Beneath the Black Moon (Root Sisters) (16 page)

The
bone was still there, exactly as Cam had last seen it. Cam reached for it,
feeling its power humming through her fingertips as her hand drew nearer. She
hesitated, bit her lip, and then lifted the bone. It was lighter than she would
have expected, hardly heavier than a small chicken bone. Cam gripped it for a
moment and then slipped it into the pocket of her nightdress. The magic
enveloped her, changed her, and a strange exultation filled her. She left the
box where it was and ran outside, out onto the grass.

            She
was heady with conjure as she twirled on the shadowed lawn, entranced by the
sight of her own nightdress swirling and vanishing around her legs, a blur of
ivory, white silk eternally shifting into night. The sky was the dusky pink of
a dying rose, and Cam could taste the thunder on her tongue. The wind was wet,
a balmy kiss against her skin, but the rain was yet to come. Cam could scent it
amid the smell of fallen flowers as blossoms streamed from the dogwood trees
and azaleas.

Cam
spun again and again, like a child, afraid that she would fall if she stopped.
Her heart pounded wildly and she threw her head back and laughed. She loved to
be barefoot. She loved to be free and she loved laughter. Why did she have a
life that denied her all three? The thought was sad but somehow that sadness
could not pierce the euphoria that had filled her and infused her with the kind
of courage that she had always longed for.

This
is who I am
.

She
could feel the bone working; she could feel herself vanishing as swiftly as the
setting sun. How strange it was, this feeling of finding herself even as she
disappeared. If she encountered someone, anyone, right at this moment, she
would tell them the truth. She would tell them who she was and where she came
from and how her mother really died. She would tell anyone anything they wanted
to know. The bones gave her invisibility, and the invisibility gave her
honesty. Somehow it was easier to admit what she wanted when she was bodiless,
little more than a mind and a heart blown by the wind.

And
what do you want, Cam?

The
answer didn’t come in words, but in a vision that filled her mind’s eye, taking
her by surprise. Then again, how could she be surprised? She had been carrying
Brent’s image in her heart for weeks, almost since their first meeting. He had
never been far from her thoughts. But she had locked those thoughts away,
imprisoning him at the back of her mind, just as surely as she herself was
imprisoned at Cypress Hall.

Now
she was free. Now she could have whatever she wanted.

Cam
didn’t walk; she ran. Her feet had no form and her shape could not be seen. In
the night she was little more than a shadow, a shadow that burned with longing.

I
am a fool
, she thought.

But
it was a beautiful, beautiful night to be a fool.

***

Brent
stood on his brother’s porch, still dressed and wide awake. He was restless. He
ached too much to sleep. The effort of restraining himself at the ball had all
but killed him. God knew Brent had wanted women before, but the longing had
always been more physical, the desire for release more than for a particular
woman. And even if there was a particular woman, another one would usually do
if the first was unwilling. With Cam it was different. She was at the root of
everything. She was the one he wanted. No one who wasn’t her was sufficient. He
wanted Cam or no one. But that day in the woods she had pulled away like his
hands burned her.

He
understood. There was darkness between them, a rift that wouldn’t heal. No
amount of desire or love could change the fact that she was dishonest and he
was desperate. They had the potential to cause each other just as much pain as
pleasure, and that was why Brent had to let her go, even though it went against
his grain, even though it nearly killed him. He would let her go because he
would rather die than hurt her. He would let her go because she was right to
resist him, even though it was so hard to reconcile that resistance with the
naked longing that he had seen in her eyes.

Even
now he was fighting with himself. He knew that she wanted him. He knew that if
he had just a few minutes alone with her in the dark he could change her mind. He
knew that he could make her ache the way that he did. He knew–

He
knew that someone was
watching
him…

He
turned, staring into the darkness, hunting for whoever hid there. “Who’s
there?” He asked loudly. His rifle was just inside the door, but he didn’t
bother to get it. He was frustrated enough that he could probably seize and
beat to death any intruder without even winding himself.

The
breeze touched his hair, and he smelled flowers and rain on the wind. As the air
settled he heard faint footsteps and the whisper of cloth. The movements were
soft and nonthreatening, but whoever it was had moved closer. When the wind
blew again, he could scent something else on the breeze, a sweet scent, as
familiar as the warm gaze of whoever watched him. “Who’s there?” He asked
again, but more softly this time.

There
was silence, but for a single, quiet sound. It was all that was needed to tell
Brent who was there.

Cam.
The
realization shook him to the core. He wasn’t sure why he still couldn’t see
her, but he knew she was here. She had come to him.

Sweet
girl, what are you thinking?

There
would be no escaping the inevitable now.

***

Cam
watched from just a few yards away as the expression on Brent’s face changed
from wary and hostile to a smile so wicked that it was almost dangerous. She
had been standing invisibly in the shadows, gazing at his face, drinking him in
with her eyes, when he had apparently sensed that he was being watched.

“Who’s
there?” He asked a third time, and this time his voice was strangely gentle as
he started down the porch steps, his eyes gleaming green in the soft darkness.
A strange feeling grew in the pit of Cam’s stomach. The way he was acting… It
was almost as if he
knew
…

“Cam?”
God! He did know.

“Cam?
It’s alright sweetheart,” he said, his voice slightly hoarse on the last word.
“Come out where I can see you. I want to see you.”

Good
luck
,
Cam thought, and laughter bubbled to her lips. At some other time she would
have stifled it, slipped away into the shadows with her hand over her mouth.
Not tonight. She laughed freely, letting her mirth dance on the wind around
them. His head turned sharply, eyes fixing on the spot where she stood, and the
intensity in them made her shiver. There was a thrumming low in her belly, and
every inch of her skin sparked to life, sensitive and charged under his
searching gaze. The force of her response to him made her stop laughing. Her
breathing changed and she licked her lips.

Alright,
Mr. Hunter, let’s see you hunt what can’t be seen.

She
crouched, loving how easy it was to move in a nightdress, loving the feeling of
fallen leaves against her bare toes. Most of all, she loved the way that he
kept gazing into the darkness, with the green flames in his eyes promising all
manner of sweet torture.

“Not
yet.” Her voice was whisper-soft, but his hearing was keen, and when his gaze
lowered she knew he could hear her. “First it’s
my
turn.”

At
first he didn’t respond and she was disappointed, but then she saw his eyes,
the way that his pupils had dilated. He took a step forward, just one, holding
out his hands with his palms facing her as if to prove that he wasn’t a threat,
but she didn’t believe it. Not while his eyes had that gleam and his jaw was
clenched tight enough to break, flashing white teeth in a crazy wicked grin.
She inhaled deeply, thrilled by his response to her. She let him take another
step closer, enjoying the way he tensed more with each step, his breathing
growing ragged as though he was suffering from being so close without having
her. Cam couldn’t stop her own grin. Big Bad Brent Anderson, the man who takes
anything he wants.

Don’t
you wish it were always that easy?

She
wanted him mad for her, at least half as crazy as he was driving her. She
didn’t care if it made him angry. She wanted to know that she had the same
power over him that he had over her. “My life was never easy, Brent Anderson.”
She told him, and her voice was so husky she barely recognized it. The ones who
called Diana wanton were accusing the wrong sister. “But it has been a lot
harder since I met you.”

“I’m
sorry,” he told her, and there was a flash of sincerity in his eyes just before
he lunged for her. Her heart pounded with excitement as she threw herself to
her feet and ran with the wild abandon of a creature of the night.  

“Prove
it!” She tossed the dare over her shoulder, breathlessly. It meant
catch me…

She
had never moved so easily or run so fluidly. She glanced back and was exhilarated
to see that he was following her. He wasn’t running though. Instead he was
walking slowly, deliberately after her, almost as though he knew that she
wouldn’t run far. She wanted him too much. And he knew that, she could see it
in his eyes and the way that he moved.

Catch
me catch me

She
was leading him down to the old Wickers rose garden again. The roses were all
dead but there was a gazebo there. Cam had played there as a child, and now she
drew Brent there like she was one of the forest nymphs that she had once
pretended to be.

She
let him get closer to her as she lured him over the threshold of the gazebo. If
he was confused by the fact that he could hear her but not see her, he didn’t
show it. Perhaps the conjure was working on him, too, in some small way. Or
maybe
she
was the spell that had enchanted him. Either way, he followed
her into the moonlit structure. She sighed, happy with the new balance of
power, thrilled to be the cat in this newest game of cat and mouse. She reached
for him with a limb that was all shadow and wind. He should not have known
exactly where she was, but he must have sensed her somehow.

In
a movement too quick for her to follow, he pounced, wrapping his arms around
her and trapping her in their muscled warmth. She gasped, half mad and half
delighted, and then the oddest feeling filled her veins. The conjure was slipping
away. Perhaps it was losing effect, or perhaps she had unknowingly willed it
away. Either way, she could feel her face reforming, feel the filtered
moonlight on her cheekbones and the shadows beneath her lashes. Her arms
reappeared with one of her hands gripped in his. The rest of her body followed,
already warm and throbbing thanks to Brent. He stared down at her in wonder,
keeping her flush against his body.

“Cam.”
The way he said her name was intimate, meant for her ears alone. “I knew it was
you.”

“I
don’t know how,” Cam said. She reached up with her free arm and fisted the
material of his shirt, wanting to tear it away and feel him skin against skin.
Instead she worked free the first button, her fingers tripping over each other
in their eagerness.

His
head dipped low, his breath skating over her face. She could feel his muscles
bunching around her. “I’m always thinking about you.
Even
when I’m thinking about someone else I’m thinking about you.”

Cam
had the second button undone by now, and she laid her palm flat against his
heart, feeling the way that it raced. She looked up at him, feeling a devil’s-child
smile overtaking her face. “I believe you.”

He
cupped both of his hands around her face and kissed her, hard and then softly,
savagely and then tenderly. None of her previous inhibitions were present. She
pressed into him, gave her body over to him, kissed him back. Her hand traveled
from his heart to his shoulder, still under the material. She moaned at the
kiss and gripped him tighter. His hands moved. One arm wrapped around her to
pull her closer, and his hand ended up near her breast. He caressed her over
the cloth while his other hand snagged the hem of her gown and began to draw it
up past her knees.

Cam
broke the kiss and Brent froze, perhaps thinking that she wanted to run off
again. But she wasn’t about to run away with these flames still licking at her,
melting her from the inside and making her want to claw at her own skin. She
kissed the side of his face, the slightly prickly shadow over his jaw bone. She
moved lower, planting kisses up and down the column of his throat while his
hand trailed higher up her thigh.

“Cam?”

She
sighed against his skin, knew that he was asking her to be sure.

Are
you sure Cam?

The
desire in her was white-hot, more blinding than the Mississippi sun. She
reached for him, her body crying out in need, and he met that need. The
darkness swallowed them, keeping their secret by cradling them a night that
smelled faintly of rose petals.

***

Afterwards
the wind sighed above them, scattering fallen leaves on the roof of the gazebo.
Cam lay on her side, the fingers of her right hand intertwined with Brent’s.