Dark Possession (10 page)

Did you feel that, Juliette? That surge of power? She made the frogs leave. And she’s sneering at me. Sneering.
He was going to have to revise his thinking about his brother’s lifemate. “Those frogs are poisonous. Natives used them for years to tip their arrows,” he couldn’t resist adding.

MaryAnn straightened slowly, automatically looking at her broken nail. Her nails grew abnormally fast, they always had, but now her nail polish was going to be a mess. And it was hurting like hell. It always did when she broke off a nail. Her finger would throb and burn and tingle as the nail regenerated.

She flicked a scowl at Riordan. “Don’t try to scare me with frogs. I don’t like them, but I’m not that big of a city girl.” She was, but he didn’t need to know that.

“They really are toxic,” Juliette confirmed. “Riordan is telling the truth. It isn’t normal to see so many frogs in one area, and they certainly shouldn’t be following us.”

MaryAnn glanced at the frogs surrounding them. “Are they following?” The idea made her nervous. She didn’t want them killed, but she wanted them gone. Out of sight. Of course then they might be hidden in the foliage, staring with their giant eyes just like everything else in the rain forest seemed to be doing.

“Yes, and so are the monkeys,” Riordan said, folding his arms across his chest and indicating the canopy with a nod of his chin.

MaryAnn was afraid to look. Frogs were one thing—and she chose to leave out the poisonous part—but monkeys were furry little beasts with near-human hands and big teeth. She knew that because once, just once, she’d gone to the zoo and the monkeys had all been insane, screaming and jumping around, baring
huge
teeth at her through what appeared to be smiles. It had been a horrible day, not as bad as this one, but she’d vowed never to go to a zoo again.

MaryAnn squared her shoulders and elevated her chin a notch. “Do you have an explanation for why these creatures aren’t behaving normally?”

“I thought I did,” Riordan admitted. “I believed a vampire might be using their eyes and ears to gather information, but now I am not so certain.”

Her heart jumped when she heard the word “vampire.” She’d been expecting it ever since she’d entered the dark oppression of the rain forest, but she still wasn’t prepared. She longed for the normalcy of gangs hanging out on the corner. She could quell the street toughs with one look, but a herd of frogs or monkeys commanded by vampires…Was it herd? She didn’t even know. She didn’t belong in the animal kingdom. She desperately wanted to go home.

As soon as the thought was completed, grief welled up, swamping her. More than sorrow, she felt need, a compulsion to keep moving, to hurry. She turned away from Riordan and Juliette, toward the direction the pull was strongest. She couldn’t leave this terrible place until she found Manolito.

She turned her head from side to side, not seeing anything, only thinking of him, the lines of pain and fatigue etched deep into the handsome features. His broad shoulders and thick chest. He was tall, much taller than she was, and she wasn’t exactly short. Where was he?

She could hear the high-pitched sound of bats calling to one another, and somewhere in the raging river one porpoise beckoned to another. The world seemed to narrow, or maybe her senses expanded, making her hearing far more acute, so that her brain processed every individual noise. The rustles in the leaves were insects, the flutter of wings were birds settling for the night, the monkeys overhead disturbed leaves as they kept pace. She heard the sound of voices, two men, about six miles away, and she recognized Manolito’s sensual tone. His voice shimmered in her mind, sent goose bumps skittering over her skin and her stomach clenching in anticipation of seeing him.

MaryAnn walked fast, urgency driving her. He was in trouble. She knew it. She felt him now, close, where before she couldn’t reach him. She didn’t try connecting mind-to-mind; she wasn’t psychic, but it didn’t matter. She heard his whispered command floating in the air.
Come to me.
She knew he was injured. Confused. He needed her. Scents burst through her brain, the three-day-old trail of a tapir rooting for vegetation. A margay hidden deep in the canopy a mile to her left. So many creatures, even…
jaguar.
Her breath hitched and she drew her knees higher, pumping her arms, picking up speed.

She cut through a series of slopes running along a swollen stream, uncaring when the lower shrubbery tore at her hair. Water poured from every conceivable outlet, creating waterfalls everywhere. The sound was loud in the stillness of the forest. With little moon and the thick canopy overhead, the interior was dark and eerie. Low-lying fog wove a trail of ghoulish gray vapor in and out of the trees, covering the buttress of tangled roots so when she got close to them, the thick knots and snakelike limbs appeared to be dark fortresses hiding secrets. The huge trunks rose up out of the fog, seemingly disembodied from the roots holding them to ground.

Juliette’s nails dug into Riordan’s arm as they paced behind MaryAnn.
Look at her. She runs so smoothly. She’s not jaguar, but I don’t know what she is. I’ve never seen anything like her. Have you?

Riordan struggled with his memories, trying to remember if he’d ever seen such a transformation. It was difficult to see MaryAnn as more than the beautiful fashion plate she always appeared to him to be. She was intelligent and courageous for a human, he had always given her that, but her courage wasn’t the kind needed to be the lifemate of a Carpathian hunter like Manolito. Riordan’s brother was dominating and hard, with no soft edges to make him more palatable for a woman like MaryAnn. Yet there was a steel core in her. And there was far more to the package than met the eye. She wielded power and energy without conscious deliberation, yet the moment she thought about it, she became inept and afraid.

The biggest question is whether or not she is a danger to Manolito.

I think she is very confused about all of this, Riordan. I feel sorry for her. The blood tie to Manolito is strong. If it was only the one exchange, why is the connection so strong in her that she knows more than you where your brother is? Because, make no mistake, she knows exactly where he is and she’s heading straight to him. He’s a good six miles away, but she’s making fast time even though she’s never been in a rain forest in her life.

MaryAnn felt a buzzing in her head, as if insects were fluttering in her skull. The Carpathians were talking to each other again. She detested that. Were they using her to get to Manolito? If Riordan really wanted to find his brother, why didn’t he approach him directly, call to him, draw him out? Why hadn’t they simply buried the body at their ranch, where Manolito would have risen among family members who would have helped him? Why hadn’t they mentioned a second home? And why were Juliette’s sister and cousin too afraid to even go to the De La Cruz home? Something was very wrong.

It all should have frightened her—and it might have—but Manolito’s voice once again slid into her head.

Where are you?
He sounded so lost and lonely. Her heart twisted in answer, aching for him.

She wasn’t a runner, but she picked up the pace, smoothly, easily, leaping over fallen tree trunks as if she’d been born with the reflexes, something inside her urging her to hurry. As she ran, her mind became still, quiet and certain, assessing everything around her with uncommon speed.

Her vision was odd, as if her other senses being so enhanced had robbed her of normal vision. The vibrant greens and reds of leaves and flowers blended and dulled until it was hard to distinguish color, yet even with the dull gray, she caught the movement of insects and lizards, the flash of the tree frogs and monkeys as they scurried overhead. Her night vision had always been excellent, but now it seemed more so; without the colors to dazzle and blind, she could identify a wider spectrum of things as she raced by.

It was exhilarating to have all of her senses so sharp. Her hearing was definitely much more acute. She could hear air rushing out of Juliette’s lungs. The ebb and flow of blood in veins. Deep inside of her something wild unfurled and stretched.

MaryAnn caught her breath, frightened. She stumbled and nearly fell, stopping so abruptly Riordan and Juliette nearly ran her over. She backed away from them, her palm covering the mark over her breast where it throbbed and burned.

“What did he do to me?” she whispered. “I’m changing into something else.”

Juliette caught at Riordan’s wrist and squeezed tightly to prevent him from saying the wrong thing. He might not see how fragile and lost MaryAnn looked, but she did. There was a different, very real fear in her eyes now, wary, like a cornered animal. They didn’t know how MaryAnn would react, but more importantly,
she
didn’t know, and that had Juliette spooked.

“We don’t know exactly what Manolito did do to you, other than he probably took one blood exchange.” Juliette drew in a deep breath, trying to be honest. “Maybe two. You’re not Carpathian, so he didn’t convert you.”

“But Nicolae took my blood to better protect Destiny.”

And she wasn’t afraid of him.
Riordan picked that out of her mind.
Not like she is now. Why wasn’t she afraid to have Nicolae take her blood when it would be the natural thing to be?

MaryAnn put a hand to her head, brushing as if to sweep away insects, taking another step backward, away from them. Fear grew with every breath she took. Something was terribly wrong; she knew it, could feel it deep inside her. Closing her fist, she dug her nails deep into her palm to test herself. She was beginning to doubt what was real and what might be illusion.

She knows we are talking privately,
Riordan cautioned,
and it upsets her.

And have you asked yourself how she knows? She shouldn’t. She doesn’t even think she’s psychic.

She’s more than psychic, Juliette,
Riordan said.
She wields power without effort.

Or the knowledge that she’s doing it.
“This is crazy, MaryAnn,” Juliette added aloud. “Neither Riordan nor I know what to make of it.”

“I want to go home.” Even as she said it, MaryAnn knew she couldn’t, not until she found Manolito De La Cruz and assured herself he was alive and well and not in some kind of terrible trouble. Damn her nature, the one that always needed to help and comfort others. She lifted her shaking hand. Her nail had already grown, much, much faster than even the accelerated rate normal for her. “What do you think he did to me? You must have a guess. And is it reversible? Because I’m human and my family is human and I
like
being human. This is what comes from having a skinny bloodsucking white girl as my best friend.” And she was
so
going to have a few things to say to Destiny when she saw her again—
if
she ever saw her again.

Juliette cast Riordan another anxious glance. “I’m so sorry, MaryAnn. If I knew what was happening, I’d tell you. The thing is this—humans have lived for centuries side-by-side with other species. In all those years, you and I both know, eventually the species are going to mix. Maybe several centuries ago, there was something we don’t know about. I have jaguar blood. So do a lot of the women who are psychic.”

MaryAnn shook her head. “Not me.” It felt wrong. She knew her mother and father and her grandparents and great-grandparents. There weren’t any spots in her family and no one sucked blood.

Could she be mage?
Juliette ventured.

Mages hold power, that’s for certain, and most are good people, but she would be weaving spells. She does not appear to be doing that. She gathers energy as we do and uses it, but she is unaware. That is why she is such a good counselor. She unwittingly urges them to feel better. She wants them happy, so they are. She senses the right thing for each person to hear and she says it.

MaryAnn’s heart went into overdrive. They were clearly talking to each other again. She turned on her too-high heel and ran headlong into the underbrush, thinking she might outrun them, forgetting they could take to the air if they wanted. And they wanted.

She felt the rush of displaced air all around her, and Riordan dropped down out of the sky, cutting her off.

MaryAnn screamed and backpedaled, her heels catching on one of the many roots snaking across the ground. She went down hard, landing on her bottom, looking up at him as he stood over her.

“That way is dangerous,” Riordan explained, extending his hand to her.

She kicked at him, furious with him, but mostly angry with herself for being in such a vulnerable position. How many times had she counseled women about going off with strangers—people they met through the Internet, or through friends, but didn’t really know themselves. She curled her fingers around the small canister of pepper spray. Did it work on Carpathians? Or vampires? No one had mentioned them in her pepper-spray class.

“MaryAnn,” Riordan cautioned, frowning at her. “Don’t be silly. Let me help you up. You’re sitting on the ground. Did you know that there are a million and a half ants per half acre in the rain forest?”

MaryAnn suppressed a yelp of fear and scrambled to her feet without help, backing away again, brushing at her clothing, feeling the swarm of insects on her legs and arms.
I hate this!
She screamed it so loud in her head she felt the echo through her clenched teeth. Her eyes burned with tears again.

The air around them charged with electricity so that the hair on her arm prickled.

“Take cover,” Riordan yelled and leapt back.

Thunder rolled. The ground shook. Monkeys howled. Birds screeched and rose from the trees. Lightning sizzled and snapped, slamming to earth in a near-blinding display of energy. Fog poured in all around her. MaryAnn felt strong arms slide around her, and one hand pressed her face into a large, muscular chest. Her feet left the ground, and she was flying through the treetops so fast it made her dizzy.