There was a tug at her hips—her jeans, sliding down. Her underwear followed an instant later, and then his mouth was moving down again, skimming her belly and then the ridge of one hip. She knew what he meant to do, and her body strained to meet him. But a flash of panic made her eyes spring open, made her grab at his hair, hook her legs around his ribs in an effort to stop him, to guide him back where he belonged.
Jackson raised his head, speared her with glittering eyes and a hunter’s smile. “Don’t you trust me?”
She swallowed. “You don’t—you look—”
The bones in his face were too long and too sharp. Down his hunched back, the knobs of his spine protruded, and past his smile, she saw teeth. Rows of them, white and sharp.
“I won’t hurt you.” He kissed her belly, gently. “I’d never hurt you.”
He unwound her legs. She let him do it.
He kissed her ankle and slowly ran his lips up the inside of her calf, knee, thigh. By the time he reached the juncture of her thighs, Kate was trembling. His eyes narrowed in a look of amusement. He held her gaze while he repeated the process down the other leg. Then scarred hands circled both ankles and slid upward, spreading her open. Kate shut her eyes again, breath coming shallow and too fast.
With the first touch of his mouth, she nearly came undone. She arched off the straw, choking on a wordless cry as she tried to move—away or closer, she didn’t know. Jackson held her effortlessly down. He teased her, passing his tongue so lightly over her that her body clenched in frustration. Again and again, until she was dragging her nails across the floor boards to keep from screaming.
“Please,” she begged. “Please, stop and just…”
He left off with an abruptness that left her throbbing.
“Jackson!”
“You said stop. Wasn’t that what you meant?” The laziness of his voice was belied by bright, terrible eyes that studied her intently.
She writhed against the straw, against his grip. “You know it’s not.”
“Maybe you ought to say what you mean.” He licked the inside of her thigh.
Kate glared.
The lick became a nip, then a lick again. “Say it, Katie.”
Her cheeks heated. She wanted to curse him, but gritted her teeth and forced the words out. “Please, just—finish me already.”
“Close enough,” Jackson murmured. In one swift movement he drew her knees over his shoulders and bent to seal his mouth over her.
Kate moaned, caught her lip between her teeth and bit until she tasted blood. There was no teasing this time. He drew on her hard, pleasure edged in pain spiraling up her spine. She couldn’t be still, bucked, and wound her hands in his hair and pulled until he growled against her. The heat of his mouth was too much, his tongue maddening as it entered her in a wet slide.
Once, twice, she felt the graze of his teeth, but never his bite. The constant awareness of danger left her vulnerable to every sensation, and her moan became a constant, low keening.
Jackson shifted upward. He settled over her swollen clit and suckled there while one finger and then two eased into her, thrust, and stroked her inner walls in a way that made everything go liquid hot and shimmering.
Kate screamed. Every muscle in her body contracted helplessly as her release roared through her. Her thighs clamped tight around Jackson, but he only went on working her mercilessly. She curled her body around him, dug her nails hard into his scalp and sobbed his name while the pleasure wrung her out.
_______
Jackson laid her back in the straw, laid himself down beside her with his cheek resting on her hip, fingers still trailing across the curve of her belly. “I love you,” he murmured against her skin, so softly she almost didn’t hear. “Whatever else, I love you.”
Kate exhaled harshly. She felt empty, utterly used up. And more completely satisfied than she could ever remember feeling. Jackson had never touched her with such intensity before, never with that edge of mercilessness. If that was what the wolf had given him, she couldn’t be sorry for it.
When her heartbeat was steady, she shifted down to press the length of her body fully against his and nuzzle at his jaw. His flesh had never stopped burning, but when she reached for his belt buckle, he caught her hands and stilled them.
“Kate… no.”
“Yes.” She kissed his neck, tried to draw her hands free. “I want you inside me.”
“I mean it.” He squeezed her hands harder.
Kate drew back, frowning against the sting of rejection. “It’s not the full moon. You can’t infect me.”
Jackson pressed his lips to her forehead, sighed. “Are you still on the pill?’
“The…?”
Abruptly Kate understood.
A baby. The backs of her eyelids stung suddenly, painfully, and she understood everything. In her mind she saw the same dream she’d seen a hundred times since Jackson disappeared. A home full of sunlight. A man she wasn’t afraid to love. And a black-haired baby with blue eyes, who turned when she called him, and smiled—
And then was gone, as if he’d never been there at all. Which he hadn’t.
Kate put a hand over her mouth and twisted away. She wanted to cry. But her eyes remained dry, and she was left with only a wracking pain, for everything that might have been, and now never could be.
Fifth
KATE SEARCHED FOR HER CLOTHES, not looking at Jackson. She didn’t have to look. She could feel him watching her every move as she pulled her jeans on, as she checked her boot for the short throwing knife hidden there.
She wanted to be gone. She couldn’t stand to stay in the loft an instant longer, feeling his breath on her spine. Let the Division send someone else, someone with no emotions to stand in the way, no guilty conscience to tell them Jackson Reeves’ crimes were all their fault.
She buttoned her jeans and turned to face him with her jaw set. “I’m going now.”
He didn’t look at her. He was staring down through the loft doorway, down into the darkness of the barn.
“Jackson.”
”I have a present for you,” he said.
Uneasiness churned in the pit of her stomach. “More stars?”
He glanced back, lips twisting into a wry smile. “You won’t like it.”
She shivered. “Jackson…”
From beyond the barn, out through the open patches of roof, she heard a sound. Dry grass and gravel crunching under tires.
“Wait here.” Without looking back, without reaching for the ladder, Jackson jumped down through the loft door. Kate heard the soft thud of his landing, and then nothing more from him.
Outside, a car door slammed. A man bellowed, “Reeves!” in a voice with a pained nasal twang. Kate went still, and all her blood gone cold.
“You want the cash, you come out here and get it. You’re cracked if you think I’m going in there like the others.”
“All right,” Jackson’s voice echoed under Kate’s feet. “I’m coming.”
Kate’s stomach lurched. Every instinct told her to run. She shut her eyes and fought the sickness, fought the wave of memory that threatened to swallow her.
But it was too late. She could hear the drone of nurses speaking in the hallway, she could smell the disinfectant and see the white walls and feel Jackson’s hand folded around hers—
—carefully, as if he were afraid of ripping out the stitches that ran up the insides of both her arms. A wonder she hadn’t sliced through the tendons, the doctor had said. Earlier, it had hurt, but not now. The nurse had fed something into the IV, and now she felt as painless and white as the gauze wrapping her arms.
“Howie… raped you.”
Jackson didn’t like the word, she could tell from the effort it seemed to take him to get it out. He wouldn’t look at her, but she nodded anyway.
“He’s been doing this for…”
“The first time when I was fourteen, right after Christmas, and then not again for almost a year. And then�
� well, more. But sometimes I just have to blow him, or jerk him off—”
“Stop. Jesus, stop.” Jackson pulled his hand away, stood up fast and turned to the window that looked out on the hospital parking lot, macadam baking under a hot sun. He turned his ball cap backwards, then frontwards again. “Jesus. Why didn’t you say anything?”
Kate bit her lip. “I didn’t think you’d believe me. And I could deal with it. As long as it was just Howard, I—”
“Why wouldn’t I believe you? You don’t trust me now?”
Suddenly it was hard to breathe. Her eyes were hot behind the lids, and panic tightened her throat. “Please don’t go.” She could barely speak past the constriction. “Please. Please don’t leave me, Jack, I love you—” And then she was crying too hard, and couldn’t speak at all.
“Katie, stop crying.” Jackson crossed back to her, frowning hard. “I’m not going anywhere.”
She tried to stop, but that was hard too. Harder, when she saw the blank expression in his eyes, the way he wouldn’t quite touch her hand. Probably he would never touch her again. And he wondered why she hadn’t told him?
“What do you mean, when it was only Howie?”
A chill went through her. But she had committed herself to the truth now. Jackson deserved to know exactly what kind of damaged goods he was getting. She swallowed, struggled to get herself under control. “Noah… Noah found out.”
“Noah.”
She nodded, stared down at her arms. “A few months ago. And Howard said if Noah told people, everyone would know what a slut I was. But maybe Noah wouldn’t tell anybody if I… So I did. But he still went and told Adam, and Adam told Josh—and what’s the fucking difference in everybody knowing I’m a slut, if even when it’s a secret I still get treated like one? I don’t care anymore who knows.” Her voice rose as the anger built, a wave of red cresting against white opiates. She sealed her eyes and tried to clench her fist, but it wouldn’t clench. Pain shot up her arm. “I never asked for it. No matter what they say. I never wanted what they did to me, not ever.”
Jackson’s hand moved over hers again. His fingers laced with hers, squeezed while she cried with as much relief as anger. He knew, and he had taken her hand anyway. She had always known she could trust him with her body. But maybe—it was too soon, she knew she shouldn’t dare hope—but maybe she could trust him with the rest of her as well.
But when she opened her eyes, his face still frightened her; there was something terrible and blank there.
“Do you really want to kill yourself?” he asked.
She swallowed. “It wasn’t—I… I don’t know.”
“Howie, Noah, the rest of those fucks—they’re the ones who deserve to die.”
Fear sliced through her sharper than any razor, and she gripped his hand with weak fingers. “Don’t you dare do something stupid, Jack. Do you hear me? Let’s just get out of here. Please. Let’s just leave, you and me.”
Kate drew in a deep breath, opened her eyes. The memory cracked like a shell, but beneath the fragments she felt armor-hard. She was not a victim now.
She got her feet under her and reached for the top rungs of the ladder. She was lowering herself onto the rickety structure when she saw a glint in the straw—her knife. She grabbed the blade in one hand, just as the rotten wood under her boots cracked and gave way.
Splintering wood jammed into the palm of her hand as she plummeted downward. Kate held her breath, and kicked away from the falling ladder. She hit the ground hard, wincing at the shocks that ran up her shins as she rose.
The night was a pale rectangle against the barn door. She stumbled through it.
Her step-brother stood in the moonlit clearing of the barnyard. He wore a huge yellow windbreaker and kept one hand tucked in the pocket. In the other he held a brown paper bag. Kate tried to guess how much money was in it—a hundred, a thousand? How much were decade-old sins worth?
Jackson stepped out of the shadows ahead of her, a dark figure cut against the night.
Howard had never looked more insignificant than next to him, nothing but a sweating man full of fear. He wiped his upper lip on his sleeve, avoiding his swollen nose, and tossed the bag. It landed in the grass half a dozen feet from Jackson’s boots. “There it is, every dollar. Come and get it.”
Kate stood in the shadow of the barn, torn between the urge to flee the scene, and the need to join it. She’d had a dream once, about revenge. But it had been daylight in the dream, and she was alone with Howard. When she accused him, his flesh began to sizzle and burn in the light.
Don’t kid yourself, he said smugly in her memory. You want this.
Under the sweat, Howard was still smug. He was smiling. Kate couldn’t imagine how, as Jackson started toward him. Warnings fired in her brain. She opened her mouth to cry out, but realized she didn’t know who she meant to warm. When had Jackson ever been the victim? She swallowed back his name, dug her nails into the barn doorway until splinters stabbed into her fingers.
Jackson was one step from the bag when Howard pulled a shotgun from the pocket of his windbreaker. He raised it, drew a straight bead between Jackson’s eyes.
Jackson stopped walking.
Howard smirked. “Got you, motherfucker.”
“Stop!” Kate darted into the light of the crescent moon, heart beating a tattoo behind her ribs. “Howard, put the gun down, you idiot.”
His gaze flicked over her contemptuously. “Hey, sis. You’re late to the party. Romeo here’s just about to get himself blown to bits over some teenage whore’s justice fantasy. I guess you won’t care much. You’ve still got the rest of that money, huh? Got it in the truck, or did you hide it somewhere?”
Kate stared at him, her stomach sour and her muscles starting to tremble slightly. “A fantasy… Is that what you think this is? Three people dead over a fantasy?”
Behind Howard’s back, Jackson glided one step closer, and another. Kate didn’t look at him.
“It’s what you always wanted, isn’t it? To make us pay for wronging you? You were always a sick bitch. I knew it was you as soon as I heard. The way you killed them…” His eyes narrowed. “How did you do it? Make the cops think it was an animal attack? Just what did you have planned for me?”
The night shimmered. Revenge—suddenly it seemed a tangible thing, much closer than Kate had ever imagined. But it wouldn’t be golden. It would be dark, and angry. It would be blood for blood.
Jackson took another step, and this time she matched it.
“Stop right there.” Howard brought the gun to bear on her. “Stop right where you fucking are.”
Her fingers rippled along the handle of her blade. She wouldn’t reach him with the knife before he could fire. But the nine millimeter, strapped once more to her ankle…
Jackson’s voice slid from the night like silk. “Leave him, Kate. He’s mine.”
Howard jerked, revolver muzzle swiveling between them. A fresh sheen of sweat broke out across his forehead as he seemed to realized for the first time how close Jackson had come. He couldn’t shoot them both; one of them would reach him first.
“Fuck you,” he spit, but he was backing away now, trying to get out from between them. “Fuck you both. I don’t want to see you in my town again, I don’t want to hear your names. Either one of you ever tries to blackmail me again, I’ll put a bullet in both your heads, you got that?”
The bag lay at Jackson’s feet. He glanced down at it. “So we should just take the money and go?”
“It’s what you came for, isn’t it?”
“You still don’t get it, do you, Howie?” Jackson’s voice was changing, even as the angles of his face began to shift. He kicked the bag aside. “It was never about the money.”
“Yeah? That’s too bad for you.” Howard’s finger hovered over the trigger. For a split second Kate could see the indecision on his face—he didn’t want to kill anyone, he was afraid, he was desperate—and then he fired.
The bul
let gutted the air. Too fast to track, but when it punched into Jackson’s chest, it made a tiny, perfect hole in his shirt.
Kate screamed his name in an instant of pure panic—but she should have known better.
Blood trickled from the wound. Just a trickle, and then nothing at all. When Jackson smiled at Howard, his jaws were too long, full of teeth that curved down sharply.
“Jesus Christ!” Howard’s voice choked; his hands shook as he fired again. “What the fuck—?”
“Too bad for you,” Jackson said in a voice that had gone to a growl.
And then everything that he was changed.
Kate staggered back, groaned and sealed her hand over her mouth. She had seen it happen before, a dozen times, a hundred times. But never to someone she knew. Never to someone who had been making love to her not twenty minutes ago.
There was the wet flesh sound of skin ripping, like a bad suit torn away. What stepped out of Jackson’s skin was nothing created by a natural world. Glowing eyes, and pointed ears swept back against a broad skull. Slatted ribs, thick legs bunched with muscle, claws like the talons of some prehistoric beast. Its hide was pitch black, and it was huge as the night.
It looked at her. Looked at her with glittering eyes cold as starlight. Open jaws lined with rows of glistening white fangs. It did not move. The revolver fired again, missing entirely this time, and still the monster watched her and waited.
Howard cursed. As if from a distance, Kate heard him tearing through the grass as he fled.
An eerie calm filled her. She knew what the wolf wanted.
Permission.
Holding the pale gaze, she lifted the hand that held the knife. She uncurled her fingers and let the blade drop to the dark grass at her feet.
The beast’s jaws widened in what almost seemed a smile. It turned, and the massive body launched after its prey.
Not Until Moonrise Page 4