Lunar Marked (Sky Brooks Series Book 4) (12 page)

“Oh are we doing a hostile takeover of gang territory?” I joked as she approached the car.

Sable laughed loudly, an odd high-pitched sound.

She was twenty shades of crazy but at least she got my sense of humor.

Winter didn’t take her eyes off of Sable and kept her hand placed casually over one of the knives at her waist. I wished I could have assured her that Sable was harmless, but I wasn’t so sure about that. She was unpredictable with a violent past, and there wasn’t anything innocuous about her. When Sable offered the front seat to Winter, she declined, opting for the back, and they kept a careful eye on each other the entire drive.

S
able jumped
out of the car before it came to a full stop, looking around the area, her search becoming more frantic as time passed. “They were here,” she said.

I surveyed the area, but the home looked empty and there weren’t any cars parked on the side of the street. “Do you smell that?” Winter asked.

Inhaling the air, it hit me—fumes—oil, and an acrid medicinal smell. Something seemed off about the place and before I could acknowledge it, both Winter and Sable had made their way into the house. The setup was similar to Kelly’s. Everything looked tidy, as though the person was gone on vacation. Winter studied the pictures on the wall, looked through the mail, and then searched throughout the home.

I went through the rest of the small home, looking for anything suspicious, but the only thing I gathered was “single woman.” If she had a boyfriend or a man in her life, she wasn’t allowing him to keep his things in her home.

“Have you spoken with Gavin?” Winter asked.

“Not since the other day when he suspected that Kelly might be missing.” Winter was silent for a long time, considering the situation. She inhaled a slow breath and then exhaled, shaking her head. She spoke but it seemed that she was speaking to herself. “They are only taking women,” she mumbled.

Worry spread across Winter’s face as she started to chew on her bottom lip.

“What do you think is going on?” I asked.

She shrugged. “You all have been getting this jackal with the ability to use magic and now women are missing.” I followed her out of the house to the car, Sable was nowhere to be found. I didn’t bother to look for her. I was sure she was investigating Kelly’s whereabouts. I wish she would have done it because it’s the right thing to do, as opposed to trying to make things right with Gavin. But despite her motives, I was glad to have her skills. As a teenager, she tracked down the people who killed her family when the police department had failed, so I felt more confident knowing she was assisting.

Winter leaned against the car, stroking the handle of her knife as though she was trying to console it for not being used. She had an affinity for violence that I would never understand.

“The vampires are no longer restricted by the daylight,” she acknowledged once we were in the car.

The weight of guilt settled in my chest, and I couldn’t ignore it. “I know.”

Aware of her gaze on me, I glanced in her direction. Her face was strained with uneasiness. “Do we know if staking them through the heart still works? What about holy water?”

Unfortunately, Steven had prevented me from finding out whether staking someone actually worked, and holy water just hurt like hell, it didn’t kill them. But if you let them tell the story, it didn’t work at all.

I wanted to fill the silence with idle chat but I had too much on my mind. Was the jackal, who could use magic, a result of us using the Clostra? We had unleashed dark magic, different from anything I had experienced. The Tre’ase were free and I could only imagine the problems they were causing.

“I didn’t change last night,” she said in a tight voice. “We had an eclipse and I wasn’t forced into change.” Winter was a rarity, a were-snake, and only forced into her animal form during an eclipse.

There was a full moon at the end of the month, so I would find out if it affected the canidae, and next month Mercury would rise again and we could determine if the felidae were affected as well. We didn’t have any ursidae and equidae in the pack so when transit of Saturn occurred we’d have no idea of how they would respond. I think there were a few in the Eastern Pack.

Each day was a new discovery of how we had changed the otherworld. I needed to find out what the jackal was. I was considering going back to Logan’s, the last place it was encountered. It wasn’t a stretch in logic to think there was a link between Logan and it. After all, if he could make a spirit shade, what else could he do?

“Sky!” Winter yelled then grabbed my steering wheel and jerked it to the side, keeping me from slamming into the man who had run into the road. Dressed in shorts and bloodstained shirt, he stopped, looking panic-stricken. His odd amber eyes resembled that of a wolf. Typically, were-animals’ eyes sparked the color of our animals, often when angered or in fearful situations as if it were awakened. He was human with wolf eyes. His eyes widened and then constricted before he shot past the car.

Winter jumped out and ran after him, calling after him to stop. Winter was fast, but he was faster, darting through the trees in a panic, looking over his shoulder at her. I drove up and then bolted out of the car to cut him off at the path. I ran through the thicket, over the uneven terrain, finding it hard to get my footing. The man-animal didn’t have any problems—he ran through the area at speeds that pushed Winter and me. We had gone deep in the woods, and I had cornered him from the back. She had him in the front, and the crowd of trees on each side of him would make it difficult to negotiate without getting caught.

Panting, he looked between us, his eyes glowing with a predator’s ire. He looked scared enough to be erratic. He obviously felt trapped and would do anything to get away. “Hi.” Winter finally spoke in a low, calming voice. He couldn’t focus. His head kept scanning the area, his body tensed and ready to strike at any moment. I wondered how long had he had been out here. His clothing was dirty, his blond hair and haggard short beard dingy from dirt. His skin was pale and hadn’t been exposed to the sun in some time.

“What’s your name?” Winter continued, lightly and soothingly.

He relaxed but wouldn’t look her directly in the face, something she needed. She needed him to look her in the eyes, so that she could charm him. He turned to look at me, and I smiled.

“I’m Skylar. You can call me Sky,” I said, my voice matching Winter’s. Inching a little closer, I asked gently, “Are you lost? We can help you.”

He kept saying our names over and over as if they held some importance, and when he finally spoke his voice was deep and hoarse as though he hadn’t used it in some time. “Sebastian, do you know him?”

“Yes, we know him. We can take you to him,” Winter said, taking small cautious steps toward him. Fear had made him unpredictable. The wrong move and we didn’t know if he would attack or run. His wild eyes kept scanning the area, ears perked at the slightest sound, and he was so withdrawn, he was coiled mass on the brink of explosion.

“Did someone tell you to find him?” I asked.

He responded with a shaky nod and then his head shot up at the sound of approaching steps, and the panic returned. He darted out past Winter, knocking her to the ground, and ran. I took off after him, but couldn’t get close enough to stop him. He changed direction from the sounds I heard in the distance: a car, male voices, the pounding of footsteps. His speed increased and he darted around the trees as heading toward the street. By the time I got there, Winter was waiting by the car, scanning the area.

“What the hell was that?” I asked between gasps of breath.

She shook her head. The smell of car fuel wafted through the air, along with a sage and pine mixture that people used to mask their scent. It worked well if you were hiding from a shapeshifter—it was an irritant and made tracing a scent impossible.

“I think someone grabbed him,” Winter said, kneeling over the tire marks near me.

“We need to go to Abigail’s,” Winter suggested as we got in the car. When the discussion of weird hybrids is ever in question, the elves are usually people of interest. In Elysian I was introduced to unique hybrid animals that didn’t exist in the regular world, including their mishaps, which were hidden away in the heavily warded dark forest.

W
inter was noticeably
tense as we pulled into the driveway of the two-story home. The Doric pillars that encircled the porch gave it a palatial feel with a hint of pretense that embodied Winter’s ex-girlfriend’s persona. Abigail’s father once ruled the elves, and due to their antiquated and misogynistic rules, she would never hold such honors, but she didn’t let a little thing like that stop her. She manipulated her way into power through her brother, who had declined the nomination for the position because he considered it only a result of his people’s love for his father, who had ruled for over seventy years. But when he was poisoned and nearly killed, he assumed it was a political move to ensure that he would never accept the position. He wasn’t aware that his sister was behind it, and for the pack’s silence about it. Abigail and Sebastian colluded to incite a civil war against the
Makellos
, who were the self-indoctrinated elven elite, in order to force the elves to be under one rule—her brother’s. Sebastian and Abigail had formed an alliance, and her brother was none the wiser. He only knew that the pack had saved his life and his sister was at his side, appalled that someone would dare attack her brother for political gain.

The underhanded dealing, colluding, and manipulation were done to protect Ethan, who should have been killed based on a covenant made by everyone to contain
Dunkell
, dark elves.

Abigail greeted Winter with a smile, and when she stepped forward to hug her, Winter recoiled, frowned, and stepped back. The vertical slits that I hadn’t seen in sometime flickered.

Abigail’s smile melted as she moved back several feet. Their appearances were complete opposites: she was as pale as Winter was dark. An abundance of long platinum hair, usually in a French braid, was loose and draped over her shoulder. Abigail’s frame was very similar to Winter’s tall, sleek body, but her features mirrored her brother’s in a bizarre way. They were far too similar to be fraternal twins. Abigail and Gideon both possessed distinctive and androgynous features of narrow face, sharp defined cheeks and jawline, thin aquiline nose, and pale lashes that veiled violet eyes.

“We saw something quite odd today, and I believe Liam may be responsible,” Winter said, taking a seat on the sofa. Abigail started to join her but was deterred with a sharp look. She stepped back, opting for the armchair across from her.

“And what was that?” Her smile was genteel and warm and may have worked on anyone other than Winter, who wasn’t able to forgive her for using her as a pawn as Abigail executed her scheme to get her brother into power as the new leader of the elves.

“We saw a man today who looked like an animal in a human body. His eyes were that of an animal, although he was human form. He was definitely not a were-animal. Is Liam experimenting with humans?”

Abigail was a skilled liar and a gifted performer. The presentation she put on when her brother was found nearly dead was worthy of an award. I wouldn’t trust whatever came out of her mouth even if her tongue was notarized and she swore on a stack of holy books. I believed Winter felt the same way. She stilled, watching Abigail closely, paying attention to her. Sebastian and Ethan were masters of studying the physiological changes to detect a lie. Gavin was nearly as good but the rest of them had to work a little harder at it and I was still a novice.

Winter looked in Abigail’s direction but refused to give her the courtesy of any emotions. Abigail’s lips pulled into a thin line, and she looked at Winter. Winter looked through her. Winter ascribed to the belief that there wasn’t a thin line between love and hate, but there was one between love and indifference. Feeling nothing for a person was worse than hate in Winter’s mind.

Parting her lips to speak, Abigail quickly closed them instead. Taking a moment, she considered her words, and when she finally spoke, her voice was soft and entreating. “Winter, I didn’t enjoy deceiving you.”

Winter’s empty gaze peered through her, and when she spoke, her intonation was as devoid of emotions as her look. “Whether or not you enjoyed it isn’t what bothers me, it’s the fact that you did it. I thought
we
were better than that.” Winter leaned forward, studying her. “Do you think Liam has anything to do with it?”

“Is Liam capable of doing something so cruel? Of course, and probably worse; but he knows it would not be tolerated and violates our laws. If it were ever discovered that he was doing such things, he and anyone involved would be severely punished. With everything that has transpired recently we would have discovered it, if it were going on.”

Winter and I gave her our undivided attention. “The ward fell two weeks ago in Elysian and your pack and the elves helped Liam contain everything. Sebastian and your pack have been very helpful with cleaning up Liam’s mess. It was very kind of him to help; it was only fitting that Liam forgave him of the debt he had incurred to help Kelly.” Sebastian wasn’t busy cleaning up Liam’s mess—he was cleaning up ours and had his debt forgiven in the process.

I sucked in a sharp breath. We removed the curse and apparently shattered wards as well. My chest was so tight that breathing was becoming a problem. And the chorus of the clusterfuck song played over and over in my head because that was exactly what this was.

“Was everything that escaped recovered?” I asked. If not, the strange man we saw today might not be the only thing running rampant in the city. What would be the reaction of someone who saw an okapi/horse hybrid, like the one I rode when I was there? Or worse, something that was kept hidden in the dark forest? One of the creatures paralyzed Kelly, and it took another bloodsucking creature from there to repair her. Sebastian left the dark forest with talon-like claw marks on his back.