Lunar Bound, page 3
part #4 of Sky Brooks World: Ethan Series
Liam lifted his nose as he declared, “You only defeated us with Samuel’s help,” as if that explained everything.
“Any time you want to test that theory…”
Josh scowled between us. “Go ahead. Get it out of your system. I’m sure two guys bumping chests in the parking lot won’t draw security, which can’t possibly lead to the police showing up and asking to look inside the crate.” Still scowling, he opened the back of our van and stepped back to give the Makellos access. “Do you have enough testosterone, or shall we order out?”
“The witch is right,” Liam said, gesturing for his minions to transfer the crate.
The police weren’t a danger. We had pack members within the force. At each transfer, I’d made sure that one of them was patrolling nearby. If our activity elicited a call, a friendly officer would be first on the scene. Josh knew that. He was being diplomatic. I’d challenged Liam—a mistake, considering our objective. Josh had given him a way out.
Liam didn’t bother to assist as his Makellos gripped the crate. Grunting, they pulled it out a few inches before the belocka began thrashing. The twins shared surprised glances. Liam raised an eyebrow. I knew then that he hadn’t lied to me about the creature.
I glared down at him. “It’s a little bigger than you described.”
He glanced about to make sure the angry beast wasn’t drawing civilian attention, then gestured for his elf to move their van closer. Once the van was repositioned, it was just a matter of pushing and pulling the crate from one to the other.
“This is the last on your list,” I reminded him.
“Agreed. Your debt to me is paid.”
“It is,” I growled. “That wasn’t the extent of our bargain.”
The Makellos sighed with relief after giving the crate a final push. Once the van doors were closed and locked, Liam drew an envelope from his pocket.
When I reached out to take the envelope, he lowered it to his side, tapped it against his gray linen pants.
“The curse that bound the creatures within the preserve of the Dark Forest was a powerful one,” he noted, “not easy to break.”
Josh lied with a perfectly straight face. “There must’ve been a flaw that someone exploited.”
“Perhaps, but our curse wasn’t the only one broken. The Tre’ase are unbound, free to spread their mischief to the world. In fact, not a single curse that we know of remains intact, including Marcia’s curse on your little wolf, Skylar.”
Tre’ase were tricksters, probably demons, but no one knew for certain. According to one rumor, they were once human, witches who’d traded their humanity for immortality and power.
When I didn’t answer Liam—preferring to look bored with the topic—his eyes narrowed. He turned to Josh, who remained unaffected.
“How that curse must have chafed at you,” he said, fixing his gaze on me. “You care for her, like a master with a puppy.”
I growled, “Your point?”
“When I ask myself how anyone could manage the sheer power required to unbind every curse, I can’t help but consider the spells within the Clostra. Conveniently, the artifact is in your hands.”
“One of the three books is in Samuel’s possession,” I corrected him. “Should he obtain the two under the pack’s protection, he intends to destroy all magic. Instead of throwing around conspiracy theories, you should thank us.”
“You have an alliance with Samuel,” he said, the words bitter on his tongue.
“A temporary truce, which has expired.”
“If the pack is using the Clostra—”
“I’ve got better things to do than listen to wild accusations.”
Once more, I held out my hand. He stared down at my waiting hand, grunted, then handed me the envelope. I passed it to Josh, who checked the contents, nodded.
“We’re done here.”
While I drove out of the parking lot, making sure we weren’t followed, Josh took a closer look at the pages from the envelope. He whistled. “Toronto, Florida, Kansas, Oregon. We’re going to have our hands full.”
We’d already exhausted the list of local Tre’ase that Chris had given me. Now that the Tre’ase were free, our search was going to get harder. Liam’s list of addresses was based on the curse that had kept the Tre’ase bound to their homes. With the curse lifted, his list was losing value by the day. There were too many names. Some of them were going to slip through our fingers.
I only cared about one of them, the one that had created the spirit shade Maya. Eventually, that Tre’ase would die. Maya would die with it, and she was the only thing keeping Sky alive. While still in the womb, her mother had been turned by a vampire. The mother was human, but Sky had inherited her wolf through her father. The vampire infection was a poison to Sky. The change would’ve killed her. To save her daughter, Sky’s mother had made a bargain with Maya, welcoming the spirit shade to live within Sky once she was born.
Even if we knew how long of a life span Tre’ase lived, we didn’t know the age of Maya’s creator. It could be old or sick. It could be hunted. I had to live with the worry that Sky could die at any moment, and I could do nothing to save her until I found the Tre’ase and locked it away where we could keep it safe. First, we had to find it.
CHAPTER 2
The drive back to the retreat felt long. Every silent mile stoked my anger at Josh. He should’ve told me. I chose to not confront him on the spot. I needed to talk to him alone, when I was calm.
The pack kept a number of homes in various locations, but the retreat was our current home, tucked away from view on three hundred acres of private wooded land. The boundaries of the property were fenced, deterring all but the most determined intruder. In a dangerous supernatural world, the retreat was our oasis.
Turning from the highway onto our private secondary road always brought a sense of calm. At the end of the narrow, winding road, the three-story brick mansion came into view. I parked the van next to Sky’s Honda Civic.
Josh nodded toward Winter and Gavin’s car on the other side of the garage. “Looks like the gang’s all here.”
“Good.” My boots crunched on the gravel driveway as I led us toward the house. “We have some decisions to make.”
Sky waited for us in the entryway, her arms folded over her chest. “How’d it go?” she asked, an edge to her voice. Why didn’t you take me? was the underlying question. Behind that was a simple statement, I don’t need your protection; I can take care of myself. She could. Her training with Winter was well advanced, and she’d developed a great deal of control when it came to magic. She’d effectively helped to capture several of Liam’s escaped creatures. My instinctive need to protect her was never going to fade, but that wasn’t the reason I’d left her out of the hunt; it was supposed to be a simple matter, dangerous, but not complicated. Had Liam shared the correct information about the creature, I might’ve chosen to leave Sky out of it as a precaution. More likely, I’d have taken her and several other pack members to give us an advantage. I’d have also come up with a workable plan to capture the creature without resorting to a nearly disastrous hand-to-claw fight. I had other reasons to leave her out of the last hunt.
Before I could answer, Josh slapped a hand onto my shoulder. “He wanted us to have some quality bro time.”
I frowned at him, but Sky’s irritation was soothed. Her arms unfolded, slipped down to her sides. “Did Liam give you the list?”
I brought the folded envelope from the back pocket of my jeans.
“Do you think it’s accurate?”
“As accurate as can be, under the circumstances,” I said, and started toward Sebastian’s office. Sky fell into step beside me.
“You look like you got roughed up by a poodle,” she said.
I smiled. “It was a much bigger, meaner poodle than we were informed. Nothing that won’t heal.”
She opened the door, went in first. Sebastian observed us from his perch on the corner of his desk. I handed him the envelope, gave him time to remove the pages and examine Liam’s list of Tre’ase. I greeted Winter and Gavin with a nod. Gavin scowled back. He was sour for a were-panther, with an abrasive New York attitude. In short, he was a pain in the ass to be around, but he was strong and intelligent. That he hunted with an impenetrable single-mindedness of purpose was both asset and liability.
Winter met my gaze with unblinking hazel eyes. She was statuesque, with long straight black hair and flawless sun-kissed skin. Compared to most were-animals, she was slight of build, but looks were deceiving. She was a devil with a sword, and iron-willed. Our enemies often misjudged her, and Winter made them pay.
She was third in the pack leadership, after me. Gavin was fourth. Steven was fifth. As a blood ally, Josh didn’t have a ranked leadership role, but his advice was valued. He was a powerful witch, and an asset to the pack.
Steven closed the door behind us and I gave my report of the belocka’s capture.
Gavin growled. “Liam set us up.”
Josh answered. “He seemed surprised when we told him how big it was. I don’t think the Makellos have any idea what they’ve been keeping in that forest.”
Sebastian considered for a moment. “Did you tell him about the eggs?”
“No,” I stated.
Sky worried. “Was that its only nest? How long is the incubation period? If the belocka is asexual, there would’ve been more than one that escaped from the Dark Forest.”
“Not our business,” Winter said.
Josh added, “The curse that trapped the creatures probably kept them from procreating.”
“Shouldn’t we warn him?” Sky asked.
Winter wasn’t moved. “If we’d told him in the first place, he would’ve used that against us, claimed our deal covered any of the creatures born after their escape. Let him pay the price of his own ignorance.”
“But they’ll hunt, they’ll hurt other people.”
Gavin nodded. “Liam’s problem, not ours. The creatures that escaped that forest should’ve been destroyed, not imprisoned.”
“Agreed,” I said, drawing a surprised look from Sky. “Liam will have to clean up his own mess. If he wants our help, he’ll have to strike another bargain.” I gestured to the pages in Sebastian’s hands. “We needed that list to find the Tre’ase that created Maya. That’s our priority.” You’re my priority.
She took that in, chewed on it. A lifetime of brutal struggle had left most of us jaded. Sky didn’t share that. She’d been raised by an adoptive mother, a human. Sky’d been spared the harshness of our world. At times, the lack of hard experience was a vulnerability for her. Other times, it was an asset. Her moral compass challenged us, made us stronger, but there were times I wished I could shut it off.
“There was another problem,” I said with a sigh. “A hunter on the belocka’s trail.”
Gavin made a disgusted sound. “More of Liam’s sabotage. He hired a hunter to beat you to the creature so he could avoid paying us.”
“Agreed.”
Sebastian raised an eyebrow. “Sean?”
I shook my head. “A woman. I’ve met her before. She works with an old hunter I’ve encountered before. He doesn’t usually cover this area. I put her off of the hunt.”
Winter asked with a casual tone, “Did you kill her?”
Sky’s eyes widened.
“No,” I reassured her. I turned to Josh with an expectant look.
“I transported her to the Dairy Queen in Oak Lawn.” He sucked in a breath, realizing he’d made some mistake. “I probably should’ve given her a couple bucks for a Dilly Bar.”
Winter shrugged.
Sebastian asked me, “Is this going to be a problem?”
“I’m sure there’ll be a discussion. I’ll handle it.”
He nodded, returned his attention to the list. “Now we just need to figure out where to start.”
Josh said, “Logan might be able to help with—”
“No,” I snapped. My brother bristled at the rebuke. Logan was a local Tre’ase, one we’d dealt with before. After we’d removed the curse that had bound him to his home in the woods, he’d wandered into the city and shown up on Sky’s porch, just to let us know he could go where he pleased. Bargaining with a Tre’ase was always dangerous. We’d avoid that at all costs.
“Sky and I have some ideas how to prioritize the list,” Josh offered. “We’ll have to do some hopping around at first. Once we’ve talked to a few Tre’ase, we’ll probably be able to narrow the list further.”
Sebastian folded the pages, handed them to Josh. “Ethan, let O’Dowd know we’ll be needing him.”
O’Dowd was a private pilot we contracted with. We paid him enough that he was available at a moment’s notice. Given the number of names on the list, finding Maya’s creator was going to be expensive. Sky understood what we were committing to. She nodded to Sebastian, humbled and grateful, but there was no need. She was one of us. The pack spared nothing to protect our own. Even Gavin, who had once argued vociferously that we should kill Sky, hadn’t questioned our obligation to her once she’d joined the pack.
Sebastian looked between Winter and Josh. “Samuel?”
She answered first. “He’s like a mole, with holes everywhere. I’ve found ten more properties linked to him, but none of them panned out. I don’t think we’re going to see him again until he wants to be seen.”
Witches usually operated in groups—even Josh had the pack. As a loner, Samuel was an outlier. He was on a self-assigned mission to rid the world of magic; if he had his way, every were-animal would suffer the loss of their animal, or die altogether. It was an impossible task, if not for the Clostra. The magical artifact was one of the protected objects, a powerful spell book broken into three separate bindings. Each of the Clostra’s unique spells were written across the three books, so that the spells within were only decipherable when all of the books were present together. Samuel had one of the books, the pack held the rest. He’d never give up scheming to obtain them.
As long as Samuel was in the area, we’d be looking over our shoulders.
“We should consider splitting the books,” I said.
“I’ve already talked to Joan,” Sebastian said. “She’s coming to take one of the books with her.”
She was Steven’s adoptive mother. After Ethos had murdered the pack’s leadership, its members had scattered. With our help and her natural leadership skills, Joan had brought the pack back together. She was their Alpha now. Under her guidance, the Southern Pack was stronger than ever. They were an ideal choice to protect a part of the Clostra, while keeping the books close at hand should we need them together.
The meeting was about to come to an end when Gavin declared, “Kelly is missing.”
After Sebastian’s rebuke of her for helping Demetrius turn Chris into a vampire, she’d returned to work, but only for a while. One day, she hadn’t reported to work—no notice, no resignation. It was odd that she hadn’t communicated her intentions with Dr. Baker. They were close. He treated her like a daughter. Still, she hadn’t taken the rebuke well. I disagreed with her actions; Demetrius hadn’t saved Chris’s life, he’d killed her and brought her back to be his servant. A small smile crept onto my lips. That hadn’t worked out the way he’d expected. Even in death, she was defiant. Last I’d heard, she’d skipped town to escape his control.
Right or wrong in our eyes, Kelly believed we’d drawn a line through her moral compass. We valued her. We missed her, but she wasn’t a were-animal. She wasn’t a member of the pack. She was a valued employee, a member of our family, but she was free to leave us in whatever way she deemed fit. She’d nearly died after being attacked by an elven sleeper. It was our job to shield Kelly from the dangers of our world. We’d failed in that regard.
If she left us, I couldn’t blame her. We’d all left her in peace, hoping she’d come back eventually. There was no reason to think some ill had befallen her.
Sky looked worried.
Sebastian explained to Gavin, “We can’t force her to come back.”
From his sour expression I took it he didn’t care any more for that answer now that he’d heard it at least half a dozen times. He and Kelly had an unusual relationship. She wasn’t afraid of him, even called him kitty just to get under his skin. While the sleeper paralyzed her, he’d stayed by her side, protected her. He was trying to protect her now, though it looked a lot like an obsession.
“It doesn’t make sense,” he insisted. “She wouldn’t leave without telling us.”
“She has no enemies,” I pointed out.
He snapped back, “Someone could take her to get to us.”
“There’s been no ransom, no demands. She has no knowledge of our operations outside of the medical bay, so she has nothing to offer.”
Sebastian cautioned him, “Give her time.”
Gavin’s scowl nearly broke his face. He let the subject drop, though I was sure he’d raise it again.
The meeting ended. Josh and Sky paired off, started toward the library.
I called after him, my tone harsher than intended. “Josh.”
He and Sky turned, gave each other puzzled looks as I took a calming breath. I gestured toward a neighboring room. “I need to talk to you for a minute.”
“Later.” He scowled. “We’ve got work to do.”
“Now,” I growled, then walked into the laundry room to find Marko folding clothes from the dryer. He read my expression, excused himself just before Josh walked in with a defiant swagger.
“What do you want to yell about now, Ethan?”
I walked past him to close the door, listened for a moment for Sky’s breathing on the other side. Instead I heard the library door close upstairs. I turned back to my brother.
“Why are you encouraging Sky to help Quell?”
He rolled his eyes. “Steven’s helping her. Did you yell at him, too?”
“Steven keeps me informed.”
“Obviously.”
“Do you even understand the danger to her?”
