Chapter Sixteen
The great thing about Bob’s Burgers was that none of the staff judged you. When you wander in at 2:00 a.m. accompanied by a little girl and a grown man who was wearing the Examiner like a loin cloth, then lack of judgment was both essential and refreshing.
It didn’t hurt that most of the night shift were female or that Gabriel looked like a GQ model who’d lost his way. Hell, when he ordered a strawberry milkshake I was examining his bare chest with as much pleasure as our poor, flustered waitress. Asrai, dear, sweet, prepubescent creature that she was, was the only producer of estrogen in the restaurant with two good brain cells to rub together. She regarded the rest of us with a look of disgust children her age seemed programmed with. I’d asked her during our walk how her guardians would react when they found her missing and she’d responded with, “They won’t remember I was ever there in the first place.”
Her words had hurt something deep in me and I wondered how many times she’d had to do that. Live with a family only to wipe herself from their lives when she was prepared to move on. Now I was glad to find an excuse to ignore what a band of misfits we were. Like every other woman in BB’s, I was busy having eye sex all over Gabriel’s chiseled man parts.
I enjoyed myself for a minute, maybe two, before my brain overheated and my head slammed onto the Formica tabletop.
Tentatively, Asrai spoke up, “What’s wrong with her?”
I turned my head so that I could glare at them both through my bangs. Just as I suspected. Robust, healthy, and not the least bit winded.
“I’m old,” I answered the little girl with a sneer, my muscles already bitching at me from overuse.
“Old and grossly out of shape,” Gabriel corrected, ever willing to help.
“Shut. Up.”
“Someone’s cranky,” said sassy Miss Asrai. Gabriel laughed at the look on my face.
“Well, excuse me for being the only human at the table. Trekking through the wilderness for hours made me realize I’m not as spry as I once was.”
Gabriel tried to stifle the snort, but I heard it anyway. Even if I hadn’t, his raised eyebrow and his next words clearly expressed what he thought of me. “You? Spry? That’s cute.”
My inner Sean Connery picked that very moment to get bitchy. “Prepare for an ash kicking of epic proportions.”
He blinked.
“Did you just whip out Connery in the middle of an argument?”
This was awkward. I scratched my chin and regarded him, suspicious of his reaction.
“Maybe. Though, granted, it was more of a disagreement than an argument.”
He didn’t respond at first, but soon he was scowling and shaking his head in denial.
“What?” I asked, still bitter about being out-exercised by an eight-year-old.
“Nothing. It’s just. You’re just…” Words seemed to fail him momentarily. Then, “You’re just too damn cute.” He said in wonder, and I felt my heart stop. I was wondering if he meant it the same way I had, but before I could follow that line of thought too closely, a shadow fell over our cozy little booth.
At first I thought it was the waitress with our milkshakes and curly fries. It would have been nice if it had been.
“Sonya?” I gasped.
Shock wouldn’t even begin to describe how I felt in that very moment. I hadn’t seen her since she’d given me the spy equipment, but from the change in her we may as well have been out of touch for years.
Her blond hair had been cut almost to the scalp, and she wore the army fatigues as if she were more comfortable in their roomy confines than she had ever been in her Prada heels and brand name clothes. A gun rested in the holster at her hip, and her mouth was a tight line of displeasure as she glared down at us.
She looked like a completely different person.
She looked like a member of the Huntsmen.
Our waitress appeared at her back, tray laden with our orders. Clearing her throat, the woman placed a hand on her bony hip and blew a perfect, pink, bubblicious bubble in Sonya’s direction.
“Scuse you,” she said. Her nametag read Lottie.
The two women stared each other down, before, with a tinkling laugh that shocked us all, Sonya shook her head in apology.
“Sorry,” she said, still smiling as she plopped down beside me in the booth. “I sort of got carried away. Hey,” she nodded at Gabriel’s strawberry milkshake as the waitress set it carefully before him. “Can I get one of those?”
Eyeing her warily, Lottie the waitress nodded, set out the rest of our drinks and fries, and wandered off. Asrai, unconcerned with the turn of events, dug into her chocolate shake right away. I was too busy gawking at Sonya. I knew we’d talked about infiltrating the Huntsmen, but I hadn’t known until now that she’d be able to pull it off.
The girl was better than any of us had given her credit for.
“Are you here to drag us back to our cells?” I asked, amused as she snatched the bowl of curly fries out from under Gabriel’s hand. My voice was light, but I was only half joking. Across from us, Gabriel’s eyes began to darken in warning.
Sonya nearly choked on her first fry.
“God, no. I actually came to warn you. When you two never showed up at the rendezvous point, Liam sent a bunch of the Huntsmen out to search for you. Most of them are still out scouring the woods, but I figured you’d be where the food was. Since BB’s is the only restaurant open this time of night, I left my recon team and hauled ass over here to check things out.” She grinned, curly fries sticking out of her mouth like fried fingers reaching for freedom. “Am I good? Or am I a damn good?”
She’d followed the food. Was I really that predictable?
Since I wasn’t flipping out, Gabriel began to relax by slow increments, concentrating once again on his milkshake and eyeing the steadily disappearing basket of fries as if he were looking for the injured gazelle.
Sonya nudged me, leaning in close to whisper. “Who’s Mr. Tall, blond, and nearly naked?”
This time it was my turn to smile. “Gabriel Evans,” I stated, smug.
Her eyes widened, dark blue saucers in her heart shaped face.
“No shit?”
“No shit.”
“Holy ovaries, Batman,” she breathed.
Yeah. I understood that reaction all too well.
“Oh wow,” she gushed, speaking to Gabriel directly for the first time. “You’re not at all what I expected.”
“Really?” He pulled out that practiced smile and all of a sudden he was Mr. CEO. Dressed in a suit or not the man knew how to wear class better than some people knew how to wear their own skin. I wonder how long it had taken him to perfect that little trick.
“Oh yeah,” Sonya was saying, “In my mind I pictured you as some dictator. An a*shole with a hard-on for power. But you’re a sweetie pie. Handsome too. I didn’t know you’d be so handsome. I mean, the second I saw you I dropped an egg.”
Sweet buttery baby Jesus.
“What?” Gabriel looked at me in confusion. Surprising, since even little Asrai started cracking up between scoops of chocolate. “What does that mean?” he asked helplessly.
“It means she saw you and started ovulating.” I explained. No point in sugar coating it.
At my words his face flushed scarlet, and I couldn’t help but chuckle at his look of helpless embarrassment. That’s when something occurred to me. If I hadn’t been staring right at him, hadn’t noticed the way his rising color contrasted so sharply with the silver collar around his neck, I may have completely forgotten that we were still wearing our trackers. Maybe the fact that we had been walking for hours without incident or recapture had made us lax, or maybe the Hunt had distracted us. Either way, when the alarm bells started going off in my brain, they did so with full force and I found myself surging to my feet.
“Sonya,” I said, “why are the Huntsmen searching the woods?”
She shook her head, confused.
“They’re searching for you.”
“No.” Damnit. This couldn’t be happening. Not when I was the one who convinced him to stay. “We have trackers on. They know where we are. Liam and his men could have picked us up at any time. So why are they in the woods?”
I met Gabriel’s eyes and saw that he’s come to the same realization as I had. His face drained of color and his lips thinned.
“I don’t know,” Sonya said thinly.
“Where does the Pack meet now for full moon nights? Where do they turn?” But I already knew the answer before he spoke.
“The park.” He looked as sick as I felt. “The Pack would have gathered at the park. It’s the only safe place they have now.”
* * * *
“Why?” I seethed. “Why would they go back there, knowing it’s where we were taken?”
I’d left Asrai with Sonya back at BB’s with strict instructions to head to my apartment if they didn’t hear back from us in a few hours. Sonya let us use her Camaro, and once again I found myself in the passenger seat while Gabriel broke every traffic law known to man.
The only reason why Gabriel wasn’t driving stark naked is because Sonya had an extra set of fatigues in the backseat. Whereas they had been roomy on Sonya, they barely fit him. But at least the funny section was no longer the only thing standing between me and Gabriel’s dangly bits.
His foot pumped the gas, but for the first time I wasn’t silently praying for him to slow down. Instead, I was bouncing in my seat and wishing that Sonya’s Camaro was just a little bit faster. I don’t know why I was so invested in the safety of the Pack. As far as I knew I’d never met any of them, and what interaction I had with them had been overshadowed by violence. I shouldn’t care what happened to them…but I did.
I felt responsible for them, and besides that, I knew how important they all were to Gabriel. That alone would have been enough to turn me into an ally of the Pack no matter our rocky start.
“Lumière was so essential to the Pack because it doubled as a bunker. A safe house for Weres. There are rooms hidden throughout the building that have been built specifically to hold us during the night of the change.” I thought of his inner office, and was glad that I’d never managed to see the inside of a room that doubled as his prison once a month. “With so many of us living and working in the city it was the only solution to keep us from running wild through the streets. Now that Lumière is under speculation, the next, and only, option is the park. It’s big enough for all of them and has enough wildlife to keep their wolves from wandering back into the city in search of fresh meat.” His jaw tightened. “Going back was a risk, but it was one they were probably willing to take.”
“This is all my fault,” I moaned.
“Not all of it. Just some.”
I looked over at him and saw a dimple flash in his cheek. “You can make it up to me later.”
I swallowed nervously and looked away.
The speedometer hit 90 mph and continued to climb.
Once we were near enough to the park, Gabriel killed the lights and parked on the side of the street. We couldn’t afford to let the Huntsmen hear or see us coming. I still had no idea how many of them there were and suddenly I wished we’d stayed with Sonya long enough to get some intel.
I got out of the car at the same time Gabriel did, and it wasn’t until I’d gone a few yards that I realized he wasn’t behind me.
“What’s wrong?”
He was leaning back against the hood of Sonya’s car, arms folded across his chest. He beckoned me back and I came, eyes narrowing at the look on his face.
“Phaedra,” he said, soft, sweet. There was regret in the way he said my name, and I shook my head adamantly.
“I’m coming with you.”
“You can’t.”
“You can’t stop me.”
“Sure I can.” He sounded so annoyingly confident that I bristled.
“How?”
“You like Superman?”
I shrugged, “He lacks the boyish charm of Spiderman, but he’s all right.”
“I’m like Superman.”
I rolled my eyes. “This should be good. And who am I? Lois Lane?”
A solemn shake of his head, and then his hands were tangling in my hair. “You’re kryptonite.”
The admission was made against my lips and my resistance packed its bags and left the vicinity. When his tongue demanded interest, my head tipped back and I gave it to him. It felt like forever since he’d touched me like this, and the feel of his mouth, his breath, his hands, was like coming home. Like I hadn’t known how to breathe right until he taught me.
The kiss stole my thoughts and heart and it was only as he pulled away that I was able to find both again.
“Stay here,” he said, leaning his forehead against my own.
I swallowed, my chest aching. “What happens if you don’t come back?” My throat got tight at the thought. He finally managed to tug himself away with a sigh.
“If I don’t come back, go back for Asrai and call the other Alphas. Tell them you’re my mate and ask for sanctuary for you and the girl. They’ll protect you until…”
“Until what?”
He shrugged and for the first time began to look more helpless than brave. “Until the Sidhe come and they can’t protect you anymore.”
I’d boasted about our chances of survival when I’d thought Gabriel would be there to help fight against the Mad Sidhe. Without him I was no longer so sure, and I felt nerves spring to life in the pit of my stomach.
“What will happen to Asrai if the Riders find her?”
“They’ll kill her.”
“And me?”
He swallowed and looked down. “They’ll probably kill you too. For being my mate. Or they may just turn you into a Rider. For fun.”
Expressionless, I stared at him until he met my eyes again. “Then I guess that means you better come back.”
Straightening, he nodded. “I guess it does.”
Tossing me the keys, he stripped out of his borrowed clothes. Shifting before I had time to ogle any of the good stuff, he took off down the road, the moonlight casting his fur in shades of purest black.
Then, there was nothing left for me to do but wait.
You choose your allies with care and your enemies with abandon. It should probably be the other way around.
—Leo Valentine
Kissed by Moonlight
Adrianne Brooks's books
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