Lightning Game (GhostWalkers #17) -Christine Feehan Page 0,5

shrubbery through the forest, especially if she wasn’t native to the area. Most were medicinal plants. She obviously knew something about homeopathic medicine.

Where the hell was she? The sun was long past setting. He was beginning to feel a little worried about her, which was stupid since he didn’t know her and she’d been trespassing. He inhaled again, the scent of coral honeysuckle filling his lungs. It was a beautiful flower, one rare for the mountains. Extremely rare. He wondered if she was a transplant just like that flower, rare like the fragrance permeating his cabin.

For some reason he couldn’t quite identify, he was beginning to lay claim to the woman. Maybe because she was in his cabin and that fragrance was filling his senses. He was essentially a loner. He preferred it that way. He and Diego always stayed close to each other, and they stayed close to the Fortunes brothers, but in terms of letting people know who he was, that just didn’t happen.

He was intelligent enough to know he’d suffered too much loss early in his life. He didn’t believe anyone would stay, so he locked his emotions away and he fiercely protected Diego, just as his brother fiercely protected him. Still, for all that, that scent was wreaking havoc with his senses and his protective instincts.

The flutelike notes of the nightingale added to the sounds surrounding the cabin. Rubin listened to the rich ballad, the male crooning to a female. The sky had turned a variety of dark purples and deep blues long after the sun had disappeared, leaving the sky to the moon. Diego, in the form of that nightingale, had warned Rubin he was about to have company. Diego had perfected the art of singing like any bird he’d heard at a very young age, so much so that he could draw them to him.

Rubin moved into position in the middle of the cabin, waiting for his brother to tell him if she was coming to the front door or the back. The song started again just a few moments later, the male clearly persuading his potential ladylove to accept him. The notes doubled up if one listened closely, which meant his transplant was coming in through the back door. Not surprising if she’d been traipsing through the woods.

She could easily be a potential enemy sent by any number of foreign nations anxious to acquire a GhostWalker. She could also have been sent by Whitney. He wanted his soldiers back, particularly the ones with special talents. He often pitted his supersoldiers against the GhostWalkers to see which of his experiments would live through the battles.

Rubin slid into the shadows and went still. He’d learned years earlier to disappear there. The back door opened and a slight silhouette came through. The door closed and she crouched down to unlace her hiking boots. Putting the boots neatly aside, she tossed her socks into a small basket and then hung her jacket on a hook by the door. Pulling her shirt over her head, she tossed that into the same basket along with her bra. Stripping off her jeans and panties, those went into the basket and she stepped into the shower.

Rubin was inherently a gentleman. It wasn’t that he wasn’t interested enough to want to look at the female body given the opportunity, but he wouldn’t take undue advantage, especially in this circumstance. This woman was out in the middle of nowhere, alone, and would be terrified as a rule, confronted by two men—except for one thing. Most GhostWalkers recognized the energy of another GhostWalker. Rubin recognized her energy immediately.

It was impossible that it was a coincidence that a female Ghost-Walker just happened to be in his cabin in the Appalachian Mountains, camping out. Whitney had sent her. And if Whitney had sent her, she was his enemy. She was there to distract or kill him. Either way, there were more coming. It was no secret that he returned to his home to treat those refusing to trust outsiders. Both Diego and Rubin came sometimes twice a year. She was living in the cabin for a reason, and that reason was to get to them.

Rubin considered whether or not to confront her while she was shampooing her hair. She hadn’t turned on lights. Or lit candles. The night hadn’t completely fallen, so it wasn’t completely dark yet, but still, most people, when they were alone, preferred to have lights. A GhostWalker wouldn’t necessarily need lights. Whitney’s