Merkaba, a supernatural suspense series (Walk the Right Road, Book 3) Read Free Page A

land and sent them away. To this day, the cycle of hate, anger, greed, betrayal ... and everything they did to my mother, her people, to all the people, is... Well, let’s just say I believe the cycle was started in order to annihilate my mother’s people.” She was shaking as she stepped back.
    He didn’t say anything as he watched her with the most amazing hazel eyes. She blinked when he did and frowned as she wondered if his eyes had changed color from green to brown. But she shook her head. No, that was impossible.
    “I’ve never known anyone who suffered the abuse of residential schools, someone whose native land was stolen from them. These corrupt sons of bitches in the government,” he said, and he shook his head.
    Alecia wondered for a moment if his rant was for her benefit, but he stared at her in a way that tugged a little at her heart, as if he had his own hidden pain that he had buried someplace deep inside. She recognized it, for a split second, as something similar to what her mother carried. Maybe she had misjudged him. After all, when it came to men, she rarely read them right. That was where her father came in: Patrick had made a point of shielding his daughter, and shield her well he did. The last guy who had broken her heart had also broken her nose, and her father had stalked him, waiting for him outside his townhouse with a baseball bat and a warning. That was all she knew before Brian had suddenly packed up and left town.
    In a way, it was comforting to know her dad would willingly kill anyone who hurt her, but on the other hand, she knew all too well that he would interfere in any relationship she tried to have. She was dammed either way. But when it came to this guy, Dan, who lurked in front of her now, her dad wasn’t there to help her, to save her or protect her. Nor should he have been. Until she faced her demons and practiced what she had learned, she would continue to be a magnet, attracting the bad and the ones to be avoided. The fact was that she was on her own.
    “My mother is a survivor, and she’s my hero, but this wheel is about more. It’s about healing this land. It’s about setting wrongs right. It’s about healing hurts from the past, and our own personal hurts, because you can’t get past the hurt until you’ve been heard.”
    Dan nodded, his face hardening and flashing with this knowledge, as if he knew more than she did. “And the treaty talks are on the table now, as we speak,” he said.

Chapter 6
    “Yes, you’re right. They are.” She turned away from Dan and all the charisma that was oozing off him. She walked around him to somehow break his hold, which had her wanting nothing more than to tell him everything. Doing so would only be foolish. She pulled out the amethyst she kept on the string around her neck and squeezed it. Then she reached into her pouch and sprinkled tobacco around the circle again. She stopped at the four odd-shaped rocks she’d piled by the eastern door, and she starting stacking them on the rocks that formed the line between the east and south.
    “What are you doing?” He was behind her again, close enough that she could feel his heat.
    She didn’t look up. She didn’t need to—she could smell his earthy fragrance. Who would have thought a plain bar of soap could make a man smell so good? “This is called a Manitou. They were constructed and set on the paths when warriors were taken, for protection from their captors.” She balanced the four rocks, with the largest on top.
    She could remember her mother practicing when Alecia was a teenager. One of the elders, Harriet’s sponsor while she was sobering up, had her practice and would tell her which stone was first, second, third, and fourth. It became a task of persistence, patience, to get them to balance and stay. Alecia had been told she was a natural. She just knew what went where, and why, and when she needed to build them. Her father never interfered, even though he was a