Even if they weren’t a match, she was determined to prove to him, while he served as her bodyguard, that her psychic abilities were real. She shouldn’t have cared if he believed her or not. She imagined that more than half of the world’s population didn’t have faith in such things. But she did care that he believed. That he knew she had been honest with him.
She grabbed the container of liquid body soap and squeezed some into her hand. Then she slid the pearl-like soap over her shoulders, breasts, and stomach.
A distinctive thump sounded nearby, muffled by the water rushing in a heavy spray out of the showerhead. Darien dropping a boot on his bedroom floor? It sounded like it had come from her guestroom, though. She listened intently but didn’t hear anything further except for the continued stream of water shlushing out of the showerhead and the mystical New Age rhythm of drumbeats, flutes, and pipe whistles. Had to have been Darien or Lelandi making a noise. Or just her imagination.
She ran shampoo through her hair and over her face, the scent of peaches filling her nostrils with the sweet, refreshing fragrance. Her fingers swept the silky soap down her arms.
After that, everything happened so quickly that it was a blur. The rings of the shower curtain slid aside. The cooler air from the bathroom hit her wet skin. The smell of the onions and garlic the intruder had eaten permeated the air, right before a painful jab penetrated her arm. Her eyes and mouth shot open. Soap burned her eyes, tears forming instantly to wash away the stinging but further blurring her vision. A heavy hand clamped over her mouth to muffle her scream.
Heat quickly spread through her blood, and she felt as if she were slipping into nothingness. The hot water still ran over her, her eyes burning, and whispered words penetrating the darkness as someone held her tight. The smell of man and woods, of sweat and fear clouded her senses.
“Asleep. Let’s get her out of here before we get caught,” the man said in a rush, his voice hushed.
She didn’t recognize his harsh and concerned voice. Her last thought was to wonder where her bodyguard was when she needed him so badly. Damn Darien for forcing Ryan to sleep in the sunroom on the other side of the house. If he’d even returned from Green Valley to watch over her yet. But she’d heard Lelandi arguing with Darien once they’d returned home from the tavern. Heard that Darien hadn’t wanted Ryan in the same room with her. That it would stir up the other bachelor males. That it would encourage Ryan to want Carol for a mate.
Once they discovered she was missing, it would be too late.
She would have fought her kidnappers’ confinement, if she could have oriented herself in this new world. But all she saw was blackness, no wolf’s vision here. And all she felt was numbness spreading through every inch of her body. Huffing and puffing and grunting, not her own, filled her ears.
A jolt to her body and an abrupt change from cool air to frigid air startled her. Her wet, soapy body grew goose bumps as a chilly breeze whipped across her sticky, water-soaked hair, still coated in shampoo, and her naked skin. The biting cold encased her as silky red hair floated over her face. Her eyes filled with tears and soap, she briefly saw a blurry image of amber eyes narrowed as they looked down at her—a concerned-looking man with the start of a scraggily beard. Then she succumbed to a tiredness from which she couldn’t free herself. Vaguely, it was as if she was seeing the vision she’d witnessed in Ryan’s truck outside the tavern all over again. Only the cold was too real.
She floated, was jostled, and heard the crunching of footsteps in the dark and the heavy breathing and hard-charging heartbeats that revealed her kidnappers’ panic. One of the men held her tight against his body, his chest covered in a padded vest that made him feel cuddly, not hard and strong. Clothed in flannel, his arms also felt soft.
She wanted to bury herself deeply in every part of him that felt warm wherever he touched her. His warmth helped to heat her body, but she felt as limp as a chilled, soaked noodle. She tried to open her eyes to get a better look at the man, but they stung from the soap and she barely opened them. Her eyes were too blurry with tears for her to see anything. Her head felt empty and floated separately from her body.
Then it hit her—although she wasn’t sure whether it was a vision of something to come or a nightmare, or a little of both. She couldn’t tell as her mind slipped into another reality induced by the drug.
Jake paced in his wolf form through the great room after a jaunt in the night with several others. Only he hadn’t changed back. None of them had changed back. Carol watched helplessly. Lelandi’s green eyes pleaded with her to do something. Anything. But what could Carol do? Just warn their kind not to shift. And look at how well that had worked! Damn it!
Then the world faded into something else. A room she’d never seen before came into view. A big-screen TV clung to the wall. And the walls: the upper half-sunny and lighted with fan-shaped brass sconces to give the illusion of light, and the lower half covered in light oak paneling. The room had no windows. No windows, as if buried in the bowels of the earth.
Rich brown leather sofas and a light brown rug added to the earthy tones. A man’s room, she thought. But something wasn’t right. Bright lights from another room intruded on the soft lighting in this one. With the greatest apprehension, she moved without moving toward the doorway bathed in brilliant white.
Someone was in there. Shadows crossed the doorway briefly as someone moved about, blocking the light marginally. She had to see into the room. Had to see who the someone was.
Two shots rang out.
“Hey!” From a great distance, Sam shattered the future world Carol was in. Instantly her thoughts became her own again, except that she couldn’t remember what had happened, where she was, or what she was doing. Shots had been fired. Hadn’t they?
The cold shook her from the fogginess—the shower, the soap, the kidnappers! She opened her mouth to speak, to call out, to get Sam’s attention.
Shots rang out. Shots fired from close by. From the kidnappers. At Sam.
The acrid smell of gun smoke drifted to her.
Her mouth snapped shut. Silver bullets? She couldn’t be the cause of Sam’s death. Best to let the villains take her away.
“Raise the alarm!” Sam shouted.
The man carrying her swore under his breath and tightened his hold on her, stumbling at a slightly faster pace.
“What the hell’s happening?” Darien asked, growing closer to Sam’s voice.
They were coming for her. The sensation that she was one of the pack gave her some peace of mind, but the danger the gunman posed if Sam and Darien caught up with her was too great to ignore. The bullets would kill Darien and Sam and any others who got too close. They couldn’t risk it. Don’t risk it!
“Three men running that way. They’ve got Carol!” Sam shouted back to him. “And they’ve got guns!”
Another shot rang out and Carol tried to squirm, but not a muscle obeyed her.
“Carol!” Darien shouted.
She tried to speak, to shout, but she had no voice.
Suddenly she felt herself falling, dropped like a sack of cold groceries. She should have felt a hard impact, but her body didn’t feel anything but a slight jolt. Now she was left in the sweet-smelling grass, crispy with frost, to freeze to death. She curled up into a fetal ball, trying to get warm, when a large hand gripped her shoulder and she shuddered. They weren’t leaving her behind after all. At once, she felt an odd mix of reprieve and regret.