the energy, which she had pulled from her own body, dissipated back into her system, leaving her both drained and charged simultaneously. In the same instant, she became horribly aware of the hard length of Grey’s body pressed up against her back.
“You won’t scream?” he asked.
She shook her head, and slowly he removed his hand from her mouth and turned her to face him, though he didn’t step back. She raised her gaze to find him watching her closely, a finger held to his lips.
“You scared the seven hells out of me,” she hissed quietly.
“That many?” Amusement crinkled his eyes, visible in the glow of her flashlight, which had fallen with the beam illuminating their feet.
She scowled, not finding him funny in the least.
He leaned forward, lips at her ear. “Sorry. I didn’t want you to stop the girls.”
Rowan gave an involuntary shudder as his warm breath tickled over her skin. At the same time, she took a mental step back, unable to physically do so, prevented by the boulder at her back. Attraction to Grey equaled bad fucking idea. Instead, she focused her mind elsewhere, on why they were both in the dark woods in the first place.
“Why?” she voiced the obvious question.
“It’ll take too long to explain right now. Let’s make sure they get back safely. I’ll tell you more then.”
Rowan nodded and, with a wave of his hand, Grey indicated she should continue to follow the girls. Not too far from where he’d stopped her, they found the triplets in a clearing standing in a perfect circle of aspen trees. The three stood in a column of pure light cast by the full moon, making their blonde hair appear almost silver. Arranged in a circle, hands clasped, eyes closed, they swayed together in a rhythm only they understood.
“What are they do—?”
Grey held his finger up to his lips, then turned back to the scene.
Rowan’s mouth dropped in a silent gasp as the three figures started to glow—softly at first, then brighter until the white light became blinding, painful to the point that she could hardly stand to look at them. Meanwhile, silence reigned all around. Even the sounds of the night had ceased—the animals, the breeze through the needles on the pine trees—everything still and quiet, as though the world had hit pause to watch.
Then Chloe’s voice sounded from the center of the light. “Rowan McAuliffe. She is here to help us.”
Tension seized through her, clenching every muscle hard. Was she about to be unmasked? Then the scar on Rowan’s wrist sprang to blistering life at the pronouncement. What. The. Mother Goddess?
A glance showed Grey equally stunned. She wasn’t sure how she could tell, as his expression remained neutral as ever, but his mouth appeared tighter, his dark eyes wary. What had just happened?
Before she could ask the questions that wanted to tumble off her lips, he took her by the hand and pulled her back to the boulder where he’d stopped her earlier, tugging her around the side. Moments later, as though in a trance, Chloe, Lachlyn, and Atleigh floated past, heading in the direction of the house.
Slowly, she and Grey followed. As they walked, Rowan’s mind swirling with questions, she happened to spy a pygmy owl perched in the branches of a tree, watching her. But he didn’t say anything as they walked by, so she wrote off his appearance as coincidence. Animals didn’t always talk to her.
Once inside the house, they found the three back in their beds, sound asleep. With a jerk of his head, Grey indicated Rowan should follow him. He led her to his office, a room she hadn’t revisited since the day he had caught her there.
After only two weeks, she now had trouble picturing Grey in here much, despite the fact that this was where he spent most of his time lately. His demeanor, his physicality, was too big, too vital to be trapped behind a desk. During the day she’d sometimes find him prowling restlessly through the house only to disappear again after he bumped into her. Part of her cheered, knowing his search for her continued to move slowly. But a perverse part of her twanged with guilt at being the cause for his being stuck.
“Please, take a seat,” he waved to one of the two leather chairs facing the desk and took the other.
She did so after taking off her jacket. He’d seen her in her comfy peach-colored pajamas often enough at this point. “What just