Kiss of a Dark Moon

by Sharie Kohler

  No sound carried from the room beyond, but she knew he was still there. Felt him there, on the other side.

  She stared at her reflection for several moments. Her eyes appeared normal. But would they always? Had they remained their usual green when she was going at it like an animal with Rafe?

  Dropping her head, she sucked in a deep breath, dreading facing him. Seeing him made her see herself as she was now: a half-breed lycan.

  Wearing the shirt again, she opened the door and stepped carefully from the bathroom. The lights were off. Rafe’s large shape reclined on the bed, beneath the covers. She grimaced. Just like a man. Asleep and dead to the world following sex.

  With the stealth of a cat, she crept past the bed, moving toward the chair containing her clothes. Her hand fell on the shirt when his voice spoke. “You don’t think it’s going to be that easy.”

  Stopping, she turned to stare at his dark shape.

  “You’ll have to do better than that to get rid of me. You need me now. Whether you want to admit it or not.”

  “You think I’m that hard up? Arrogant—”

  “It has nothing to do with sex. Who’s going to train you?”

  Train her? Was he kidding? She wasn’t going to stay like this long enough to require any training. There had to be a way out of this mess. Her brother had saved Claire. And Darius believed he could find a way to reverse his curse. Surely there was a way to reverse what Rafe had done to her.

  His sigh filled the air, the sound weary. “Get into bed, Kit. It’s late. We can talk about this tomorrow.”

  Biting her lip, she looked at the door.

  As if he could read her thoughts, he added, “You can try to escape tomorrow. For now, get some rest. You’re going to need it.”

  Grabbing the throw off the back of the chair, she pulled it over her as she settled into the soft leather, swinging her legs over the arm.

  He lifted his head from the pillow. His eyes gleamed at her from across the room. “That can’t be comfortable.”

  “I’m not sharing a bed with you.” No way do I trust myself enough to do that.

  His head fell back down on the pillow without a word. Her heart sank a little. What had she expected? That he would at least protest?

  She squirmed in the chair, attempting to get comfortable. Fortunately, her body was too exhausted to really care where she slept. With her cheek resting against the too-firm back of the chair, she dozed off.

  She didn’t know how much time passed before two hard arms slid beneath her and lifted her from the chair.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded, her voice sleep-heavy as he settled her in the center of the big bed, lacking the forcefulness she would have liked.

  “Putting you to bed. Go to sleep.” His voice sounded beside her ear, fluttering strands of her hair against her cheek.

  Like this? With him? Impossible. She gasped as he curled his big body next to hers, pulling her to him as if he had every right, as if she belonged at his side. As if he were a man she could trust.

  “Sleep,” she echoed, her every nerve stretched tight, achingly alive. Sleep. Elusive as smoke circling overhead. As the new moon outside their window. Invisible, but there just the same. Dark moon, she mused. It was there even when you couldn’t see it. Like Rafe.

  His affliction wasn’t nearly as visible or apparent as a full-breed lycan, but he was afflicted nonetheless. She hadn’t seen it at first, but now she did. Now she knew. The beast was there. Inside Rafe. A dark moon.

  His hand splayed over her hip, large and possessive, a veritable paw anchoring her to him.

  She wet her lips, searching for her voice. “Tomorrow,” she began, relieved that her voice did not quake as her insides did. “I’m going.” Damned if she wasn’t. She was no man’s prisoner.

  “You can try,” he said against her neck, his voice mild, unbothered, the moist fan of his breath making her belly flutter.

  “I will…” her voice tore, twisting into a sharp gasp as his teeth bit down on her earlobe. Desire, hot and savage, spiked through her, melting her bones and burning her blood as she fought to finish her sentence. “I thought we were going to sleep.”

  “We will,” he breathed in a voice warm as the sun, thick with need. He raised his head to look at her. His hair fell forward. Light and shadow flickered over his features, casting his face into sharp lines and hollows.

  Her hand wobbled on the air before pushing the hair back from his face. His eyes gleamed down at her, those twin lights returning to the dark fathomless pools, pulling her in, swallowing her whole. She moistened her lips, needing to speak, to say what burned on her mind, even as he burned through her blood and body. “You know you’re everything I despise.”

  He tensed and took his time responding. For a moment, she thought he would not answer at all. “I know. But I can change your mind. I can earn your trust.”

  “And if you don’t? You’ll hold me captive for how long? Forever?”

  Shadow fell over his face, but he didn’t answer.

  A secret part of her wished he could change her mind. That she could just accept all he had done to her. Forgive. Accept him. Accept herself as she now was.

  Turning his head, he pressed a moist kiss into her palm. “I’ll prove to you that you can still be everything you ever wanted…and more.” His eyes met hers over her palm.

  His hand traced the line of her collarbone, the brush of his fingertips chasing away her thoughts. That hand lowered, trailing a fiery path between her breasts.

  “Trust me,” his low voice reassured her, a caress in itself. A slow lick of heat curled in her belly at his words, a serpent’s coaxing plea.

  She arched beneath his hand, thrusting her breast into his ready palm. Her hand circled his neck, dragging his mouth down to hers. She didn’t have to trust him for this.

  CHAPTER 24

  Kit woke slowly, her body leaden, muscles warm and liquid, sated. Opening her eyes, she found herself staring directly into Rafe’s dark gaze. He was dressed, standing over her.

  Instantly, she remembered last night, seeing those eyes as she had in the darkness, flames flickering in the dark depths at the height of his rage. And passion.

  “Good morning.” His voice rumbled through her, swirling in a vortex of heat in her belly, threatening to pull her under as it had last night. Fire scorched her face.

  She could only respond with a fierce nod. She was the very thing she loathed. The very thing that had stolen her parents, robbed her of the life she was meant to have, a life that might have given her a sense of wholeness, completion, filling the void that ached dully inside her now.

  “I was just about to step out.”

  “Out?” she replied, still feeling rather lethargic, groggy. “Why? Where?”

  “I was going to get supplies to last us while we’re here.”

  He made it sound as though they were staying a while. She shook her head. That couldn’t happen.

  “No. I can’t stay here. I’m leaving. Remember?”

  His eyes glinted with challenge. “And I said you’re not. Remember?”

  Scooting up in the bed, she moved to tighten the sheet about her…and found one of her hands trapped, pinned to the bed frame. She tried to pull free. The steel cuffs simply rattled. Useless. “What the hell is this?”

  Rafe looked down at her, his face impassive as stone.

  She jerked at her wrist. “You bastard. You can’t keep me chained to this bed. Is this what you meant about gaining my trust?”

  His lean chest rippled in a dance of sinew and muscle beneath his black shirt. “You have much to learn before I set you loose on the world. Staying put is a good idea right now. You have a lot to understand—”

  “Why? So I can stay here and be your fuck buddy some more?”

  “I didn’t hear any complaints last night.”

  “Like I had a choice.”

  His jaw tensed. “I didn’t force you.”

  “No? You turned me
into you. An animal. A creature driven by her instinct.”

  Something bright and dangerous flickered in his gaze. “You wanted me before all this. Need I remind you?”

  “I know you find it hard to believe, but I don’t want you, or anything from you now! Including lessons on being a lycan.” Perhaps, for a moment, she had softened toward him last night. Considered dropping her guard, letting him in. But he dared handcuff her like some sort of hostage? As if she couldn’t be trusted? He was the one who had lied to her from the start!

  “You can’t bury your head in the sand and pretend—”

  “I’m not. I’m perfectly in tune with reality, and I’ll figure all this out. On my own, Without you.” She glared at him. “Last night was a mistake I won’t repeat again.”

  In a move so fast she hardly saw it coming, he grabbed her, lifting her off the bed as far as the handcuffs would allow, flexing his hands over her shoulders. “You need me.”

  Her heart leapt at his words, betraying her. Just as her body betrayed her last night. Her gaze clung to him, careful to keep her eyes from straying south, from rousing her hunger and succumbing to the madness of the night before all over again. “No.”

  Need. She had always wanted someone, needed someone. An aching hollowness had always been with her. More pronounced now that Gideon had found someone, and needed her less than ever. But Rafe was not what she had in mind. Nor was this heart-leaping thrill for him. He was not safe. Not the man she had been looking for. Not human at all.

  But then, neither was she.

  She squirmed free and fell back down on the bed, having nowhere else to go. “You want me to trust you?” she ground out, tugging on her wrists. The handcuffs held fast to the brass bed frame. “Let me go.”

  A long moment passed before he asked, “If I did, where would you go? To your brother?”

  She couldn’t go to Gideon. She wouldn’t go to him. Not as she was. Not until she figured a way to reverse what Rafe had done to her. There had to be a way. Her brother had saved Claire. Done the impossible. The very thing she had told him couldn’t be done. He had proved her wrong. And she would prove Rafe wrong, too.

  “Home,” she finally answered.

  “You cannot return home. You won’t survive.”

  “I’m tougher than I look. And thanks to you, I’m now harder to kill.”

  “Harder. But not impossible.” He splayed his hands wide before him. “Kit, you have much to learn. Let me teach you—”

  “You’ve done enough. Thanks.”

  His jaw knotted. He spun around and snatched his jacket from the table, adjusting his holster around his middle with rough, angry movements. “You can’t change this. You need to accept. Adapt.”

  As she stared at the unforgiving lines of his face, the dark eyes that drew her in, her resolve hardened. She refused to believe him. Refused to believe that she was stuck this way.

  One face appeared in her mind. Darius. Even if he did not know she and Gideon were of the Marshan line, he must know about the prophecy. She may not have trusted him before, but what choice did she have now? Perhaps his antidote research might help her.

  She glared at him. “You can’t keep me chained to this bed forever.”

  “Not forever. Just until you see reason.”

  “You mean until I see things your way,” she snapped.

  He scowled. “No one ever gave me as much trouble as you. Any of the others would be safely secured in their new life by now, and I would be on my way. You’re one uncooperative pain in my ass.”

  “You can still be on your way.” She jiggled her hand. “Unlock these and go on.”

  “For now I’m going to keep you alive. Even if you’re too stubborn to realize that’s what I’m doing.” He pulled the door open.

  “Bastard,” she hissed. He’d lied to her. Taken everything from her. Her choice, her life. Now he dared take her freedom?

  “Letting you go would be tantamount to killing you. Not to mention others. You can’t handle—”

  “Save it,” she bit out, fighting the swelling heat of her anger. All her life she had heard men tell her she couldn’t handle it. Her brother. Cooper. NODEAL. “How long do you plan keeping me prisoner?”

  He lifted one broad shoulder in a shrug. “I don’t know.”

  “Not good enough. How. Long.”

  “Until I’m satisfied. I can’t set you free right now, not knowing…” His voice faded.

  “Not knowing whether I’ll give in and become a bloodthirsty killer.” Her voice dripped acrimony. “Yet you claim we’re so different—not like lycans.”

  His mouth pressed into a grim line. “My brother and I never slipped. We mastered the beast within us. In time, with my help, you will, too.”

  “Slipped?” He made it sound so mild. One slip and she became a slave to the hunger. Soulless. Like Darius. Never free. “How is this right? First, you turn me, now you imprison me. What’s next?”

  He looked her steadily in the eyes. “Acceptance. I hope.”

  “Hope.” The word rang hollowly, dead inside her. “Well, you know what I hope? I hope that when I close my eyes, you’ll disappear. That I’ll open my eyes and discover this is a bad dream.”

  A muscle ticked along his jaw, but he said nothing. Just stared at her with such damnable calm. As if ice water flowed through his veins. Rage thrummed through her, hotter than fire, almost too much to bear. Damn him, this is what he meant, why he claimed he had to keep her with him. Raw emotion threatened to consume her, rule her—and he knew it.

  Breathing in through her nostrils, she drew air deeply into her lungs. She would show him she possessed control. She didn’t need him. She would escape. Put her newfound powers to good use and break free.

  She would get the better of him, go to Darius, and everything would work out. Darius. The thought of him made her mouth twist. Ironically, she had more in common with a full-breed lycan than with Rafe. Like her, Darius wanted to change his fate.

  And yet the truth was there, staring her in the face. Even if she ran from Rafe, she could not run from it, from herself.

  She was a dovenatu. Like him.

  CHAPTER 25

  She hated him. And he couldn’t blame her.

  He had lied to her. Turned her. Then taken advantage of her newfound susceptibility and slept with her. Again.

  He walked the length of the cabin’s wooden porch, his feet thudding over the planking. The sun sank below the trees, beams spilling through branches to gild the lake in yellow, gold, and red. A boat’s engine purred in the distance.

  The smell of food cooking wafted to his nose from the neighboring cabins. He inhaled deeply the mingling aromas: Steak. Fish. Some kind of dessert. Pecan pie.

  He was acutely aware of her movements in the cabin behind him, the muted hum of the television. The rise and fall of her every breath. As with his brother, he felt bound to her. Linked in a way that was metaphysical.

  He had freed her upon returning to the cabin with groceries. After unloading enough food to last the week into the small refrigerator, he stood in the kitchenette for an awkward moment, suffering her glare, before striding outside, eager to escape the accusation in those green eyes.

  She schemed for a way to escape him. He would have to be on guard. She was now a greater match for him.

  He simply couldn’t let her go. She was a threat to anyone who crossed her path. He couldn’t set her loose on mankind until he was certain she could control herself.

  Liar. A small voice whipped across his mind. You don’t want to let her go. You want her for yourself. You wanted her from the start and now you have her. It doesn’t matter one damn bit if she wants you back.

  “No,” he muttered to himself. He wasn’t that big a bastard. That selfish. He hadn’t put her in the path of those agents. He hadn’t shot her. He had just tried to save her when they did.

  He prowled the porch, stopping when another scent struck him, sending the hairs on the back of his neck into
stiff salute.

  It was always this way. He felt them before he saw them.

  Quick as a flash, he sprang from the porch and vaulted himself atop the cabin. Crouching low, he waited, watching, barely breathing, still as stone in the fading twilight. He brushed the sun-warmed roof in lazy swinging strokes, so at odds with the tension coursing through him, the spine-tight readiness coiling through him. He waited. Watched. Half-tuned to Kit below him in the cabin, he turned his head slowly, surveying the cabins in the distance, the surrounding woods, the wind-rippled waters of the lake beyond.

  He sat atop his perch, undetected, focused on cooling his body’s heat level, making himself undetectable, blending into the approaching night.

  Somehow they had tracked them. Again. Too coincidental. He had rid Kit of her belongings. Were they tracking her through him? How? Had his cover been blown? Was Laurent on to him?

  Pushing the concerns away for later reflection, he narrowed his gaze on the ground below.

  They approached from all sides. Four of them. Two moved in fast and hard, coming directly for the front of the cabin. Anger threatened to swamp him at the thought of the bastards getting their hands on Kit.

  Squatting on his heels, he rotated, observing the remaining two moving in behind the cabin, winding through the trees like stalking beasts. They could wait. He would save them for last—after he dispensed with the two barreling for the front of the cabin.

  He dropped down directly before the first lycan advancing up the porch steps, landing lightly on the balls of his feet. He slid the serrated knife from inside his jacket. In a crosswise swipe, he cut the lycan’s throat, simultaneously pulling his revolver out with his free hand.

  Silver eyes dilated wide in shock and pain. The lycan’s words gurgled free. Choking on blood, he clutched feverishly at the gushing opening in his throat. The wound, lethal to mortal man, would not kill the bastard. In minutes, it would stop bleeding and seal itself, his DNA doing its job and regenerating. It only hurt like hell. And slowed him down.