Moon Cursed

by Lori Handeland

  Her gaze caught on an overlook. If she climbed up there, she could take better footage of the opposite shore.

  Minutes later, Kris scrambled to the top of a pretty steep trail and onto a finger of land that jutted out farther and higher than any other in the area. As she had suspected, the view was spectacular.

  Kris panned the shore, the water, the trees. At the bottom of the viewfinder, something big and dark slid leisurely from right to left in the water.

  Bump-bum.

  Had that been her heart? Or the theme from Jaws? Was her heart thumping the theme from Jaws?

  “Stop that,” she ordered as she continued to film the large, whale-like shadow gliding just beneath the murky surface.

  It disappeared of course. She got no more than ten seconds on film.

  Kris again contemplated the sky. Those clouds that had been approaching were here, hovering above the loch, easily reflected in it. She was certain that when she examined the film more closely all she would see would be—

  “Big clouds. Bump-bum. Bump-bum.” She started to laugh, then saw the flicker in the woods.

  Her camera was up and filming again before she even realized what she was doing. Kris adjusted the focus, zoomed in.

  Was that a person?

  Excitement made Kris’s hands want to shake, but she refused to let them. This was it! She was going to have film of whoever had been hoaxing the hell out of people. If she was lucky she’d be able to enhance the water footage and reveal just what they’d done to make it look like there was a big black blob of a monster swimming down there.

  Excited, Kris leaned forward, still filming, and suddenly—

  She was airborne.

  CHAPTER 12

  Kris woke on the shore. Cold. Aching. Scared.

  But alive.

  She wasn’t on just any shore, either, but the expanse directly in front of Loch Side Cottage. There was no way she’d gotten here on her own.

  The sun had set. The clouds blocked any prayer of a moon.

  A car swished by but didn’t stop. No one could see her lying on the bank like a dead fish. She didn’t want them to.

  A twig snapped to her right. Kris jerked in that direction, and every muscle in her shoulders shrieked. Her eyes strained against the night, but she could see nothing beyond the looming curve of the trees.

  A sharp, heavy splash had Kris scrambling several feet up the bank before collapsing. She forced herself to glance over her shoulder. The loch gleamed like a sheet of black onyx—smooth and impenetrable—all the way to the distant shore. Kris was as alone as she’d thought she’d been on that overhang. Before someone had pushed her in.

  Hadn’t they?

  “Yes,” she whispered, scaring herself with how scared she sounded.

  She had not leaned over that far. She had not been that close to the edge. She’d been off balance, distracted, then one little shove and down, down, down, until she plunged beneath the surface.

  She’d come up once, and she could have sworn she’d seen someone watching her struggle and flail and eventually go under.

  Or had that been a hallucination produced by her terrified, dying mind? Right now, she couldn’t remember if she’d seen the person on the eastern shore or the western. In the trees or up on the cliff.

  And if she couldn’t remember where she’d seen him, or her, she certainly wasn’t going to remember what he, or she, looked like.

  Kris needed to get inside. Not only because she was wet and cold and had begun to shake, but also because even though she couldn’t see anything sneaking up on her, she knew that it was.

  She risked another glance behind her. A mist had begun to skate across the onyx surface of the loch, swallowing everything in its path.

  Forcing herself to stand, Kris gritted her teeth and made her weaving way up the bank. Once she was on her feet, she felt better. Until she glimpsed the smoky fingers of mist curling around her ankles.

  With a gasp, she twisted and met a wall of swirling white. From deep inside came another splash.

  Then Kris was lurching across the road, into her yard, and up to the door. She had an irrational fear that if the mist caught her she’d drown in it like she hadn’t drowned in Loch Ness. She reached for the knob, moving forward eagerly as she did.

  And bashed her nose into the wood when the knob refused to turn and the door refused to open.

  Locked.

  Kris spun about. The fog was cat-footing across the road.

  She slapped her hand to the pocket of her jeans, then remembered. The key was sharing space with her video camera.

  Out there. Where whatever had splashed was still splashing.

  She was going to have to walk into the village and get another key from Effy. Just not—

  “Now,” Kris muttered, and let her chin sag nearly to her chest. She wanted to let her body slide to the ground, but if she did that she didn’t think she’d get back up.

  Maybe if she just rested for a minute, she could—

  Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

  Footsteps on pavement. Steady. Sure. They knew where they were going. Too bad Kris couldn’t figure out where they were coming from.

  The utter darkness combined with the mist made it seem as if she existed in a strange otherworld. Sounds were not only magnified but also distorted, impossible to detect from which direction they came.

  Sure, the splash earlier had seemed as though it had erupted from the loch. But was that because she’d equated splash with water—go figure—or because it had actually happened there?

  Right now she couldn’t tell if those footsteps were coming from the highway, the hills behind the cottage, a trail at Urquhart Castle, or her very own sidewalk.

  Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

  Louder. Closer. Faster.

  Kris’s gaze flicked right, left. Her flight instinct kicked into full gear. She no longer felt exhausted and lethargic but twitchy and hyperalert. Still, she fought that urge to flee, because she knew she wouldn’t get far.

  Number one: No matter how jazzed she felt, she was exhausted.

  Number two: In the thick fog, she’d probably run right into whomever she was trying to avoid.

  Number three: If she didn’t run into them, they’d just chase her. That’s what predators did.

  Then they ate you. Or tossed you in the loch.

  “Been there,” Kris whispered. “Done that.”

  The steps now seemed to burst from the right, the left, the ground, the air, bombarding her with sound. At least she no longer heard any splashes from the loch.

  She shouldn’t run. She really tried to stop. But her legs bunched, and she came away from the door, turning toward Drumnadrochit as she took her first, fleeing step.

  Hands descended on her shoulders, and Kris began to scream.

  *

  Liam let her go.

  Kris didn’t stop screaming.

  He couldn’t say he blamed her. He’d no doubt loomed out of the mist like a monster. After last night, he was lucky she hadn’t taken a swing at him.

  “Kris,” he murmured. “ ’Tis me. Liam.”

  Why that would make her stop screaming he had no idea. But it did.

  Kris collapsed against him, her arms going around his waist, cheek pressed to his chest. “Liam,” she gasped, then more quietly in a voice that made something shift and tumble in his stomach, “Liam.”

  She was soaked and trembling. He needed to get her inside before she went into shock.

  Liam started to back Kris toward the door, reaching for the knob as he did so.

  “It’s locked,” she said. “I lost the key when I fell into the water.” She lifted her head, her eyes wide and dark, her face far too pale. “Someone pushed me in.”

  Liam frowned. He’d watched her go into the water. His alarm at the sight of her tumbling from the great height, then crashing into the icy cold loch had kept him from looking anywhere but at her. He hadn’t seen her get pushed. But that didn’t mean it hadn’t h
appened.

  Around here, lately, a lot had been happening that he hadn’t seen, couldn’t explain, and did not like.

  “Then they followed me here.” She pulled away, though she kept her hands on his hips, as if she needed the connection, or perhaps just the warmth. “I heard their steps.” Her eyes flicked back and forth, back and forth, as she tried to see into the ever-thickening mist.

  “ ’Twas me, lass. Me ye heard. My steps.” Liam couldn’t help it. He brushed his palm over her still-wet hair.

  He didn’t mention that he’d seen her fall. If he did, she’d want to know why he hadn’t helped and then what would he say?

  “There was splashing, too,” she said. “Behind me.” She pointed at the loch. “Out there.”

  “And why wouldn’t there be? ’Tis a loch. Everything in it goes splash.”

  “Nothing that big.”

  “The mist magnifies,” he said. “What are ye afraid of? Nessie?”

  She jerked in his arms, surprising and confusing him. Though she had come to write about the monster, he’d gotten the impression she did not believe. But if not, then why was she afraid of what might lurk out there in the dark?

  “She wouldnae hurt ye.” He pushed a stray frizzy lock behind her ear. “I promise.”

  She tilted her head, and the hair he’d just tucked back swung free. She seemed about to question that statement, and he cursed himself for making it.

  “Let’s get ye inside.” He reached past her and shoved at the door. It gave way with a thick clunk.

  Kris stared at the broken door. “How did you do that?”

  “This place has been rotting in the damp for decades. I dinnae know why Effy doesnae get it fixed.” He lifted one shoulder. “Now she’ll have to.”

  Liam urged Kris inside. Since he’d broken the lock, he’d have to stay all night again to make certain she was safe. Not that he hadn’t planned to anyway.

  Women were being killed, and whoever was doing it appeared to be very interested in having Kris become one of them. Why? She was a writer, come to write a children’s book about Nessie. What possible threat could she pose?

  Liam had no idea, but he was going to find out.

  “Hot shower,” he ordered, and urged her toward the bathroom. “I’ll make ye some tea.”

  “Coffee,” she muttered, but she went. Seconds later the water beat against the shower curtain, and Liam began to imagine things he had no business imagining.

  The steamy heat curling her golden hair about her face, the droplets sliding across the freckles on her nose. He would sip them one by one as they trembled on the edge of that nose or perhaps beaded on the cusp of one breast. Would her freckles taste of their cinnamon shade? Would her nipples be the same?

  Liam groaned. How was it that the very thought of her made his hands tremble, even as the rest of him hardened to the point of pain?

  Yes, he was a man. He’d spent a lifetime in seduction. But this time she was seducing him.

  He shouldn’t be surprised. Years of lips whispering lies against sweetly scented skin, his palms skimming waists, thighs, breasts, his mouth tasting ambrosia, then nothing. In truth, the slightest brush of a hand on his shoulder should have made him spurt like a youth.

  Liam finished with the coffee, shoving the carafe beneath the brew basket with a little too much force. He had to grab the machine with his free hand before it tumbled backward. He needed to get a grip as they said in the states. Sadly, all he wanted to grip was her.

  An odd noise made Liam lift his head, the hairs on his neck and arms ruffling as a second muffled sound drifted from the bathroom.

  He took the few steps to the door and shoved it open with such force—he’d expected it to be locked—that it slammed into the opposite wall, bouncing back and nearly smacking him in the face as he came through, fists clenched.

  Kris, warm and wet, leaped into his arms.

  “What is it?” she cried, at the same time he demanded, “Who’s here?”

  His gaze swept the small area—empty but for them and the steam—then he reached out and yanked back the shower curtain. Nothing was behind it but the still-pounding pulse of the water.

  “I heard ye cry out.” Liam tried to hold her close, but she kept sliding through his grasp like the loch through his fingertips.

  Her lips rounded, a perfect, peach o. He wanted to taste her so badly his mouth watered.

  “I—” She shoved the tumbling mass of curls from her face.

  His gaze was caught by the silver Celtic cross around her neck. Had she always worn it, or was the addition recent? Perhaps a gift from Edward. If so, the old man was betting on shape-shifter.

  Liam brushed his fingertips against the cool, bright metal. He’d never known Edward to be wrong.

  At Liam’s touch, her breath caught. The sharp movement dragged the now-taut buds of her breasts—more rose than cinnamon but perfect nevertheless—across his pecs and his own nipples hardened.

  “I slipped,” she whispered, her voice hoarse from the chill of the loch, or perhaps the heat of the room, the heat of them. Wherever their skin met—his hands on her arms, his chest to her breasts, his hips bumping hers as she shifted, restless—he burned.

  Then he was kissing her, tasting her, touching her in ways he hadn’t kissed, tasted, or touched in years.

  *

  Kris wasn’t sure what got into her. She wasn’t the type to kiss a stranger. She definitely wasn’t the type to tear at his shirt, yanking it over his head and tossing it to the floor so that she could spread her palms across that smoothly muscled chest.

  But Liam wasn’t really a stranger, now, was he?

  She’d kissed him before, and she was going to do a whole lot more than kiss him now. Then he wouldn’t be a stranger ever again.

  His tongue explored her mouth; his hands explored her body. She should have been shy to have a man burst in when she was climbing out of the shower stark naked. Instead she’d been thrilled.

  She’d thought someone was coming to hurt her, and she’d known that Liam would stop them. Her first response to the sight of him had not been to run, to hide, but to throw herself into his arms. She was so glad that she had.

  He skimmed his palms up her ribs, then filled them with her breasts, stroking a thumb over each swollen nipple.

  His mouth left hers, trailing over her chin to her neck. His hair, soft and dark, brushed her collarbone and she shivered.

  Without lifting his head or pausing one second in what he was doing, Liam slammed the door shut. With the water still running, soon they were as surrounded by steam as they’d been by mist.

  But the steam was warm and it welcomed, a sharp contrast to the chilling isolation of that creeping mist.

  “Ye taste like spice cake,” he whispered against the curve of her shoulder.

  “You smell like rain,” she murmured into his hair.

  His jeans scraped her hips and belly. She tugged at the button, which popped, but the zipper strained tight against his erection. Since she didn’t want to injure anything she might need later, she stepped back and let him take the lead.

  Besides, she wanted to watch.

  The sleek muscles that flexed and flowed beneath his skin made him ripple and pulse in all the right places. His hips were slim, his thighs hard, his shoulders broad but not bulky.

  She ran her hand over one, tracing a thumb down the curve of his arm, then skating a palm across his chest. “Do you swim?”

  His head came up. The steam cast in front of his face, obscuring his expression. “Why d’ ye say that?”

  “Shoulders,” she mused, and then became fascinated with touching them.

  His skin was slick from the heat. Her hair curled wildly. She’d never be able to tame it now. Beads of water dotted his like the dew at dawn. One such bead ran down his neck and, leaning forward, she licked it away.

  He growled, the vibration enticing, exciting, erotic against her mouth, her breasts, then filled his palms with the
ample flesh where thighs became ass and lifted her onto the countertop.

  She gasped, shocked. Even more so when he slid his hands down the backs of her legs, using his nails just a little, then slowly opened those legs, stepping between them, holding her gaze all the while.

  His eyes were sapphire; they seemed brighter tonight. Maybe that was because his blue-black hair was loose and billowing about his face. Or because the heat of the room had caused his cheeks to flush, although his hands still felt so cool.

  “Yer eyes,” he murmured, “are the shade of the earth as the sun slips away.” He leaned forward, kissing the corner of each one. Strange how one man’s mud was another man’s earth as the sun slipped away.

  “And yer hair is the summer moon, gold and shining in a sea of black.”

  “Poetry?” she asked.

  He stroked his thumb over her center, and she jumped. Captured by his gaze, seduced by his words, she’d forgotten that she sat on the edge of a countertop, legs spread, Liam poised between them.

  “Truth,” he answered, then slowly, achingly, gloriously pushed inside.

  She shifted, not uncomfortable but not quite right, and he murmured something in Gaelic that could have been a curse or a prayer, maybe both, before skating his hands beneath her thighs and tilting her so that not quite right disappeared.

  He drank her gasp with his lips as he looped her knees at his waist. She figured out how to cross her ankles at his back and hold him close all on her own.

  His long, clever fingers stroked where her thighs veed, the tender, rarely touched flesh trembling even as she did.

  She was open to him in a way she’d never been open to anyone else. He’d seen her fear; he’d kissed away her terror. He’d protected her, saved her, and now he would make her forget everything but this moment and him.

  His thrusts quickened. He lifted her knees higher and wider, and they became deeper. She was making desperate, begging sounds, her head thrown back, his mouth at her neck, her collarbone, the swell of her breasts.

  “I cannae reach.” His teeth grazed her skin.

  “Harder,” she gasped, surprising herself. “More.”

  “Aye,” he said. “Lift them, mo bhilis. Bring them to my mouth, and I’ll give ye all that ye ask.”