Moonshadow (Moonshadow #1)

“I’m sorry.” Reaching out, she brushed the tips of her fingers across the back of his fist.

The fleeting touch made him clench his fist tighter to keep from grasping her hand, an odd, unwelcome urge. “As our numbers have dwindled, so too have our options. Once, we would have been able to gather in strength and hold our own against any attack. Now we need to be much more wary. And like you, we need to find a place to call our own. But until we do, being able to disguise our whereabouts when we meet would be the next best thing.”

“I’ll help you,” she said abruptly. “I’ll show you how to make magic-sensitive colloidal silver for yourself, and I’ll teach you how to infuse it with the null spell. There’s no need for payment.”

He gave her a long, dark look. A better man would have insisted upon paying her, but he didn’t.

A better man would have pointed out that the more she became involved with him, the more danger she was putting herself in, but he didn’t do that either.

Sophie Ross was proving that she could be very useful to him. If his people needed what she could teach him, he would take everything from her that he could get. Never mind what his old, damaged conscience might have to say about it.

His conscience wasn’t useful in helping his men or Lyonesse, so he told it to shut the hell up. He had warned her, and she had already made it clear she was capable of making her own decisions.

She didn’t have any magic runes painted in her dark hair. Obeying a wordless impulse, he reached for a stray curl and tucked it behind her ear, while her eyes went wide and she stared at him. She didn’t pull away from him either, and as he dropped his hand, his fingers stroked down the side of her face, marveling at the marble paleness of her skin and the fragile warmth of life beating underneath it.

Even knowing he could bring her death, he told her, “I’ll take you up on that offer.”





Chapter Seven





Why did he touch her?

That’s what Sophie wanted to know.

Why did he touch her, and why did she let him? The whole thing was inexplicable, but he did, and she did, and when his fingers trailed down the side of her face, the muscles in her thighs shook in a fine tremor.

He was a man with a killer’s face, living through a tragedy with his people dwindling away, and he was fighting for existence any way he knew how. He was using her, and she knew it, and she was going to let him.

At least for teaching him how to cast the silver rune.

That was all. Just the rune.

Because she had grown a little over the years, and she had learned a lot about herself. She knew she was an asshole magnet, and if there ever was an asshole, this guy was it.

So. She would help him with just the rune.

That was more than enough, and she was being more than generous after the way he had behaved. She understood what had happened and why he had acted the way he had. She could let bygones be bygones, but they weren’t going to magically turn around and become besties during the course of a single evening.

“I’m done talking,” she said. It was raw and awkward, but he didn’t seem to mind in the least. She paused. “By the way, how did you get here without me hearing you?”

He stepped back. “I parked at the road and walked up the drive.”

“Oh. Well, we can talk sometime soon about when I’ll teach you how to make the colloidal silver and cast the rune, but for now, I’ve had enough. Good night.”

Exhaustion was beginning to color the edges of her thinking. As she turned to walk to the Mini, she looked around. She really wasn’t Robin’s keeper, and he was free to take off whenever he felt like it, but it was going to bother her if he didn’t show up by the time she started the car.

She needn’t have worried. As she opened the door of the Mini, a dark streak raced across the open lawn from the shadow of the neighboring forest, tail up and wagging. She raised her eyebrows as the dog reached the open door and leaped in. The change in him from when she had found him wandering down the road was remarkable.

Sliding into the driver’s seat, she murmured, “You’re feeling better, I take it.”

Large bright eyes blinked at her from the shadowed darkness. For a brief moment, as she looked at Robin, she caught a flash of something else. Something that wasn’t a dog. Blinking rapidly, she tried to see it again, but the vision was gone.

The moonshadow had offered its magic to her again.

“Is it wrong to pet you as if you really were a dog?” she asked, holding out her hand.

Even though she didn’t live the kind of lifestyle that was good for a dog, she was going to miss the dog she had thought Robin was. He sniffed at her fingers and didn’t seem to mind as she scratched him gently behind the ear.

Smiling to herself, she started the car and turned on the interior light to inspect the raised blisters that ringed his neck. They were completely healed. He was indeed feeling better.

She switched off the light and headed back down the drive. When she pulled out between the gateposts, she didn’t see a car parked on the side of the road, so Nikolas must have already left.

Even driving the unfamiliar roads slowly and carefully, the drive back to the pub took less than ten minutes. As she pulled into the parking lot and opened the door, the sound of screaming split the night.

The screaming came from inside the pub. It was a woman’s voice.

Maggie.

This time adrenaline hit hard, and the only imperative it gave her was fight.

Stupid. Crazy.

She lunged out of the car and sprinted for the pub, straining with every sense to glean information about what was happening inside.

The screaming came from the front. From the pub side. As she rounded the corner of the building, a gun went off. One shot.

A monkey leaped and ran beside her, shrieking at her.

A… a capuchin monkey… a monkey?

Her stride faltered, and she stared at it. As it yelled at her, she saw in the light of a nearby streetlamp the monkey had no tongue. “Go back to the car!” she ordered.

Instead, Robin jumped to hang on her leg. He dragged at her, clearly trying to stop her from going forward.

She tried to brush him off as she charged toward the front door. Toward what used to be the front door. The door itself was in shreds, a piece of wood still hanging from the hinges.

Ignoring the monkey hanging on her leg—at least he had stopped shrieking although his hard little monkey fingers pinched at her thigh painfully—she slowed, walked along the edge of the building quietly, and peered in.

There was blood everywhere, with furniture knocked awry, body parts and playing cards strewn everywhere, and monsters.

Huge, very werewolf-y looking monsters. One monster savaged a body. As she stared at it, Arran stood up from behind the bar and fired a hunting rifle point-blank into the face of a second monster that rushed toward him. It fell but just as quickly rolled onto its feet.