Kim Harrison - Hotter Than Hell

He had begged her forgiveness. She had given it, unthinking, never questioning why he had asked. From the very beginning he’d tried to seduce her while revealing as little about himself as he could get away with. Suddenly she had a reason for his behavior.

Incredulous laughter roiled in Cat’s stomach like an over-rich meal. It isn’t possible. But Andrés had appeared only when Trueno had vanished. And the black stallion hadn’t returned until daylight.

Coincidence, no more . Yet the anger from the dream was a bleak knot in Cat’s chest. She felt Itzel’s despair, the agony she had experienced when she’d placed the spell on the man she loved.

If it were true—if, in spite of every rule of logic, Andrés and the black horse were one—then he had deceived her from the first moment they’d met. The only reason he’d have asked her to forgive him was if he’d believed that Itzel’s “blood” ran in her veins. He’d arrogantly assumed that the way to control a female was to give her a good banging. He’d made her so helpless with passion that she’d hand him anything he asked.

Even her love.

She got out of bed, dragging the top sheet from the mattress and wrapping it around her body.

“Trueno,” she said. “It’s almost daylight.”

Andrés looked at her…only for an instant, barely long enough for her to see the flash of shock in his eyes when he recognized the trap she had set. He smiled, though it was too late.

“ Mi gatita, ” he said. “You have been dreaming.”

“Yes.” She walked toward him, righteous fury flowing through her body. “Very vivid dreams. Dreams of a man who would not defend those who had welcomed him.”

The color drained from Andrés’s face. “Catalina…”

“Don’t lie to me.” She stopped inches away, holding his gaze. “I saw it all. I saw her .”

“Itzel,” he whispered.

“Yes.” She let her heart become a block of ice. “ You are Trueno.”

He must have known then that denial would do him no good. “Yes,” he said, despair weighting the word like an anchor thrown to a drowning man.

Cat didn’t falter. “You must have been looking for centuries…looking for someone who could lift the curse. Then you discovered me. Somehow you knew that Itzel was my distant kin. You needed to win my forgiveness by any means necessary.”

“No. It is not so simple, queri —”

“ Do you have an excuse, Andrés? She loved you, and you let them destroy everything she cared about.”

“Have I not paid enough?” He reached out to touch her face. “Listen to me. It was five hundred years—”

She jerked free. “Maybe if you’d been honest, if you’d really tried to atone…but you set out to use me instead.”

“No. When I first saw you…your grace, your strength…I could not help…could not help but—”

“It’s too late, Andrés. I won’t play.”

“Catalina. I beg of you…” His voice thinned, and he grabbed at his throat. His skin began to ripple as if every muscle and tendon beneath were attempting to assume a new shape. He fell against the wall, pushed away violently and staggered toward the door, his hands extended before him.

Cat rushed after him, ready to take back every word she’d spoken. But Andrés flung open the door and rushed onto the landing. He stumbled downstairs into the parking lot. Cat dashed back into the room and threw on jeans and a shirt. She practically fell down the stairs. The black stallion stood trembling among the trucks and SUVs, his coat shining with sweat.

“Andrés!”

He looked toward her, ears flat against his head, and spun on his hind legs. Before she’d taken another step he’d set off at a wild gallop toward the weedy field that backed the smattering of motels, fast-food joints and garages to the west. Dawn had just broken; cars on the road were sparse, and only a few early-rising souls noticed the saddleless horse charging across the street.

Cat slumped, cursing her pride and the implacable judgment that had driven him away. Even if she got right into Turk’s truck and drove as fast as she could, she knew she’d never catch up with him. He could cover terrain no vehicle could manage. And he had every reason to run and keep running until sunset found him human again, friendless and alone.

There was no reason in the world for him to come back. She’d given him not a shred of hope.

And all her hope had gone with him.

She checked out quickly, tossed her duffel in the truck and drove back to the ranch by a circuitous route, indifferent about when she arrived or what she’d do once she got there. She pulled up in front of the ranch house well after noon, as weary as if she’d walked all the way from Taos.

Turk tapped on the window. She rolled it down and summoned a smile.

“Back so soon?” he asked. “Thought you might be spending the weekend in town.”

“I had a good time, but I think I may be coming down with something. If I have to be sick, I’d rather be sick in my own room.”

“Sorry to hear it, Miss Cat. I’ll put the truck away.” He opened the door for her and took her place in the driver’s seat. Cat looped the duffel over her shoulder and plodded toward the house. Pilar met her in the kitchen, the housekeeper’s hands and lower arms coated with flour. A ball of pie dough sat on a wooden board beside the sink.

“Catalina!” Pilar hastily washed her hands and dried them on a thick cotton towel. “How was the festival?”

“It was fine.” Cat dropped into a chair and stared at the pretty bouquet of wildflowers Pilar had set on the table. “I just…got a little lonely.”

“Ah?” Pilar rubbed at a patch of flour left on a fingernail. “Did you find no one to keep you company?”

The inevitable blush burned Cat’s cheeks. Pilar nodded gravely. “I saw the change in you the night Kelpie came back lame. I see it even more strongly now. Who is he?”

Cat found that she had no desire to pretend any longer. “I met him that night. He helped with Kelpie, and—” She broke off, unable to describe how she’d felt that first time. “He was…is…unlike any man I’ve ever known.”

“What is his name? Where does he live?”

All of Pilar’s questions were logical, but the answers would tell her nothing. “His name is Andrés,” she said. “I don’t think he has a home.”

“Yet he has won your heart.”

Pilar’s words, so simple and blunt, stopped the air in Cat’s lungs. She tried to stand and fell back again, her muscles gone weak and useless.

She’d known Andrés all of three days. It just wasn’t possible to fall in love so quickly. But she’d never believed in curses or men who could change into horses, either.

“He was not what you expect to find when you came to us,” Pilar said.

“No.”

“Your mind tells you to stay away, yet you cannot.” The older woman placed a plump hand on Cat’s shoulder. “Has he done you some wrong, this Andrés? A wrong you can’t forgive?”

How could Pilar possibly have guessed? Andrés had betrayed Itzel. He’d let her people die while he stood by, refusing to intervene. His punishment had been no less than he deserved.

But that isn’t why you turned on him. It isn’t what happened hundreds of years ago that matters, is it? It’s what he did to you, how he deceived and manipulated you….

“Perhaps you came to us for a reason,” Pilar said. “Not only to find love, but to free yourself from your own past.”

And to free Andrés as well.

Cat jumped to her feet. “I have to go out, Pilar. Don’t expect me back before dawn.”

The housekeeper nodded, smiled, and returned to her pie crust. Cat grabbed several bottles of water and a chunk of cheese from the refrigerator, fetched a blanket from her room and ran outside to look for Turk. When she didn’t find him, she saddled a mare and placed the blanket, food and a supply of oats in a pair of saddlebags she hung over the mare’s hindquarters.