The Moon Rises (Gigi Monroe)

by Angela Horn

  “I’m sorry,” Finn said awkwardly.

  “Why would I choose someone over you?”

  “Apparently my low self esteem is an annoyance,” Finn said quietly.

  Gigi’s frown eased. “You’re so beautiful. I know that’s shallow, but you like me because I’m beautiful so it’s okay for me to find you attractive. I love your eyes and wait all day to see them.”

  “Declan has the same eyes,” he muttered.

  Gigi’s eyes became slits as she glared at him. “No, he doesn’t. His eyes are harder, colder. His eyes don’t show me anything. He might love me or hate me, but I can’t tell. Even when he kissed me that day after I almost died, I couldn’t tell if he really liked me or was just horny. With you, I know you feel stuff. Maybe he can’t show those things because he’s an Alpha, but I like your eyes better and so you’re stupid.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You should be. I made you a nice dinner and waited for you and you came here and told me to fuck someone else.”

  Finn flinched, not really thinking of his intentions in such a stark way. Sighing deeply, he tentatively reached for hand.

  “I sometimes can’t understand why you’re with me. I know you think it should be obvious, but I don’t see what you see.”

  “I like your overalls,” Gigi said as her eyes warmed. “I like thinking of you naked underneath them.”

  Finn laughed and kissed her hand. “I’m a fan of your work uniform too.”

  Gigi slid closer, edging the kittens out of the way. “I like the way your hair touches my skin when you’re kissing me, you know, down there.”

  Finn realized the jambalaya was going to have to wait. He wrapped his arms around her as she straddled him.

  “I like the way you kiss me. If I was smarter when we met, I never would have let you go and Anton never would have had the chance to stand me up. I’m sorry I want those other males, but Tobin said I have a hole inside me that needs to be filled. I know that sounds naughty, but I think he just means I need to love and be loved. When you’re with me, I feel calm, but you act like you want to leave.”

  “I do want to leave, but I don’t want to leave you. I want to move out of the Circle so we can be happy together and not have to worry about threats or wars or anything else.”

  “Maybe one day we can leave the Circle, but I don’t want you to dump me just because you feel dorky here. You are my choice and you need to stop trying to get away. I picked you and you have to stay.”

  Finn laughed even though Gigi said her words with such grave sincerity. He knew something dark dwelled inside Gigi, something hidden underneath the soft sweetness of her exterior. She wanted him and she expected to keep him. She was staking her claim and hell hath no fury for the one who took what she wanted from her.

  “I wasn’t kidding when I said I want to marry you. I know we’ve only known each other for a few weeks, but I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

  Gigi’s eyes lit up as she grinded gently against him. “Don’t leave me. I can be a good wife. I promise I’ll take good care of you and our kids.”

  Finn thought to mention how their children wouldn’t be human and what the trials a mother might endure with children who shifted into pups when having a bad day. While Gigi wasn’t completely human, she was more human than Finn and she didn’t understand anything about Weres. She still called them dogs and was just relieved they didn’t eat people. Otherwise she didn’t understand the heartache of having half breed children. Finn didn’t mention any of this though because he had caused her enough grief for one evening. When he had offered her a chance to walk away and be with Anton, Gigi not only said no to his offer, but was deeply offended by it. He wasn’t going to throw salt on the wound.

  “You are mine,” Finn whispered in her ear as his tongue danced along her neck.

  Gigi shuddered and took his face in her hands. “I am. I’m yours and you’re mine. I’m never letting you go.”

  Finn believed Gigi. Despite how she desired Anton and how Anton usually got what he wanted, Finn believed Gigi knew who she wanted. The look in her eyes wasn’t naïve or love struck. It was dark, hungry, and possessive. He was hers and she refused to let him go. Finn never loved her more than when she stared into his eyes, hypnotizing him with the certainty of their future together.

  Chapter Fifty

  Gigi couldn’t believe she had found him. Some part of her had assumed, maybe even hoped, she wouldn’t, but she did find him and now Gigi was faced with killing the master, maybe her master.

  The home of the necromancer was in a nice residential area. The faded pink Victorian loomed over Gigi as she sat in her car and stared up at it. The monsters were inside and their master was probably with them. The necromancer might be hurting Sara right then, but Gigi didn’t rush inside. She wasn’t ready. Selfish as it was, Gigi needed to put things in order before she risked her life to save the girls of The Moon Rises.

  Returning to her apartment, Gigi thought about Finn and how he would cope if she died. He loved her, wanted a life with her, deserved everything he desired, but Gigi was about to risk it all.

  Yet Gigi knew it had to be her who went into the house and saved the girls. She didn’t trust the powerful figures in the Circle to save Sara. They talked a good game, but they didn’t kill the monsters. It was her task and she was going to complete it or die trying. Tomorrow night she would make her move, needing at least one more day with Finn.

  Standing at her door, Gigi thought about how the old Victorian was much like the house her neighbor Bethany once said she lived in. So many times Bethany asked Gigi over for tea, but they had never gotten together. With possibly one day left in her life, Gigi decided to knock on Bethany’s door.

  Even as Bethany answered her door cautiously, Fred raced out to see Gigi. The witch’s dark brown hair was tied up in a bun and her pale skin seemed paler than usual, yet she looked lovely in her purple dress.

  “I hoped you would come,” Bethany said, opening the door. “I have many questions.”

  Gigi frowned at the comment, but she entered the apartment and took the seat Bethany gestured towards. Fred jumped up next to Gigi and relaxed in her lap. The witch offered tea and a snack, but Gigi declined. She suddenly didn’t trust the witch’s offerings.

  “Your ghost isn’t here,” Bethany said as she leaned back in her chair.

  Gigi glanced around and realized Millicent was indeed gone. Studying Bethany’s apartment, she noticed how every painting on the wall – which was covered by paintings – displayed an angel of some kind. Cute cherubs to avenging angels lined the apartment and even the blanket over Bethany’s legs revealed the face of an angel.

  Bethany noticed Gigi’s interest and sighed. “Only the Lord’s angels protect me from the hell which awaits me.”

  “Why?”

  “Witches.”

  Gigi frowned. “Aren’t you a witch?”

  “Oh, I have witch in my bloodline. I’m more a mongrel than a real witch though. Too much breeding with humans has watered down the magic in my family line. No, I fear real witches who can speak to the elements and possess terrifying power.”

  “Why do they want to hurt you?”

  Bethany sighed and gazed at a picture of angels surrounding baby Jesus.

  “I was too young to know better. Too young and too in love. I made a terrible choice and I must live with the burden of the curse which clings to me, waiting to strike me down.”

  Gigi suspected Bethany was around fifty, maybe older. She wasn’t good at guessing ages especially with magical creatures in the Circle where Silas looked forty and was over a hundred and Simon looked barely thirty while he neared his thousandth birthday. Maybe Bethany was very old or maybe she wasn’t old at all.

  “What did you do?” Gigi finally asked when Bethany just stared at her paintings.

  “My family has so little magic, but we have served powerful families for many generations. I grew up serving witches
who cause the world to weep. One of them caused me weep. He was so incredibly beautiful it almost hurt to look at him. Eyes like onyx and hair just as black. He was the finest beauty I had seen. After so many years, he remains the most beautiful in my heart.”

  Bethany opened the locket hanging from around her neck and Gigi studied a small picture of a very handsome male who stared out at the sky, looking powerful and dignified.

  “Chogan is a powerful witch like all those in his family. Only a few years older than me, I watched him grow into the brilliant light he became and I longed for him. No more than a foolish longing for so many years until I saw him by the lake one night. He was speaking to the wind and he felt me watching him. I thought he might be angry or laugh at my foolish desire, but instead he took me into his arms and kissed me the way every female should be kissed at least once in her life.

  “It was as if he filled me with magic and I saw the world the way he did and it was perfection. Yet he told me he would soon marry another, but how part of his heart would always belong to me. When he let me go, I felt as if my life had no meaning unless I could feel him again. I convinced myself he wanted to escape the marriage with the suitable female so he could run away with me like star crossed lovers do in the books I had read. I lied to myself how love was more important than anything else in the world.”

  Bethany sighed mournfully as if telling a story of a recent loss, not one from many years earlier. Gigi sensed maybe Bethany hadn’t spoken of her pain in so long that it still felt fresh.

  “I have weak magic, but there are ways for anyone, even a human, to gain great power. Black magic, dark and ancient, scars and consumes those who wield it, but I was in love and I believed love would be enough to offset the evil of the magic I used. Such a fool, but Chogan was worth it in my mind. As the day of his wedding approached, I made blood sacrifices. I sacrificed no human life. I killed rats and other rodents and I thought this would somehow keep my soul clean. Even if it could have, what I used the magic for was wrong. With my magic, I seduced Chogan. I didn’t think it was wrong because he loved me, but I stole his freewill. I beckoned him and he had no power to refuse. He came to me and we made love and hid away from his family and married in secret and soon I was with child.”

  If not for the tears, Gigi wouldn’t have known Bethany was crying for her weeping was silent.

  “Our child was created in the throes of a union built on black magic. The child’s life never sparked, instead rotting inside me as it drowned in the evil I had filled myself with so I might keep Chogan. The child absorbed all the magic into itself. When the baby died, the magic died with him. I dreamt I had a son with black hair and eyes like his father and a smile like Heaven opening up and shining upon mankind. A child of such beauty the world suffers for not witnessing him.”

  Fred lifted his head and eyed his owner, whining quietly as Bethany wiped the tears which slid down her delicate skin.

  “With the magic gone, Chogan’s freewill returned. Maybe he had once loved me, but I had treated him as a slave to my needs. He felt betrayed and abandoned me to his family’s rage and to the rage of the bride he left behind. Powerful witches hungered for my blood, but they would not have killed me. As I had made Chogan my slave, I would have lived a hundred years as a slave to the male I loved and his new wife. I would have cared for his children who would be strong and healthy like our son never would. I would have begged for death every day and no reprieve would have been offered for witches lack mercy. They think themselves gods, but even the Lord shows mercy to those who ask for it. Witches like Chogan and his family do not.”

  Bethany sipped her tea from a little pink cup which shook from her trembling hands.

  “I fled all those years ago. I sometimes tell myself Chogan allowed me to escape because some part of him still loved me or at least pitied me. Mostly I believe it was the angels who saved me. I prayed to God for mercy and He sent his messengers to lead me away from a life of suffering. I don’t know how I escaped from the witches, but I found myself in a magical flare. Do you know what that is, Gigi?”

  Shaking her head, Gigi stroked Fred who was still whining from his master’s unhappiness.

  “A magical flare is a place so full of magic that all magic submits to it. The Circle is a magical flare. For some, the heat of the magic empowers them. For those like me, it hides me and blinds my enemies to my existence. The Circle is the sixth magical flare I have called home. Twice my enemies have found me and I barely escaped each time. The other times I was forced to leave because the magic grew too strong. The creatures inside the flare were overcome with magic which turned many of them into their basest forms. Weres and Vamps reverted to no more than predators, consuming all flesh before them. Witches rose up and fought amongst themselves, corrupted by their needs for more power and magic. A necromancer lost his sanity and raised the dead left behind by the raging Vamps and Weres. He sent the abominations through the city, destroying all those within. No human survived. I barely did myself. I have been in the Circle for ten years. The magic here hides, but doesn’t consume. At least not yet and I hope to live out the rest of my years here.”

  Gigi felt great sympathy for Bethany because she knew how much she would endure to stay with Finn. Yet no matter how her heart broke for the witch, she sensed Bethany was hiding something.

  “Do you know what I am?”

  “No. I hoped you did. I have been curious for a very long time, but Celeste never told me.”

  Gigi jumped up in the chair, startling Fred. “You know Mamma Celeste?”

  “I did many years ago when you were a child. We were hiding in the same flare, down in the south. I did not like that flare. Much of the time, it was ugly. When the flare surged, the dead would rise up and mock the living. Many days the fog was so thick that I feared leaving my home. In the Circle, I can walk the streets and have friends and contact with others as if I live a normal life and weren’t damned. In the Bog, the damned hide, keeping their hearts as tightly guarded as their secrets.”

  Bethany’s pale eyes found Gigi and she smiled softly. “It was in the Bog where I met Celeste and her Baby Boo. She called you her sunshine, but she never told me what you were. She kept you hidden in her slice of the Bog, never bringing you into the little town the other damned souls frequented. I would visit her sometimes and she would serve me the finest jambalaya and sweet tea. You were her little shadow. When you came to the Circle, I waited to see Celeste, but you are alone here. I wonder what has happened to your mamma for her to have let you go. The mother I knew from the Bog loved her child more than her own life.”

  “Do you think my mamma is evil?”

  “All those in the Bog were damned and hiding from something. The Bog is not like the Circle. Most creatures cannot find it. The Bog is like a hole in the world, invisible to those whose souls are not blackened by some evil deeds. Your mamma was good to you and she was kind to me because she knew I was alone.

  “She spoke of her dead son only once, late in the evening when she shared strong liquor with me. I had cried over my dead child and she shared my tears saying she had lost a child too. She did not speak of her boy in detail. Yet when she looked at you, Celeste said the Lord was merciful. In a world of darkness, God allowed Celeste to have sunshine. You were a lovely child, maybe eight years old. You spun around in the fog, dancing in the night and speaking to the moon as if it were your oldest friend. Celeste was a good mamma and she would never leave you. Yet when I asked your ghost Millicent where Celeste was, the ghost refused to answer. She is damned too and keeps her secrets.”

  “Do you remember before I moved in? Do you know if anyone was with me?”

  “No. One day the apartment was empty and it seemed like the next day it was filled with things and you were living there. I sensed more time had passed than I can remember. Celeste was a witch of greater power than I. She might have put you here, but I can’t imagine her leaving you alone.”

  “Can I go to the Bog and find h
er?”

  “Oh, the Bog is far away and it is difficult to find without a guide. I found it only because the Lord wanted me to. When I left the Bog, I had no choice because my enemies had found me. Celeste told me she dreamt I was in danger so I ran away. I dream of the Bog sometimes and it has slipped farther into darkness. Finding it would be impossible even for me.”

  Gigi began to weep because she remembered how it felt to be loved by Mamma Celeste and she needed to feel that way again.

  “I have watched you since you arrived and I have waited for the answers to why you were here. I waited for Celeste, but while you have many eyes on you, she is not one of them.”

  “What eyes?”

  “Weres, Vamps, ghouls. They hover in the night, keeping guard over you, I suspect. The one Were I worried about the most is the one you bring into your apartment at night. I guess he is not a threat, but I did worry when he would hide in the courtyard. There are others though. A wolf watches your apartment every night now from the courtyard. It is not your friend because this wolf is there every night even when I hear you laughing and know you are not alone. Another Were in human form has come to your apartment many times as if he wants to knock, but he leaves instead. I see ghouls on the roofs nearby, spying for their master. One of those ghouls broke your window. I have also seen Vamps slinking around at night, but they do not try to approach. Even if they meant harm, the wolf keeps them at bay. So many eyes on you, but I sense for now they are admirers, not predators.”

  Gigi nodded, still crying because she felt as if she had lost Mamma Celeste again.

  “You remember your mamma?” Bethany asked.

  “A little, but it’s not enough. I have questions and no answers. I have a male I love, but I still feel alone because I am afraid I’ll lose him. I’m supposed to remain calm, but I feel anxious a lot now. I wish I had come to you sooner.”

  “I’m afraid I offer you little.”