Moon - New Moon Part 57

His face crumpled. And his message was the same one she had heard when the woman with the broom had attacked her. "Get out of here. Go. Run."

"Did he force you to find me?"

The old man opened his mouth and tried to answer the question, but no words came out of his mouth.

"OH my G.o.d," Logan gasped, sudden panic choking off his breath. "Rinna. Oh G.o.d, Rinna. I have to go back and stop her before it's too late."

He staggered to his feet and started back toward his car. But Savannah dropped the hose and came running toward him, grabbing his arm. "You must have come here for a good reason. You need to tell us what's happened."

"No. I have to go home," he insisted, watching his brother get to his feet. He tensed, wondering if Lance was going to attack.

Savannah turned and gave her husband a sharp look, then focused on Logan again. "Tell us why you came."

While he tried to collect his thoughts, he dragged in a breath and let it out in a rush. "I met my lifemate."

Savannah's face took on a sudden glow. "That's wonderful," she breathed.

"No. It's complicated," he answered, struggling to keep his voice even. "She's from the other universe. Remember at the Castle? The woman on the other side of... the portal. The one helping us fight the monster."

"Yes."

"That was Rinna. I met her again. She saved my life and took me back to the world where she lives. It's not like our universe. A lot of the people have psychic abilities, and they use them to run things instead of our power sources. I mean they use mental energy instead of electricity and gasoline. They find children who have psychic potential and put them into training programs."

"Okay."

"They don't have countries. They have city-states that fight each other all the time-like in ancient Greece. And one of the powerful guys in her city wants to... to take advantage of her powers. She's a shape-shifter. But she has other talents, too. She sent me to get help so she could leave my house and go back to him."

There was a lot more to it than that, but he'd spit out the important parts, and the idea of wasting any more time in explanations made his insides churn.

Pleadingly, he stared at Savannah, then saw his brother advancing from the side.

He stiffened, but Lance stopped a few feet away. "She's left you for him?" he asked in a harsh voice.

"It's not what you think! She's trying to keep him away from me." He had no hard evidence of that, yet he knew it deep in his gut. "I have to find her before she gets to him. But I can't do it alone."

"We can track her," Lance said.

Logan wanted to cry out in frustration. "If she'd changed into a wolf, we could."

"The two of you and Ross can track her," Savannah said.

He gave her a grateful look. "Maybe. But Rinna has two different animal shapes. I'm betting that she changed to a hawk and went flying back."

"A hawk?" Lance asked. "That's a neat trick, if you can do it."

"She can."

"So now what?" his brother asked.

Logan shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "If you're willing to help, we go back to my house, so you can pick up her scent. Then we..." He stopped short because he wasn't sure what to say. "Maybe if we keep tracking in widening circles, we can find her."

Lance raised one shoulder. "Sorry about the fight."

"Yeah. I'm sorry, too. And I appreciate the help."

"You two go on," Savannah said. "I'll call Ross and explain. Well, I'll say as much as I can on the phone."

"Thanks. He already knows a little. I called him last night about getting an ID for Rinna." Logan ran back to the car. Lance started to follow him, until his wife called him back.

"Maybe you'd better go separately. Lance needs shoes and a shirt."

His brother looked down, taking in his state of partial undress. "Yeah. I'll be five minutes behind you."

Logan wasn't wearing shoes, either. But he jumped into his SUV and roared back down the access road to the highway.

When he reached the blacktop, he forced himself not to speed, since getting stopped by a traffic cop wasn't going to increase his chances of finding Rinna.

He made good time, then raced inside the front door, to his home. Inside, he picked up the shirt that Rinna had worn. Standing in the open doorway, he caressed the soft fabric with his fingers, then held it to his face, breathing in Rinna's scent.

"d.a.m.n you," he muttered. "We could have worked this out together, if you'd just trusted me."

Was that it? A matter of trust? He didn't want to think that was the problem. He wanted to find her, and he didn't even know where to start.

He heard tires crunching on the driveway and stepped outside, the hand with the shirt extended, expecting to see Lance pulling up the driveway.

But it wasn't his brother, and he froze, then hastily dropped his hand.

IT was too late to run. Rinna stood frozen in place as soldiers came racing out of the bushes and surrounded her. Two of them grabbed her arms to stop her from getting away.

They held her in place, and she stiffened her shoulders as she saw a man emerge from between the trees.

It was Falcone. He had the same dark hair, the same confident walk, the same smirk on his handsome face that she remembered.

As he strolled straight toward her, she felt like she was going to throw up, but somehow she controlled the sickness churning in her stomach.

He was dressed like a man from this world with a blue shirt that b.u.t.toned down the front, jeans and what Logan called running shoes on his feet. But he still looked like the n.o.ble who was going to be ruler of Sun Acres.

"It's good to see you again," he said.

She didn't bother to answer.

"You could have made this a lot harder for me."

She raised one shoulder. "I'm tired of running."

When he stepped forward and stroked his finger against her cheek, she felt her insides turn to ice. Everything that had happened between them in those terrible hours in his bed came racing back to her. He hadn't wanted to make love to her. He had wanted to punish her for being better in school than he had been.

"I don't like it when a woman leaves me without permission," he said in a low voice.