Thunder Moon

by Lori Handeland

  I’d turned at the end of Center and wheeled onto the next block toward a decent bed-and-breakfast run by the Fosters, a retired couple from Ohio. They’d come to Lake Bluff for the Full Moon Festival five years ago and loved it so much, they’d snapped up the eighteenth-century hotel as soon as it had gone on the market. They were now as much a part of Lake Bluff as I was.

  “That woman scares me.” Ian lifted his head, tentatively checking the dark streets around us. “She’s got more replacement parts than a Fiat.”

  “A Fiat?”

  His smile was quick and sheepish. “I had one in college. You know what it stands for?”

  I shook my head.

  “Fix It Again Tomorrow.”

  I laughed.

  “Wasn’t funny then,” he muttered, and got out of the car.

  He grabbed my shopping bags and started up the walk, pausing at the porch and reaching into his pocket. As I joined him, he handed me a bag and used his free hand to tack a feather on the underside of the handrail.

  Jordan sat behind the desk. “What are you doing here?” we both said at the same time.

  I glanced at Ian, and my cheeks heated, which was silly. Not only was Jordan twenty years old, but I was certain most of the town had figured out there was something going on between Ian and me.

  “He’s helping me with my things,” I blurted.

  Jordan just grinned.

  “My house is trashed. I need a room. What are you doing here?” I repeated.

  “Mrs. Foster hurt her back. Mr. Foster needs to sleep since he worked all day. I’m filling in.”

  Jordan filled in a lot around town. Everyone knew she needed every penny for Duke.

  “Didn’t you work the switchboard today?” I asked.

  “Yeah. But I’m a night owl. I don’t sleep much.”

  I recalled Cal saying she’d been a difficult child, only sleeping a few hours each night and then being up the rest of the twenty-four. She’d driven her mom nuts, and more often than not, Cal had been off in a war zone unable to help. Which kind of explained how Jordan had wound up an only child.

  I handed her my credit card; she handed me a key, then offered her hand to Ian. “Jordan Striker.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I should have done that.”

  The two ignored me, shaking hands and making nice. When Ian snatched the key from me and started up the stairs, Jordan wiggled her eyebrows and made kissy noises in my direction.

  What had I said about her being mature beyond her years? I took it back.

  “He’s just going to take up my bags.”

  “I don’t care, Grace. This isn’t an all-girl dorm in the 1950s.”

  She returned her attention to the notebook she’d been scribbling in when we arrived. I glanced at it and stilled.

  Because my brothers had always tried to hide things from me, I’d become very good at ferreting out secrets. I’d learned how to read upside down at almost the same time I’d learned to read. What I read this time was: Hand sanitizers claim they can kill 99.9 percent of germs. Chuck Norris can kill 100 percent of whatever the fuck he wants.

  “You’re the Chuck Norris bandit?”

  Her eyes widened and she slapped the cover shut, but it was too late. I’d already read another: Chuck Norris’s calendar goes from March 31 directly to April 2. No one fools Chuck Norris.

  I bit my lip to keep from snickering. “Why do you want to make your dad crazy?”

  “I don’t. I write these jokes for a Web site. They pay me. Not a lot, but—” She shrugged. “The best jokes are always the ones that make him turn purple.”

  “You’re a bad girl,” I said, but I smiled.

  “You aren’t going to tell him, are you?”

  “No, but he’ll catch you sooner or later, and then you’re on your own. How did you bypass the security cameras?”

  “It wasn’t hard. Your security is lame. Have you even updated it since your dad was king?”

  “No.”

  “Of course, who’d want to break in to a cop shop?”

  “Besides you?”

  “I didn’t break in.”

  “What did you do?”

  I knew Jordan was smart. She’d have to be to have any prayer of going to Duke. But bypassing a security system—even a lame one? I wasn’t going to tell her so, but I was impressed.

  “A little computer mumbo-jumbo,” she said. “A screwdriver here, a wrench there, and—” Jordan flipped her hands in a voilà gesture. “Just call me the Invisible Woman.”

  Chapter 30

  I half-expected to meet Ian coming downstairs as I went up. How hard was it to drop shopping bags on the bed?

  Apparently pretty hard. The door to my room was open and Ian stood at the window, staring at the night, the bags still in his hands.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “There’s something I have to tell you.”

  From the tone of his voice, this might take a while, so I stepped inside and shut the door.

  The room was clean and quaint, with a carved wooden headboard and a homemade quilt for the queen-sized bed. An overstuffed flower-print love seat hugged one wall, and a thoroughly modern bathroom lay behind a recently refinished door. There was even a desk with a lamp, chair, and Internet connection.

  I took the bags and set them on the floor, but Ian continued to stare out the window so intently he started to worry me. I laid my hand on his shoulder, tracing the material that covered his tattoo with one finger.

  “When did you get this?” Maybe if he started talking about that, he’d segue into whatever it was he was having such a hard time telling me.

  “All the Nighthawks have them.”

  “You said it was to remind you to be a warrior always.”

  “It is. The Nighthawks must be ready to fight against evil spirits at any time. The eagle is the bird of war. He gives us strength, sight, and power.”

  “Does every Nighthawk do the same thing with their eyes?”

  “We can all do something.”

  “Like?”

  He turned, and my hand was left hovering in the air where his shoulder had been. His fingers closed around my wrist, and he placed a kiss at the center of my palm. For just a minute I closed my eyes and let myself feel.

  His mouth touched my nose, my cheekbones, my jaw. I bit my lip and tried to be strong, but I wasn’t. When he kissed me, I kissed him back. My palms framed his face, tilted his head so I could explore his mouth. Warm and hot, he tasted of wine and desire, or was that me?

  I traced his shoulders, let my thumb rub beneath the sleeves of his T-shirt, learning the contours of his biceps and the smooth trail where his forearm became his elbow. I wanted to put my mouth there, lick his skin, feel his pulse beat against my tongue. Instead, I lifted my head, my hands, and stepped back.

  “You’re married.”

  “I’m not, Grace. I swear.”

  Into the silence fell the sound of sudden raindrops— tink, tink, tink—against the glass.

  “Are you saying that was a lie? You never had a wife?”

  “No.” He shoved a hand through his hair. “I had a wife.”

  “And she disappeared?”

  “Yes.”

  “So until you find her and get a divorce or—” I stopped, not wanting to put into words the other scenario, but he had no such problem.

  “Until I have a body. Except I do, or I did. Or I would, if there was a body left to have.”

  “You’d better just tell me what you mean.”

  “She was one of them.”

  “Them who?”

  “The ones we fight.”

  “You married an evil spirit?”

  “She wasn’t evil when I married her; that came later.”

  “Is this a supernatural variation of ‘my wife is an emasculating fiend’?”

  His lips twitched, but his expression remained sad. “I loved her. She was a soft-spoken, sweet woman who lived just for me.” I put my hand on his arm, but h
e pulled away. “It was because of me that she died. Because of what I do. I didn’t protect her. They came, they took her, and they ... infected her.”

  “Who’s they?”

  “The Anada’duntaski. The cannibals.”

  “Cannibals came and took your wife? And they infected her with what? Cannibalitis? You aren’t making any sense.”

  “ ‘Anada’duntaski’ translates to ‘cannibals,’ but what they are is—” He broke off and bit his lip as if he suddenly didn’t want to tell me.

  “You’ve gone this far. You think after what I’ve seen in this town I’m not going to believe you?”

  He let his lip go, and a tiny spot of blood bloomed where his teeth had torn the skin. My chest hurt at the pain I saw on his face. He reached for my hand, and I met his halfway.

  “What are the Anada’duntaski?”

  His eyes met mine. “Vampires.”

  “Cherokee vampires?”

  “Every culture has their own version of the vampire and the werewolf myth.”

  “There’s a Cherokee werewolf?”

  “In a way. When I was a boy, the old men told me of the war medicine. The ability of certain warriors to change their shape, becoming any animal they wished to triumph over their enemies. Many chose a wolf because he was brave and loyal and fierce.”

  I’d heard about that, too. “And the vampire?”

  He glanced down, though he continued to hold my hand. “The Anada’duntaski were called the roasters because they supposedly cooked the flesh of their enemies and ate it.”

  “Which makes them cannibal and not vampire.” Not that either one was all that appealing.

  “They began as men who did just that—killed their enemy and ate him. They were the most feared of warriors, even before they discovered that drinking the blood of the living made them live, too. Forever.”

  Okay, that was a vampire.

  “The Anada’duntaski are day walkers,” he continued. “The sun doesn’t hurt them. They live like any other man, except they must hunt the night. They drink the blood of the innocent, and they multiply.”

  “How do you kill them?”

  “Cut off their heads.”

  He said it so calmly I got a chill. “You’d better be sure you’ve got the right man before you try that.”

  Ian’s smile was completely without humor. When he smiled like that he no longer seemed like a healer, but a Nighthawk Keetoowah, scourge of supernatural creatures everywhere.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “It was the first time I’d gone after an Anada’duntaski. I was young, foolish, flush with my own power, the secrets I knew that no one else did. I thought I was invincible. I found them; I killed them. But one of them got away, and he made my wife like him.”

  Which explained why Ian insisted he was no longer married. Undead was as good as a divorce.

  “She became a spy,” he continued. “Because of her, because of me, we lost a dozen Nighthawks in the next six months.”

  “That must have been horrible.”

  His haunted gaze met mine. “ ‘Horrible’ doesn’t begin to describe it.”

  “Do you want to describe it? Would you feel better if you talked about it?”

  “I try to forget, as much as I can; otherwise I couldn’t go on; I couldn’t do my job. And even though I screwed up and people died, the only way to atone for that is to keep destroying the evil ones.”

  “It wouldn’t help anyone for you to quit.”

  “I won’t, but I want you to back off and let me handle this.”

  I gave one short, sharp bark of laughter. “Yeah, right. You bet.”

  “I’m serious. Look what happened last night.”

  “Another person died. That’s as much my fault as yours.”

  He grabbed me by the elbows and shook me a little. “You could have been killed. That thing threw you against the wall.”

  “If you think that would kill me, you obviously have a misguided view of me. My brothers did worse than that every day of the week.”

  His eyes flickered, topaz, then brown, war bird, then furious man. “I want to meet your brothers.”

  His face, his tone, his eyes—he wanted to do more than meet them; he wanted to beat the crap out of them. I should have been insulted; I wasn’t a damsel in distress. Instead I was touched, and that was a more dangerous feeling than just wanting him.

  Ian loved his wife; he still wasn’t over her. She’d been gentle and sweet and soft-spoken—three more things I could never be.

  “I survived,” I said. “Being the only girl in a household of men made me stronger. Stronger than you seem to think I am. I’m the sheriff here. I can’t just sit back and do my nails while you save the world. Not even my little corner.”

  “I can’t protect you,” he whispered. “Just like I couldn’t protect her.”

  He moved past me, headed for the door, and I reached out, caught his hand, clung. “I’m not her, Ian. I don’t need you to protect me. I don’t want you to. I can take care of myself.”

  “Grace—” He tugged on his hand; I wouldn’t let go. “I know what’s out there. I won’t be surprised by it.

  “I’m not going to let this witch win. This is my home; I’ve protected it before, and I’ll do it again.”

  I kissed him, the one way I knew to shut him up, shut him down.

  I took charge, needing to show him my strength, convince him that he shouldn’t worry. I was at his side in this, not hiding behind him, getting picked off like a weak link when he wasn’t paying attention.

  I experienced a moment of unease for thinking of his wife like that, but truth was truth. Ian had been wrong to keep her in the dark, so she hadn’t known what she was facing and could then not be prepared for it. However, I couldn’t help but think she’d been foolish, allowing some bloodsucking fiend to get the better of her.

  That was uncharitable, downright mean. But the way he’d said her name, the way he mourned her, the way he described her, like a saint who’d loved him too much, made my stomach jitter with jealousy. I didn’t like the feeling.

  But I was here with him now, and from the beat of his erection pressing against my stomach, I was the only one who mattered.

  I slipped my hands beneath his shirt, traced my palms across his flat abdomen, dipped my fingers below the waistband of his jeans, under the elastic of his boxers until I brushed his tip. He jerked, and I closed my fingers around him, slowly sliding them up and down in a rhythm to match the pace of my tongue past his lips.

  He groaned, the sound vibrating through his mouth, his chest, through me, then grabbed my hips and yanked me against him. I rolled my thumb over him once, then slid a fingernail down his length.

  Cursing, he pulled away. My hand came out of his pants. We were both breathing heavily, staring at each other in the silver-shrouded night. I inched sideways, blocking the door.

  He reached down, pulling the black T-shirt up, up, up, revealing stomach, then ribs, then chest, his biceps flexing and releasing, the muscles in his belly rippling like water. I was suddenly parched.

  I led him to the bed and after a slight shove of my palm against his chest he went down. I pressed my mouth to the hard ridge just above his navel, then drew my tongue across his abs and scored his ribs with my teeth. He tasted like the ocean—both salt and the sea—I wanted to savor so much more.

  He tugged on my clothes. “I need to feel your skin against mine.”

  I yanked off my shirt, then my bra, and tossed them away before pressing an openmouthed kiss to the curve of his waist, then suckling hard enough to leave a mark.

  His long, beautiful, yet slightly rough fingers ran over my shoulders, my back, then loosened my hair. I mouthed him through the denim, using my teeth at the tip of his erection. He grasped me by the elbows and hauled me up his body, latching onto my mouth, then grinding our hips together until I was rubbing against him as if there weren’t four layers of clothing in the way.

  He trie
d to unbutton my jeans; I fumbled with his. Both of us were shaking.

  “Screw it.” I rolled away so that I could deal with my own fastenings. He did the same. It was a race. Whoever finished first got to be on top.

  I lost. I didn’t mind. Especially when he covered me with his body and filled me so completely with a single thrust I began to come even before he began to move.

  I cried out his name, clenching around him, and he buried his face between my breasts, pulling me more tightly against him, slowing down, drawing it out, until I was poised halfway in between, perched on a second edge.

  My hips moved of their own accord, taking him more deeply, feeling the tingle start harder, stronger, this time as his lips drew my nipple into his mouth once, twice, the rhythm syncopated—hips, lips, hips, lips.

  He nipped me, and I exploded, gasping for breath as he spilled himself into me, body and soul.

  When the tremors died, I held on with my legs, my arms. “Stay with me,” I whispered. “Stay in me.”

  I didn’t want to break the connection. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

  He did as I asked, and we kissed languidly, touched gently. I tangled my fingers in his hair, stroking my thumb over his feather as I tumbled toward sleep. He slid away, but I felt him close, our legs tangled, the scent of his skin all over mine.

  I awoke in that strange hour between night and day, no moon, no sun, when everything is frighteningly still and just a little creepy.

  The rain had stopped, though trickles of water continued to trace the window. The air felt close and hot. At first I thought he was gone. That he’d crept out of bed, gotten dressed, and disappeared, and I sprang up with a gasp. Then I saw him.

  He sat on the side of the bed, head in his hands, hair spilling over his wrists, covering his face. He was breathing as if he’d run ten miles in the heat. His back shone slick with sweat, and he was shaking.

  “Nightmare?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer.

  I put my palm against his tattoo. He jerked as if he hadn’t even known I was there.

  “What’s wrong?”

  His shoulders raised and lowered several times before he spoke. “I see her sometimes when I wake up, hovering, laughing. Not the woman who loved me so much, but the thing that hated me.”