Crave the Moon

by Lori Handeland

  Jase stretched, the muscles beneath the perfect, bronze skin rippling. They seemed bigger than before, not that she’d spent much time measuring his muscles. She’d never been interested.

  “You just shot me with a silver bullet.” He nudged it with his toe. Shouldn’t he be howling, grabbing his foot, and hopping around as it smoked and burned? “Didn’t even leave a mark. Impossible just ain’t what it used to be.”

  He lifted his gaze, and the fury there, the barely contained violence, made Gina step back. Jase had been angry with her—pretty much non-stop since Teo had shown up—but he’d never looked as if he wanted to kill her before.

  She turned to run, and he crossed the short distance between them too fast for a mere human to move, then grabbed her arm.

  “No,” he said softly, but beneath the voice she knew so well rumbled a growl that did not belong. He plucked the rifle from her hand and tossed it over his shoulder with an absent flick of his wrist. The weapon sailed a good hundred yards.

  Gina was sorry to see it go, even though it hadn’t done her a damn bit of good.

  “You shot me.” Jase shook her.

  Her head snapped back, forward, once, twice; then he let her go to stalk across the ground, seemingly oblivious to the sharp rocks and cacti beneath his bare feet.

  “It didn’t hurt you,” she said. And why was that?

  “You thought it would kill me.” He reached behind one of the six-foot-tall rock formations surrounding them. “Would you have shot him?”

  Jase dragged a bound and gagged Mateo Mecate into view.

  * * *

  Matt was disgusted with himself. How had he let this happen?

  To be fair, he hadn’t let Jase tie him up. Matt had come downstairs as he’d promised, and the asshole had conked him on the head. Next thing Matt knew he was staring at stars and wishing he were dead.

  But never more so than when he heard Gina’s voice.

  Why me?

  When McCord yanked him into view, Matt was still trying to piece together why Gina was here, what the gunshot had meant, and why the idiot was naked.

  “Teo!” Gina ran to him and pulled the tape from his mouth—fast and sure, the best way, but it hurt. He sucked in a breath, and she murmured, “Sorry,” as her hands searched for his bonds.

  “Ah-ah-ah.” McCord yanked her to her feet. “He stays like that.”

  She struggled. “Why bother? If a damn bullet didn’t hurt you, he can’t.”

  “A bullet didn’t hurt him?” Matt pushed against the ground with his bound hands, managing to sit up, though he nearly wrenched his shoulder from its socket in the process.

  “Silver right through the heart,” she said, disgusted. “Not a mark on him.”

  “You shot McCord?” Matt asked. “Why? Not that I don’t want to, but … he’s your friend.”

  “That thing is not my friend.” Her lip curled.

  Strangely, McCord didn’t seem bothered by her disgust. Another piece of information that made Matt very nervous. What did he know that they didn’t?

  It suddenly dawned on Matt why McCord was naked. In Matt’s defense, he had been hit in the head. “He’s a werewolf?”

  “Yep.”

  “And you shot him, but nothing happened.”

  “I think you’re right, Gina.” McCord’s lips curved. “Moldy isn’t so moldy after all.”

  “You’re the Nahual,” Matt said.

  Gina glanced back and forth between the two men. “That’s impossible.”

  “You really need to stop saying that,” Jase murmured, his gaze on Matt.

  “The Nahual is smoke,” Gina said, but her voice shook. She was starting to put the pieces together.

  “Which gains strength and power from death,” Matt continued. “From sacrifice. I figured he just became stronger, physically, mentally, magically. But it seems like he becomes more…” Matt searched for a word and settled on “solid.”

  “Less smoke,” McCord said. “More me.”

  “That’s not you,” Gina snapped. “I mean you’re not him.”

  McCord turned toward Gina so fast, Matt forgot he was bound, tried to get between them, and wound up tipping over and cracking his already-cracked head against the ground. He lay there in the dirt and the rocks, with a cactus poking his ass, and watched as McCord, who was not McCord, grabbed Gina by the collar of her shirt and pulled her close.

  “When we were twelve,” he said conversationally, “you convinced me to try your father’s whiskey. We puked all night, swore to our parents we had the flu, refused to stray from the lie, and got away with it.”

  Gina paled. “I never told anyone that.”

  “Neither did I.” He lifted a brow. “Still don’t believe? When we were seventeen, my favorite horse died and you found me crying my heart out in its stall. You swore you’d never tell anyone.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “You think I would?” He let her go. “Cowboys don’t cry. Not even over a horse.”

  Gina had been leaning so hard in the opposite direction, she nearly fell. “Y-you. I mean h-he. J-Jase must have told.” Her forehead creased. “You.”

  “I am Jase; Jase is me.”

  She spun toward Matt as he again gained his seat. “It’s a shape-shifter. So it only looks like Jase, right?”

  “I don’t know, Gina. I’m sorry.”

  “Aw.” McCord made an exaggerated sad face. “Too bad Moldy’s not good for anything but the occasional fuck after all.”

  “Shut up,” Gina said.

  “If I’m not Jase, then how do I know all that I know?”

  “You forced him to tell you. You hurt him.” Her gaze flicked around the open area desperately. “Where is he?”

  “He’s me.” McCord put his hand on his chest. “And soon there’ll be no going back. He made a willing sacrifice.” McCord’s wide chest seemed to expand even more as he breathed in. “So much more power is gained from the giving of a life instead of the taking. My people knew that.”

  “The Ute did not practice sacrifice,” Gina muttered, jaw tight.

  “My people, not his.”

  The way McCord spoke of himself as if he were someone else, from a body that resembled his, using a voice that sounded like his yet wasn’t, gave Matt the willies. Gina appeared ready to snap.

  “The Aztecs could have cared less if their sacrifices were willing,” Matt said. “In fact, they preferred they weren’t, since that meant they were enemies, and the less of them the better.”

  “You know a lot, Doctor, but do you know this? Each year we chose one boy for a great honor. For twelve cycles of the moon, he impersonated the great god Tezcatlipoca, ruler of the night sky. He was given servants to attend his every wish, gifted with the best clothes and food. He was married to four virgins the month before he freely gave his life to the god of night so that Tezcatlipoca would allow the sun to take his place each day. Because that sacrifice was willing, Tezcatlipoca always agreed.”

  Gina glanced at Matt, who nodded. “He’s right about the boy and the ritual. But the god of night didn’t really allow the sun to rise because of a sacrifice.”

  “No?” McCord murmured. “Prove it.”

  Matt opened his mouth to argue, and Gina jumped in. “It doesn’t matter. Jase would never have known any of that. That thing would never have known about the whiskey. Or his tears.”

  It was looking more and more like the Nahual not only was a shape-shifter but also could take over a consenting body. Edward had said a sorcerer could do most anything.

  “Why would he let you in?” Gina whispered.

  She was beginning to refer to the being in front of them as something other than McCord. Matt wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.

  “It was all thanks to you.”

  “Me?” Gina echoed.

  “When he kissed you and you told him you’d never love him that way, he escaped into the night and there I was.”

  “All he ever wanted was me,” she whis
pered.

  The thing that was now Jase McCord smiled. “So I promised him just that.”

  CHAPTER 24

  A sudden chill made Gina wrap her arms around herself and hold on. “You can’t have me any more than he could.”

  “We’ll see about that,” the Nahual murmured, gaze on Teo.

  Gina didn’t like what she saw in that gaze at all.

  “You think I’ll let you touch me? You’ve been buried in the ground for centuries. You were bones, dust, smoke. You aren’t really alive now. You’re a parasite. You’re living off his body.”

  Jase’s shoulders shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I’ve got a body now, thanks to you.”

  “Stop saying that!”

  The Nahual laughed, and the chill deepened. That wasn’t Jase’s laugh anymore. It was the laughter she’d heard on the wind, in the trees, and echoing through the mountains for nearly half her life.

  “You’re right,” he said. “Alive isn’t the right word, since I’ll never die. But without sacrifice, without blood, I lose form.”

  “He becomes smoke,” Teo murmured.

  “Only death can bring me back.”

  “Which is why the werewolves watched but didn’t kill us,” Teo continued. “Until he’d gained form, stolen a body, recovered his magic,” Teo kept his gaze on the monster that inhabited Jase’s skin, “he needed all the murder juice he could get.”

  “Like I said, Moldy’s not so moldy,” the Nahual repeated. “The more willing the death, the more murder juice I get.” He switched his attention to Gina. “How do you think I had enough oomph to call your name all these years?”

  Gina swallowed thickly. “You killed my parents.”

  “I was confined. I was smoke,” he mocked. “I didn’t even have a body.”

  “That didn’t stop you from killing Mel and Ashleigh.”

  “It didn’t, did it?”

  He was maddening. “What did you do to my family?”

  “I gave them a choice.”

  Gina’s chill increased along with her understanding. “Me or them.”

  “A sacrifice freely given.” He breathed in and out again. “It was wonderful.”

  “And all the other deaths that happened on that land?”

  “Guilty.” He spread his hands. “I needed some form of sustenance.”

  “I didn’t think you could die.”

  “There’s death and there’s a strange realm in between. I went there sometimes. Years, decades, maybe a century would pass. But eventually, someone always wandered near my tomb and died.”

  “Why did you call me?” Gina asked.

  “Why not?” The Nahual shrugged. “Your parents gave up their lives for you. Both of them without the slightest hesitation. I was curious. Then, when you came at last, you released me, and I knew I had been right to call. Once I inhabited this body, I understood how I could get everything that I wanted.”

  He tapped Jase’s finger against Jase’s temple. “There’s all sorts of great information in here. Took me a while to understand—the phones, the satellites, computers, the technology—but now I see … I’ll have no trouble gaining the trust of thousands, turning them into my army, then taking over the world.”

  “What are you going to do with the world?”

  “Whatever I want.”

  Gina rubbed her forehead. “Fine. Whatever.” She couldn’t be bothered with saving the world right now. Let Edward deal with it if he ever showed up. Right now she had to save Teo and the others. That was the only reason she’d come out here.

  “You said you’d spare them if I came with you.”

  “Them,” the Nahual agreed. “Not him.”

  Gina didn’t like the sound of that, but then she hadn’t liked the sound of much in years.

  “Which him are you talking about?”

  The grin was back, less like Jase than ever before. “You choose.”

  Gina was starting to get a very bad feeling. “No. Uh-uh.”

  The Nahual ignored her protests as if she hadn’t even made them. “Willing sacrifice gives me strength.”

  “Got that.”

  “I want to rule the world.”

  “Heard you the first time.”

  “With you.”

  “Huh?” Gina gasped.

  “He’s me; I’m him.” The Nahual rubbed his bare chest. “He wants you. I want the world. If I make you like me, I’ll be your maker. You’ll never leave me. Him. Us.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Come to me freely and your lover lives.”

  Gina shot a glance at Teo. “No, Gina,” he said. “Don’t.”

  She yanked her gaze back to the Nahual. “Where does the choice come in?”

  He tilted his head, the movement more like a dog than a human, and she saw again those beloved eyes in a vicious lupine face. Would she ever be able to look at that without feeling ill?

  Maybe. If her own eyes were set in an equally furry face.

  “You become like me,” the Nahual explained, “and lover boy lives. Best buddy…” He stroked his own chest again. Ick. “And I become one forever. No going back. To separate us would kill him.”

  “What if I choose best buddy? You gonna let Jase go?”

  The Nahual shrugged. “Sure. There’s another body right here, and I’m certain he’ll be happy to accommodate me to save you.”

  “Great idea,” Teo piped up. “All for it.”

  “Shut up, Teo,” Gina said.

  He didn’t. “I’m a better choice. You think there’s a lot of info in that head, you oughta see mine.”

  “No.” Gina kept her gaze on the Nahual’s face. “He isn’t going to let me or Jase go just because he takes you.”

  The monster’s lips curved. “You know me too well.”

  “I’m starting to. Even if he jumps ship,” Gina waved between Jase and Matt, “he’ll still need me, or someone else, to sacrifice themselves so he can bond, or whatever the hell he needs to do, with a body.”

  The Nahual spread Jase’s hands. “You got me.”

  “The sacrifice has to be willing, Gina. Don’t be.”

  “If you won’t give willingly,” the Nahual said, “I’ll just take. You’ll still grow a tail beneath the moon forever. Then I’ll mow through everyone at the house until I find someone who’ll give in. I’m sure the kid, or maybe his dad, even the woman who birthed this body would be happy to give his or her life for someone they love.”

  Derek. Tim. Fanny. Isaac. Melda. People Gina loved and people who trusted and depended on her. She couldn’t let them die and/or become a werewolf because she didn’t have the guts to give in.

  However …

  Gina glanced at the sky where the sun blazed only halfway up the eastern horizon. There was still a good long time until dusk. Maybe Edward would arrive, find them, free Jase, then kill that thing and they’d all live happily ever after.

  Hey, it could happen. There were werewolves running around, and an Aztec sorcerer had possessed her best friend. In Gina’s opinion, reality was up for grabs.

  “I need to think,” Gina murmured.

  “And here I figured that the instant I threatened lover boy you’d be signing right up.”

  “You can’t turn me until nightfall anyway. What’s the rush?”

  The Nahual lifted Jase’s face to the sun. “I crave the moon,” he agreed. “Only beneath it can I increase my army.”

  “Bummer for you,” Teo said. “You’d think an unkillable sorcerer would have more control over the environment.”

  “But I do,” the Nahual whispered.

  His gaze swept the ground; then he snatched up a sharp-edged rock and grabbed Gina’s arm.

  “Hey!” She tried to pull away, but he slashed her palm, then clapped his own to the blood that flowed.

  When he released her, she held her stinging hand to her chest. However, the wound was the least of her worries as the Nahual smeared her blood over his palms, then lifted them in glistening supplication t
o the heavens.

  He shouted in gibberish as the earth began to shake. The sun dimmed, swirled, then shifted from yellow to white.

  Gina glanced at Teo. “Nice one,” she said.

  And the cerulean sky went black.

  Gina recalled the man-wolf figure on the wall of the cavern lifting its arms to a sky that contained two circles—one gold, one silver—and understood.

  The bastard could bring the moon.

  Okay, new plan. The Nahual was going to make her a werewolf, and there was nothing she could do about it but agree.

  Fine. To save Teo she would do anything. Maybe once she was one of them she could figure out how to end the creature. She didn’t believe there wasn’t a way. The world didn’t work like that. Nothing was unkillable. Everything died eventually. Besides, what choice did she have?

  Gina peered at the moon. Right now? Absolutely none.

  “No.” Teo attempted to get to his feet, but they were bound as tightly as his hands. One shove of the Nahual’s bare heel against his chest and Teo landed on his rump, then banged his head against the ground as the momentum carried him backward.

  “Untie him,” Gina ordered, and when the Nahual hesitated, she snapped, “You said you’d spare him, so untie him, and let him go.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “As soon as I’m furry, I’ll kick your ass.”

  Jase laughed the Nahual’s horrible laugh. “You can try,” he said, but he untied Teo.

  Teo lunged, and the sorcerer backhanded him. One quick flick of the wrist that didn’t even appear to have much heat behind it and Teo was lifted off his feet, then thrown into a rock. His head cracked against the stone, and he landed in a heap at the base.

  Gina cried out, starting toward him. The Nahual stepped in her way. “Time’s up. I brought the moon, but I can’t hold it there forever.”

  “You said you wouldn’t hurt him.” Gina tried to scoot around.

  The Nahual grabbed her elbow. “I said I wouldn’t kill him.” His eyes began to glow. “I never said anything about you.”

  “Wh-what?”

  “The first thing you’ll need to do after you change is…” His smile was terrible, all teeth becoming fangs, changing a face she knew and loved into something almost unrecognizable. “Kill.”