Dark Ice (2 page)

Lea giggled and kissed the center of his chest and Dane swore he felt a bolt of heat hit his heart. Unable to contain himself, he bent down and lifted her against him. She wrapped her legs around his waist, pressing her core against his jeans.

She kissed along his neck and he’d never been so hot in his life. Dane growled again and Lea kissed against the vibrations of his throat. She clung to him as he gently lowered them down against the warm pelts until she lay under him with her legs still held firm around his waist. She stopped kissing his throat, searched his eyes and kissed his lips with a force and passion that surprised him.

He met her enthusiasm. Her hands skimmed down his back and Dane broke the kiss and nuzzled against the softness of her neck. She ran her hands through his hair and clutched his head, leading him down to lave at her breasts. His hot tongue flicked across her hardened nipple and she arched up to him, moaning his name. The sound almost sent him over the edge. He shifted his hips against her, frustrated that he was partially clothed while she lay sweetly naked below him. Lea got the message and her fingers frantically reached for his jeans and opened them. Dane rolled off Lea, removed his jeans and threw them into the nearby snow. When he turned back to her, she smiled at him and opened her arms, the simple act sent desire beating through his system.

Lea reached over and ran a hand down his side and wrapped it around his shaft. He groaned as she grasped him and he moved over her once again. She wrapped her legs around his lean waist and pressed her core against his arousal. He closed his eyes and readied himself to slide within her.
 

Dane stopped, all his muscles ridged to the point of pain. Protective instinct came to the forefront of his mind and overtook all other emotion. The animal in him sensed it a split second before his human mind engaged. Evil. Behind them. Hissing he tried to launch himself away from Lea, to keep her from harm as he transformed. He couldn’t stop it now. His hand swept across her chest and he sent up a silent prayer to whatever god she worshiped that he hadn’t hurt her.

His senses heightened in an attempt to locate the source of danger. He couldn’t see it. The ice fields seemed as desolate as ever but a distinct, foreign scent—and that sixth sense that kept you alive in his violent world—told him they weren’t alone. Dane sniffed the air, the aroma of putrid rotting flesh penetrated his nostrils. But it was the underlying smell of a fresh kill that appealed to him at the same time it repelled his human mind.

Something was nearby, killing for pleasure. Dane could sense the delight in the kill. Was it an enemy or simply competition? Looking down at the snow, he saw unfamiliar footprints leading away from him and across the ice field, heading into town. Dane raised himself to his full impressive height and surveyed the horizons. A pale sun lightened the sky in the distance, but there was no sign of the intruder.

Dane turned back toward his den and his heart sank. Lea was gone, bare snow now sat where the pelts had comforted them. He wanted to throw his head back and howl in frustration. Instead he tempered his emotions. Damn fool, he thought. He knew better than to get his hopes up, even if it were only a dream.

He headed back toward the den, hoping he would be blessed with another dream before he was forced to go out and hunt. At the entrance, contrasting against the snow, lay the pendant Lea wore around her neck. The leather strap was broken and a drop of fresh blood tarnished the gleam of the silver medallion.

Dane touched it with his huge paw and immediately transformed. He gripped the necklace tight in his hand and cursed himself. The sweet tang of her blood filled his head.
 
He had hurt her when he changed, how much, he didn’t know.

~* * *~

Lea awoke with a jerk. She racked a shaky hand through her hair, moving the long brown tendrils from across her face. Taking a deep breath, she tried to calm her nerves and attempted to remember her dream. The feelings, the sensations of it were still running through her body. But her mind had already blurred the details. She remembered coldness all around her and then the feeling of warm heat and hard muscle. A man. A giant of a man with white blond hair and black soulful eyes. The same man who haunted her dreams since the night of the attack on the youth club. He was the only thing she could ever remember clearly, that and the feelings he evoked in her.

She glanced at the glowing red numbers on the clock. Only ten minutes before the alarm was set to shrill into the early hours of the morn. Sighing, she hit the alarm and switched on the bedside lamp. She slipped from the covers and gasped in shock. Why was she naked? Tearing the covers from the bed, she found her satin pajamas tangled in the sheets. She must have taken them off during the strange dream. Confused, her hand automatically went up to clasp the comfort of her pendant and met bare skin. The necklace was gone, but droplets of blood coated her finger. Frowning, she looked at where the pendant usually rested. Four very thin gashes crossed her chest, they were barely deep enough to draw blood and only small amounts of crimson marred her soft white skin. Had her necklace scratch her in the night? Or was it her clawing at her chest in her sleep, trying to find the pendant?

She flung the bedding to the floor in an attempt to find the silver necklace her mother had given her the morning she had become a woman. From that day to this, it had never been removed from her neck. Until now. Lea all but tore the bedroom apart trying to find it before moving to the bathroom. She searched everywhere, even shinning a flashlight down the drains in a vain hope. It couldn’t be too far away. She knew she had it on last night before she went to sleep. She wouldn’t panic, it had to be somewhere. She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself, knowing it wouldn’t do her any good to over-react. Sighing in resignation, Lea stepped into the shower. It wasn’t a good start to the day. A day that she’d been dreading for the last month.

Today would be the first time stepping back into the youth club since the evening of the attack. That night was still a blur of reality and fantasy. The last thing she remembered clearly was talking to Moon on the phone before terrifying fear crashed into her subconscious and kept her logical mind from seeing the details of what truly happened. That’s where her nightmares took over. Dreams of wolves, bloodshed, fear and a polar bear. And a devastatingly powerful and sexy man carrying her away to safety.

Lea turned the knob from “hot” to “cold” and shivered under the icy stream of water, allowing it to invigorate her before turning it off and stepping out of the shower. The phone rang in the living room and she grabbed a towel and let the answering machine pick it up.

“Hi, Lea. It’s Brent, I hope it’s not too early. I wanted to check and see if you’re ready for today. I’ll meet you out front of the club. You don’t have to do this alone. Hope you had a dream-free sleep. I’ll see you later, okay?”

Brent hung up and Lea heard the machine’s artificial voice state she had one new and one old message. She wasn’t surprised that Brent called to offer his support today. A fellow psychiatrist in the office building where she had relocated all her clients, he had offered his services as a professional courtesy. She had come to rely on their sessions to try and decipher her ever increasingly vivid dreams. Not to mention the trauma of the night.

She hung up the towel and headed toward the bedroom to dress. Making a detour she went to the answering machine and hit the replay button. She listened to Brent’s message again, though she hardly heard it. It was the second message she wanted to hear. Lea went into the bedroom and dressed as she listened to the message she replayed many times.

“Hi Lea, its Moon. Sorry I left so suddenly, but I had to take my chance at happiness before I lost it forever. I know you of all people would understand. I found Tynan and now we’re together and traveling around for a while. When we settle down, I’ll call and let you know where we are.”

Moon’s exasperated sigh, one that Lea had heard numerous times during their friendship, was quite pronounced.

“I wish you picked up instead of your machine. I need to know that you’re all right after the other night at the club. I know what happened was horrendous, but I hope you’re okay. I just want to give you a great big hug.”

A muffled male voice could be heard in the background and then Moon’s
  
‘Okay sweetie, just a second’.

“Honey, I have to go. Please be safe and happy. I’ll call you when I get the chance. Thanks for being my dearest friend when I needed one the most. Bye, Lea.”

The machine beeped at Lea and she came out of the bedroom, now fully dressed. Her hand hovered over the delete button, but she couldn’t do it. The message brought her a strange kind of comfort. It was a link to life before that fateful night and a reminder that it was real, not just a figment of her imagination. Moon had been on the phone with Lea when all hell broke loose. And it was comforting to know that even after such a traumatic night, her friend was able to find happiness.

Lea grabbed her handbag from the table next to the door, took a deep breath to ready herself for what was sure to be a challenging day, and headed down to the local café for breakfast. She sat with a coffee and a muffin and attempted to read the paper. The re-opening of the youth club was featured on the front page, the reiteration of what happened there more of a story than the club itself.

Lea scanned the pictures and tried to focus on the words but her mind kept wondering back to her dreams. To the man who was always there. The two seemed to be irreversibly linked together. She couldn’t think on one without the other being in the background of her mind.

“Morning, Lea.”

Startled out of her thoughts, Lea blinked and looked up as Brent stood next to her, a cup of coffee in his hand. He was shorter than Lea, a stocky man with sandy hair and an open friendly face. It was easy to see why he was a popular psychiatrist. He was the most unassuming man Lea had ever met.

“Good morning, Brent. What are you doing here?”

“I thought you might be here and came to give you some moral support before we go to the opening later.”

He helped himself to a seat and Lea reached over and squeezed his hand in gratitude. Softly, he ran a thumb across her fingers and she gently removed her hand and hoped she didn’t give him the wrong impression. It seemed she had, as he cleared his throat awkwardly.

“The police have come to the conclusion that the perpetrators of the club massacre were in the body count,” Brent said, tapping the newspaper as he spoke.

“I still can’t believe they think it was any of our kids who did this. I knew most of them, and I don’t think any of them had this in them.” She refused to even consider the possibility that any of the kids she knew could have committed such atrocities. What kind of psychiatrist would she be if she hadn’t seen any kind of forewarning of such hideously murderous tendencies?

The kind who believed there were wolves and polar bears in the club that night
.

The small voice of reason taunted Lea. Had her mind been trying to overshadow her logic in a vain attempt to shield her from the truth of the matter—that she hadn’t done her job properly? And now her mind had compartmentalized the reality and dreams.

“It’s hard to understand how anyone could massacre so many.” Brent studied her face, his light green eyes narrowing shrewdly. “You look tired. Did you have another dream last night?”

Lea took a sip of her coffee to avoid answering. In client privilege—an attempt to make sense of what had happened—she had told him everything. But last night’s dream was different. It was more realistic than the smattering of dreams that had come before. More personal. And she didn’t want to share it. Instinctually, her hand went up to toy with her pendent and she was only vaguely surprised to realize it still wasn’t there.

She started to answer when an uneasy coldness engulfed her. Her hand slipped, spilling her coffee in a dark stain across the newspaper. Brent jumped back as the scolding hot liquid splashed his hand. He pulled a wad of napkins from a nearby holder and started to soak up the coffee.

“Are you alright, Lea?”

His voice sounded distant as the chill seeped through her body. Lea swallowed and tried to calm herself. This had happened before, especially when the dreams came. She shivered, and it felt as if she were encased in ice. But she also felt safe, like something was trying to protect or warn her of some oncoming danger, rather than threatening her.

Then the feeling was gone as suddenly as it had come over her. She blinked in confusion.

“Oh, sorry, Brent. Let me get that,” Lea said, taking a napkin and pressing it to his hand. “I didn’t mean to burn you.”

The door to the café opened, bringing with it a sharp gust of chilly wind. Lea turned toward the door and a cold shiver, icier than anything she had yet encountered hit her as her eyes met with the vivid hatred of Moon’s ex-boyfriend. Sebastian’s handsome face twisted in an ugly scowl for a split second before he raised one perfectly defined eyebrow and slowly racked her with an appraising stare.

Lea took a step back and saw Sebastian smile before he turned toward the café’s counter. What Moon had seen in him, she would never know. Sure, he was physical perfection, but he was also evil incarnate. She tore her gaze from his back and a sudden slight movement outside caught her attention.

A handsome Japanese man stood by the window of the café, his long, sleek black hair immaculately tied in a ponytail. His dark eyes were watchful and she had the impression he would take in everything and miss nothing. He focused on her for an instant through the window, giving her the briefest nod of recognition, before his steely gaze settled on Sebastian.