Michael stood as well. He bent to give Mary a swift, hard kiss. “I’m going to fuel the boat.”

She lifted her shoulders. “I guess I’m going to bake bread.”

Michael left the cabin. Since she had a good forty-five minutes to wait while the bread dough finished rising, Mary went to the bathroom and relished brushing her teeth thoroughly. It was one of those small parts of life she could no longer take for granted.

She grimaced at herself in the mirror. The sum total of her worldly possessions had narrowed down to a pair of shoes, a pair of socks, nylon panties and a toothbrush. Oh, and her jeans, which, while clean at the moment, were stained so badly that a thrift store would reject them.

Making a mental catalogue of her current possessions made as much sense as trying to keep track of anything else in her life. The details of the week had begun to run together in a continuous, surrealistic stream of information.

My teeth are clean. I have a pair of shoes. The Upper Peninsula is on fire. I have six bullet scars on my chest. I resurrected a man. I gave another man a heart attack.

She supposed she sort of killed somebody. On purpose. It didn’t matter if Justin was already dead and the Deceiver survived. She had taken a healthy man’s heart and torn it to shreds.

How was that any different than shooting a gun? It was worse, sneakier and in some ways, it was more powerful. As soon as her life was in danger, she had thrown her Hippocratic oath out the window. Twice. At least the gun was an honest weapon. She had used her healing skills to kill someone.

Close to overload again, she turned on the shower, stripped and scrubbed herself under a hot spray of water. She shampooed her hair twice. It was another one of those small parts of life that she could no longer take for granted.

When she was finished getting clean, it was time to put the bread in the oven. She brushed and braided her hair while the bread baked. When the bread was finished, she set four beautiful, golden brown loaves on the counter to cool. Whatever else she might say about Astra, the older woman was a hell of a good cook.

After Michael refueled the boat, he stocked it with a variety of weapons, which was when Mary found out what was stored in all the army-style lockers in the office-like room. She helped him carry loads down the path. By then, the bread had cooled enough that she made sandwiches, wrapped them and stored them in the fridge, just as Astra had done earlier. While she did that, Michael showered and shaved.

It was eight o’clock by the time they had finished. The sun had not yet set, and long evening shadows lay across the clearing.

Michael said, “We should go to bed, just in case she does end up waking us at three in the morning.”

She followed him into his room and sat on the edge of the bed.

He sat beside her and took her hand. “What has caused that look on your face?”

She didn’t try to dissemble. “I’m okay. I just have a lot of things to reconcile in my head. Things that have happened. Things that I’ve done. Things aren’t going to magically settle into place after a conversation or two. It’s going to take me some time. In the cosmic scheme of things, it’s not that big of a deal, and I don’t want to expend any energy on it right now.”

“There’s nothing to reconcile,” he said. “You did whatever you did in order to survive. End of discussion.”

“Easy for you to say.” One corner of her mouth lifted. She noticed he was still frowning. “What’s wrong with you?”

He shook his head.

It was her turn to be stubborn and pry. She persisted. “What’s wrong? Tell me.”

“I’m not trying to hide anything.” His mouth tightened into a grim line. “I don’t know what’s wrong. Something.”

Dread didn’t pulse through her body as much as breathe a delicate chill on the back of her neck. She thought back over the afternoon and evening and slid closer to him until their thighs pressed together. He put his arm around her, pulling her close against his torso. She rested her head on his shoulder.

Aloud she asked, “Is it something I’ve done?”

He shook his head again and tightened his arm. “Absolutely not.” He paused. “Everything Astra said made sense, didn’t it?”

She thought back over their last conversation and nodded. “She’s been focused on this task for so long. If she says to wait, there must be a good reason for it. It’s to our advantage to have her find out what she can before we act, and in the meantime, we were able to get the boat prepared and see to some of our other needs.”

“Yeah.” He scratched his lean jaw. “Yet something’s niggling at me.”

“What do you want to do about it?”

“We do the sensible thing and rest. Tomorrow’s going to be a bitch. We should sleep in our clothes in case we have to move fast.”

“That sounds wise.”

“Yeah,” he growled. “Too damned wise.”

He tilted her head up and kissed her with such passion, she felt like she went winging out of her body just to be closer to him. She ran her hands compulsively down his body. He yanked up her thermal shirt, urging her arms over her head so that he could pull it off. She could barely stop kissing him long enough to comply. He tore off his own T-shirt and kicked off his jeans while she wriggled out of hers.

He shoved her back onto the bed and fell on her. He muttered, “I’ll never get enough of you.”

He would never be the type of man to say pretty things. Everything he said came straight from the gut with a kind of raw honesty that meant far more to her than pretty things. And she knew he would guard her passionately, with all the considerable force of his being.

“I’m here,” she whispered. She bit along his jaw, small, quick nips. “I’ll always be here.”

“Swear it,” the tiger said. He pulled her braid out and pinned her down, gripping her by the hair, eyes blazing.

“Yes, of course. I swear.”

He took her, harder than before, until she rose out of her body with the force of her climax. Her pleasure spilled out of her, into him and doubled back, until together they reached one soaring, pure note of vibration.

She still had no words for the immensity of the experience. They existed, spirits entwined together, until reluctantly they fell away, back into their own bodies.

After resting for a time, he stirred and pulled away from her to gather their clothes together. They dressed and settled back on the bed. She took the side by the wall. Michael wrapped his arms around her.

She rested her head on his shoulder and stared into the dark, and tried so hard to hold on to what they had just shared, but after several minutes, dread crept back and darkened the pleasure.

No, she thought. I can’t lose this so soon. Her fingers tangled in his shirt.

As if he had read her mind, Michael covered her hand with his and whispered fiercely, “We will make it through this. We will get more time. I swear it.”

She nodded and hid her face in him. He was the first to fall asleep, one hand buried in the soft, loose mass of her hair.

She supposed his being horribly pragmatic had its moments. She tried to follow his example. After she faked it for a while, she managed to fall into an uneasy doze.

All of her dream images were filled with fire.

Chapter Twenty-seven

MICHAEL WOKE UP.

He couldn’t put a finger on why, but he was patient as he tried to pinpoint the reason. Pragmatism had certain benefits. It meant he never did anything without a reason, not even waking up.

He hadn’t awakened because he felt refreshed. Tiredness had accumulated to the point where he could use a week of good sleep. No, something else had disturbed him, something like his earlier niggle. Easing away from Mary’s sleeping figure, he climbed out of bed.

The digital alarm clock read half past three. He slid one corner of his curtains open and looked out the window. Moonlight flooded into the room, gilding him with silver. He could see a portion of lawn, the dark edge of the bordering forest and a corner of Astra’s chicken coop. The night sky was draped with sullen gray. He guessed that ash made up a good portion of it.

Mary had curled into the space he had just vacated, one hand on his pillow, but she hadn’t awakened. Careful not to wake her, he ran his fingers through the soft, loose ends of her wild, sexy hair. He sensed the trouble in her spirit and knew she wasn’t completely at rest.

But that wasn’t what had awakened him either.

He left the room, silent as moonlight and shadow.

The cabin’s large common area was empty of both physical and spiritual creatures. He glided from doorway to doorway, pushing doors open to scan the contents inside each room. All was quiet, dark and peaceful. Just as it should be.

When he reached the door to Astra’s bedroom, he hesitated only a moment before easing it open.

Her bedroom was empty.

Usually when she roamed the psychic landscape for information, she let her body rest in bed.

Michael didn’t like it when things weren’t the way he expected. He didn’t care for surprises. In his harsh life, surprises had hardly ever turned out to be good.

What are you doing, Astra? he thought.

Moving to the center of the cabin, he stood for a moment with his hands on his hips. He glanced at the stairs to the loft but didn’t bother to climb them. He could already sense that the darkened room upstairs was empty.

Barefoot and shirtless, he strode outside. The spring night air bit into his skin. The cold heightened his sense of urgency. He scanned the clearing, then made a swift circuit around the outside of the cabin. Astra’s presence wasn’t in any of the outbuildings.

He frowned. The clearing was only a small part of the island. Astra literally knew every inch, every broken rock, every nook and cranny of land. Going in search for her physically would take time and energy that he wasn’t willing to spend.

Centering himself, he expanded his awareness. He touched Mary’s presence in the house, the sleeping fowl in the henhouse, chirruping nightlife in the tangled foliage beyond the clearing. His awareness swirled through the forest, over the wetlands at the southern end, a ghost riding on the wind.

His senses kept trying to tell him that everything was as it should be. Astra was in bed. He knew that was an illusion. She wasn’t in the house. He could find no sign of her energy’s signature anywhere else on the island.

But he did detect other human presences.

Many human presences, in every direction. They quietly poured off several boats moored around the island, and moved fast toward land.

Shock gripped him in iron jaws. While his body stood frozen, his mind raced to the inescapable conclusion.

Astra was not on the island. She had either been taken or she had left. And she couldn’t have been taken without him knowing it. So she had left voluntarily, without telling him or Mary.

She might have discovered something she needed to act on. She might have decided to make a grand, self-sacrificing gesture. If so, he would have said, Okay. You sure you don’t need help? Good luck then. Make it count.

And she had known that. The old bitch had known that.

She should have awakened him so that he could resume watch on the island. She didn’t do that. Staying silent had benefited her in some way. She was like him. She never did anything without a reason.

And she would do anything if she thought it would take the Deceiver down.

She was making a grand gesture, all right, but he and Mary were the sacrifice.

“You Judas,” he breathed.

He found that he had room to be amused, both at the ruthlessness of her decision and at himself. While he had known she was capable of something like this, he had still been fool enough to trust her a little too much. He must have, to feel this sense of betrayal.

He hoped that she would make damn good use of the sacrifice. He, for one, had no intention of going out like a lamb to the slaughter.

He lunged inside the cabin and to his armory.

At the same time, he said telepathically, Wake up, Mary. It’s bad.

He heard her cranky mutter from the bedroom as well as her voice in his head. Of course it is. It’s always bad. He knew the moment she realized he was not with her and came fully awake. Her telepathic voice speared him. Michael?

He didn’t bother to be quiet. He flipped the light on, threw open lockers and armed himself. He called, “I’m in here.”

She appeared in the doorway. She held one shoe in each hand, her face crisscrossed by the pillow, her eyes wide and stricken. She sucked in a breath when she saw him. Her expression settled into a doctor’s calm. Her voice turned brisk. “What can I do?”

He smiled at her. “God, I love you. I love your scent and silliness, your too fine sense of ethics and your crazy, sexy hair.”

She returned his smile with a joyous one of her own. “We’re not going to talk about my silliness. I’m glad you think my crazy hair is sexy. My ethics are not too fine, no man should tell a woman she smells, and I love you too.”

He laughed. “Fair enough.” He grabbed items from a locker and flung a Kevlar vest in her direction. She dropped her shoes to catch what he threw at her. He bent to finish yanking his bootlaces tied. “You’re not that much bigger than Astra. That vest should fit. Put it on.”

“Where is Astra?” She stomped her feet into her tennis shoes without untying them and pulled the Kevlar vest on, all her actions designed for optimum speed.

“Astra’s gone.” He tossed a black hooded mask at her. “Cover your face and hair.” He jerked one over his head as well.

She obeyed. Her shocked face disappeared. “Gone?” she said, her voice muffled. “I don’t understand.”

“She left us, Mary. The island’s surrounded.”