Myriad voices called out, accompanied by the visions that were gossamer things in his mind’s eye. Ghosts of lives lived, tragedies endured, happiness enjoyed. Escaping the more tortured memories became easier than he’d expected. It was the visions of joy and contentment that ensnared him. Like a fly caught in a web, he found it almost impossible to free himself from the tangle. His heart was too full, and the icy cold that raced through his veins, froze his muscles, and rendered him helpless began to retreat. Warmth infused his skin. Contentment swelled in his chest. The darkness fled and was replaced by a strength and light that made him feel as though he could overcome any obstacle in his path. He wanted to live in these moments forever.
The Collective was a wormhole from which there was no escape.
Slowly, as though waking from the deepest sleep, Ronan disentangled himself from the Collective. His eyes snapped open and a surge of strength coursed through him with the setting sun. He ripped the blanket from the window and jerked the cord that pulled up the blinds. A mantle of gray settled on the landscape outside and a feral growl rose in Ronan’s throat.
No more hiding. It was time that these sly shifters knew what it felt like to be stalked.
* * *
Ten minutes had passed and both Paul’s and Joaquin’s silence had become unsettling. An intimidation tactic to be sure, and though she wasn’t necessarily scared, that didn’t mean it wasn’t unnerving as hell. They wanted her to break. To panic and beg and blather on until she inadvertently supplied them with Ronan’s whereabouts. Too bad for them, that wasn’t ever going to happen.
Paul let out a slow, disapproving sigh. He didn’t look a day over forty, though he had a good three centuries on her. His nearly black eyes narrowed as his gaze raked her from head to toe. A disdainful sneer pulled at his upper lip and a low growl echoed in the quiet.
Naya didn’t budge. Didn’t so much as let out a deep breath. She simply gave him stare for stare.
“What would your mother say if she was alive to witness your behavior?”
So, he was leading with a guilt trip. Fabulous. “I suppose she’d say that I should never let any male diminish my worth or power and that no wrong could ever be found in protecting those you care about.” Paul didn’t know shit about the female her mother had been. Pilar Morales had been revered not only by their pod but throughout the Bororo. Paul wasn’t going to bullshit Naya with some conjured shame he thought she should feel.
“So you care for this creature?” Paul spat the words at her, his voice quavering with disgust. “He means as much to you as your own people?”
She couldn’t show her hand. If Paul knew that she felt anything for Ronan, he’d hunt him with a fervor that would make the mapinguari’s rampage seem tame in comparison. “Have I somehow failed in my duties as bruja to this pod?” She let the question hang in the air as Paul regarded her. Beside him, Joaquin’s expression was that of veiled hurt and damaged pride. Out of everything that had happened in the past few days, the one thing she’d change was the way Joaquin had found her with Ronan under the pier.
“You’ve been satisfactory,” Paul replied.
Wow. Don’t go out of your way with the glowing praise. Naya ignored the barb, refusing to let him bait her. “Then what I do when I’m not on the job is none of your concern.”
“Everything you do is my concern!” he snapped. “Especially when you’ve chosen to defile yourself with a vampire. Not to mention one that’s been tainted with dark magic.”
Defile. Taint. Trigger words made to make Naya feel as though she’d done something wrong. Paul could talk until he was blue in the face; it wasn’t going to change the fact that she was tethered to Ronan. No amount of bitching or guilt-tripping would sever that connection.
“I need the vampire.” The context of that need was none of Paul’s gods-damned business. “Mapinguari are running rampant. I’ve never seen such a concentration of malicious magic. Ever. His sister was searching for a relic before she disappeared. I think it has something to do with this negative influx.”
“A convenient story,” Paul said with a shrug. “No doubt concocted to stay his execution. You’ve grown soft, Naya. We do not show mercy.”
Wasn’t that the freaking truth? For decades she’d done her duty, killed indiscriminately, extracted cancerous magic, and turned it over to Paul’s keeping without batting a lash. No questions asked. It was she and Luz and other brujas in the vast tribe who could hear and manipulate magic, and yet time and again they’d entrusted it to elders who didn’t know the first thing about what they were handling. They brujas had followed the elders’ mandates without question.