Dragon Moon (26 page)

There were exclamations around the room.

“To start a war in your world?” Ross asked.

“To give to his soldiers so he can invade
this
world,” Kenna said in a rush. “That’s why I’m here. He wanted me to spy on you and report back to him, so he can prepare for an invasion. I . . . I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault,” Ross answered. “And now that you’ve alerted us, we can stop him.”

She gave Ross a desperate look. “You don’t know what you’re dealing with. He’s not human. He’s a monster that you can’t even imagine. He sends men to raid nearby cities and bring back slaves. A raiding party of his soldiers captured me about three months ago.”

She gulped and went on. “When he captures you, he decides if he can use you or if you’re too strong. If he thinks you’re a danger to himself, he kills you right away—by drinking your blood.”

Again, she heard exclamations from the people in the room.

“How many slaves does he have?”

“I . . . I think about three hundred. He gets them all together to watch him kill.”

There were gasps from the women in the room.

“I’m betting they would rebel against him if they got the chance,” Ross said.

“They’d be too afraid.”

“What if he was . . . disabled?”

She flapped her arm in frustration. “You don’t understand how much power he has.”

“I felt it. When I went into that dream with you,” Talon said.

Her breath hitched. “That was a dream. In real life, defying him is instant death. If you even could. I tried, after I came here. I thought maybe he was too far away to reach me, but I was wrong. Remember the migraine headaches I kept getting?”

“That’s what you called them. The symptoms didn’t quite fit. So I thought it was something else.”

“You were right. They came from the wards he put in my mind. When I tried to tell you about him, the pain made it impossible for me to speak.”

“The bastard.”

“We saw him, too,” Rinna said softly.

“But you don’t know what he is. Not really. Nobody can,” she said in a broken voice. “Unless they get close to him. And that means he’s enslaved you.”

When she shuddered, Talon slung his arm around her shoulder and pulled her against his side. “Don’t forget, you’re not alone. We’ll face this together.”

She looked like she could barely breathe, and he thought she’d had all she could take for now. “This is getting kind of intense,” he said. “Let’s go outside for a while. Just you and me.”

Her grateful look made his heart turn over.

“We’re going to take a few minutes,” he said. Without waiting for any replies, he ushered Kenna toward the door.

Outside, the sun was just setting.

“It’s so beautiful here,” she murmured. “He told me this world had . . . technology and machinery. But I’ve never seen so many trees in my life.”

“This is the kind of place a werewolf wants to live. In the woods.”

“You have room to run.”

“Yeah. And walk. Let’s go down toward the river.”

Hand in hand, they wandered down the hill.

“Do you swim there?” she asked, gesturing toward the shimmering surface.

“Mm-hmm. There’s a swimming hole.”

“Another term I don’t know. But I can guess. That place where the water looks deep?”

“Yes. We can have some fun down there.”

She gave him an apologetic look. “I can’t swim.”

“It’s not real hard. I’ll teach you. If you can’t float on your own, we’ll get you a noodle.”

Her brow wrinkled. “Like in chicken noodle soup?”

He laughed. “No. A long, thin plastic flotation device. You can pick the color. Do you want pink or purple or yellow?”

She smiled. “Any of those.”

“You rest your arms across it, and it holds you up.”

She nodded, then looked up at the forest. “Will you teach me the names of the trees?”

“Sure.” He pointed. “That’s a red oak. And that one’s a tulip poplar.”

“You tell by the shape of the leaves?”

“Right. And sometimes the bark, or special things.” He indicated a black locust. “That’s got thorns on the trunk and branches, so don’t try to climb it.”

“Okay.”

“There’s a lot I want to show you.”

“You already have.”

He was enjoying the relaxed conversation when he felt a jolt of tension go through her.

“What?”

“Great Mother!”

“What’s wrong?”

“Evil power,” she gasped.

As she spoke, she started running back the way they’d come. He was right behind her, catching up as she ran toward the house.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

AFRAID THAT SHE was too late already, Kenna pounded across the porch and into the living room, feeling the terrible power surging as she entered the confined space. She expected to find a bunch of people running away in all directions.

Instead, she saw something that confused her for a moment.

Everyone was gathered in a circle, holding hands, around something that glowed green and malevolent in the low light of the room.

The terrible energy Kenna felt was coming off the thing in waves.

Renata looked up as Kenna slammed into the room, followed by Talon.

“You’d better join us,” she said in a strangely calm voice.

“What the hell is that?” Talon shouted.

“The talisman,” Kenna gasped. “Vandar sent it here with me. You saw it in my knapsack. The green thing. Only now . . . it’s grown so much bigger.”

“Yes.”

“It’s going to explode,” Renata said in the same matter-of-fact voice. “Unless we stop it.”

“Run,” Kenna gasped. “Get out of here.”

“We can’t,” Renata answered. “We’re containing it, and we need you and Talon.”

Kenna glanced at him, wanting to order him out of the house. Maybe he saw that on her face because he stepped forward and reached for Rinna’s hand, clasping it tightly and leaving a space for Kenna.

Her chest was so tight she could hardly breathe as she stepped into the circle, between Logan and Talon.

When Talon clasped her hand, it helped ground her.

“He must have planned to destroy me if I somehow got free of the compulsion to do his bidding,” she whispered.

“Yes,” Renata answered. “Lucky for us, Antonia felt it stirring. She told us where to find it, and we dug it out of the knapsack.”

“Why did it wait so long?” Rinna murmured.

“Maybe it had to . . . build up enough energy.” Kenna swallowed hard.

“I don’t think we can stop it,” Renata said, “but I think you can get it out of here. You’re the one with the telekinetic powers.”

She gasped. “Move it—with my mind?”

“Yes.”

“It’s too . . . heavy,” she gasped, although she knew that wasn’t quite the right word. It wasn’t that large, but the power in its depth weighed it down.

“You don’t have to do it alone. We’ll help you,” Renata said.

Kenna wanted to scream that she couldn’t pick up the damn thing. Not with her mind. And now that she was in the room, she knew it sensed her. It was focusing on her, making her feel weak and helpless.

“That’s what he wants,” Renata said. “Don’t let him win.”

Kenna clenched her teeth. She had come so far and gained so much, and Vandar still wanted to take it all away from her.

Well, she
wouldn’t
let him win the fight. More importantly, she
wouldn’t
let him hurt all these other people who had come here to help her. If they died because of her, that would be the worst tragedy of all.

Renata gave her an encouraging look, and she felt strength pouring into her from everyone who surrounded the talisman, but she could feel it probing their defenses, preparing to break through.

It was like a bomb she had seen in a movie on television. Only it had a core of intelligence that Vandar had given it.

She had to get it out of here before it detonated. “Where should I put it?”

Talon supplied the answer. “The swimming hole.”

He looked around the group, then inclined his head toward the west. “It’s down the hill about an eighth of a mile.”

Pretending a calm she didn’t feel, Kenna closed her eyes, imagining that she was wrapping her hand around the green glowing talisman. Even though she wasn’t really holding it, she felt a burning pain in her palm and fingers, and she knew Talon felt it, too, because he winced.

When she pulled the imaginary hand back, he shook his head. “Do it!”

She kept her eyes squeezed tight as she reached out and grasped the evil thing again. As she did, she could feel the others pouring power into her. It was a warming sensation, one she had never experienced before, not even when she had been in school. A team of friends around her all working for a common cause.

But were they strong enough?

Yes,
a voice whispered in her mind, and she knew it was Renata, urging her on.

Kenna felt something inside her swell as she wrapped an invisible shield tightly around the talisman. Yet at the same time, she felt the thing churning up energy within itself, burning her flesh as it struggled to burst through the container she had created.

She knew she had to hurry and get it out of the room before it was too late, but at the same time she knew that if she acted too quickly, she wouldn’t have the energy she needed from the group.

With a prayer to the Great Mother, she struggled to judge the right moment.

The talisman decided the issue for her. She felt it flare up, and she realized that if she delayed, it would blow up in the middle of the circle.

Ignoring the burning sensation, she tightened her mental grip on the wicked object.

“Now!” she shouted as she tugged on the talisman, pulling it closer to herself, seeing it actually move across the table. The heat surged, and she almost lost her grip. But they were all dead if she let go. Like the baseball pitchers she had seen on television, she wound up the invisible arm that held the thing and hurled it away from her into the darkness outside the house. As she did, in her mind’s eye, she focused on the place where the river widened and deepened.

Kenna’s vision was filled with bright splotches that made it almost impossible to see the circle of faces staring at her. The buzzing in her ears blocked out sound. And she felt her body trembling violently with the effort to control the power that the others gave her.

But through it all, her mind was steady as she pictured the talisman hurtling through the air, then landing with a tremendous splash in the deepest part of the river where it sank below the surface.

Was that reality or only what she hoped to accomplish?

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

THE LODGE SHOOK as a tremendous explosion rocked the ground outside.

Dropping Logan’s and Talon’s hands, Kenna ran toward the door.

He grabbed for her, but she darted past him and down the hall. Outside, the night was black, but she could see a green glowing plume of water shooting into the air. It fell back to the river, and then there was silence.

“What happened?” she whispered as the others clustered around her.

“You did it,” Renata said in a voice that rang above the buzzing in Kenna’s ears.

She opened her mouth to speak, but she was drowned out by the voices of the others congratulating her.

“I . . . I didn’t know what I was doing,” she stammered as she thought back over the past few minutes.

Rinna laughed, dispelling the nervous energy. “That doesn’t matter. You got that blasted thing away from us before it killed everyone.”

Kenna sucked in a sharp breath, nodding. As she pictured that green jet of water again, her legs wouldn’t hold her up, and she was grateful that Talon caught her arm and helped her back down the hall to a sofa.

Sitting beside her, he turned her toward him and held her tightly, stroking his hands over her back and shoulders as she struggled to control her trembling.

“You were magnificent,” he murmured.