Dark Possession by Christine Feehan

her. She had nothing to prove to anyone; she never had.
    Riordan beckoned with his fingers, and MaryAnn forced one foot in front of the other, reluctantly following his lead. Juliette was behind her, looking small and compact and alert. She moved with grace and ease through the surprisingly spacious forest floor. The forest was damp and so relentlessly dark, yet she could see colors she shouldn’t have been able to see. MaryAnn was a little shocked at the vast variety of shades. As she walked, she was surprised by the absence of animals. She’d always thought creatures were everywhere in the forest, waiting to pounce on the unwary visitor, but as they walked single file, there was only an occasional flutter of wings overhead.
    She had also expected the forest floor to be an impenetrable jungle, but it was open and easy to walk through. Trees rose all around her, giant, smooth trunks rising without branches, nearly to the canopy. Roots flared out of the bases like snakes, writhing across the ground. Some trees appeared as if they were held up by a myriad of stilts. Climbing plants hung everywhere. Lianas tangled like ropes, knotting the trees together and forming a hidden highway up in the canopy. Vines crept up the trunks, weaving their way through orchids and over shrubs, ferns and the moss sprouting from the branches. She walked over dead leaves, seedlings, fallen boughs and twisted roots reaching in all directions like tentacles across the forest floor.
    MaryAnn was so scared. Terrified in fact. She hadn’t been this frightened since a man had broken into her home and nearly killed her. If her best friend, Destiny, had been there, she would have admitted it aloud, talked it over and maybe even laughed at herself. But she didn’t know these people. She was entirely out of her element, and it was only her intense need to help others that drove her forward.
    She’d dressed in her most comforting clothes, trying to give herself courage. Her Forzieri embroidered jacket, short and stylish in brown distressed leather, matched her boots and gave her added confidence. The embroidery on the back was too cute for words, and the linen ruffles gave the jacket an elegant renaissance look. Pairing the jacket with her Seven jeans, with their wide waistband settling below her belly button and so comfortable she barely knew they were there, and her all-time-favorite, wear-anywhere-and-look-like-a-million-bucks Vera Cristina V-neck tee with intricate beadwork in turquoise, gold and clear beads, she couldn’t have looked better. Well. If you didn’t count her hair. She reached up to pat it. Out of desperation, she’d managed to braid it into one very thick braid. She hadn’t bothered with more than stud earrings because she figured anything else might be a hindrance. As her heel sank into the vegetation, she realized she was hopelessly out of her depth and totally inappropriately dressed. She blinked back tears and kept walking.
    If Manolito was alive, where was he? Why couldn’t she reach for him after she had that horrible moment when the knowledge had hit her that a jaguar was attacking him? She had tried to stop it, throwing up her hands to catch it, to put herself in its path, screaming a warning, but no one had understood, and how could she explain without sounding crazy that for one moment she had been there—in the forest—standing between Manolito and certain death.
    Riordan and Juliette looked grim, but hadn’t provided answers to her fearful questions. They had practically thrown her in the truck, Riordan almost rude. He had been intimidating, much like his brothers, but never really rude, not until now.
    As if reading her thoughts, Juliette moved up beside her. “I’m sorry. This must be difficult for you.”
    “It’s not my thing,” MaryAnn admitted, wanting to turn around and run for the safety of the truck. She kept walking after Riordan. “But I can handle it.” Because that’s what she did when someone