Regan shifted in the saddle. Where was Santiago? What was taking him so long? Had he found the old shaman?
She glanced from side to side, her nerves strung tight. Were those eyes glowing there, just beyond the trees, or was her imagination playing tricks on her?
She felt warm all over, constricted, as if her skin was shrinking. She looked down at her hands, imagining them turning into paws, her nails into claws.
She practically jumped out of the saddle when a wolf howled somewhere in the distance.
The moon would be full tomorrow night. She could feel herself changing already. Her body felt different, alien, and she was plagued by a restlessness she had never known before.
She knew in the deepest part of her being that if the shaman couldn't help her, she was doomed to become what she feared most.
She wrapped her arms around her waist as the first wolf's mournful howl was picked up by another, and then another. Her horse tossed its head, its ears twitching nervously as it pulled on the reins. Santiago's horse pawed the ground, its eyes showing white. Regan didn't know much about horses but she knew exactly what the animals were feeling.
She had almost decided to dismount and go into the cave in search of Santiago when he stepped outside.
"Did you find him?" she asked anxiously. "Can he help me?"
Santiago didn't say anything. Instead, he lifted her from the back of her horse and drew her into his arms.
Regan stared up at him, her gaze searching his, and then, with a sigh of resignation, she rested her cheek against his chest and closed her eyes.
There was no need for questions. His silence said it all.
There was no cure.
Chapter 15
With her cheek resting against Santiago's chest, Regan listened quietly as he told her what he had found inside the cave. She didn't know how long they stood like that. It could have been minutes, it could have been days. She couldn't move, couldn't think of anything to say. The word 'werewolf' played over and over again in her mind. She was going to be a werewolf. Tomorrow night, when the moon rose in the sky, she would transform into a beast. Her hands and feet would turn into paws, her body would be covered with fur, and she would be compelled to run though the night in search of prey…
She shook the thought aside. Lifting her head, she looked up at Santiago. "Remember what I asked you before?" She took a deep breath. "I want you to do it now, before it's too late."
"Regan…"
"Please, Joaquin. I can't live like this, knowing that I'll become a monster when the moon is full. Please, if you care for me at all."
He cupped her face in his hands. "Let me bring you across."
"No! I don't want to be a vampire, either. Just do it now… but, please, don't hurt me."
A muscle throbbed in his jaw. "Regan, do not ask this of me."
"Why not? You've killed before."
His arms tightened around her. "Dammit, Regan, I cannot take your life. Let me bring you across. You will not have to hunt. I will feed you. We can have a good life together."
"Life?" She twisted out of his arms. "What kind of life is that? You'll keep me like a pet, you'll feed me! And it's not just the blood thing, it's all of it. I don't want to live only at night. I don't want to give up all the things I enjoy. I want to get married and have children, and…"
"I love you, Regan Delaney. I will cherish you and look after you for as long as I live. You will want for nothing, I swear it on all that I hold dear."
As it had before, his declaration of love left her speechless. He loved her. Joaquin Santiago, the most feared vampire in the city, loved her.
"Joaquin… I don't know what to say." She wanted to tell him that she loved him, too, but, once spoken, the words could not be taken back, and loving a vampire was a complication she didn't need in her life just now.
"There is no need for you to say anything. I tell you only so you will know why I cannot take your life."
Regan shook her head. "If you really loved me, you'd do as I ask."
"I will do anything but that."
"Please…"
He cut her words off with a slash of his hand. "We will spend the night here."
She glanced at the cave. "Here?" She shivered with revulsion. Two people had died inside the cave. She told herself there was nothing to fear. The dead couldn't hurt you. Unless they were vampires, she thought morbidly.
"It is the only shelter for miles."
"I don't mind sleeping outside. We did it last night."
"It is going to rain."
"It is?" She glanced up at the sky. "There aren't any clouds."
"There will be."
"How can you possibly know that?"
"I can smell the rain."
Regan sighed heavily. She wasn't crazy about sleeping out in the rain, but she was less thrilled with the idea of sleeping in a cave with two dead men.
Santiago's hands squeezed her shoulders reassuringly. "Wait here. I will take the bodies out and bury them."
She wrapped her arms around her middle. She didn't believe in ghosts. Still, she had never spent the night in a place where someone had died a violent death only hours before. She had read somewhere that the spirits of those who died violent deaths sometimes lingered on Earth, refusing to move on. She shook off her fanciful thoughts. Unless you were a vampire, dead was dead.
"You will be more comfortable here," Santiago said, stroking her cheek. "There is an easy chair and a fire pit. And food."
"All right." She stood by her horse, her face turned away from the cave's entrance, while Santiago went inside to retrieve the bodies. Standing there, in the stillness of the night, she realized her senses were expanding. She could detect the scent of death in the air, smell the sweet, coppery tang of the blood that had been shed.
She was already changing, she thought. Her sense of smell was sharper, her vision clearer, her hearing more acute.
Staring into the darkness, she absently stroked the mare's neck. Her life had certainly taken a turn she had never expected. How could she be a werewolf? What kind of changes would she have to make in her lifestyle, other than the obvious? Would people take one look at her and know what she had become? What would her parents think? Not that she could tell them. Her folks were liberal thinkers, at least on the surface, but they had been opposed to any and all laws protecting vampires. She could only imagine how they would react to having a daughter who was a werewolf.
She laughed harshly. She would be one hell of a vampire hunter now! She blinked back her tears. Her parents weren't the only ones she couldn't tell. She couldn't tell her brothers, either. And she certainly couldn't tell Michael! He would never understand.