala would be proud. Sherrie squeezed her companions’ hands and felt their power flow into her. This time her consciousness lifted and separated from her physical body with a natural ease, as if she’d been astral traveling her entire life. Why her? Why not Grant who seemed to have had more experience with this kind of thing? It didn’t make sense unless there really was a particular connection between her and this man.
She found and followed the thread that led her to him. The trail was clear as if spray painted with arrows leading her to him. In fact, she almost felt him beckoning her. Did he
want
to be found?
He stood on a ridge of rock near the cave where he dwelled, surveying the land below. Sherrie could see with a cosmic three-hundred-and-sixty-degree gaze where she and the shifters were in relation to him in the physical world. It wasn’t very far away.
This time, her image of their enemy was clearer. He wasn’t merely a dark and dangerous swirling blackness, but a human man wearing, if she wasn’t mistaken, a sweater vest! His hairline was receding and his face was as round-cheeked as a child’s. He turned his florid countenance toward her and, sensing her presence, focused on her in his mind.
“Did you send that avalanche down on us? Did you intend to kill us?” she demanded.
“I was only testing you. Finding out if you had untapped talent like I discovered in myself. You’re getting stronger. How did you steal the shifters’ energy?” So, he didn’t know about the sex that had exploded in a burst of power, shattering the wall of stone.
She sidestepped his question and responded to his statement.
“You sound like you know something about me, like you’ve been expecting me.”
“I have. We’re related, you and I. Two of a kind. Don’t belong in either world.” Sherrie considered his words, turning them over in her mind instead of instantly dismissing them.
She’d always felt like an outsider, but figured most people did. It could be hard to find anyone you really connected with. However, he seemed to have something more specific in mind.
“When you say related, do you mean that in the literal sense?”
“You’ve always wondered who your father was? Well, I have answers for you. Come and see me in person if you want to know the truth. Leave your bodyguards behind.”
She felt him turning away from her, shutting her out of his mind, and strove to hold onto his attention.
The more information she could gather before facing him, the better. “Who are you? What’s your name?” He laughed, an eerie sound that echoed inside her head. “What’s in a name?” he quoted. “I call myself Janus right now.”
“And I call myself Sherrie.” She projected the mental equivalent of her million dollar, Miss America smile, which always earned her great tips. “Pleased to meet you, Janus.”
“No, you’re not. You think you’re coming to destroy me. But once you’ve heard what I have to say, you’ll change your mind.”
“Very cryptic. Why don’t you tell me what the big secret is, and if it’s everything you promise, I’ll point my companions in another direction and find my way to you.” Again the eerie laughter sounded. “I’d like it better if you reverse that. Lose the shifters as proof of your good faith, and then come to me.”
Why did he want to see her in the flesh? He must have some agenda that required her presence. That idea was scary.
“Sorry, Janus. I don’t know you well enough to go on a blind date, and honestly, the fact you’ve put a little girl in a coma doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.”
“Not a girl, a shapeshifter. Don’t let them fool you with their false faces.”
“I have no illusions about what they are,” Sherrie assured him, “but what makes you think they’re evil and deserve to be harmed?”
“That’s all part of my story, which I’d be happy to tell you in person.” Before she could cajole or bait him with more questions, he cut her off, snipping their connection like cutting a power line—a snap of energy, and the line went dead.
She rushed back along the slender thread to her physical body, entering it with a burst of speed that was like hurtling into a wall. Her eyes snapped open. She blinked and stared at the two faces suspended above hers—one almond-eyed and golden, the other raw-boned and tan.
“Are you all right?” John’s dark brows were drawn together. He reached out and stroked her hair back from her forehead.
“Yeah.”
“Did you find out anything new?” If Grant was in cat form, his tail would be lashing with excitement.
“I learned his name, but I don’t think it’s his real name. He said ‘I call myself Janus’ and claims to have a secret to tell me about my connection to him.”
“Janus, like the Greek god, the gatekeeper in charge of beginnings and endings.” John took her hand and pulled her to a sitting position while Grant offered her a bottle of water.
Sherrie drank deeply then wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. “Janus. Isn’t that the one with two faces? That could mean something. If this man lives somewhere other than a cave in the physical world, he’d show one face to the people around him and keep the other hidden.” Grant’s hand rested on her leg. John’s pressed against her back, completing the circuit. The low-grade power thrummed among the three of them. Between their touch and the liter of water, her battery had been recharged.
“I don’t understand what special connection we have, but he wants me to go to him without you two. I think I should do it. You could hide nearby and, after I get him talking and distracted, you can rush in and capture him.”
John was already shaking his head. “No way you’re facing him alone.”
“I’m not saying that. You’ll be close, ready to attack. We’ll find a way to subdue him then figure out what has to be done to free the people he’s holding captive.”
“If he’s capable of causing an avalanche, who knows how much power he possesses,” John argued.
“What’s your plan, Walker?” Grant snarled. “Sit back and wait until he’s wiped out both our clans?
We have to make some kind of move and soon.”
“I’m merely suggesting a little reconnaissance first. Scope out the area and get a visual on Janus before we send Sherrie in unarmed and with no real plan.”
“Fine. I’ll go ahead.” The panther turned on a dime, conceding the point. “I’m faster. I’ll check him out and report back to you. Maybe I can even take him down without involving Sherrie at all.” He was already stripping down, ready to shift into animal form. Sherrie had often been told she was impulsive. Grant Perron made her seem unwaveringly stable.