Captured by Desire Read Free Page B

of hearing what she was certain had been growls of something that wasn’t an animal. So, when she turned over to find Cristian watching her with solemn green eyes, she quickly looked around their small camp and noticed they were alone.
    Fear’s icy fingers clawed at her chest, turning her blood cold.
    “They’re gone,” he said.
    Jules looked into his eyes, his calm demeanor helping to soothe her ragged nerves. With her heart pounding in her chest, all she could do was thank God Cristian hadn’t left with the others.
    She blew out a breath as she sat up. “What now?”
    “I should take you back to the village,” he said.
    Jules’ temper immediately rose, pushing aside her fear. “I paid you quite handsomely to help me find my father.”
    He quirked a dark brow. “I said I should, I never said that’s what I’d do.” His Romanian accent thickened with his anger.
    Jules loved his accent as much as she loved to look at him. She tucked a strand of hair that she had loosed from her braid the night before behind her ear and gazed into the dying embers of the fire.
    “Why are you here?” she asked.
    His eyes narrowed before he looked away. “My parents came up here two weeks ago and never returned.”
    “You think whatever is out there got them?”
    He shrugged indifferently, but it was telling. Jules pretended a lack of interest as she ran her fingers through the thick mass of hair.
    His sharp gaze moved to her. “You said your father wrote you. Did he say what the creature was?”
    Jules hesitated. How much to tell him? Most thought her father a freak or completely insane for what he did, but she had seen enough to know there were unexplained events and beings out in the world.
    She decided since Cristian hadn’t left with the others, nor refused to take her onto the mountain, that he deserved to know what her father had discovered.
    “There are some people who believe in ghosts and demons,” she said as she gathered her hair in her hands and began plaiting it. “They spend their days and nights tracking these beings. Upon occasion they even remove them from people’s homes.”
    “You’ve seen this?” he asked.
    Jules chuckled. “Oh, yes, I’m afraid I have.”
    “Does it frighten you?”
    “Of course, but my father taught me how to fight them and protect myself.”
    He nodded absently. “He came out here looking for a ghost?”
    “No,” she admitted. “He came to Romania because there were rumors of a supernatural being in these mountains.”
    He sighed and all but rolled his eyes. “You aren’t talking about vampires, are you?”
    She held back her laughter. “No, not vampires, although the lore your country has on those creatures is amazing.”
    “I know,” he said with a frown. “So, what was your father after?”
    She finished braiding her hair and turned her gaze to him. “There is a small community of professors and others who have seen creatures not quite human. My father has chronicled many such findings, and what prompted the surprise trip to Romania was a creature that has never been seen, a creature that many thought only myth.”
    “Until now,” he finished.
    “Exactly.” She couldn’t hold back her excitement. Her father had found something astonishing, and if he wasn’t missing, she wouldn’t be holding back her enthusiasm.
    “What kind of creature?”
    Jules sighed and prayed Cristian didn’t bolt once she told him. That is, if he knew what it was. “It’s called a Wendigo.”
    He didn’t bolt, but he did sit straighter, his eyes intense as he stared at her. “Are you sure?”
    “That’s what my father wrote in his letters. He said he was close to discovering for certain, but he was also terrified because everything he’d found and seen proved the creature is here.”
    Cristian rose to his feet and began to pace in front of her. His normally fluid body was tense, his jaw clenched. “If it’s a Wendigo, you shouldn’t be here.”
    “I’m not going