kissed-by-moonlight by Rakhibul hasan (ebook reader for pc .TXT) 📕

the funny section was no longer the only thing standing between me and Gabriel’s dangly bits.

 

His foot pumped the gas, but for the first time I wasn’t silently praying for him to slow down. Instead, I was bouncing in my seat and wishing that Sonya’s Camaro was just a little bit faster. I don’t know why I was so invested in the safety of the Pack. As far as I knew I’d never met any of them, and what interaction I had with them had been overshadowed by violence. I shouldn’t care what happened to them…but I did.

 

I felt responsible for them, and besides that, I knew how important they all were to Gabriel. That alone would have been enough to turn me into an ally of the Pack no matter our rocky start.

 

“Lumière was so essential to the Pack because it doubled as a bunker. A safe house for Weres. There are rooms hidden throughout the building that have been built specifically to hold us during the night of the change.” I thought of his inner office, and was glad that I’d never managed to see the inside of a room that doubled as his prison once a month. “With so many of us living and working in the city it was the only solution to keep us from running wild through the streets. Now that Lumière is under speculation, the next, and only, option is the park. It’s big enough for all of them and has enough wildlife to keep their wolves from wandering back into the city in search of fresh meat.” His jaw tightened. “Going back was a risk, but it was one they were probably willing to take.”

 

“This is all my fault,” I moaned.

 

“Not all of it. Just some.”

 

I looked over at him and saw a dimple flash in his cheek. “You can make it up to me later.”

 

I swallowed nervously and looked away.

 

The speedometer hit 90 mph and continued to climb.

 

Once we were near enough to the park, Gabriel killed the lights and parked on the side of the street. We couldn’t afford to let the Huntsmen hear or see us coming. I still had no idea how many of them there were and suddenly I wished we’d stayed with Sonya long enough to get some intel.

 

I got out of the car at the same time Gabriel did, and it wasn’t until I’d gone a few yards that I realized he wasn’t behind me.

 

“What’s wrong?”

 

He was leaning back against the hood of Sonya’s car, arms folded across his chest. He beckoned me back and I came, eyes narrowing at the look on his face.

 

“Phaedra,” he said, soft, sweet. There was regret in the way he said my name, and I shook my head adamantly.

 

“I’m coming with you.”

 

“You can’t.”

 

“You can’t stop me.”

 

“Sure I can.” He sounded so annoyingly confident that I bristled.

 

“How?”

 

“You like Superman?”

 

I shrugged, “He lacks the boyish charm of Spiderman, but he’s all right.”

 

“I’m like Superman.”

 

I rolled my eyes. “This should be good. And who am I? Lois Lane?”

 

A solemn shake of his head, and then his hands were tangling in my hair. “You’re kryptonite.”

 

The admission was made against my lips and my resistance packed its bags and left the vicinity. When his tongue demanded interest, my head tipped back and I gave it to him. It felt like forever since he’d touched me like this, and the feel of his mouth, his breath, his hands, was like coming home. Like I hadn’t known how to breathe right until he taught me.

 

The kiss stole my thoughts and heart and it was only as he pulled away that I was able to find both again.

 

“Stay here,” he said, leaning his forehead against my own.

 

I swallowed, my chest aching. “What happens if you don’t come back?” My throat got tight at the thought. He finally managed to tug himself away with a sigh.

 

“If I don’t come back, go back for Asrai and call the other Alphas. Tell them you’re my mate and ask for sanctuary for you and the girl. They’ll protect you until…”

 

“Until what?”

 

He shrugged and for the first time began to look more helpless than brave. “Until the Sidhe come and they can’t protect you anymore.”

 

I’d boasted about our chances of survival when I’d thought Gabriel would be there to help fight against the Mad Sidhe. Without him I was no longer so sure, and I felt nerves spring to life in the pit of my stomach.

 

“What will happen to Asrai if the Riders find her?”

 

“They’ll kill her.”

 

“And me?”

 

He swallowed and looked down. “They’ll probably kill you too. For being my mate. Or they may just turn you into a Rider. For fun.”

 

Expressionless, I stared at him until he met my eyes again. “Then I guess that means you better come back.”

 

Straightening, he nodded. “I guess it does.”

 

Tossing me the keys, he stripped out of his borrowed clothes. Shifting before I had time to ogle any of the good stuff, he took off down the road, the moonlight casting his fur in shades of purest black.

 

Then, there was nothing left for me to do but wait.

 

You choose your allies with care and your enemies with abandon. It should probably be the other way around.

 

—Leo Valentine

 

 

 

Chapter Seventeen

 

 

 

 

 

I was lying on the hood of the car, face turned so that I could watch the way the horizon burst with colors as the sun made its slow ponderous climb into the sky. The world was all yellow and pinks, oranges with streaks of midnight blue. I watched the sun until my vision went white beneath its brilliance, and then I closed my eyes and admitted a truth I had known for hours already.

 

He wasn’t coming back.

 

I’d kept track of him most of the night through our link. But it was different understanding the information I was receiving when he was in wolf form. The visions, the emotions that I knew came from Gabriel were all jumbled and strange. I felt a spike of some sort around four in the morning, and then everything went muted. It was like he’d shut down things on his end so that all I felt were spurts of him.

 

It was enough to tell me he lived, but that was it.

 

“I should probably leave,” I thought. Gabriel had been captured along with the other members of the pack. I should do what he said and get Asrai. Ask for sanctuary from the other Alphas.

 

Or better yet, we should just leave town.

 

Run away while we still could and let the wolves deal with their own enemies. What could we do anyway?

 

Correction: What could I do?

 

Asrai was some sort of mega-Sidhe. A mini Queen. If I left her with the Alphas they’d have their savior. The Lightbringer who would one day defeat the Hunt.

 

Arai the Lightbringer.

 

Gabriel Evans the Werewolf.

 

I was just Phaedra Conners.

 

Human.

 

Powerless.

 

I wouldn’t be able to save anyone. Not against what they would be facing.

 

“I should leave.”

 

Only this time, I was thinking Briarcliff and not just the immediate area.

 

But one obstacle at a time.

 

Getting to my feet, I got into the car, cranked it, and drove away.

 

* * * *

 

I don’t know how or why, but an hour later I pulled into the parking lot of the Oracle. I sat in the car, fingers clenching on the steering wheel, and just stared at nothing. Just as I hadn’t made a conscious decision to drive there, I got out of the car and hurried into the building without really thinking about what I was doing

 

I stepped into the newsroom and was nearly bowled over by the amount of noise and activity. It was much different than the last time I’d been there. For one thing, the room was nearly full to bursting with Weres. There weren’t wolves digging through the trashcans or anything, but I could recognize the signs. It was in the way they stalked through the room, the way they crouched on the balls of their feet in the middle of the room and eyed the interns like they were walking bags of meat.

 

The glowing yellow eyes in their human faces was also a pretty big clue.

 

“What the hell?” I whispered. Immediately every Were in the room turned to look at me, as if my muttered words had been some sort of signal only they could hear. The humans in the room didn’t notice anything at first, despite the marked drop in the noise level. But then, one by one, they turned to follow the unflinching gaze of the Weres.

 

“Phaedra?” It was Sonya. Dressed in jeans and a simple button down, she hurried through the room to stand before me. Her face was flushed and her now short hair was as messy as it could get, random strands sticking up like porcupine quills all over her head.

 

“Thank God you’re all right.”

 

I was still looking at the wolves over her shoulder. Was it just my imagination or had some of them begun to come closer?

 

“What’s going on?”

 

Sonya’s face closed down. “You don’t know.”

 

It was a statement, so I didn’t bother nodding. I simply looked at her.

 

“It’s all over the news.”

 

“Sonya.” It was hard to stay patient with her, but somehow I managed it. “What happened?”

 

“In my defense, you don’t have a cell. It’s hard to keep people updated when they don’t have cell phones. You should look into that.”

 

“Maybe the Feds will reimburse me for the one I lost when they kidnapped me. Now spill it.”

 

She bit her lip. “It might be easier if you saw for yourself.”

 

There were several televisions scattered around the room. Each one was usually tuned into CNN or whatever local news channel was on at the moment. Since the televisions were always on silent, it was easy to forget they were there.

 

Sonya led me towards the closest wall mount. We stayed close together as the Weres around us began to form a path to clear our way, muttering amongst themselves as I passed. Grabbing the remote from an empty desk, she turned up the volume until the announcer’s voice filled the room. I knew everyone must have already seen it, but the room settled down as others stopped whatever it was they were doing to watch the national broadcast.

 

“…the slaughter of dozens of innocent people? Who is Gabriel Evans? Why would officials just turn a blind eye to his crimes?”

 

The camera panned over to zoom in on the face of the man the anchor was interviewing, and the floor seemed to drop out from under my feet. I clutched Sonya’s arm and tried not to snarl right along with the rest of the Weres when Marcus shook his head sadly on camera.

 

“Money may not be able to buy happiness, Robert, but it can certainly buy clemency. Gabriel Evans is a mob boss in a pressed suit. There are dozens of accounts of murder, kidnapping, and human trafficking, but not once has the Briarcliff Police Department investigated any of the allegations. It may have something to do with the half a million dollars Gabriel ‘donated’ to the police force.”

 

“Judge Jensen, you and your wife were victims of Evans. What do you have to say about this recent turn of events?”

 

The camera panned again, and I was looking into the faces of Judge Joseph Jensen and his wife Penelope. Unlike when I’d first met her in Gabriel’s office, Penelope wasn’t running the show today. Instead, she tried her damnedest to look old and fragile in her seat next to her husband. Joseph, meanwhile, was every inch the respectable Judge. Clean cut and radiating offended disapproval.

 

I didn’t know if I wanted to give the couple an Oscar or choke them with one.

 

“Well, to be honest, I’m not surprised,” Joseph said. “The man tried to blackmail my wife and me just to close a business deal. We’ve suspected for a long time about what sort of man Evans truly was, so the fact that he murdered all of those people…” The judge shook his head, and his mouth worked as if he