Is she okay?
He couldn’t see what he was looking at or what was talking to him, but he answered readily enough. Yes.
Good. Keep her that way.
And it disappeared. Was that the stale black energy that he’d sensed? No, this was loving energy. The other was not.
What the hell had that been? Still Hunter had a sense of danger, of old energy dispersing, as if a hunter had moved on. Much out there was unexplainable. Change was happening. And he didn’t understand at all what was going on here. It unnerved him, but it also pissed him off.
“You shouldn’t hunt for an innocent woman like that,” he yelled into the darkness. The response was almost like a mindless laughter or a sound of mockery, and then another voice, a different voice, crept to him through the darkness.
“Whatever you think of her,” came that voice, “an innocent young woman, she is not.”
Just like that, the dark cloud cleared up, and a bright star shone in the sky above, lighting Hunter’s way. Absolutely nothing was around him, nothing to see or to feel. Whatever had been here was now gone. Only the remnants of the voice remained and a sense of warning that, whoever Beth was, she wasn’t what she appeared to be.
*
Hours later Hunter and Stefan stepped back from the sickbed, as Hunter looked down at the sleeping woman. “Do you think it’s safe to leave her alone?”
“No,” Stefan said. “We’ll need to set up a camouflage.”
The room had big windows, only one interior door in and out, yet the en suite bathroom had another window.
“I’ll work on the security,” Hunter murmured. He shifted, so he could set up an energy field all around the outside.
At that, Stefan placed a hand on Hunter’s arm. “Dr. Maddy needs access in and out.”
He gasped and said, “Right. Shit. So how will we do that?”
“We’ll figure it out.”
Hunter nodded and continued with the work, knowing Dr. Maddy and Stefan would tweak the field as needed, and then Hunter stepped outside, searching the darkness all around them. He’d already sent out feelers and alerts to see just what was following Beth. Something weird pulsed in the woods, but he couldn’t figure it out. Energy, yes, but then everything was energy. If somebody could harness the actual soul of the trees, that energy field would be so vast that nobody could get through it. Thankfully, so far in life, that hadn’t come to pass.
As Hunter stepped back inside, he looked at Celina’s worried face. “I didn’t see anything out there.”
She relaxed slightly and nodded. “I want to go to sleep, but I’m worried about her,” she said. “We need to clean the wound, and I know Stefan is working on it, but she’s a mess,” she said frankly.
“In what way?”
“Her stress level, her muscles.” She tilted her head. “Even though she wore boots, her feet are injured. She’s badly bruised and scratched all over. It’s like she has been on the run forever.”
“My understanding was just for a couple days, just since she got shot,” he asked cautiously.
Celina shrugged. “I can only tell you what I see, and I think she’s been on the run for years. Stopping to heal, then maybe getting 70 percent back and moving on.”
He nodded, then eyed the bedroom doorway with a different viewpoint. Stefan was in there even now, and Hunter saw a blue glow coming from the room. “It’s amazing what he can do.”
“Maddy is helping. Besides, it’s also amazing what you can do,” Celina added.
He laughed. “I’m utilizing a lot of energy to source what’s out there. I need to drop and recharge.”
She nodded and said, “Go ahead to your room. We’ve got this.”
He smiled, gave her a gentle kiss on the cheek, and said, “It’ll be fine.” He turned and headed off to bed. If he could catch a few hours of rest himself, he would be in a whole different state tomorrow. As he drifted off to sleep, he couldn’t help but wonder about a woman who had been on the run for as long as she had. The big question loomed: What was she running from?
Chapter 3
Beth woke up with a start, her gaze darting around the room, struggling to understand where she was and what woke her. She was in a small room, a nice room, except for the weird energies floating around her. She shifted to see better, sending shards of pain down her body. She lay here, trembling for a long moment, hearing a female voice in her head say, Be still.
A sense of admonishment was in the tone, as well as care. Beth did as she was asked, but she didn’t know who had spoken or where Beth was. She thought she was at Stefan’s, but … panic stepped in. She threw back her covers and stood. The motion itself forced her to lean against the wall, as the pain once again shafted through her. She had to leave. The inner sense was overwhelming. She must go.
Beth raced toward the window and looked out. The darkness was outside. Mindless black energy. No feel to it, nothing positive or negative, just there, staring at her, always hunting her. She shuddered and looked for her clothes, only now realizing she was nude. Nothing here to wear, except for the old bloodstained things she had had on before. She struggled to get into them, even as she heard somebody moving on the other side of the door. She froze, afraid they would come in. She waited in the darkness, studying the latch on the window to see if she could open it. She knew she could.
She used the bathroom, got herself a drink of water. When she stepped back into the bedroom, she looked around with a sense of sadness that she had to leave, but, if she didn’t, it would get that much worse. She headed to the window and unlatched it. Even as she pushed it open, it slammed shut with a hard force that she hadn’t expected. She cried out, and suddenly her bedroom door opened.
Hunter stood there, glaring at her.
She held her hand to her mouth, backing away. “Am I a prisoner?” she cried out. This was the worst possible outcome. She’d been a prisoner before—never again.
Immediately the look on his face changed, as he came forward, his hands out, palms up. “No, you’re not.”
“But I can’t leave.”
“You can leave,” he said, “when you’re better.”
“But that’s a when,” she murmured, staring at him, her heart still slamming against her ribs. “Which means I am a prisoner.”
“You’re safe here,” he said, motioning at the bed. “You need to lie down and to keep healing.”
“I want to leave,” she said. “You can’t keep me against my will.”
He hesitated and then gave a firm shake to his head. “No, not tonight.”
“So, I am a prisoner,” she cried out, her worst fears coming true.
“No,” he said.
“How can it not be?” she asked, daring him to argue.
“This is best for you, for now,” he said. “Please get back into bed and heal.”
She shook her head slowly. “And if I refuse?”
He said, “Look at you. You’re dripping blood everywhere again.”
Surprised, she looked down at her wounded side and winced to see that blood running down her leg and even now dripping onto the floor. “Damn,” she said, wavering on her feet.