What the Heart Haunts Read online

  She’d had other men since him, but only one of them had ever begun to fill the hole he’d left behind. But loving Mal had been worth this. Khost was the closest male she’d come to finding who could fill that ache in her. A mate again. One who wouldn’t die in fifty years. Nalla closed her eyes.

  That still didn’t make this right.

  Her hands fell away from her hips and she shook her head, stepping over to pick up her shirt. She’d leaned down to shake it loose from a bush when strong hands clasped her hips, Khost’s breathing unsteady, like a shudder in the wind. Nervous, Nalla left her shirt hanging there and stood up, the bare skin of her back brushing the hot fabric of his shirt, warmed by the heat pouring off of him.

  Oh damn. She wasn’t a good enough of a person to walk away more than once. Nalla fisted her hands, her nails biting into her palms in little moon-shaped crescents. She tilted her head back to ghost a kiss over his cheek. “You’re right. We shouldn’t.”

  She turned in his arms, his hands sliding over her skin with the movement. She wanted nothing more than for him to cup a breast in one of those hands, to draw a nipple to his lips. To feel his bare chest pressed against hers. But if they did that, Khost would never go back and damn it all, as much as watching him run back to the sky would surely kill her, she couldn’t be the one that made him fall.

  She couldn’t be the one who destroyed him, all for something he didn’t even realize he was missing. Nalla reached behind her, grabbed her shirt and yanked it free of the bush even, as she laid one last kiss against his lips. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this either.”

  Then she stepped out of his arms and was running again, but unlike last time, she wouldn’t stop when the magic threatened to take him. And she damn well wouldn’t let him catch her. Whispering one of the few words of magic she still had left, she vanished from the forest all together and reappeared. Home. The semi rocking slightly under the sudden appearance of her weight in the cab. She sank down into the driver’s seat, pulled on her shirt and reached for the keys. He would still be running, chasing her maybe, more likely running for the sky.

  The engine cranked over as she turned the key. Exhaust puffed out in a white cloud in the cold air. But on the off chance that he was running for her, she wouldn’t be here when he broke through the woods.

  ***

  Chapter Three

  Khost paused in the parking lot, his chest tight. Her leather jacket dangled from one hand as he scanned the black top for the semi she’d gotten her coat out of in the first place. Nothing. Where the fuck had she gone? He blew out a frustrated breath, his nerves cranked over on high and he wanted nothing more than to toss his head back and bay until his lungs burst.

  Frustration made him want to pace, scream. He swatted her jacket against a tree and growled. What the hell? He slapped the leather against the tree harder this time. What kind of game was that? A test? Herne save him, but if his god had sent him down here for a test he was fucked, because damn it all, he wanted her.

  His nostrils flared wide as he blew out a sharp blast of air. At first, all he’d wanted to do was run, he hadn’t even really wanted to catch her, just pelt through the woods, flat out. Then the stars had started to call to him and like a siren’s song, he’d wanted so damn bad to leap up there and answer the call. To let these two legs fade into four, trade skin for fur, man for dog, and run to catch the pack tonight.

  Khost closed his eyes. Nah, that hadn’t been the siren’s call. So what, he’d have left the necklace. It wasn’t his tail on the line for that. It was Cissy’s and she was old enough she could handle a few whips and the more he thought about it, the more he knew he needed to give up and head home.

  Except, he didn’t want to go back and that there was the deadly lure, every bit as powerful as a call to death in the middle of the fucking ocean. His teeth ground together as his breath whistled out between his teeth. Only foolish men would let themselves be lured, would let themselves fall.

  Khost knew the rules. To run with the Hunt, every Hound had to be loyal to their master. They could live and run forever that way, wild and free. Such freedom and immortality, running through the skies, it was a drug he couldn’t imagine living without. So why was he standing here, swaying on the pavement willing her to come back?

  “Shit,” Khost breathed out and slumped back against a tree. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t follow her. If he found her, Khost knew he’d never go home again. He’d never know the wild press of his pack running with him, never feel the magic again. He couldn’t lose that.

  He lifted her jacket to his face and inhaled the rich scent of her. Fresh, like citrus and lemons, and then he let it fall. Cissy could get the damned horn back by herself. It was time for him to go. Before he did something he’d regret...like follow that damned truck.

  Khost spun on his heels and bolted back into the forest, waiting for the magic to pick him up and carry him home. Far, far away from Nalla.

  ***

  Nalla groaned into her pillow, stretched out over the bunk in the back of the semi cab. She’d left him. Her first taste of the Wild Hunt again and she’d just left him standing in the woods, when damn it, she could have broken him. But then what? This was the real world—there weren’t any happily-ever-afters. That had been crystal clear the day Herne had killed the man she thought she’d loved.

  Her heart gave a reminiscent painful twinge at the memory.

  She had loved Malek.

  And Khost... Nalla grunted and rolled to her side, stuffing one hand under her pillow. Her flannel pajama pants rode up one knee as she curled into a ball. She couldn’t decide what she’d felt for him. Fascination? Sure. Want, lust, need...yes. But if she wanted sex, she could have gone to a bar rather than a rest stop and spent the night with someone there, rather than out here.

  But she didn’t, so she hadn’t. So why couldn’t she sleep?

  She knew the air outside would be cool against her skin, forever a lure and a reminder of everything she’d lost. Nalla squeezed her eyes shut, one hand going for the golden chain looped her neck, and the hunter’s horn that dangled from it. She’d seen it in Herne’s hands so many times, when he’d blown over it and the instrument had grown to something of beauty. Of size. Something he could press against his great lips and thunder over the sky, a calling to all his Hounds. A calling to the earth under the sky. The Hounds were coming.

  He only needed it on the Great Hunts so he’d be needing it soon, but he’d yet to come for it. She’d hoped when she’d stolen it that she could spite him for killing Malek. Then later, she’d hoped to bargain her return to the sky. Now, she didn’t even know why she bothered to keep it. She missed running, but she’d given up hope on ever going home.

  Herne knew no forgiveness. That much was obvious.

  Which meant it was a damn good thing for Khost that she’d walked away. Though her good deed of the century still bugged her. His memory still haunted her, niggled at her brain every time she tried to drift off. She licked her teeth, tasting the memory of toothpaste against her tongue and wished it was the taste of Khost, his kiss against her lips again.

  She shivered at the memory of Khost’s body against hers. He’d looked so scared, confused when he’d jumped back from her. He knew Herne’s laws, nothing outside of the Hunt. No friendships, no confidants, no love. But Nalla knew how little that meant when Herne explained it after that first run, with no knowledge of anything else. She’d seen the souls they’d plucked from the earth, those Herne had chosen to become Hounds.

  She’d seen them take their first baby steps, life breathed back into them by Herne as he set them in the sky on four paws. She’d seen the blank confusion. No memory of the people they’d once been. No memory of anything at all, except the towering huntsman before them and his Hounds milling at his heels. Then they would run and she would watch as elation and bliss stole through their veins. Sheer perfection. It could make a person whole.

  Or so she’d thought.

  But
with time came interludes between runs, times where Herne’s back had been turned so the god could deal with other problems. Times where Malek had laughed with her. A smile touched her lips at the memory. His Hound-form slipping away to give the image of man, something they’d only been allowed very rarely, and the way he’d told stories of their Hunts and made them seem real all over again. He’d brought the magic of the Hunt and woven it into a friendship.

  Her lips tingled at the memory of his first kiss. It’d been months since they’d been allowed to be human and when Herne had whistled for them to gather for another run, Malek had caught her before she could Change. He’d spun her around and like a flash, he’d brushed his lips against hers and then had gone sprinting over to join the others. That night when they’d ran, they’d run together. Darting in and out amongst the tree tops and stars, play bowing and chasing one another.

  She’d loved him then, she realized.

  And he’d proven everything wrong. Freedom, bliss, wild nights of running...were incredible. But people—which is what their souls always were—were meant for loving. So find someone to love. It had sounded so easy the first time she’d thought that. A few years after pining for what had been, she’d given it a whirl. And Gabriel Truitt had filled that void, until she realized he was going to die and she wasn’t.

  Nalla rolled to a sit, her bare feet touching the metal floor and she blew out a breath. No. None of these memories were welcome. Screw sitting here whimpering like a kicked dog. She raked a hand through her hair and shook out the knots, before she padded back for the driver’s seat and the ratty old book she had stuffed under the seat. It was just what she needed on nights like this to forget.

  She curved a hand around the chair and started to lean down when a scream ripped out of her throat and she leapt back, slamming into the passenger seat. Khost stared at her through the window on the driver’s side. Bright gold eyes widened and he winced, looking almost guilty as he hopped down from the side of her truck, landing on the pavement below. She stood there, hand on the rumpled, hunter green shirt that hung loose around her waist. Between that and the plaid pajama bottoms were definitely a statement of beauty and Nalla tried to remember to breathe.

  How had he found her?

  And now that he had, how was she going to walk away again?

  ***

  Chapter Four

  Khost cursed softly from the parking lot, the night air cooling his sweat slick skin. He’d been down here for days and sooner or later, Herne was going to notice him missing. Back of the pack runner that he was, the god wasn’t oblivious. At least not completely. Sooner or later, Herne would come searching, but Khost wasn’t sure he cared anymore. He’d run like hell from her that first night, but nothing could get him off the ground.

  Every time he felt the magic start to pulse through him, he’d stumbled at the memory of her face, wavy blonde hair whipping around the soft curve of her chin. His body went hard every time he remembered her shirt peeling away from her body and it flitting through the wind on its way to the ground. His blood pounded through his veins at the memory of her body bared to him and the night sky.

  And the horror in those brilliant eyes as she’d bolted from him.

  The semi door swung open and there she was, sitting in the driver’s seat, legs dangling as she glared down at him. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  He didn’t have a clue, except... “Why’d you kiss me?”

  Pain and longing blazed through her eyes, so fast and hot there was no hiding it, no matter how hard she tried. Finally Nalla jerked her head away and glanced out the windshield, tilting her face so that her hair fell across her shoulder to hide her eyes from him completely.

  Khost took two quick steps towards the semi, but stopped just short of touching her. “Why?”

  The word came out a harsh, desperate breath. He’d been happy until then. Perfectly happy.

  “What difference does it make? You didn’t do anything bad enough that Herne would cut you down.” She turned, swiping back her hair with a hasty jerk of her hand. She’d stuffed all her emotions somewhere else, because they weren’t in her face when she looked at him this time. “That is if you just go home.”

  “No.”

  Khost reached up, caught her around the waist and hauled her out of the truck. Her eyes widened, but he wrapped a hand around the back of her neck, his fingers threading through the silken strands of her hair. Like a shock, his whole body tensed. Electrified by the startled wonder in her eyes, the sharp blast of fear. All that longing came roaring back and Khost couldn’t help it, he leaned in and pressed his lips to hers. The moment his mouth touched hers, she broke into shivers.

  Nalla grabbed his shoulders and held on, as one after the other, he ghosted the lightest touches of kisses against her lips. It was unlike anything he’d ever experienced before. A thrill, an unknown. Kissing her was like running blind and it called to a different part of him. A part he hadn’t even known existed, at least not when he’d made his vows to Herne.

  No one or anything but the Hunt and your god. Me. And Khost had nodded and sworn reverently to the hunt-master.

  But he hadn’t known there could be this.

  Nalla whimpered and shoved him back. “If you do this, you will never go back.”

  He opened his mouth to say something flippant, like he didn’t care, but she laid a hand over his mouth and shook her head. The movement wild. Her eyes were stretched so wide he could see the tears shimmering in them perfectly.

  “You can never go back. Don’t you understand...that’s an eternity here. Where everyone else dies. Where you can never stay anywhere for too long because someone could realize that you’re not getting older. Where you can never have friends and never have the bliss of the hunt.”

  So she was a Hound. Khost stared at her, stunned, then watched as a tear slipped down her cheek. She closed her eyes and turned away.

  Khost wiped it away, staring at the streak of moisture on his thumb in awe. A soft breath left him. Sadness. It was like an old memory unfolding inside him. Something his soul knew, but this body had forgotten. He glanced up at her. “How do you bear it?”

  He leaned closer and laid the gentlest kiss against her cheek, right where he’d wiped away her tear. Loneliness clawed at his chest, yet another thing he’d forgotten, but somehow, somewhere he’d known it. “Being here. Feeling all of this?”

  Nalla took in a shuddering breath before she turned back to him. “I don’t have a choice.”

  “But why? How did you end up here?”

  “I kissed a man.” She frowned and the depth in the look of her eyes, all that emotion, he couldn’t even begin to understand it all. “I loved another Hound.” Her smile hitched up at one end, almost...bitter? “I broke my vows.”

  Nalla let her hands fall to his chest and she shoved at him, trying to move him away but Khost didn’t budge. “And now I’ve tried to break yours. Go.”

  “I kissed you.”

  Nalla shook her head. “No. I kissed you. Ignore the rest and run back for the stars. Forget this ever—”

  “I’m tired of forgetting.” His brows furrowed and he glanced around, the rest stop dead quiet in the middle of the night, and then he glanced back at her. Suddenly, going back to a place where he knew no one else—not really at least—seemed so lonely. He knew several of the other hounds by name, but he couldn’t remember doing much with any of them. Just running. Then Cissy had asked him to do something and it had made sense, so he hadn’t seen why not?

  But none of it had meant anything. None of it mattered.

  This, right here, Nalla...it mattered. At least to him.

  “I want to remember.” Khost caught her head in his hands and leaned forward and kissed her again. But this time, it wasn’t with the faint brushes of a man not sure.

  No, this time when his lips settled on hers, it was with the confidence of a man who wanted more...and knew how to take it.

  ***

  Nal
la rocked under his kiss, her hands fisting in his shirt as she clung to him. He was firm, but demanding. Determination and longing making up for inexperience, raw need giving him confidence. This time she couldn’t shove him away. Nalla kissed him back, nibbling at his lower lip until they parted and she swept a tongue inside his mouth. Tasting him again, everything that she’d once had and at times still longed for, she could taste it all in his mouth. Like a promise ripe for the taking.

  He drew back on a ragged breath, his eyes widening as he looked at her. Almost haunted. “But I still need to know, why did you kiss me?”

  He lazily rubbed a thumb over the edge of her jaw. It was a good question. Not one she could answer easily.

  She cringed a little. “At first? Because you reminded me of the Hunt, of running...because I wanted Herne to lose another Hound.”

  And because I wanted you to fall.

  “And now?”

  Nalla started to shake her head but he held her still. “Nalla, and now?”

  “Because I’m tired of being lonely.” She squeezed her eyes shut to hold off the tears. “Why are you doing this?”

  Khost leaned in and kissed her again, his lips a soft smile against hers. “At first?”

  A heart-breaking chuckle slipped from her as she waited for his answer.

  “Because I didn’t have a clue and I’d never felt anything like it before.”

  She swallowed. “And now?”

  Khost leaned his forehead against hers and sighed.

  “Now? Because you make me feel things that somewhere deep inside me, I know I’ve felt before, but I can’t remember when. I can’t remember anything past a good run. I’m tired of forgetting, Nalla, and you make me remember.”

  His thumb skated over the edge of her lips. “You make me feel.”

  She looked at him then, unable to avoid it. His bright gold eyes were vivid in the moonlight, wild, but not the same endless expanse that she’d first seen. This time a man stared back out at her, Khost stared back out at her. Wonder and want so deep in that gaze it almost sucked her down. Sadness lurked around the edges, a longing that made her heart twist in empathy.