Luna

by Stella Fitzsimons

  I was speechless, my eyes slowly widened.

  He nodded. “Too soon?”

  “Emmet.” I really didn’t know what else to say.

  “If you were staying here,” he said, trying to explain, “I wouldn’t be acting like this. I wouldn’t be moving so fast. I’d have the proper amount of cool guy patience, you know. Wait three days to call and all that.”

  “It’s all good, Emmet. You’re busy and I’m leaving. Shit timing.”

  Part of me wished I could confide in him, but to do that in even the smallest way would include me telling him I was a witch. I would not insult him with a veil of lies about a sucky day at work and I would not tell him the truth that the face rippers and soul swallowers were on their way.

  “Shit timing,” he repeated.

  The only sane thing to do was to tell him I was not interested in a relationship right now and send him away. It did not matter how much I liked him. I had to cut him loose, period.

  “So, fuck it,” he said. “Romance be damned. I needed to see a friendly face and I think maybe you did as well. No worries about the future.”

  His fabricated energy quickly faded. He seemed very tense.

  “Emmet, what’s up? Did something happen?”

  “Yes,” he said, reluctantly. “At the hospital, we lost someone.”

  I took his hand. “I’m so sorry.”

  He nodded. His eyes moistened. “She was ten. Just ten years old.”

  I took up his hand in both my hands now.

  “You can train for every possible medical scenario, but you can’t train for this feeling,” he said. “Textbooks teach coping strategies and how to shift your focus to the death’s impact on the family, but there is no method to forget the light in a little girl’s face or her mother’s face when that light goes out. I can’t just tuck it all away and go back to being same old Emmet Groshek.”

  He held his face in his hands. Emmet was breaking down. I knew it wasn’t from a single incident, no matter how horrible, but a totality. Maybe it was the cumulation of years of study and sacrifice and the loneliness of that life, mixed with the terrible things, and even the fleeting things like our friendship.

  We can never know completely what causes another’s mortal anguish, but we can comfort them as I wanted to comfort Emmet.

  I draped my arm around his powerful back. I touched his sad face and wiped back his hair so I could kiss his temple softly.

  “Emmet, I’m here. Let me hold you.”

  He sucked in a sob. “That’s all I need.”

  His forehead nestled against my neck. I ran my fingers through his hair. He released a lifetime of tension in one long breath. His big hands fell onto my thighs. My mind lost all desire to form coherent thoughts.

  You’ve gone too far, Luna Mae.

  My whole being lost the will to resist. His mouth found mine. We kissed passionately as he drew me closer. He gently bit my lip and then forged a path of tiny kisses down to my neck, causing shivers that ran to my very core.

  This went against every decision I had made in the past forty-eight hours, but I found it impossible to pull myself away from Emmet.

  “Do you want me to stop?” he whispered into my ear.

  He had given me the perfect out, but instead of taking it, I slipped my hands under his t-shirt. The defined, lean muscles along his back and shoulders tensed at my touch. I hurried to pull his shirt over his head.

  I marveled at the sculpted power of his tanned chest. My hands eagerly went for his firm pecs, shuddering to feel the frenzied beating of his heart.

  I kept telling myself I was about to stop, but Emmet pressed his strong body against mine. It felt so good—he felt so good, so warm and exciting.

  It wasn’t like me to be so impulsive. I didn’t know what the future held and if this one night was all we could have, then so be it.

  Guys like casual hook-ups, acting so desperate for that first time, only to lose urgency once they’ve had a woman. Maybe this would help him move on.

  I lay back on the sofa, my brain turning to goo as Emmet’s hands and lips seemingly traveled everywhere at once.

  “Sophie,” he said through thin breaths. “I want you. Do you want me?”

  “Yes, Emmet,” I whispered, feeling raw need pulsing in my veins. I wrapped my legs around him to pull him closer.

  My lips parted as I gasped. My eyes rolled back and closed and then—

  The door was loudly kicked in and Emmet and I looked dumbly at Winter standing in the door frame. He stormed into the apartment, wielding a curved katana sword in his right hand.

  His eyes burned like hot coals. “Disentangle from that man,” he hissed.

  I sat up, quickly. “Seriously, dude? A fucking sword?”

  “Luna, get out. I’ll take care of this.” His words came out intense and deliberate, leaving no room for protest.

  Did he just use my lunar name in front of a basic?

  Emmet went pale. He took my hand. “Sophie, who is this guy?”

  This night… fucking hell.

  I faced Winter. “I’m not going anywhere. What’s going on? And what do you have against my door? This is getting ridiculous.”

  He flipped the sword upside down, tip to the ground. “Do you have any idea with what man you are consorting?”

  Consorting? What’s happening?

  “You know him?” I said.

  Emmet sprang up, putting his shirt back on. “Why is he acting like he owns you, Sophie?” he said, looking ready to pounce.

  Oh boy.

  “Nobody owns me. He’s just, ah—”

  Winter stepped in front of me, cutting me off. “Have you been around this shapeshifter before?”

  Shapeshifter. The word hit me like a fist in the stomach.

  “Their aura doesn’t register, Luna. Not when they don’t want it to.”

  Emmet growled. He actually-fucking-growled.

  I reeled back, suddenly dizzy. The only thing that kept my brain from turning to jelly was the fear that those two would go at each other and Emmet would end up really hurt—or worse.

  “You’ve finally gone nuts,” I told Winter, but my heart wasn’t in it. I knew by now he spoke the truth and, besides, I was drowning in memories of the night Emmet and I had met at that sports bar.

  Winter fixed his eyes on Emmet. “It’s not easy to spot a shapeshifter,” he said, “but this one reeks of it.”

  “I can’t feel the slightest trace of magic,” I said, avoiding Emmet’s eyes, afraid of what I might see in them.

  “Their auras are utterly unique. They do not originate from the Deep Down and so do not rely on relatable fields of magic. Learning to recognize them is a lost art.”

  “Why won’t you say something, Emmet?” I pleaded.

  He glanced to me vacantly, unblinking as if I had betrayed him.

  “Is it true, Dr. Groshek?”

  He considered my words. “His mention of shapeshifters does not surprise you in the least. How do you know about such things, Sophie?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You weren’t surprised in the slightest to hear him talk about shapeshifters as if they’re real. Why is that?”

  “Wait, you don’t know why I would know?”

  “No, that’s why I’m asking. Please, enlighten me.”

  “Oh, please,” Winter said. “You may have not known what he is, Luna, but he knew what you are, trust me.”

  Faint golden sparks glided over Emmet’s irises. There was a belligerence in those eyes and not a speck of fear. He either had no clue what Winter was or he really believed he could take on an Immortal.

  “Emmet, just go,” I said. “This is my apartment, not a battleground.”

  In a single breath, he was by my side. “Will you be safe?”

  “She will. When you’re gone,” Winter said, swinging the sword forward, stopping the blade inches from Emmet’s throat.

  Emmet laughed a little as he stepped back and circled to
the door. His gait was incredibly light and flowing. How had I missed that? And where had my sweet, uncertain Emmet gone? Vanished out of existence? Had he ever existed?

  The walls closed in. Everything I had felt for him, everything I believed he felt for me, were lies.

  I sensed Winter standing behind me. “Let me guess,” he said. “He was too good to be true. Your first encounter had a flare for the dramatic.”

  I stayed silent, feeling more and more like a complete fool.

  Winter walked to the fridge. “There’s another fucking task on my plate. I’ll have to investigate this playboy shifter to see who he is and, more importantly, how he found you. That’s all I needed.”

  “You could just kill him. That’s what you do, isn’t it?” I regretted the words the second they had escaped my lips.

  If he heard me, he didn’t react. “I don’t have time for this shit.”

  I laughed. “Wouldn’t time be of little concern to Immortals?”

  In one stride, Winter stood inches away, breathing down onto my face. He clutched a can of root beer in his hand. My root beer. “Good idea,” he said. “Upon your suggestion, I might kill him after all.”

  I realized I didn’t want Emmet dead, not even if he had been playing me from the start. Not even if he was a morph operative. “Don’t you dare, do you hear me? Leave him alone, whatever he is.”

  “Oh, is that love baring its teeth?” he said, quite amused.

  “Leaving him alone is a new condition of my cooperation.”

  His eyes narrowed into his trademark, mocking squint. “The perils of working with a witch, known love mongers, crippled by sentimentality. What is that humans say? Ah, yes, I remember, there’s one born every minute.”

  “Better than feeling nothing,” I said under my breath.

  He looked injured. “Makes sense. You’re both moon creatures. The lunar witch and the wolf shifter. Both so weak, so fucking predictable.”

  A wolf. Dear god.

  “Promise you won’t hurt him.”

  “That creature does not matter to me,” he said. “It’s you. If you forget him, then I can forget him. From now on, you will do exactly as I say.”

  “Fine. For how long?”

  “For as long as necessary,” he said. “First edict is that you will no longer mate with that wolf boy. If he shows up, you come to me. If he calls, you let me know immediately. If he sends you a letter, you hasten to deliver it to my hands. And, most importantly, if you dream about him, you wake and call me.”

  Geez, drama queen much?

  I didn’t dare to ask, but I deemed it obvious that Emmet wasn’t a morph shifter. There was no way Winter’s Immortal ass would not have gloated.

  Now my turn. “Dude, I’ll listen and whatever, but stop busting down my door, for one, and you do not have the right to stalk me, follow me, barge into my free time like a crazy clown invader. I have a life, even if it’s about to end.”

  He reached inside his back pocket. “I was returning your phone. I heard it jingle in my car. When I got to the door, I sensed the wolf. I feared you were in danger. It didn’t cross my mind it was mating season.”

  “Not funny,” I said.

  “On that we can agree,” he said.

  “You’re infuriating,” I said. “Has anyone ever told you that?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Throughout all the ages of man.”

  I tried not to smile and failed.

  “Enough trifling banter,” he said, firmly. “You will stand in front of the Council on Thursday.”

  My head spun. “In two days?”

  “Clearly, you need a directive. The sooner you speak the oath the better.”

  Did he say oath? What type of indoctrination were they planning?

  He rubbed the back of his neck, pensively. “If you have any sense at all, you won’t willingly offer information to the Magistrates unless they have asked for it directly.” His voice turned into a raspy whisper. “And you won’t repeat anything that I have told you or shown you.”

  “What dark secret are you hiding?”

  He raised the sword so that it hid half of his face. “My leniency.”

  Holy shit. Winter was a gentle Immortal?

  He stepped through the door but stopped on the top step. “Don’t you think of bailing out, Luna Mae. The ones you love are not on my kill list, yet, but you’ll find that I am very practical at getting what I need.”

  I shut the door gently, then leaned back against it. My heart had not stopped racing since I had first touched Emmet. His kisses lingered on my lips while Winter’s words lingered in my head.

  If I was a shifter, I would have changed into a rock.

  CHAPTER 18

  ____________________________________

  My eyes stung. I blinked incessantly as I adjusted to the intense orange light after being in the dark for what seemed like hours.

  Someone had removed the hood from my head, blinding me for a moment. I was in a large room. I straightened my hair. I was wearing it in a high ponytail, but the forceful removal of the hood had pulled out a bunch of strands from the hair band.

  Everything came into focus. The walls were wood paneled. The carpet was overly plush and very art deco. Two golden statues of double-headed eagles, the Immortal heraldic symbol, stood on pedestals on each side of wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling burgundy drapes.

  I could not find the source of the bright light. Strange. I turned, expecting to find guards behind me, but I was surprisingly all alone.

  Winter disappeared a moment after we entered a black limo. He slipped a brown hood over my head and told me not to take it off for any reason.

  I had sensed some presence in the limo besides the driver but quickly fell into a haze. I had no memory of how long the car ride had been or who had helped me out of the car and into a never-ending maze of staircases.

  The Seventh Council was the most powerful secret society in the history of the world. They were extremely lethal and calculated. They had held actual rule over many regions and countries in the past under assumed personas.

  From Nebuchadnezzar II to Darius the Great, there had been plenty of members of the Seventh Council out in the open world running the show.

  Even among Immortals the Seventh Council was feared.

  In the modern era, the council worked mostly in the shadows. The growing prevalence of technology and now universal surveillance had caused a new mission statement and complete withdrawal from public life. Technology and weapons of war were easy enough for Immortals to defeat, but that would mean the basics would learn of their existence. The Earth would become a warzone and billions would fall, mostly basics. The Immortal imperative had always been to control the billions, not eliminate them.

  Now this new foe, Chaos, and his bloodthirsty morph legions threatened to make a mess of the very world the Immortals had spent millennia building.

  The light dimmed. I felt my chest rise and fall as I tried to stay calm.

  The burgundy drapes slid open with a faint hiss, revealing a dark, slightly-elevated stage. A pressure squeezed my throat as a soft glow sprang forth and lit the stage. Six Magistrates sat on ornate, red-velvet chairs.

  A seventh, taller chair sat unused in the middle. A chill filled my lungs when I realized the throne-like seat must be reserved for the fabled Grand Magistrate, whose name alone evoked fear in all the souls who dwelled deep and all the charmed souls who walked the Earth.

  I searched for Winter’s face among the Magistrates in vain. Instead, I managed to draw the attention of one of the female Magistrates who fixed her gaze on me like a hawk on a field mouse.

  Tall, blonde, with a straight nose and sharp features, it’d be difficult to guess her age if she was basic. Most would place her somewhere in her thirties. Her blue eyes had penetrating power, making me feel like I was shrinking like a drying sponge. She might be considered attractive, if you could get past that look in her eyes that she’d gladly eat you alive.

&nbs
p; This was bad. Being at the mercy of six, maybe seven, members of the Seventh Council usually meant your life was past the point of no return. I was literally sitting in the worst seat in all the worlds. As crazy as it sounded, I desperately craved Winter’s presence.

  Better the devil you know and all that jazz.

  A gong sounded somewhere deep below. Two guards arrived at my sides. They wore heavy black armor and carried wide-blade swords. Their big hands landed on my shoulders, immobilizing me.

  The Magistrates rose to their feet.

  “His Majesty Grand Magistrate and Eternal Ruler Supreme Düsternis,” the guards announced with one voice.

  Oh god.

  Düsternis. They might as well have called him the devil himself. An Immortal so powerful he let his true name be known across factions and clans of the magic world.

  I clutched onto the amulet around my neck, hoping that Faion would be able to witness and document everything. We had opened a connective path between us last night, exchanging amulets infused with our own blood.

  If anything were to happen to me, Faion was to warn the Lunar Order.

  I felt a sudden, insatiable panic that everything would go wrong. My magic felt small and subdued since stepping into the Immortal realm.

  Even so, frail sparkles lingered beneath my skin, shimmering like thin breaths on a cold day, waiting for a chance to reassert their full force.

  True to his nature, Düsternis made a dramatic entrance. A white spotlight shone on him. His long, red cape floated across the stage, giving the impression his feet never touched the ground. His straight hair reached his shoulders, dark brown sprinkled with silver. His trimmed beard had more salt than pepper. He was built like a bull.

  In his left hand, Düsternis held an eagle-headed scepter made of gold with silver detailing. It was rumored that he was six thousand years old and one phase away from becoming divine, but his ambition was a better match for the temporal world than it was for the mystical halls of the Eternals.

  Düsternis hungered power and intimidation, hardly godlike.

  His voice boomed. “Are we now in the presence of the low-level servant of Selene?”

  No one answered. I guess that was a rhetorical question.

  His godly eyes latched onto mine. I swallowed even though there was no spit left in my mouth. I somehow knew it was not an answer from me that he wanted.