This is it, she thought. The beast has found its prey.
Kicking out again with both legs, squirming as much as she could, Skylar refused to give up. Not an option.
She found room to breathe and made a charge. “You…killed…my…father.” Those whispered words set the stage for what she was sure was about to happen to her. “He is all I knew. All we had.”
More chaos. Dark blurs. Two dark forms rushed at her, one of them lunging for the beast that had her secured. A flash of red that came with the name Jenna jumped on top of the demon, bearing down with her sharp canine fangs. A darker figure with a seductive scent she knew all too well attacked the arms holding her captive with his own wall of moving muscle.
“Gavin!”
The beast loosened its grip and roared its displeasure. Though tough as nails and fighting for a hold, Jenna flew off, discarded with one good shudder. Another fling of its arms dislodged Gavin and let Skylar fall.
Gavin stumbled back and dropped to a crouch, ready to spring again. But, before he got off the ground, the beast was on top of him, growling, knocking Gavin back with a superior speed and strength that suggested to Skylar that this was no fight at all and that the beast that could have snapped them all in half if it chose to.
Yet for some reason, it didn’t seem to want to inflict that kind of damage. The monstrosity just sat there, pinning Gavin, roaring over and over as if shouting curses in an alien language.
Why?
Why would such a dangerous creature hold back?
Skylar advanced on the beast, and the beast sprang back so fast, she had to turn her head to find it. Gavin, caught unaware and too riled up to read her body language, leaped in front of her.
One good shove from the beast and Gavin, in all his werewolf glory, backpedaled five or six feet. Another pivot and shove, and Jenna was there next to him, growling with fire in her eyes.
Neither werewolf had time for a replay, though. With a shiver and a long reach, Skylar was again in the creature’s grip and being carted away before the werewolves had time to blink.
*
What the hell was that? Gavin demanded, running for all he was worth after the beast that had taken Skylar.
Fenris.
Jenna was nearly as out of breath as he was, but still faster. He had to kick things up a notch to keep up with her. If it hurts her, I’ll…
Maybe it won’t.
Then what does it want?
I don’t know.
Can you find where they’ve gone, Jenna? We can’t be too late. Just please get me there.
Moonlight streaming through pine branches fueled their run. Firing werewolf synapses enabled them to cover ground at an astonishing speed, though Gavin feared it wasn’t good enough. The demon stayed well ahead of them, climbing higher and higher up the mountain. Eventually, it would reach the rocks.
Hell. Then what?
His brain turned off the rest of his questions. All his effort was necessary for him to reach Skylar before the demon reached that peak. One slip from up there and there’d be no coming back.
Wait, Skylar. Wait for me.
Did she hear him?
One more bend in the path and the rocks became visible. Crystal veins in the granite made them sparkle in moonlight, which would have been pretty at any other time. They had reached tree line, too high up on the mountain for much to grow.
Gavin saw them immediately. The great hulking creature had Skylar in its grip as it barreled upward, oblivious to the steep drop on its left.
It moved higher, to where the air became thinner, and breathing, for a runner, whether a werewolf or not, was no easy task.
Then it disappeared.
Gavin roared, sucked in what air he could and ran on, hearing Jenna panting behind him. The rocks came into view, and above them, several outcroppings. They had to have run for miles. The elevation was extreme.
Around one more bend, he skidded to a stop, and sensed Jenna doing the same. His heart couldn’t have beat any faster. His blood was nearing the boiling point. But he was frozen in place.
Skylar stood on a large rock ledge, with her back to a boulder. Her arms were at her sides, bracing her stance. Her fair hair whipped in the wind, partially covering her ashen face.
The demon, less than a foot away from her, was trapping her there, pacing back and forth and facing her with its great mouth open.
Something inside Gavin went ballistic. Anger turned his vision white, then black, then red. With a running jump, he leaped from rock to rock, growling, furious, no longer caring about anything except reaching Skylar and somehow finding the strength necessary to kick some Fenris ass.
His body responded to the request for strength with a fresh flush of power. He heard a sound like the crack of lightning, and his legs just took him there.
Landing on the rock several paces from the Fenris, he held up a hand of warning. The demon, its dark fur moving in waves in the wind, turned its big head.
This one is not for you, Gavin said, raking a claw over the scars on his chest. You’ve done your share of harm here, and it’s time you left.
The Fenris glared back.
She’s not like you. Not really. Look at her. Would you take her away, stop one more breath? She’s done nothing to you. Skylar is innocent of anyone else’s crimes. Let her go.
Still no response came from the monstrous werewolf that everyone supposed was a demon. In fact, he thought that this thing looked and smelled as if it might have been to hell and back.
Standing firm, Gavin spoke again. If sacrifice is what you need, then take me in her place. Thanks to you, I’m halfway gone already.
The Fenris’s eyes blinked and then refocused on Gavin. They were light eyes. Red-rimmed, but light in color. Gray? An intelligent gleam backlit them, making those eyes seem way too human. This was a trick. Had to be.
The demon moved, appearing next to Gavin before Gavin’s next breath. No werewolf could possibly move that fast. Jenna and Skylar had been right. Just when you thought the world couldn’t toss up anything worse, it coughed up worse by the bucketful.
Gavin.
This was Jenna, taking advantage of his current thoughtful state.
Gavin. Please back away. Slowly. No fast moves or threats.
He shook his head. This ends here.
Maybe not the way you think it will, Jenna said. Listen to me. Trust me. Back away now.
Not happening.
He watched Skylar, using the rock to brace herself, and said to her, No, my lover. My love. I won’t let it hurt you.
Still visibly quaking, Skylar pushed off from the stone. When the creature’s head turned toward her, she looked into that face, into those eyes. Then Skylar swayed and put a hand to her forehead. Gavin heard her say “No,” and “Can’t be.”
Gavin. Jenna called him again. The adamancy in her voice prickled.
His attention was riveted on Skylar. His gaze covered every detail of the body he already knew so well, sure he must be missing something. Though Skylar’s fear buzzed like electricity in the air, her face no longer reflected that same level of fright. Her features seemed to have softened into a look he’d witnessed while staring down at her in bed, with his naked body pressed to hers.
What the hell is going on? he demanded.
It knows her, Jenna said. Recognizes her.
Gavin’s growl of protest stuck in his throat. Skylar?
Skylar ignored him, intent on remaining upright as she searched the Fenris’s face. Gavin heard her say to the beast, “He kept you in a cage. I can’t imagine what that must have been like. God. Was it because you’re so dangerous and willing to hurt others?”
Was the damn thing talking to her in return? Gavin didn’t hear anything else. But Skylar was too close to that demon…and to the edge of the ledge she stood on.
His anxiety made him inch forward. Skylar didn’t notice. Keep it busy, he sent to her, not stopping to consider if the beast could hear him.
; Her focus didn’t waver. Looking at the Fenris, she said, “He didn’t do that to hurt you. I knew him to be kind, so hurting you couldn’t have been his intention. He must have brought you here to protect you. Maybe he kept you caged in order to protect others. And to protect us.”
Gavin saw her knees begin to weaken. He watched Skylar sag back against the stone, and he stepped forward, intending to reach her. It was Jenna, still furred up and incredibly strong, who held him back.
When Skylar closed her eyes, he wanted to shout, but no sound emerged. Her chest expanded as she sucked in a breath, made a sound like a stifled sob and pushed herself back up, bringing herself closer to the demon. She was face-to-face with the abomination, and Gavin couldn’t stand one minute more.
But then Skylar spoke to her captor, in a voice teeming with barely contained emotion.
“Oh, God. Is it you?” she said.
Chapter 35
Is it you?
Skylar’s heart seemed to clench inside her chest as the question she asked echoed in and around the rocks. She wasn’t sure this was happening.
This wasn’t a joke. No mistake. She had to speak but couldn’t find a pattern of words to confront the images racing through her mind of white coats, white rooms, a mattress on the floor and food that had to be eaten with bare hands from disposable paper trays.
How could she have missed the signs now lining up?
Why hadn’t she recognized this presence, even from afar?
Finding her breath, she spoke slowly, precisely, trying desperately to control her emotions.
“He told us you died.”
Noise from the periphery didn’t matter to her. Her lover was there, waiting, fighting his need to help when Jenna kept him from doing so. Gavin was trying desperately to understand what was going on. Her father’s partner, a good woman and a fierce she-wolf, also waited. But there was no way to explain this, no way to really comprehend that it wasn’t just a Fenris she faced here.
This was her mother.
She felt like sitting down. Falling down. The discovery was overwhelming. She felt herself sinking.
“What do I need to do?” she asked the demon that had long ago taken human form. And though this creature might have deceived her father, she had also shielded six-year-old Skylar from medicated darts.
This same being had wanted to be with her child as badly as that child wanted her mother. It was all there in the demon’s eyes. Recognition. Familiarity. Frustration. Confusion. Untapped emotion.
“I’m here,” Skylar said. “You know me.”
The demon tossed her head and looked to where Gavin and Jenna stood.
“You made him,” Skylar confirmed. “You made Gavin a werewolf. Is that what it’s like? You sometimes lose control and become the thing you fight against? That’s the behavior that made Dad keep you away from others?”
The demon’s attention, drawn by Skylar’s speech, came back to her.
“Did you hurt Dad?”
The demon backed up, taking several small steps at a time, its eyes still on Skylar.
“Stay,” Skylar said with a pleading tone. “Please. I’ll find a way to take care of you.”
She stumbled forward with both hands outstretched, her new claws obvious in the moonlight. The Fenris stood very still for a few heartbeats, as if waiting for Skylar’s touch, but it didn’t allow the contact.
“He brought you here, didn’t he? He kept you here so that no one would find out about you. So that I wouldn’t find you again,” Skylar said.
She resisted another step, both drawn to and repulsed by the creature in front of her. The creature whose blood ran in her veins.
The Fenris’s eyes blinked slowly. Its mouth moved as if it wanted to speak.
“I’m sorry,” Skylar said. “I’m sorry for everything, and that if you had a plan for your future here, among humans, it couldn’t have worked very well.”
The Fenris lifted one massive paw, turned it over invitingly but then retracted the gesture. She sliced her chest open with a four-inch-long claw, and let a drop of blood drip from her fist.
“If you changed once, can you change again?” Skylar asked, understanding what the creature meant by the display of blood. Maybe they weren’t one, or exactly alike, but that blood belonged to them both.
The Fenris knew who Skylar Donovan was.
“Can you be her? The mother I saw? I know about the moonlight, and what it does.”
The beast in front of her suddenly flickered, as though it had never been solid in the first place. An outline appeared. It was a waifish, slender woman with dark hair and a gaunt face that stood in the Fenris’s place for seconds only, but long enough to make Skylar’s eyes fill with tears.
They were tears of loss, confusion, fear of the past and of the future. Tears of longing for the mother she never really knew and now might lose, though that mother wasn’t human.
“Please,” she whispered, taking another step, the tears falling unchecked down her cheeks.
But the image of the woman quickly disappeared, replaced by the massive body of the Fenris, a frightening creature that so few people knew anything about.
The Fenris made a keening sound, deep in her throat, that made Skylar snap upright.
“No,” she said. “Please don’t.”
With one more toss of her head, one more blink of her light eyes and an accompanying howl of pain, the creature turned. And with a great leap into the air, the Fenris soared from the rock into the valley beneath, not to any escape route this time, but to her death.
*
Gavin was there in a flash, afraid to touch Skylar though he wanted to, ached to. Skylar was teetering on the brink of the rock the Fenris had leaped from. He said nothing because what was there to say?
Skylar had called that demon mother.
That couldn’t be right, but Skylar was still in danger.
I’m here, he said, over and over, softly, tenderly, afraid to find cover and change back to his human shape. Afraid to move away from Skylar.
It was a long time before she looked his way: an interminable, unendurable number of minutes. When her eyes registered his presence, there was so much pain in them, he choked back a response.
Speaking was difficult for her, but she said in a voice that cracked, “Sorry.”
Gavin fisted his hands to keep from grabbing her as she went on. Another foot backward, and she would fall.
“That’s what I carry in me,” she said. “At least in part.”
The tears glistening in her eyes broke his goddamn werewolf heart.
Hell, so do I, he said, daring just one small step forward. Maybe that was fate, too, for those who believe in that kind of thing. Maybe I’ll be the best person to understand you. I’m willing to try.
He tracked every tear that ran down her cheeks.
“She didn’t do it on purpose,” she explained. “She didn’t intend to hurt you. She’d been caged, and she got loose. She didn’t want to go back there.”
There was a further hitch in her voice. “What will happen to me if I inherit that tendency for danger?”
You won’t. You’re half human, and it turns out that half is a good one. You’ve been strong enough to keep the changes at bay.
“She could have killed me with one swipe of her claws, Gavin. She wasn’t dead. All those years, she was alive and living like this. And now she’s gone.”
I know. Skylar, I know.
“The myths are wrong. She wasn’t a monster. She died for me. She gave her life to save me from having her in my life. I saw that in her. She didn’t kill my father. He did his best to keep her safe from others and from herself. She knew that. He must have slipped, fallen.”
She turned to face the drop to the valley. “When I look back, I see the things my father did to protect us. We knew how to use guns. He introduced me to Danny, a cop, possibly assuming that kind of relationship might offer me a greater defense in case I needed it. He distanced himself from us
so that we wouldn’t come here, where he…where he tried to take care of her.”
It’s over, Gavin said softly.
Skylar’s eyes met his. “Really, it’s only the beginning.”
We’ll face whatever comes our way.
“Our way?” she repeated.
Can you finish your school work here? Close to here? Would you regret leaving Miami? I’d like you to stay here with me. I need you to stay.
“Will you two get a room?” Jenna said, appearing beside them in her human form wearing little more than a very sober expression. “You’re making me crave my guy, and it’s a long flight home. And yes, my Matt is like us. That’s important and saves a lot of trouble and heartache.”
Jenna’s tone was light in an attempt to ease the blow Skylar had received. They all realized this and silently thanked her for it, though he felt Skylar’s pain as if it were his own and knew she wouldn’t truly get over this for a long, long time, if ever. Such was the way of darkness once it had gotten a foothold.
And he shared her feelings because they had imprinted, bonded, connected, as two halves of a pair.
A lot of questions still needed answers. Questions like how her mother’s humanlike form could have lasted long enough for her to be married and have children. And when Skylar’s father had found out what his wife really was. How he’d taken that shock.
Questions about how a Fenris got here in the first place and met David Donovan, and whether that meeting was chance, or somehow preordained.
How had this Fenris recognized her daughter?
What the hell was a Fenris, really?
How would that kind of blood affect Skylar?
None of those answers would be coming now, not without a lot of research. Maybe they were the same questions Skylar’s father had needed answered for the sake of his own peace and sanity. Still, it had to be clear to Skylar that her father had loved her. He had loved his daughters enough to leave them in order to keep them safe. And to protect them from the truth.
Gavin needed a voice, so he could tell Skylar these things. A real voice. The longing to hold Skylar beat at him mercilessly.
We have all the time in the world to search for what answers we can find, he said. This is the place for you. Here. With me.
Seduced by the Moon Page 24