“What in the world?” she whispered.

“I have no idea,” Slade said. “What’s more, I don’t think it would be a good idea to put on a dive suit to find out why the pond seems to be glowing.”

She shuddered. “I agree.”

When they reached the trees Slade took Charlotte’s hand again.

“The entrance to the canyon is just inside the tree line,” he said. “You probably won’t be able to see a thing. Don’t worry, I can. I won’t let you get lost.”

They moved into the trees. The darkness closed in abruptly. Between one step and the next all of the enchanting fairy lights of the meadow winked out, plunging Charlotte into the deepest, densest night she had ever known. The first whispers of panic flickered through her. Instinctively she went into deep-breathing mode. Slade’s hand tightened on hers. She sensed his silent inquiry.

“I’m okay,” she said.

Cautiously she pushed her talent a little higher. Two apparitions moved in the absolute darkness. She realized she was looking at Slade and Rex. A fierce rainbow formed around one of the shadows. Slade, she thought. She would know him even in the darkest place in the universe.

“I understand what you mean by canyons of endless night,” she said.

“Can you see anything at all?” he asked.

“I can definitely sense the energy here. It’s dark and it’s scary. I can see your rainbow quite clearly. But you and Rex are just shadows within shadows.”

“I think that’s more than most people, even those with talent, could see. There’s a lot of energy in the vicinity but most of the currents are coming from the farthest end of the spectrum, the dark ultralight end.”

“What do you perceive?” she asked.

“Infinite night. Like something out of a nightmare.”

“What do you suppose is generating the heavy ultralight?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re worried?”

“Power in large quantities is always a concern, and whatever is going on here involves a lot of energy. The changes inside the Preserve raise questions.”

She smiled. “And you like answers.”

“Yes.”

“You said yourself that the Preserve has always been a dangerous place.”

“True.” He guided her back out of the dense night to the edge of the glowing meadow. “But I think it’s becoming more so. The Foundation was right to strengthen the fence but I don’t think it’s going to be enough.”

“Doesn’t seem to be working too well. We got in.”

“If we got in, other strong talents can make it, too. But I doubt if most of them will have the ability to navigate it. GPS and compasses don’t work.”

“What about the locator devices that ghost hunters use in the Underworld?”

“I tried one. It doesn’t work, either. They’re designed to handle environments that generate a lot of alien psi. This is different. It’s nexus energy. And something else. I think.”

“You aren’t sure?”

“I’m certain that the nexus forces are involved but they may simply be enhancing whatever is really going on here,” he said.

“You’re not having any problem staying oriented.”

“I told you, something about my version of hunter-talent allows me to navigate the Preserve.”

“Well, I’m thoroughly lost at the moment,” she said. “If you weren’t with me I could probably make it across the meadow, but once inside the trees I’d be completely disoriented again. I don’t even want to think about what it would be like to blunder into one of those night canyons. A person could wander in circles forever.”

He led her back out of the trees into the twinkling fairyland meadow. She looked around, searching for a small scruffy shadow carrying a clutch. She didn’t see one.

“Where’s Rex?” she asked.

“Probably got bored and decided to go hunting. I told you he disappears a lot at night. It was the same way back in Resonance City. There he used to go down into the Underworld to meet his buddies.”

“Perhaps there are other dust bunnies here in the Preserve. Maybe he’s hoping to meet a girlfriend.” She thought about the clutch purse. “Or a boyfriend.”

“There’s enough uncharted territory here in the Preserve to conceal a whole herd of dust bunnies.”

Charlotte stopped to drink in the luminous landscape. “This place really is extraordinary. Make my night, lie to me and tell me that you never brought any other girl here fifteen years ago.”

“No.”

She sighed. “I should have known better than to ask a former FBPI agent to lie.”

“No, I never brought anyone else here,” he said very steadily. “Just you.”

She turned quickly. “Really?”

“Only you.”

She looked into his heated eyes.

“Tiger, tiger, burning bright,” she quoted in a whisper.

“What’s a tiger?” Slade asked.

“Old World beast of prey. Something like a specter-cat, I think. The line is from an ancient poem.”

“I remind you of a beast of prey?”

“No,” she said. She touched the side of his sternly etched face. “But I have always known that you were born to guard and protect. I am quite sure that you could be as fierce and relentless as a tiger or a specter-cat if it proved necessary to defend those who are weaker than you.”

He reached up and caught her wrist. Very deliberately he turned his head and kissed her palm. A great longing rose deep inside her, a longing that she knew had been there all along, unacknowledged, for the past fifteen years.

Slade looked at her with all the fierceness she knew was locked inside him.

“I don’t know what you saw in my aura rainbow that made you think I would regret making love to you,” he said. “But whatever it was you were wrong.”

“Was I?”

“I want you, and I don’t give a damn what it costs me.”

“There shouldn’t be a price to be paid,” she said.

“There is always a price. I want you to understand that I am willing to pay it.”

He let the pack slide off his shoulder and then he drew her close, wrapped his arms around her, and kissed her with all the dark fire that she had seen blazing in his aura rainbow. Instinctively she started to touch the pendant at her throat but she stopped just before her fingers brushed the silver mirror. Perhaps it was the energy in the atmosphere around them. Or maybe it was simply that she did not want to screw up again and miss the experience she had been yearning for all these years. Whatever the explanation, she knew that this time she would try very hard not to view his rainbow.

He said he was willing to pay the price. She would take him at his word. Because she knew now that there would be a price for her as well, and she, too, was willing to pay it.

Her hand fell away from the pendant. She gripped his shoulders, savoring the sleek power she could feel there, and returned the kiss with a passion she hardly recognized as her own.

The kiss was desperate and all consuming; a kiss unlike anything she had ever experienced. She was suddenly shivering but not because of a panic attack; rather from the force of raw physical desire. Everything about Slade was hard, demanding, implacable, and relentless.

He wrenched his mouth away from hers and imprisoned her head gently between his two powerful hands.

“This is about you and me tonight,” he said. “Nothing else matters.”

“Nothing else,” she agreed.

He used his grip to bring her hard against him and kissed her again. She wound her arms around his neck and clung to him to keep from drowning in the sparkling, effervescent whirlpool. But she fell deeper and deeper into the churning energy. Slade groaned and crushed her lower body against his own.

He did not try to hide his hunger for her. He was hot and aroused and he obviously wanted her to know it. Liquid heat and a tight, urgent tension built deep inside her. He got her jacket open. She found the buckle of his leather belt. And then his hands were gliding up her body beneath her top. When he got her bra unfastened he closed his palms over her nipples. She was so sensitive now that she gave a small, startled cry.

He kissed her throat. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, yes.” She fumbled with the zipper of his trousers. “I’m not that delicate.”

“Ah.” He sucked in a sharp breath and pulled back. “I’ll get the zipper.”

Appalled, she went very still. “Did I hurt you?”

His laugh was half groan. “No. But timing is everything.”

She freed herself from her boots while he unzipped his trousers and got out of his own boots.

He reached into the pack and pulled out a plastic pouch. He tore open the bag and removed a thin emergency blanket. When he spread it out on the ground the tarp proved to be surprisingly large.

He drew her onto the blanket and then he went down on his knees in front of her. He pulled her down with him. She pushed her hands inside his shirt and let the heat of his body warm her. She was about to unfasten her jeans when he stopped her.

“Let me,” he said, his voice low and dark.

He eased the zipper down and worked the jeans over her hips. When he could not get them any farther he pushed her gently onto her back and peeled the denim all the way off. Her panties went with the jeans.

For a moment he knelt beside her, studying her with burning eyes as though he had never seen anything quite like her before, as if he did not want to forget a single detail. With his strong shoulders silhouetted against the night sky, his features starkly etched in psi-light, he could have walked straight out of her most intense fantasies.

He put one hand on her thigh and moved his warm palm upward until he cupped the full, damp place between her legs. Her body reacted instantly to the intimate touch. She lifted her hips, straining against him. He stroked her slowly until she was as tightly coiled as a spring, until she was trembling with the force of the urgent need inside her.