Bonnie Vanak - Phantom Wolf

“I can handle something stronger. What you’re drinking. Domestic, right?”

A ghost of a smile. “Tom, give her a Bud.”

Silence from the bartender.

Sam’s expression tightened. “Well, Tom?”

“You, I’ll serve. Not her.”

Anger flared in Sam’s eyes, the green sparking like fireworks. “I don’t like your tone.”

“I like you, Shay. But I’ve got two young daughters. They mean everything to me. I don’t serve no stinking Arcanes...” The word was spat out in disgust. “Especially Arcane bitches who steal kids just so she can suck out their powers for herself.”

Guess good news travels fast. Kelly’s appetite fled, the peanuts turning into cardboard in her stomach.

“I didn’t do it,” she protested.

Sam’s jaw worked. He drank his beer as the bartender left. Everyone was looking at her. Humiliation poured over her.

“Sam, please.” Kelly struggled to find the right words. After twelve years, she felt at a loss. What did you say to the man who once loved and now probably hated you?

He dug into his back pocket, pulled out a wallet, fished out some bills and laid them on the table. “Here’s enough money to get dinner and get a flight out of here. Go home. You’d better leave, Kel. We’re all pretty tight, and the guys can be very reactive. And they don’t like what they heard about you.”

“They heard rumors I steal children.”

“They heard what your father did to my family.”

Torment haunted his eyes as he looked up. “Don’t force me to take sides. Because this time, I can’t stand with you against my teammates.”

Her throat was suddenly dry. She tried to calm her shaky nerves. “Coming here was a bad idea. I should have known I was up for the pitchforks-and-torches routine. Now what? Do you give me a head start before sending the mob after me?”

“I would never hurt you,” he said softly.

“I didn’t kidnap Billy. Just because you believe my father killed your family doesn’t make me exactly like him.”

There. Out in the open. Sam’s jaw clenched hard as stone. Sparks leaped from his fingers. “Damn.”

Kelly stared. “Sam? What’s going on with your powers?”

“They’re a little haywire lately.”

Sparks sizzled in the air. The lights flickered as Sam’s hands glowed white. Uh-oh. She recognized the potent surge of power....

As she glanced at the bar to see if anyone noticed, a woman stared at Sam. Her expression was both sad and hopeful.

Sam raised his hands and flicked them toward the ceiling.

The lights flickered again, and Kelly glanced at the bar and the burly man standing by one of the SEALs. She stifled a gasp and looked away. Surely that could not be...

Her gaze cut back to the man. Suddenly he was gone. Replaced by...

Evil.

As the lights went out, Kelly shrieked.

Shay jumped up, the beer bottle spilling. The lights flickered back on as suds spread over the table. Blood drained from her face, Kelly stuffed a fist in her mouth, staring at the bar.

She was okay. He ran to her, his fingers curling around her slender shoulders. “What is it?”

“I saw...” She closed her eyes and then opened them, the fear gone. “A Death Mask. The skull face of a Mage who’s slaughtered another Mage to gain his powers. The first step to becoming a Dark Lord.”

Conversation around them quieted. His teammates stared at him and then at Kelly. Someone muttered a curse.

“Impossible.” Tom shook his head.

“I know what I saw. He’s here. Or was.” Kelly craned her head to peer past Sam. “He’s gone now. Left when the lights went out.”

Silence draped the bar. Shay studied Kelly’s tight expression and could tell her pulse was galloping. She was scared but resolved. Her gaze scanned the room.

Tom spoke, his voice tight with anger and fear. “You’re lying. Get out of my bar.”

Unease rippled through the room. Two burly support staff from Team 21 cracked their knuckles and got off their stools.

Whispers and more stares. Shay glanced up and saw Renegade and the other SEALs tense. It was going to get ugly fast. Fear did crazy things to people, even paranorms. The crowd would fast turn into a mob if Kelly didn’t leave now.

She turned to him.

“Sam?” A shallow breath and whisper. “You believe me, don’t you?”

A razor’s edge of silence. He studied his former lover’s face, and then her hands. Steady and resolved. He drew on all his instincts and inhaled the air.

He smelled a tinge of something familiar...and foul, as if evil brushed the air and then fled.

“I believe something nasty was here.”

Turning, he glanced at his teammates, his friends and Tom. He’d known Tom for years.

“We don’t,” Tom said flatly. “She’s lying. Get out of my bar.”

Two lines furrowed Kelly’s brow. He recognized the look. It would take force to remove her. “I know what I saw. And I’m not leaving until I search every inch of this place and see where he went.”

He turned and saw his teammates maneuver around the bar, getting ready to intercept.

“Shay,” Sully said quietly. His teammate nodded toward the door.

Right. As Kelly slid out of the booth, Shay got out and scooped her over a shoulder as if she were a sack of flour. She let out a startled “Oomph.” He ignored it as he jogged toward the door Renegade held open.

As the heavy wood door banged behind him, Shay set her on her feet. He hated her stricken look, as if he’d killed her favorite kitten. A knot of barbed wire cinched his guts.

She was dangerous and outcast. He should send her far away before he got involved. Too late, he thought dimly.

“Sam, you have to let me back in there.”

Leaning against the door, he shook his head. “Kelly, I’ve had a bitch of a day. Watching you get your head torn apart by dozens of drunken vampires, werewolves and Mages is not how I want it to end.”

“He’s in there. I have to find him. Someone’s hiding him, Sam, and you’re not standing in my way.”

Her fingers flexed. He felt the quiet hum of power in the air. Behind him, the door rattled on its hinges. Sam’s own powers surged.

“Back off,” he said quietly.

She dropped her hands, her luscious pink mouth trembling. “So that’s it. Now what? Go to a motel? No one will rent me a room. My name’s been flashed across every television screen in America as a suspect in the kidnapping of Senator Rogers’s son. There are no flights until morning. Where am I supposed to go?”

“Home with me.”

This new steely, conservative Sam Shaymore still harbored a hint of wildness. It roared with the big, shiny chrome Harley he rode.

Clinging to his back, Kelly closed her eyes as the big bike rumbled beneath her. Wind slapped at her cheeks. The ride was exhilarating and one she’d have enjoyed—if not for the tense male driving.

She hooked her arms around his muscled waist. Sam had always been fit, but the navy had turned him into granite. As her thighs nestled against his long limbs, she felt a jolt of pure sexual awareness. The sharp leather scent of his jacket and his own masculine smell sent her female hormones surging.

Bad timing.

Sam turned a corner onto a quiet street lined with trees and trim, tidy homes. He pulled into a driveway before a two-story white house with green shutters and cut the engine.

Ever the gentleman, he helped her dismount. Kelly pulled off the helmet, smoothing down her tousled hair.

Sam quietly studied her, his full, sensual mouth drawn in a flat line. Unreadable, his expression shuttered.

“You don’t live on base?”

“Team 21 has off-base privileges. This is our street. I’d tell you who all my neighbors are, but it’s classified.”