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

I need to get him back.” I looked around the room.

 

“Then go get him.”

 

“I need help,” I said, voice growing hoarse with desperation. “I can’t do it by myself.”

 

“Then you don’t deserve to be called his mate.”

 

I jerked away, stung. “Excuse me?”

 

“Look.” Bubble pop. “A pack is only as strong as its Alpha and an Alpha is only as strong as his mate. Saving him is your responsibility.” Bubble pop. “Besides, we can’t help you without permission from our Alphas anyway. Interfering in another pack’s business is a big no-no.”

 

Shit.

 

She blew another bubble, but before she could pop it I grabbed it out of her mouth and shoved the sticky wad into her hand.

 

“Thanks anyway,” I said sweetly, feeling strangely satisfied when shock kept her from responding. Ok, so there was an army’s worth of Weres hanging out in the Oracle, but none of them would be willing to help me.

 

Not without permission.

 

Gabriel’s instructions came back with a vengeance.

 

I had to call the Alphas.

 

* * * *

 

Asrai was sitting on the counter in my kitchen eating a bologna sandwich. I’d put some cartoon on the TV and angled the screen so that she could see it from her perch in the kitchen. Meanwhile, I sat on the edge of my bed, door open so I could see her, and the cordless phone from the living room clutched in my lap.

 

I’d just called Sonya and had her talk to the Weres still loitering in the Oracle. According to the information she’d gathered, there were members from at least four different packs. Which meant that I now had four names and four numbers for four Alphas:

 

Leo Valentine

 

David Finland

 

Juliet Baker

 

Ruthy Jennings

 

David and Juliet never picked up the phone. Ruthy hung up at the sound of my name. There was only Leo left, and I stared down at the raised buttons of the phone. A part of me expected more disappointment. It was the part that still hoped for some sort of break that had me dialing the number Sonya had found.

 

The phone rang in my ear, and I found myself watching Asrai as she stared, captivated, at the television. The phone clicked and a male voice filled my ear.

 

“Hello,” he said. I was expecting to have to listen to another voicemail, so I stayed silent. Waiting for Leo Valentine’s automated message to play out.

 

“Hello?” the man said again, growing confused at my continued silence.

 

I mouthed a curse.

 

I was talking to a real person.

 

“Mr. Valentine?” I said, hesitant but polite.

 

“Yes?”

 

“My name is Phaedra Conners,” I began. He didn’t hang up and I hesitated. None of the Alphas had let me get this far before and I didn’t really have speech prepared.

 

“Phaedra,” he said, rolling my name like he knew me. “I’d thought I’d hear from you sooner.”

 

“Sorry to disappoint.”

 

He laughed. “It’s perfectly all right. You’re only human after all.”

 

“Yeah. About that.” I pulled my legs beneath me on the bed and wondered how to proceed. Then I decided that my best bet would be to just come right out and say it. “How many of your wolves can you send to help me rescue Gabriel?”

 

“None.”

 

“Let’s try that again,” I started, voice growing low and dangerous. “How many of your wolves can you spare to assist the Mate of Gabriel Evans?”

 

“Oh,” he laughed, clearly pleased. “So the rumors are true. Nice to know that Gabriel has finally settled down.” He laughed again, and his next words were spoken as if he was imparting something confidential. “You do realize that wolves mate for life, don’t you Miss Conners?”

 

I cleared my throat. I hadn’t thought that part would apply to Gabriel and I, and I didn’t have time now to worry about what it would mean down the road.

 

“You never answered my question, Leo,” I reminded him, figuring if he could skip the formalities I could too.

 

“Hmm,” he murmured thoughtfully. “I can give you six.”

 

“Just six?”

 

“It’s six or nothing Phaedra,” he said shortly. Then his tone lightened. “Much better than going in alone.”

 

He was right. Six was better than my measly one.

 

“Fine,” I snapped. “Have them meet me at the park by nightfall.” I had no idea where to find the facility where Gabriel and I had been kept, but the park seemed to be the common denominator. If nothing else, the wolves I’d be working with tonight should be able to follow Gabriel’s trail.

 

“Done,” He sounded darkly amused by my demands and I found myself bristling. “Anything else, my dear Phaedra?”

 

“I’m not your dear anything,” I told him, temper getting the best of me. Then I remembered he was helping me, and grew slightly less hostile. “Thanks though.”

 

“My pleasure,” Leo purred.

 

I hung up on him.

 

One problem down, one more to go.

 

I looked out at Asrai and saw her rifling through the refrigerator in search of more food.

 

I thought about how I had to go in there and ask a centuries old Fae if she was emotionally mature enough to stay home alone. If nothing else, the conversation should be an interesting one.

 

* * * *

 

I parked just as the sun was setting. I’d been told that my car had been kept in the company parking garage for the last month, so I’d been able to give Sonya back her Camaro. The feel of the steering wheel under my hands, the windshield with the crack in the corner, and the shady heater were all familiar. It surprised me how much I’d missed my car, and I resolved to never be kidnapped again.

 

I couldn’t see any other cars besides mine, but that didn’t necessarily mean that the wolves hadn’t arrived yet. I got out, enjoying the cool air on my skin and moved around to sit on the hood and wait. Twenty minutes passed, then an hour, and still no sign of the help Leo had promised. I waited another hour and then gave it up as a lost cause.

 

No one was coming.

 

I guess I was on my own after all.

 

Not sure what I would do if I actually found him, I set off into the park. I may not have been a born tracker, but I could follow the faint vibrations from the bond that Gabriel and I shared. Whatever he’d done last night to make the signal not as strong, had me stopping several times during my search. It was as if the bond were a radio station and I was driving through an area with bad coverage. It was filled with static, and in some places, it disappeared entirely.

 

The first time I lost it, it felt as if something were tearing out of me, razor wire in my veins. For a brief, unforgettable moment I thought Gabriel was dead. Then I stepped to the side, and the bond snapped back, shaky, but accounted for. It happened several more times, at which point I decided to try and head in another direction.

 

I found that no matter where I went, the strength of the bond never increased. It didn’t tug, it didn’t vibrate, and it didn’t grow hot or get cold. It just was.

 

“This isn’t working,” I grumbled, growing frustrated with myself. It had sounded like a good idea in theory, and without the Weres there to help, it had been the only option I’d had to track down Gabriel. Now that my plan was a bust, the only other thing I could do was wander the woods until I stumbled over a Fed.

 

I was preparing to do just that, when I saw it from the corner of my eye.

 

The shadow in the woods.

 

The darkness among the trees deeper than the night around it.

 

The pitiless eyes.

 

Yawning mouth and a laugh that left the taste of razor blades and blood in my tongue.

 

I went very still, shaking too hard to move. Blood like ice and legs like lead.

 

It was a chore to walk. To lift my feet and move forward. I couldn’t look at it. Couldn’t acknowledge it or the terror would send me running. So I just kept moving. Kept walking through the night with shadows dancing on either side of me and the eerie laughter of the specter drowning out the sound of every other creature in the forest.

 

There came a moment of stillness.

 

A moment so still that all sound stopped and the very wind held its breath. The trees quit their whispering and the leaves beneath my feet didn’t so much as whimper with the steps I took. When the first shadow touched me, it felt like ice. Like death on a caress. It brushed across my arm and the limb went numb. Falling limply at my side. Around the numbness pain traveled, razor spikes tearing deep into my skin so that I screamed, clawing at myself and cursing. Anything to make the sensation stop.

 

The next touch came in on the tail end of the last. Gripping my neck in tight icicle claws that choked my scream off with a gurgle. I tried to do it anyway, tried to make some sound as agony ripped into my brain and shredded my vision in black but nothing came out. I tried again, again, and again, nails digging into my hair and tugging at the strands as the pain traveled deeper. Fingers invading, nails scratching at my insides, picking me apart and leaving me empty. I tried until I felt something wet dripping out of my mouth onto the forest floor, and when I inspected it with shaking hands it was blood that I found.

 

Then, and only then, did I run.

 

I crashed through the underbrush, stumbling and striking trees, hands searching the world before me. The darkness on me, the darkness in me, was traveling, swimming in my bloodstream, coating my skin, laughing at me.

 

I ran through the forest, silent and clumsy, the smoky tendrils of the specter wrapping me up and swallowing me down. I was a mix of pale skin and oily darkness. Then the darkness ate the last of me, wrapped tight around my body, and brought me broken to the ground.

 

I lay on my back, unable to breathe, suffocating on the nightmares in my throat. The only thing still untouched was my eyes. I could still see.

 

Still see the rocking canopy of the trees above my head.

 

Still see the eyes as black as any hell watching me from between the branches.

 

Still see the specter as it left its perch and fell into me, exploding like ashes cast to the wind as we made contact.

 

Merged.

 

Became one thing.

 

Before, I was Phaedra.

 

After, I was Nothing.

 

* * * *

 

I weave through shadow like music.

 

This body is fun. Weaker than a wolf’s, but agile.

 

And young.

 

So young. At least, compared to how long I’ve been around.

 

I like it.

 

Once upon a time, I had a body of my own. Many, many, many years ago when I lived. Before the Black Plague made me sick. Made me dead. I’d had a son. I’d had a wife.

 

I’d worked as a…butcher?

 

A baker?

 

No, a candlestick maker!

 

Laughter. Hell wrapped in an alto voice, and the grass beneath the human’s feet curls, blackens, and turns to ash. Black snow like a red carpet. A yellow brick road colored with death and disease. The creature that rides the mind of the human known as Phaedra Conners rejoices in the destruction. Screams its pleasure to the skies and crouches to rub the evidence into its skin. Glorying. It is only a sharply worded command from its masters, the Mad Sidhe so far away, that brings it back on track.

 

Find the wolf, find the wolf, find the wolf. They growl, it is a mantra, a ballet with no song. The Specter dances anyway.

 

Find the wolf and bring it back.

 

“I can do that,” it hisses and the air around it screams.

 

Oh yes, I can do that.

 

 

When you become a Were, everything changes. I don’t want to be a vegan anymore. I want to eat them.

 

—Mathew Dupree

 

 

 

Chapter Nineteen

 

 

 

 

 

Leo Valentine didn’t like surprises. He also didn’t like humans. By definition, that meant that he shouldn’t have liked Phaedra Conners. The problem was