Darkening Moon

by Gaja J. Kos

  If anything, it let me know I was minutes away from having a nice veil of black creep up the corners of my vision.

  Blinking, I bent my knees and swayed slightly from side to side to keep my body from going still. When it came to tennis, constant motion was a crucial aspect of every winning strategy.

  Alec tapped the ball. Once. Twice. Then threw it up in a brilliant straight line.

  I followed the ball’s flight, doing a quick split-step the instant it collided with Alec’s racket, and then I was moving, using every ounce of preternatural speed to get my ass to the middle of the court in time.

  It was a strong son of a bitch of a serve, all speed with little spin. I was aware of every inch of my body as I swung, keeping my wrist firm as I leaned into the backhand shot and returned a low parallel over the net. Risky, but with the lead I had, I could afford an unforced error.

  To my delight the ball went in, skimming the inner edge of the sideline.

  Alec moved in a blur. His forehand was vicious, the shot deep and with enough spin to destroy most players. Luckily, I wasn’t most players, and had years of experience to parry his flawless execution. My feet worked quickly, smoothly, taking me far behind the baseline, but not as far as to hinder my options.

  I let the ball descend to the proper point, then delivered a spin of my own, aiming for his left-hand corner. Alec’s answering shot fell short, touching the clay somewhere between the baseline and service line.

  As always, those predatory instincts flared to life inside me at the gifted opportunity, and I advanced on the ball with all the taught—as well as natural—grace I could muster. I leaned into it with my entire body.

  The ball skimmed the conjunction between the sideline and the service line, a beautiful sound that ended in a colorful spill of Alec’s curses.

  “Should’ve known you were going to murder me with that shot,” he grumbled, but there was a lightness in his tone that matched the gleam in his blue eyes evident even from where I was still standing.

  I rushed over to the net and clasped hands with him, but when he reached over to kiss me, I froze.

  Huh? When had that happened?

  Alec inched back to give me some space, nothing but pure curiosity on his face. “Sorry, Lotte. I didn’t know you weren’t up for a kiss.”

  “I hadn’t known, either,” I muttered.

  But now that I thought about it… We’d hugged when I returned to the compound, but with everything still dipped in mild chaos thanks to the drug testing, we hadn’t gone further than that. I locked myself in my office afterwards to clear some of the urgent paperwork, and when Alec had dropped by to ask me if I felt like blowing off some steam on the court, he didn’t even move past the threshold.

  And I certainly never made a move to seek out his comfort. Odd.

  I looked up and let him see the clusterfuck of confusion.

  “What’s wro—”

  “Motherfucker,” I exploded, my gaze plunged down to my arm.

  Only it wasn’t the mark. But the demon it represented.

  “Why do I get the feeling I’m missing an entire story here?” Alec asked.

  There was no judgment in his tone, and for that I was grateful. But I was also still very much pissed.

  “I met someone,” I mumbled, following Alec as he started to walk towards the benches.

  “Lotte, that’s great!” He grabbed a towel boasting the club’s colors and rubbed it across his face. “You know I wouldn’t have overstepped the line if I knew…”

  “Gods, it isn’t like that.”

  Or was it?

  I groaned and threw myself down on the hard plastic, tipping my head back. “We aren’t together.”

  “But you love him?”

  A slightly hysterical laugh bubbled from my lips.

  “I hardly know him. But—” I sighed, then straightened. “He feels right.”

  “More than Isa?”

  Silence reigned between us for a few moments, before my faint nod paved the way for my admission. “Yes. More than Isa.”

  “Wow.”

  He threw the towel over his bag, then leaned his elbows on his knees and looked sideways at me. Rogue droplets of sweat still dangled from the tips of his hair, plummeting to the clay with each new breath.

  “That’s good, Lotte. We both knew we were just running from heartbreak, but deep down, we’re still weres.”

  “The whole one true mate thing?” I laughed, though it sounded bitter. “That’s just the thing. I knew it might happen somewhere down the road. But did you even, just once, consider that it could be someone outside our species?”

  “Sure.” He frowned. “You know I never cared about that when it came to the person I loved.”

  I shook my head. “No, Alec, I don’t mean just a person you love. I’m talking about a real bond. One of those that once you’re in it, you can never escape.”

  “That’s not a werewolf thing…”

  “No.” I bit my lip and met his gaze. “But it’s demonic.”

  After my not-so-little revelation that I just might be dealing with more than I was emotionally ready to take on, the last thing I wanted was to spend my evening thinking about shitheads who liked messing with people’s DNA. But I could hardly call off my meeting with Greta.

  The bad guys didn’t care about my love life. Besides, I couldn’t ditch my sister like that. Not after she went behind ICRA’s back to investigate something I’d dumped on her doorstep.

  So I took the company car that was on the path to becoming a good friend and entered the stream of typical Munich traffic.

  A tomato and mozzarella sandwich in one hand, I navigated the streets, using the stoplights to brush the ungodly amount of breadcrumbs from my lap. I supposed I should have been grateful there wasn’t tomato juice on my pants. Now that would have been just the cherry on the top this day needed.

  Without the freedom of my bike, it took a nerve-wracking amount of time to get from Olympiapark to Obergiesing, but at least I found my way to Vollmond without getting lost in the process. I only knew of the bar—j never been there myself—so I counted it as a win in my book.

  The place was fairly isolated, with a large parking lot sitting between the bar-proper and an industrial looking building that faintly smelled of burnt plastic. Lovely spot for a hangout. Wrinkling my nose, I eased the car under the single light that illuminated the gray asphalt and killed the engine.

  Shadows crept across the lot, the occasional vehicle zooming by on the road behind me, but no Greta.

  I climbed out of the car and locked it, then brushed off the most resilient crumbs before retrieving my cell phone from my pocket.

  No messages.

  It wasn’t like my sister to run late. And if she’d gone inside without waiting for me, she would have let me know. Those moments after bursting through the bar doors when all I could do was stand there like some lamppost and scan the too-many faces and scents in hopes of finding the right one ranked high on my list of situations I’d rather avoid. After I told Greta of my aversion, she made sure to always text me her position if the place we were meeting in wasn’t easy to scan from the outside.

  Albtraum with its windowless facade was definitely one of them.

  I frowned, then lifted my nose towards the sky to catch a better whiff of the breeze.

  On the fourth sniff, I found the proper scent. Greta had arrived here before me, but her trail didn’t lead towards the bar. Maybe she’d decided to just go ahead and check whatever it was she wanted to while I was fighting the bloody traffic.

  Still, I listened to my instincts and padded forward with caution, my ears straining to pick up even the smallest of sounds.

  Unfortunately, the tactic wasn’t foolproof when you were upwind and the person stalking up behind you had more stealth than should be legal.

  I whirled around just before a muscular hand fell on my back. Adrenaline surging, I twisted out of the way, but the werewolf was faster.

&nbs
p; He blocked my attack. Then the next one.

  A red haze exploded in my vision as the danger levels skyrocketed, but before I could give myself fully to my instincts, the were kicked my feet from beneath me and brought me to the ground.

  22

  I bucked and kicked, but the werewolf wouldn’t budge. His face was harsh, made of crude, yet not unattractive angles, a sense of power clinging to his scent.

  When his fingernails lengthened into claws, pinning me down with brutal efficiency, I knew what he was.

  A Black were.

  The most lethal of our kind.

  Shit. The only reason I wasn’t lying on the cold asphalt with my throat ripped out yet was because he wanted something from me.

  Which was a lousy reassurance.

  “Lotte Freundenberger?” he growled, muscles flexing as he countered yet another of my futile attempts to set myself free.

  My body wanted to fight, wanted to shift and snap at him with my teeth, but I did nothing of the kind. The way he said my name, the tightness and urgency of his tone… I knew I might have just walked to my death willingly, but I went still beneath him nonetheless.

  “I’m Demyan Morozov.” His grip loosened slightly when he saw the recognition settle on my face. “Your sister’s boss.”

  Only the relief that washed over me was all too quickly replaced by another kind of terror hooking its claws deep inside my core. My mind refused to accept what my instincts were saying, but the strain creasing Morozov’s brow tipped the scales.

  There was only one explanation for his presence here.

  I swallowed. “Something happened to Greta.”

  A darkness flashed in his eyes so fast I would have missed it if he weren’t still pinning me down, offering an up-close view. Slowly, Morozov eased up, then offered his hand and carefully pulled me back on my feet.

  I rubbed away the ache from my hip where it had collided with the asphalt, a few pebbles detaching themselves from my pants. When I noticed that it wasn’t just my fingers that were shaking, but my entire body, I steeled myself and faced the were. “What’s going on?”

  “My team’s on their way here to comb through the scene.” His Russian accent became thicker as that last word hung in the air. Scene. “Greta has been taken.”

  My weight was suddenly too much for my legs to bear. I swayed on my feet, Morozov catching me before I would have splattered all over the ground. He draped my arm around his neck, then secured my waist with his hand. The way we were entwined offered the false sense of being in control of my body, for which I was immensely grateful.

  Sometimes, it was the little things that kept a person from unraveling completely.

  “Let’s sit inside my car.”

  Unable to do anything as the thought that my sister had been snatched continued to rip my insides into shreds, I allowed Morozov to take me to his vehicle. I’d missed it earlier since it wasn’t ICRA standard issue but a Jeep Wrangler, almost as if he’d drove over here while off duty.

  “Sorry I had to tackle you,” he said once we were both seated.

  I snorted, thought there was no true life in the sound. “Sorry for attacking you. Although you really should have known better than to jump a were.”

  Amusement, if muted, touched his face. “Greta wasn’t fucking around when she said her sister is a force to be reckoned with.”

  I laughed, then nearly doubled over as reality slammed into my gut once again.

  Steadying myself with one hand on the dashboard, I waited until the worst of it passed.

  For a rough-around-the-edges were, as Greta had put it, Morozov was surprisingly understanding. All he did was sit there, present yet not in any way demanding or overbearing while I waded through the maelstrom of shit.

  No wonder he made such a great boss—especially in the most ruthless division of ICRA where honor badges came in the form of scars. Physical and emotional alike.

  Under his calming presence, my mind slowly started to function again. Snippets of what I knew and could guess formed a larger picture—and a thousand questions.

  But before I could ask even a single one, the roar of several engines cut through the darkness.

  After he made sure I was as all right as one could be under the circumstances, Morozov left me sitting alone in the Wrangler while he went to talk with the agents spilling from the three cars. Although I watched the scene unfold absently, the difference between these agents and the ones surrounding Isa was staggering even to my unfocused mind.

  They all seemed like fighters, a little rough around the edges like their boss, but possessing a haunting, powerful grace as they moved. Even their scents that I caught through the open window were sharp, exuding honed determination and a willingness to do whatever it took to achieve their goal. No wonder Greta liked her job. She fitted right in.

  The sudden ache in my chest knocked the breath right out of me.

  I pressed a hand to my sternum, rubbing it with the butt of my palm until the pain lessened. Fuck. I needed to pull myself together if I wanted to be of any help.

  With a whoosh of wind, Morozov slunk into the driver’s seat and jammed the key in the ignition. He took us out of the parking lot, then turned left on the road running past Vollmond, the acceleration plastering me against the backrest.

  I sat up straighter and said with conviction I actually felt, “I’m ready now. Tell me what happened to Greta.”

  We cleared an intersection, then sped through a red light before turning north. Not towards the main ICRA HQ, but the offices belonging to Morozov’s Violent Crimes faction in Neubiberg.

  “Your sister filled me in on her covert side mission,” he said gruffly, and I could have sworn I heard a thread of guilt interwoven with the deep tones of his voice. “She suspected this was more than she could handle alone, and wanted me to convince Isa Vogt to let the two divisions work together.”

  “So how come she was here alone?” I seethed.

  How come she didn’t tell me any of this? a far weaker voice inside me keened.

  Morozov’s jaw tightened, as did his grip on the steering wheel. But I sensed the anger wasn’t truly directed at me. I’d just phrased a question he hadn’t wanted to hear.

  “Because of fucking bureaucracy,” he spat, then loosened a calming breath, although tension still riddled his shoulders. “It isn’t just Senior Agents who hog cases. The leadership likes to fucking compartmentalize everything, and they felt that an investigation as sensitive as this had to be kept on a need-to-know basis.”

  If the murderous gleam in his eyes was anything to go by, he’d told the assholes a fair piece of his mind on the subject.

  “So the bosses said no and Greta went on investigating anyway?” I asked, quietly reminding myself that Greta was an agent. And a damn good one at that.

  Even if the bastards had snatched her, she wasn’t helpless.

  Unfortunately, the bile creeping up my throat disagreed.

  “Vogt came through,” he admitted much to my surprise. “After the top dog tried to shut us down, she reached out to me and offered to work together under the radar. Apparently, she’d hit a wall, and hoped that a fresh pair of eyes might catch something she missed.”

  “And Greta did.”

  She had wanted to check out something at Vollmond… I shook my head. Why the fuck hadn’t we teamed up before? Why tell me to meet her there if she knew something was off?

  As a werewolf, she should have known better than anyone else that safety was in numbers. Fuck, even I hadn’t pulled a lone ranger during the Munich Games fiasco or with Voit’s disappearance the instant I suspected foul play.

  “Greta found a pattern in the kidnappings.” Morozov’s eyes flickered to the rear view mirror, then quickly met mine before he returned his attention to the road. “We knew they all happened at clubs supes like to frequent, but with so many of them littered throughout Munich, it was impossible to station agents at all of them. Besides, Vogt didn’t want to tip her hand just
yet in case a botched attempt drove the bastards underground.”

  I nodded. While I hated this state of detachment where I kept the knowledge of my sister’s kidnapping locked away somewhere deep inside and tried to tackle the case from a purely rational point of view, I had to stay sharp. I had no idea if I could actually help, but I knew that panic was a guarantee of uselessness.

  “But if she figured out the pattern,” I mused, “why would she come to Vollmond without backup?”

  Even as I said it, it dawned on me. Shit.

  “She believed the bar was safe tonight, didn’t she?”

  Morozov nodded and took a left turn towards Neubiberg, then accelerated again once fields stretched into darkness on both sides of the road.

  “But why then—?”

  “Because she made one miscalculation.” The rapid wash of Morozov’s anger across my skin chilled me to my bones.

  I returned his previous kindness, not pressuring him even when every nerve in my body burned with the need for answers.

  He passed three cars at breakneck speed before yanking us sharply right and down a road marked with a restricted area sign. A building complex that looked like a lovechild between a warehouse and a socialist apartment block rose in the distance.

  “I was going through her system this afternoon,” he said at last, “trying to figure out how she managed to predict their pattern. Everything held, everything was right. Based on her calculations, the club should have been safe to investigate. But she forgot to include one incident.”

  I raised an eyebrow, my breath too thin and heavy at the same time. “What incident?”

  “You.” He met my gaze and stopped the car. “Greta forgot to include you.”

  “Shit,” I whispered, somehow knowing precisely what Morozov was talking about. “The fight behind Albtraum.”

  He angled his head in silent confirmation. “Greta had only included actual kidnappings into her equation. I’ve seen this happen, you know, missing something as obvious as this when your mind is overwhelmed with facts and fucking possibilities. She’d worked from the files of missing individuals, linking even a few additional ones that Vogt had failed to see…”