Tangled Moon

by Stocum, Olivia

  “I’m okay,” she said when she saw him, her voice hoarse.

  “You sure don’t look it.” This was exactly why he didn’t like her doing this. Not that she cared what he thought.

  Nick exchanged a glance with Lothar. Lothar looked strained. No, it was worse than that. He looked like he’d reached the breaking point.

  “I can take care of her now,” Nick said.

  “Ne.” Lothar walked by him carrying Danielle.

  Nick eyed his back for a moment before following. It had to suck, knowing the future of your race depended on fragile Carriers. He opened the door so Lothar could take her inside, wondering how much time he should give the prick before slugging him. Territorial Aggression aside, the man was seriously irritating.

  “Danielle?” Kendra said, getting up from the table. “Oh, God. Are you all right?”

  “I’ve been better, but I’ll live.”

  Kendra followed them into her room as Lothar laid her carefully down in bed, Danielle wincing.

  “Can you get me some water?” she said after Lothar backed away.

  “Yes, of course.” Kendra left the room. She was visibly shaken. Nick was tempted to make her sit back down, but he knew better. She needed to take care of Danielle. It was what she did, take care of people.

  Lothar left the cabin, saying nothing. He went outside alone. No one dared try and comfort him. Only Danielle could do that. Nick stayed with her, Kendra right behind with a glass of water.

  “Nick,” Kendra said. “Get that extra pillow and help her sit up.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Bending over Danielle, he tucked his arm around her shoulders. “We really need to stop falling down ravines, baby.”

  Danielle cracked a smile. “I’ll remember that from now on.”

  He tucked the pillow behind her and Kendra handed over the glass of water. She took a sip, then looked at them both hovering over her.

  She narrowed her lashes. “I’m not dying. I’ll be better in a week. Two tops.” She nodded as if to prove something, then drank her water.

  “I’m going to see if I can manage to make some soup,” Kendra said, leaving them alone.

  “They taking this okay?” Danielle asked after Kendra left.

  “They’re all right. Still in shock, I think.” He could tell there was something different about Danielle. Her scent had changed. It might have been the adrenaline in her system overriding her pheromones. Or it might not.

  He wasn’t sure what to say.

  She handed him her glass and he set it aside.

  “Nick,” she started. Then she frowned.

  He eased onto the bed next to her, taking her hand. Nick noticed the nail on her middle finger was bruised over. “Just get better, okay?”

  She nodded. Then she shook her head. “The other wolves know about you.”

  “Yeah, I’d gathered.” So that was that. No more courtship for Danielle Howard. She would be forced to raise a family with him, whether she wanted to or not.

  “Give me the lowdown,” he said. “What’s the worst they can do to us?”

  “Nick, no.”

  “I’m not a stud dog.”

  She smiled. “Oh, really?”

  “Well, only if you want me to.”

  She squeezed his hand. “If we don’t go to Lithuania, then we will have to run. Lothar can manage it, make us new identities, hide our money where they can’t find it. But the worst is that you’ll have to leave your parents, Greg, Kendra, everything.”

  “I’ll have to anyway. To protect them.”

  She nodded. “Then the worst is for Lothar and me. Our freedom to live our lives our way means giving up the pack. Without their help tonight, we wouldn’t have survived. They back us up. We’d be rogue agents. And I have no idea how long we’d make it like that.”

  He didn’t bother pointing out to her that she’d suggested the same when she’d showed up at his place, throwing herself at him. Maybe she figured she wouldn’t be hunting anyway, with children and all.

  “If I hadn’t been around to distract you, would you have stopped the female before she could call on her little friends?” he asked.

  “Probably, yes. But it’s not your fault. It’s ours. The male vampires were her slaves. They were connected to her and felt her distress when I killed her mate. We’d assumed she couldn’t get slaves past the pack. If we’d been doing our job, it wouldn’t have happened like this.”

  “Slaves?”

  “Yeah. She obviously has a preference for males. She was the only female in her family. She picked out men she liked, and infected them on purpose.”

  “All right.” He thought about it. “Now that sounds like Dracula.”

  “When a vampire infects a human, that human becomes part of their family.”

  “So my brother didn’t make the cut.”

  “They do have to feed.”

  He nodded.

  “It’s over now,” she said.

  “But for how long?”

  She shrugged one shoulder. “Outbreaks come and go. The pack will remain, patrolling the forest to keep it safe.”

  * * *

  One week later, Danielle eased herself onto a chair at a table in Kendra’s diner, refusing help from Nick and Lothar. They were driving her crazy, hovering all the time like she’d up and die without them.

  It was after hours and the diner closed. Danielle had requested a meeting. She glanced at Lothar sitting across from her. Greg was on one side of him, Nick on the other. Kendra was scared of Lothar, so she was right next to Danielle.

  “We got a call today from the High Councilor,” Danielle said.

  “Uncle Mathis,” Lothar said dryly.

  “We’ve overstayed our welcome.” Danielle smiled through her teeth. “He doesn’t see why I should be uncomfortable flying on a private jet since my injuries should be healed.” It wasn’t the flight that was the problem. Save her limp, she was almost back to normal. It was the rest of it. The part about her life, Lothar’s, and Nick’s.

  “Are they insane?” Kendra said.

  “My thoughts exactly,” Nick added. He turned to Lothar. “He’s your uncle. Don’t you have any sway with him?”

  Lothar caught Danielle’s gaze for a moment before answering. “I have not had sway in years.”

  “Ah,” Nick sounded. “Right.”

  Greg looked lost. Danielle smiled at him. “Greg?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do something for me?”

  “Anything.” He was even more charmed by her now that he knew what she was.

  Lothar growled in automatic response. He was getting worse every day. She had no idea how he and Nick would survive on a plane together.

  “Take Steph out on a really nice date while I’m gone,” Danielle told him.

  Kendra nodded. “I’ll help him plan it.”

  “Good idea,” Danielle said.

  Kendra stood. Making a wide arc around Lothar, she went to Greg. “Let’s let them do this in private.”

  “Why?”

  Kendra had been with Danielle throughout her convalesce, and knew all about the unique situation between her, Lothar, and Nick.

  “I think it’s just better that way.” Kendra took Greg by the sleeve. “Come on, off to the kitchen. I’ll make you a snack.”

  Those must have been magic words because he gave in without further resistance.

  Danielle watched them leave, then she looked at Nick. “You have to go with us.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “They will find and bring you in.” Lothar said.

  “Is that better, or worse?”

  Danielle knew Lothar found no redeeming quality in Nick’s sense of humor. Lothar eyed him, then fortunately chose to ignore him altogether.

  Danielle took a deep breath. “It’s better to get this done and over with.” She winced when she realized it had come out the wrong way.

  “Thanks, baby,” Nick droned.

  “I meant the trial, not
you.”

  Lothar growled at Nick.

  Danielle was losing patience with the both of them. “I could lock the two of you up together, come back a week later, and find all my problems solved.”

  Lothar lifted his brows as if giving that consideration.

  “Don’t count on making it out alive,” Nick said.

  Danielle stood, pushing away from the table. She waved them off when they both came to their feet to help her. She limped toward the counter just to get away.

  “She needs another week,” Nick said.

  “What is this? Think I do not know?” Lothar countered.

  The whole thing with his uncle was too much. He was fried. Lothar was beginning to slip into Lithuanian at random, which was fine for her, but the others didn’t have a clue, and she was getting tired of having to translate for them. Danielle sat on a stool cradling her aching head in her hands. Nick sat next to her a moment later.

  He bumped her with his shoulder. Away from the bickering, next to him, her headache eased. There was still something about him that made her feel really good.

  “We’ll work it out, promise,” he said.

  She smiled. “I envy that about you. How you still believe life should make sense.”

  He eyed her askance. “I think I should be offended.”

  “Don’t be. I hope it never changes.”

  He watched her for a while. “You think it will change.”

  “I’m afraid it will, and I don’t want that for you.”

  Lothar came by. “We will be here to get you at noon,” he told Nick.

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  “I just need a moment,” Danielle said. “I’ll be out as soon as I say goodbye to Kendra.”

  Lothar nodded to her.

  * * *

  Nick watched the pained look on Danielle’s face as Lothar left the diner alone. The breaking of her savior would ultimately break her. That pride of Lothar’s was probably the real reason why he wasn’t exactly man of the year. Of course, Nick wasn’t about to tell Danielle that. She found him irresistible, as if she and only she could save his tortured soul.

  What was Nick supposed to do about that?

  Not much, apparently.

  Lothar needed her more than he did anyway. Maybe it was time he started thinking about more important things. Like doing what he could to ensure the survival of her—his—species.

  “He’s a big boy,” Nick reminded her.

  “Yeah, I know he is. And that scares me.” Danielle stood, hobbling into the kitchen.

  While Kendra and Danielle said their goodbyes, Nick thought ahead. He needed to make some phone calls. He wasn’t without resources. There had to be a way to make everyone happy, including the High Councilor.

  After Danielle finished, he walked her to the door. There was no way he was going to touch her with Lothar just outside. His conscience just wouldn’t allow for it.

  “Bye,” she said, hand on the door. She turned back. “Don’t do anything impulsive, okay.”

  “Me?”

  Her brows narrowed.

  “Yeah, all right. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow.”

  * * *

  Danielle peered out the bowed window, listening to the sound of expensive twin engines firing. Her phone was in her hand. She had called and left several messages. She’d texted him five times and had called Kendra and Greg. No one knew where Nick was.

  “What if something happened to him?” she said to Lothar.

  He was sitting across from her on a cream leather seat in his family’s private jet. “I told pack,” he said. “They will look for him.”

  She and Lothar had no choice but to go. They’d been summoned. Nick would be pronounced AWOL if the pack didn’t find him soon.

  Necessary genetic contribution or not, he would pay for this. He was new, so it would probably come in the form of detention. He wouldn’t be allowed to leave the castle grounds until he’d proven that he was no longer a flight risk.

  Assuming he showed at all.

  He might have changed his mind and left town altogether.

  Nothing could change the way she felt about Lothar. But that didn’t make the sting of this rejection hurt any less. Nick was her Carrier and her friend. And now he was gone.

  They started down the runway. She felt panicked. Her instinct to protect Nick was overwhelming. What if something really had happened to him?

  “We have to stay. Tell the pilot . . .”

  Lothar nudged his foot against hers. She looked up. His all too serious eyes took in her panicked expression, her scent—and she knew—even the rhythm of her heart. He was suffering from his share of stress. She hated to burden him with any more.

  “I’m okay,” she said. “I know we have no choice but to go.”

  It took him a moment, then finally he spoke, the words she really needed to hear, in that broken English she’d come to adore.

  “I will never, let go.”

  THE END

  Turn page for more.

  Intertwined

  By

  Olivia Stocum

  Tangled Moon Book 2

  (October 2017)

  Danielle Howard isn’t his, not legally, but Lothar Ludvitski, nephew of the High Councilor, will have her just the same. Danielle was once his student. He taught her everything she needed to know about being a werewolf. In return, she taught him how to feel alive. He isn’t giving her up. And it doesn’t matter what his uncle does to him.

  Nick Shepard is Danielle’s Carrier, her genetic mate, but that doesn’t mean much in the end. It’s clear to him that Danielle will turn the world upside-down to stay with her Mentor. For Nick, there is more to life than whether or not Danielle wants him in her bed; like doing everything he can to ensure the survival of her species.

  Vesper Ludvitski is raising twin werewolves alone after the violent death of her Carrier. Being without an alpha hasn’t been good for her. She’s holding it together, but her heart is losing hope a little every day. Could Danielle’s refusing Nick bring her exactly the leadership she craves? If she’s going to find out, first she’ll have to let go of the past.

  Olivia Stocum lives in New York State with her family, a cat, two dogs, and four chickens. Her favorite books are Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, and Persuasion by Jane Austen. She’s also read every Sherlock Holmes story published by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. She’s seen the movie Highlander so many times she knows the dialogue by heart. To keep up with her upcoming novels and events, follow her

  website:

  www.oliviastocum.com

  Keep up at The Claymore and Surcoat.

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