Her response was quick and unusual. “It’s injured.”
He was aware of the she-wolf’s attention turning their way.
What do you mean? Gavin asked. Explain.
“It’s been hurt,” Skylar said. “Blood and old infections are the cause of the smell.”
Gavin wanted to shout “Good!” And he hoped those injuries might eventually claim the damn thing.
Hell. Jenna cursed vehemently several more times, continuously looking from Skylar to whatever watched them from the shadows. I was right. This thing has come for her and won’t wait much longer. Gavin, get Skylar inside. Now.
Gavin knew better than to argue.
Chapter 30
So, that was it, Skylar thought, allowing Gavin to lead her inside. The directness of Jenna’s command brooked no argument from either of them after that final statement.
This thing has come for her.
Mind racing, Skylar looked up from her position at the base of the fireplace, which afforded her a clear view of the door. Gavin stood with his back to it, his body finally retracting, shuddering, compressing back to the man she recognized with an effort that left his dark hair in his eyes and his scarred chest slick with sweat.
She wanted to throw up. She wanted to throw her arms around Gavin but didn’t dare. They both had been completely exposed tonight, their secrets shattered, and the shock of those things formed a barrier not easily breached right then.
“Neither of you are anything like what waits in the dark,” she said.
Gavin’s voice was deep. “Wouldn’t your friend know more about that?”
“I’d never met Jenna. Only heard about her.”
“No, we’re not like that demon,” he agreed. “I couldn’t intentionally hurt anyone.”
“But it can,” Skylar said. “That thing can do harm?”
Gavin nodded.
“You know that because you’ve seen it before. You’ve met it before tonight,” Skylar pressed, needing information in the same desperate way some alcoholics needed a drink. “And before last night, when we were out there.”
“I wasn’t born like this,” Gavin said, standing there, apart from her, trembling.
With sudden comprehension, Skylar made the jump to follow his train of thought. Jenna told her Gavin had been bitten.
“How did it happen?” she asked. “What did that creature do to you? Was it the same one, and can you be sure?”
She could see that Gavin had long avoided the words he spoke now, and see, too, how painful they were for him.
“I was hunting down the cause of a string of animal deaths and reported disappearances,” he began, pausing for a breath. “Not only in the wild, but domesticated stock and pets. I tracked drag marks one evening up the hill, following this same path. I was sure the culprit was a mountain lion.”
“The path in front of this cabin?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Instead of a mountain lion, you found that thing?”
“Yes.”
“You called that creature a man-hater. It left these scars?” She pointed to his chest with a finger ending in a sharply curved claw. Scared to find the claw still there, Skylar dropped her hand and looked away, trembling the same way Gavin did, her body fighting the fever of Otherness.
“I don’t know how I survived,” he confessed. “For a long time, I wasn’t sure I had.”
“I’m sorry.” Though sincere, her whispered sentiment came nowhere close to covering the horror of what happened to him.
“You’ve nothing to be sorry for. This had nothing to do with you,” he said.
“You might be wrong about that, if it has in fact come looking for me.”
Her lover slid a hand over the wall beside him before inching away from the door. “Do you believe that?”
“I’m starting to believe it.”
“These—” Gavin pointed to his bare chest where the parallel scars were no longer white and nearly invisible, but a livid, fiery red “—happened two years ago. Long before you came here. How could that thing be waiting for you?”
Although Skylar ached to touch his chest and trace the scars with fingers not sporting the markers of a mythical creature, her claws were a stubborn reminder of how far things had moved past any semblance of being normal.
“My father has been coming here for years. What’s happening now must have something to do with that,” she said.
“How, though? Who can tell us what’s really going on?”
“I can,” Jenna said from the doorway, already gracefully slipping back to her human form and unconcerned about ending up naked in company. “But right now we have to get out of here as quickly as possible.”
Of course the creature stalking them would have other ideas that probably didn’t include allowing them a smooth getaway. Skylar knew that with her own kind of insight as she glanced between slats in the blinds, listening for the groan of the fence being breached. Without seeing anything out there, she felt the nearness of the creature in the same way she’d sensed its closeness earlier, chills and all.
“Too late,” she said. “It won’t take long for that thing to reach the yard.” She looked to Jenna. “Can it hear us?”
“I’m guessing it can.” Jenna searched the yard over Skylar’s shoulder after catching the blanket Gavin had given her to cover herself up with.
When Skylar backed away from the window, Gavin was there beside her in that quiet way he had of returning to her when least expected and most needed. She found comfort in his body heat and melted into him. His scent was a familiar slice of the heaven she’d been able to sample before this horrid turn of events, and that scent was now an integral part of her.
Gavin, the man-wolf, wrapped his arms around her protectively. “We just need a little help,” he whispered with his mouth in her hair. “And some answers.”
Skylar looked to the chair, where the gun no longer rested on the seat. She had lost it on the mountain and nearly forgotten about that. “Help in the form of silver bullets?”
Gavin followed her gaze.
“You could have ordered some of those bullets,” she said to him. “Why didn’t you arm yourself for your next meeting with the thing out there? What kept you from taking this creature down when you could have?”
Gavin said, “That’s just it. I didn’t have the chance. Although I’ve been searching for it, the creature only appeared again a few nights ago after I became aware that you were in this cabin.”
He tightened his hold on Skylar and went on. “I’ve got a special blade reserved for that beast in my back pocket. Firing a gun would have alerted people to the disturbance and brought more rangers in. The potential of the beast harming other rangers seemed too great a risk to take.”
He paused again before going on. “I hadn’t really ever seen it, and had no accurate idea what kind of enemy roamed out there. The night it found me is a blur. I hit my head when I fell, and couldn’t even picture that sucker until…”
When Jenna interrupted, Skylar got the impression Jenna wanted to save Gavin from reliving his ordeal. Jenna said, “So, it knows Skylar’s here. That’s what we’re dealing with now, though we’re not really sure why it might be looking for her.”
“Revenge for what my father did?” Skylar suggested. “Revenge that didn’t end with his death?”
“We have to stop it any way we can,” Gavin said, glancing to Jenna. “You know what this is, you said, and you agree that it shows some interest in Skylar. How did you figure that out?”
His tone was authoritative and firm. To Skylar’s surprise, Jenna willingly answered those questions.
Still gazing out the window, her dad’s partner said, “I think Skylar’s father didn’t just stumble upon this creature here in the mountains. What I’ve come to believe is that David might have brought it here.”
Chapter 31
Gavin’s protest over Jenna’s declaration was cut off by the memory of finding the cage in a build
ing that Skylar’s father had rented.
“What?” Skylar said in confusion, stinging his right thigh with a scrape of her claw.
He covered her hand with one of his.
Jenna, focusing on the yard, spoke over her shoulder. “It’s the only answer that makes sense.”
“Make sense to whom?” Gavin countered.
“Your description fits,” Jenna said.
“What are you talking about?” he demanded, sensing Skylar’s ongoing distress rising to intolerable levels.
Jenna fell silent for several seconds. Then she said to Skylar, as she turned from the window, “I think this beast might be related to your mother.”
All the fight went out of the woman in Gavin’s arms. No one in the room laughed at the absurdity of that statement.
“You called it a monster,” Jenna said to him. “Do you call yourself one? Or me? Or Skylar? Did you label this beast a monster because of what it did to you?” Her eyes met his. “No? Then some part of you realizes this creature is different in very notable ways. I’m wondering what those differences are and if we’re actually dealing with something new.”
Skylar felt his body stiffen further. Her claws disappeared. “You’re thinking my father found another one?” she said faintly, as if the idea was too insane to speak aloud.
“Another what?” Gavin asked, but his question was ignored. The intensity of the energy between the two females in the room grew substantially when Jenna’s gaze returned to Skylar.
“It’s possible that he did bring one here,” Jenna said. “Hell, anything is possible.”
“You told me she came out of legend, something not seen in generations, if ever. If that was true, what would be the odds of finding another one like her?”
Picking up on pieces of this conversation, Gavin absorbed the vague details swimming in the minds of both of the females—thoughts of monsters, white rooms and hospitals. Was Jenna suggesting there were monsters at Fairview?
“Maybe this one came for her, and finding her gone, found your father instead,” Jenna suggested seriously.
“Then he managed to capture it?” Skylar sounded unsure.
Jenna nodded. “He might have brought it here to hide the creature away.”
Skylar didn’t seem to have anything further to say about that, but he sure as hell did.
“I think you need to backtrack for those of us not in on the story,” he said. “What are we facing here? What are you hinting that thing is—the beast that changed my life with its teeth and claws?”
“Demon.” Skylar again spoke faintly, muttering that word as if trying to believe it.
The back of Gavin’s neck twitched, not only from hearing that term, but from the shock of more pieces of the puzzle falling into place. The answer Skylar had just given was darkly fantastic, yet if it were true, it explained a lot.
Can it be true?
He turned Skylar around to look into her face, seeing immediately that she believed this might be so. Her eyes were huge, her pupils dilated with fear to a deep, flat black, while the skin surrounding them was so very white.
He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to remove her to someplace safe, where they would never have to confront these kinds of issues again. Until the next full moon.
“Your father came across one of these creatures before?” he asked.
“So the tale goes.” She flicked her gaze to Jenna, which let him know that Jenna had been the bearer of that news.
“Something happened to that other one?” he pressed.
“She died. Full of needle marks at Fairview, in a padded room,” Skylar explained.
Which didn’t really explain much at all. Not to his satisfaction anyway. So he started over.
“You said she.”
“What the hell do we know about demons?” Jenna said when Skylar’s quivering mouth stayed closed. “Except that one of them was able to reproduce.”
Horror at this announcement struck a solid blow to his chest as if it were a living fist. Gavin saw how Jenna eyed Skylar and, in return, how Skylar’s wolf was about to explode within her as a way of coping with things the human woman couldn’t.
His tone was harsh. “A demon held at Fairview produced children, or whatever the hell its equivalent of children would be?”
The room went quiet around this question. Gavin’s next one couldn’t have been stopped or kept to himself, because that just wasn’t possible.
“Where are those offspring now? Could that beast be one of them?”
This would tie in nicely with the whole revenge theory being batted around, he reasoned. Maybe this creature sought to exact its own form of punishment on those responsible for keeping its parent in captivity. Possibly Skylar’s father brought that offspring here to hide it or…what?
Who the hell knew what Skylar’s father had done in that shed?
“Good reasoning,” Jenna said, following his thoughts. “Sound, even. Except for one thing.”
Skylar whirled to face Jenna.
But with a tremendous crashing sound, the front door splintered into pieces, scattering wood, hardware, and hinges everywhere.
And the night rushed in.
Chapter 32
All three of them moved at the same time, launching through the bedroom door and using the farthest window to make an exit. Skylar didn’t even notice the sharp shards of broken glass from the window she followed Jenna through. Fear made her oblivious to her surroundings and blissfully numb.
They raced for the Jeep, parked on the dirt driveway, but moonlight was in the way. Sprinting through that light was like slogging through ankle-deep mud.
Somehow, miraculously, none of them shifted before jumping inside the car. Maybe the fierceness of their concentration lent a hand, or their incredible speed. Too afraid to look at what might be following, Skylar focused straight ahead, only slightly relieved when she, Jenna and Gavin slammed the doors, as if that would keep a demon out.
Luckily, the keys were in the ignition and all it needed was a turn. Heartbeats filled the tight space when the engine sputtered to life. Gavin stepped on the gas and the Jeep flew forward. With both hands on the wheel, Gavin expertly maneuvered the car in a U-turn, intending to head for the road.
Skylar dreaded speculation that the demon Jenna spoke of wasn’t going to let them off so easily after announcing its presence. In her heart, and in her twisted gut, she sensed its intentions, and was too scared to speak.
Flashbacks of memory came—dark shadows passing behind the car the night she drove, seen only out of the corner of her eye and in the rearview mirror. Wolves on the loose, Gavin had said. Nothing about demons seeking revenge. No mention of demons at all.
Inside her, tucked deep, nestled the new fear that her father might indeed have brought one here, as Jenna suggested. The thought became all the more terrible because of what that demon had done to Gavin.
Its behavior would make her dad, in the long run, responsible for the creation of one werewolf, and possibly more that they didn’t know about.
Gavin spoke. “I don’t know where to go. If that thing follows, we can’t lead it to town.”
Skylar wished they could go to town. People, in a big group, might be able to tackle a beast. There’d be a chance. Gavin was right, though, and determined as always to protect the community from physical and mental harm. Innocent people not only had to be protected from a raging monster, but the idea of that monster’s existence.
Gavin was at that very moment pondering how to keep her safe, and Skylar loved him for that, and for so much more. Someday she’d tell him so. If they survived the night, he’d need to understand how she felt in spite of their short time together.
“I do know,” he said, without looking at her. “God, Skylar, I feel the same way.”
Jenna interrupted. “Hey, we’re not dead yet. Can we make a plan?”
“I’m all ears.” Gavin’s voice was gruff with emotion. He kept glancing Skylar’s way with his hungry blue
eyes.
“Now that we’ve got our breath back, we probably need to realize that I was wrong about running. Going back there might be the only option,” Jenna said.
Gavin continued to drive. “I don’t think that would be healthy.”
“Shall we go in circles, then? All night if we have to? After that, what? For all we know, a demon can be a demon whenever it wants to, with or without a full moon,” Jenna argued.
“Whereas I can’t be a werewolf without that damn moon,” Gavin said. “That’s your point, right? A human can’t hurt this creature, so we’re at a huge disadvantage after tonight?”
He added seconds later, “Jenna, are you able to shift without the moon’s shiny silver impetus? Somehow I sense that you can.”
“Yes,” she replied honestly. “I can and have. It’s tough, and it’s nothing any Were in their right mind would want to attempt too often. That said, too much adrenaline, too much emotion, can bring on an urge to shift for those born to it.”
Skylar heard Gavin’s next question in his thoughts before he uttered it aloud.
He said, thoughtfully, “Back there, you said my thinking was sound, except for one thing. Since your advice is to go backward, how about if we start there?”
No explanation came from Jenna.
Gavin thumped the wheel with his palms. “What’s so terrible that I can’t hear it? Worse than the existence of werewolves, demons that track humans and the fact that none of this is myth? Christ, I’m not sure anything could be worse.”
Why are you blocking me from this? he was thinking.
“It’s me,” Skylar said, and those two little words made a big impact on the chill ruffling through the car. “I’m that one thing Jenna was talking about. I may hold the key to some of this mess.”
Gavin swerved to the right, onto the dirt. The tires kicked up sprays of mountain debris as he put on the brakes without seeming to give a damn about anything other than what she’d said.
Seduced by the Moon Page 22
