Moonlight (11 page)

Chapter Eighteen

Adam

I tossed and turned until the damned sheets were tethered around my legs. Lana’s scent lingered on my pillows, reminding me of the spicy taste of her lips, the way her nails raked down my back, the way our bodies rocked together. I groaned and sat up, rubbing my hands down my face. I knew I needed to change the sheets. If one of the Pack wandered in here I’d be fucked, and not in a good way.

But I wasn’t ready.

Having her scent around me made it easier to imagine she was still in my bed, not miles away in her hotel room. I didn’t want to forget how perfectly she fit in my arms, the way our bodies had joined together. Seeing her eyes full of passion, hearing her moaning my name, it cemented her into my soul.

She was mine. I had claimed her.

But she had no idea.

How could I tell her? The wolf inside of me stated it as fact, but the human part of me knew nothing in life was black and white. Lana had been right about my family. If I introduced her as my mate, I couldn’t stay here any longer. They wouldn’t accept her into the Pack. I might be able to keep them from physically hurting her, to protect her, but I wouldn’t be able to stand by and watch them treat her like an outcast. A trespasser who shouldn’t be trusted.

No, I would have to leave the Pack behind.

I shook my head with a bitter chuckle. It wasn’t like I really had a choice. Fate was one heartless bitch.

Malcolm had been right. My instincts knew in an instant that Lana was the other half of my soul. When we made love, it wasn’t just a physical need to scratch an itch, at least not for me. My soul reached out to hers, and I felt her love in return. Or I thought I did.

Reality stole that moment from me when I drove her back to her hotel like it had all been a one-night stand. I tried to talk to her, but what could I say? This wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to wake up in the morning and feel her naked body beside me. I needed to reach out and touch her.

Fuck. I couldn’t take it anymore.

I got up and stripped my sheets from the bed and opened the windows to air out the room. Once I had everything stuffed into the washing machine, I yanked on my jeans. I was a grown man, goddammit. I finally found my mate. I wasn’t going to pretend like I hadn’t. Lana was my future.

Before I could grab a shirt, my cell phone rang. The clock said it was after three a.m. I frowned. No good news ever came this late at night. Snagging my phone off the nightstand, my heart sank when I saw Aren’s number flashing.

“Hey, Aren.” I frowned. “Everything okay?”

My brother’s voice sounded sleepy. “Yeah. I was calling to see if you were all right.”

“Me?” My brow furrowed. “Yeah, I’m fine. Why?”

“I was sound asleep, and then I woke up in a hurry to get out of here. Since I’ve been zonked out for a few hours now, I figured
you
must be the one in a hurry to go someplace.”

Maybe it was a twin thing, but if one of us was feeling strong emotions, sometimes the other felt them too, like a residual echo of the emotion.

“I can’t sleep.” That much was true.

“Look,” Aren replied. “I’ll get dressed and come over. Maybe we can go out to the lake. The fish’ll be biting in a couple hours.”

I rubbed my forehead, trying to think. I knew Aren was worried about me, and it killed me to keep secrets from him. Normally I’d jump to go fishing with my brother.

“There’s no reason for you to give up your sleep just because I’ve got insomnia. You rest up. I’ll catch you next time for fishing, okay?”

“You sure?” Aren didn’t sound convinced.

“Yeah. I’m gonna try to sleep a little longer. Thanks for calling. I’m sorry things have been so…off lately.”

My brother was quiet for a moment. “You can tell me anything, Adam. We’re brothers, remember.”

“I know.” I nodded. “I’ll get through this.”

“You better.”

“I will. Night, Aren.”

“Night.”

The phone line went dead, and I sat on the edge of my bed. It was hard to believe how quickly my life turned upside down. I really wished I could confide in Aren. I was dying to tell someone about Lana. But I knew I couldn’t. Not now. Maybe not ever.

Chapter Nineteen

Lana

Once I was back in my room at the neon-pink Circus Circus hotel, I opened my laptop and got right to work. The more I worked, the less I would think about Adam, or at least that was the idea. But every time I shifted in my chair, parts of my body ached, reminding me of our lovemaking, which in turn led to remembering the way we shared a candlelight dinner in our underwear and snuggled together on his couch to watch late-night television.

Until he brought me back to the hotel.

I rolled my eyes at myself. No sense feeling bad now. I knew before I went to bed with Adam that we’d have to hide our relationship. But the harsh reality didn’t really hit until we both got dressed again and he kissed me goodbye. He’d insisted on coming up to be sure my room was secure and untouched. After he was satisfied it was safe, I told him I was tired to save myself from awkward small talk. He was leaving. This was something I was used to.

Besides, now that I knew every inch of his body, I hungered for his attention even more than before. I could feel myself getting worked up just thinking about it. No way we could be trusted alone in my room. And he couldn’t spend the night anyway. His business started with the sunrise.

I tried to silence my inner voice. I needed to find out about the Nero Organization and that damned lion head insignia. Sebastian would come for me again soon—I could feel it.

But instead of dreaming up new internet searches, there I was pining for a guy that I knew I couldn’t have. Perfect.

Before I realized what I was doing, I started clicking through pictures of Adam. Lots of the horseshow photos I’d seen on his wall were right there in my Yahoo! image search. I enlarged one and stared at his smile, his green eyes looking right at me. My heart pounded and I shook my head, clicking to the next photo.

I was hopeless.

Then I found a picture of Adam and his father at Lake Tahoe in some fishing tournament together. My eyes welled up with tears. They were laughing at Malcolm’s tiny excuse for a fish. I tried not to dwell on things I couldn’t control. I didn’t know why my parents gave me up, and wishing they hadn’t wasn’t going to change anything. But sitting alone in my hotel room, staring at photos of Adam with his dad made my chest ache.

I didn’t fit in anywhere.

I closed my laptop and wiped my eyes. Hopefully I’d hear from the PI in San Antonio tomorrow. If I could get some information about my birth parents I might be able to find out a little more about their connection to Nero, and therefore my own.

Exhaustion gnawed on the edge of my nerves, but my mind was too active to sleep. I clicked on the television and started flipping channels when the phone in my room rang. I almost fell off the bed. Who would be calling at this time? Adam would’ve called my cell phone.

Frowning, I picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

“I must speak with you.”

Sebastian. I hung up and ran over to engage the security latch on the inside of my door.

The phone rang again. I stared at it, contemplating my options. He knew where I was staying and most likely knew my room number since he’d called again so quickly. He could already be inside by now. It rang again. Shit. Now, he also knew I was in my room. I glanced at the door and slid the pepper spray from my pocket. If I could keep him on the phone, it might keep him out of my room.

I snatched the receiver. “How did you find me?”

“I am a tracker, Little One. I watched you leave the hotel after me, but you returned again later. With the proper encouragement, the concierge was very helpful.”

“You murdered a man and tried to pin it on me. I have nothing to say to you.”

“I killed a wolf who would have killed me first if he had the chance. I need to talk to you.”

“Tough. Goodnight.”

“It’s about the Nero Organization. I cannot talk over the phone.”

I closed my eyes. I knew I should hang up. I shouldn’t meet with my stalker in the middle of the night. I could almost hear Adam screaming in my head telling me it was too reckless. But what came out of my mouth was, “I’ll meet you in the twenty-four-hour café downstairs in five minutes.”

I hung up the phone and shook my head. I knew I shouldn’t do it, but what choice did I have? Sebastian had my room number, he’d come up if I didn’t go down. At least this way we’d be in a public place. At this hour the café wouldn’t have many people inside, but there would be staff, so we could talk quickly, and then I’d get a security guard to walk me back up to my room. Simple.

I ran my fingers back through my hair, trying to tame it a little, and then opened the deadbolt and started to turn the knob when the door slammed into me, knocking me backwards into the room.

Sebastian was inside with the deadbolt set behind him before I could scream. I reached in my pocket for my cell phone, but he anticipated my movement and grabbed my wrist. Hard.

“Let go,” I gasped.

Instead of releasing his iron grip, he yanked me in closer to him, burrowing his face into my hair. He shoved me away just as suddenly. I fell onto the bed. My cell phone flew from my grip and slipped off the other side.

He looked disgusted as he surveyed me. “His scent is all over you.” Suddenly his eyes narrowed, lips pressed in a tight line as he approached me. I scrambled to get back onto my feet. “Did he hurt you?”

Now it was my turn to look disgusted. “You broke into my hotel room, jerked my wrist, and
now
you’re worried about me?”

“I am sorry for my entrance, but you are in danger, and I need to speak with you.”

“I think danger just walked through my door.”

Concern drained from his eyes and his expression hardened. “If I wanted to kill you, you would be dead.”

A chill shot down my spine and all my adrenaline-laced bravado drained from my bloodstream. “Can’t get much more dangerous than that, right?”

He shook off my comment. “I work for the Nero Organization. They raised me and trained me, and I do what must be done. Tracking is my specialty. They send me out to locate and eliminate targets.”

“Eliminate?” My heart was pounding again. If I could just get to my phone I could… I could what? Sebastian wasn’t going to let me dial 911, or anyone else for that matter. Instead I slipped a couple fingers in my pocket, praying I could reach my pepper spray.

“Yes,” he said. “But my instructions were to bring you back to our headquarters unharmed. Bring you
back
. They made it sound as if you had escaped. Since our recent meetings, I have come to realize that you have no memory of the Organization.”

He said our “meetings” like they were friendly lunches instead of the confrontational abduction and subsequent questioning sessions we’d been having.

“I don’t have any memories because I’ve never been there. I’ve never even heard of them. As far as I can tell no one has. It’s like the Nero Organization doesn’t exist.”

“We would be less effective if the Organization was a public entity. This way we can work under the cloak of anonymity. In fact, the employees of the Nero Organization are the only humans who know our kind exist.”

“You mean jaguars, right?” I was relieved when he sat in a chair across from me. Now, if I just happened to have a length of rope I could tie him to the chair. Sadly, I didn’t have rope and never learned to tie any knots that would hold him anyway. My self-defense training and enhanced reflexes usually protected me from dirtbags, but this one was a jaguar like me. Every bit as strong. I didn’t have an upper hand here. I gnawed at my lower lip, trying to think of a way to buy time.

“The werewolves already know about us.” It felt odd associating myself with Sebastian, but the reality was, he was the only other person like me that I knew.

He frowned, his mouth pinching like he’d just caught a whiff of dirty sweat socks. “Yes, the wolves know, but they are of no consequence.”

“Why do you do that?”

“What?”

“Make a face like they’re gum on your brand new shoes.”

His brow creased. “Gum?”

“The werewolves,” I sighed. “Why do you treat them like a lower species? I know they don’t think highly of us either. I just wonder why this feud is even going on.”

“I don’t have time to go into our race histories, but suffice it to say, the Nero Organization experimented with both races and determined that jaguars made better assassins. We’re able to work alone. The wolves have a Pack mentality. When they were separated from their Pack they weakened in mind and spirit. Without his Pack, a wolf loses his strength.”

“So that’s why you think you’re better than they are?”

“That is why I
know
we are better. It is also why one as precious as you has no business being near a wolf.”

“Precious? What are you smoking?” Never in my life had I ever felt precious. Adam’s smile after we made love popped in my head, warming me unexpectedly. Okay, so maybe he had made me feel special, but Sebastian didn’t know anything about me. And his judgment of Adam as lesser dug at that chip on my shoulder.

I shook my head. “Bottom line: you don’t have any right to tell me who I should be hanging out with. You killed a man and left me to take the blame.”

His jaw clenched. “I did what was necessary. You are a female born into your power. You should not be with wolves.”

“What do you mean born into my power?” I crossed my arms, remembering what Adam had said about wolves only being born in sets of male twins. “Maybe one of these nights I was bitten and I just don’t remember?”

“You would still have awakened with a wound.” He gestured toward me. “You would bear a scar when it healed.”

I had never woken up after a new moon with a bite of any kind, and definitely not a scar.

He got up from the chair, pacing as he spoke. “Only the Y chromosome carries the shifter gene. Women must be converted by a jaguar before she can shift her form and embrace our power.” Every move from him was fluid, powerful. He reminded me of the mobsters from old Godfather movies. Slick, smart, all business, and dangerous. He came to a stop and met my eyes. “And you haven’t been claimed.”

“How would you know without searching me for scars? I’d have to be bitten, right?” My fear started mutating into a journalistic curiosity.

“Because a converted female has a slightly different scent. There is still an undercurrent of humanity combined with the jaguar.” He recommenced his pacing of the hotel room like a jungle cat in a zoo. “There is only jaguar in your scent. You were born into your power. A treasure among our kind.”

“So I should be locked away in some top secret organization and experimented on?”

“That is why I needed to speak with you.”

Now we were getting somewhere. I waited for him to continue. He moved closer to me and reached for my hand with unheard-of speed. I tried not to look repulsed, but I’m pretty sure I was leaning away from him anyway. I guess looking scared was less likely to piss him off than looking disgusted. I hoped so anyway.

“Females who are born into their power are unheard of among our kind. If females could be born into their power instead of bitten and converted, it would eliminate many…issues for my race and our Organization.” Before I could ask what the issues might be, he went on. “I have heard rumors of progress in research of non-converted females, but I’ve never seen one until I laid eyes on you. Your beauty and your scent caught me off-guard.”

Sebastian’s eyes were a brighter green than Adam’s, giving him a more inhuman stare. He was handsome, but there was an aura of danger, as if his looks were simply a mask to lure you in. He lifted my hand to his lips and pressed a calculated kiss to my knuckles.

“‘Like gentle streams beneath our feet, innocence and virtue meet.’” His voice was low and soft like a purr, and if he hadn’t nearly abducted me the first time we met, I might have been moved by his words. Instead, a chill shot through me and goose bumps rose on my arms. I retrieved my hand, forcing myself to keep control so I didn’t rip it free from his grasp. The last thing I needed was to offend a trained assassin.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and found my voice. “That’s from a poem, isn’t it?”

His lips curved up just slightly at the corners. “You recognize the words of William Blake. Do you study poetry?”

“Not really, but I’m a writer. It just sounded familiar.” He stood up, forcing me to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. “It seems odd to hear a trained killer talk about innocence and virtue.”

“I am good at what I do, but I am not defined by my occupation.” He paused, his eyes locked on mine until I finally broke the contact and stood up too. I took a step back, toward the hotel phone, but I didn’t make a move to pick it up. Not yet. At least I knew I was close enough to reach it.

“A wolf will never understand you the way I do. We are not like them. We need our independence, and we do not count on others for our strength.”

“Did you barge into my room tonight just to put down wolves?” I could feel a spark of anger starting to glow inside of me. “Or did you have something important to say?”

His eyes narrowed, and his hands balled into fists. Holding my breath, I waited him out.

“I came to tell you that I did some digging into the Organization’s records. I have to be very careful—if I am caught, the punishment will be severe. When I realized you hadn’t escaped, I wondered how and why I was sent for you. I found this.” He handed me a flash drive. “The Organization touches many branches of government and has access to databases in many fields.”

I looked at the flash drive and then back up at his unsettling green eyes. “Why are you helping me?”

“Are you surprised that I am not all I seem?”

“You didn’t answer my question. A couple nights ago you were trying to kidnap me.”

“I am sorry we couldn’t meet under better circumstances.”

“Yeah, me too, but helping me now doesn’t change anything. I’m not interested in a relationship if that’s what you’re after.”

“Have you told the wolf this, too?”

My brow furrowed. “I’m new to this whole animal instinct thing, but trying to push your male dominance and your racial prejudices isn’t doing anything for me.”