hands beneath the material and ran them all the way along his ribs. “They can smell us if they’re awake,” she whispered. “Maybe even hear us.”
Suddenly, the trees didn’t seem as far away as they had a few seconds ago. Before he knew what was happening, Cole had Paige backed against one of those trees and was pressing himself against her. He could feel her soft, warm lips on his chest as her hands continued roaming beneath his shirt. The cold air snuck in as well, adding another layer of sensation to those already rolling through him. As he moved closer to her, she arched her back and lowered her arms so she could grab hold of the tree beside her.
“I think you found my stick,” Cole whispered.
A relaxed smile curled Paige’s lips up at both edges. “Not yet, but give me a second.”
“No, this tree,” Cole said as he ran his hand along her arm to the tree she was gripping. “This actually reminds me of something.”
Paige’s eyes had been partly closed, as if she was dreaming. When she snapped them open, she was clearly awake. “What? Oh, you mean this?” She turned to the side and looked at what she’d been holding. The tree was actually more of a sapling compared to the others in the area. It was a bit taller than her, with a trunk as thick as a baseball bat and branches that had been picked clean by the crisp autumn winds.
Although Cole was leaning more toward the sapling, his hand was still upon Paige’s hip. He glanced at her and caught a flush in her cheeks that didn’t have anything to do with the weather. “You know something?” he asked.
“What?”
“This is the first time you’re not the one leading me around.”
Paige lowered her head and pulled in a deep breath before nodding slowly and then turning away from him completely. Before he could get too worried, she turned back around to show him an embarrassed smile. “All right. If you want to keep strictly to business, that’s fine.”
“Oh sure,” Cole chuckled. “As if you would have done anything else with those things sleeping right over there. I appreciate you not kicking my ass or anything for getting carried away like that, but I shouldn’t have started anything we wouldn’t be able to finish.”
Drawing the club from her right boot, Paige tightened her grip on its handle and held on as the wood stretched out and curled at the end to form the curved sickle blade that Cole had sworn was another weapon altogether. With one powerful swipe, she cut the sapling at its base and then lowered her arm. As she loosened her grip on the sickle, it flowed back in on itself to become the simple club it had been before.
“I may be a screamer,” Paige whispered, “but we could’ve done a whole lot out here before we’d ever wake up one of those Half Breeds.”
Cole’s eyes darted back and forth between her, the tree where she’d been pinned, and the sapling that now lay at her feet. “Don’t kid around like that, Paige. It’s cruel.”
Dragging the tree behind her, she brushed against his body just long enough for Cole to feel the curve of her hip as she passed him by. “Who’s kidding?”
Chapter 21
When Cole saw the way Paige handled a hunting knife, he couldn’t decide whether he was aroused or uncomfortable. It was a distinction he hadn’t had to make since the tight gym shorts he’d been forced to endure in junior high. She wielded the blade with speed and efficiency as she whittled the sapling down to his specifications. While she did that, he was given the task of patrolling the property. After glancing a few more times into the dark pit where the bizarre creatures were still sleeping, he became accustomed to the sight of them. Over the next hour and a half or so, the cold air seeped under his clothes and brought a silence to the area that normally only came in the dead of winter.
Rubbing his hands together while hunkering down to watch Paige some more, he asked, “Can weapons like this hurt a Full Blood?”
“Yes, and that’s saying a lot,” she replied without allowing her hands to lose the rhythm she’d built up. “There’s only three things that we know of that can kill a Full Blood and this is one of them.”
Cole’s face darkened as he thought about what he wanted to say. As much as he wanted to bite his tongue, he couldn’t keep from telling her, “It didn’t help Gerald very much.”
If Paige was fazed by that in any way, she didn’t show it. “That’s because he wasn’t prepared. You take any boxer and tell him he’s training for a featherweight match and then toss his narrow butt into a ring against a heavyweight who’s carrying a sledgehammer in each hand and that boxer won’t have much of a chance. He’s got weapons, but they’re just the wrong ones. I won’t lie to you, Cole. Even with the proper weapons, we’re a hell of a long way from having the upper hand.”
“But there’s got to be a better way than swinging a spear at them,” he insisted.
Paige sat with her back against a tree so she was facing the pile of rubble behind the Lancroft mansion. She and Cole had moved farther into the trees so nothing could get behind them without rustling several yards of dead leaves or shaking a whole lot of dry branches. As she got back to her work with the knife, she said, “We can treat bullets to hurt some of these things, but not Full Bloods. Charmed weapons like that Blood Blade do a lot of damage, but the Gypsies who craft them don’t part with their secrets.”
“I’d think anyone who could make those weapons would want to get them to the ones who can use them.”
“Yeah,” she grumbled. “That’s how you’d think it would work. Those families do things their own way and don’t get along with Skinners too well. It’s some sort of feud from a long time ago, but all I care about is here and now.”
“We’ve got a Blood Blade here and now,” he pointed out.
She shook her head definitively. “I can’t risk anything happening to that. That Mongrel in Canada was supposed to have two Blood Blades. Full Bloods are known to collect the things just to keep them away from us, which was probably what brought that one running to Gerald and Brad. I’ve got plans for this blade and I can’t risk anything happening to it. Gerald didn’t believe in my idea. He thought the blades should just be used for fighting, and too many other Skinners agree. We don’t need the Blood Blade yet.”
“So those blades are the best way to kill one of those things?” Cole asked.
Shaking her head without taking her eyes from her work, Paige said, “The only surefire weapon to use against any supernatural creature is another supernatural creature. Nobody knows the specifics, but they can tear each other apart just fine. It may be some sort of natural balance, but it didn’t help us until a Skinner from a couple hundred years ago came up with what I’m about to show you.”
“Will you show me how to get that stick to change shapes like yours did?” he asked.
“I can turn this stick into something that will hurt a Half Breed. That’s all we’ve got time for. Normally, I wouldn’t even bring you on a hunt like this, but we don’t have a lot of choice right now. We’re the only two Skinners within a couple hundred miles.”
“What about Walter?” Cole offered weakly.
“I counted him as half and you as half.”
Although that bent Cole’s nose out of joint, he quickly snapped it back into place. “You were probably being generous where my half was concerned. Will you at least show me how to swing that stick?”
“Sure,” she said as she tossed the trimmed sapling at him.
The stick was somewhere between four and five feet long, and still fresh from getting its bark peeled off by Paige’s hunting knife. It felt a little damp in his hands and had plenty of give when he swung it back and forth. Even though the ends had been whittled down to points, he still would have been more confident wielding a broomstick.
“You sure this isn’t another initiation joke?” he asked.
Circling him in slow, measured steps, Paige spoke in a soft voice that made it sound as if she had her eyes closed and was describing something from a dream. “Try to imagine fighting a Full Blood,” she said from behind him. “Or imagine fighting that Mongrel. You know how well you can move. You know how fast or slow or strong or
