“Trackers?” Conall asked tersely, his body tensing once more. “Why are trackers after Vivienne and how do I know you’re not one of them?”
“What are you two talking about? What are trackers?” Max turned to Conall and kept his reply short. “I’m not one of them, and I don’t have time to prove that to you now. You either trust me or risk your mate’s life!” He paused and let that sink in. He could tell Conall had mated Vivienne. The scent was high on her skin, and though he was unsure how, as the joining of a witch and were was strictly forbidden in his covenant, Max was willing to stake his life on the fact that Conall would kill himself before allowing anything to happen to Vivienne. He didn’t like the guy, especially as he hadn’t recognized his animal nature when the human part of him had been intoxicated that night at Fangs, but he had to figure out a way to bind her powers, and then they had to get out of there.
Conall relaxed slightly, though the severity of his glare did not change. Satisfied that he was listening, Max continued, “We have to leave now.”
The werewolf nodded, and Max realized they’d come to an interim decision. Good.
***
Vivienne felt once more like a fly on the wall. They weren’t even listening to her, and although irritated, a feeling of absolute contentment had settled across her body. She felt refreshed, alive, as one did after a five-mile run or a dip in a cold lake.
Conall approached her, obstructing her view of Max with his towering body, and his hand came up to touch the side of her face. She leaned into his touch, and barely repressed the urge to sigh in contentment. She wondered if he could sense that, for his eyes heated, and his gaze briefly fell to her lips before he spoke. “You won’t understand any of this now, but we need to leave. I’ll take you back to Cedar Creek.”
She lifted her brows and shook her head, feeling his hand move against her cheek as she did so. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.” Vivienne turned to Max. It was impossible to see him with Conall’s broad shoulders blocking her. “You two were just fighting, beating the hell out of each other for some unknown reason and now—now you’re best friends? I’m confused. Really confused. Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on?”
Conall’s lips parted, and Vivienne prepared to hear something that would make sense. She heard an elevator ding. His lips merged together once more.
“Let’s go. This way.” That was Max’s voice and Conall shifted his body slightly to look at Max. Vivienne caught a glimpse of Drew, standing wide-eyed in one of her long T-shirts, and staring at Max with an expression of shock on her face. Drew must have come down recently, when Conall’s body was blocking her view of everything.
Seeing Drew standing beside Max, perfectly all right, reminded Vivienne of the robbery, and how it could have turned out much worse. She sidestepped Conall to throw her arms around her friend. Drew tensed at first, but after recognition kicked in, her arms closed tightly around Vivienne’s shoulders. As Drew’s body shook, Vivienne rubbed her back, telling her that it would be all right, that everything was replaceable, figuring that Drew was still in shock over the robbery.
“Oh my God, Viv,” Drew began, only to have Max pull her back.
“Later,” he told Drew, his gaze steady. He looked to Conall, then Vivienne. “We’re running out of time. Let’s go.”
Conall’s hand closed over her arm, and he practically dragged her toward the exit, because her half-walk, half-tug at his arm, could not be considered following. The door was a yet few feet away when a loud, staticky noise, reminiscent of nails being dragged across the blackboard combined with a scrambled television channel, touched her ear. Both Vivienne and Drew watched in fascination, then disbelief, and finally horror as a black hole appeared directly before them. The wall had disappeared, the dark pit all that remained. What was even crazier was that people started walking out of it, one after the other, men dressed from head to toe in black garb. Immediately, Conall pushed her behind him and began to move back. Max did the same with Drew, who whimpered at the sight.
***
“Oh my God,” Drew began to incant. Vivienne noticed her friend was shaking her head and peeking out from behind Max to look at the spectacle. Vivienne did the same, and gasped at the number of men that now stood where the hole had been. She counted five before she stopped and stared at the man standing slightly forward, in the center. Dressed like the others but for the face mask, he seemed to be thirty or forty, and with his thin, pointed features, looked more accountant than ninja.
Information sometimes has a way of bypassing the brain as it goes through the eyes. It was in that moment that the shock of what she’d just seen hit Vivienne. She couldn’t have seen what she’d just seen, she reasoned, and then took another peek from behind Conall to prove herself right. Wrong. The men were still there, looking ominous and staring at Conall and Max. Her eyes traveled down their bodies, widening when she recognized weapons. Swords, long, thin blades, hung at their sides.
Who were these guys, how did they appear out of the hole, what was the hole, and was she dreaming again? Was meeting Conall a dream, too? She stared at the breadth of his back. No, this was real. He was real. But that meant the men were real as well, didn’t it?
“Max, bring the girl,” someone said loudly, and Vivienne jumped.
“No.” It was Max who answered, his voice easy and slightly bored. “Come get her yourself.”
“What girl?” Vivienne asked, her voice rising slightly. “What do they want? Who are they?”
“You’re defying a direct command?” the voice continued, shocked. Seconds passed in silence and the voice spoke once more. “Ah, I see. You switched sides, turned traitor.” There was a pause, and Vivienne could hear the rapid beating of her heart, and wondered if anyone else could. The voice continued, “We have no quarrel with you, wolf, but we will kill you if you stand in our way. Step aside. This is not your fight.”
Wolf? Vivienne’s eyes widened and she looked to Drew, who was staring at her with a look of fear across her features.
“It’s okay,” Vivienne whispered, though she knew it to be a lie. Something was…horribly wrong. Men did not appear out of black holes that formed in the center of walls!
“It is when you’re after my mate.” Conall’s response was slow, and almost lazy. Mate? Who was his mate? What was a mate? Vivienne looked between the two men. What the hell was going on?
The man in black inhaled sharply and scoffed. “She’s a witch. You’re an animal. It’s forbidden by both races.”
***
Conall snorted, letting the slight pass. Calling any of the weres an animal, despite the truth of the theory, was almost the equivalent of calling him a human—an insult. Men had been killed for less, but Conall was saving his energy for the fight that would come. He’d counted ten, many of them fidgeting nervously, telling him they were just out of training. A few were older, more experienced, but he was old, and had fought witches and vampires both when the odds weren’t in his favor. He’d lived to remember it. His opponents hadn’t. He remembered what the tracker had said about Vivienne. So she was a witch. Maybe she was like Max, able to hide that side of her under a human façade. It did not matter. Either way, witch, human, or something entirely different, she was his.
Max lifted a brow and shook his head. “It’s always amazed me why my father made you captain.” He paused and crossed his arms before his chest. “You never were the brightest bulb, were you, Merikano?”
Merikano’s eyes flashed angrily but he dismissed the comment with a wave of his hand. “There are two of you; ten of us. Either way, the girl is coming with us.”
Conall took another step back, placing a hand at Vivienne’s middle. He gave her a light push, motioning for her to move back.
“Then come and take her,” Conall retorted easily, his voice belying the tension in his body, the rush of adrenaline passing through his bloodstream.
***
Instinct told Vivienne her qu
estions were best saved for later. She reached over for Drew’s hand, which was sweaty and cold, much like her own, and slowly began to move back.
“What’s going on?” she whispered to Drew, who shook her head and replied dejectedly, “Everything.”
The vagueness of that answer only prompted more questions. What did she mean by everything? What the hell was going on? Were they in some kind of trouble?
“Kill them both,” Merikano commanded, and then utter chaos broke out. Vivienne and Drew quickly huddled themselves against the wall and watched, bug-eyed, as the men wearing black attacked Max and Conall.
Her heart pounded in her throat as Conall barely dodged the tip of a sword swinging toward his neck. He recovered quickly, grabbing the man and twisting his arm. A crack followed by a howling scream rent the air, and Drew turned her face away. Grabbing the sword, Conall thrust it into the man’s belly and pushed him back. Vivienne winced, but felt no pity. He’d almost killed Conall.
“Conall!” she screamed in warning as another man attacked him from behind. She watched as the man’s dagger embedded in Conall’s back, feeling his pain even as he turned and launched at the man. She couldn’t see what happened to the attacker, but only seconds later another was at Conall’s back, and another. Max wasn’t faring well, either. They were both impressive fighters, but against so many in an enclosed space.
Where was her cell phone? She was going to call the police. As soon as she thought of that, she shook her head. How was she going to call the police? What would she tell them? “Come quickly, some ninjas appeared out of a hole in the wall and are trying to kill us?” They wouldn’t send cops. They’d sent a psychiatrist and a straightjacket.
At Drew’s high pitched scream, Vivienne turned to her. Drew had covered her mouth with her hands, and was staring off into the distance at Max, who’d just been run through by a now-bloody sword. Vivienne cried out in shock and stood, watching in horror as the man—Merikano—pushed Max back, a cruel smile on his lips and the sword held proudly in his hand. He advanced on Max but was suddenly blasted back. What looked like a ring of white flames rolled into a ball landed on his chest and he was flung against the wall. Max clutched his side and began to move. A trail of blood followed him. Merikano recovered, this time launching his very own flame ball at Max, who pitched from where he stood and landed with a dull thud on the floor, steps in front of them.
Drew and Vivienne rushed to him. His lips were blue-tinged, his eyes glassy, his face scrunched in pain—and was that anger?
“Get out now. Take the stairs to the second floor.” He bit down as if he were fighting off a bout of pain. “Fire escape at end of hall. Find your—mother.”
Before she could even think to respond, her hand was in his and he was whispering something. Latin? Vivienne briefly wondered before her body felt stifled once more, as if something inside her was being locked away. She felt stifled.
Max’s glassy eyes moved from Vivienne to Drew and then back. Something was pressed against her palm. A key, her car key. How did he have her car key? “Car behind apartment.”
Saving those questions for another time, Vivienne eyed the rapidly growing red stain on his shirt, and shook her head. “Max, you’re hurt. We need to call the cops, and an ambulance. What’s happening—?”
There was an angry snarl somewhere in the background and Vivienne lifted her eyes in time to see Conall being attacked by three of the men. She almost ran to him, but Max’s hand tightened against hers.
“Now, Viv! Go! We’ll find you!”
A howl split the air, and moments later, the three were flung away. Vivienne stared in awe at the man who’d passionately loved her only hours ago as he tossed back his head. Tendons jumped to the surface of his skin and she heard the distinct sound of cracking bones. A memory—an image of Cassie falling from a tree in their backyard, landing oddly on her arm, followed by a distinct, popping crack—surfaced before retreating in lieu of the sight before her. Conall’s jacket and most of his shirt had been ripped to bloody shreds, making it easy for her to see that the size of his arms and legs was increasing. Her mouth fell open. His eyes, the beautiful blue, turned to a sinister yellow, with two black pupils, and black fur began to materialize on his arms as his clipped nails lengthened to razor-sharp talons.
“Holy—” Vivienne began, staring at the sight. Dear God! She blinked to make sure she wasn’t imagining it. No. She wasn’t. When had her life become the basis for the next bloody movie? This was a scene straight out of Van Helsing, except the wolf man wasn’t Hugh Jackman, but Conall, and damn it, these things were not supposed to happen in real life!
“—Shit!” Drew finished. Someone had to say it, and Vivienne’s mouth was currently hanging open, unable to formulate coherent words as Conall’s body continued to change. His lips pulled back in a snarl and she blinked at the length of his canines. They hadn’t been that long before. No, she would have felt them, with him using his lips so intimately against her. An image of him behind her, biting her shoulder, suddenly pushed to the forefront of her memory and she clasped a hand over her mouth.
At that moment, Max cursed. His body arched off of the ground and both women looked down, jumping back when he turned blue, and black bled into his hair like water. His eyes opened, and swirling silver-blue stared up at them moments before he disappeared. He was there one moment, and then he wasn’t.
Vivienne reached for Drew’s hand and yanked.
Second floor. Fire escape. Window. Now.
Men in black clothes who looked like ninjas had just attacked them, Conall had changed into a wolf-man-thing, and Max was some sort of alien with freaky eyes. They were getting the hell out of here! Questions later. Safety now.
They’d just made it to the door that would take them up flights off stairs when it suddenly opened and Vivienne found herself feet away from one of the ninjas. She didn’t think. She reacted. She kicked her leg out, catching him between his thighs. It was the one thing you weren’t supposed to do in karate class, but she was bending the rules a bit. Anticipating he’d double over, she brought her knee up, and connected it with his face.
She heard the words “shit” and “bitch” as he went down, one hand between his legs and the other at his nose, but she was already moving past him, Drew trailing behind her. She’d reached the second step when she froze and moved backward. Five more of them were advancing on her. Vivienne’s heart stopped for a few seconds as she frantically looked around. The man she’d kicked and kneed was getting up, and Vivienne and Drew sidestepped him and moved back into the lobby, their backs plastered against the walls as the other men advanced. Vivienne looked over to where Conall and Max, both changed into unfamiliar things, were fighting with the others.
“Grab the girl. Take her back to covenant.”
One of the men was speaking, but she couldn’t tell which one. They were all masked, and only their eyes and a portion of their brows were visible.
Drew and Vivienne clutched at each other.
“Which one?”
“Both.”
One of the men stepped forward and grabbed her arm, and Vivienne reacted by hauling back her other hand and aiming straight at his face. He sidestepped her punch, but he couldn’t sidestep the knee to his groin. She was getting good at kneeing people.
“Fuck,” he groaned, and Vivienne took that moment to scream. Following her lead, Drew did the same.
“By Luna, grab them already!”
The men advanced, and she heard Conall calling her name. A hand was suddenly at her throat, squeezing. She closed her eyes. This was it. This was how she was going to die.
Her body grew cold, as if brushed by a stiff winter wind, and then an almost burning heat swarmed through her. The man holding her neck released her immediately, clutching his hand and shaking it as he stepped away.
There was a slight sound, like the far-off crashing of waves across cliffs, followed by a voice she’d all but given up on ever hearing again. She wasn’t spe
aking English or French, but whatever the language, Vivienne would always recognize the slightly accented, level pitch of mother’s voice.
Dazed, she could only blink as the men’s eyes widened and they backed away. Lifting a hand to her throat, she coughed. Drew was instantly at her side, dark eyes searching out the owner of the melodic voice.
“What is that?” Drew finally asked.
“Show yourself, witch!”. They looked around, staring from Vivienne to Drew, and then at the wall behind them.
Witch? Her mother was not a witch.
Evelyn’s voice grew louder, her pitch higher. Whatever was being said was being repeated over and over again.
“Reverto!” The word echoed, and then came, “Abolesco!” And then they were being interchanged, until they sounded as one. Latin, Vivienne concluded, unsure of why she knew that or how she knew that the word reverto meant “return” and abolesco meant “vanish.”
The voice stopped suddenly, and Vivienne blinked. Her mother’s voice had soothed her, and without it, hysteria threatened to take over.
“Hurry up and grab them. Something’s off here,” someone murmured in a low voice.
A bright light appeared behind the men, the equivalent of a powerful flash, and then Vivienne heard her mother, loud and clear. The men turned to face Evelyn, and one by one, they screamed and then disappeared.
With them no longer impeding her view, Vivienne stared at the woman who’d birthed her. Curly black hair hung loosely around delicate shoulders. Honey-colored brown eyes, the exact replica of her own, stared back at her. Evelyn took a step forward and Vivienne swallowed. Along with the intense heat pulsing through her body, her knees were growing weak, her head felt heavy, and she could feel her heart slowing down to an alarming rate. Lethargic. She felt lethargic.
Taken by Moonlight Page 14
