Beneath a Darkening Moon (7 page)

She raised an eyebrow. “There were lots of us at Rosehall. It was a commune, for God’s sake.”

“But not everyone there believed in free sex. Some had a taste for blood.”

“Only one,” she corrected. “And stop using that condescending tone. If I remember correctly, you were more than ready to partake of the free sex.”

“I still am,” he said, reaching for her.

She stepped back and punched his hand away. “This murderer
can’t
be going after people who were at Rosehall. There were no humans at Rosehall.”

He flexed his fingers as if her punch had hurt him, which she hadn’t intended to do. “What if these murders are merely a means of drawing together the two people responsible for bringing Rosehall down?”

“I never—”

“By association, yeah, you did. You announced the moon promise, remember? Given what I was there to do, it would be easy enough to assume that you were aware of my actions, and even working for me.”

“I was young and stupid, but not everyone else there was. And that’s a rather large logical leap.”

He snorted softly. “How logical was it for a half-breed wolf to be murdering other half-breeds because their blood was unclean?”

Not very
. She finished her coffee and put the mug back on the table. “So I guess we
should
be extra cautious until we understand the motive for these murders.”

He nodded. “Do you live alone?”

“Yes, and you are not spending the night with me.” That would suggest an intimacy that went beyond just sex, and she wasn’t willing to go that far. Not with him.

He gave her that bittersweet smile again, and it made her ineffably sad. “Once you would have begged me to stay.”

“As I said, I was young and stupid.” She hesitated, but she knew she had to lay down some ground rules before this fire between them got completely out of hand. “We may not be able to master these feelings, but I do have some conditions.”

“Conditions?” He made a contemptuous sound. “How can you put restrictions on something neither of us has any control over?”

“Because I’d rather succumb to moon madness than ever put myself at your mercy again.”

“It wasn’t that bad, Vannah …”

“
Sa
vannah,” she amended angrily. “And yes, it was.”

He stared at her for a moment. Then he spun on his heel and returned to his pacing. “So what are your conditions?”

“No one knows about us. If we mate, we do so late at night and where no one can see us.”

His nod was short and sharp, and as angry as his steps.

“Second, do not touch me in any way, sexual or not, during the day.”

He gave her a savage glance. “We do what you must to assuage the moon, but nothing more?”

“Exactly.”

He came to a halt at her end of the table, pressing
his palms against the wood and leaning forward again. “I’ll agree to your two conditions if you agree to two of mine.”

She raised her chin. “What?”

“First, we dance tonight.”

She supposed it was inevitable. If the lust that burned between them was this bad just past the new moon, what would it be like as each passing day brought them closer and closer to the full moon? Neither of them would be able to function, let alone catch this killer. But as much as she wanted him, she also
didn’t
want him. She didn’t want to lose herself in his arms when it was nothing more than the heat of the moon’s promise driving them together.

“What else?”

His sudden grin was all territorial, and all wild wolf. “
This
time, you’ll lie with no other for as long as I’m here, or I’ll report you and Ronan to your prudish little council. Then I’ll stand back and watch the fireworks.”

T
HOUGH
C
ADE HAD
expected an immediate and fiery response to his admittedly outrageous demands, she didn’t say anything. She just stared at him with those coldly luminous green eyes of hers, making him feel like pond scum that wasn’t even worth scraping off her shoe.

Which is what he figured her opinion was right now.

It shouldn’t have mattered. He wanted her, she wanted him, and the promise they’d so stupidly made ensured the outcome would be gratifying for them both. What she thought about him, or what he thought about her, shouldn’t enter into the equation.

Yet, for some reason, her opinion
did
matter.

Maybe exhaustion had addled his brain. Or perhaps the sun and the heat reflecting off the snow this afternoon had burned away a brain cell or two. Why else would he care about the opinion of a lying, cheating snippet of a wolf who had almost succeeded in not only getting him killed, but also letting a murderer go free?

“How did you know about Ronan and me?”

Her words, low and somehow sexy, sent lust surging through his veins. He fought the urge to reach for her and merely said, “I’m trained to read body language, remember?”

And right now, hers was practically screaming with the desire to belt him.

She nodded and crossed her arms. “Then I agree to your terms.”

Exaltation ran through him. She was his.
Again
. “Where do you plan for us to … meet?”

She considered for a moment, then said, “I recently bought an old lodge as a long-term renovation project. It’s called White Peaks, and it’s out on Meadows Road, which is at the western edge of the reservation. My nearest neighbors don’t arrive until ski season opens, so we should remain undiscovered.”

His mouth twisted. “So you were serious about not inviting me to your home?”

Contempt flashed across her features. “Absolutely.”

That was a shame. While he might never trust her again, he certainly wouldn’t have minded uncovering more about the woman who’d once had him so hooked he couldn’t even think straight. He glanced at his watch. “Shall we say midnight?”

She hesitated, then nodded once. “Is there anything else we need to discuss?”

“Other than the need to be extremely cautious, not at the moment.”

“When will the second autopsy be in?”

“Sometime tomorrow.”

“So you want to go back to the hotel now?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

She gave him a look that could have frozen boiling
water and led the way out the door. The short journey to the hotel was so tense the air practically crackled.

She stopped in front of his assigned quarters in what looked like the less than luxurious end of town. He glanced at her, but she wasn’t looking at him, just staring straight ahead with deliberate determination. Yet the tension riding her shoulders suggested she was aware of his every move.

Just as he was endlessly aware of hers.

He opened the door. The night air swept in, bitingly cold. Yet it did little to cool the warmth flooding his skin.

“One thing,” she said, before he could move.

“What?”

“There was a watcher in the forest.” She glanced at him, her cool green eyes seeming to glimmer in the truck’s shadowed darkness. “That’s why I went in—I thought I heard something. Unfortunately, she or he heard me and fled.”

Anger surged. “Why didn’t you mention this earlier?”

“What was the point? It was pitch black, and there were no tracks to be found.”

“Says you,” he retorted. “You’ll take me there tomorrow. Clear?”

“Fine,” she said, pulling her gaze from his. But not before he’d seen the stain of anger in her cheeks.

He climbed out of the truck and had barely slammed the door closed when she took off, tires squealing and pelting him with a rain of gravel.

“Bitch,” he muttered, yet he couldn’t help smiling. She’d always been spirited. In fact, that was what
had first attracted him to her. That, and her glorious golden hair.

He spun on his heel and headed for the room Trista and Anton were sharing. Both were sitting on the carpeted floor. Anton was staring at the laptop while Trista was looking through the old case files Cade had brought along.

“You’re right,” she said, her pale caramel eyes warmed by the fire burning in the hearth. “There’s very little difference between the past murders and these.”

He reached for the autopsy report Hart had faxed over. “Except for the fact these victims are human, and have notes carved into their backs.”

“Not to mention the fact it appears someone is drinking the blood.”

“Yes. Last time the victims were simply bled out.” And the cavern had reeked with the scent—it had taken weeks to clear the stench from his nose.

“It’s unusual for a wolf to like the taste of human blood,” Anton mused without looking up from the screen.

“Jontee McGuire wasn’t a full wolf, but a half-breed.” Cade quickly scanned the autopsy report, but other than the note inserted in the left index finger, Hart had found nothing new.

Trista frowned and pushed her fingers through her short brown hair. “Wolves don’t often mate with humans.”

“In this case, the half-breeds’ mothers were drugged and raped by human males on a dare.”

She grimaced. “There was a rash of such attacks about thirty years ago. Psychologists reckoned it was
some sort of stupid coming-of-age thing. You know, take the werewolf and prove you’re a man.” She snorted. “Like drugging a victim is the act of a
real
man. I tell you, there’s something to be said for keeping humans out of the reservations.”

“Many of the smaller reservations survive on tourist income,” Anton commented, brown eyes flat with annoyance as he looked up. “Without it, they’d be in real trouble.”

“I know, but—”

“Let’s not get into
that
argument again,” Cade said, knowing from past experience that the two of them could debate the subject for hours. And the fact that Trista came from one of the biggest reservations—and one of the two threatened by the encroaching human population—while Anton came from a small, barely surviving reservation, only inflamed the situation. Cade threw the report back onto the table and paced the small room. “What are your thoughts on the lap marks?”

“Either our copycat wasn’t aware of the procedure in the first murders,” Anton said, “or he likes the taste of warm blood fresh from the body.”

“Why are you both so convinced it’s a copycat?” Trista asked. “So okay, Jontee is dead, but didn’t he have twelve mistresses?”

“ ‘True believers,’ he preferred to call them,” Cade said. “There were four wives and eight mistresses, all of whom he shared with the enlightened.” And one of those mistresses had been Vannah—which was the other reason Cade had targeted her. That and the fact that he’d wanted her from the moment his boss had
dropped twelve photographs on the desk and told him to pick one.

“Couldn’t it be one of them, then?” Trista asked.

“Two wives and six mistresses took lie detector tests, as well as being read by psychics either before or after we’d caught Jontee. None of them knew anything about the murders.”

“What about the other four?” Anton picked up a folder and flicked over several pages. “Nelle James, Fee Mays, Vannah Harvey, and Joanna Noles. Did you manage to track them down as well?”

Cade stopped near the window, studying the darkness. “No. We had Jontee, and since the evidence we found confirmed that he
was
the killer, we called off the search.” Though
he’d
kept looking for Nelle. And Vannah.

Outside, the sliver of the moon was rising, riding low in the clear night sky. The heat of it seared through him, and his body ached with desire. He wanted Vannah—wanted to hold her, caress her, and lose himself deep in the hot, wet warmth of her body. Wanted it
now
, not in a few hours. He scrubbed a hand across his rough jaw. He couldn’t stay in this room. He had to get out, had to walk, before the fever became too obvious.

“You want me to run a check on them all now? See if I can find anything new?” Anton asked.

“Vannah Harvey was my entry into the commune and knew nothing.” Which wasn’t exactly true. She’d known enough to give him Jontee. Known enough to almost get him killed. “And I’ve already checked the others—there’s no record of any of them after they disappeared that night.”

Which wasn’t really that much of a surprise. Half the people living in the commune weren’t using their real names. Like Vannah, for instance. And that was the reason he’d never been able to find her, no matter how hard he’d tried.

“Was everyone at the commune either wolves or half-breeds?” Trista asked.

“Yes,” he said, spinning away from the moon and the night to resume his pacing.

Trista arched a brow. “Interesting.”

He glanced at her. “Why?”

“Because if Jontee was killing in revenge for his mother’s rape, why was he killing other half-breeds? Why not go after the humans behind such acts?”

“You’ve read the reports.”

She grimaced. “ ‘As an offering of peace and restoration to the Goddess herself.’ That doesn’t exactly make sense.”

“It did to Jontee. He believed half-breeds were tainted, and that by spilling their blood into the soil, he was cleansing their souls for future lives.”

She snorted. “So why not off himself?”

“Because he was the tool of the Goddess, and therefore immune from the taint.”