Free Enlightened (Love and Light Series) by Melissa Lummis Page A

gaze to the sky. 500 years had not prepared him for what he felt at that moment—the overwhelming urgency and need to go back in the house right now, to her. Taking a drag, he glanced back at the little house; the bedroom lights were still on and his sharp hearing picked up the women’s soft voices. Rachel reassured Loti that she was fine and that the nest at Marksville would help her figure this out. Wolf assured her they were different, she said. How? Loti asked. Wolf closed his eyes and inhaled—he could still smell her. Her unique female scent laced with fear and arousal, her blood salty and sweet, and the something else he couldn’t identify. He had smelled something like this before, but only faintly from another woman; it hadn’t been a one-hundredth of what he smelled now. This was so much stronger, yet delicate. It called to him, coaxing him to return, to stay, to stop, to not walk away this time.
    He opened his eyes, looking down at his hands. His fingers thrummed with the sensation of soft skin over firm muscles. And what was that damn jolt every time he touched her? And the other thing? Squashing the barely smoked Camel under his boot, he pinched off the filter and sprinkled the uncharred tobacco in his palm. Holding some between thumb and forefinger, he faced the east, kissing his fingertips.
    “Spirits of the east,” he said, extending his pinched fingers, then sprinkling the tobacco. He turned to the right. “Spirits of the south.” He repeated the gesture, addressing each cardinal point in the same way, then lifted another bit to the sky. “Father Sky.” He knelt, touching the ground. “Mother Earth.” His eyes closed, and he touched his chest. “Hear my plea. This creature needs your guidance.” No thoughts in his head, he waited, his spine still crawling. Longing surged through his heart and mind, palpable, pulsing, and heavy.
    Flinching, he opened predator eyes. He leapt into the air, racing through the woods like a wraith, his feet barely touching the ground. A blur in the dark, his humanity faded away. The vampire instinct led him to the acrid scent of burning wood and meat, and the sweet smell of human blood. He covered two miles in under 30 seconds. He zipped to a stop ten yards from the firelight, where he held unnaturally still, watching the small group and listening to their conversation.
    “I’ll bet you could rig up the batteries two at a time,” one man said.
    “Oh, yeah. It’s not hard to do,” the second man responded, taking a swig off a bottle and passing it.
    Wolf sniffed. Honey whiskey.
    “Especially now,” the woman who took the bottle said. She drank and handed it over. “Well, we can always figure something out.”
    Tea tree oil, sour milk? Yogurt , Wolf corrected himself. And mother’s milk. His pupils dilated.
    “How much does one cost?”
    Lavender and eucalyptus and honey.
    “About $550 for the actual generator, but there’s the tower and the battery bank, and the batteries themselves.”
    The conversation continued, but Wolf wasn’t listening anymore, his focus on the lactating woman. There were four people sitting around a low fire, and the small breathing sounds of young children came from two big tents twenty yards away. Quite young. Urine. Breast milk. He turned his attention back to the adults, specifically the dark-haired woman, the mother, who was standing up and stretching.
    “I need to pee,” she announced. “Where are the headlamps, Max?”
    Max pressed something into her hand as she bent to kiss him lightly on the mouth. Adjusting the headlamp he’d given her, she headed for the trees, and Wolf stepped silently behind an oak as she picked her way along a fresh-cut path. She ducked into a copse of Russian olive trees and out of sight. Wolf balled his hands into fists and ground his back teeth together as the smell of her blood, laced with mother’s hormones and milk, taunted him. His fangs clicked down. He waited for the woman to put her