Devil Hills: #2 Luna & Lydia

by Diroll-Nichols, Karen

  “Yea, I know…c’mon…let’s get inside and out of these clothes,” Sage wrapped his arms around her, her body shivering uncontrollably. “Luna…”

  She tried making her legs work, her hands tight on his arm where they knelt on the ground. Before she could try again, she was lifted from the ground, his stride long and purposeful. He kicked the door closed behind him and stood her on her feet. He pulled his boots free and then hers, leaving them to dry on the heater he’d kicked on.

  “Where’s the laundry room?” He tried remembering. He’d done a walk through making sure they were alone. He gripped her fingers and tugged her into the kitchen and through the door behind it. “Get those clothes off. We’ll toss them in the dryer and…”

  He didn’t know what he was thinking. Her fingers shook, the tee shirt she was wearing sliding down her arms because most of the back was gone when Jess had cut it free to treat her. Dark eyes swung around, taking in the room. He reached up into the cabinet and hauled down several blankets. He shook one open and held it up, turning to face her and groaning and slamming his eyes shut.

  Without the oversized vest, he finally got a look at the slender woman hiding beneath. And did she have all the right curves! He kept reminding himself that his mother raised a gentleman.

  Wolf, but gentleman. Right now, the wolf was winning.

  Without questioning him, she had stripped and stood there naked. No, he thought, not just naked. Gloriously naked. Her muscles were toned and her tan was almost all over. The thin bits of what must have been a bikini would have been banned on a lot of beaches.

  “S…Sage?” She lifted her hands and reached for the blanket that kept moving out of her reach. “Will you hold still…oh, god I’m cold.”

  “You can fix that if you’d just shift,” he growled, throwing the blanket over her and taking and going into the bathroom, the door slamming behind him.

  “Shift?” She moved her feet as she wrapped the blanket around her, frowning at the closed bathroom door. She leaned against the wall and slid to the floor, tightening the blanket. “Why are you angry?”

  She jumped when the bathroom door crashed behind him when he came out, the blanket folded in half and tucked around his waist. He carried his clothing and threw them into the open dryer door. He set it and let it run.

  “I’m not angry at you. I’m sorry,” Sage remained facing the dryer, his hands on the edge.

  “What’s wrong? Why won’t you look at me?” She sighed. “I probably should shower and get the blood out of my hair.”

  “That phone call,” he began carefully. “Was Jess…remember the doctor from this morning?”

  “Yes, of course I remember. He took blood,” she held up her arm when he turned around, showing off the wet wrap on her elbow.

  “Take off the bandage, Luna,” Sage watched her look from her elbow to him. “Take it off. You won’t bleed. I promise. In fact, you probably don’t even have a bruise and it’s closed.”

  “It was just this morning,” she frowned and peeked under the bandage. Nothing was purple. Or even a little blue. She lifted more of the bandage, stopping when Sage took her hand and peeled the wrap free. It fell into his hand and he tossed it into the trash. “I guess I heal fast.”

  “Did you touch the gash on your head?”

  “I...I think so…what are you trying to tell me?”

  “Touch your head. It’s healed.” He saw the skepticism on her face, her hand not moving. “It’s closed, Luna. You said you heal fast. Didn’t you ever wonder why?”

  “I…no…no…I never studied medicine. I don’t understand how this stuff works,” but her hand went to her head, fingers gingerly probing and prodding, her eyes shifting to his, blinking and confused.

  “It works that way because you’re different.”

  Luna shook her head. “I’m not crazy and I’m not different.” She pushed herself to her feet and headed for the door, his hand out and grabbing her arm. Before she could think, she spun and swung her arm at him, her fingers grazing his chest.

  Only it wasn’t just her fingernails.

  “Fuck!” Sage stepped back, but too late. He hadn’t expected claws. He looked down at the four lines across his chest. Shallow, very shallow, but now red and dripping. He looked from his chest to the shocked and stunned wide green eyes.

  Luna shook her head, her breathing ragged. She looked at the claws extended from her fingers and screamed. “What is this!? How…I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to…I don’t like being surprised…”

  “It’ll heal, Luna, breathe…easy…I heal fast, too.” He gripped her fingers, looking at the lethal claws of the cougar. “Now will you listen to me? Put them away….”

  “I…put them…how?” She asked weakly, her knees suddenly shaking. “I…I need to sit down…I don’t understand…”

  “You don’t know how?” He repeated softly, going to his knees on the floor in front of her. She tucked the blanket carefully around her and bent forward. Her hand was still in his, still with fully extended claws.

  “I don’t know how,” she whispered hoarsely. “I’m not crazy.”

  “Honey, you are not crazy. You are different and your grandmother and mother would have shown you that if you’d been with them,” Sage held her palm up. “Look at me, Luna. Look at me…good…now I want you to close your eyes and think about your hand being just fingernails.”

  He watched her nod, those thick pale lashes down. He watched the soft shimmer and the claws recede. He carried her palm to his lips and kissed the center.

  “It’s okay, Luna. You’re okay. Open your eyes…let me explain this to you,” she did as she was told, staring at him. “Maybe it would be easier to show you,” He stood up, her hand still in his and led her from the laundry and toward the stairs. He’d seen a large mirror on the floor in the hobby room he’d been in when he spoke with Jess.

  “What are we doing? Show me what? I’m frightened…”

  “It’s nothing to be scared of…Jess sent your blood to the lab and you’ve been given a drug to…to keep you obedient and in that fog you spoke of.”

  “The shots…they said I had…had allergy problems…” Her head shook numbly. “That it was bad and…and I could die so I had a nurse around all the time.”

  “They also gave you another drug, Luna. But I think you’ve been fighting it. That’s the cat that you said was talking to you. Why do you think your grandmother left you a photo of the cougar?”

  “The…because it’s beautiful? Because she knew I liked her photograph?” She heard her voice get higher, felt herself shaking.

  “Alright…” He sighed and turned her to face the mirror. “Trust me. Close your eyes and listen to me.” He hoped he knew what he was doing. Otherwise, he’d be mauled to death by a wild cougar.

  “Alright.”

  “I want you to think about the photo of the cougar. Picture it in your mind,” he took his hands off her shoulders and stepped back. He wondered how strong the drug was they’d been giving her. “Can you see it in your mind?”

  “Yes,” she whispered seconds before she felt an odd pull at her insides.

  “Now think of yourself as that cat, Luna. Picture yourself…”

  Sage saw the shimmer begin. He watched the swift transition, the blanket hitting the floor and those large, gold eyes peering into the mirror. She was as beautiful as the photo left to her. Instead of the normal tawny color, hers were silver-gold with black and white tips. Her eyes were open now and he watched her paw raise and press against the mirror.

  She peered at the eight foot length of lethal wild cat, the cougar.

  Chapter Six

  Then she collapsed on the floor and the shift faded. Her body was shaking, her arms wrapping around her own shoulders and hands clenching so tightly her knuckles turned white.

  “Christ.” Sage fell to his knees, reaching for a phone that wasn’t there. He wrapped her quickly in the blanket and carried her back to the room with the double bed, pulli
ng extra blankets over her before turning and making a run for the laundry room. He’d left the phone on the table near the front door. He grabbed that and continued to the laundry room, grabbing the dried clothing from inside and running back to the bedroom.

  He flipped the phone open, tapping the direct number.

  “Jess! I’ve got a problem,” Sage wedged the phone between his ear and neck, pulling his jeans up his legs and shoving one arm into his tee shirt before switching.

  “Sage? What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t think she’s ever shifted before!” He looked around, there weren’t any more blankets in the room and she already had four on top of her and she was still shaking.

  “I...what? Are you serious? Why do you think that? That should have happened when she was a teenager,” Jess was up from the sofa and pacing. “But not if she had a father who wanted that part of her gone. Christ. The scent Lexi caught and couldn’t remember…”

  “Yeah, that was my reaction.”

  “What happened? How do you…you got her to shift?” He asked incredulously. “Without knowing…is she shivering?”

  “Yeah…and I’ve got her covered with four heavy blankets and she’s not awake. She passed out when she saw herself in the mirror. I didn’t fucking know!”

  “I know, I know…” Jess paced, his head back and eyes closed. “Just…I don’t know, Sage. The whole thing focuses around the hormones that adolescents have running rampant inside them! That’s why they have elders and parents to help them navigate things. There’ve been rumors of people delayed…keep her as warm as you can and…shit…try body heat…be careful…she could shift every five minutes until things start to even out or she could just…her temperature could just stabilize and she’ll sleep it off. I don’t know. That’s possibly part of what was in the drug. Something to suppress her hormones.”

  “Especially with that bastard filling her full of drugs to stop the natural order,” Sage went to the bed and crawled over the surface. “Thanks, Jess. I’ve got to go.” He snapped the phone shut and tossed it to the nightstand. He slid beneath the blankets. One hand went beneath her head, the other going around her middle, pulling her back against him, trying to share the natural warmth he had with her.

  He moved his arm lower, sliding beneath her waist. He gripped both her wrists in his and hoped if she shifted, she didn’t kill him. He shifted his shoulders against the headboard, cradling her against him and resting his cheek against her head.

  Sage didn’t let himself sleep. With his hands wrapped around her wrists, he could keep an eye on her pulse and her temperature. If Jess didn’t know about late shifting, he didn’t know who did.

  And here he believed he was helping free her. Helping to bring back memories. Memories she’d never made because of a bastard father with racist beliefs against his own child. And god knows what kind of experiments she was used for.

  He looked at the watch on the underside of his wrist.

  The shivering had stopped. Ninety minutes.

  She seemed to have settled into an uneasy sleep, her head tossing and little snarls breaking free now and then. He couldn’t say he knew much about cougars except what he’d learned being around Lexi briefly. And that wasn’t nearly enough for this duty.

  Her body gave a little jump at the same time his phone sounded. Stretching and without releasing her, he reached the phone and managed to get it open without swearing.

  “Yeah, Sage here.”

  “Sage, I have Lexi here,” Jess said hurriedly. “Is she alright?”

  “She’s still out but the shaking and shivering stopped after about ninety minutes,” he looked down at the still features, her head moving now and then in a negative shake. He had watched her upper lip curl back, the hint of sharp teeth flashing now and then. “Jess, I don’t know what the hell to do here. This is definitely outside the sheriff realm.”

  “Sage, just relax,” Lexi had joined the call, pacing the living area of her home with Eli watching. She had her phone clipped to her jeans and a headset on. “Jess said Luna didn’t know. That explains the scent I was getting. Why it was off. He told me about the drugs and I think everything natural began happening once the medications started clearing her system. I’ve called and talked to a few people and so has Jess. The problem is, all the cases were different.”

  “Swell. Thanks, Lex…just what I needed to hear.”

  “What’s she doing? Describe it for us.”

  “Sleeping…” He said tiredly. “But not…not peacefully. Her head thrashes now and then and believe me, the girl’s definitely got claws and canines. Little snarls break free and she…her body kind of jumps…”

  “How did you start this?” Lexi winced at the curse from the other end. “I’m trying to help here, Sage.”

  “I thought…we were only dealing with a loss of memory. I thought after Jess told me about the drugs, that I could give the memories a little push. I tried…I made a comment, she said I was crazy and tried walking out. I grabbed her arm…next thing I knew, I had four claw marks across my chest.” He dragged in a breath. “Okay…so now she’s sinking to the floor in shock…didn’t know how she did what she did and didn’t fucking know how to make the claws go away. I…fuck…I was floored, okay?”

  “She must have been scared,” Lexi said softly.

  “Yeah…yeah, she was…hell, she still is…hell, I didn’t know. I told her I could show her. So I took her upstairs to a room with a large mirror,” he heard Lexi sigh on the other end. “And I helped her visualize herself. Her grandmother had photos of her mother in her other form. She’s beautiful. Her colors are far off from yours, all silver and gold and black. It worked…she stared at herself…put her paw against the glass…and lost the shift, curled up in a ball and passed out on me. That’s when the shivering began.”

  “But it’s stopped now, right?”

  “Yeah…but she’s kind of thrashing.”

  “That’s normal. It’s the muscles stretching and kind of adapting. My mom held me through the night on my first shift. Then I felt like a weenie the next day,” Lexi picked up a pillow and threw it at Eli when he laughed. “I think it’ll be alright. Probably another hour or two and she’ll settle down and just sleep. She might sleep until noon or she might wake up right away. It’s hard to say. I woke up with a ton of energy.”

  “You’re just trying to make me nuts, right?”

  “Sage…are you coming back tomorrow morning? I have your information for you. I think Luna will be fine once all the garbage is out of her blood.”

  “And what’s the doctor think?”

  “Hey, she’s got my vote. If not…if we don’t hear from you by nine, I’ll send Lucas to check on you,” Jess told him. “Anything happens…not sure how I can help, but give me a call. You could bundle her in the car and bring her back tonight. I can monitor her…”

  “I’ll manage, doc, thanks. And thanks, Lex…I’ll be in touch,” he closed the phone and dropped it behind him on the bed.

  “I am not crazy.”

  Sage heard the soft voice, relief in the simple words she spoke.

  “No, baby, you’re not crazy,” his cheek came to rest on her head. “You’re not crazy. The photo your grandmother left you of the cougar…it’s your mother in her other form. Usually…your father’s been giving you drugs to try and ‘cure’ you, Luna.”

  “It’s been a busy day,” she said tiredly. She could feel his hard body wrapped around her from behind, his hands, one around each of her wrists. She knew it was for protection. His protection. She didn’t know how, but she knew. She wasn’t sure what to expect, but he was laughing and hugging her tighter.

  “Luna St. Germaine…that is the understatement of the year,” he opened his hands, releasing her wrists and leaning up enough to pull a blanket over him. He didn’t know what to expect and his two experts weren’t any more knowledgeable in this area than he was at the moment.

  The cougar was an incredibly strong, adaptable creat
ure. It roamed the high places, the deserts and forgotten cliffs; the forests and boundaries that man continually attempted to impose upon the land and creatures living upon it. It survived on its own rules and Luna had done the same. She showed him that now. Her father had treated her like she was weak. His serious mistake.

  “I’m so tired, Sage but I…I have so many questions.” It was nice in his arms. Warm and safe.

  “I’ll be here in the morning, Luna. I talked to Jess and Lexi…she can help you most, I think. She’s like you,” he went still when she inhaled very slowly through her nose.

  “You’re not. You’re…different,” she sighed and snuggled back against him. “Nice. I like your smell.”

  Sage looked at the clock. In just over twelve hours he’d gone from not being a cat person to not knowing how to be nothing but a cat person.

  One cat. This one.

  “You know you can’t stay here.”

  “I know. But…I needed to see, I think. Maybe…maybe he had lied to me,” she turned, which wasn’t easy since she discovered she was wrapped up like a taco with four layers. “Good grief…It’s very warm in here,” she tossed blankets back until she had the one and fell back against the pillow, facing him, her face pressed into his chest. “I think I hoped he had lied to me and grannie was still alive.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t know…no, that is wrong…I’m feeling too many things all at the same time,” she whispered, labeling, sorting and holding a tight leash on it all. “But I’m feeling. Before it was…there was nothing. It was muffled…everything…kept just outside my view…outside my reach…”

  “Tell me the words, Luna. Tell me what you’re feeling,” Sage went still when she leaned up, keeping the blanket wrapped around her, she sat at his side, cross-legged. He didn’t move when her hand came out, tugging on his shirt and pulling it toward his face. “It’s alright,” he peered down at where the slash marks had been. “It’s healed and won’t even be noticeable in a couple hours.”