Melody Snow Monroe (3 page)

They rode the rest of the way in the silence. Instead of admiring the scenery, Lara focused on what Imelda had told her. Even after a quick lunch, nothing the psychic said made sense. The fact she was in the screened porch for an hour really threw her. She would have sworn the discussion took less than ten minutes. Even if she bought into the idea that the psychic received images from some higher being, it was up to Imelda to interpret what each meant. The concept that she’d meet two powerful men from some unknown place who were there to protect her wasn’t her idea of a great reading.

“Lara!”

Krista’s warning speared her mind and made her focus on her surroundings.
Christ
. They’d reached the top, yet she hadn’t dismounted. Before she made an unwanted return trip, she jumped off. “Sorry. I was daydreaming.”

“I’d say. You got the map?”

“Yeah.” She handed the glossy brochure to Krista and retrieved her compass from her backpack. Too often she’d get turned around and needed to get oriented. “Which way, oh fearless leader?”

Krista chuckled as she pointed to the sign that directed them to the trailhead. “Let me take a few shots first. It’s gorgeous up here.”

The tops of the mountains seemed close compared to those in Denver. Once Krista was satisfied she’d captured every peak, they entered the forest. The trees were huge and beautiful, and the path wide and flat. Other than an occasional bird chirping or a few squirrels dashing along the leaves, the place was wonderfully silent. They saw no other tourists headed their way.

The path soon began to descend, and it took a bit of balance not to slip. After an hour, they decided to take a break. Lara pulled out her bottled water and drank some. “Let me take a look at the map.” She studied it for a minute. “As I see it, we have two choices. We can take this fork up ahead, which will lead us to the entrance of a gold mine. It says here it’s boarded up, so we can’t go in, but we can observe remnants of the camp, or we can take the left fork, which leads to a waterfall and some caves.”

Krista patted her camera. “If we can only do one today, I say the waterfall.”

“I agree.”

Ten minutes later, they came to a fork all right, but there were three branches instead of two. Lara studied the map again. “Something’s amiss. How about if you take the middle fork and I’ll take the left fork. We’ll walk for ten minutes and come back here. If you find the falls first, yell.”

“Yell? Why not just text me.”

That seemed like a feasible plan. They checked their phones to make certain they both had a signal. “Ten minutes then.”

Krista headed down her path while she went along the other road. For the first five minutes, Lara enjoyed how the sunlight eased its way through the trees. She bet Krista would stop a few times to take pictures since her friend never could just walk a straight line without photographing something.

After six minutes, she stopped to listen for the waterfall. The leaves rustled, but it sounded more like wind than water. As she continued, her stomach turned queasy and her energy level took a decided drop. She shook off the discomfort and rubbed her stomach. Less than a minute later, a piercing pain stabbed her behind the eye. “Ow.”

She leaned against a tree to get her balance. While she often got migraines, this ache seemed different. Since she always carried her headache medicine, she fished out the bottle and popped two pills. Confident they’d fix the problem in a few minutes, she decided to continue on, not wanting Krista to wait for her.

She’d taken a few steps when her vision blurred. “Whoa.”

Waterfall or no waterfall, it wasn’t worth getting sick and lost for. The moment she turned to head back, her legs nearly gave way. What the hell was going on? She’d never experienced anything like this before. Taking several long, deep breaths, the churning in her stomach eased a bit and the horrible pain behind her eyes lessened.

She needed to get back to the junction, but she’d gotten a bit turned around. “Think.” When her stomach got upset, she was facing the tree. To return, all she had to do was go in the opposite direction. Lara turned around, but when she looked down, she couldn’t find the path even though she was still standing in the middle of the forest, and the tree she’d leaned against was shading her. Inexplicably, the path she’d just taken had disappeared.

Her heart rate raced. “Calm down.” While she’d never had a panic attack, this must have been one.

She blinked a few times to clear her vision. Her compass swung from her pack.
Aha
. That would tell her which way to head. She took off her backpack and unhooked the compass. When she held it level and lined up the red line with north, the arrow spun around slowly as if it was trying to find a direction. The damn thing wouldn’t stop spinning. “Defective piece of crap.”

She cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled for Krista.

In ten minutes time, they couldn’t have become that far apart, especially since the paths more or less led in the same direction. She waited for an answer, but none came. The sky darkened, and she looked up. A huge black cloud dangled above her in the sky. “Great. Just what I don’t need is rain.”

Perhaps she shouldn’t have mocked the psychic. Imelda’s spirit guides must have been paying Lara back or else were showing her the black cloud to prove their accuracy. She shook her head, not willing to buy into that mumbo-jumbo. She must have eaten something bad at the hotel and was now feeling the ill effects. Given her history of headaches, she’d ingested something she was allergic to.

Feeling a bit better with her self-diagnosis, she dragged out her rain gear. Krista would be bummed if it rained because it would eliminate the chance to take photos.

She’d taken a few more steps when another searing pain gripped her head. It was almost like an invisible claw had taken hold and was pressing on her temples as hard as it could. The intensity increased, forcing her to drop to her knees again. This time her gut roiled more from fear than from some illness.

“Krista?” Her voice came out a croak. “Shit.”

She rubbed her head, but the pain wouldn’t let up. Surely, when her friend returned to the meeting point and didn’t find her there, she’d come down this path. Then Krista could call for help. Hell,
she
could call for help for that matter.

It took a moment to find her phone in the bottom of the pack, but when she did, there was no freaking service. That was so not fair. The trees must have been blocking the signal. She tried texting, thinking that might work, but even the text wouldn’t go through.
Shit
.

Lara waited for what seemed like half an hour for her friend to find her. Every few minutes she’d call out Krista’s name, but something must have happened to her. Not one to sit idly, Lara forced herself to get up. When she studied the area, she swore something had changed. How had she not noticed the real pretty glen laced with fluffy ferns a few feet from her? She also swore there had been an indent in the large rock face that ran along the path. Now there was no rock slab at all. What the hell was going on?

Don’t panic
.

Her inhaling exercise didn’t help. Not until her racing pulse slowed did she try her relatively useless compass again. The damned arrow continued to race around in circles. It was almost as if she’d fallen into some weird energy field. There had to be a logical explanation.

Something bright flashed off to the side. She spun around so fast it was like someone had stabbed a knife in her eye. “Ouch.”

Her balance went haywire, and she had to grab on to the tree. Adrenaline slammed into her system as more panic gripped her, and some of her stomach contents rolled up her throat.

From behind a large tree stepped a nearly naked man. She blinked several times at the hallucination. Now there were two men. Her pulse went crazy and her mouth turned dry. If they’d been dressed in ranger uniforms, she would have cried tears of joy that the rescue squad had arrived. Instead, they had on what could best be described as loincloths. Their muscled torsos gleamed in the steamy air and their hugely defined legs bulged.

Her chest constricted from the change in air temperature, and she almost vomited.

Both men rushed toward her. Fleeing seemed hopeless. All she could do was open her mouth and scream.

Taryn looked over at his brother and stopped six feet in front of the trembling, frantic woman. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and tell her that nothing was going to hurt her, but that might have been a lie. They were in the middle of wolf territory, and that meant trouble. They wouldn’t have been here in the first place had they not smelled her exotic perfume. Anterran women had no use for such stuff.

His sensitive ears throbbed from the sickening cry, and his gut churned from her pain. “What’s wrong? We want to help.”
Please stop screeching.

It took a moment for her to close her mouth. As soon as the yelling stopped, a sob burst out. “Who are you?” She hiccupped.

He’d never seen anyone as beautiful as this woman, even though he and Kellum had gone through the alignment point to Spirit several times and mixed with the humans.

“My name is Taryn, and this is my brother, Kellum. What’s your name?” He kept his voice as calm as he could. All the while, his senses remained alert for danger as the wolves’ superior sense of smell could bring them near any minute.

She studied them as if she wasn’t sure if she should reveal such vital information. “I’m Lara.”

How she ended up in Anterra he had no idea. She must have stumbled through an alignment point. He’d heard of that happening every few years. Even then, it was usually a stray dog or cat that made it through from Earth to his homeland. “Hello, Lara.”

Kellum nudged him.
What should we do?
We can’t chance staying here much longer without being detected
. They usually spoke when they were in human form, but he figured his brother used telepathy because he didn’t want to distress her.

I know. We can’t abandon her though. She needs our help. We have to get out of here without scaring her.

Kellum dared to step closer. “Lara, how long have you been lost?”

Because of the large amount of energy on Anterra, it adversely affected a person’s body when anyone entered their realm. Since the Anterrans only traveled to the other side when they were in animal form, the ill effects usually took only a few hours to recover. Their women, however, often suffered for days.

Her shoulders tensed. “Lost? I got a headache and I felt dizzy. I rested for only a few minutes right before you two appeared. I haven’t had time to get lost.” Her bottom lip trembled as if she didn’t want to admit the truth.

He held out a hand. “Why don’t you come with us? Maybe you’d like something to drink.” He wasn’t sure what he could do to entice her to follow. To tell her that her life was in danger might make things worse.

She shook her head. “I’m here with a friend. I need to find her.”

This wasn’t good. Even if her friend were on the other side, inches from where they found Lara, she might not get through to Anterra. The alignment point constantly moved. “Where is she?”

“She took the middle fork and I took the left fork. We were only supposed to walk for ten minutes and then return. We were looking for a waterfall.”

Since he hadn’t been in Spirit for quite some time, he had no idea where those forks might be located. “We have a lot of waterfalls here. Maybe she’s there.” That was a total lie, but they had to get going. Having her follow willingly would be a plus. It was bad enough that she was going to be in for a huge shock very soon when she learned who they really were.

“No. Thank you. I’ll wait here for her. She was only ten minutes away when I got disoriented.”

This wasn’t working as planned. They couldn’t let her stay here. It wasn’t secure. He could sweep her into his arms and take her into the safety of lion territory, but he wanted her to adjust to the fact that her life was about to radically change without being in a panic first. “Are you hungry?”

It seemed to take her a minute before deciding. “Not really. If you could tell me which way to the ski lift, I can find my way back.”

“I don’t know where the ski lift is.”
Damn
. He should have told her he’d take her there. Unfortunately, looking for another entry point right now would take too much time, not to mention they’d have to shift into their mountain lion form.

We have to get out of here.

He glanced over at his brother
. Like I don’t know that?

She straightened, and her pretty little mouth puckered. “You live around here, right?”

“Yes.”
In a manner of speaking.
He and she lived in alternate realities that occupied the same space.

“How come you’ve never seen the ski lift? Spirit is known for its skiing.”

Clearly, her questions weren’t going to stop. “That’s because this isn’t Spirit.” He prayed she’d be satisfied with that answer. He inhaled but didn’t detect any vermin nearby. They had a few minutes before he’d have to take drastic measures.

“I walked an hour, so technically we might be in another town, but we didn’t go that far. Where is this place, exactly?” Her breaths came out faster. She squeezed her eyes shut as if the pain had intensified.