Night of the Hawk Read online

  As he’d long done when seeking guidance, he worked on emptying his mind of the past and opened it to the future. Just the same, his body occasionally fought his orders. No matter that his need to make himself receptive to whatever wisdom his spirit might gift him with in the wake of what had happened at dawn was urgent—he still felt her on his skin. His nostrils remembered her smell, and his ears knew the sound of her voice. Most of all, his cock clung to memories of where it had been housed last night.

  “Leave,” she’d told him as thunder snapped and lightning charged through the room. “I don’t want to talk, don’t want to think. I just need you gone.”

  He’d needed to be gone just as much, if not more. Separation, he’d told himself as he’d made his way back to his pickup, would return him to sanity, but though he’d fallen asleep a few minutes after reaching home, escape had lasted only a brief time. He’d awakened with an erection and memories of a frenzied fucking, not with memories of his failed attempt to get the hearing officer to listen to him.

  Hawk Spirit, I need your guidance. If you were there when my father and uncle came to me at dawn, you know what they want me to do. But they spoke out of fear and a determination as old as time. Their pleas—I can’t listen only to them.

  The sound of the ocean attacking the massive rocks dotting the surf let him know he was reaching his destination, but even as he began the final climb to Spirit’s Overlook, he remembered the look in his father’s eyes as he spoke of dedication and loyalty. Instead of going straight home last night, his father and two others had gone to the town’s only bar because they’d guessed that was where the reporters would congregate. They’d been right. And it had taken only a couple beers before the reporters had begun talking, not just about their reaction to the public hearing, but more importantly about their suspicions regarding Smokey Powers’s reason for being there.

  That’s why his father and the others had come to see him so early. Afraid she’d probe where she had no right probing, they’d all but begged him to silence her as others had been silenced before.

  I can’t, he told Hawk Spirit. Not the way they want me to.

  The old way had long been one of violence. He’d once accepted it because he’d been raised here and knew nothing else, but he was no longer an impressionable and obedient child. He was an adult, a man. A man who’d had sex with the enemy.

  They’re right. She’s dangerous. She can’t yet know everything, but if she’s as good as the other reporters say she is, the time will come when she exposes us. Unless I stop her.

  It had to be him. He was the chief’s son, heir to responsibility and tradition.

  Hawk Spirit’s human servant.

  The sound of rocks and waves locked in ageless battle grew louder. He’d always found peace looking down and out at the vast Pacific, but today raw energy raced through his veins. Much as he wanted to believe last night’s sex was responsible, he knew better. Today’s energy wasn’t any different from what he’d been feeling, and battling, since NewDirections’s directors had declared their intention to build their obscene subdivision.

  His world, his life, was under attack! Whether man or animal was responsible for his mood, he’d fight the danger with every bit of strength in him.

  Spirit, I want to come to you as a child. To wait for you to direct me. I trust your wisdom; I always have. But I’m not a child, and the man I’ve become—

  Pain slashed at his palms. Looking at his hands, he realized he’d been digging his nails into himself hard enough to draw blood. When he licked at a bloody indentation, the taste more than fascinated him, it drew him into its circle. Predators thrived on the taste of blood; death meant they’d live.

  Was that what he was becoming? A predator? Had Hawk Spirit chosen him because he held the capacity for violence, even death deep inside him? If that was true, the time would come when he stopped resisting and would do whatever it took to defend this sacred land.

  Even if it meant killing the woman he’d left his seed in last night.

  I need your guidance, Spirit. It has always served me well and shown me the path I must walk.

  A scent that wasn’t of the ocean and surrounding forest reached him, and he immediately recognized it as her smell. Somehow it had followed him here.

  Don’t command me to kill her! Whatever threat she represents, it can’t justify ending her life!

  Shaken by his heartfelt prayer, he stepped to the cliff’s edge and gazed down into fog so thick he could barely make out the foaming surf as it crawled over sand and driftwood. For a moment, just a moment, he believed he was going to step into the void. Then he heard a sound.

  Recognizing the lonely call of a hawk, he turned his back on the ocean and peered into the forest. After a moment, something drew his gaze upward.

  There. Drifting weightless with the clouds as background. A hawk. His hawk?

  No matter how many times Hawk Spirit had revealed himself to Mato, he continued to find it a humbling experience, and although it appeared only as a small and distant bird, this morning was no different.

  The raptor was riding on unseen currents, looking weightless and free of human burdens. Envy settled in Mato—that and acceptance. He had no doubt his spirit had heard his plea and was answering in the way of all spirits. Shrugging off Smokey’s essence, he lifted his arms and greeted what was both a simple living creature and the embodiment of something ancient, powerful, and passionate.

  Thank you, my guide and wisdom. Whatever your expectations of me, I open myself to them and will hear them with an open heart. He couldn’t bring himself to admit that for once he might not be capable of following orders. Even when his actions brought him sleepless nights, he’d always done what was expected of him, but to take the life of the woman he’d mated with?

  No, not mated. Simply fucked.

  The bird now reminded him of a fall leaf caught in a playful breeze. It drifted one direction and then the other, wings spread wide, small body resting between them, head slowly turning in all directions as it took in its universe.

  How he envied the creature!

  After a long and aimless time during which Mato’s neck ached, the killing bird ceased to allow the wind to direct his movements. Now it stared at something he couldn’t see, and a tension that hadn’t been there before wound through it, causing Mato to rub his eyes. As a young boy, he’d learned to embrace Hawk Spirit’s ways of imparting his wisdom, and now was no different. When the time was right, his spirit’s message would be revealed.

  Maybe Spirit was guiding him in increasing his awareness of the changing weather by playing in the gentle breeze. If that was so, he’d express his gratitude for the end to the rain because much as this land depended on it, he was weary of the claustrophobia that accompanied a coastal storm.

  No, not the weather.

  Expanding his lungs, Mato pulled sea air deep into him as the hawk headed in the direction he’d been looking. Tension in the predator made Mato wonder if Spirit was hunting prey.

  Was that the message Spirit intended he understand? Smokey Powers was his prey? An enemy to be vanquished?

  Not for the first time he was still trying to wrap his mind around this idea when he spotted a small, dark shape flying toward his spirit. A few more seconds, and he was positive he was looking at another hawk. The second wasn’t as large as his or embodied with the supernatural, but there was nothing tentative about its approach. Obviously the newcomer didn’t fear Spirit.

  Female.

  Fists and jaw clenched, Mato blocked out the rest of the world. The graceful movement of wings put him in mind of a dance, and yet he now acknowledged a darkness to what he was seeing, a finality. The female’s movements slowed and nearly stopped, making him wonder if she wanted something else than the fate that had been handed her. He might have felt sorry for her if not for the way his spirit approached the female. Spirit was single-minded, determined. He knew what he needed and wanted from the newcomer; nothing would stop him
.

  Closer and closer, Spirit riding a wind current above the female. Her waiting, watching and waiting.

  And then Spirit folded his wings against his body and dove. Even from down on the earth, Mato heard the wind rake past the predator’s body and heard the female’s heart race.

  Time slowed and sped at the same time, the inevitable stretching out until Mato could barely stand the tension. Suddenly Spirit slammed into the smaller bird. For an instant they appeared as a single intertwined shape, but then the female broke free, half flying, half falling. Instead of pursuing her, Spirit hovered overhead until nearly a hundred feet separated them. Then the unearthly predator attacked again with outstretched claws and open beak. The female’s scream was both high and weak.

  The second collision sent the female spinning downward. Feathers flew. She seemed incapable of stopping her fall, making Mato wonder if Spirit had fatally wounded or killed her, but before she struck the ground, Spirit again caught up with her. This time when he extended his talons, there was a beauty to the movement, as though he was determined to cradle his prey.

  They were together again, united in a way Mato barely comprehended. He expected the female to scream again, but she didn’t. Instead the two flew just above him, Spirit clutching the smaller bird and thus controlling her movements. Her legs dangled, and her wings drooped. At the same time, she kept her head up, and her gaze was locked on her captor. Her killer.

  Back when he had accepted that a hawk was his spirit creature, he had taken it upon himself to learn as much as he could. Hawks mated on the ground or in trees, not in flight, and yet something about what he was seeing reminded him of the sex he’d had with Smokey Powers. He’d taken her, forced his strength on her and rendered her all but helpless, and he’d reveled in the sense of control.

  Just as Spirit was doing.

  What are you telling me? he begged. Are you showing…You want me to handle the reporter the way you did the female?

  Control her. Master her. Otherwise she’ll destroy everything.

  On the verge of telling Spirit he couldn’t sink his talons into a human being, he clenched his teeth. A surge of anger against anything or anyone who jeopardized what was part of his people’s heritage filled his heart and lungs, even his cock. This land had been entrusted to his ancestors by the ancient ones. It was his responsibility to safeguard the land, vegetation, and all living things so he could turn everything over to his children and grandchildren as his elders had done for him.

  Nothing would stand between him and duty! Nothing and no one.

  Even if it meant he had to become a predator.

  If?

  The single word slipped into him, where he turned it around and around in his mind until the truth could no longer be denied. Because Spirit had embraced him, he already was a predator. And he would soon become a captor and master.

  Control her. Change her.

  He had no choice.

  8

  Thank goodness for a little sunshine. Granted, she wasn’t about to break out her bathing suit and suntan lotion, but watching the fog disappear had lifted her mood. Or maybe, she allowed, being able to see out the cabin window to the lush, deep green vegetation had helped her put last night into perspective.

  That’s what that damn stupid sex had been about—a combination of night and rain and this small, isolated cabin. If she’d been in her Portland condo with noise from the nearby boulevard warring with the music from her stereo, she would have been in her right mind. She sure as hell wouldn’t have spread her legs for tall, dark, and strange.

  When would he return? And when he did, would he want more of what he’d gotten in the dark? Maybe he considered a roll in the hay the reasonable and logical reward for letting her borrow some of his photographs.

  Well, he was wrong! It wasn’t going to happen again!

  “No, it won’t!” she protested when an inner voice mocked her decision. “I’m not an idiot.”

  Okay, the idiot label was up for debate, thanks to the way she’d acted last night. The thing was, what she’d managed to forget the moment her clothes were off, but wasn’t about to repeat today, was that she might well be better on Mato’s good side because he was key to getting the information she needed for her article.

  Ah, yes, the article, or, more accurately, a series of investigative pieces.

  Shoulders squared, she sat at the table beneath the living room window and picked up a copy of a twenty-year-old newspaper clipping. BODY FOUND: COUGAR ATTACK SUSPECTED the headline read. The short and not particularly informative article revolved around a few quotes from the county sheriff, who’d explained that hikers had found the body of a man missing for several months. Given the corpse’s condition, a definite cause of death was going to be difficult. Though thinking about the truth behind the words had turned her stomach, she’d picked through the article and had highlighted the sheriff’s last quote. “My department’s been looking for the deceased ever since he disappeared. He’d been identified by a couple hunters as the man they spotted near the logging road where the Hull fire started.”

  The Hull fire had burned over twenty thousand acres of timberland.

  Pain stabbed at her temples, causing her to rub them. When she’d first became interested in the story, she’d spent a long and frustrating afternoon at the county offices in the town of Farrel, where newspaper archives were stored, looking for follow-up articles on the suspected cougar attack, but she hadn’t found any. When she’d asked about it, the none-too-helpful employee had pointed out that what happened in Storm Bay was hardly front-page news. The fire had been the big news, not some fool hiker.

  The next morning she’d gone to the sheriff’s department and asked for access to their records of the man’s death, only to be told she needed a court order. As she was leaving, none too calm and collected, a clerk had whispered that records from twenty years ago were either hopelessly disorganized or missing, thus the stonewalling. According to the clerk, the former sheriff’s incompetence had led to his firing, and his replacement had given priority to ending the good-old-boy hiring system, not improving record keeping.

  So where did that leave her? Nosing around until she found someone who remembered what had happened after the body was found and who was willing to talk to her? No wonder she had a headache. Finding someone around here who’d tell an outsider anything worth writing down wasn’t going to be easy.

  She wasn’t going to give up, damn it, she wasn’t! There was a story here. One hell of a story. The kind that got her reporter juices flowing and sent chills up her spine.

  An unexpected creak outside made her start. Jumping to her feet, she hurried to the door. Thank goodness she’d locked it after Mato had left last night.

  Mato?

  Heart stumbling, she cursed the lack of a window that would let her know who or what was out there. If Mato knocked, would she let him in? Instead of the expected rap, however, someone was trying to turn the knob. Alarmed, she leaned against the door. “Who is it?” she demanded, trying to sound strong and determined.

  “Open up.”

  Mato. After last night, she’d recognize that voice anywhere. “What do you want?”

  “Open.”

  Who was he to be issuing orders—other than her lover. “You can’t just come storming in. I told you I didn’t want to be around you.”

  “Don’t lie.”

  Mouth suddenly dry, she nearly back stepped before forcing herself to stand her ground. “What makes you think I’m lying?”

  His lack of an answer really was an answer, wasn’t it? she reluctantly concluded. She wouldn’t have done the things she had with him in the bedroom if she wanted no part of him in her life. Where were the ground rules, anyway? Whatever she’d been told or had learned about the interplay between the sexes, nothing covered this scenario. “What do you want?” she finally came up with.

  “Let me in.”

  No! Do you think I’m stupid? Before she was forced to a
nswer her question, a possibility occurred to her. Even with the way she’d shown him the door—how could she have done anything different, given the way her nerves had shredded—he hadn’t taken back his promise to let her borrow some of his photographs. He’d brought them and was making her pay for last night’s behavior by not telling her.

  And yet when she unlocked the door and stepped back, pictures had only a little to do with the gesture.

  He had on clean, dry clothes. Although it was a bit cool, he wasn’t wearing a jacket, which meant only a brown T-shirt stood between her and his nudity. The jeans were twins of what he’d worn yesterday, his boots just as well used as the probably still wet ones. Now that rain no longer plastered his hair to his scalp, she couldn’t help but note how thick it was. Not only did he have a full head of hair, but the strands were anything but fine.

  He’d shaved.

  Trying not to think about what it would feel like to run her fingers over his smooth jawline, she looked to see if he was carrying something. He wasn’t. More uneasy than she wanted to admit, she clutched the doorknob. If he made a move she didn’t want him to, could she slam the door into him?

  Yeah. Right.

  “I don’t know what I’m supposed to say,” she started and then chastised herself for letting him throw her off balance. Hadn’t her career taught her how to control a conversation? “I appreciate the personal visit, but a phone call would have sufficed. I’m assuming this is about the pictures. Believe me, I’m looking forward—”

  Ignoring her, he pushed past her and strode over to the desk at which she’d been sitting. Thinking to intercept him before he got his hands on her material, she followed, but he planted himself between her and the desk in a wordless warning not to try to stop him. Even though the next few seconds might spell the success or failure of her mission, she couldn’t bring herself to yank the papers out from under his gaze.

  Standing this close to him was a bad idea, bad and exciting. Her thoughts and more spun back to last night and fast, hard sex. She’d never climaxed that quickly, never! And she certainly had never thrown herself at a man. Feeling his body heat gave her some idea of how the impossible and carnal had taken place. He gave off—what, an aura, a presence, raw sexuality? There wasn’t a single inch of him that didn’t say male—more than just male, animal-man, more like it.