LITMIR.BIZ

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beauty was going to be sweet payback against Buchanan. She hoped he told everyone in Henning about tonight. Hoped Ian would hear all about how wildly she’d ridden this gorgeous stranger beneath the hazy light of the moon.

      His teeth grazed her flesh, making her shiver and she started to call out his name…only to draw a blank.

      Holy shit! She couldn’t remember it! The thought struck Kendra as hilariously funny and she gave an uncharacteristic giggle, making him grin against the underside of her breast. Oh…wouldn’t her mother love to know that a man she couldn’t even name was pressing his mouth against her naked skin, kissing his way up to the hollow of her throat.

      â€œTell me how bad you want it,” he whispered, nipping at her shoulder in a way that had her blood surging.

      She grabbed at his denim-covered cock, and he laughed softly under his breath.

      â€œBeg me, honey. I love to hear a woman begging for it.” His breath washed over her throat as he rasped the words against her sensitive flesh, his hands sliding across her ass, fingers kneading her through the denim of her jeans. “Beg me to make you scream.”

      â€œPlease,” she gasped, tilting her head to give him better access, ignoring the sudden warning note in her head that signaled something wasn’t…quite right.

      Just go with it, Kendra. He can make you forget. Forget…everything. Forget…Ian.

      Almost as if the stranger had read her mind, he pressed his forehead to hers, whispering, “Don’t worry, Kendra. After I’m done with you tonight, there won’t be anything left for Buchanan.”

      She pulled back to look up at him, and her breath caught. Something about his face seemed…she didn’t know. Different somehow. She blinked her heavy lids, trying to bring him back into focus through her blurry vision, but her eyes refused to cooperate. Then one hand lifted, cupping her cheek, his thumb stroking gently…so gently against the corner of her mouth. In the moment, she forgot everything but his touch. It was reverent. Like a lover’s—and she realized that in all the time she’d known him, Ian had never touched her like this. Like she was special to him. Her lower lip trembled. She sighed, floating, somehow lost in the searing heat of this stranger’s gaze.

      Then he smiled.

      The curve of his lips was so beautiful, it took her tequila-soaked mind a moment to realize what he’d just said.

      Buchanan! What the…? How did this man—this newcomer to the mountains—know about her and Ian?

      â€œHow—”

      â€œShh…” he whispered, pressing his hand over her mouth. “No more time for questions.”

      He gave a low, rough laugh, and Kendra watched in shock as his face seemed to rearrange itself within his skin. She heard something pop, then crack, followed by the chilling sound of bone snapping into place.

      Panicking, she turned to run but stumbled. He had her down before she’d gone more than a few yards, his muscled weight crushing her into the damp ground.

      â€œThat’s my girl,” he murmured, flipping her to her back and pinning her arms above her head with an effortless strength that awed as much as it terrified. She watched through wide, burning eyes as his intent spread across the distorted features of his face like a stain, and a choked sound broke from her throat. A dry cry lost somewhere between a sob and a whimper. “No more time to play, Kendra,” he whispered. “Only time enough to die.”

      And he wasn’t lying.

      Everything that happened after that came to her in nothing but broken fragments—consciousness shattered by terror and disbelief and indescribable pain. She wanted to cry, but her mind was too numb. She wanted to fight back, but her body lay there upon the blood-soaked ground, too broken and weak.

      She wanted to tear the son of a bitch to pieces, the same way he was tearing her apart—but in that, she failed, as well.

      He’d cut her; deep slices in her stomach…her chest? She couldn’t tell; she hurt everywhere. Even deep inside, where he’d ripped her open with the vicious pounding of his body into hers. Everything faded—the sapphire stars in the sky, the chirping of the grasshoppers, the rich pine scent of the towering trees—until there was nothing. Nothing but the great rolling waves of pain that made everything black and ugly and raw.

      She thought of Ian, and realized how stupid she’d been.

      But her last thought, as his teeth sank into her throat, was that mother had been right after all.

      And wasn’t life such a bitch of a waste.

      Then Kendra Wilcox thought no more.

      CHAPTER THREE

      Saturday Morning, 3 a.m.

      IAN WAS DREAMING OF HOME. Dreaming of the Deep South in the late fall, when he was young. It was the same strange dream he’d been having since he’d run away at sixteen. He sat huddled around a crackling fireplace with his small family. Dinner simmered on the stove, filling the weathered house with the rich scent of beans and corn bread, while young Riley sprawled on the threadbare rug and little Saige cuddled on his mother’s lap, begging for another story about their ancestors.

      â€œMany years ago,” his mother murmured, “before this country was even discovered, our ancestors walked the earth, but they weren’t like us—”

      â€œThey were Merricks, weren’t they?” Saige interrupted, all but bouncing with excitement.

      â€œYes, sweetheart,” his mother answered with a smile, “they most certainly were.”

      â€œAnd they kicked butt, didn’t they?” his brother added, grinning a little.

      His mother winked at Riley. “That they did.”

      â€œUntil the Casus massacred them,” Ian inserted drily, sitting on the floor by the fire. He wrapped his thin arms around his scuffed knees; his lip curled in a snide expression his mother had always said was too scornful to belong to a twelve-year-old.

      â€œThat’s not true!” Saige protested, sticking her tongue out at him.

      â€œOh, yeah? Why do you think they’re all dead?”

      â€œBut they’re not all dead,” his mother said softly, and all three heads turned sharply toward her, big eyes curious and uncertain. This was a strange twist, for the stories had never taken this direction before. Not once, in all the countless tellings.

      â€œWhat do you mean they’re not dead?” he asked quietly, though his words sounded belligerent and hard against the heavy silence of the house. He fought the urge to flinch as a log cracked sharply in the fireplace, the wet wood popping, then splitting.

      Their mother’s slim brows arched high on the worry-wrinkled span of her brow. “Did I ever say they were dead?”

      â€œIf they’re not dead—” his eyes narrowed in suspicion “—then where are they?”

      â€œRight under your nose,” she explained with a small smile that made him feel a little sick inside. She held his stare, the corners of her mouth curving just the tiniest bit—a strange glow warming the deep, dark blue of her eyes. “And one day, when the darkness calls to you,” she whispered, her voice so low he could barely hear the words, “when you can feel it in your bones, feel it roaring through your veins, in the beat of your heart—when your dreams are no longer your own, Ian—you’re going to meet him.”

      Trapped within the oppressive layers of sleep, Ian stared at his smiling mother until his vision became

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