Zombie Moon

by Lori Devoti

  Each time her hand hovered there, his body tensed. He was like a man left days in the desert waiting for a bit of water to drop from a pipe he couldn’t quite reach.

  It was disconcerting and annoying as hell.

  He growled and gripped the steering wheel harder.

  She glanced at him nervously with those damned innocent eyes of hers.

  He growled again.

  He was tired of sitting in this car, tired of being trapped. His skin itched and his bones ached. He jammed his fingers up into his hair.

  The full moon was a little over a day away and he was getting antsy. He could feel every tick of the clock as the time to change edged closer.

  He twisted his neck to the right and then the left, hoping it would relieve the ever building need to shift.

  God, if he felt like this now, how would he feel tonight when the gibbous moon so close to full shone down on him?

  It had never been this bad before, never.

  He glanced at his passenger. Could she be causing this?

  “I need to stop,” she blurted, pointing at a sign that advertised a gas station. She pressed her legs together. The button she had been fiddling with popped out of its hole. As she moved, the material parted, revealing the round curve of her breast.

  His teeth ground together. He wanted to jump on her, pin her to the side of the car and bite each tiny blue button that remained off her shirt. Then he wanted to start at her neck and nuzzle his way down her throat, her chest, her—

  “Caleb, please.” She tapped the passenger-side window. Urgent, needy.

  Well, so was he.

  He growled out a response, or what he hoped passed as a response, and put on his blinker.

  Stopping would be good. Walking around would be good.

  Jumping her would be sublime.

  After thirty minutes in the gas station bathroom try ing to think of a way to steer Caleb in the new direction, Samantha walked out of the quick shop and into drizzle.

  The car was where she and Caleb had left it, but the zombie hunter was nowhere to be seen. She studied their ride for a second, wondering if she had the skill or the guts to sabotage it.

  After only a bit of consideration, she conceded she didn’t. Stopping the vehicle from starting wouldn’t be that hard—jerking a few wires loose would most likely do that—but not getting caught…that’s where she was afraid she’d fall short. Besides, even if she did manage to damage the vehicle and get away with it, Caleb would just steal another one.

  And here at a gas station only a few feet off the interstate there would be no shortage of replacements.

  She needed another plan.

  What would make Caleb change direction and think it was his idea?

  The answer was simple. Zombies.

  With her plan firm if not completely thought out, she surveyed the parking lot. It held the usual ragtag mix of customers: truckers, families on their way to some relative or another’s and salesmen. She ticked each off as being unusable.

  Then her eyes lit upon a dark-clothed pair hunkered on the concrete beneath the gas station’s short overhang. From here she couldn’t tell their gender or age, but she could tell they were desperate.

  Desperate enough to play along with what she was about to propose? She hoped so.

  She hurried toward them, her hand wrapped around a ten-dollar bill Caleb had given her before entering the quick shop. It seemed wrong to use his own money against him, but then nothing she was doing seemed right.

  One more sin to add to her bill. She doubted it weighed down her already soiled wings too much.

  “Excuse me.” She stopped in front of them.

  Neither looked up.

  She nudged the closest with her toe. The person, a female probably in her early twenties, slumped to the right onto her companion and squinted up. There were tattoos covering the side of her face, what appeared to be the moon and nine stars.

  “Are you one of us?” she asked.

  “One…?” Samantha shook her head. It was obvious the woman was on something. Her eyes were dilated and her lids heavy.

  “We’re gathering for the choosing. Angie got picked last month. She promised she’d put a word in for me.”

  The choosing? Images of group weddings with special Kool-Aid punch flowed through Samantha’s brain. Deciding the pair was crazier than she cared to take on, she turned and ran right into a solid warm chest. Caleb.

  He wasn’t looking at Samantha; he was looking at the two people on the ground. “The choosing?” he asked.

  “Yeah, you been there?” The woman leaned back her head until Samantha thought it might roll off of her shoulders. “You look familiar. You know Angie?”

  “No.” He grabbed Samantha by the arm and dragged her toward their car.

  “Wait,” she called, knowing once she was in the car her plan would be lost. She’d have no way of convincing him to change directions, not without confessing everything.

  At the car Caleb jerked open the door and waited for her to climb in. She glanced back at the drugged-out duo.

  They hadn’t moved, but the female was watching them. She seemed to have found some life somewhere.

  “I think they know something,” Samantha stuttered.

  He glanced back at them. “Meth would be my guess,” he muttered, then gestured to the passenger seat.

  “No. Zombies. Before you came out she said something about zombies.”

  He cocked his head. “Zombies? What did she say?”

  Samantha swallowed. “She’d seen some, near here, or not too far.” She told him the address the doctor had given her.

  He stilled and his mouth pulled tight.

  Already in too deep to back out, she forged ahead. “Should we check it out?”

  He lifted his chin. “What about Waco? Don’t you want to get to your friend as quickly as possible?”

  “Of course…but I know you have other responsibilities. If zombies are loose here, might kill people here, I wouldn’t want to be what kept you from stopping them.”

  His eyebrow twitched and for a second she thought he didn’t believe her, then he motioned toward the car. “Get in. You’re right. We should check it out. It’s what I do—check out zombie sightings.”

  While he walked around to the driver’s side of the car, she settled into her seat.

  It was going to be okay. He was going to go to the address the doctor had given her. Allison would be there, Caleb would be there and somehow all three of them would escape this nightmare unharmed.

  Twenty minutes later they bumped off the main road and onto what was little more than a cow path.

  Samantha’s gaze shot to the GPS.

  Caleb reached up and popped the device off of the dash. He dropped it onto the floor. “This road isn’t on here.”

  “But the address…”

  “What address? The one that druggie told you?”

  Sensing she was about to fall into a trap, Samantha pressed her lips closed.

  “Were you going to say this isn’t the road to get there? How would you know? You haven’t entered it into the GPS, have you?” He reached down and picked the device back up, started flicking through screens with his thumb. “No, don’t see it saved. Of course, that doesn’t mean you hadn’t already checked out where this zombie sighting was located.

  “But wait…” He twisted his neck as if an idea had just occurred to him. “You couldn’t have, could you? Because you just learned of it twenty minutes ago back at that gas station and you’ve been sitting here next to me ever since. I would have seen you.” He dropped the GPS again. It landed with a thunk on the floor.

  Then he threw the car into Park, twisted in his seat and pinned her against the door. His breath hot on her neck, he muttered, “Where’d you get the address, Samantha? And why exactly do you want me to go there?”

  Samantha licked her suddenly dry lips. “If you don’t want to do this—”

  “Don’t want to do what?” He low
ered his face, so his nose was close to her skin. He inhaled, held the breath for a second then inhaled again. “I know I shouldn’t, but I want to do way more than we are doing right now. How about you?”

  Samantha’s chest was tight; her breasts ached. A strange combination of stark fear and pure lust twisted through her. One hand was balled at her side, the other open, ready to touch him, coax him into coming even closer.

  She closed her eyes, thinking if she couldn’t see him, one emotion—fear or desire—would win out over the other. But both continued to grow, began to morph into something she’d never felt before. Her hands shook; her breath came out in huffs.

  “Tell me who you are and what you are, so I can understand this pull you have on me,” he muttered.

  Then he kissed her.

  His lips were hard and punishing, but his body was tight and wary, as if he was as afraid of her as she was of him.

  But that was impossible. He was the hunter. He’d battled monsters most could never imagine facing.

  Why would he fear her?

  His hand moved to her neck, his thumb tipping up her chin while his fingers danced over her nape. He murmured against her lips, “Everyone has one. Why did you have to be mine?”

  His what? She wanted to ask, but again was afraid. Everything about Caleb seemed to intimidate and excite her. She stayed silent, lifted her lips back to his instead.

  And he took them. His tongue plunged into her mouth. The hand holding her neck tensed and the other moved under her body, pulling her down in the seat.

  He was on top of her now and his hands were inside her coat, under her blouse. The buttons she hated popped free. She wiggled lower and jerked his shirt up, out of his pants.

  His sides were firm, sinewy. She remembered what they looked like when he was naked and standing before her. A moan left her lips. She shifted her body so his sex rubbed against hers through their clothes.

  She wanted him to hold her, wanted him inside her.

  It was at that moment all she wanted, all she could think of. Her coat was bunched against the door where she had shoved it after taking it off earlier. His hand fell on it. He grabbed it to toss it out of the way.

  She tilted her head and kissed his neck. Absorbed his scent, and the rough feel of the stubble on his chin. Tasted him and murmured to him—words of need and want, words she’d never said or felt before.

  Her heart was soaring. Her fear was gone.

  And then she realized he hadn’t moved, not since placing his hand on her coat.

  She closed her mouth and her eyes, and lay there, knowing she had been found out.

  Chapter 12

  D esire raged through Caleb, so much that it squashed aside all feelings of doubt, all concerns, fears and questions he’d had regarding Samantha, even those brought on by the address she’d claimed to get from the drugged-out kid.

  His entire being was focused on her, wanting her, having her…loving her.

  Then his hand felt the cylinder hidden in her coat. It could have been a lipstick, but he’d never seen her apply any. It could have been a lighter or a flash drive or any number of innocuous things, but he knew as soon as his hand felt the object hidden in the lining of her coat that it was none of those things.

  None of those things had to be hidden, not from him or anyone. It brought back reality like a slap to the face.

  Slowly, he straightened his arm and lifted his body off of hers.

  Her eyes were closed and guilt was written all over her face.

  He wrapped his fingers around the object and ripped it from the coat, tearing a hole the size of his fist in the lining.

  Then he shoved his body off hers and stared at the object in his hand—a small silver cylinder. It looked innocuous, but he knew it wasn’t.

  “Who are you working for and what do you want from me?” he asked, his voice cold…dead. Dead as one of the zombies he hunted. It was how he felt inside.

  He had known better than to trust her, to let her get close, but despite himself he had, and now there was no avoiding the pain her betrayal would bring with it. His only hope was that he could believe whatever story she told him and that he wouldn’t have to kill her because of it.

  She didn’t reply at first. She pushed herself upright and pulled her shirt closed. A number of the buttons were missing, and her breasts seemed to want to break through the material. She hadn’t worn a bra today; he’d noticed that when she was lying beneath him. She looked vulnerable, sitting there, her shirt barely held together over her bare skin, her face flushed and her hair wild around her face. Her lips were swollen, and her neck was red where his constant stubble had rubbed against her much more sensitive skin.

  She looked sad, sexy and scared. And all he wanted to do was pull her to his chest and tell her everything would be okay, but he couldn’t because it wasn’t and he wasn’t her savior. He was her biggest threat.

  “Do you even have a friend?” he asked.

  She bristled. “Yes, I have a friend. Allison. Everything I told you about her is true.”

  But everything she had told him wasn’t.

  “What is this?” He held up the cylinder, praying she’d tell him it was a camera, that she worked for a blog or tabloid as he’d originally suspected.

  “I…” Her eyes locked onto the silver tube. He could see her deliberating, deciding what to tell him, how to lie.

  He closed his fingers over the object, cutting off her view. Her eyes shifted to his face.

  What she saw there must have scared her. Her lips parted and she sucked in a breath. “I don’t know. Not really.”

  “Okay. Let’s try something easier. Where did you get it?”

  The pause was longer this time. Then finally she replied, “The doctor.”

  Iron ran through his veins. “The zombie doctor?”

  Her pulse jumped at her throat. “Yes.”

  “You know him. You’re working with him.” The words fell cold and flat between them. She didn’t know it, but she’d just given him everything he’d ever wanted. Someone within arm’s reach on whom he could pin to the creation and control of zombies. Someone he could kill.

  He looked at her, waited for the bloodlust to hit. This close to the full moon it should be bubbling inside him, be barely contained by the steel cage he kept it restrained in when not in his wolf form.

  But it didn’t strike.

  Despite his anger, he had no desire to hurt her. In fact, the mere thought of it caused him to cringe and shake.

  Hurting her, he realized, would be as painful as hurting himself. Even more so.

  He needed her. His wolf needed her and the damned beast wasn’t going to let a little thing like her betrayal allow him to hurt her.

  She leaned forward and replied, “I’m not working for him willingly. He has Allison.” She swallowed. “When I hadn’t heard from her in a week, I started trying to find the lab. I didn’t find it, but I didn’t have to. He called me.” The fear she must have felt at the time shone from her eyes now. “He sent me to the Internet, to the videos, and told me he’d call back after I’d seen them. Then he told me what I had to do if I wanted to see her again. He told me about you.” Her gaze was earnest, almost pleading. “After seeing those images, I couldn’t leave her with him. I’d have agreed to do anything and all he said he wanted was for me to meet you and tell you about the lab.”

  She wanted him to believe her, but could he?

  Not if he was smart.

  He steeled his mind, concentrated on her deception, not her soft curves or alluring scent. “He kidnapped her. Why not go to the police?”

  “I did, but—” She bit down on her cheek.

  “What?”

  “I couldn’t tell them about the zombies. They wouldn’t have believed me. Then Allison called them and told them she was okay.”

  He raised a brow. “She talked to the police?”

  “According to the police, she did. Whoever they talked to knew all her private informat
ion and even e-mailed them a picture with that day’s newspaper in the photo. They quit talking to me after that.”

  Caleb tapped his finger against the gearshift. If Allison had talked to a detective, she wasn’t a zombie, or hadn’t been at that time anyway. He’d never met a zombie who could carry on a conversation…. His finger stilled. Except last night. That zombie had been amazingly vocal. But the creature’s skill had to have been an illusion. One that wouldn’t have held up to a one-on-one conversation like the police would have had with Allison.

  “So, what are you supposed to be doing for this doctor? Why the new address?”

  Samantha’s lower lip disappeared into her mouth. “I don’t know.”

  Maybe not, but she knew something. He grabbed her by the wrist and jerked her toward him, forced his wolf to believe the action was for her own good. “What do you know?”

  She glanced from her wrist trapped in his fingers to his eyes. He didn’t blink, and he didn’t lower his gaze. “The lab isn’t in Waco. That was a lie. The doctor told me to tell you that, to get you away from the real location. Wisconsin.”

  He dropped her wrist as if it were wrapped in white-hot silver. “I was right. I knew there was too much activity there.” He muttered the words, more to himself than her. He’d been close, so close, and he’d let Samantha with her big eyes and sad stories lure him away.

  She placed her fingers around the wrist he had just held. She didn’t rub the skin, but he could tell from the gesture she wanted to.

  He had hurt her. His wolf rumbled.

  He turned in his seat to face the windshield, wished he could get out of the car and walk away for a few minutes. This close to her, enclosed in the small space filled with her scent, it was impossible to concentrate on the facts of what she had done, what she knew.

  His mind was too full of her, his body too aware of her. And his wolf too damned protective of her.