Darkening Moon

by Gaja J. Kos

  I snorted, then peeled my gaze off the painting. I hadn’t known Frank personally, just through my brothers’ tales, but I was fairly certain he would have been proud.

  Jens was leaning on the counter, talking to the employee who all but ran Frank’s while the twins were away on other business.

  “Hi, bro,” I said as I slithered next to Jens, then looked at the tall werewolf. “Ramon.”

  Both men grinned in return.

  “What can I get you, Lotte?” Ramon asked.

  “The usual. Like old times.”

  I watched him move behind the counter with the grace of a were who’d once run his own dance class, my mouth watering at the smell of fresh, dark coffee that seeped into the air. While I was glad Ramon had found a job he loved, I was still kind of pissed Jens had poached him away from the Zentrum two years ago. I bloody missed his strong roasts.

  “Don’t you look all sexed up for someone who’s supposedly here on business,” my brother muttered under his breath.

  I took the white-and-gold cup of coffee from Ramon’s hands, then helped myself to one of the vanilla pockets tucked under a bell jar on the counter.

  Already munching on the pastry, I nudged my chin towards the table set to our right and let Jens trail behind me. I felt, more than saw, Jens’s pointed look as I squeezed myself into the corner, but I waited until I devoured every last crumb before I deigned to answer.

  “I was with Afanasiy.” I met my brother’s gaze. “I like him, Jens.”

  Surprise swept across his features, but the expression quickly faded once he lifted his own cup to his lips.

  No beer for breakfast any longer, I noted. Big bro’s growing up.

  My thoughts must have shown on my face because he narrowed his eyes at me, then slid the coffee far enough away to make me think it had actually repelled him on a physical level. I chuckled.

  “Right, like you pinging to be Ms. Exclusive isn’t just as odd,” he rumbled, though the effect was somewhat ruined by the amusement lining his voice.

  I opened my mouth, but no words came out. I hadn’t even considered that. Sighing, I shoved the thought away as quickly as he had his cup.

  “Where’s Jürgen?”

  “Out back.” A light furrow appeared on his brow. “And now he’s on his way here.”

  I grinned. The mind link my brothers’ pack shared was a handy thing. Although the thought of someone else being able to read all the shit going on in my head was a bit horrifying. They had mental shields, but when the ability first came to them, it wasn’t all that easy.

  “Where’s my coach!” Jürgen boomed as he burst through the door.

  “Here.” I laughed. “And in need of another vanilla pocket.”

  Jürgen, the sweetheart, snatched a plateful of pastries and handed it over to me before wrapping me in a tight hug. With the crammed space, his rapid moves nearly tipped my coffee over, but he caught himself—and the mug—just in time.

  “Sorry.” He shot me a smile that made it crystal clear he wasn’t. “It’s just nice seeing you here. In our town. Our bar.”

  “Our lives,” Jens added without missing a beat.

  “Sure we can’t convince you to move here?” Jürgen’s gaze drilled into mine.

  I snickered and shooed him away, but the mirth bubbling inside me faded even before the words left my lips. “Even if I wanted to—which I don’t—I have too many things to do back at home. The Zentrum is still on the mend, and with Voit…”

  My brothers snatched my hands, one each, and let the moment stretch in silence. While humor was a werewolf’s go-to way of dealing with shit, there were times when it just…faded away. Leaving nothing but the harsh truth staring back at you.

  Nobody could predict what would happen.

  My brothers understood that better than most.

  It helped knowing that I had their support, even when their scents revealed the last thing they wanted was for me to walk into danger willingly. But it seemed that was our family’s way of life.

  And I was nothing if not a Freundenberger.

  With our baggage already checked and some time to spare until boarding on our hands, Selma and I popped outside for a bit of fresh air before we had to go through security. I was leaning against a cement pillar, taking in the snow-capped tops creating a ridged seam between Slovenia and Austria.

  The day was starting to brighten as it crept towards noon, the blue of the sky scattering the final whispers of fog. Yet the leaden weight in the pit of my stomach remained undisturbed.

  Somehow, knowing that in two hours’ time I would land in Munich made reality that much harsher. Although I’d used my time here well, being in Ljubljana still felt like a reprieve—and my determination to throw myself into the case with all I had was starting to feel like a fucking bad idea.

  I sighed and let my gaze wander across the groups of people dragging their luggage behind them while Selma chatted away with her mom. My ogling, however, was cut short as my own phone rang.

  Alec.

  Unease slithered through me, one of those primal responses that buzzed their little warnings the instant before shit smacked me in the face.

  I swallowed and pressed the phone to my ear. “Yeah?”

  “Can you talk?” His voice was low and saturated with anger.

  “Just give me a sec.” I turned to Selma and caught her attention. “I need to take this call. Meet you inside when I’m done?”

  She nodded, then continued her conversation while I took mine a moderate distance away. I parked my butt on the low steel railing that encompassed the parking lot on the far left of the airport, then gave Alec the green light.

  “We just got another Zentrum-wide drug test dumped on us,” he growled.

  “What? But they came last month.” There was a hint of a snarl to my voice that I couldn’t contain despite my best efforts. “Surely they can’t keep throwing so much money away to get every fucking person linked to us checked out? What’s the deal?”

  He let loose a labored breath. “The deal, I think, is Selma.”

  I glanced at the girl, catching a glimpse of her form just as she walked through the sliding glass doors into the building. “But she’s clean.”

  “She is, and we know that. But the authorities can’t ignore a filed complaint.”

  “You’re saying someone pitted them on her?” I frowned, then remembered the less than pleased faces I’d spotted after she won the tournament, basically destroying the club’s own favorite in forty minutes. “Ah, crap. I really thought the bad rep wouldn’t follow us all the way over here.”

  “I’m pretty sure they would have figured out another way to fuck with us even if it didn’t,” Alec said dryly. “Selma is on her way to reach pro level. There was always going to be something.”

  I nodded absentmindedly. Of course he was right. Negative attention came with the territory.

  “So you’re calling me to say we’ll have people waiting at the airport? A nice little public display as they escort her to the fucking toilets?”

  “Yeah.” He sighed. “Promise me you won’t lose your temper.”

  “Damn, and here I was thinking I’d shift and sink my pretty little wolf teeth into their necks.”

  “You know what I mean—”

  “Yeah, yeah.” I dropped the snark from my voice. “Thanks for the heads-up, Alec. I promise we’ll both behave, then snarl away once we’re safely at the compound.”

  “I’ll even bring the beer.”

  The combination of annoyance and warmth in his tone made me smile. “Deal.”

  I shoved my phone back in my pocket, then took another look around, using the moment to soothe my energy before joining up with Selma. She didn’t need to feel the residual anger any more than I needed it in my life. But just as I got my pulse and breathing under control, awareness slithered down my spine, shattering the calm.

  I was being watched.

  21

  With the swirling winds and abu
ndance of people milling around the airport, it was hard to catch my stalker’s scent. Every time I thought I had it, another gust blew it away.

  Fortunately, a wolf’s nose wasn’t the only thing in my arsenal.

  Unleashing my instincts, I used their full scope to track the eerie sensation instead. I hopped over the steel fence, then followed the pull across the parking lot that had almost reached its capacity. My inner compass didn’t care about obstacles, but jumping over cars would attract more attention than was advisable.

  Besides, while it was difficult to ignore the metaphysical navigation screeching at me whenever I veered off course, the parked vehicles made for excellent cover.

  So I progressed slowly, edging ever closer to the copse of trees that acted like a buffer between the lot and main road on the other side of the chain-link fence.

  I paused behind a Volkswagen of indeterminable color and studied the greenery. There was no distinguishable shape of a body lurking in the shadows, yet I felt the stalker far more acutely than before.

  They had to be there.

  A thought shuffled into the foreground, and I scanned the space around me. No eager travelers or stuck-up businessmen here.

  Reeling in my “feelers,” I focused on scent instead. My nostrils flared as I locked on it, and—

  I suppressed a laugh.

  “I was wondering if you’d find me.” A disembodied female voice came from the shade that seemed just a little darker than the rest.

  I narrowed my eyes, then gasped as the inky shadows dispelled like a veil, gracefully revealing the leather-clad, dark-haired Nightwraith.

  “And what would you have done if I turned the other way?” I asked and raised an eyebrow, although my lips quirked up into a smile.

  She shrugged. “I’d come get you. But I sensed your anger and figured you could use a mini-hunt.”

  This time, when amusement bubbled inside me, I let the laughter out. “Thanks for that.”

  Lena fell in step with me, and we slowly made our way back towards the airport proper, instinctively keeping our distance from any human and non-human ears alike. Thankfully, most seemed to have headed towards their terminals.

  “I suppose you didn’t just drop by to see me off?” I asked gently.

  “No. Though seeing you prowl around was a treat on its own.” She chuckled, her voice dancing with the breeze. “I came to give you this.”

  I took the small black box from her hands, but refrained from opening it immediately. Curiosity tended to kill the cat, and although I had no feline genes, I wasn’t willing to take the risk.

  Lena met my gaze, those same haunted shadows I’d seen once before taking up residence in the blue-green of her eyes.

  “When those Zirnitra worshippers trapped me, wanting to feed on my own demonic essence, they shackled me in wards and put me in a magically shielded chamber. I might not be able to take particle form like regular demons, but I do have it in connection to my lair.”

  I nodded. Voit had told me all about demons and their places of power—a safe haven they were able to reach at any point in their lives. All they had to do was reach for that thread, and the power would break them down into atoms, zooming them down the ethereal umbilical cord and to safety.

  “In there—” She turned her face towards the sky, the brief silence resting like a heavy weight between us. “I couldn’t escape. Not even to my lair. The wards nullified my powers. All of them. There… There are no words to explain how it felt to be so fucking helpless. To have something that’s mine by right ripped away from me.

  “I’m not sure if the design was the warlock’s own wretched plan or if Kauer knew about it. But if these people are taking supernaturals… They have to contain them somehow. Especially your missing demon.”

  I slid my thumb along the edge of the box, then lifted the lid. Presented like a ring, a small circular flake rested on a velvet cushion. It looked dainty, fragile, and yet there was an air of power around it, though nothing even remotely close to the kind of magic I knew.

  Slowly, I closed the lid and placed the box in my pocket. “This can counter whatever they have set up?”

  Lena nodded. “I designed it with Liva’s help after the incident. My sister is a fucking genius when it comes to barriers and wards. I have my magtech to work with, but she’s a natural.”

  “So what is it?”

  “A portable spell.” Her grin was downright contagious. “A thousand threads of magic entwined into something small enough to adhere to your tooth. You’ll feel its presence in your mind once you’re connected. Just tug on the metaphysical rope if you want to set the power free.”

  “And it will keep the wearer from getting ensnared?”

  “That part, unfortunately, is inevitable,” Lena said bitterly. “But once you are, the magic in there will create a thirty-second power blackout. Just enough to get away.”

  I blew out a long breath and squared my shoulders. “You believe I’m going to need it.”

  “I don’t have precognition or anything like that.” Her eyes met mine. “But if Kauer is connected to these people… Better safe than sorry is a proverb that just might make the difference between life and death.”

  Lena’s words stayed with me for the entire flight. Often, I caught myself fiddling with the box in my pocket, fighting the urge to rush into the narrow toilet and cram it into my mouth straight away. It wasn’t an illogical course of action, and I would have probably done it, too, if I hadn’t glimpsed the flat expanse of land through the window, alerting me long before the announcement that our destination was coming up.

  And the authorities right along with it.

  I focused on staying calm as the plane landed. The passengers lined up in a neat, impatient little row as soon as the fasten seatbelts lights clicked off, and all but crammed the flight attendant against the door while we waited for the shuttle to arrive.

  “Assholes,” Selma muttered under her breath from where the two of us were still stretched out comfortably in our designated seats. “Like it’ll make any difference if they get off first.”

  I chuckled as she rolled her eyes, then kept watching all those bodies shifting from foot to foot. Sweat condensed on their brows and dampened their necks as the seconds dragged by and the status of their hand-luggage—as well as tightly pressed positions—didn’t change. Selma had worded my own mental comment.

  In all honesty, the post-landing rush never ceased to amaze me. Especially when some of the passengers looked like they had several flights already under their belt. One would think they should know better.

  One would be wrong.

  A few minutes later, our procession finally started to move. It was hard to breathe on the shuttle with so many bodies squeezed together, but mercifully, our terminal wasn’t that far away. I spotted one of the fancy new planes that ran on a combination of magic and technology, but didn’t see any of the magic wielders that made up the cabin crew.

  If their flights weren’t booked out for several months in advance, I would have loved to test them out. Apparently, they even went old school with a full complimentary service that was basically nonexistent nowadays.

  Some other time.

  Selma and I disembarked last, knowing well who waited on the other side of the gates. We didn’t get more than a few seconds of extra peace, but it was worth it.

  “Go ahead, Lotte,” Selma said once two officials came into sight, their stiff postures separating them from the rest of the crowd. “You know it’s me they want, so you’ll be done faster.”

  I could have hugged her for her even temper and leveled tone, but in the end merely squeezed her shoulder and let the doping committee escort me into the bathroom.

  One pee and blood sample later, I was walking through the bright, teeming airport. I purchased a cup of coffee to go from a place styled to resemble a sports bar, then marched through the revolving door and into the blinding sunlight.

  The crisp, typical Munich wind howled in
my ears as it chased its tail within the wide inner courtyard, bringing the scent of kebab and beer to my attention. My stomach grumbled. Aside from breakfast with the twins, I hadn’t actually eaten anything.

  I glanced back through the floor-to-ceiling windows, noting Selma wasn’t anywhere in sight yet. Probably wouldn’t be for a while, given past experience. They were annoyingly thorough, with the knack to treat athletes as if they were guilty until proven innocent.

  A pang of regret burst to life in my chest. Selma didn’t deserve all of this. No one at the compound did.

  But while sports looked brilliant and exciting to the outside eye, insiders knew the foul depths lurking beneath all that glory.

  Alec had been right on the phone earlier. If Schultz hadn’t paved the way for blatant prejudice against everyone connected to the Olympiapark Tennis-Zentrum, something else would have popped up. It was just the way things worked for anyone with even the smallest bit of success tied to their name.

  And I might as well eat something while those workings unfolded.

  I marched over to the kebab vendor and bought myself a portion with all the veggies included, then found a sunlit table with the view of the entrance out front. I dug into the food, marveling at the explosion of taste on my tongue. Once the starved wolf syndrome subsided, I wrote a quick text to Greta to see if we were still on for this afternoon.

  We’re on. But meet me at Vollmond instead. I want to check out something while we’re there.

  Sure, I texted back, then slipped the phone into my pocket and waited for the officials to finally set my athlete free. The kebab washed away most of the bitterness the thought left in my mouth.

  But here and there, a stubborn trace remained.

  I wiped away the sweat on my brow before it messed with my eyes, but could do little to ease the tickling sensation as it slithered down between my breasts, drenching the already soaked sports bra. Still, I needed this. Needed to feel the burn in my muscles, the heaviness of my breath as I controlled each intake without succumbing to gasping. That never did me any good on the court.