Lunar Bound, page 23
part #4 of Sky Brooks World: Ethan Series
“For who,” I demanded, “you or Sky?”
He glowered. “Both.”
Glancing at the Aufero in his hand, I noted the orb was more translucent now. Sky had done more than change the magic emanating from it, she’d changed the orb itself, and without Maya’s help. Sky had passed Josh’s test. Maya remained dangerous. She had to be dealt with, but Sky remained in firm control.
My relief was tempered by the way he flirted with her, daring me to be jealous. There was something darker to his flirtation than how he’d been with her at the penthouse. He’d started to get a clue about us. He was toying with me now, taking his revenge for perceived past transgressions. Confronting him now, in front of Sky, wasn’t what I wanted.
With some effort, I turned and walked up the stairs to the library. Waiting for them there, I paced in front of the windows. You’re jealous, he’d said, while accusing me of a history of taking women’s interest from him. That I was jealous of him left me incensed. Seeking to disprove the rest of his accusation, I retraced my memory of the women I’d met through him at the club. To my distaste, an uneasy pattern started to unfold. Preferring anger over regret, I glanced at the clock. An hour had passed since I’d left them. I wondered where the hell they were. I knew by the ripples of magic spreading through the house that they were still in the basement, practicing.
That’s for my benefit.
Refusing to give him the satisfaction, I stayed away. At least, for the first four hours. As the fifth hour neared, I’d had enough. I was on my way down the stairs to bring their lessons to an end when they emerged from the training room. I paused, held my brother’s harsh gaze. Our eyes remained fixed on each other as he passed me on the stairs, waiting until the last moment to break contact.
Sky watched, confused, until he disappeared.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Nothing.” The issue was between my brother and me. With some effort, I brushed my anger at him aside. “Are you hungry?”
Her eyes brightened. “Famished.”
Taking her hand, I led her up the stairs. “Your choice. Anywhere.”
“You’re going to regret that,” she said with a rueful smile.
She ate hungrily while I stared at our shared plate, appalled.
“Red velvet cake is not a meal,” I said. “It’s dessert.”
“So I’ve heard.” Another piece went into her mouth before she gestured to my fork with her own. “You said you like to have new experiences.”
I chuckled, but my thoughts drifted to Josh. I’d thought my interest in Sky had been plain. Perhaps not, or was he just pursuing her as a means to piss me off, my brother’s favorite pastime?
“Not that I mind the PDA,” Sky said, drawing me from my reverie to realize I’d taken her hand in mind. “But you’ve been pretty handsy since we left the retreat.”
I frowned. “That’s not the case.”
“You led me to the Maserati with your hand on my back. And then you held my hand all the way here. If you’re going to handcuff us together next, we’re going to have to have a long talk about our future.”
Reflexively, I pulled my hand away. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
“Uh huh,” she said, unconvinced. After another bite, she pushed the plate away.
“You’re not finished.”
She eyed the remainder with a sad expression. “Turns out, you can have too much of a good thing.”
I nodded. After paying the check, I took her home.
Walking through the door, she lifted the collar of her shirt to smell it. “Oh boy,” she said, turning into the hall. “I need a shower.” When I followed her into the bathroom, she gently pushed me back. “Whoa. Showering is not a group project.”
Surprised and not sure how to take the rejection, I left her alone. While she showered and changed, I did my best to shake a building anxiety I didn’t want to recognize. The orb proved a reasonable distraction. I admired its color, impressed at Sky’s skill. So far, the change she’d effected held. Josh and Sky had spent a great deal of time together over the last year, training. He was knowledgeable, an excellent trainer, but he couldn’t teach her everything.
By the time she emerged from the bathroom, I’d resolved to teach her myself. She blinked at me from the hallway as I moved her coffee table to the far wall of the living room.
“What’s happening?”
“You should practice.”
Her mouth stood agape for a moment. “I just did. For almost five hours. I’m beat.”
I took her hand, led her to the center of the room. “As with fighting, there’s no better time to train than when you’re tired. It’s one thing to use magic when you’re alert and fresh. You need to be just as sharp when you’re exhausted and stressed.”
I drew her close to me. “Start with a field.”
After an uncertain moment, she drew on the Aufero’s magic to generate the field around us. With the orb’s magic changed, suffocation was no longer a problem.
“Good. While you maintain the field, manipulate some objects in the room.”
She concentrated. With a simple gesture, a glass vase rose from an end table. My hand gently caressed her back while she sent the vase into a continuous orbit around us. My hand slipped around her waist. She pulled away slightly, gave me a playful look as she raised a decorative pillow from the couch. As she pinned the pillow to a wall, I bent to her neck and kissed her, licking her pulse.
She laughed and squirmed. “Will you stop?”
I kissed her lips, slipped my fingers beneath her shirt. “You have to be able to perform with distractions.”
“If this is the distraction they employ, then I’m pretty sure things are just going to get weird fast.”
“Drop the field.”
Drawing my fingers over the back of her hand, I eased back from her. She watched, curious as I used my own magic to split her field and slip out of it. She’d always wanted to know about my magic, what I could do. Teasing her now only aroused her amused suspicion.
She took a deep breath, slowly let it out. The field dissipated. I caught the vase as it fell, while the pillow plopped to the floor. Beside us, the Aufero continued its rhythmic pulse.
Once the field was gone, I moved closer to her. “Very good.”
“Very good?” she balked. “Did you see that? I just made magic my bitch.”
“That you did.” I pulled her against me, kissing her.
Her body melted into mine, then suddenly tensed. She backed away, confused and irritated. “What is going on between us?”
I smiled. “It was just a kiss, Sky.”
Her eyes searched mine as I entwined our fingers. I pressed closer, following her until her back was against the wall. Her lips reached for mine. We clawed at each other’s clothes as our carnal passions took over. My need for her burned. After a long, passionate kiss, she stopped. Her eyes searched mine once more, but there was a fire in there, a desire and a need.
“No, it’s not just a kiss,” she breathed. “What happens next?”
Our hearts pounded against each other. Our bodies vibrated with carnal craving.
“Whatever you want to happen,” I promised.
She looked away, thinking. I was losing her.
“What happens when you get tired of me?”
Staring into her eyes, I saw my reputation staring back at me. I’d faced such questions before. They’d never fazed me. With Sky, I felt like she’d reached deep inside of me and called out what she’d found. I was a rogue, but I didn’t want to be that for her. Thrown off, I reverted to my old tactic of redirection.
“What happens when I get tired of you?” I gave her a rogue’s smile. “How about when you get tired of me?”
Not fooled, her eyes darkened. “Don’t play games with me. Answer the question.”
“It’s not very hard.” I sighed. The truth, this time. “We move on.”
What happened next was up to her. Her skin burned hot beneath my fingers as they lazily traced down her arm until I clasped her hand. The wild drumming of her heart pounded in my ear as she made up her mind.
I asked softly, “Where is this coming from?”
“I just don’t want to be a throwaway,” she admitted. “Someone you quickly lose interest in.”
I brushed my lips against her cheek, then kissed her. “How could I lose interest in you?”
I couldn’t imagine Sky could ever stop surprising me, or pushing me to be a better were-animal.
She turned until our lips almost met. Brushing her lips against mine, I heard the decision in her heart just before she kissed me back.
I woke to her stirring next to me in bed.
“What is it, Sky?” I asked before turning to observe her. There was a liveliness to her eyes. Her pupils danced with thoughts. I wondered if she’d slept a wink since we’d gone to bed.
Gauging my reaction, she opted to lie. “Nothing.”
“Seventy-seven heart rate and your respiration is twelve. You want to try again?”
“No,” she said, then changed course. “I just want to know why you are such a freak.”
I sat up, chuckling. “What’s wrong?”
She hesitated only for a moment. “Why did Logan react to you the way he did?”
“Who knows why Logan does any of the things he does? I’m not going to waste time trying to figure it out.”
“You just walked out of the protective field as though it wasn’t there,” she said, an accusation.
I’d shown off for her. The price to pay was questions I preferred to not answer. “Sky, you were using magic all day, it was a weak field. Anyone could have broken it. But it will get better with practice.”
Her eyes narrowed in irritation. “Okay.”
It was anything but.
As a distraction, I leaned in to kiss her, but her lips remained stubbornly sealed.
“I keep thinking about what Logan said about the Faeries. What if Maya was one? That would explain so much. It would definitely explain why they resorted to infanticide to get rid of her. If she is, how horrible were the Faeries that people would resort to such things?”
“If my research is correct”—I ran a hand through my hair, sighed—“I think the best choice was to kill them before they could reach their full potential.”
“No,” she scolded me, “that is never an option.”
“Sky, the Faeries were not good people. And because of how powerful they were, they couldn’t be destroyed, so what other options did they have?”
Judging by her indignant expression, I knew I was in for a lecture. Remembering a book I’d had in my car for some time, I slipped out of the sheets and started toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
“I need to get something out of my car.”
“You’re going out there like that?” She gestured to my penis. “Clothes, please.”
Frowning, I pried open the curtains. It was dark out. Glancing at the clock on the nightstand, I confirmed it was early. “I doubt there’s anyone outside. I’m used to my home.”
“Well, I have neighbors, and I doubt they want to see your naked ass and junk while having their morning coffee.”
I surrendered with a sigh, slipped on my underwear as a compromise, then retrieved the book. Aware of the nightmares it contained, I dropped it into her lap. She eagerly settled the book between her knees and began to read while I climbed back into bed.
Faeries were a cruel and godlike species, so dangerous that the other supernatural factions banded together to annihilate them. The cost of doing so, counted in souls, was in the thousands. In an attempt to survive, they turned to humans for procreation. The resultant progeny were much weaker. We called them fae. It was possible that Ethos and Maya were Faeries. Their powers—what we’d seen—matched: shapeshifting, necro-magic similar to the dark elves’, the ability to manipulate and transfer magic as Sky did.
She hemmed, hawed, and gasped as she read. When she finished—if she could—she probably wouldn’t sleep. I didn’t. After she’d read enough horror, she asked, “How long have you had this information?”
“Not long.”
“And you didn’t tell me about it? You can’t continue keeping information like this and then just springing it on me.”
Faeries weren’t the kind of thing to bring up in casual conversation. I’d only told her now because she asked, and because she might be right about Maya, at least.
She continued reading, increasingly appalled with every page turn. When her phone rang on the nightstand, I recognized the ringtone she’d assigned to David. Startled at first, she answered with a cheerful familiarity that told me how often they talked.
Cheerfulness became concern. “David—”
She dropped the phone on the bed and leapt up, dressing quickly.
Anxious, I followed her lead. “What is it?”
“Something’s wrong.”
On her way outside, she picked up a hunter’s knife and the Aufero.
David answered the door before we could knock.
Sky asked, “What’s the matter?”
He turned aside to reveal a blood-splattered sheet on the other side of the room, draped over a hunched figure. As we entered, he gingerly pulled back the sheet to reveal a half-naked man. He was sickly looking, lost within himself. Tufts of animal hair punctured through his skin. He was some kind of shifter, caught in mid-transformation. But he didn’t smell like a were-animal.
Sky knelt in front of him. “Are you okay? Who are you? What happened?”
He tried to answer, but couldn’t.
“Don’t try to talk,” she assured him. “I’m going to help you.”
She gave me an anxious look, hoping I had an answer. I didn’t.
David dropped into a nearby chair, watching Sky with the relief of a runner who had just passed the baton.
“Where’s Trent?” I asked, glancing around the room.
He and Sky looked surprised that I knew Trent’s name. Admittedly, I’d never shown an interest in David or his partner. That didn’t mean I didn’t know everything about them.
“I had to give him something,” David explained. “When the guy started growing hair, he freaked out. He’s sleeping right now.”
Sky explained to the injured man before she drew out her knife, “I need to take off the rest of your clothes, okay?” After gently cutting away the remnants, she placed a palm on his skin. She tried to force his change. The gesture surprised me, showed a fresh confidence. Her relationship with her wolf was always growing. As she concentrated, her heart rate slowed to a steady, calm beat.
The man squirmed beneath her touch. He gave her a desperate look, as if it was salvation she offered. Sweat beaded and ran down his face, but he still couldn’t change.
I brought out my phone and dialed a conference call with Josh and Dr. Baker. For this mystery, I’d need them both. After I’d explained the situation, I knelt next to Sky and placed my hand over hers, adding my authority to her command. The animal within the man responded immediately. His back arched. He groaned at the snap and crackle of his bones breaking and resetting.
The transition seemed alien to his body, which was what made it so terrible. Were-animals who weren’t born to the shift suffered greatly. Many didn’t survive their first change. That’s why we rarely made new were-animals. The risks were too great.
I wasn’t sure if it was the sight or the sounds of the change that caused David to cup a hand over his mouth and gag.
While I continued commanding the change, Sky retrieved vodka from the kitchen. David drank directly from the bottle, only stopping to breathe. After a couple rounds, he lowered the bottle to his lap, dragged the back of a hand across his mouth, and sighed.
The stranger’s hips and legs had almost fully changed. His upper body stubbornly resisted, but I’d seen worse. He was terrified. When the shift had first started, I wondered if he’d even known the change was coming.
Sky guided David to a spot on the couch. He was starting to calm when he noticed the stranger’s lower half. David’s eyes bulged as he gulped down more of the vodka. Between drinks, he gasped, “You didn’t look like that when you changed.”
“It gets better each time,” she explained. “He’s different and I don’t know what his deal is, but when I know something, I’ll tell you, okay?”
He nodded. “Oh kitten, I hate that my cupcake has to go through that every month.”
The stranger’s jaw cracked and snapped as his snout extended.
David gulped at his booze, then hurried down the hall and into the bathroom. The door slammed shut behind him.
By the time the stranger completed his transformation, we were all exhausted. He was barely alive, his breath ragged and his heartbeat not much more than a flutter. At least in his animal state, he had a chance to survive. With him stretched out beside me, I sat with my back against the wall.
I sensed Sebastian’s approach, surprised that he’d come. Sky sensed him as well, opening the door for him. He walked in, showing no lasting signs of his wound. Dr. Baker, Josh, and Winter followed just as David emerged from the bathroom. The bottle was missing from his grip, but I knew by his breath and his staggered walk that he’d left it empty in the bathroom waste bin. Seeing his house full of people only slightly fazed him. He’d seen all of us with Sky, though not together.
His drunken gaze fixed on Winter and he stumbled toward her.
“Oh, the dark swan,” he slurred, licked his lips. “How beautiful you truly are in person. I’ve only seen you from a distance.”
Her eyes flashed an amber warning at him, showing serpentine slits. A sober man would’ve cowered. David only pursed his lips in delighted awe. Were I not so exhausted, I’d have laughed at Winter’s flabbergasted reaction.
Sky took his arm and gently guided him into the kitchen, where she poured him a glass of water. “It’s not always like that,” she whispered.
Sebastian knelt next to the wolf, ran a massive hand through its fur. He sensed and smelled the same oddness that I did. Neither of us had answers. Nodding, he rose and walked into the kitchen. In his place, Dr. Baker knelt to examine the strange wolf with a medical eye.
