Zombie Moon

by Lori Devoti

  Caleb…his own comfort with being naked…his strange conversation with Anita about wolves…the dog Linda… Piece after piece fell into place and all of them added to the same picture, the same disturbingly obvious picture.

  Caleb was a werewolf. Her fingers went limp. She stared blindly at the open drawer in front of her, couldn’t see the knives, couldn’t see anything. The man she had made love to, loved, wasn’t the action hero in her fantasy. He was one of the monsters.

  She had jumped out of one fire and into the arms of an inferno.

  Somewhere along the way, Caleb had lost track of time. The sun was already edging up over the horizon when he approached the camp. The pack had returned. They were gathered around the bonfire, soaking in the warmth radiating off the embers and reliving their time running under the moon.

  Still in his wolf form and still hidden from their sight by the trees, he watched them. None seemed aware that the building filled with humans had burned, that every person inside it was gone. He wondered how many of the werewolves knew what Anita was doing. Wondered how many of them would care.

  Those people had heard about the pack and what it offered from somewhere. Caleb guessed at least some, if not most, had been brought here by the werewolves gathered around the fire. Perhaps the entire pack was in on Anita’s moneymaking scheme. Perhaps they purposely invited the weak with the bait of becoming a werewolf, knowing those invitees would be switched to zombie.

  Two men dressed only in jeans walked past him with coolers. Three others placed metal racks around the edges of the fire. They were preparing for the monthly pack breakfast, a tradition almost as sacred as the run itself.

  After a night in wolf form, running through the trees, the group would be famished. They would tear through at least three sides of beef, and most of a hog.

  A woman stirred the fire, testing the coals, then lined steaks up on one of the grills. Caleb’s stomach rumbled.

  He ignored his body’s demand.

  He was here to find both Anita and Samantha.

  Samantha first. He lowered his nose to the ground. Her scent headed toward the fire. If he wanted to find her, he would have to reveal himself. And since the others had already shifted back to their human forms, he needed to also.

  Already mourning the loss of his fur in the cold temperatures, he bowed his head and concentrated on changing. Going from wolf to human was less painful, but that didn’t mean it was easy. Some basic part of him fought the shift each time. He’d heard other werewolves speak of the feeling, too, but they were all part of a pack. That kept their wolf happy. For a rogue like Caleb, it was harder. His wolf resented the lack of a pack, and each time Caleb shifted to wolf, his animal nature objected shifting back. If he couldn’t find a human pack to join with, his wolf wanted him to go wolf, stay wolf.

  It was a struggle Caleb was used to, and one he might someday lose. But not today. He shoved aside his wolf’s objections by concentrating on Samantha. He couldn’t approach her as a wolf; not without her seeing him as a killer.

  His wolf seemed to accept his reasoning, and released its hold on him with relative ease.

  In seconds he was standing on two feet, naked in the woods. He strode forward into the open clearing. The werewolves didn’t react, but he knew they all realized he didn’t belong.

  He didn’t have the scent of the pack on him. In their eyes he was an interloper, a threat to the pack. It spoke to his reputation and how he carried himself that they didn’t jump on him and try to tear him to bits.

  He stopped a few feet from the circle and waited for the most dominant of them to address him. A man, one of the two who had carried the cooler, walked closer.

  “You have business here, rogue?”

  Caleb caught the inside of his cheek between his teeth. “It’s none of yours. Where’s Anita?” He was more interested in finding Samantha, but the easiest way to defuse this guy’s testosterone boner was to make it clear he wasn’t afraid to stare down the alpha.

  As he suspected, at his question the guy lifted his chin and grunted. After a quick slide of his eyes to the other weres who watched them from the fire, he replied, “She isn’t back yet.”

  Caleb let his gaze wander over the camp. “Guess I’ll just have to wait then.”

  The male puffed out his chest and took a step closer. “Don’t get comfortable.” Then he stalked back to his now sizzling breakfast.

  His arms loose at his sides, Caleb made his disinterest clear. Anita’s absence had given him a perfect excuse to stay at the camp until he could find Samantha. He also, however, had to wonder why the alpha wasn’t with her pack. Leaving them alone with an obviously weak second-in-command was, well, stupid.

  But then Anita had been displaying a lot of stupid lately.

  After a few minutes the pack’s attention returned to their festivities. Caleb waited a few more moments until he was positive they wouldn’t notice him wandering around, and then continued his search for Samantha. He moved slowly, as if he had no agenda, and was just killing time while he waited for the alpha. The second-in-command didn’t even glance at him, and the few others who did dropped their gazes when he turned his attention on them.

  Anita’s pack might be wealthy, but they were weak.

  In Caleb’s book, strength of mind, body and spirit was what made a werewolf, not a thick wallet. But then the pack’s strength was not his concern. In fact, their weakness worked to his advantage. He should have been praising Anita’s failings, but he couldn’t help but feel this new pack somehow reflected poorly on him, too. He couldn’t help letting it annoy him.

  Vexed with himself that he was so conflicted, he shoved his thoughts of the pack aside and concentrated on splitting Samantha’s scent off from the multitude of others that had traveled through the camp in the last few hours.

  It didn’t take him long to realize where she had gone. The cafeteria.

  She was lucky the weather was nice enough the pack had opted to cook outside this morning.

  He glanced at the group. Their meat was done and they were all engaged in stuffing as much as they could into their mouths.

  If no one had noticed Caleb moving closer to the cafeteria before now, he was clear to do as he pleased for at least the next ten minutes. It would take them that long to reduce the pile of meat to nothing but gnawed bones.

  He would only need two.

  He strode toward the cafeteria’s closed door.

  Samantha had searched the kitchen, pulled out drawers and dumped them on the floor. She hadn’t found as much as a silver thimble.

  But then she wouldn’t, would she? Not here in a werewolf camp.

  Werewolf… She found it hard to accept, but she had to believe the impossible. Hadn’t she already accepted zombies? But this…

  There was a thump in the front room, in the seating area of the cafeteria. Someone had opened the door.

  Her gaze shot around the kitchen. There was a window over the sink, facing the woods not the camp where she had last seen the werewolves gathered. She raced toward it. “Samantha.”

  The voice stopped her. Caleb. She was almost to the sink, almost to the window and freedom. She stared at the square of glass. While she had been hidden in the cafeteria, it had grown light outside. She could see the pines behind the building. “Samantha?”

  The question in his voice made her pause. She had to be wrong. He couldn’t be a werewolf. If she gave him a chance, he could explain everything she’d seen.

  She turned to him.

  He was naked, and blood stained his chest.

  Her stomach cramped and she stepped back, closer to the window. Her foot hit something…a knife. She could feel the blade under her shoe.

  She hadn’t been able to use such a weapon on Allison. Could she use it on Caleb? Even if she could, would it stop him? Slow him, even?

  Her eyelids fluttered, but she didn’t let them close. She wanted to shut them, to block out the swirl of emotion threatening to engulf her.
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br />   Caleb had raised his hand, but as she moved he lowered it.

  She took another step backward. Her butt hit the edge of the sink.

  He didn’t move. His face paled; his jaw hardened.

  “Allison is dead,” she murmured, although she knew in her gut he already knew it. Her gaze locked onto his chest.

  He glanced down and touched the ruddy stains on his skin.

  When he looked back, she could see the truth in his eyes.

  She twirled back toward the sink, boosted her body up onto the counter and escaped through the window.

  Caleb didn’t try to stop her. He didn’t even move.

  Chapter 19

  W ind blew through the open window over the kitchen sink. A chill shot through Caleb.

  Samantha knew. She knew he was a werewolf, knew he had killed Allison.

  He didn’t know how, but he could guess. She had been hiding in the cafeteria where windows looked out onto the fire. She had to have seen something that told her the camp’s purpose. After that the rest would have fallen neatly and quickly into place.

  He took in the state of the kitchen. Knives were scattered over the floor.

  Yes, she had known.

  And she had been afraid of him.

  How could he blame her?

  The overhead lights buzzed to life.

  Anita stepped into the room. “You’re an idiot.”

  At that moment, feeling the way he did, he couldn’t argue the fact.

  Sensing his weakness like a piranha sniffing blood, the alpha sashayed forward. “Jake said you were looking for me.” She glanced around the kitchen. “But I’m guessing you were looking for someone else. Someone not so interested in being found, at least by you.”

  A growl rose in Caleb’s throat.

  Anita either missed the sound or was too caught up in her moment to pay it any mind. “Weres and humans don’t mix. I thought you at least accepted that. You choose to be a were, you leave everything human behind, and you don’t look back.”

  “Everything? How about those high-paying jobs you’re so proud of your pack holding?” Caleb jerked his head toward the cafeteria and the circle of werewolves gathered around the fire beyond it.

  She snorted. “You know what I mean. Involvement, commitments.”

  “But not money. You need that human money, don’t you, Anita?” The annoyance he’d felt earlier toward the alpha and what she was doing to her pack returned with the kick of two mules.

  Her teeth flashed. “Yes, I do.”

  No apology. No explanation.

  Her arrogance was just one of the reasons she was alpha, but it could also be her downfall.

  “Well, you’re going to have to survive with less of it.” He had lost Samantha. No, he corrected himself, he’d never had Samantha…not really. She hadn’t known what he was. She hadn’t made love to a werewolf. She had made love to a myth.

  So, he hadn’t lost her. He had never had her to lose.

  But the man creating zombies… The man responsible if not for his parents’ death, then the deaths of many other people’s parents, brothers and sisters…Caleb wouldn’t lose him.

  Which meant Anita was about to take a big cut in income.

  Nothing but good in that, Caleb thought. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against a counter in a deceptively casual pose.

  “I saw the building. You were supposed to be inside it,” she said.

  He opened his mouth in a mockery of shock. “What? No ‘I’m so glad you are safe’? No claims of relief?”

  She grunted. “You have no use to the pack, and the pack has no use for you.”

  He didn’t care how she felt about him. He didn’t care that she wanted him dead.

  Right now the feeling was mutual.

  The anger he’d been holding inside exploded. He rushed toward her, his hands wrapping around her throat before she could step to the side.

  She bared her teeth and did her best to use her status of alpha and the magnetic power holding the position gave her to force him to cower.

  But her supposed superiority held no influence on him. It never had.

  He shook her like a cat shaking a mouse. Her feet swung side to side before she gained control of them and started kicking, aiming for his gut, his groin, any part within her reach. He felt the blows, but they were like a rap with a ruler—annoying but no deterrent from his goal.

  This battle had been a long time coming. He’d avoided it for one simple reason: He knew when it happened he would kill her.

  Her fingernails dug into his arms, drawing blood. She lashed out, swiping at him, dragging her nails across his cheek.

  He shook her harder.

  She symbolized everything that had been taken from him, every lie he had believed…chosen to believe. “Alpha!”

  Anita’s second-in-command, the broad-chested, simple-minded lout who had confronted Caleb outside, stood in the doorway between the cafeteria and kitchen, his face drawn in shock.

  Caleb glanced down at the female in his hands, saw what the other male saw. Anita had turned blue. Her eyes bulged and her hands had stopped swiping at Caleb; they hung limply at her sides instead.

  Caleb stared from the male to the woman hanging like a broken toy from his hands.

  She had lied to him, but he’d known it at the time. He had chosen to believe being a werewolf would solve all his problems. He had come to her, blocked out all the truths he didn’t want to see or hear.

  Anita wasn’t his enemy. He was.

  He glanced to the side, stared at the window that Samantha had escaped through. Then he opened his hands and let Anita fall to the ground.

  He moved to step over her, but she rolled onto her back and grabbed him around the calf. He lifted his foot with every intention of smashing her in the face.

  Her eyes begged him to do it. He’d beaten her. Even now she grappled for air. And, worse than that, her second-in-command had witnessed her defeat. Her role as alpha was over. As far as Anita was concerned her life was over.

  Slowly he pulled his foot back and set it down on the floor, inches from her face. He could feel her exhale. Sorrow and acceptance flowed from her.

  The power in the room shifted. It was his now, if he wanted it. All he had to do was claim it, claim the pack, claim everything Anita held dear.

  Her second stood as he had when he’d entered the room. As Caleb lowered his boot, the other man looked up. His gaze lit on Caleb for a moment only, then dropped to the floor, recognizing Caleb as his superior.

  Annoyed that he’d let himself get pulled into the center of werewolf politics, Caleb snapped his head toward the male.

  The werewolf held out a note. “This came for…” His gaze darted toward Anita, but he pulled back short of actually looking at her.

  Caleb didn’t bother glancing down, either. If Anita was conscious, she was doing her best to act as if she wasn’t.

  Annoyed anew, he grabbed the note from the man’s outstretched hand.

  The sealed envelope had Anita’s name scrawled on the outside. Without sparing her a glance, Caleb ripped it open.

  I found one. You owe me 49.

  It took a second for him to read the note, less for rage to boil up inside him.

  The doctor had Samantha. She was the only “one” the doctor could be referring to. He must have grabbed her as she ran from the camp while trying to escape Caleb.

  Caleb grabbed the alpha by the front of her shirt. With a growl, he jerked her to her feet. Her knees bent; only his hold kept her from collapsing back onto the floor.

  He held the note up to her face, inches from her nose. “Where?” he demanded.

  Her eyes rolled side to side, from him to the male who still stood watching them.

  Caleb jerked around to face him. “Leave. And no word to anyone what you saw here. Understand?”

  With a nod, the male scurried from the building.

  After the door had closed behind him, Caleb dropped Anita onto
a countertop. She lay on her side, rubbing her throat and licking her dry lips.

  “You should have killed me,” she muttered.

  “I still can,” he replied. If she didn’t talk soon, he would. He wouldn’t be able to stop his wolf from completing the act. He could already feel the beast snapping at his subconscious.

  She laid her hands to the side as if telling him to go ahead.

  He cursed and shoved the note back into her face. “I don’t want you dead. I don’t want your pack. Take me to where he is.”

  She pushed herself to a slumping sit. “It doesn’t matter. After what Jake saw, it’s over for me.”

  “Maybe my time’s up. Maybe you’ll get lucky and this doctor will be my downfall.”

  “I’m not that lucky,” she scoffed, then shook her head. “And it doesn’t matter. Even if you die, it won’t regain what I lost.” She squared her gaze on him. “Not unless I kill you.” She laughed again. “But we both know I won’t…I can’t.”

  She had never admitted that truth openly before.

  Caleb felt sorry for her. Almost.

  “Maybe you can,” he replied.

  She lifted one brow. “Maybe I misjudged you. Maybe you are more insane than I even guessed.”

  He dropped the note onto the counter beside her. “Like I said, I don’t want you dead and I don’t want your pack. I definitely don’t want to be alpha. But I do want him.”

  She dropped her attention to the note. “And what he has? This ‘one’—it isn’t a were. I would know if it was.”

  Caleb’s lips thinned. “Dead, he will have nothing.”

  Anita twisted her lips, but didn’t push him. “And you’ll let me kill you to get him?” Her voice was both skeptical and hopeful. “I don’t believe you.”

  “I’ll let you capture me. I’ll let you trade me for one or all of the forty-nine he says you owe. Wouldn’t that be close enough?”

  Looking more alive now, she frowned. “Maybe, but the capture would have to be good.”

  He shrugged. “Of course.”