by Jaycee Clark
The werecoyotes rumbled amongst themselves. They were merely the expendable. The trace, if it were found, would lead mostly to them. The tattoos, the groundwork, even this meeting place.
Legend told how the coyote had closed the sipapus of the ancients, closing the doorways between the underworlds and this world so that only the kachinas could pass through. The Chosen had no idea if that was true or not, nor did The Chosen care.
Right now the reason for the unorthodox alliance with the coyotes had nothing to do with the old legends and everything to do with a carefully laid plan. By the time The Chosen was finished here in the Four Corners region, the prides and their orders would no longer be an issue and neither would these mangy werecoyotes or their packs.
It would again be The Chosen’s rule.
The time of the wolf.
Chapter Five
Merria of the Water walked out of their house and carefully climbed down the ladder to the ground. The pueblo was dark and the packed dirt hard beneath her feet. She could hear the gentle lap of the Sacred Blue Lake as it met the shore. She looked up at the night-shrouded mountains. The smell of pine tingled in her nose, mixed with the smoke from the fires.
Chants floated heavy and elusive on the air. The men were in the kiva. This was a time of special meetings.
The baby, Little Moon, cried out and Merria bounced her on her hip, holding the water jar in her other hand. She’d learned that to do things with Little Moon, she had to be resourceful. The water jar was tied to her waist. She had made a plug out of a pine branch to fit in the top so that she would be able to carry water and the baby both up the ladder.
At the edge of the lake, she leaned down and filled up the jug. The water was cool, and the moon, full and bright, shimmered on the waves.
The drums beat from deep in the kiva, the vibrations rumbling through the ground. The still water rippled with the trembles.
Little Moon cried again, but Merria set her daughter down and hurried to fill the water jug.
A twig snapped. She froze.
A low growl.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood, her arms prickling with dread as the sound graveled across the night.
She jerked to look to the right.
Another sound from the left.
She carefully stood, gathered Little Moon to her, trying to quiet the child’s cries. Looking one way, then the other, she slowly backed up the path away from the sacred waters. She should not have come out this night, but she’d been so busy with the baby before, she hadn’t had time to gather the water. She had thought there would be enough.
She should have waited until morning.
“Reya,” her husband had told her, “do not go out after dark. The elders have been talking. There are things…” He’d shaken his head.
“Lorenzo,” she whispered. Why hadn’t she demanded he tell her? She knew of things in the night. She was one of them. He was one of them. Their child was a child that should not have been by all legends, but Little Moon was here, her cries filling Merria’s ears.
She held the child tight to her as she came to the edge of the trees.
The growls seemed to whisper along the ground at her feet, building and building.
The drums from the kiva beat faster, harder, louder.
Chants rose on the air. Fear slithered across her.
Please, please let me get my daughter to safety.
Merria turned and ran…
The animal leapt from the side of the brush, knocking her off her feet, and she felt Little Moon fly from her arms.
“No!” she screamed, her anger and rage summoning her beast with such a power pain knifed through her. She had not changed form in many, many moons. While she carried their child, while she nursed their babe still.
Merria whirled, slashing at what attacked her. A yell, part human, part howl, rent the air.
Little Moon was crying, crying, crying.
She whirled, ready to fight whomever she must.
Another wolf, larger than most, picked up her child.
“No…” she pleaded, though it sounded more like a growl in this form.
The wolf slowly changed back into the man he was. She gasped, fear twisting her gut.
No, oh please no! What did she do? Where was Lo?
Gritting against the pain, she forced herself to shift back into a human.
She crouched, panting as her fur rippled to skin. Slowly, she looked up at the monster holding her baby. “P-please. I’ll do anything. Anything… Not my child. Please.”
Sael. The dark shaman. He had left her for dead long before, when her people had lived in the Canyon. His face was pale in the moonlight, his eyes as black as his soul and the magic he practiced.
What was he doing here now?
“Sael?”
He tsked. “You left.”
She had. He had taken her then, given her to Chinu, the leader of the Lynx who had turned her. Why was he here?
Little Moon was crying, her fist punching the air as she jerked with her yells. The shrill noises building and echoing in the woods, bouncing off the water, until Merria would do anything to stop it, anything to calm her child.
“Do you hate me still?” she asked, then licked her lips. She tried to step forwards, but others slinked nearer, growling low in their throats, their fur standing on end.
“Lorenzo!” she screamed in her mind.
“You were to be mine,” he said, in that slow, smooth voice that was as dark and flat as the Coyote’s eyes. “Not the other’s. Mine.”
He’d punished her husband then too. Giving Lo to the Chief of the Lions of the Mountains. It had taken them so long to find each other again.
Now…now here was the man who had always wanted her, and whom she had always loathed.
Little Moon cried again, even louder. Panicked, the baby gasped for breath before letting loose another shrill cry.
Merria held her hands out, begging. “I will do whatever you ask. I will be y-yours. Now.”
“Now is too late.” With no warning, he tossed Little Moon aside. Her child fell onto the rocks with a sickening snap.
“Nooooooooo!” She ran forwards, stumbling, and they let her pass, one nipping her heel.
Merria fell to her knees, gathering her baby to her. A wound cut across the child’s temple, matting the dark hair, blood trickling down the side.
The child was still, silent, not breathing. No.
Wake up! Wake up!
The gravel bit into her knees, but she hardly felt it. “Please, baby. Please look at me,” she whispered, gently rocking.
Still Little Moon’s chest did not rise.
Merria shook her head. No. No, this was not happening. No.
“No. No. NO!!” Tears fell from her eyes and she gently placed a kiss on her daughter’s cheek before laying her down. Pain ripped out her heart. A stick lay to the side of her baby.
“No!” Rage like no other clawed through her as she turned and let loose all her fury, all her power. Lightning flashed as wind roared down the mountain.
“Reya!” someone called.
“I will hate you for as long as the moon hangs in the sky!” She pulled her arm back to sink deep into Sael’s cold heart, but something slammed into her side and the world faded.
She heard Lorenzo’s roar, but blackness closed over her as she felt herself being lifted and smelled, not her husband’s scent, but that of Sael.
Reya opened her eyes and realized she was crying.
The dream. She closed her eyes again and wished to be there. She wanted to smell Little Moon, the child she had not held in almost a thousand years. That child that could still wake her in the night with the ghost cry. The child of her womb and Lo’s seed.
No. No. She was not going to allow that black cloud of depression to sweep over her. Once it did, she’d been known to simply…fade for days. Coming back to the present days later and not remembering anything but pain. Locked in the dark past was not an option
. She’d decided that long ago.
She blew out a breath and focused on the here and now.
Yawning, she shoved the dream and its remnants away. Stretching, she turned her head into the pillow and breathed deep, the sheets gliding against her skin…her naked skin…
Lorenzo.
She rolled over, reaching across the bed…
It was cold.
She sat up, shoved her hair out of her eyes and looked around. She was naked. Memories from the night before, the ride, the truck, the kitchen… She buried her face in her hands. Oh, no, the kitchen.
Please tell me I did not…
I so did not…
Reya flopped back against the pillows and stared at the ceiling. No answers were written there.
What was worse? The fact she’d begged a man she couldn’t decided if she loved or hated? Or that he gave her passion, yet didn’t take any in return?
She frowned and stared at the tall stucco ceiling, the large wooden beams cutting across it, offering no suggestions.
Smooth, real freaking smooth. She hadn’t spoken with that man in more years than she cared to count… What? A hundred? Two? She’d seen him off and on through the years, but they’d never again spoken. Not after the last tangle with Sael. Sael…
Nausea greased her stomach and she shoved it aside.
Think of Lorenzo and talking to him again.
Well, they were speaking now. Hell, she’d begged him to make love to her. Her blood warmed, hummed through her veins at the memory. His hands were still the same, firm, yet gentle, demanding and offering protection—yet no quarter to allow her to keep something from him.
He had that power over her. Only Lorenzo had ever truly had that power over her. Even as others had tried their damnedest. She’d had sex with other men since their parting, but none had… No one had ever made her heart skitter, her stomach flip at the simple look of him.
Tears pricked the backs of her eyes and she flung her arm over her face. Things should have been so damn different, but they weren’t. There wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it. Not a damn thing.
Sael had ripped them apart and now he had bought them back together?
It seemed too clichéd, but there were clichés for a reason.
Sael…
Fear slithered through her at the mere thought of the evil man. What he’d done, all he’d stolen…
Yet, she and Lo kept meeting up. Every bloody time she believed that this time, this time would be different and Sael wouldn’t win. And as soon as that stupid hope whispered into her heart, everything would change and her world would be shattered.
Like the last time. She actually believed that Sael had died. Lorenzo—then known as Lucian—had tracked the werewolf and his sister, Selinna, to a mountain village in France. He had killed him. Slowly, taking his revenge for all the man had ever stolen from them. She had been allowed to watch some, but then Lorenzo had ordered her from the room and Darrell had carted her off. She’d been angry and run, too many emotions and no way to release them. She’d returned later, to Paris, to Lorenzo, only to find him shacked up with a blonde countess.
Anger sparked through her at the memory. It didn’t matter. It was all in the past. P-A-S-T. Live and let live, as the old saying went. She’d almost shifted that day in that townhouse with its priceless works of art, but Lorenzo had stopped her and it was probably a good thing. She was angry enough, she could have easily killed the stupid countess. After that, she didn’t speak to Lo again.
But he’d killed Sael. Lo had killed their enemy. She had heard the story later from Darrell.
She sat up. Sael had to be dead. Lorenzo would never have lied to her about that. Never about that. He had sworn if it took him all his lives, he would hunt the man down and kill him.
So what if they were wrong? Who would commit heinous acts, so similar to Sael’s, in this town now that both she and Lo were here?
Shaking off the thoughts, she crawled out of bed and pulled her bra and dress on, looking around for her shoes.
The thick, robust smell of coffee filled the air. The bedroom door was shut. She quickly used Lo’s bathroom, admiring the terracotta tiled floors, the deep inset tub. Reya washed her face and used his mouthwash and toothbrush.
The man had always been so meticulously organized, and some things would never change.
She opened the solid pine door and walked down the hall, her feet cold on the tile floors, noting things she’d missed the night before. The beautiful Southwest artwork on the walls. In the living room, above the fireplace hung a painting.
Reya halted, her pulse slowing, the oils drawing her closer.
She’d seen this in the window of one of the galleries not long after she’d first moved back here. She’d decided to do something else and then go back to purchase the painting. But when she’d gotten back, it was gone. She’d tried to find out who had bought it, who the artist was, but the gallery owner wouldn’t give her a name.
It was what would be considered folk art of the native Southwest. It was a picture of a village in the mountains here, pines around, the pueblos almost orange in the fading sun. The sky washed in colors blending from the lightest pinks to deep purple to blazing orange. A mother stood looking towards the water, the wind blowing a strand from her braid across her neck. In her arms, she held a child.
Reya had wanted it for the simple reason that the child looked like Little Moon and perhaps the woman looked a bit like herself. It was a heartbreakingly familiar painting that had called to her then and called to her now.
Her heart ached. On top of that damn nightmare, she couldn’t help the despair that rose up at the poignant, lifelike painting.
“Well, it’s about time you woke up.”
Reya whirled at the voice from the kitchen. There stood an old friend. Darrell Hawkins, still tall and sinewy, reminded her of the aspens. Dark hair, swarthy skin and brown eyes that held the devil’s own mischief. He grinned his crooked, cocky grin and Reya felt herself smiling back.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, walking to the kitchen.
“Following orders. I was about to wake you because the big man knew you’d want to go home and change first.”
Relief warred with a large dose of disappointment at the fact Lorenzo wasn’t here. Reaching for the coffee mug Darrell handed her, she asked, “Where’s he at?”
She saw it, the shuttering of the gaze, the way he blanked his features and she felt the wall he threw up between them.
“He got called out late last night, early this morning.”
She looked out of the large picture window that gave her the Sangre de Cristos at dawn. “There was another murder wasn’t there?”
Darrell shrugged. “I have no idea. I just followed orders.”
She snorted. “You know every damn thing that ever goes on.” She took a gulp of the coffee and glanced at the clock. Was that the time? She really had to get going.
“You ready?” he asked her.
“Yeah, I’ve got to go change clothes.” And get to the shop and figure out what the hell she was doing. Or going to do. Or wanted to do. No, not wanted. Wanted only led to freaking trouble, especially where she and Lo were concerned. Look at last night. She rubbed her hand over her face.
“Cool, can I watch?”
Reya tossed the rest of her coffee on Darrell. “Shut up, Darrell.”
He grinned and wiggled his brows. “Now we both have to change.”
“My God, what have I gotten myself back into?” she asked as they walked out of Lo’s house, Darrell locking up behind them.
He slung is arm over her shoulder and pulled her close. “Come on, babes, you know you missed me.”
“Only in your dreams.”
Chapter Six
Lorenzo was sitting in a conference room with someone from the State Bureau of Investigations and trying to pay attention.
The newest murder victim was a male, young, early twenties, Caucasian. Five foot ten,
blond hair, green eyes. His parents from the Midwest were being notified of his death. Thank God that task had not fallen to Lo. The kid had the same tattoo as the first and same bracelet. Wolf Moon.
The fact that the jewelry came from Horizons was not lost on Lorenzo. He knew, knew in his gut that it was not a mere coincidence.
As if his thought pulled the question to light, the Chief of Police asked, “Craigen, what of the jewelry and tattoos? They seem to match.”
Lo nodded. “They do. The owner of Horizons Gallery told me it was called Wolf Moon, and one of the few pieces they keep stocked and are factory-line made. Nothing really special about it. She said she’d talk to the artist and see if he would talk to us. She was also going to go through receipts and see if she could learn if the victim yesterday morning had purchased the bracelet or if someone else did. Hopefully I’ll have a list later today.”
Everyone nodded and started to file out. The Chief called him back.
“I don’t like this and I want it wrapped up as soon as possible. Reporters get a hold of this crap and you’ll be hearing rumors of cults and shit. With the festival the town has planned, the mayor will not be happy.”
And we’re sorry two young kids died.
“Autopsy and tox screens should be back on the first vic. Get them. I want a brief on my desk before you leave today.”
“Yes, sir.”
The day just kept improving.
He ran a hand over his face.
“Craigen?”
Lo looked at the Chief. “Yeah?”
“I often get itches that I’m being left out of something.” The man’s gray eyes zeroed in on him.
Lorenzo stared back. “And?”
The Chief’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve got that itch now.”
No one ever accused the man of being dumb. Smiling, Lo said, “They have medication for that.”
With one last hard look, the Chief strode away to his office, hollering at Janice, “Where the hell’s my coffee?”
Janice rolled her eyes and Lorenzo turned and left. Just a pleasant morning all the way around.