it was only a matter of time before he lost control and took what he wanted.
Icy fear for Samantha crept through his blood like poison. With all his strength and power, he couldn’t protect her from himself.
* * *
Cesar drew Samantha away from his wife, and Bess allowed it. He walked with her toward the riverbank beside the ribbon of water that still glinted bright against adjoining banks. Beyond, the tree line loomed darker against the midnight sky.
“Alon is quite protective of you,” said Cesar.
He had stopped walking. She glanced above his head to where his black-and-white aura burned beneath a glittering gilded cap.
“You can see my aura,” he said.
She nodded.
“And I can see yours. Yours and Alon’s.”
She knew it.
“Did you know I found Alon the day he was born, feeding in a Dumpster a few feet away from his dead mother?”
Samantha nodded.
“He told you? This surprises me.” He paused to look out at the water. “He and Aldara. Bess was there and Tuff Jackson. But Alon came to me. He couldn’t speak, but I could see his aura. He sought help. His sister was too afraid to come with us. But she followed. I released them in the woods. Both Tuff and Bess thought I was crazy. I tried to set them free, but Alon kept following me. I didn’t adopt him. He adopted me.”
“I thought it was Bess.”
“Bess was rightly afraid of them at first. They smelled the animal part of her, and that meant food. A buffalo does not adopt a wolf pup or a raven foster an eagle. But that’s what I asked her to do. And she did it for me. Now you could not find a fiercer defender of her Ghostlings.”
“But they’re so dangerous.”
“That is part of what makes them wonderful. That viciousness brought under conscious control.”
“No one can fully control their instincts.”
“You do. Right now, when your instinct tells you to run. But here you are.” He rubbed his palm over his jaw as he stared up at her aura. “Alon didn’t bring you safely from Nagi’s ghosts because of his love for his mother. He brought you here because of his love for you.”
Samantha stepped away, the denial springing to her lips. “Love? He can’t wait to get rid of me.”
“Only because he is afraid of what you make him feel. Do you deny what you see?”
She dropped her gaze, unwilling to accept the truth reflected in his eyes. “It is not love. Just a physical attraction,” she whispered.
“Yes. But it could be more.”
She raised her gaze to his, her hands curled into fists. “No. It cannot be. Not with a...”
“Toe Tagger?” supplied Cesar. His mouth set in a grim line.
“Just like Bess. She couldn’t see the beauty in them at first. She thought I was crazy. But she was willing to set aside her fear and loved them because she loved me.”
“He doesn’t want me. He’s told me so.”
“And you believed his words instead of your own eyes?”
Her heart beat so loud she felt sure Cesar could hear it dashing against her ribs. Alon’s soul and her soul reaching... But they did not touch. They were not true soul mates. Yet.
“I didn’t want to believe my own eyes because...” Her words fell off. When she spoke again it was only a whisper. “I don’t want this. Not with him.”
“But it is there, whether you want it or not.”
“Is there some way to break it?” She didn’t like the desperation in her voice.
“None that I know. You will always be connected in some way. What way is up to both of you.”
“Will you tell him?”
Cesar shook his head. “That’s not for me.”
“I just want to go back to the way things were. Back to my family.”
“Back to running? Back to never being allowed to be who and what you are? Is that what you really want, Night Sky Woman?”
She didn’t. But neither did she want Alon. At least not as a soul mate.
She covered her face with her hands and hunched over as the sobs racked her. Cesar gathered her up in his arms and held her just as her own dad would have done.
“It can’t be him.”
* * *
Alon hung in the darkness in his flying form, watching his father embrace Samantha. His mother had tried to speak to him, but he would not leave Samantha alone with another man, even if that man was his own father.
Alon was there when she told him that she wanted her family. He had