Blue Moon Rising (The Patroness)

by Natalie Herzer

  There was a pause, but then the door clicked and I pushed it open. We climbed the stairs to the second floor in a heartbeat, but it felt like forever for me.

  Michel already stood inside the door and frowned as he saw us. “What’s going on?”

  “Mathieu was attacked. You have to turn him, Michel,” I pleaded.

  “You know there’s a chance he might not survive it, don’t you?”

  “I know, but it’s his only chance. Please!”

  He nodded sharply. “Alright, take him upstairs to Fabienne. I’ll be right with you.”

  Without another word we headed farther up the stairs, towards the fourth floor.

  “Fabienne? Fabienne, are you there?” I called out as soon as we were through the door. The room held eight sick-beds and looked very sterile thanks to the white floor, walls and curtains. Though the shapeshifters rarely caught a virus I knew first-hand that Fabienne set great store by cleanliness and sterility. She saved my life a time or two.

  From out another room to the right came a tall, dark-haired woman. Fabienne was about forty years old and wore a warm and radiant smile, glasses and a white lab coat in which she seemed right at home.

  “Maiwenn, long time no see.” Then she saw Mathieu, dropped her smile and straightened as she quickly took in the situation.

  “The room to your left. Put him on the table.”

  So we went into the room to the left, which was her operating room. Kylian lowered Mathieu carefully onto the table then moved to the side, out of the way, while Fabienne pulled on white gloves. She examined her patient, her gaze drifting expertly over him, and then she frowned and asked, “An attack? What happened?”

  “He was attacked by a shapeshifter. A wolf. Michel will turn him. He should be here any minute.”

  Her frown deepening, she shot me a glance over the rim of her glasses, “A wolf? One of ours?”

  “I don’t think so,” I lied.

  With a sigh she returned the focus on her patient. “Let’s prepare him, then.”

  Fabienne grabbed the metal shackles dangling on the side and feet of the table, and snapped them shut around Mathieu’s wrist and ankles. Remembering the feeling of cold metal, of being trapped, made a chill run down my spine.

  “Is that really necessary?” I asked and pointed at the shackles.

  “Yes, I’m sorry, sweetie, but it’s for his own good.” She even strapped him down with very thick and broad leather belts at his chest, waist and legs.

  Michel came into the room then, rolling the sleeves of his button-down up to his elbows. “Bring me up to date, Fabienne.”

  “I’m surprised he made it this far, to be honest. He lost a lot of blood. Only chance of survival is the turn.”

  I tried to calm down my erratically drumming heart as I heard her say those words out loud. In vain. I was so close to losing him. Deep breath in, deep breath out.

  Michel turned to look at Kylian and me. “Maybe it’s better for you to wait outside. His body...or more precisely his unknown magic is fighting the turn. It won’t be tidy. It won’t be nice to look at.”

  And leave Michel alone with Mathieu? Fat chance. “No, we’ll stay,” I said a little too firmly.

  Michel gave a clipped nod, and then he changed. Only his head, though. His face elongated, and rearranged itself to reveal the head of a wolf, complete with a gray muzzle and sharp fangs and all. Then he leaped into the air to land on Mathieu, and bit his neck.

  I had to hold myself in place, had to keep myself from pushing Michel off Mathieu. Kylian took my hand then, and squeezed it gently. The comfort of this gesture was too much for me, and silent tears started to roll down my cheeks.

  When Michel’s head came back up again, his snout was soaked in blood, dripping with it. His eyes gleamed iridescent gold. Then he laid his head back, and howled to the moon. A strong and commanding sound, which was soon joined by the thundering roar of Kylian’s tiger and the cry of Fabienne’s fox. The alpha was calling for the beast, for the new wolf within Mathieu now, and with the force of the pack the others joined. Goose bumps beaded my skin and my body felt suddenly light, my heart full and I would have loved to sing with them.

  All of a sudden Mathieu’s entire body began to shake and convulse uncontrollably. His eyes snapped open. They were a beautiful, fierce and glowing warm amber. And the next instant his body stiffened, tight like a string, and finally he answered the alpha as a heart-rending howl laden with sufferance and pain ripped free and out of his throat. The other shapeshifters continued to sing as with their help Mathieu’s new wolf managed to come through and he could finally change for the first time.

  Fabienne snapped open the shackles and freed him of the leather belts strapping him onto the table, so he wouldn’t hurt himself. His change was cruelly slow, and Mathieu moaned from the pain until it was a wolfish whine that escaped his lips.

  After what seemed like an eternity but could have only been minutes a heavily panting and breathtaking midnight blue colored wolf lay on the operating table. I stepped forward to stand beside the table and touched his fur softly, and with a quite whine he turned around to bury his muzzle against my belly.

  Tears of relief were running down my cheeks. “Shhh, everything’s alright now. It’s probably hard to understand, I know, but you’re a wolf now. You’re alive.” I was so goddamn happy he was alive. I could already see the wounds knitting together, closing in front of my eyes after the boost of shapeshifter magic.

  “If everything goes right and he accepts and learns to control his wolf, he’s going to be okay,” Michel said, completely human again.

  I looked up at him through the watery veil covering my eyes and nodded, “I know. Thank you for helping us.”

  For a split second I saw sadness and something darker flash in his eyes but it was gone the next, his expression unreadable again.

  “I’ll be downstairs,” he told no one in particular, pivoted on his heels and left the room.

  After Fabienne had moved Mathieu into the sick-room and given him some nice, raw steaks to calm his new wolf, she mostly stayed in her office only coming out to check up on Mathieu now and again. He lay quiet; completely knocked out after his body and his magic had fought so hard against the turn. He was still in wolf form, and would remain so until the Blue Moon set.

  Kylian and I sat beside his bed in those typical uncomfortable and hard visitor chairs. Maybe someone should explain to Fabienne that an own personal hospital was just fine, but she wasn’t obligated to adopt every detail.

  For now I was content with being right where I needed to be. I still couldn’t fathom how close I’d come to losing him. Given my profession, my mission, I knew that a life could not only be changed and destroyed but also end in a blink of an eye. From one moment to the next a stable world could collapse. And I accepted those rules, lived with them, knowing that the same rules applied to my own family as well. It’s just that up to now they had succeeded quite well to stay out of the line of fire. I had been goddamn lucky, I realized that now. And keeping Mathieu mostly in the back only to pull him up front whenever I needed him or a drop of acid had been a big mistake.

  After I’d found him nearly dead in that damn basement, after his sunny world had so painfully collided with the dark and lethal one I fought against, I had tried to keep him away, to keep him safe. To preserve his...innocence. It had been a mistake.

  I should have started to train him right away so he would have never been without defenses ever again. Why hadn’t I, though? Because I had been forced so soon to go into the shadows I’d rather liked to run away from? Because I hadn’t wanted for him to face that darkness quite yet? Yes, I thought. He’d been seventeen when I found him, and that bloodsucker had scarred him for life...not only on the outside but also on the inside. The world I fought in was my life, my mission. Not his. He shouldn’t have become a part of it to begin with. Now he’d gotten pulled right into the middle of this mess. And he’d almost paid with his life, for a mista
ke I made. I owed him, and I’d train him as best as I could, hoping that it would be enough.

  Kylian nudged me with his elbow in my side and I snapped out of my thoughts.

  “I’ll go downstairs and see what Michel’s up to.”

  “I’ll come with you,” I said and hurried to stand up.

  He smiled softly at me. “Don’t worry. I’m pretty sure I can handle him. You can stay with Mathieu.”

  I was torn between going and staying but curiosity and the need for vengeance won. “I want to know who did this to Mathieu, I’ll come with you.” Leaning down I dropped a light kiss on Mathieu’s wolf nose.

  Before we left I stuck my head into Fabienne’s office. “We’re downstairs. I need to talk to Michel. Let me know if Mathieu’s condition changes, okay?”

  Fabienne looked up at me from a stack of papers and over her rimmed glasses, offering a comforting smile. “Who do you think I am? Of course, I’ll let you know. But don’t worry about him, he’ll be alright. Might be he’ll have trouble during the changes for quite some time because of the magical interferences with his other half. Other than that...he’s strong and the blood samples I took are very promising. He’ll be alright.”

  My heart lighter I grinned back at her. “Thank you, Fabienne, for everything.”

  Michel’s apartment occupied the second and third floor, and was tastefully furnished in a mix of comfort and stability with soft rugs, warm colors and solid wood. Well, in a house full of shapeshifters the latter was clearly an advantage. It had been the design and creation of Michel’s deceased wife.

  We moved along the hallway.

  “Took you long enough. I knew you’d come. Always in search of justice, always protecting the innocent, huh Maiwenn?” Michel said bitterly as we stepped into the living room.

  He sat on his couch balancing a glass filled with a golden brown liquid in his right hand. Judging by the half emptied bottle of Calvados standing on the table in front of him and his aggressive mood it wasn’t his first glass.

  “Protecting the innocent, my ass.” He went on. Then he jumped to his feet, threw his glass against the wall beside my head and boomed, “You killed my son.” Fury blazing hot in his fierce golden eyes he slowly approached me. “After what we, what I did for you, after all the times we saved you, cooperated with you...this is how you thank me? You couldn’t even give my son or me a chance to fix this?”

  I could see the sadness and unbearable pain in his eyes, and found their echo in my heart but I knew I wasn’t in the wrong here. “You know it would have been hopeless. Once the beast takes over, there’s no coming back. Dammit Michel, you know that as well as I do.”

  He stopped and smiled evilly. “Well, we’ll see how reasonable you’re once you’ll be forced to kill Mathieu. With his fucked-up heritage chances are he’ll go rogue. Even now his body is fighting the wolf inside him.”

  The plain glee underlying his words made my stomach clench as I finally understood. “Is that what this is all about? You attacked Mathieu to take revenge? How could you? The Michel I knew would never do this.”

  Insanity shining bright in his eyes now, he threw up his arms. “Ha, it’s always another’s fault, never yours, of course. Everyone has to answer for his mistakes; but never Maiwenn. No! That council whore has always an answer, always an excuse at the ready. For that alone I’ll love to wring your neck.”

  Then Michel leapt into the air and everything switched into slow motion.

  A warm, strong arm pushed me to the back and I fell down into the hallway. Utterly shocked and with wide eyes I saw Kylian taking over my place as a silvery gray wolf shot into him, ramming him like a bull. Both hit the wall with a crash and tumbled to the floor. Michel went right at Kylian, shredding the arm Kylian held up to protect his face. Then Kylian got his feet free and kicked them full force into the wolf’s chest, throwing him into the other corner of the room where Michel smashed with a howl into the TV. Scrambling to his feet, the wolf shook himself once and then bared his teeth again, madness bright in his eyes, before he once again leapt into the air. This time Kylian duck away at the last second and rammed his right shoulder into the wolf’s gut to then wound his arms around him in a vise-like grip. So instead of ripping Kylian’s throat out Michel only managed to get a slice of Kylian’s ear. Oblivious to the shredding claws and snapping fangs drawing his blood Kylian wrestled with the wolf and managed to nail Michel to the floor. Then he gripped the wolf’s head with both his hands and gave it a strong, sharp jerk.

  It was over.

  Chapter 20

  “What a week!” Viviane exclaimed. “First a crazy Celtic half-god and then the most powerful shapeshifter of France goes rogue. What the hell did we do to deserve that?”

  After Michel’s death Kylian and I had grabbed Fabienne and Mathieu, and had gotten the hell away as fast as we could. We’d gone to my place where we had brought Viviane, Chastel and the ravens up to date while Fabienne had phoned and emailed the pack members to spread the news. And I’d taken a moment to quickly call Madame Chantal Benneteau, the grandmother of the rogue’s first victim to give her the news.

  “Madame Benneteau, this is Maiwenn Cadic, Saints Investigation. I just wanted to inform you that everything’s been taken care of. The case is closed.” There was a heavy sigh at the other end of the line. “Madame Benneteau?” I had asked a little worried.

  “Thank you very much Mademoiselle Cadic. I’m grateful for what you did, don’t believe otherwise. It’s just...I’d expected to feel more...satisfied and peaceful hearing these news.” She had explained in a voice heavy from sadness and pain.

  I had felt with her. “I understand. I understand too well. Revenge is sometimes not as sweet as we’d like it to be. Good bye.”

  Now we were all randomly scattered over the kitchen and the living room, wondering what the hell we’d done to merit such treatment from the higher powers.

  “Nothing,” Kylian answered. “I guess his mother’s death made Michel’s son go crazy and then it was just too much for Michel, to lose both of them in such a short period of time. And he went rogue. It’s an unpredictable and sad chain of reaction.”

  “But that he would do that to Mathieu? I can’t believe it. Alone for that I’d have loved to get a piece of him. Why couldn’t you have left him to us?” Viviane asked.

  With a smile I agreed, “Yeah, why couldn’t you?”

  Kylian scowled and replied dryly, “Well, hell, don’t mention it. You’re welcome.”

  I stifled my laugh, pushed myself off the wall and went over to him. His face and torso were marked with deep and nasty gashes and bruises, and he was bleeding all over my pinewood floor. “Let’s clean those cuts,” I said and dragged him into the bathroom, since Fabienne was in my room, looking after Mathieu.

  While I grabbed everything out of the little cabinet above the sink, I said, “Take off your shirt,” and tried very hard not to glance back at him over my shoulder or into the mirror. Damn. A breath caught in my throat. I tried to ignore my treacherous hormones as I turned around to face a broad, sun-kissed wall of warm, hard muscles, and looked up. A wide, confident grin nearly split his face in half.

  “What are you smiling at?” I scowled, and started to clean his wounds.

  “Several things, actually. The fact that this reminds me of the first day we met. Then I happened to notice you’re more and more nervous around me.” I snorted at that, not very lady-like but he ignored me and continued, “And if you had really meant the let’s-keep-it-professional-bullshit you shouldn’t gobble me up with your eyes like that.”

  I didn’t grind my teeth. Instead I looked him directly into his now blue and laughing eyes, meeting the hot and dangerous challenge they were holding.

  “Fine, I admit I’m attracted to you but I don’t want to act on it since you’ll soon go back to the States. Happy now?”

  “You know, for some women that would be the exact same reason to act on it.”

  “Well, hate to di
sappoint you but I’m not some women,” I countered while I saw to his wounds.

  Suddenly he cupped my face in his hands and forced me to look at him again. His hands were wonderfully warm and abrasive, and at his touch a flash of heat went through me, all the way to my toes, tugging at all the right places.

  “Do I look disappointed?” His voice was a whisper, an erotic caress.

  I swallowed before I answered him huskily, “No.” He looked hungry.

  His gaze raked over me, over my face, locking on my lips. “And you’re right, I’ll go back to the States. Tonight even. So please, Maiwenn let me take this with me.”

  Delicious warmth spread through my body as he slowly lowered his head, giving me time to protest. I didn’t, I couldn’t.

  Then his lips were on mine and everything else except for his shape and taste and scent ceased from existence. I opened up, and let him in. I groaned at his intoxicating taste of hot, dark man, and wound my arms around his neck to keep from drowning.

  He angled his head to the side as his tongue swept past my teeth, and sank deep. Demanding total surrender he claimed me. Our tongues thrusting eager, he moaned low in his throat.

  I pulled away and stared at him. He stared back at me. We were both heavily panting, surprised by the unexpected force of the heat and hunger. I licked my lips, and then bit it as his lingering taste flooded my system once more.

  He groaned and his eyes, still fixed on my mouth, darkened with want. “Don’t do that.”

  “Right.” Where did my brains go? Anyone seen my brains? When I was finally able to handle so much as a simple thought, I added, “Maybe we should go back outside before the others begin to wonder what’s taking us so long?”

  He pulled his shirt over his head, and then grinned smugly. “Anybody takes a look at you and there won’t be any room left for wondering.”

  I shot a glance at my reflection in the mirror. He was right. My face was flushed from desire, my skin was reddened from his whiskers and my lips were swollen from his kiss.