Hunt the Moon

by Kari Cole

  Isabelle gave them both a withering look. “What I eat and how I look are none of your damn business.”

  The hell it wasn’t. Everything about her was his business now. Like he fucking cared about her looks. He also didn’t care about whatever yuppie, city-girl reason she had for denying herself basic nutrition. A diet without meat could never satisfy the needs of a predatory shifter. Ravenous hunger was not a good idea for a werewolf.

  Hungry wolves make dangerous wolves.

  “Who’s ‘them’?” Dean asked.

  “What?” Luke said, his voice dangerously close to a snarl. His mate was trying to kill herself and—

  “Freddie said ‘either one of them,’” Dean repeated. “And earlier, Izzy said ‘we.’ Who else are you talking about, Fred?”

  The hot metal stench of pain and anguish rushed through the room, and Luke’s wolf whined at their mate’s distress. Not that you could tell from her face. Her expression was flat and cold, brittle as stone.

  Freddie sighed and looked at Isabelle with palpable sadness.

  “Bess,” Rissa said softly. “They’re talking about Izzy’s identical twin, Bess.”

  Oh, goddess. Luke didn’t want to ask the next question. “What happened?”

  He took Isabelle’s frigid hand and tightened his grip when she would have pulled away. He stroked her knuckles. Dread slithered down his spine while he waited for the answer.

  “She committed suicide,” Freddie said, his voice a harsh croak. Rissa leaned into her mate’s side, wrapping her arms around him. “Almost three years ago.”

  “I’m sorry,” Luke said. Unfortunately, he knew from experience just how useless a sentiment it was.

  Isabelle nodded once, her posture as hard as the frozen ground during a Cabinet winter. He cursed, wanting to take her in his arms and hold her until that ice-cold veneer melted away.

  But for once, his wolf pulled him back, echoing Luke’s own earlier advice: Patience.

  Looking into her golden-brown eyes, Luke gently—so very gently—brushed a lock of hair away from her face. He’d give her time. But he wasn’t going anywhere.

  * * *

  Izzy stared at Luke, his hands warm and gentle on hers.

  The pain from Bess’s death always smoldered just beneath the surface, like an ember waiting to burst into flame with the slightest breeze. And it had when they’d asked about her wild and reckless sister. For a few awful seconds, she’d wondered if today would be the day it’d burn her to ash. Then the iron control she’d learned at the back of her grandmother’s bony hand rose up and slammed the door shut on her grief, hiding it away.

  But the lock on that door was flimsy.

  Luke’s eyes, intense with emotion, held her captive. She must have been losing it, because it felt like a promise, like if she could just let herself fall into those deep green depths she’d be safe.

  Right.

  The part of her that had kept her alive all these years sneered at the thought. Nothing and nowhere was safe. Most definitely not here with a bunch of werewolves. No matter how charming or handsome.

  She jerked her hands. For a second, he tightened his grip before allowing her fingers to slide through his. An inappropriate shiver danced up her spine.

  As if Luke wasn’t tempting enough, the aromas in the kitchen teased her, making her salivate. Her eyes slid to the mounded plate Luke had placed on the island in front of her. The beef, glistening with gravy, seemed to grow in size until it was all she could see. Her stomach cramped, growling ferociously.

  Without thinking, her hand darted out toward the plate. She stopped herself just before she dug into the bounty and shoved it into her face like an animal.

  “Filthy animals.”

  The clenching emptiness instantly turned to nausea, and she gagged. How could she? How could she even think about eating that? Did she want to end up like Bess?

  The ringing in her ears lessened as the damned plate disappeared. Izzy looked up to see Sarah, tight-lipped, studying her. Luke stood beside the healer, rigid, his hands clenched into fists, quiet growls rumbling from his throat.

  “Here, honey, how about some of this?” Sarah said, holding up the veggie tray.

  Izzy grabbed a handful of sliced peppers and stuffed them into her mouth. She couldn’t chew fast enough while the savory scent of roasted meat taunted her.

  Next, Sarah presented the platter of cheese and crackers. “You’re not vegan, are you?”

  Izzy shook her head and took several slices. Around a mouthful of cheddar, she said, “Tried that once. Couldn’t keep any weight on.”

  More growling from Luke.

  Freddie snorted. “You’re not keeping any on now.”

  She gave him a snide look, too busy stuffing three wheat crackers into her mouth—whole—to comment. So she flipped him off instead. Luke, too.

  Dean’s big, booming laugh echoed off the stainless steel appliances and tile backsplash.

  To hell with them. For once her heart didn’t try to pound out of her chest in response to Luke’s growling. Either she was getting used to the constant aggressive vocalizations or she was too hungry to care.

  God, she was so hungry.

  “I don’t get it,” Freddie said, ignoring her bad manners. “How are you a werewolf? You guys never even wanted to go to Orland Park to visit Aunt Doreen. You said it was too country for you. You hated leaving the city.”

  She shrugged and kept eating. Of course they hadn’t wanted to go. All that open space and trees. It called to the monsters within, beckoned them to come out and play. Too much temptation.

  Another plate appeared in front of her. “Here, try this. There’s no meat in it. I promise,” Sarah said.

  “Sarah,” Luke said. His voice sounded like he’d gargled with gravel from the driveway.

  “Not now, Luke.”

  Izzy looked at the creamy casserole dotted with broccoli and dug in. She couldn’t stop the moan that slipped out.

  “They’re from Chicago,” Rissa said. Something in her voice made Izzy tear her attention away from the food.

  Sarah sucked in a breath and the kitchen grew strangely quiet.

  “I’d forgotten that,” Luke said. “Lot of tension there in the pack.”

  A tremor raced up Izzy’s spine. Her fork fell from her fingers and clattered against the island. Pack? “There’s no pack in Chicago.” Even as she spoke, images, vague and blurry, rushed through her mind’s eye: wolves darting through the moonless dark; fangs and claws; glowing eyes.

  “Isabelle!” Luke’s strong hands gripped her shoulders as her vision wavered and she grew light-headed.

  “Don’t touch me!” She pushed him away and scrambled off the stool. Her legs wobbled. A damned elephant sat on her chest. “There’s a pack northwest of Milwaukee, more than two hours from Chicago. Almost three.”

  The four werewolves—four!—in the room looked at her with varying expressions of confusion.

  “The Milwaukee River pack’s primary hunting lands are out that way, yes,” Luke said. “But they have a pack house in Chicago. It’s near South Shore.”

  Hunting lands?

  The room spun.

  Nausea churned in her gut and strong arms lifted her off her feet. Air rushed past her face. Then she was sitting on a soft, low surface, her head pushed between her knees.

  “Easy, sugar. Slow breaths.” Luke’s deep voice rumbled in her ear, raising goose bumps on her arms. She tried to sit up, but his warm hand on her nape kept her bent over. “Nice and easy,” he said, letting her rise slowly.

  He pressed a bottle of water into her hands. When her hands shook too much to drink it, he steadied it. After a few sips, she found she was slumped on the sofa separating the kitchen from the family room. Luke sat in front of her on the coffee table with Freddie and Rissa hovering over his broa
d shoulders.

  “What was that?” Dean asked.

  Sarah sat next to Izzy on the sofa. “Panic attack, I’d say.” She placed two fingers on Izzy’s wrist to take her pulse.

  Izzy yanked her arm back. “No touching.”

  Hands raised in a placating gesture, Sarah asked, “Does this happen often?”

  Often enough since Bess died that she’d had to leave the Army. Izzy met Freddie’s gaze. His mouth pressed into a hard line. Neither of them answered.

  “She had one in the car on the way here,” Rissa said.

  “Ris,” Freddie said in a hiss.

  “Sarah can’t help if she doesn’t have the facts.”

  “I don’t want her help,” Izzy said. Freddie was one thing, but she wasn’t about to discuss her problems with a bunch of freaking weres.

  Luke huffed, his jaw working. Finally, he slid back on the table, giving Izzy a few much-needed inches of space. When he looked at Sarah, she moved away, too, and the tight band around Izzy’s lungs loosened.

  “All right, sugar.” He nodded as if in approval. “Are you saying you’re not part of—were never part of—the Chicago pack even though you grew up there?”

  A pack. How the hell could they’ve not known there was a whole pack there? Maybe these weres had it wrong. Chicago was a big city. There were a lot of tourists and maybe...

  Maybe she was just a freaking idiot.

  The sofa seemed to tilt underneath her, but she wouldn’t fall this time, damn it. She swallowed back the bile and firmed her spine. “Yeah,” she answered, her voice a pathetic rasp. “No pack.”

  Not for her and Bess. Never.

  “I don’t get it,” Rissa said. “She was in foster care. Like a human.”

  This statement fell into the room like unexploded ordinance. Izzy and Freddie looked around at the ping-ponging glances.

  “What the hell does that mean?” Izzy asked.

  Luke clasped her hands, stilling them. Until that moment she hadn’t realized she’d been rubbing them up and down her thighs. He ignored her question. “How long were you in foster care?”

  “Not long enough,” she said, spitting the words like bullets. She yanked her hands back as rage burned away the last remnants of her reserve. She hopped over the back of the couch and began pacing. A section of skin on her back, near her left shoulder, throbbed with phantom pain. Don’t think about that now.

  “They were almost thirteen when they came to our house. But they’d been in the system for a few months by then,” Freddie said.

  “Christ,” Dean said.

  “What?” Izzy asked, practically shouting. Movement wasn’t helping her temper, and her stomach cramped.

  Luke gave her a pitying look. “No pack or any other settled group of shifters would allow a juvenile to be raised by humans, Isabelle. The threat of discovery is just too high.”

  “You think I’m lying.”

  “No. I’m trying to understand. How were you and your sister able to hide the change? Especially the first time?” He said change like it deserved a capital C.

  With a bitter laugh she said, “We weren’t stupid. We didn’t.”

  Luke leapt over the couch, landing right in front of her. She skidded to a stop an inch from him. Gold completely enveloped his irises.

  Without thought, her hand shot out for a palm strike to his solar plexus. He dodged her assault with ease, grabbed her outstretched wrist and pulled her against his broad chest. She struggled to get free, twisting and kicking.

  “Stop,” he said in a low, firm voice, laying a gentle palm against her cheek. Just like that, all the fight went out of her, leaving her shaking with adrenaline. Luke wrapped his arms around her back.

  She should push him away, stomp on his instep with the hard heel of her boot. Or go limp, disrupt his center of gravity and flip him over her back. She did none of those things. Instead, she listened to the strong, rapid beat of his heart, thumping beneath her ear, and the air flowing in and out of his lungs. When he rested his chin on her head, her mind went blank.

  They stayed like that, ignoring the whispered questions and conversations flowing around them until the chirrup of a cell phone broke the spell.

  Slowly, Izzy eased out of Luke’s embrace. It was like waking from a deep sleep. Several thoughts she couldn’t read passed over his face.

  Suddenly, he stiffened. His jaw turned to steel as Dean’s deep voice answered someone on the phone. Izzy turned and saw a similar expression on the big cop’s face.

  “What’s going on?” Freddie said. She realized as she scanned the room that all the werewolves were tense and alert, wariness pinching their eyes.

  “They’ve found a body,” Luke said.

  Freddie sucked in a breath. “Whose?”

  “Eric Conroy’s,” Dean said. He walked toward his Alpha. “You should come.”

  Luke nodded, his expression terrifying. With his eyes glowing, she thought she saw a shadow of the monster within settle over his handsome features. But then he looked at her and the vision was gone.

  While she stood frozen, he leaned down, buried his nose in her hair and inhaled deeply. “I’m sorry, I have to go. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Softly, he kissed her forehead.

  Izzy watched him walk out the door, feeling a little drunk though she hadn’t had any alcohol. Slowly, gently, as if in a dream, she pressed her fingers to the spot he’d kissed. There should be some physical mark left behind. “Why?” she whispered.

  Rissa appeared next to her. “Why what?”

  All the questions swirled and bumped around in her head. Why did he kiss her? Why did he give a shit what happened to her now, let alone when she was a kid? Why was he getting involved in a murder investigation?

  The one that popped out was “Why is he coming back?” To her?

  “Because he can’t do anything else.”

  Chapter Six

  Staring at the flames dancing in the fireplace, Izzy tried to ignore the sounds of dishes clattering and aluminum foil tearing. She breathed through her mouth, yet that seemed to make the cravings stronger, like she could taste the beef and lasagna through the air.

  She glanced at the vegetables wilting on the plate in front of her. They held as much appeal as dirty shoe leather.

  The refrigerator door closed with a sucking sound. “I’ll get the rest later, babe,” Freddie said to Rissa.

  There was a beat of silence. “Okay...if you’re sure.”

  “Yup.”

  More silence.

  “All right. Sarah and I are going for a walk. We won’t be far if you need us.”

  Meaning: if your sister goes postal, we’re just a shout away.

  The back door opened and closed, and cold air rushed into the room. The fire sputtered and one of the logs cracked, shooting up brilliant embers.

  Freddie’s gaze bore into the top of Izzy’s skull. She sighed. Surrendered. “Okay. Let me have it.”

  He stepped around in front of her, his mouth set in a thin, hard line. Finally, he blew out a breath and flung himself down on the couch next to her. She bounced as his weight hit the cushions. “I get why you and Bess didn’t tell me what you are,” he said.

  “But...”

  “But I can’t make our life in Chicago jibe with what I know about a shifter’s lifestyle.”

  “We never lived their lifestyle. Ever.” At least Izzy never had. And when Bess tried...

  She shuddered and hopped up to pace. No way could she sit still, sit next to her brother, while they had this nightmare conversation.

  “Come on,” he said. “Where’d you shift? Hank and Abby knew where we were 24/7.”

  “I already told you. We didn’t.”

  Freddie’s mouth dropped open. “Are you shitting me? That’s not possible.”

  “No. And
it is.”

  Abject pity grew in his eyes. “Iz, what did your grandmother do to you?”

  Bile rose in her throat and she wrapped her arms over her stomach. Despite the blazing fire, she was suddenly freezing. She heard Freddie rise from the couch and approach her, but she didn’t face him. She couldn’t stand to see him look at her like the pathetic thing she was.

  When he touched her shoulder, Izzy nearly leapt across the room.

  “Whoa! Okay, it’s okay,” he said. “No touching, I swear.”

  The misery in his voice rooted her feet when she would have run out the door. God, he thought the problem was him. Didn’t he see? Didn’t he know?

  Freddie Dodd was protective, kind, and fiercely loyal. He’d had her back since the day they met. He shouldn’t touch her. She was a...thing.

  She was disgusting. Filthy. Even more so, thanks to her grandmother.

  And by not telling him the truth, not warning him about lycanthropes and magic, she’d let him walk right into this horrible mess.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, choking out the words.

  “For what?” Warm brown eyes searched her face.

  She shook her head over and over. Christ, her stomach hurt.

  “Was your grandmother a werewolf, too?”

  Her legs dropped out from under her and her butt hit the coffee table. “No.”

  Freddie knelt in front of her, but as promised, he didn’t touch. In a quiet voice, he said, “I’ve seen the scars, Iz.”

  The room swirled in a psychedelic kaleidoscope, and she gulped for air. Every mark etched into her skin throbbed. The memory of the reek from her own burning flesh filled her nose.

  Her brother moaned. “Please. Please, let me hug you.”

  No! She scrambled over the table, keeping it between herself and Freddie.

  “God damn that fucking bitch to hell!” Freddie’s voice snapped like a whip.

  “No, damn it! Don’t you see? She was trying to protect—”

  “If you say that shriveled old shrew was trying to protect you and Bess, so help me God—”

  “She was protecting everyone else,” she said. “From us.”