Hidden Moon (24 page)

“YOU KNOW, I wish you guys wouldn’t think so loudly,” I grumbled, sitting down beside of Adam with my tray. I gave Erik a cold look. “I know you’re worried about that Biology exam, but you’re projecting it so hard that I can’t concentrate. Mr. Webb doesn’t think I’m paying attention, and I’m not. I’m too worried about you passing your classes instead of my own.”

“Sorry, Nikki, I can’t help it. They want me to cut up that pig heart.” Erik grimaced, his face looking as gray as his shirt. “I know it’s dead already, but butchering the poor thing for no reason other than satisfying someone’s morbid curiosity just seems wrong to me.” He shrugged, gave me a weak smile, and then started into his first plate of food.

“I don’t know, Erik, but you’ve got to deal with it somehow. I’m not trying to sound unsympathetic or anything, but how can you eat right after you came out of Biology class? Especially if you’ve been messing with pig guts.”

“Pig hearts. It’s not that I want to eat, it’s because I have to. And yes, I realize that biology shouldn’t bother me, but it does. I’m sensitive,” he mumbled through a mouthful of hot dog, leaving me to wonder if he had lost his mind. He kept chewing and swallowing more food, without any other explanation.

“What he’s trying to say, Nikki, is that we use massive amounts of energy anytime we shift into wolf, and energy requires fuel. We patrol at night as a pack; it uses a lot of energy. It helps if we hunt in wolf form, but often we can’t, so we have to eat two or three times more than a regular person would soon after we shift back,” Ed explained, squirting more ketchup onto his fries.

“Hunt. In wolf form,” I whispered.

“Mostly deer,” Erik volunteered before swallowing another bite of hot dog. “Sometimes elk, since they are migrating up this way.”

I felt Adam move and glanced over to see him looking at me.

Let me show you,
his voice whispered before a sudden flash blinded me.

I was hunting with my brothers. A musky animal scent crept up my nostrils and awakened the animal inside me. I could hear it grazing on the grass a few yards away. It didn’t know we were even there. The wolf in me wanted to startle it and make it run. It was eager for the chase. I knew the others felt the same as I, but they would only follow me. We are pack, and I am the leader. I’m the alpha. I gave in to the wolf and lunged in front of the deer, startling it. I saw the large doe’s eyes widen in fear for a split second, and then it turned and bounded through the trees. The adrenaline rushed through me, there was nothing human in me now. I only wanted to hunt. To kill.

It was over in a matter of seconds. It always was. After all, when you are the greatest predator in the world, nothing can hide. I could hear her heart beating, fear emanated off her in a wave. I lunged over a fallen log and took her down. I sat down on my haunches with my muzzle still clamped on her throat and felt the last pulse of life as it filled my mouth with the tang of coppery blood. The pack ate until all of us were satisfied. Then the wolves left us and went back down into their shadowy depths, leaving us only in their form, with more strength than we had and our appetites sated
.

I blinked, and swallowed, trying to rid my mouth of the sickly sweet taste as I focused back at the solemn, dark faces that stared back at me across the table.

“Like Ed said, it helps to hunt in wolf form. It eases the animal in us,” Adam whispered as he stared straight ahead. “No gift comes without a curse.”

SLEEK, LITHE FORMS moved through the dark shadows of the forest. These animals were big, but were too long to be the wolves. I strained to see them more clearly. I was busy trying to count how many there were, when one that I hadn’t seen jumped in front of me. A low, feral growl rumbled deep out of its chest.

Mountain lion, I thought, calmly, knowing that it didn’t see me. There were definite advantages to knowing you were seeing a vision.

The cat’s big yellow eyes watched an unsuspecting deer. It settled in a crouch. Its long, tawny tail twitched with anticipation. Muscles tensed, it was ready to spring.

“Nikki, Adam’s here,” my mother’s voice rang out through the trees.

Startled, the doe looked up and ran
.

“Nikki?”

The forest vanished. I blinked and found myself looking at the homework spread on the bed in front of me.

“I’m coming,” I yelled and started for the door.

Adam stood waiting at the bottom of the stairs. His hands were clasped behind his back. A small frown furrowed a crease between his brows. I stopped halfway down the stairs, trying to sense any feelings from him. Nothing. Worried that I had somehow turned off my sight, I came down the stairs and stopped in front of him. I returned his frown and concentrated. We stood there, frowning at each other.

“I’m going to go pick Em up. It looks like you two need to talk,” Mom said as she squeezed past me and headed out the door.

I glanced over in time to see the door shut.

“Hi,” Adam said when I looked back up to him.

“Hi.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, but I can’t hear you at all. Not a single sound. Am I broke? Did I somehow return my gift? No, wait, I know it’s still there, because I just saw those big cats. So why can’t I hear you? I’ve always been able to do it before.” I stopped and took a breath, trying to think of what to do next. I needed help and there was only one place to get it.

“Nikki.”

“I need to go to Jenna. Are you coming?” I shoved my feet into my sneakers, not bothering with tying the shoelaces.

“Nikki.”

“Where are my car keys? I know I left them on that table. Maybe they are in the kitchen,” I mumbled as I stumbled around him.

Stop and listen to me,
his voice rang sharp through my head and stopped me dead in my tracks.

“Oh.” I blinked and turned to look up at him.

“There is nothing wrong with you. You are fine, and we aren’t going to see Jenna. I asked her if there was some way to keep you out of my thoughts for awhile since I didn’t want you in my head. I guess it worked. I’m sorry if that worried you,” he spit out the words rapid-fire before taking a quick breath.

“You don’t want me?” my voice came out in a choked whisper.

“No, that isn’t what I meant.” He reached over and rubbed his palms lightly down my arms, and then leaned down and touched his forehead to mine. “No, I always want you, just not in my head for a few minutes, that’s all.”

“You looked worried, what was wrong? Was it those big cats I saw?” I stayed unmoving, whispering the words, as still as a statue.

He smiled and shook his head. “No, the Sioux are coming. They aren’t the trouble and I’m glad you saw them. Those big cats are the mountain lions. They are to the Sioux what the wolves are to us. The last I had heard, Rune hadn’t decided if they were going to make it to the powwow, so they must be coming. I’ll let my grandfather know you saw them.”

“So what are you worried about?”

“I have something to ask you.” He straightened up and took a step back from me.

This is all Erik’s fault
, his voice bounced accusingly in my head as his eyes narrowed, and then looked vulnerable.

I chose to ignore it. “Okay, go ahead. Ask me.”

“I was wondering if…well, I mean if you wanted to, of course,” he said, swallowing hard. I bobbed my head at him in encouragement. He took a breath and tried again, closing his eyes tight. “I-was-wondering-if-you-wanted-to-go-see-a-movie-or-something,-or-we-could-go-get-something-to-eat-if-you-wanted-to-but-if-you-don’t-that-is-okay-too.”

I let out the deep breath I had been holding. One golden eye slit open and peeked at me. I grinned at him like the Cheshire cat. So that was why it was all Erik’s fault. He had been pestering Adam ever since I had found out about the wolves. “You’re asking me out.”

To that, he opened both eyes and blinked. “Yes.”

I stood there and grinned like an idiot.

“Well?” he asked, impatient.

“Well, okay,” I shrugged and kept my thousand watt grin.

“Okay, as in yes?”

“Yes, that’s a yes.”

He let out a whoosh of breath and grinned down at me. “That’s great. So what shall we do?”

“What? Right now?” I asked a second before I realized that he was not wearing his customary black tank top or t-shirt. Instead, he wore long-sleeved, black silk shirt. His hair was pulled back in a tight braid. It left his face open and his eyes sparkling like gold.

“If you would like,” he said softly. I broke my gaze from his, and turned to look out the window. His Jeep sat in the yard next to my car as proof that he hadn’t come through the forest.

“I know a nice place where we could go eat,” he said cautiously, as if he wasn’t sure that I wasn’t going to back out.

I looked down at my faded blue jeans and stained t-shirt.

He smiled. “Your mom said that if you said yes, you should go and look in her closet on the left side. She left you a surprise. I will wait here if you want to go look.”

I gave him a suspicious look, and then ran up the stairs. In my mother’s room, I took out a bag hanging in the closet. A pretty, powder blue dress made of a super soft material spilled out in my hands. A note was pinned to one of the thin straps.

“Surprise, Nikki,” I read, “Adam stopped by the other day and asked my permission to ask you on a date. I never would have thought of him as the old-fashioned sort to stop and ask, but I am most impressed. I thought you would like a new dress, and found this one at an outlet next to the sheriff’s office. Your shoes are in the bottom of the closet. Hope you have a wonderful time. Don’t forget to be home by eleven. Love, Mom”

I sat down on the bed and stared at the note in my hands. I heard Adam at the bottom of the steps, as if he wasn’t sure if he should come to check on me or not.

Are you okay?

“Yes, just go get comfy on the couch. The remote is down there somewhere. I’ll be down in a little bit,” I called down.

I laid the dress on the bed and sat at my mom’s dressing table. I saw that she put out what makeup I normally would have borrowed. I raked my fingers through my hair and pulled it up in an experimental knot on top of my head. Wild corkscrews popped out everywhere.

Nah
,
I thought, letting it drop down my back before I tamed it down with a few drops of water and some hair gel. I think he likes it better down
.

I shot a quick look at the clock on the wall. More than twenty minutes had passed since I had come upstairs, and although he was shielding his thoughts well from me, I could tell he was anxious from the telltale squeaks from the springs in the couch. I didn’t want to keep him waiting much longer.

I looked back in the mirror and smiled. The girl in the reflection looked as if she belonged with the boy downstairs. The blue dress clung from the thin spaghetti straps to my waist like a second skin, and then flared out at my hips in wispy, light layers that fell just above my knees. The light blue showed off my tanned legs and my Cinderella shoes, as Emily called them, finished off the look. I looked as if I had transformed into a magical princess, complete with glass slippers.

I took a deep breath, and tried to relax. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

I came down the steps quietly, even though I knew he would hear me. I walked to the door of the living room to see him standing and waiting for me. He took a quick breath in and the air between us began to spark and sizzle as it swirled around us in a warm hug.

I walked up to him and stopped merely a few inches away and looked up into his eyes. His eyes blazed down into mine, but he never moved. Nervously, I bit my lip and ducked my head. “Is this okay?”

“You’re beautiful,” his voice came out deep and gravelly as he reached out and slowly traced one finger down the line of my cheek to my chin and lifted my head to meet his gaze again.

Beautiful isn’t the word, but it’s the closest thing I know. I don’t trust myself to find a better word or to hardly touch you for fear you’re just a dream.

“Kiss me,” I whispered so low that I wasn’t sure even he would hear me.

He kissed me, a tentative brush of lips at first, and then his hands found their way around me and brought me closer. The kiss grew stronger, sending a searing heat through every inch of my body. Just at the moment when I thought I would either melt or burst into flame, he broke the kiss and stepped back.

“We should go out now, I think,” my breath came out raggedy and uneven. Much more of that, and I would suggest staying home and making out on the couch all evening.

I started to open my mouth to suggest precisely that, when he took a quick look at his watch. He smiled and took my hand. “I’ve got a surprise for you. Are you up for it?”

“Sure.”

He laughed. “You don’t sound so sure, Nikki. I promise it’s nothing bad. C’mon.”

“So, where are we headed?” I asked, after we made our way out onto the interstate.

“North,” he grinned.

Watching the I-77 North sign go past us at that particular second, I rolled my eyes. “You don’t say.”

“It’s a surprise, Nikki. Trust me. You’ll see soon enough.” He reached over and entwined his fingers through mine.