Transient Moon

by Kos, Gaja J. ;

  I moaned as his fingers found the silken heat between my thighs, stroking me gently.

  “We’ll have our dinner, then go to bed. Because sometimes”—his lips brushed against my pulse—“you have to expand a little energy to replenish it. And I plan to work on yours for a long, long time.”

  Well, when he put it like that… How was a werewolf supposed to argue?

  When Afanasiy transported me to Ljubljana the next day, that ghastliness the twins often complained about hit me full force. I’d experienced a taste of it when I brought Selma here for her round-robin tournament, but back then, I also had Afanasiy’s gorgeous face to stare at—not to mention the sexual tension we’d thoroughly explored.

  My sigh came out in a puff of mist.

  Monotonous gray sky, a humid chill that reached all the way to my bones… Yeah, it wasn’t hard to imagine just how quickly you’d get fed up if you had to put up with this for a month straight. Sometimes six, if the twins were to be believed.

  At least our Munich winds—though at times brutal—tended to scatter this kind of bullshit fairly quickly.

  I grimaced, then turned to Afanasiy who seemed ready to take his leave. His violet eyes blazed as if they were the only hint of color on this bleak February day, and I drank them in greedily, half wishing he could stay with me for a while longer.

  “Call for me when you’re done.” He pulled my cap lower over my ears, then trailed his hands down my shoulders. “I’ll be waiting.”

  I smiled and lifted myself on my toes to press a kiss to his lips. “Looking forward to it, kāros.”

  The flash of heat in his eyes was the only warning sign before he ensnared me in his arms and brought his mouth to mine. Gods, even after he’d made good on his promise and kept me up for the majority of the night, I still wanted him. Burned for him.

  Faintly, I felt the world tilt and spin around me, but I was too lost in Afanasiy to care.

  He steadied me once we finally drew apart. “Good luck, Lotte. Liege.”

  And just like that, he was gone.

  Smiling, I shook my head, then marched from the fairly secluded alley up a pedestrian-only street plagued with just enough slush to make me grateful I’d opted for waterproof boots. I weaved through the thick Monday crowds and the onslaught of senses—that much more pronounced thanks to the disgusting humidity. By the time I reached the main road and the air opened up somewhat, my nose was tingling.

  Aggressive perfumes and werewolves did not mix well.

  Just my luck they were apparently all the rage this season.

  I skirted around a widespread group of people waiting at the bus stop in front of the hotel I’d stayed at with Selma. The central police station loomed just on the other side of the road, occupying the completely renovated high-rise that nonetheless bore a building’s equivalent to a person’s old soul. During the War, this was the part of town that got hit the worst, and I couldn’t help but love how the police had reclaimed their old headquarters. Marking their success.

  After a speeding taxi zoomed by, spraying slush everywhere, I crossed the street and pushed through the heavy doors of the station. The ground floor brimmed with activity, although the hum oozing from the people was surprisingly pleasant. Okay, so my perception might have been slightly altered since I was, in a way, part of a similar community now that I was one of ICRA’s. But that in no way diminished the value of the good work atmosphere I was picking up on.

  After a quick scan, I locked on the uniformed officer sitting behind a desk next to the elevators. I marched over, a smile on my face, and pulled up the slightly dusty Slovene lessons from the depths of my mind.

  The language the twins had insisted I’d learn came to me like an old friend.

  “Hi. I’m here to see Assistant Commissioner Freundenberger.”

  The policeman’s gaze flickered over me in a quick assessment. “Name?”

  “Lotte Freundenberger. ICRA.” I offered him a glimpse of my badge I’d had the foresight to bring with me. “And sister-in-law.”

  That earned me a full-blown grin. The human clicked something away on his keyboard, then motioned to the elevators. “The Assistant Commissioner should be free to see you. Seventh floor. Last office on your left.”

  “Thank you.”

  The ride up was short. I was still in the middle of unbuttoning my coat and stuffing the hat into my leather backpack when the metal doors slid open. I turned left as instructed, then followed the brightly lit corridor all the way to the end.

  Katja’s office was glass-fronted with roll-up blinds tilted at a forty-five-degree angle. The vampire herself sat behind an elegant desk that dominated the center of the space, her chestnut hair pulled into a neat, serious bun that balanced elegance and practicality. With a chrome-colored pen between her fingers, she pored over a number of papers extensive enough to rival my own back at ICRA. Amusement swept through me at the thought of where we’d all ended up, and, refreshingly, I didn’t feel all that bad about my own situation.

  I rapped my knuckles on the glass.

  “Come—” The door swung open. “Lotte!”

  Damn, sometimes I forgot just how frighteningly fast Katja could be. That, and the fact that she had senses as keen as a werewolf’s.

  I knew it had been only her complete immersion in work that had prevented her from picking up on my presence sooner.

  “Hi, Katja.” My voice came out in breathless rasps as she pulled me into a crushing hug. “Good to see you, too.”

  Beaming, my sister-in-law ushered me into her office where the scent of printouts, old and new alike, promptly filled my senses. As did the shrieking of an incoming call.

  Katja tapped a button on the stationary phone to mute its ringing, then turned to me. “I didn’t know you were in town!”

  “I didn’t either until this morning.”

  Not until Lena hadn’t returned my calls or texts, which only happened when she was on a mission. And, consequently, utterly unavailable.

  “How—” Realization dawned on her face. “Ah, your dashing demon boyfriend.”

  “Right you are.”

  Katja shook her head, her mouth twitching. “I love your brother, you know that, but I have to confess, you and Rose have a good thing going on, merging partnership with a wicked fast means of transportation.”

  I chuckled then parked my butt in the guest seat. “Traveling has never been cheaper.”

  “Or more good-looking, I bet.”

  “That, too.” I grinned. “Listen, I wish I could say this was a social call, but I need a favor.”

  “Anything.”

  “I need to get in contact with a detective. Caz Zeman.”

  Katja leaned against the desk, her long legs stretched out in front of her, and arched a perfect eyebrow. “You know you could have called if all you needed was a number.”

  “Yeah.” I shrugged, but could hardly keep the amusement from my face. “But then neither of us would have the pleasure of Jürgen’s outrage when he learns that I dropped by to see you and left him in the dark.”

  Unlike his mate, Caz was available and more than willing to arrange a face-to-face with Liva’s hotter-than-sin—his words, not mine—Fae. I still had some time to kill before he arrived in Ljubljana, but as much as it would have been nice to hang out with Katja, I didn’t have the heart to keep her away from her job.

  Not that she wouldn’t drop everything in an instant had I asked, but that was beside the point. Katja was dedicated and would more than likely work well into the night to catch up instead of postponing the workload—as was my go-to method. Consequently, that would earn me a proper growling from Jürgen for being the reason behind his loss of nighttime with his wife.

  Since I hadn’t notified him of my presence in Ljubljana, that was poking the werewolf enough for one time. I was kind of fond of my head remaining attached to my body.

  I strode down the crammed street until I found a moderately private slice of sidewalk and went through
the calls my schedule had shoved to the sidelines. Alec. Felix. Linus. Elsa. Jaxon was in the middle of a session, as Felix had informed me, so all I left him was a quick text—the same with Voit to keep his stress levels to a minimum.

  Supes or not, perfectly human triggers could have quite an impact on our respective energies. And with me out and Alec taking my place, there was nothing I wanted to see more than Voit helping out on the courts as soon as possible.

  The quick bout of check-ins done, I merged back with the flow of pedestrians to indulge in a little bit of window shopping. I barely made it to the first display when a husky female voice called out my name.

  I spun around, my gaze immediately drawn to the strawberry blonde werewolf rushing in my direction, a darling little six-year-old by her side.

  “Rose!” We embraced then, and as soon as we came apart, I reached down to take Amaris into my arms. Her gold-green eyes shone as I hoisted her up, a pair of matching dimples crowning her shy smile.

  It was hard to believe how much she’d grown in the span of a few months. Not just physically, but in power, too. It charged the air, a presence that was electrifying, although far from unpleasant.

  “Hey, you.” I smoothed her fire-touched obsidian hair then pressed a kiss on her forehead. “Where are you and your mom headed?”

  “Shopping,” Rose said with a wink at her daughter who apparently had reached the too-shy-to-answer phase. I set her gently back down. “We need to stock up on books.”

  Amaris took her hand and started dragging her towards the bookstore just down the street.

  “See what I mean,” Rose muttered under her breath, and I fought hard to suppress a chuckle. She arched an eyebrow. “You have some explaining to do as well, hanging out in our neck of the woods without letting us know.”

  “Trust me, if the circumstances were different…”

  As we walked to the store, I rehashed everything Katja already knew, and, once Amaris left our side to look at the vast offer of children’s books, added something my sister-in-law didn’t. My deal with ICRA.

  The specks of pure gold in Rose’s midnight blue eyes seemed to burn brighter when I gave her the details of Melina’s current state, the wolf inside me itching to growl right alongside her.

  “If you need any help”—she took my hand in hers—“let me know, and I’ll mobilize the troops.”

  “Thanks for that, but I think reaching out to the Fae is my best shot. If ICRA didn’t find anything…”

  “There’s a fair chance we couldn’t, either. I know.” Something dark passed across her face. “If you do get a name, as well as a visual of the attacker but can’t track him down, just remember”—her voice dropped into a gentle whisper—“that we aren’t just your friends and family, but the Trinity of Death, as well.”

  I swallowed, the flood of emotions constricting my throat. While Rose was more attuned to the souls trapped between this world and the next, a guide to lead them to their rightful place, Veles and Morana both had the ability to push the living onto that same path. I knew neither of them tampered with souls lightly, but they were willing to make an exception for those who stained this world with cruelty and loss. Still, the offer…

  It meant more than I could possibly say.

  “I’ll remember,” I whispered, hoping my expression conveyed what words could not. My gaze drifted past her to Amaris who continued to amass an impressive number of books. “How is she? I could feel her power when I picked her up.”

  And she wasn’t even using it…

  “We’re teaching her how to control it.” Rose shrugged, her curls falling over her coat-clad shoulders, then released a long breath. “But her traits are developing faster than we can keep up. Even Veles is baffled by it, and you know he’s seen a lot.”

  Yeah, being born into the old Realm of Kolovrat and living for millennia would do that to a full-blooded deity.

  “There’s no doubt Amaris is linked to death,” Rose went on in a hushed voice as a small group of people ambled by, “though we haven’t figured out the specifics of it yet. But…”

  I entwined my fingers with hers. “But what?”

  For a moment, Rose let me see past her walls. Let me see the concern, the fear of not knowing the path her daughter would take. A discreet shudder rippled through her, affecting the texture of the energy that blew across my skin.

  “She dreams, Lotte.” Her fingers tightened around mine before she let go. We trailed behind Amaris into another well-stocked section. “People she knows, sometimes those who are close to the pack, even if she never met them herself… There’s no rhyme or reason to it, except for one connection.”

  “What?”

  “They all visit her in her dreams the night before they die.”

  Fifteen

  A chill crept down my spine. “Amaris is clairvoyant?”

  “A death clairvoyant, yes.”

  Rose’s gaze fell on her daughter, her tight expression softening, though the concern remained. I had a leaden feeling in my gut that there was more to the story. And I wasn’t mistaken.

  Though it would have been nice to be wrong just this once.

  “Lately, however, it isn’t just individuals she sees,” Rose said, then fell silent as a vamp family with two kids marched by. She picked a middle-grade book off the nearest shelf, thumbed through it, then placed it back when the vamps were out of earshot. “There are… There are some kind of shadowy, faceless figures occupying her dreamscape. They never do anything. They’re just there. As if they’re…waiting for something.”

  “You think something’s coming? Something big—and bad?”

  Rose lifted one shoulder, but there was nothing light about the simple movement. “Not for a while, not for years, I think, maybe decades if we’re lucky… But yes, something’s coming. I just hope we’ll decipher Amaris’s dreams before it does.”

  I couldn’t get Rose’s words out of my head—or shake off the foreboding sensation they brought. Not until I met Caz on the windy roof of the police station a little over an hour later. His warm smile and easygoing, welcoming nature helped put an airtight lid on that dark little box of gloom. Rose said we still had years ahead of us, and right now, I needed to focus on the problem at hand instead of the shitstorm brewing in the future.

  Though in all honesty, it might have helped that Caz was wearing nothing but a dark robe belted at the waist, which offered up a pretty good hint about what he had in store for me.

  “Are we…flying?” I asked, my voice unnervingly high.

  Werewolves didn’t squeak. Then again, we didn’t just take to the skies, either.

  A good cause for an exception if there was any.

  “We are.” He grinned, his amber eyes dancing with amusement. “Cian prefers to steer clear of Ljubljana and its masses, so we’re meeting him at a cafe outside town.”

  “And we’re flying there,” I said slowly, enunciating every word even as my insides buzzed with excitement.

  Flying.

  On the back of a dragon.

  Caz chuckled and raked his hand through his wild curls. “Come on, let’s get you geared up.”

  Apparently, the roof was a regular landing zone for him, because he led me across the concrete to an actual supply cabinet tucked against the sturdy rooftop access stairwell. I peeked over his shoulder, but before I could even scan the numerous shelves, Caz had already found what he was looking for. He passed it on to me.

  As the gray fabric unfolded, I realized it was one of those multifunctional strips of fabric that could be used as headwear or neckwear, depending on the occasion. I slipped it over my head, tucked the back end under my knit hat, then drew the front high enough to cover my nose. A frozen face was not something I had any desire to experience.

  A pair of riding gloves came next, the leather supple and molding to my hands like second skin. Followed by old-school flying goggles.

  Adrenaline stirred in my veins, coupled with just a hint of fear.

&nb
sp; “You won’t let me fall, will you?” I flexed my fingers.

  The gleam in Caz’s eyes wasn’t reassuring at all. Nor was the twitch of his lips.

  “I’ll catch you if you do, Freundenberger.”

  “Bastard.”

  Caz laughed, then stripped off the robe, and piled it into my arms. “Can you stuff this in your backpack? Cian’s been around me enough that he isn’t bothered by the whole naked aspect, but we’re still meeting in a public place.”

  “Sure.”

  I knew full well how difficult it was for non-shifters to wrap their minds around the fact that nudity, in itself, meant little to us. It was just skin, not something intimate. Having to trudge clothes around or stashing spares in various locations was a pain in the ass at best, an impossibility at worst.

  Rolling the robe into a tight bundle, I crammed it into my leather backpack, then took a few steps back to watch Caz change shape. Magic teased my senses, similar yet so vastly different from the pulse accompanying a werewolf’s shift.

  We were an old species. But Caz… He was ancient.

  I hardly felt the harsh whipping of wind, my eyes glued to the Perelesnyk as I witnessed the transition between forms for the first time.

  A haze spun around Caz, obscuring his honed body from sight. The magic cranked up, suffusing the winter-kissed air, then died down abruptly.

  I couldn’t keep my jaw from dropping when I saw the final effect.

  A bloody majestic dragon crouched on the roof, framed by the bleak gray skies and the faint outline of mountains in the distance.

  His green scales glimmered despite the lack of sunlight, almost as if in defiance. Sharp ridges adorned his back, and a powerful tail curved along the edge of the rooftop, only further emphasizing his breathtaking size. But what struck me the most were his eyes.

  No longer amber, but a pure black that all but irradiated that ancient essence I’d picked up on before.

  While I’d seen Perelesnyks in flight over the years, none of the encounters had ever been this close. And they had never involved Caz.