Teo squeezed her hand, and when Gina looked at him he smiled. “We may never figure all of this out. But since the sun’s up and the werewolves are gone, we should probably all drive to town.”
“I can’t wait to get on a plane,” Tim muttered.
“Excellent!” Derek announced, and gave his dad a high five.
“Everyone get dressed and packed,” Gina said. The sooner she got the guests out of here, the better. “I’ll have Jase—” She glanced around. “Where is Jase?”
No one answered. Gina got a prickling sensation along her back as her gaze rested on the door.
Jase wouldn’t have done anything stupid.
Would he?
* * *
From the expression on Gina’s face she thought McCord had walked out of the house and directly into the gaping wolf jaws of death.
Matt crossed to the window. Since there weren’t pieces of McCord all over the place, he doubted it. Most likely the man was in the barn or one of the other rooms of the house, pouting.
Isaac went out the back door looking as worried as Matt had ever seen him. Though Matt would prefer never to lay eyes on Jase McCord again, he hoped they found him soon for everyone else’s peace of mind.
The Gordons disappeared, no doubt to dress and pack at the speed of sound. Fanny had already pulled out a skillet, eggs, milk, and bacon. She pushed a button on the coffeepot and coffee began to stream into the carafe.
Gina jerked her head toward the hall. Matt followed her out of the kitchen and into her office.
“Shut the door,” she said.
He lifted a brow, but he did as she ordered.
“You think Melda’s going to leave Mel behind?” she asked.
Matt hadn’t thought about it. He hoped so. The fewer warm bodies around here, the better.
“And Amberleigh,” Gina continued. “We’re gonna have to drop her at the local loony bin, then call her folks.”
“Okay.”
Gina nodded, chewing on her lower lip.
“You didn’t call me in here to go over the plan, Gina.”
She lifted her gaze. He wanted to cross the room and kiss the crease between her eyes. So he did.
She relaxed into his embrace. “I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t here.”
“Manage.” He rubbed her back. “You always do.”
“Not very well. I lost the ranch.”
“It’s yours now. I promise.”
“Jase thinks I slept with you to get it back.” She lifted her head. “Do you think that?”
“It never once crossed my mind.” Her smile was worth a thousand sunrises, and when she laid her head back on his chest Matt ran a palm over her tangled brown hair. “You should have told me you heard that thing calling your name.”
Her chest lifted and lowered against his, making him think of things other than the situation at hand, but he held her until she stepped away.
“Sorry. I can’t think when you touch me.” She sat behind her desk. “Or I can think, but not about anything but you.”
Matt’s chest went tight. He wondered if she’d agree to go to town and stay there until this was over. If he lost her, he didn’t think he’d survive.
“Ten years ago I felt a … presence down there. I was out of it, scared, high from lack of oxygen maybe, but—” She lifted her gaze, and her pupils had dilated until her eyes appeared black. “When it’s dark and I’m alone, I know that something evil played Duck, Duck, Goose with our lives.”
“What does that mean, Gina?”
“Someone had to die. Then I didn’t know why, but now I think sacrifice kept that thing alive, if alive is what he is. All the people who died on that piece of land fed him somehow, and when no one came, because of the curse, he called names until someone did.”
As theories went, hers wasn’t half-bad. Especially since she didn’t know yet what Edward Mandenauer had told Matt.
“Maybe Amberleigh did hear what she said she heard,” Gina continued. “Maybe she saw what she said she saw.”
“She might have heard something, but I doubt she saw it. Fanny put wolfsbane at the entrances.”
“Does that really work?”
“Hell if I know,” Matt muttered. “But I think Isaac’s right. If the werewolves could get in, they would have.”
“And we’d all be dead. Or worse.”
They remained silent, thinking about worse; then they both spoke at the same time.
“You should stay in town,” Matt said.
“I want you to go back to Arizona,” Gina blurted.
They stared at each other; then they both said, “I’m not leaving you.”
“Well.” Matt scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I’m glad that’s settled.”
“I can’t leave my ranch, Teo. I won’t.”
“The cavern’s still there waiting to be explored, and the wall with the glyphs could prove my mother’s theory.” Although if they’d been drawn by a Ute shaman Matt wasn’t quite sure how. He still planned to study every last stick figure.
Eventually.
“You aren’t going to be able to explore until we get rid of this thing, so you may as well—”
“No,” he interrupted. “I want to be here when Edward comes.”
“Edward?” She tilted her head. “That’s who Isaac called?”
“You know him?”
“He’s a friend of Isaac’s from the war. Him and his granddaughter…” She paused, thinking. “Dr. Hanover. Elise. They came here to study the unwolves.”
Matt lifted a brow. “I think they came to make sure the unwolves weren’t werewolves.” Quickly Matt told Gina what Edward had told him.
“The old German guy is a monster hunter,” she said when Matt finished. “You’re sure he’s not nuts?”
“Yesterday I would have wondered that myself. Today…” Matt shrugged. “Let’s hope he’s not, because he’s all we’ve got.”
“Swell,” Gina muttered, and let her forehead bang against the desk with a thud.
* * *
A half hour later everyone except Amberleigh, whom Melda had managed to get to sleep and they’d decided to leave asleep as long as they could, less noise that way, had eaten and assembled in the yard.
Jase walked out of the barn whistling. Gina experienced a wiggle of déjà vu. He used to do that every morning.
Until Teo showed up.
She glanced at Teo and shook her head, indicating he should stay where he was, then hurried to Jase. “Where have you been?”
She was half-afraid he would turn away without answering. Instead, he shot her a look as if she’d lost her mind. “In the barn. The horses needed feeding, watering, tending. You know, the usual?”
A slash of guilt tore through her. She hadn’t thought of the horses once this morning. Thank God for Jase.
“I was worried,” she said.
“The horses are fine.”
Was he purposely misunderstanding her? Or was he giving her an out by pretending that nothing had happened between them to threaten what they’d always been to each other? Or at least what she’d thought they’d always been.
“Jase.” Gina put her hand on his arm, and when he didn’t pull away she continued. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“You won’t lose me.” He patted her hand and smiled his crooked smile. “It’ll all work out.”
Then he walked off, whistling again. Gina stared after him. He really seemed to have moved on, to have put the ugly scene between them earlier behind him. Or was he just that good at pretending? Gina never would have thought so until she’d discovered that he’d been pretending for years.
And what was she upset about? Did she want him to pine for her? Hell no! She should be thrilled that Jase was willing to fake a case of amnesia. She should try it.
Gina glanced toward the house. Teo stared at her, his concern evident. She tried a reassuring smile. But she obviously wasn’t as good at feigning her feelings as Jase, because her
smile caused Teo to frown.
“Jase,” she called. “Can you get the van?”
He lifted a hand to indicate he’d heard, and changed his course from the barn to the garage.
Gina returned to the porch. “I’ll get Amberleigh. Teo.” She took his hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze, which seemed to work better than her smile, because his frown smoothed out as soon as she touched him. “Can you help with the bags?”
He nodded, and Gina went into the house, trotted up the stairs. She was so preoccupied with Jase’s bizarre about-face, along with everything else, she’d opened the door to the As’ room before she registered the strange sounds coming from the other side. Then she stood in the doorway and stared.
The place was trashed. Clothes strewn everywhere, most of them shredded. The curtains hung in tatters; the bedspread wasn’t much better.
The strange sounds, which had morphed into gurgles, grunts, and growls, emanated from the bathroom along with the splash of running water.
“Amberleigh?” Gina called, crossing the floor and glancing inside.
The girl leaned over the rim of the bathtub, mouth directly under the gushing stream as she greedily guzzled. The smooth, golden perfection of her naked body was marred only by the seeping, bloody mess of one ankle.
No wonder it had hurt.
“Hey,” Gina began.
Amberleigh’s head whipped around, spraying water across the tile.
She didn’t look like Amberleigh anymore.
Gina slammed the door. What had once been Amberleigh hit the other side with a thud that cracked the casing.
She should run, but she wasn’t going to turn her back on that … thing. No way in hell.
A hand smashed through the wood. Those doors were pure oak. How had she done that? Perhaps the claws that had sprouted where her fingers had once been had helped.
Amberleigh’s face appeared in the hole. Her hair hung in hanks; her eyes had gone feral. Were her teeth getting bigger? Or was her nose getting smaller?
“Shit,” Gina muttered. Amberleigh was changing.
Gina no longer cared about turning her back; all she cared about was getting gone. She ran from the room, down the hall, trying not to scream, afraid to bring the others. Most of them would only be bait.
She tried to think. Where to go? What to do? How to keep Amberleigh in here until Gina could get to the gun out there?
The scritch of claws across the hall floor sounded like a dog trying to gain traction on hardwood. Gina reached the steps and glanced back.
Big mistake, because what she saw made her stiffen, lurch, and then she was falling, grasping at the railing, catching it just enough so that she didn’t die, though by the time she reached the bottom she almost wished she had.
The wind was knocked out of her. She couldn’t draw a breath. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak.
It got even worse when Amberleigh landed on her chest.
If the dirty-blond werewolf—guess Amberleigh bleached her hair, big shock—with the big baby blues had gone right for Gina’s throat, she’d have been done for. But apparently Amberleigh liked to play with her food.
Her lip pulled back in a snarl. Foam flecked her snout. If it hadn’t been for the human eyes, Gina would believe a rabid wolf had crept into the house. But the eyes were human, and they were Amberleigh’s.
The creature leaned slowly forward, waiting for Gina to panic, to squirm, to beg. Gina might have, if she’d yet been able to speak. However, the hundred-plus pounds of beast on her chest prevented her from doing anything but gasp.
Amberleigh quickly became bored—another thing the wolf and the girl had in common besides their eyes. She reared back to strike and—
Flames shot out the top of her head.
CHAPTER 22
Gina shoved the howling, fiery, dying mass of fur and fangs from her chest, then scooted away. Her back ran into something solid, and she gasped, whirled, then went into Teo’s arms as he fell to his knees and caught her.
“Amberleigh,” Gina managed, pressing her face into his chest, inhaling the sunshine and oranges scent of him—anything to make the odor of burning fur and flesh go away.
A movement had Gina jerking her head around. Would she ever be able to turn her back on anyone or anything again? The way the world was shaping up, she probably shouldn’t.
The others stood in the entryway—Isaac with his blessed gun, the remaining guests all wide-eyed and pale, Fanny with Jase’s arm around her. Everyone stared at the flaming werewolf, except Jase.
His gaze was on Gina and Teo, and he was no longer as nonchalant as he’d been outside. He was angry again, and she just didn’t care.
“Why did she change?” Teo asked.
“She was bitten,” Gina said. “On the ankle.”
“Guess she wasn’t nuts after all,” Derek murmured, and when everyone glanced at him he shrugged. “She said there was a werewolf in the kitchen.”
“No.” Fanny left the circle of her son’s arm. “They couldn’t get in.”
“Then how was she bitten?” Teo asked.
Fanny hurried to the kitchen, returning a minute later. “The wolfsbane is still there.”
Though Gina would have preferred to remain in the circle of Teo’s arms forever, she struggled to her feet, and he followed, steadying her when she swayed. She didn’t want to be in charge, but this was her place, her people, her guests. She didn’t have much choice.
“And Amberleigh is back to nuts,” Gina said. “Although an imaginary werewolf didn’t bite her ankle.” Or at least Gina hoped not.
“Maybe she was bitten when Ashleigh was,” Derek suggested.
“No,” Teo said. “The first time a werewolf shifts it happens within twenty-four hours of the initial bite.”
“How do you know?” Derek asked.
“Isaac … uh … called an expert.”
Several sets of eyes widened, but no one seemed overly concerned that there even was a werewolf expert, let alone that Isaac had called one.
Gina glanced at the furry bonfire still crackling merrily in the front hall. How quickly the bizarre became commonplace when one was confronted with it over and over again.
“This means the wolfsbane doesn’t work.” Gina was proud that her voice didn’t waver, even though her heart pounded so fast she was surprised she could talk at all.
“Maybe it does,” Isaac murmured. “Like Fanny said, one gun wasn’t going to keep all them wolves out, no matter how much I’d like to think it would.”
“But one of them had to—” Teo began, and then, “Shit. The Nahual is smoke.”
“So he could slip under the door?” Gina asked, and Teo shrugged. “Except … if he’s smoke, how could he bite Amberleigh?”
“Same way he bit Ashleigh and Mel.”
“Shit,” Gina said. “We gotta get out of here.”
Everyone turned toward the door, but Jase blocked their way. “We have a little problem with that.” His gaze met Gina’s over the crowd. “Can’t take the van.”
“Since when?”
“Since they used the tires for chew toys.”
A chill went over Gina. “Truck? Car? Motorcycle?”
“They were obviously teething.”
“Every vehicle we have is junk?”
“Pretty much.”
“Call a tow truck,” Teo said.
Jase turned a withering glare his way. “I would, if the phones weren’t out.”
“We used the phone last night.”
“And then something ate the satellite dish.”
“Frick,” Gina muttered. That took care of the Internet, too.
Teo, Derek, and Tim pulled cell phones from their pockets. Gina held her breath. Together they frowned, shook the things, pressed buttons, then sighed and put them away.
“There’s no way the werewolves could have eaten your cellular service,” she said.
“No,” Derek agreed. “It’s not an eatable thing.”
Gina glanced at Teo with lifted brows. How could all the cell phones be out? He wiggled his fingers like a sorcerer.
Duh. The Nahual had enough juice to bite without teeth and begin a new werewolf army. Knocking out cell service had to be a cinch.
“We’re stuck here?” Melda started to hyperventilate. “With those…”
Gina moved forward, but Jase crooked a finger, then jerked his head to indicate she should join him outside. She hoped he had a clue what to do, because she didn’t.
Teo moved to follow, and she set her hand on his arm. “Would you help in here, please?”
Without a word, he went to the old woman, murmuring softly and herding her, along with the Gordons, away from both the door and the smoking wolf.
That was going to be a bitch to get out of the carpet.
As Gina left the house she marveled again at Teo. Anything she wanted or needed, anything she asked, and he was there. Was that kind of support what had held her parents together? What had kept Mel and Melda a pair for so long? Gina wasn’t sure, but she thought so.
Being able to know with absolute certainty that there was someone on this earth who had your back, no matter what, went a long way toward fostering absolute trust and devotion.
“What are we going to do?” she asked when Jase paused just out of earshot of the others. “We can’t walk to town. We’d never make it by sundown, which might just be what they’re after.”
“Gina,” Jase said softly. “We have horses.”
She blinked, then laughed, putting her hand over her mouth when she heard the slightly hysterical quiver beneath.
There was too much going on. She couldn’t keep track of it all. She was becoming focused on one solution, and when it blew up in her face she wasn’t able to see any of the others through the smoke.
Of course they had horses.
Gina dropped her hands. “What would I do without you, Jase?”
“I promise you’ll never have to find out.”
Crave the Moon Page 22