Captive Moon

by C. T. Adams

  She was in pain? How could he have not noticed that? He started toward the door, but Grand-mère blocked his path with supernatural speed.

  “Leave her be. I healed her skin where the blisters had formed and sent her downstairs. She has been instructed to swim in the pool to cool down and expend the excess energy. Matty and the others are there. They promised to notify me if there are any problems. I thought that best, since you and I need to have a serious discussion.”

  Antoine felt magic begin to roil up from her small frame, making her seem more powerful than usual.

  “It was both thoughtless and dangerous for you to have left her in that condition! What were you thinking!?”

  Antoine felt himself flinch from her tone. How easy it was to drop back into childhood roles. But it honestly hadn’t occurred to him what might become of the energy that had been taken from him. He opened his mouth to respond, but Grand-mère held up a hand before he could speak. She moved closer, forcing their auras to touch. Fury vibrated her body, clawing along his own magic.

  “Do not answer! It’s obvious that you weren’t thinking. Just as you weren’t thinking about the chair, or the visions that have been haunting you. And just as you haven’t been thinking of the decisions you’ve made on the council of late! All that is about to change, Antoine. You will be thinking a great deal about these and other things in the next few days.”

  She was right. So many things had been occupying his mind lately that he’d ignored others. Like not personally ensuring the safety of his cats, or knowing about Matty’s trip. He sighed deeply. “Grand-mère—”

  She shook her head, and frustration and determination edged out the scent of her anger. “No, Antoine. Today I am not your grandmother. Today, I am Giselle Bertrand, leader of the lynxes. I am one of your subjects—and I am planning a palace revolt.”

  He felt his brows raise. “Pardonne?”

  She clenched her fists and took a deep breath. Antoine could hear her heartbeat slow a bit from the angry pounding that matched her scent. “I had hoped that thrusting you into your present position would build you, make you accept and embrace your Sazi abilities. But there is too much of your father in you. Your sisters apparently received all of your mother’s best traits, so…a change is needed.”

  Antoine sat down on the arm rest of the couch near the fire, keeping the distance between them that she had established. “I do not understand Gran—I mean, Giselle. What is it you’re trying to say?”

  Giselle stared at him, searching his face for…something. She apparently didn’t find what she was looking for, because she sighed and dropped her gaze to the dark leather upholstery with a sad shake of her head. “Even yet, you don’t grasp the situation. Very well. You were a dauphin, Antoine. You were the first surviving alpha male of either the lions or the cougars in a very long time. It was believed that you would rule over the cats and bring peace to us.”

  He shook his head just a bit with confusion racing through his mind. “And I do rule the cats—”

  She laughed, and her bitterness smelled like unripe lemons. “You do not know the meaning of the word! You sit on your throne as Marie Antoinette sat on hers—unknowing and uncaring for anything save your own comfort. Perhaps we protected you too much. Your childhood was traumatic and your seer gifts made it more so. But others have endured trauma and survived. They have grown, as your sisters grew in skill and responsibility. But you have not. You play with your wild cats and entertain the humans, ignoring the trials and needs of your people. Twice now you’ve left Tahira to face her fate, unknowing, uncaring. You have no curiosity about what brought her to us, nor why she is able to absorb magic—”

  Antoine felt his own anger rising. “That is not true! Perhaps you don’t understand all that is at play here! Tahira is of another culture, one the council is trying to establish friendly relations with. I am quite concerned about her welfare, which is why I allowed her to contact her family, and hope to return her to them. It is why I have fought against my curiosity, out of respect for her privacy. It is—”

  Giselle let out a harsh breath, close to a laugh. “A game to you. Nothing more. You have not tried to contact her family. You have waved your hand airily and instructed your employees to do so. I read the papers in your briefcase.” She saw his shocked expression and shrugged. “Do not leave them in view if you don’t want me to look. You invited Tahira’s sahip to visit your estate in Strasbourg. Putain! How did you expect them to do that? Do you believe they have wings?”

  He frowned as his fingers began tapping his leg almost of their own accord. “I would have been happy to meet with them at a location of their choosing.”

  Giselle tapped her temple. “Again, you did not think! The kabile is poverty-stricken but proud. So they declined the meeting rather than admit they could not afford to travel to France. But you took their refusal at face value. You never even considered the possibility of dirtying your linen trousers or scuffing your fine shoes to seek them out. But even that I could forgive. This I cannot.”

  She reached into her pocket and extracted a small brown envelope and threw it hard enough that it hit him in the chest. “Go ahead. Look inside. See what you have done to your people—to those you supposedly lead. I found this waiting on my pillow when we arrived here.”

  Antoine opened the clasp and pulled out a thin stack of photographs. He flipped through them and his first thought was of revulsion. A small pride of lions was lying under a sole shade tree on a vast savanna. They were barely alive, with ribs showing and patches of hair missing. The sores on their legs were black with flies. “What are these?”

  Giselle’s voice shook with emotion when she responded, but there were too many scents coming from her to sort. “Those are your people. They are your mother’s tribe. Once they were strong and proud, masters of their domain. But you saw fit to end that with the stroke of a pen, from a thousand miles away.”

  He put the photos back in the envelope and tossed it back to her. She didn’t reach out to catch it, so it dropped to the couch and bounced onto the floor. “How is this my fault? I have done nothing to these people.”

  Her jaw set and her eyes flashed with the same anger of her scent. “Precisely. You have done nothing. When the Sazi hyenas moved onto their land, you did nothing. When Angelique, the representative for the raptors, made motion for the rights to a small pond—which happened to be the only watering hole for miles on the savanna—you did nothing. You did not visit the area, although you do have the means. You did not ask what effect losing a watering hole might have. You simply voted in favor, so that you could return to your comfortable home in time for your next show. You did nothing, and now your people suffer and die. You actively chose their fate by your inaction.”

  Tears were rolling freely down her face, and Antoine could only stare at her with rising outrage. “I have never willingly harmed any of my people! I absolutely deny any malice toward these people, whether or not they were my mother’s tribe. I work very hard at knowing the facts on issues before I vote. How dare you insinuate that I do not take my responsibilities seriously!”

  But she waved off his statements. “I was willing to talk to you, make you aware since you were born with so little curiosity. But then Tahira came to us, and still you do nothing. The poor child is a power well, and you leave her to suffer. But her suffering will soon become the suffering of all of us. You know it. You have seen it—for weeks now you have had visions, but you silence them, ignore them because they are inconvenient. That is, until your seer gift would tolerate no more interference and forced you to see, at the risk of both of your lives and anyone who might have been unfortunate enough to be on the road.”

  Antoine held up his hand. “What is a ‘power well’?”

  “Something that should not exist. A gift, or curse, that is the stuff of legends and fables. There are small references in a dozen books, but no guides—no instructions on what to do or how to deal with the abilities. That you will hav
e to learn for yourself, before the eyes in your dream swallow the world.”

  His hand clenched the couch arm. “But how could you…my vision…you can’t know what I see! Besides, my visions have nothing to do with my duties. You are deliberately changing the subject.”

  She looked at him with contempt, but her scent was filled with pity. “Acting on your visions is part of your duties, Antoine. The subject remains the same. Do you really believe that the council would allow me to raise you and your sister—two powerful alphas even as cubs—without some small abilities of my own? I am a sensitive, and a good one. I was a member of Wolven when your sister called us. You probably do not remember, but it was I who removed you from your hiding place in the wall after your mother had drowned your younger siblings. It was I who helped the other agents, whom you now know as Lucas and Jack, put your mother to rest at last. It was I who helped your sister Aspen deal with her various seer gifts before they could destroy her mind as they did your mother’s. It was I who helped develop Fiona’s powers, and though I have desperately tried to help you realize yours, you will have no part of it.”

  His head was swimming. All these years of believing her to be his confidante, the one person he could trust in the world, and now…“You killed my mother?”

  The confusing blend of scents rising from her included anger, surprise, comfort, and concern. “She was insane, Antoine, and too powerful for her own good. You were very young to have remembered it, but it took all three of us to put her down. Yes, you watched the death of your infant siblings, but you didn’t see the six deaths of those who preceded Amber and Aspen, the ones she claimed to be accidental, and the ones in between that we learned about from your sisters. Did you never wonder why there is such a large age gap between you and your older sisters? There were others, many others, Antoine.”

  Her eyes were filled with pain and sadness, but her voice was calm. “Times were different. We believed her when she told us of tragic illnesses and crib deaths. Death is not uncommon in Sazi children as they struggle to reconcile the beast inside. We didn’t know what psychiatrists now understand about postpartum depression. But that is neither here nor there. The issue today is you. I am sorry for your difficult childhood. I wish it would have been otherwise. But it was no worse than my own, and I have recovered. It is time for you to do the same, or face the consequences.”

  Antoine stood up and felt power rise in him, matching his anger and outrage. He stood and advanced a step toward her. “Consequences? You speak to me of consequences? You stand there and inform me that you killed my mother, tell me you have lied to me for a hundred years about my past, and I am the one to face consequences? Je t’ encule pauvre con!”

  Without even thinking, he extended his hand and threw a vicious blast of power at her. To his surprise, she quite calmly blocked the energy and sent it veering into the wall. Rock exploded outward, raining down on them both, knocking the laptop to the floor. She didn’t even flinch at one of his best attacks and had no scent of fear. How was it that he had never noticed this side of her? How long had she been reading his documents, watching his visions, and following his council career? Who was this woman in front of him?

  Giselle crossed her arms over her chest, and her voice was both sour and angry when she responded. “This is just like you, Antoine. You react without thinking, and blame all but yourself. À méchant ouvrier, point de bon outil! Your sisters all know the story. They asked long ago. I have never lied to any of you. You are the only one who has never wondered—never cared about the why. You cling to your memories as though reality of the past will somehow bend to your will. You remember Sabine as sweet and good, rather than the wild-eyed killer she was at the end. And in taking offense at actions from a century ago, you gloss over your own failings, which are every bit as bad, if not worse. I brought a murderer to justice to save innocents. You have slaughtered innocents through your indifference. Which do you believe is worse?”

  Antoine could only stare in shock at the force, and the truth, of her words. He ran his fingers through his hair and then rubbed the bridge of his nose between his eyes. There was too much to think about, to consider. “I do not blame my tools for my failings, Giselle, if indeed I have failings. I…I need time to think about all of this.”

  He was startled when steely determination filled her scent. “And yet, there is no time. As you said earlier, things are happening. People are dying. So, be it known that I hereby challenge you for your council seat. If you will not act, then someone must in your place.”

  He was already stunned from the revelations and had to catch himself on the fireplace mantel to keep from falling. It took several tries to get words out. “Wha—what did you say?”

  She stood up straighter and raised her chin, eyes filled with fire. “I believe I was clear. At the next full moon, unless you have proven yourself capable of leading our people, we will battle in animal form for the right to represent the cats. One of us will not survive, as a leadership challenge is to the death. I am willing to risk that to protect our people. Fais ce que je dois, advienne que pourra.”

  He held up his hands in shock and resignation. This was becoming ridiculous. “I am also more than willing to, as you say, ‘do my duty, come what may.’ But if all you want is my council seat, Giselle, and feel you can do a better job, then take it. I offer it freely. I never asked for the job. It was thrust upon me against my wishes, as you well know.”

  Giselle shook her head. “Non, Antoine. That is not the way this can end, as you well know. I am sorry if the truth hurts—Il n’y a que la vérité qui blesse, petit fils. But by accepting the post, you became Rex to our people, and the cats would never willingly follow one who negotiated for the throne. But you still have an option. I have made it clear in my challenge that if you are somehow able to live up to the responsibility of your post—to learn how to control and use the power well to save our people from the death and destruction that is about to occur—then you may remain in your seat.”

  He opened his mouth to respond when the sound of someone hammering on the door made him turn his head. A low growl rose from his chest and he fought not to let out a piercing cougar roar. All of this stress on the third night of the moon was forcing his magic too close to the surface. He would probably have to change into cat form later to compensate.

  He stepped toward the door. “Who in the world can be calling in this storm? Grand-mère, we can discuss this potential challenge later. You have not made the terms clear to me, as you seem to believe.”

  She stepped from around the couch and a small smile turned up one corner of her mouth as she passed him in a blur, reaching the door first. “I never said I made the terms clear to you. I have already filed the formal challenge with the council and chief justice”. She sighed suddenly, her voice and scent determined but sad. “This has been a long time coming, Antoine.” She avoided his hand when he reached out to grab her arm. “Our visitor should be the person who will officiate the challenge. I was expecting him when Larry and Bruce arrived, but he wouldn’t rattle the knob as they did. He would simply walk in. He apparently was delayed by the storm, since he intended to be here before I challenged you.”

  “Who in the world would agree—?” But he didn’t need to finish, because he knew the one person on the council who would brave the fires of hell, the depths of the ocean, or a winter blizzard in Germany, to watch one of the Monier family fall in combat. Antoine felt both a snarl rise in his chest and a sinking feeling rumble the pit of his stomach. “Merde!”

  “Ah, you have guessed,” Giselle said, as she unlocked the first deadbolt on the door. “The battle will be officiated by the worst enemy the Moniers have ever known, save themselves: Councilman Ahmad al-Narmer, representative for the snakes.”

  Chapter Seven

  “NO, NO. HIGHER, Matty! She needs to have to work to reach it.”

  Tahira toweled her hair as she watched Bruce and Matty preparing to feed the large female Bengal, Babett
e.

  A sudden sharp pain made her let out a startled yelp and pull her foot away from the male cub, who had decided that her toes were chew toys. He immediately pounced on the retreating prey, so she picked him up by the scruff of the neck and nipped his ear with a small growl. The cat hissed and spit and struggled to free himself while Tahira held him at arm’s length with a smile. The cubs were just darling—so feisty and playful.

  She and the cub both turned their heads at the sound of Babette’s light series of grunts and chuffing. Tahira set the cub on the ground, and he bounded over to his mother and began to feed. His sister climbed from the shallow, running stream that led to the pool, shook herself, and quickly nestled in beside her brother for some milk.

  “That high enough, mate?” Matty asked.

  Tahira shook her head in wonder. She knew they were in a basement, but the underground lair was simply amazing. A small man-made stream ran through the cattails that hid an aerator. They fed a small pond that looked, for all the world, as though it should be in the middle of a summer meadow. The stream wound its way to the opposite corner and fed into a large, deep pool, with molded plastic sides and walls. The blues, grays, and white created an arctic landscape. Everything was lit with recessed, full-spectrum lighting with dimmer switches that could bring full noonday sun or twilight to the room. Tahira had chosen the glacier pool for her swim. The impression of ice had appealed to her when she’d changed into an apricot one-piece suit that matched the highlights in her hair. She was overheated and sweating after leaving the bedroom and talking to Giselle. But she hadn’t noticed that the water was chilled to near freezing by a refrigeration unit until after she’d jumped in.