Son of the Moonless Night (The Turning Stone Chronicles Book 3)

by C. D. Hersh

  Another high pitched squawk came over the receiver.

  “I can hear you. Let’s go hunting.”

  The bird circled overhead, leading him with right, left, and forward calls until they neared the gates of WK Shipping. Guards stood at the entrance. They weren’t the same ones he had seen the other night when he’d done some solo recon.

  “Scan those guards,” he instructed. “Shifters?”

  A “yes” reply came over the air.

  “Crap. I’m not going to go any closer. Don’t want to tip them off.” He moved into the shadows of some bushes bordering the ten-foot-high chain link fence. “I’ll stay here until you come back.”

  Another high-pitched, single squawk told him Rhys had received the message. He parted the bushes, slipped behind the branches to wait, and checked his watch. Twenty minutes passed before he heard from the hawk. Instructions to turn right and head back in the direction they’d come squawked in his ear. Hugh peered around to make sure it was safe to emerge then headed back toward the Dew Drop Inn.

  Approximately a block from WK Shipping, he received instructions to turn left into a darkened alley. Following Rhys’ calls, he entered the alley and waited. In the circle of pale light from the light bulbs over the alley doors, he saw the hawk descending, and held out his arm for a landing spot. The bird glided onto his coat sleeve. “Are we done?”

  Rhys squawked, “Yes.”

  After removing the transmitter band, Hugh slipped it into his pocket. As the bird flew to the ground Hugh looked around. “No one in sight.”

  Within seconds, Rhys stood in front of him, fully clothed. Fully human. Well, maybe not fully human. After all, how could one say a shifter was fully human?

  “That never ceases to amaze me.”

  Shaking his shoulders in a manner that reminded him of a bird’s wings fluttering, Rhys replied, “After a year’s practice, I’m still amazed by it.”

  “Did you see anything?”

  “Plenty. But let’s go back to the house to discuss it.”

  Owen watched one man go into the alley across from Papa Perro’s Pizzeria and two come out. One was Rhys Temple, Roc’s twin brother. For a brief second, Rhys stopped, his gaze cutting across the street. Owen leaned back behind the red checkered café curtains hanging on the plate glass window, out of view, hopefully, of the powerful Promised One shifter.

  Why was Rhys crawling around in the town’s alleys? Who was the man with him? Before he could get another glimpse of the two men, Kat entered and waved to him from the doorway.

  Instead of standing, as he normally would when she approached, he scooted over on the bench seat, indicating she should join him. Standing would put him within clear view of Rhys, who acted as if he sensed him from across the street, through the glass and the walls of the building. Was that even possible?

  Kat slid in next to him.

  “Did you get all the work done?”

  “Work?” she said, as if the word confused her.

  “Yeah, that thing which kept us from having an early dinner.”

  “Oh. That. I may have more overtime in the future. Hope you won’t mind.”

  He minded because he couldn’t see her, but on the other hand more free time, at night, made it easier to hunt. “We can have some long Saturday and Sunday afternoon dates. If you’re not working during the day.”

  “Nope. All nighttime.” A hint of bitterness crept into her voice.

  “You don’t like overtime?”

  “Not really. But a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.”

  He understood. He patted his pocket and checked for the RFID key. As soon as his late night date ended, he had a gotta do job.

  “Earth to Owen.” Kat elbowed him bringing his attention back to her. “Where did you go?”

  “Sorry.” He answered with what he hoped was appropriate contriteness. “Just thinking about tomorrow . . . or maybe later tonight.” Looking directly into her eyes he felt himself drowning a little bit. “I’m sorry this has to end.”

  “What this? Sitting here eating pizza?”

  Did she not feel the pull between them? He enjoyed the warmth coming from their hips and thighs touching. “Ah, no. Enjoying the company of someone who doesn’t want something from me.” Had he just voiced the thought?

  “You’re enjoying my company?” A flush of pink crept into Kat’s cheeks.

  “Yes. You’re interesting.”

  “Interesting?” Her voice chimed up the scale. “How?”

  “The people I know usually want me to do something or they want something from me. It’s just nice to sit and talk about normal, everyday things with no agendas. Except . . .”

  “Except what?”

  Should he say what he was starting to feel? Did he even want to admit it? He searched her face for a hint. Her eyes twinkled, and she tipped her head to the right.

  “Except the agenda to get to know you better.” His body reacted to the direction his thoughts took. Whoa, slow down, fella. You’ve just met this woman. This is only the fourth time you’ve been out with her, and she’s never let you pay for a meal. Did the second time even count since she had run off after Rhys had left?

  “I wouldn’t mind getting together . . . I mean having dinner.”

  “You mean a real dinner date where I get to pay for it. Not dutch?”

  “Yeah. You know what I mean, don’t you?” She blushed all the way to her ears and down her throat into her cleavage.

  He tore his eyes away from her reddening chest. Were her thoughts going along the same lines as his? “We should pick another dinner date.”

  “Okay.” Kat bent to reach into her purse sitting next to her on the booth seat. The motion pressed her thigh tighter against his. The tingle he experienced earlier came back with a vengeance.

  “Let me see what’s open on my calendar.” Katrina pulled her cell phone in front of her and looked at him expectantly. “What’s your schedule?

  “I don’t have one. My boss summons me at his convenience.”

  “If you don’t know when you’re free, how . . . Wait, I thought you said you didn’t have a job.”

  “Not a regular one, but I’m doing consulting work.” For a dictator, who would not like me getting mixed up with a non-shifter. He took a long look at her and decided he didn’t care what Falhman thought. Kat had rescued him, and he enjoyed being with her. Something he needed more of.

  “What’s the matter Owen? You look so intense.”

  “Sorry. I’m thinking of a problem I have to deal with. You pick the time. I’ll be there.”

  “This Friday, Public Square, across from the Old Stone Church, at six?”

  “It’s a date.”

  Kat typed on her phone. Dropping it into her purse, she slid out of the booth. “I need to get going. Tomorrow looks like a long day.”

  “Can I walk you home?” Owen asked as he scooted across the seat. He stood and offered her his arm.

  “Not tonight,” she said, passing on his gentlemanly offer. “I really need to just go home and go to bed.” As she said the last word, her ears turned dusky pink.

  She was into him. He suppressed a smile and gave her what he hoped was a hot look. She ducked her head and rotated on her heel, making a beeline to the door.

  As they reached the entrance, he leaned in behind her and opened it, letting her exit first. When they got outside, he turned her around to face him and stepped in close. “Until Friday then,” he whispered as he bent toward her. Taking her in his arms, he kissed her. When she didn’t object, he slanted his lips on hers and deepened the kiss.

  As he pulled her tighter against the length of his body, she suddenly backed away, eyes rounded, and croaked out, “Till Friday.” Then she sped down the sidewalk away from
him.

  Alexi tapped the New Year’s Eve Cleveland Rocks Party security papers on her desk, squaring the edges, then dropped them into a folder in her desk drawer and locked it. The big celebration, held on Public Square, required more security every year, and this year, with all the shifters loose in the city, she didn’t want to leave anything to chance.

  Glancing at her watch, she decided she had enough time to grab a quick bite before Rhys and Hugh returned from their hunting expedition. Her husband seemed more than eager to go scouting with Hugh, a throwback from his Army Ranger days, she supposed. Leaving his police detective job to complete shifter training hadn’t helped either. He missed the action.

  Sighing, she shrugged on her coat. If Eli was right, Rhys wouldn’t miss action much longer. Trouble brewed among the Turning Stone factions. Eli said he could feel it in his bones like damp in a Highland mist.

  Pulling her coat tighter against the chilly November air, Alexi made her way across Public Square toward the sandwich shop on the other side. As she walked through the park, she noted the darkened spots under the nearly bare limbed trees. Several lampposts ahead on the pathway blinked, as if sending out Morse code, against the yellow squares of window light in the buildings surrounding the park. Suddenly the blinking lights went out. She made a mental note to make sure the city had them all fixed as soon as possible, especially by the New Year’s Eve bash. No dark spots allowed in the park where hundreds of party goers would carouse until the wee hours of the morning.

  A whirlwind of leaves blew in front of her, the swirling cyclone crackling as it sped across the path and into the browning grass. She breathed in the scent of dying leaves and decay and shuddered, remembering how last year she had nearly been six feet under. Part of the earth beneath her feet, when Sylvia had tried to kill her. Until then, fall had been her favorite season. Now it reminded her of how much she nearly lost.

  And gained. Rhys became part of your world at Samhain last year. And you both were proclaimed Promised Ones this October. That has to count for something.

  Lost in introspection, she missed the figures moving in the shadows until they tackled her. As a hard shoulder rammed into her chest, she fell to the ground striking the back of her head. For a second everything went black. Familiar tingles told her the attacker was not human.

  Shifters!

  She jerked her knee up, connecting with her attacker’s groin. With a moan, the man rolled off, and she scrambled to her feet. Someone else grabbed her from behind, pinning her arms to her side. Using his momentum, she stepped forward and twisted, causing the attacker to land on his back beneath her with a whomp. His arms loosened, and she scrambled to her feet as she reached for the gun hidden in her shoulder holster. The landscape started to spin, so she dropped to one knee to slow the rotation.

  As loud as she could, she yelled, “Cleveland Police. Don’t move!” If they knew they attacked a cop it might deter them. The effort made her throat raw.

  “We ain’t afraid of no pig,” someone said from behind her as cold steel pressed against her neck. “Drop the gun.”

  As she complied, he grabbed her chin and forced her face to his.

  Her skin tingled madly from his touch. Alexi scanned his aura. Wildly blinking red, green, and black rings surrounding him identified him as a low-life, mimic shifter. Another mimic rogue ready to lose his ring aura. Definitely shifted.

  “Yell one more time and I’ll make sure you won’t talk anymore,” the man said in a menacing voice.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” said a deep voice behind the man. “Police. Let the lady go. Slowly.”

  Finger-by-finger, the shifter released her. As his touch left her, so did the shifter tingling sensations. And his aura.

  After a second officer cuffed the attackers she had subdued, he came over to her and knelt beside her. “You okay, ma’am?”

  She brushed the leaves and dirt off her coat, her gaze still locked on the shifters, her mind whirling in confusion. If any shifted Turning Stone member came within forty feet of her, she could sense them, even if they were hidden in the bushes. She could see their ring auras even when they weren’t shifted. These men were right in front of her, and she got nothing from them. No aura. No tingles. No warning.

  The officer offered his hand and helped her up, then gasped when he saw her face. “Captain Temple. I didn’t recognize you.” With the tip of his shoe, he nudged one of the attackers. “Things just got worse, buster. You accosted a police officer.”

  The men started arguing, blaming each other. They reminded her of the Three Stooges. But then she shouldn’t expect much from low-life mimics. Rogues chose helpers who couldn’t think for themselves. To do the dirty jobs they didn’t want to handle.

  She rotated her arms and flexed her knees. Everything worked. “I’m okay. I think.”

  The officers hauled the men to their feet, prodding the trio toward their patrol car parked at the edge of the quadrant. “Can you come to the station and make a statement, Captain?” one of the officers asked.

  She nodded and eyed the car. No way did she want to climb into the vehicle with her attackers, even handcuffed and secured behind the protective screen. “If you don’t mind I’ll walk back. It’s not far.”

  “I’ll go with you, Captain.”

  “Thank you, Officer . . .”

  He pointed at his nameplate. “King. Derrick King.”

  Alexi had just finished giving her statement to Lieutenant Martin when Rhys, Eli, and Hugh burst into the precinct office.

  Rhys rushed to her and knelt beside her chair. “You okay, sweetheart?”

  “Just a few bruises, except the knot on the back of my head where I got slammed to the ground.”

  “The ground?” Rhys ran his hands over her protectively, landing on her tummy. “And the baby?”

  “Baby,” Lieutenant Martin said. “You expecting, Captain? We need to get you checked out then. I think there’s a spot to note something like that on this form.” He raised his pen and poised it over the paper, searching.

  “No,” she said quickly as she pulled the paper from Martin’s hand. “He’s calling me baby, aren’t you?”

  “I-I,” Rhys stammered.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Eli’s cane raise and poke Rhys in the back.

  “Yes,” he said, the word nearly jumping out of his mouth. “It’s my pet name for her. Right, baby?”

  Martin’s mouth twisted to the side, and he chewed thoughtfully on his lower lip. “Mmm. Could of swore I heard you call her sweetheart when you came in.” He pulled the paper back in front of him, his pen hovering over it. “If you’re sure—”

  “We’re sure,” Alexi and Rhys said in unison.

  As soon as Martin left the desk, she jabbed Rhys in the arm with her fist.

  “Ow.” He rose to his feet, rubbing the spot she’d poked. “That hurt.”

  “If you keep screwing up, it’s going to hurt even more, buster. My pregnancy—”

  “Our pregnancy,” he interjected.

  She let his correction slide. He did have some part in it, after all. “Is not up for public broadcast. Besides, we don’t even know if it’s true.”

  “It’s true all right. You’re cranky. Hormonal. The house is squeaky clean. You clean like a maniac when you’re upset. The idea of pregnancy upsets you. You said so yourself. Last night you ate the weirdest thing.” He ticked the items off on splayed fingers.

  She stood and faced him toe-to-toe. “Tomatoes, pickles, and peanut butter on crackers is not weird.”

  Rhys made a face which clearly told her he didn’t believe that for one second.

  Eli leaned in so close to the pair his beard tickled her cheek. “Bairns,” he whispered. “We need tae take this spat home, afore ye announce this non-pregnancy tae the entire precinct.
” He swung his cane toward the front door.

  She grabbed her coat off the back of the chair and marched out ahead of the three men. How had she missed sensing her attackers, much less seeing them in the dark? Even distracted, she should have sensed them. They should have stood out like strands of twinkling Christmas lights. Behind her she heard Rhys curse under his breath and then his rapid footsteps as he drew alongside her.

  Grasping her arm, he whispered into her ear. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t mean to let it slip. I’m worried about you . . . about both of you.”

  She was worried, too, but not for the same reason. If she was pregnant, how would she protect the baby from shifters who wanted to harm their child?

  Something was wrong with her. Horribly wrong.

  Chapter 13

  Hugh offered to drive Alexi’s car home from the precinct parking lot, so she rode with Rhys and Eli in his black F-150 pickup. Seated between the two of them, her thighs and shoulders touching theirs, she could clearly feel their presence and see their auras. She kept shifting in the seat, drawing herself away from them, and then letting the sides of her body touch them. Every time she moved away, she couldn’t sense their presence.

  After a few minutes of folding and unfolding herself like a monkey grinder’s accordion, Eli stared at her. “What’s the matter, lassie? Yer squirming like a Highlander’s bagpipe under the hand o’ an Englishman. Are ye in pain?”