Gift of Gold by Jayne Ann Krentz Page A

arms and armor. Well, Jonas?"

    He looked up then, his gaze trapping hers. The glittering gold of his eyes made her catch her breath. She sensed a battle going on behind that gaze; perhaps a battle between ghosts. She couldn't tell if Jonas was furious or desperate or excited or eager, or if his new mood was a dangerous combination of all of those emotions. She knew only that there was a wildness in him in that moment that defied description. Verity swallowed uneasily, wondering what had been unleashed inside him. Already she regretted her impulsive demand.

    "Jonas?" she whispered with uncertainty.

    "You don't know what you're asking," he said, his voice raw and harsh. "But maybe this is as good a time as any for both of us to find out."

    He reached into the case and lifted out one of the pistols.

    The instant his hand closed around it, Verity experienced a sudden, overwhelming sensation of being pursued. A ripple of terror went through her. Her palms grew damp and her heart began to beat too quickly, as though she were preparing to run for her life.

    That was exactly what she wanted to do. Like a doe fleeing the hunter's hounds, she wanted to whirl and run. The nameless fear gripped her. The walls of the cabin seemed to close in around her, curving,

    elongating, taking on the shape of a dark tunnel.

    Someone was in that tunnel with her. She couldn't see him yet, but she knew he was hunting her. Soon he would reach out for her. If he caught her she would never escape.

    Her whole future would be altered if the hunter in the dark corridor found her.

    Verity stood frozen in the center of the room, desperately trying to understand what was happening to her.

    Panic attack, she thought frantically. The abrupt onset of an irrational fear that triggered the ancient fight
                or-flight mechanism in the human body. She'd never had one, but she had heard about them. She knew other women who had experienced them. The attacks struck without warning, leaving the victim shaking with an anxiety that had no known source. Stress was sometimes blamed. Perhaps Jonas was right. Maybe she had been working too hard lately.

    In her mind she turned a corner in the tunnel tailing shape and started to run. There was no end to the corridor; no iight ahead. But she ran regardless, because anything was safer than staying to confront the hunter who pursued her. Already she could feel him coming closer, hands reaching for her.

    "Don't run from me. You belong to me. Don't run."

    The words echoed in her mind, part command and part plea. She thought she should be able to recognize that voice. It was rough, male, and full of power. And it only made her want to flee faster through the corridor. She had to get out of there.

    Then, without any warning, the curving walls and the sense of being pursued disintegrated. Verity was abruptly, violently aware of Jonas, who stood perfectly still beside her. He was no longer holding one of the pistols. He had returned it to the case. But he was looking at her with his strange golden eyes. There was a raw, unleashed hunger in that gaze. It was both undeniably sexual and much more, indefinable and dangerous and compelling.

    The room around Verity looked exactly as it had a moment ago. Nothing had changed, although she was dazed. Something felt terribly, horribly different. In a way she couldn't explain, she sensed that her world would never be quite the same again.

    "The gun is genuine," Jonas said in a voice that sounded unnaturally calm. "As Verity told you, my field is the Renaissance, but I know enough about old weapons to tell you that you've got a very valuable set of pistols there. Take care of them, Emerson. They're worth a great deal of money."

    "I guess my daughter was right," Emerson said cheerfully. "Luck follows the virtuous. Now all I have to do is figure out how to turn these pistols into cash. Well, it's been a long day. What do you say we all hit the sack? I could use a