Free Ghost Stalker by Jenna Kernan

plot.”
    “He attacked John Painter.”
    “Who had a knife to my throat. My mother handed me over to him as bait, right after she told me she wouldn’t raise another monster like him.”
    Jessie gasped. “Sweet Mystery. She tried to kill her own son.”
    He sat there, defiant and proud. Only his eyes revealed the agony.
    “I’m so sorry, Nick.”
    “I don’t want your pity.”
    “It wasn’t your fault,” she insisted.
    “Wasn’t it? He never would have come if not for me. He died saving his only son. He knew it was a trap. He still came—for me.” Nick’s eyes glittered and he looked away. “He fought well.”
    She was shocked speechless. She’d never heard this, and here, in his dream, she knew he told her the absolute truth.
    “He brought me to his trusted friend, a member ofhis pack. Then he turned to face them, giving us time to escape.”
    “They killed him.”
    He nodded. “Gone because he once loved a woman who used that power to destroy him.”
    No wonder he had such feelings about love and marriage, with such a tragic history as his first lesson. If he kept people away, they couldn’t use him. What an empty existence.
    “Did you ever see your mother again?”
    His eyes glittered with sorrow and rage. “I was raised by my own kind.”
    She could not think of what to say. “Not all love affairs end so badly.”
    His response was flat and cold. “Especially if they are brief.”
    “It was a bloody war.”
    “Not so bloody as the one waged between a woman and man.”
    “If you don’t approve of love, then why were you with those women?”
    “I make love to them. There’s a difference.” Something caught his attention. “There he is.”
    Cold fear washed her and she moved behind Nick, seeking protection even as her mind told her she could escape.
    There on the rise, standing on a rock outcropping, was a large male timber wolf, the largest she had ever seen. His left ear was tattered. She recognized him instantly—Fleetfoot.
    “Make him go away,” she whispered, gripping his sleeve.
    The wolf turned and disappeared. She knew it was only a creation of Nick’s mind, but still it terrified her. “He’s gone.”
    She stayed where she was, trembling and clinging as if this were her nightmare. He gathered her up in his arms, cradling her tenderly. She had the irrational feeling that he would protect her and keep her safe—that she was home.
    “What did he do to your family?” Nick asked.
    She had heard the story so often, she could imagine that dreadful day. “He attacked my mother’s family riding with Chivington at Sand Creek. My grandmother was killed and her father and his three brothers. They were just boys. My mother escaped to the river. She pretended to be dead, lying among the bodies of her clan. She saw everything. It has shaped her life, her beliefs.”
    “She hates my kind.”
    Jessie nodded.
    “I can’t blame her. But the truce has lasted. There have been no more attacks on men by my people.”
    “Yes, but her distrust runs deep.”
    “I understand that.”
    There were many Inanoka with Fleetfoot, but he was the most savage, sparing none, from the youngest to the oldest.
    “After that, we left our clans and moved to live among the humans. They married humans to give their children a better chance at survival.”
    “Did you witness this?”
    “No. But Fleetfoot’s name was mentioned often. He was the bogeyman of my childhood.”
    “Yet he was butchered defending his son.”
    He held her, this descendant of her enemy.
    “Well, he is gone from this world and will never come again. Hush now.”
    She did not know she was weeping until he lifted her chin and wiped away the tracks of her tears.
    He held her with a combination of contained strength and tenderness that made her heart ache.
    She had a moment’s chagrin until she recalled he would not remember her intrusion into his dreams. But it gave her a freedom she had never fully considered.
    A rapid firing of