He continued to drive, conscious that the road seemed to veer north, away from the mountains. Probably wound up and around, meeting up with B23. Yet as he followed the road, he felt it. Power. A connection to something vast, something he hadn’t felt since the government had enhanced his psychic skills and made him the monster he was today.
His brain cramped, then opened, and Jack felt as if butterflies kissed his skin from his head to his toes. Desire, hunger, and need poured through him, as did the urgent need to find Heather before the big bad came and took her away for good.
Big bad?
Everything around him seemed hazy, and he had the insane feeling the car was about to go over the edge of a cliff and never stop falling. Yet the wheels continued to turn, and Jack blinked to clear his vision. Trees, more trees, a dirt trail, the bright blue sky overhead. Kind of normal.
He didn’t understand what the hell was going on, but then he turned around a bend and hit the brakes, hard. A bright, cheery little town bustling with people popped up from out of nowhere.
The dirt road ended just in front of him, turning into a cavalcade of cobblestone leading him right to—her. On a fucking silver platter. Seated at an outdoor bistro surrounded by what looked like half the town, Heather Stallbridge enjoyed a cup of something steaming hot.
He got out of the car and stared, trying to comprehend his new circumstance. People laughed and talked in German, not a word spoken in English, and he had to look around him again to see if he stood on a movie set or in an authentic Bavarian town. A few of the older people wore long dresses and lederhosen, while the younger crowd dressed in jeans and light jackets to ward against the cold even now turning warmer, like a brisk fall day despite the snowy mountains to the south.
Jack couldn’t understand the increase in temperature, especially since the elevation had remained constant while he drove. What the hell had he happened into?
For over two goddamn weeks, he’d been trying to find Heather Stallbridge, and she suddenly appeared like magic in the middle of nowhere? His gut started to churn, the joy all around him now mired in suspicion, danger, and a disconcerting sense of nearby power.
Under his boots, something stirred. The ground trembled, though no one seemed to feel it but him. Energy twined through the rubber soles of his boots, past his wool socks into his heels, and then spread throughout his body.
As one, the people in town stopped and turned to stare at him.
What the fuck?
He swallowed a moan as pleasure enveloped him. The energy swirled up his legs, centered in his groin, and continued up into his chest until it finally settled in his brain. He felt his body grow taller, becoming stronger, ready to face any threat. And the living power inside him approved.
The townsfolk seemed frozen, and then in the span of a heartbeat, they returned to their business, talking and laughing as if it this Stepford moment was normal.
But the woman… Heather didn’t smile as widely as she had before. She seemed spooked and refused to look at him, which bothered him to no end. He shoved his hand in his pocket and fingered the picture, intent on finding out what it was about her that made him want her so damn much.
She had to be like Owen. He’d never been able to put his finger on it, but he knew Owen had skills—psychic skills. The shit stolen from his warehouse that Jack’s team continued to recover was cursed, possessed, or paranormal in some way or another. It figured Owen and his baby sister would be outside of normal too.
Jack stared hard at her, unable to look away from the golden head nodding at something a woman said. Even from this distance, he knew he could drown in her gaze, that the deep green of her eyes would reach out and soothe all the aches and loneliness he kept buried inside.
He blinked and took a step back, not sure why he’d gone so introspective. Jack didn’t do emotions other than caution, like, and lust. And he wished to hell he felt nothing for this woman.
He had to figure out what he’d gotten himself into, or rather, what she’d stumbled over. But not now, and not with an audience motioning for him to join them. He moved back into his car, parked a block down the street next to a shiny black Mercedes, and found the closest pub for something to drink.
The bartender, slid him the best beer he’d ever had in his life. Jack finished it in record time and ordered another. One way or another, he’d get Heather back to Owen and out of his life…and his pocket. He took out the photo, swore as he glanced at it again, then repocketed it and took another swig of beer.
HEATHER HAD HOPED the guy wouldn’t approach her, though he seemed the type to ignore good sense. Huge, menacing, like an animal with a thorn in its paw, the stranger exuded danger the way Gretchen, next to her, exuded chatty nervous energy. And where the hell had the stranger come from, anyway? She hadn’t seen anyone new in town since she’d arrived two weeks ago.
This place put the W in weird. She’d been trying to leave, with or without her book, but every time she managed to get near the gate through which she’d entered, one of the townspeople found her and somehow managed to convince her to stay. And that main road where the new guy had shown up? Fifty feet from where she sat, around the bend, it dead-ended in the forest. So where had the giant come from? It was like a bad Twilight Zone episode, except the people here were nice…for the most part. She had no idea what they wanted with her, except to make her their new best friend. Bizarro.
If that weren’t strange enough, she couldn’t seem to hold on to her book, Chronicles. The blasted thing had to be cursed. It had been stolen from her family over a year ago, retrieved five weeks ago, and before she’d had a chance to fully translate the code hidden in the pages, she’d lost it somehow in this funny town.
Because of the book, she’d found herself stranded here. Wherever the hell here really was. The town didn’t exist on a map, on Google Earth, or in any atlas she’d ever seen.
She nodded at Gretchen again, thanking fate that she’d learned the Bavarian dialect of German at an early enough age to speak it like a native. Way to go, Granddad. The old woman shared gossip about who was dating whom and which woman had burned her husband’s breakfast that morning. In a town the size of three hundred, everyone pretty much knew everyone.
“Yes, so handsome. This one we like. He and you will make big, strong babies. I can feel it.”
Heather tuned back into the conversation. “What?”
“Yes. Jan knows much about things.”
From what Heather had seen, Gretchen’s brother knew how to skin venison and could shoot through the eye of a needle. Now the man knew things? She suddenly had a bad, bad feeling about her stay, especially if he knew the truth about her. She’d been pretending to be Heather Wurtz, great-niece to the town’s oldest woman, the local wise woman and a revered leader. The first person she’d met, Ida had insisted on a private audience, for which Heather remained eternally grateful. Ida had proclaimed Heather her long-lost niece, and like that, Heather had found acceptance and security. An ally in a place she’d never imagined might be so dangerous.