Dark Possession Page 0,28

greens weren't quite so vivid. Leaves and shrubs appeared to have a veil of fog over them, changing the vibrant color to a dull gray. Shadows grew where there had been none. First she had seen bright colors in the dark, and now she was seeing shadows when she shouldn't be able to. Terror moved through her, but she couldn't stop going. Whispers plagued her mind as she began to jog. She didn't jog. She wasn't a jogger, or a runner of any kind, but she found herself hurrying through the forest in an effort to get to Manolito.

Something pushed her onward when all around the forest grew darker and the rustling above her head more pronounced. Once, she risked a look up, but there were small furry things swinging over her head, and it made her feel dizzy and slightly sick. She stumbled and nearly fell, putting out her hand to break her fall. Her long, beautifully manicured nails dug into the wet moss. One nail broke. A dozen green frogs leapt onto her arm and clung with their sticky webbed feet.

She froze. The frogs stared at her with huge, black, green-lidded eyes. They were shiny, with spots on their underbellies and matching green toenails, as if they wore polish. Tongues darted out, tasting the leather of her jacket. MaryAnn shuddered and looked back at Juliette.

"Why are they doing that?"

Juliette didn't have an answer for her. She'd never seen the frogs congregate together in such numbers before, and she'd spent most of her life in the rain forest.

"I don't know," she admitted. "It's unusual behavior." Riordan, they ignore even the strongest of pushes. There was alarm in both her voice and her mind.

Riordan set Juliette behind him, regarding the frogs with suspicion. "When creatures do not act as they should, it is best to destroy them."

MaryAnn's breath caught in her throat. She shook her head. "No, I didn't mean for you to kill them. Maybe

they're just curious about my jacket." She made a scooting gesture with her free hand. "Move along, little froggies." Hurry before the big bad Carpathian fries you all. I mean it, you've got to move. Silently she urged them to cooperate, while mentally rolling her eyes. For heaven's sake, how much damage could a tiny little innocent tree frog do, after all? She didn't want to see Riordan do anything like rain down fire on the poor helpless things. "Shoo, shoo. Go back to your little froggy homes."

The frogs took to the trees, the movement sending a strange wave of green over the tangle of roots, as dozens of frogs skittered away toward the safety of the higher branches. MaryAnn sent Riordan a small little sniff. "What were you going to do, make them into shish kebab? Poor little things. They're probably as scared as I am."

Did you feel that, Juliette? That surge of power? She made the frogs leave. And she's sneering at me. Sneering. He was going to have to revise his thinking about his brother's lifemate. "Those frogs are poisonous. Natives used them for years to tip their arrows," he couldn't resist adding.

MaryAnn straightened slowly, automatically looking at her broken nail. Her nails grew abnormally fast, they always had, but now her nail polish was going to be a mess. And it was hurting like hell. It always did when she broke off a nail. Her finger would throb and burn and tingle as the nail regenerated.

She nicked a scowl at Riordan. "Don't try to scare me with frogs. I don't like them, but I'm not that big of a city girl." She was, but he didn't need to know that.

"They really are toxic," Juliette confirmed. "Riordan is telling the truth. It isn't normal to see so many frogs in one area, and they certainly shouldn't be following us."

MaryAnn glanced at the frogs surrounding them. "Are they following?" The idea made her nervous. She didn't want them killed, but she wanted them gone. Out of sight. Of course then they might be hidden in the foliage, staring with their giant eyes just like everything else in the rain forest seemed to be doing.

"Yes, and so are the monkeys," Riordan said, folding his arms across his chest and indicating the canopy with a nod of his chin.

MaryAnn was afraid to look. Frogs were one thing-and she chose to leave out the poisonous part-but monkeys were furry little beasts with near-human hands and big teeth. She knew that because once, just once, she'd gone