Qaletaqa (2 page)

As much as I feared for this unknown woman’s
safety, I feared even more for Claire. Despite the bond’s
insistence that Claire was not meant for me, she was the only woman
I had ever loved, or could ever love. And I had left her
behind.

The mistakes I had made in the past week
weighed heavily on my broad shoulders. I had failed to react
quickly enough to keep Claire from drinking tea laced with a fatal
poison, which sent me off on a desperate race to find Claire’s Twin
Soul. I had trusted our tribe’s shaman, Quaile, when she told me
there was hope to keep the Twin Soul bond from forming between
Claire and her Twin Soul. When the bond had formed, I had made the
selfish decision to end my own life by giving it up to the one
creature that wanted it most, the Matwau. Only when Quaile revealed
the existence of one who knew how to rescue Claire from the Twin
Soul bond had I reconsidered my course.

That decision had been the one bright spot in
the past week. It had led me to Kaya and Samantha in Hano, Arizona.
The two sisters, so similar in passion, yet so different in
interests, had given me a most precious gift, a way to sever the
Twin Soul bond. That gift, however, had led to my biggest mistake,
leaving Claire behind in San Juan. I hadn’t even taken the time to
see her before leaving, too afraid that if I saw her I wouldn’t
have the strength to leave. I regretted that more than any other
decision in my life. I was aching to see her, to hear her voice, to
touch her soft copper skin, or run my fingers through her chocolate
colored hair.

My desires and memories threatened to take
over when I felt a subtle vibration against my thigh. The sensation
startled me, sending my motorcycle into a hazardous arch across the
lane before I recovered. It took me a few moments to place the
source. I had completely forgotten that Kaya’s cell phone was in my
jeans pocket. I had turned it on a few minutes ago to check the GPS
directions I had downloaded from the internet and make sure I was
still going the right way.

Three rings. I debated whether or not to
answer it. Four rings. It was most likely just Kaya checking to
make sure I was safe. Five rings. No one else had the number. Six
rings. The thought of hearing somebody else’s voice had me pulling
to the side of the road quickly. The seventh ring had just started
when I pulled the phone out of my pocket and flipped it open.

“Uriah?”

It wasn’t Kaya’s voice. I knew the voice
better than any other, but I couldn’t believe it was real. I
glanced down at the caller ID to be sure.

“Claire, is that you?”

I heard a deep sigh of relief. I wasn’t sure
whether it came from me or her.

“Uriah, I’m so happy to hear your voice,”
Claire said.

“How did you get this number?” I asked. There
were so many things I wanted to say to her, but for some reason,
that accusing question was the first thing that popped out of my
mouth.

“Where are you right now?” Claire asked.

I balked at answering. I had left her alone
with no explanation. What would she say when I told her I was
already hours away from San Juan and had no idea when I would make
it back? I had hid my actions from her before because I was afraid
of not being able to live up to any promises I might make, but I
could no longer hold out.

“I’m in Colorado. I’m on my way to rescue my
Twin Soul,” I said. I waited for her response.

“I know,” she said impatiently, “I mean
exactly
where are you? What mile marker?”

She knew? Those words astounded me. I tried
to shake off my confusion and recall the last mile marker I had
seen. “Fifty-three. I think I just passed mile marker
fifty-three.”

“Okay, I just passed fifty. I’ll be there in
two minutes. Don’t move!”

With that, the call ended. I held the phone
to my ear, unable to put it away. I couldn’t believe what she had
just said. Claire was only a few miles behind me? How had she known
where I was? How did she catch up to me so quickly? Slowly, I
lowered the phone. I folded it mechanically and put it back in my
pocket. I sat, straddling my motorcycle, the low hum of the bike’s
idling engine rumbling in my ears.

My finger moved to take the key out of the
ignition. A familiar roar had me jumping off the bike and turning
in the direction I had just come from. The highway was empty at
first. I waited, searching for the beat up, blue hull of my twenty
year old pickup. Every second heightened my anxiety. When the glint
of sun off metal announced her arrival, I started waving my hand in
the air. The truck swerved just after my motorcycle and skidded to
a gravel and dust filled stop. Claire burst out of the dust cloud
and ran to me.

I was already running and met her at the end
of the truck bed. Claire slammed into my body, her hands coming up
to my face immediately and pulling my lips to hers. I had
absolutely no thought as I held her. Every ounce of control I once
harbored abandoned me. I pulled Claire closer, twisting my hands in
her hair. Claire’s hands moved from my face to the back of my head,
closing any distance between us that might have existed. Promises
or not, I did not think there was anything that could hold back my
passion at that moment.

I was wrong.

Suddenly, Claire pushed me away. One hand
rose and came sailing toward me. The slap sent me back several
steps. The shock left me absolutely speechless.

“How dare you leave me behind without a word,
Uriah Crowe!” The anger in her voice was softened only by her eyes.
Her eyes were swimming with unshed tears. Her angry frown twitched
at the corner. “Do you have any idea what you’ve put me through the
last four days?”

Her question was answered, but not by her. I
felt my cougar companion, Talon’s, presence a split second before
images came flooding through my head. Flashes of the pain and fear
Claire had endured in my absence imprinted themselves on my mind
forever. I saw her gripping a door frame, hunched over in pain as
she gasped for each breath. I saw her huddled alone, crying and
begging for me to return. I knew that Talon was not telling me
these things from personal experience, but he was somehow reading
Claire’s thoughts and passing them on to me. Usually this ability
was restricted to me and Native American shaman. I had no idea how
he had managed to slip into Claire’s mind, but after viewing her
pain, I didn’t care.

Unable to bear the hurt in Claire’s face, or
my own guilt anymore, I took her in my arms. Silent teardrops
rained down my shirt. “I am so sorry, Claire. I never should have
left you behind.”

Claire sniffed and pulled back. “Why did you
do it?”

“I thought I was protecting you, but I
wasn’t. I was only protecting myself from any more pain. It was
selfish. I’m sorry. Can you forgive me?” I asked.

“Only if you promise never to do it again,”
she said. Her voice was serious. She was not playing some lover’s
game. She wanted a real, binding promise from me.

“I swear I will never leave you again, Claire
Brant. I couldn’t bring myself to do it even if I wanted to,” I
said.

Claire watched me, her eyes searching my
face. “Even when you reach your Twin Soul and rescue her from the
Matwau? Can you promise you won’t leave, even then?”

“You know?”

“Yes. I know that right now you’re searching
for her, and you’ll fight the Matwau to save her life. I know when
you rescue her, the Twin Soul bond will form between the two of
you,” she said. “What I don’t know is if you’ll still want me after
that.”

“Of course I’ll want you, Claire. Nothing
could ever change that. I promise I will never leave you again,” I
said. “How do know all of this?”

A deep frown crept onto Claire’s lips.
“Quaile told me.”

“You spoke to Quaile?” I asked, my hope
speeding its way through my veins. I left the potion to break the
Twin Soul bond with Quaile. I couldn’t give it to Claire directly
because of the risks of it harming her if she didn’t take it
willingly. If Claire spoke to Quaile, then she should have found
out about the potion.

My thoughts closed down and I let myself
feel, search for the bond that linked my precious Claire to her own
Twin Soul. For the second time in just a few minutes, I couldn’t
find my voice. I shouldn’t have felt anything. The absence of
consuming passion should have left her clean and pure again. The
fact that I could still feel it pulsing against me sent a tremor
through my body. I didn’t understand.

“The bond,” I said quietly, “I can still feel
it.”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“But why? Didn’t you…?” I stopped myself from
completing my question. She spoke to Quaile, but if for some reason
she never asked for the potion I couldn’t bring it up now. Samantha
warned me that if drinking the potion wasn’t Claire’s idea it might
hurt her. Frustration made it impossible for me to keep quiet.
“Didn’t you know why I left, what I went to find?”

Claire nodded, her hand coming up to my cheek
when I started shaking my head in confusion. “I know you went to
the Shaxoa, and that you came back with the potion. I asked Quaile
for it, but I didn’t drink it.”

“Why?” I asked, my heart threatening to
burst.

“Because I couldn’t, Uriah. Quaile lied to
you about what the potion would do.”

“No, Samantha said it would be fine as long
as you drank it willingly.”

“But she wasn’t sure,” Claire said softly.
“She didn’t know because she wasn’t trained by another Shaxoa. She
didn’t know what the potion would do, but Quaile did. She told me
the truth and gave me the choice.”

More lies. My hands clenched into fists at
the thought of that woman lying to me again. Her lies started this
whole mess. Would they never stop?

“What did she tell you?” I ask stiffly.

“The potion would break the bond, but only by
stealing my ability to love. I would be free of Daniel, but I would
have lost you too.” Claire’s face crumpled, her bottom lip
trembling as she tried to hold back tears. “I’m sorry, Uriah, but I
couldn’t drink it. I dumped it down the sink.”

Numb, I pulled her against my chest and
stroked her hair. “It’s okay, Claire. Of course you couldn’t drink
it.”

I spent days away from Claire to get that
potion, bruised and skinned my knuckles, bled for it, sacrificed
for a chance at freeing her, and it had all been for nothing.
Seeking penance, I opened myself up to the bond hovering around
Claire and forced myself to feel it. She asked me to break it, and
I failed. I had failed her again. Despair threatened to overcome
me, but some part of me held it back, recognizing a difference in
the bond. Afraid that I was imagining it, I held very still and
memorized the feel of the link trying to pull her away from me. The
last time I felt it the force of the bond, it had nearly crushed
me. It was so overpowering I could hardly breathe. Now, it merely
swirled around her like a light mist. It waited on the edge of
regaining its full force or being snuffed out forever. I was at a
loss for what caused the change.

“You didn’t drink the potion, but something
is different,” I said.

Claire nodded slowly. “Daniel came back to
San Juan.”

Instantly my muscles coiled, my eyes darting
around as if I expected him to have followed her here as well.
Claire’s hands slid up to my cheeks and brought my focus back to
her. The purity of her smile calmed my sudden panic.

“Quaile told me that I couldn’t break the
bond…” She paused, a flicker of something I couldn’t quite catch
lighting in her eyes before she continued. “She said I could
suppress it, though. I had to face Daniel and convince him I didn’t
love him. I had to do it on my own, make that choice from the
deepest part of my soul and convince Daniel of it.”

“How?” I asked in disbelief.

“I had to face Daniel and make him believe I
didn’t love him, convince him to walk away and let me go.” She
stared up at me, looking both ready to cry and dance at the same
time. “I did it, Uriah. I told Daniel about how you have changed me
and made me stronger because of your love. I told him how I wake up
every morning happy because I know you are a part of my life. I
told him…I told him that there was someone out there waiting to
make him as happy as you make me.”

I blinked at her in surprise. “And he
believed you?”

For a moment Claire looked offended that I
would question her, but then her expression softened. She opened
her mouth to say something. Her head shook as her lips pressed
together before opening again. “I let him kiss me,” she said
quietly. “I was the only way make him believe I didn’t love him. He
needed to feel the wrongness of the bond.”

“And he did?” I asked.

Claire nodded. “He let me go, and the bond
changed. It’s still there waiting for me to call it back, but for
now I’m as free as I can be. I’m here with you.”

“You’re here with me,” I said.

I stepped closer to her, bringing my hand up
to her face and running my fingers along her jaw. It was the way I
touched her when I wanted her to know just how much she truly meant
to me. Claire knew she gesture well. She closed her eyes and leaned
into the touch.

“I missed you so much,” Claire whispered.
“You have no idea how much I’ve missed you.”

Thanks to Talon, I had a very good idea. The
things he’d shown me threatened to bring me to tears. “I am so
sorry,” I said. “Quaile told me there was a chance to sever the
bond, and I leapt at it, but I was too afraid of failing you again
to tell you what I was doing.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered, Uriah. With you
by my side, I could have held on forever,” Claire said. “My love
for you is what convinced Daniel to let me go. It’s what keeps me
from bringing the bond back to the surface and taking the easy way
out.”

“I saw you, Claire, you were barely hanging
on. I don’t know how you managed to hold out. You never thought you
were strong, but you are. I hope you realize that now,” I said.