Five Moons Rising

by Lise MacTague

  The other werewolf trailed after her. She had no more words for Mary Alice, only another long look. She seemed on the edge of saying something, but after opening her mouth a couple times to start, she gave up and left instead.

  That was fine with Mary Alice. She didn’t want to deal with the emotional turmoil the woman’s presence stirred up. At least Ruri hadn’t walked out the front door. She wouldn’t have blamed her if she had, though. She knew she had no right to hope Ruri would stick around, and yet an optimistic corner of her held out faith that she might.

  Email. She needed some distraction, and since she was at the laptop, she might as well clear out some of the crap that had accumulated in her inbox over the past couple of weeks. The first few were spam, and she gleefully relegated those to inbox oblivion. The next one almost followed, but at the last minute she stopped. The sender’s email was vaguely familiar, though it wasn’t one she saw frequently. Who was TBear2697@gmail.com? The cursor hovered over the email as she debated whether or not to open it.

  Why the hell not. No one ever got a virus just from opening an email. Her mind made up, she clicked on the subject line. “I saw this and thought you could use a laugh.” That was helpful.

  The opening was brief and it contained a link.

  “Hi Malice. This made me laugh my ass off and I know you could use a pick-me-up. Hope you enjoy as much as I did.” The signoff line was simply TB and a winking smiley.

  Malice. It could only be Al-Hasan. She opened the link, which brought her to a BuzzFeed page. “Twenty-Three Kittens Guaranteed to Make You Squee!” the headline blared. Below it, the post’s images began to load.

  As cute as the kittens probably were, Mary Alice had no interest in them. They were secondary to what was really going on. She reached for a piece of scrap paper and a pen. It was a cipher, though admittedly a simple one. The CIA had been using BuzzFeed lists as a way to pass messages for a few years now. The site was practically ubiquitous. She didn’t know how they did it, but somebody from their staff had obviously put this one together. It was simple enough to decode; the key was in the title. She counted twenty-three words in to the list, including the photo captions, and wrote down the first word, then counted another twenty-three words from that one.

  It only took a few minutes to uncover the message, but she stared at it, palms sweaty and cold, before running the cipher again. She licked suddenly dry lips as she prayed the message would change this time. Maybe she’d shifted a word. To her mounting horror, the results were the same.

  Not good, she thought. “Not good at all.” The last was said aloud as she willed herself into sudden action and threw herself out of the cage and toward the stairs.

  “What exactly is going on here?” These were the first words out of Cassidy’s mouth when they got to the third floor. Ruri could feel her anger as well as smell it. Cassidy was a blaze by her side. She might have been tucked into one corner of Malice’s worn couch, but it felt like she was pacing the length of the floor. “How does Mary know so much about what’s going on?”

  That was what she was worried about? Ruri knew Malice had skimped on explaining the situation to her sister. Ruri had been living in this world for so long she’d forgotten what it was like to live outside it. It must be even more complicated for Malice, having one foot in the human world and one in theirs. Surely Cassidy had known something was different about her sister, but then perhaps not. Ruri wondered if she’d been brave enough to return home after the truth of her change was apparent, would her parents have noticed anything was off?

  “And for that matter, how does she know you?” Cassidy was staring right at her now. They hadn’t bothered to turn the lights on. Enough light filtered in through the multiple rows of windows to make it unnecessary. Her eyes glowed, one point of red and one of blue. They betrayed her wolf’s agitation, though she didn’t feel to Ruri like she was on the cusp of changing.

  “The second part is easier to answer,” Ruri said carefully. “She didn’t know me. She didn’t give me much choice in helping.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  The shame of being caught and trapped filled her again, and Ruri pulled in on herself. She should have been able to get away. Hell, she never should have been caught in the first place. If she’d been paying a little more attention that night, she wouldn’t be where she was now. She’d thought her old pack had been what she needed to worry about. She hadn’t been on the lookout for anything else. It was an arrogant mistake and one which had cost her.

  A warm hand on her shoulder brought her back to Cassidy.

  “What did she do to you?” Her voice was deadly quiet. It promised violence, but Ruri couldn’t tell where it was directed. Cassidy’s energy was unsettling. Ruri rubbed her hands down the outside of her arms. Goose bumps refused to be quelled, and her own wolf shifted in response. Cassidy made her nervous.

  “You need to get your wolf under control.”

  “You don’t need to tell me what to do.” Despite the sharpness of her response, Cassidy closed her eyes for a moment. Her breathing slowed and when she opened her eyes, they were almost back to their normal brown shade. The only sign of her continued irritation were the sparks of red and blue that gleamed deep in the shadows of her gaze.

  “Malice wanted to make sure you were taken care of.” It sounded like an excuse. She was actually making excuses for the woman who kidnapped her. This was quite the case of Stockholm syndrome she’d picked up, and yet she knew where Malice was coming from. She would have done the same for one of her packmates. She would have done far worse if it had meant keeping her pack together and saving Dean. Lewis… He was still out there.

  “Who’s Malice?” Cassidy cocked her head to one side as if she were listening to something else, but Ruri didn’t hear anything. “And who’s Lewis?”

  She hadn’t realized she’d said anything aloud. “Malice is what we call your sister. It’s like a code name. Lewis is a member of my old pack.”

  There it was, footsteps pounding up the stairs. Cassidy had picked on that a good three seconds before she had. Her hearing was extraordinary, and Ruri wondered what other depths were hidden within her new wolven sister.

  “Code name? Why does she need a code name? She’s my sister. She’s Mary. All she does is sculpture and sleep with one girl after another. There’s not much more to tell.”

  “Is that so?” The footsteps were almost to their floor; they turned as one to watch the doorway. The door from the stairwell hit the wall with a crash that reverberated through the mostly empty space. “And she tells you everything she does?”

  “She doesn’t have to. She’s boring. Incredibly boring.” The emphasis on the repeated word reminded Ruri how young Cassidy actually was. For all that she’d assumed authority as easily as pulling on a cardigan, she was little more than a girl. Ruri doubted she was much past her twentieth birthday.

  “You need to ask her about it.”

  Malice burst through the doorway and stopped in her tracks, staring back at them as they watched her without blinking.

  “Mary, what did you do to her?” Cassidy stood up in one motion and crossed the floor to her sister. “And why is she calling you Malice?”

  “There’s no time for that.” Malice grabbed her sister’s arm and jerked her head over at Ruri. “We’re getting you out of here. Now.”

  “Like hell we are.” Cassidy jerked her arm back and pulled herself to her full height. She was taller than Malice and glared down at her sister.

  “I don’t really have anywhere to go,” Ruri said. “I doubt they’ve held my apartment this long.”

  The look Malice shot her at the mention of the apartment was incredulous. Ruri supposed a wolven needing an apartment sounded somewhat incongruous. Wait until they found out she’d been thinking of getting a day job. Not that there were many positions out there that she was fit to take. She was a farmer’s daughter with a knack for middle-management and no marketable experience.

&
nbsp; “We’ll be fine here. You have the room to put us up.” Cassidy sat back down on the couch, eyes flashing. Her eyes dared Malice to try again.

  “It’s going to be a lot more crowded here in a day, two at the most.” Malice dropped the angry mask, allowing them both to see the fear that lurked beneath it. It was raw and real, and Ruri found herself on her feet, needing to be with her. “Please, Cass. We have to go.”

  “What’s wrong?” Ruri’s voice was soft, but Malice heard it easily enough. She turned anguished eyes on her.

  “They’re sending one of my old squadmates. One of my counterparts.” She licked her lips and grabbed the back of her neck as if trying to massage some of the terrible tension out of her own shoulders. “She won’t understand.”

  The bottom dropped out of Ruri’s stomach. Malice hunted down the worst of her kind without flinching. Ruri had seen her scared, that was true, but scared for Cassidy was different than being frightened by an outside threat. There had been reports that Malice wasn’t the only one like her out there, but Ruri had always assumed it was the kind of story that sprang up around her type. There were those who couldn’t believe one human could be so dangerous to them, so it was only natural to assume that more like her existed out there somewhere. And now Malice had confirmed she wasn’t alone.

  “Cassidy, I think we should listen to her.” She took Malice’s upper arms and held them. Would the human accept a hug? Her wolf wanted to give her comfort the same way she would offer solace to a pack member. “Do you have somewhere in mind?”

  “Yes.” The relief that was written across her features drove home again exactly how frightened she was. “I have a safe house across the city. It’s small, but should be fine for you two.”

  “Fine.” Cassidy leaned on the doorframe watching them. She was the image of relaxed nonchalance. “But you’re going to explain everything on the way. Both of you.” All pretense of unconcern gone, she pinned both of them with a hard stare. “If I don’t like what I hear…”

  She didn’t have to finish the threat. Ruri swallowed hard and looked down. It was going to be a long night.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “How much further?” Cassidy’s question struck Ruri as funny and she worked to swallow a laugh. What came out was a smothered giggle that both sisters ignored. In fact, Malice ignored Cassidy’s question completely. This was starting to have all the hallmarks of a terrible road trip. Would someone make a movie about them? Hilarity threatened to escape once again forcing Ruri to bite her tongue.

  On her right side, Cassidy leaned back against the seat, discontent evident in her stiffness.

  “You holding up all right?” Ruri swallowed her giggles. She knew what it was like when the wolf wanted to stretch its legs, but there was no venue to do so.

  “I’m fine,” Cassidy grumbled back. She kept her voice low, as if Malice might not be able to hear her. “I just need to work the kinks out.”

  “Open the window. Let the air wash over you.” She nodded emphatically at Cassidy’s doubtful look. “It helps, trust me.” The new wolven would have to trust her sooner or later, but sooner would be better. Plenty of pitfalls abounded; the danger wasn’t gone simply because she’d survived her first transformation.

  Cassidy grasped the crank of the window and gave it a quick turn. It broke off in her hand. The crack of plastic was loud enough that Malice jumped and glanced over at them. She jerked her eyes back to the road.

  “Really, Cassidy?”

  “It wasn’t on purpose!” Cassidy tucked the broken piece behind the seat. “I didn’t know I was going to do that.”

  “She’s a lot stronger than she used to be,” Ruri said. “She needs time to acclimate. You should have seen some of the damage I managed after my first shift.”

  “We don’t have time for her to get up to speed,” Malice replied. “She needs to do better.”

  “It’s always ‘do better’ with you, isn’t it Mary?” Cassidy put a foot on the dashboard and jiggled her leg impatiently. There was a creak as the dash protested and Malice shifted her eyes again.

  “You have a tendency to take your time with things.”

  “And you rush into them. Not thinking things through got you in all that trouble in high school, remember?”

  “I’ve changed a lot since high school.” Malice heaved a sharp sigh, almost a huff. The defensiveness seemed strange from the woman who liked to project an air of complete control. Her sister clearly knew which buttons to press.

  Ruri placed a hand on Malice’s thigh. “You can’t expect her to be able to rush through this. The process will take as long as it takes.” What was with the peacekeeping role she kept jumping into between these two? Hopefully the sisters would work out their differences sooner than later. The biggest danger Ruri saw at the moment was the sparks the women were striking off each other.

  Malice said nothing and went back to concentrating on the road. They’d been driving for almost twenty minutes, and with no indication of when they would arrive at their destination, her wolf was getting restless as well. She shifted and scored the underside of Ruri’s palms with her claws. Ruri flexed her hands and the wolf subsided, though grudgingly.

  The warm arm that Cassidy draped across her back was surprising, but more than welcome. The sense of connection calmed her and the wolf more than almost anything else would have. She leaned into the support it offered.

  “Maybe this would be easier if I knew what was going on.” Cassidy leaned her head on Ruri’s shoulder. Anxiety, sour and sad, drifted off her in a small cloud. It explained her aggression, and since Malice wasn’t being very forthcoming, Ruri decided it was on her to clear things up, at least as well as she knew them.

  “You are wolven.” She grinned at the quizzical tilt of Cassidy’s head. “Humans call us werewolves.”

  “What?” Cassidy scoffed openly at the idea. “Those are only in stories, right?” Her voice trailed off, going from statement to poignant question with one quiet word.

  “Then how do you explain what happened last night?”

  “I’ve been sick. Hallucinating, even.” It was rationalization at its worst, and Cassidy must have realized it. Ruri watched as frustration chased itself around her face to be replaced with resignation.

  “Just starting with what we know for sure. You’re wolven, but you’re without a pack. Technically that makes you a lone wolf.”

  “Do you have a pack?”

  “Not anymore.”

  Cassidy squeezed her shoulder at the flare of pain. “Doesn’t that make you a lone wolf too?”

  “I suppose so.” She hadn’t thought about herself in that way, but it was true. The past few days, her constant misery and disquiet had been overridden with the presence of the two women. As miserable as she’d been being cooped up, it had felt a bit like being back with her pack again.

  “We can’t both be lone wolves, not together. Aren’t we a pack?”

  “It’s not that simple. There’s more to being pack than both of us being wolven.”

  “Why do you call yourself—us—wolven? Why not just use werewolf?”

  “Werewolf is what humans call us. We aren’t defined by them. They have no capacity to understand what we are. You want to piss off one of our people, you use that term. It refers to wolven who try to live among humans, who turn their back upon the pack.” She glanced over at Malice, who seemed to be ignoring their conversation. “We certainly do not use the term ‘furry.’”

  “So where do I come in?” Cassidy looked at her palm, then the back of her hand. She was probably noting the things that had changed slightly. Her fingernails would be harder, the pads on her palms and fingertips a little more prominent.

  “I don’t know exactly, but I know it has something to do with what happened to my people.” Ruri took a deep breath to calm her wolf’s agitated pacing. She still didn’t like thinking about it. On the other side, Malice placed a comforting hand on her thigh. How does she know? “A lone wol
f took out my Alpha and half the pack. I escaped and he took the rest of them with him. Loners aren’t to be trusted. Most of them want into a pack, but there’s usually a good reason they’re on their own.”

  Malice broke in, her voice flat. “It was me.” The steering wheel creaked alarmingly under her hand again. “Your old pack was sending me a message after I took out two of their lycans. They were going after Ruri.”

  Cassidy nodded. Something seemed to have clicked for her.

  “It’s a damn good thing you were there,” Ruri said. “I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t.”

  “I couldn’t allow someone to be attacked like that. Not even…”

  “Not even one of my kind, was that what you were going to say?”

  “No. I meant not even when it compromised my mission.” That seemed less than likely, but Ruri held her tongue. Malice certainly sounded like she believed what she said. There would be time to get to the bottom of the Hunter later. A flare of heat shot through her center at the unwitting euphemism. Her wolf rubbed approvingly along the inside of her skin, right where their thighs were plastered together. It was not the time, nor did it ever seem likely to be. Ruri ignored the wolf and inched her thigh away. For a few seconds, there was no contact and the riot of conflicting emotions and hormones subsided slightly. The reprieve was short-lived, and before she knew it, their legs were touching again, creating a touch point for the maelstrom of emotion the Hunter woke within her.

  “One of the werewolves who attacked me said he was paying you back,” Cassidy said. She still stared out the side window, but her eyes didn’t look like they saw any of the scenery speeding by. “He said it was all your fault.”

  “It was.” A muscle flexed in Malice’s jaw. “I never should have allowed you to move to this city. You’d have been safer back home.”

  “There was no way that was going to happen, so don’t even…” Cassidy turned to regard the two of them closely. Ruri got the feeling she hadn’t missed the flare of attraction she’d had for the Hunter. “So I think I get what led up to me being inside that box. I don’t understand how Ruri got dragged into this.”