by Rebecca York
“Yeah.”
“And thanks for saving our lives,” he added.
The three agents walked down the hall, and Brand stepped back into the bathroom.
Tory was sitting up, her gaze riveted on him.
Wishing he could read her expression, he said, “You told me you felt like you’d bonded with me. A werewolf bonds with his lifemate. Although I don’t know what happens if she decides she can’t cope with a werewolf mate.”
He reached out a hand to her, and when she took it, he let out a long sigh as he helped her up. At least she was willing to let him touch her.
But her next comment was far from reassuring.
“You should have told me,” she said in a strangled voice. “Before we made love, you should have told me what kind of creature you were.”
The word creature stung, and he wanted to tell her to take him or leave him. But of course those were words he simply couldn’t utter. Instead he tried to make her understand what he was feeling. “I was in love with you,” he said in a voice he couldn’t quite hold steady, “and I was terrified that you would walk away from me. If you want to call that ‘taking the coward’s way out,’ go ahead.”
He saw a raft of expressions chase themselves across her face, and he thought for a moment that she might reach for him. Instead she turned away.
Behind him someone cleared his throat. It was Cole. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, thanks to you guys.” He gestured toward the body on the floor. “It seems Denato wasn’t dead. Apparently he and Freemont had plots and counterplots. I guess Denato was going to take the money and disappear. Freemont must have realized he needed a way to find Denato’s stash.
“Denato was waiting for Tory to come back and get the loot. He thought she was working with Freemont. Nice guys.”
The other werewolf eyed the way Brand and Tory stood stiffly in the confined space.
“We were barricaded in here,” Brand clipped out. “There was only one way I could take him down.”
Cole knelt beside the body. “He died of a gunshot wound.”
“Good,” Brand said.
Tory was staring at Cole. She looked from him to Brand and back again. “At the Refuge, I heard an animal growl in back of Freemont. You said it was you.”
“Yeah.”
“You said you were good at making animal sounds.”
“I am.”
“Like Brand is?” she clarified.
“Yes.”
“You said you were married.”
“Yes. Very happily married,” he answered, obviously giving her an unspoken message. “For the record, Emma found out about me the way you found out about Brand. And I don’t wear a ring because it would mangle my paw.”
Brand saw Tory press her hands against her sides and take several deep breaths. Looking at Ben, she asked. “Are you one, too?”
“No. But I touch dead people and get their last memories.”
“What?”
“Most Decorah agents have special talents.”
Nick cleared his throat. “If I focus my concentration, I can make myself disappear.”
Tory nodded slowly, taking in a lot of information at once.
“We should get out of here,” Cole said.
“After we get the money,” Brand answered. “Denato told us where to find it.”
Tory stared at him. “We’re going to keep it?”
“Yeah, Decorah can do a lot of good with it. We might as well stuff it in some of those gourmet popcorn boxes.”
Brand turned and walked back to the bedroom, thinking he’d wanted to tell Tory about the wolf in private. Instead there had been a whole lot of witnesses to her reaction.
With a grimace, he started banging his heel against the floorboards until he found a hollow place.
“Bring me a knife from the kitchen,” he said to Ben.
When the other agent returned to the bedroom, Brand used the knife to pry up a couple of boards. Inside were cardboard boxes filled with bills in large denominations. Brand riffled through one and whistled. “Looks like half a mil in this one. And we don’t even need the popcorn boxes.”
Each of the agents took two boxes. Tory looked like she didn’t want to touch Denato’s money, but she agreed to take another box.
There were still boxes under the floor when Brand put the boards back. “Maybe the people who buy the condo will have a nice surprise.”
“What about Denato?” Cole asked. “I mean, what are the cops going to think?”
“I put the gun back in his hand,” Nick said. “There’s gunshot residue on his hand and bullet holes all over the place. As far as anyone can tell, he was in a gun battle.”
“As well as a dogfight,” Cole added. “The ME should have fun with that.”
Brand looked at Tory who had kept on her gloves. His own were gone, but he wiped down any surfaces he might have touched in the bathroom.
“Kept your head down,” Brand reminded Tory as they took the elevator to the basement level and returned to the van.
She answered with a small nod.
He wanted to take her aside and have it out with her, but he knew that would have to wait until after they flew back to Beltsville.
In the van, Nick called Frank to report that they were safely out of the condo—and that they were bringing a little present from the Big Apple. He skipped any details that they’d be discussing at Decorah headquarters.
There was a minimum of conversation on the trip back. None of the other guys dared to make any comments about the frozen silence between Brand and Tory.
He kept glancing at her, alternating between wanting to pull her into his arms and wanting to bang his head against the bulkhead. This was his fault. She was right. He should have come clean with her.
When they arrived at Decorah headquarters, Frank came out to meet them. Brand glanced at the other men. “Can you report? Tory and I have to talk.”
“Yes,” Cole answered.
Brand turned to her. “There are private rooms in the back.”
At least she followed him inside to one of the lounges where the staff could relax. He closed the door, thinking about locking it but deciding that was probably going too far at the moment.
“You have something to say?” Tory asked.
“What I’d like to do is take you back to the safe house and fuck your eyeballs out until you acknowledge how good we are together.”
“That’s a great way to describe making love. Is that how a werewolf cements the relationship between him and his mate?” she shot back.
“In olden times. Now he talks to her, too.”
“And what are you offering me, exactly?” she asked.
“A husband who . . .”
“Husband,” she interrupted. “You said I was your lifemate.”
“Yes. But I’m not going to chain you in a cave. We’d be married. Like Cole and Emma,” he said. “Or my cousin Ross and his wife, Megan.”
“Tell me about Cole and Emma.”
“His wife is a Decorah agent. But she’s pregnant now and on leave.”
He could see Tory digesting this information.
“You could talk to her,” he said.
“First I want to talk to you. Everything between us happened so fast. I felt like I was drawn to you in a way I couldn’t understand. Is that because you worked some, . .” She stopped and swallowed. “Some werewolf magic on me?”
He clenched and unclenched his hands, ordering himself not to reach for her. Not yet.
“I’ll try to explain. When a werewolf gets to be around thirty, the urge to find a mate is very strong. I was fighting it, thinking that I liked my freedom. Then I saw you, and I knew . . .”
She interrupted him. “So it’s hormones or something. You compelled me to want you.”
“Or it’s like any two people who meet and know they were destined to be together. If you want to call that hormones, you can.”
“And just how many of y
ou are there?”
“I don’t know. I just know about the Marshall clan. Or maybe we’re the only ones. We’re descended from a Druid priest who asked the gods for special powers. And this is what he got. There aren’t many of us because . . .” It was his turn to stop and swallow. “Because not many of us lived. It’s a sex-linked trait, so only male children survived.”
She kept her gaze on him. “You’re saying that if I got pregnant with a girl, she’d die?”
“Ross’s wife, Megan, is a geneticist who has fixed that problem. And the other problem. It used to be that half of us didn’t make it through the first time we changed to wolf form. She came up with a drug combination that got her and Ross’s son through the change. You won’t have to lose children the way my mom and my aunts did.”
“If I stay with you,” she said in a flat voice.
The way she said it made him feel like he was standing on the edge of a cliff, with the ground crumbling under his feet. He could tell her he’d only be half alive if she left him. Maybe she didn’t care.
She was looking down at her hands.
He held his breath as long seconds passed. Finally she raised her head. A spark of hope kindled inside him when he saw that her expression had softened.
“I guess while I was being mad at you, I forgot that I’d be dead or insane if you hadn’t risked your life to get me away from Dr. Son of a Bitch.”
He blinked, then forced himself to say, “You don’t have to pay me back for anything.”
“No. I think you’re right. Something happened between us the first time we saw each other—when I saw that wolf standing below my balcony staring at me. I know you told me, but it’s just sinking in that the wolf was you. And maybe fate or the ancient gods sent you to me.”
When she took a step forward, he did the same. They reached for each other at the same time, and he clasped her to him, so many emotions surging through him. Relief. Joy. And thankfulness.
“Thank God,” he whispered, just before his lips came down hard on hers.
He wanted to be gentle with her. He wanted to show her how civilized a werewolf could be. But urgency compelled him to devour her mouth. Still holding her, he backed up, then reached behind him to click the lock on the door.
The sound made her look up. “We’re at your office.”
“Yeah. But nobody’s going to bother us.”
“Won’t they know?”
“Do you care?”
She considered the question for a split second before clasping her hands around the back of his head and bringing his mouth back to hers.
He reached for the hem of her shirt, sliding his hands inside so that he could run them over the silky skin of her back, then brought them around to pull her bra out of the way and cup her breasts.
She made a sound of approval as he stroked his thumbs across her nipples.
“Brand. Please, I can’t wait.”
He fumbled for the button at the top of her jeans while she did the same for him. He kicked his pants away and carried her to the sofa where he laid her down and covered her body with his.
She cried out as he came into her, then cried out again as she climaxed. And he was right there with her, plunging off a cliff into free fall. But she was there to catch him in her arms.
They clung together, rocking, kissing, and hugging.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” he whispered. “I knew I had to do it.”
“I understand why it was so hard.” She raised her head to look him in the eye. “Because I know how panicked I’d be if I thought I was going to lose you.”
Her confession was like a balm to his soul, and he gathered her close. “Never.”
She stayed in his arms for long minutes, then glanced toward the door. “Maybe we should get dressed.”
He was pretty sure nobody was going to come knocking, but he got up and pulled his pants on, and she put herself back together, then stood looking at him.
“What?”
“I still don’t exactly understand what happened with Freemont and Denato. It was Freemont’s men who took me up to the Refuge?”
“Yes. Freemont must have started keeping close tabs on Denato. I think Freemont thought Denato really had been murdered—and this was the ideal time to get information out of you, since you’d be shaken by witnessing the murder of your boyfriend.”
She snorted. “I was shaken, but not because he was my boyfriend.”
Brand nodded. “When a body didn’t turn up, I’m thinking Freemont started thinking Denato had pulled a fast one—and it was even more important to get you to rat him out.”
Her gaze turned inward. “That makes some kind of sense. But today we went into Denato’s apartment. Why couldn’t Freemont do that?”
“We got in because Denato wanted to set a trap for us. Well, for you. Freemont wasn’t going to take that kind of chance without good reason. He knew the place would be guarded if Denato was still around. He wanted specific information before he risked anything. I’m also guessing that Denato didn’t know Freemont had kidnapped you.”
She nodded. “Okay, maybe all of that makes sense.”
“If you’re a mobster with no moral fiber,” Brand answered.
She still looked uncertain. “You said the place was guarded. Why did Denato come in alone?”
“I guess he thought he was only going up against a ditz brain dancer and her friend.”
“Yeah.”
Brand glanced toward the locked door. “Do you want to stay here and maybe order steak sandwiches? I can ditch the bread. Or I can have steak, and you can order a pizza.”
She laughed. “You mean hole up in here until everyone else leaves?”
“If you’re still worried about what they might think.”
“I am—a little,” she admitted as she turned to the mirror and finger combed her hair. “But staying here would make me feel like a coward.”
“We both know you’re not. Not after the way I’ve seen you handle yourself.”
She reached for his hand. “Okay, we’ll go out there—so your friends can stop worrying about us.”
“I think they know we’ve worked things out—either that or killed each other.”
She snorted, then raised her chin. “We’ll be proud and unapologetic—the way we’re going to live the rest of our lives.”
Her words and the look on her face warmed him, and he thanked the ancient gods that he had traveled north to find this amazing woman.
THE END
AFTERWORD
Thank you for purchasing HUNTING MOON, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I loved writing it.
If you enjoy my books, do me a huge favor. Please go back to www.amazon.com, and leave an honest review. Authors live and die by their reviews. The few extra seconds it takes are really appreciated. Thank you!
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If you enjoyed HUNTING MOON, you might also like to read other Light Street Press books by Rebecca York:
DECORAH SECURITY SERIES by Rebecca York
Book 1. On Edge (a Decorah Security prequel novella)
Book 2. Dark Moon (a novel)
Book 3. Chained (a novella)
Book 4. Ambushed (a short story.
Book 5. Dark Powers (a novel)
Book 6. Hot and Dangerous (a short story
Book 7. At Risk (a novel)
Book 8. Christmas Captive (a novella)
Book 9. Destination Wedding (a novella)
Book 10. Rx Missing (a novel)
Decorah Security Collection (includes Ambushed, Hot and Dangerous, Chained, and Dark Powers).
OFF-WORLD SERIES by Rebecca York
Book 1. Hero's Welcome (an off-world series short story).
Book 2. Nightfall (an off-world series novella)
Book 3. Conquest (an off-world series short story)
Book 4. Assignment Danger (an off-world novella).
Book 5. Christmas Home (an off-world short story).
Book 6. Firelight
Confession (an off-world novella)
Off-World Collection (includes Nightfall, Hero’s Welcome, and Conquest)
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PRAISE FOR REBECCA YORK
Rebecca York delivers page-turning suspense.
—Nora Roberts
Rebecca York never fails to deliver. Her strong characterizations, imaginative plots and sensuous love scenes have made fans of thousands of romance, romantic suspense and thriller readers.
—Chassie West
Rebecca York will thrill you with romance, kill you with danger and chill you with the supernatural.
—Patricia Rosemoor
(Rebecca York) is a real luminary of contemporary series romance
—Michael Dirda, The Washington Post Book World
Rebecca York’s writing is fast-paced, suspenseful, and loaded with tension.
—Jayne Ann Krentz
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A New York Times and USA Today Best-Selling Author, Rebecca York is a 2011 recipient of the Romance Writers of America Centennial Award. Her career has focused on romantic suspense, often with paranormal elements.
Her 16 Berkley books and novellas include her nine-book werewolf “Moon” series. KILLING MOON was a launch book for the Berkley Sensation imprint. She has written for Harlequin, Berkley, Dell, Tor, Carina Press, Silhouette, Kensington, Running Press, Tudor, Pageant Books, and Scholastic.
Her many awards include two Rita finalist books. She has two Career Achievement awards from Romantic Times: for Series Romantic Suspense and for Series Romantic Mystery. And her Peregrine Connection series won a Lifetime Achievement Award for Romantic Suspense Series.
Many of her novels have been nominated for or won RT Reviewers Choice awards. In addition, she has won a Prism Award, several New Jersey Romance Writers Golden Leaf awards and numerous other awards.
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Contacts
Rebecca York loves to hear from readers!
Web site: http://www.rebeccayork.com
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @rebeccayork43
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