Taken by Moonlight (12 page)

The door
opened suddenly, and he turned in the direction as his eyes went cold. He
expelled a rush of breath as angry footsteps marched over to him. It was just
Drew.

“I don’t
care how long you try to hide in here,
Maximilian
, you’re going to
listen to me!”

He turned
and looked at the blurred outline of her body through the glass door.

“I’m not
hiding,” he retorted, blinking water out of his eyes and finally looking back
down the blue and white bathroom tiles.

“I have
never been so embarrassed in my life—”

He snorted.
“You really should get out more.”

“Shut up,
Max! This isn’t a damn joke! This is my life, my job, we’re talking about!”

She paused,
but when he didn’t say anything, continued, “I know you and I are not the best
of friends, but Viv is my best friend. I only agreed to live here because I
thought we could be cordial, if not friendly, with each other. If that’s not
possible, then tell me. I swear I’ll be out of here in a week or two.”

He turned
the shower off. “And this is all over what happened tonight? Because I
embarrassed you in front of some guy?”

“Because
you embarrassed me in front of a client and a friend!” she hissed. “Because
you’re always pissing me off with your snide little remarks and unnecessary
thoughts on my life! I—” she halted suddenly, and sighed. Through the
fragmented glass he saw her lift a hand to her face as if she were covering her
eyes or holding the bridge of her nose. He wondered which. The hand fell. “I’ve
stayed as long as I have because of Vivienne, but I refuse to live with you if
you start interfering with my work!”

“I didn’t
know he was your client.”

“Is that
your twisted idea of an apology?”

“I said I
didn’t know that he was your client, okay? I thought he was….”

Strangled
laughter bubbled from her lips, and he imagined that her brows were lifting in
comedic irritation. It was one of the little things she did whenever she was
angry. “You thought he was what? My date? My boyfriend? So what, Max? So what
if he is? You had no right,
absolutely no right
, to do what you did! We
don’t even like each other.”

He pushed
the shower door open, eliciting a loud gasp from Drew as her eyes surveyed his
naked body. He stepped out.

“I like you
fine.”

Although
she willed herself not to, her eyes, having a mind of their own, fell down his
dripping body before retreating immediately back to his face. She swallowed as
she suddenly began to recognize how warm it was in the bathroom.

Max came to
a stop directly before her, forcing her to look up at him.

Drew cleared
her throat and reached her hands back to pull her braids off of her neck. She
was feeling hot, and having a ton of hair that was not hers resting against her
back was uncomfortable.

“I’m going
to let you…dress.” She would have turned and fled if he hadn’t moved closer,
inciting her reaction to take a step back, and then done that again, until she
was against the wall.

“Max, what
are you—” Her voice was panicked and she had every right to be. He was crowding
her. Her hands fell from the braids and clenched into fists at her side. She
didn’t like being crowded.

“Don’t you
like me?” he asked and she stared up into his hazel eyes in confusion. What the
hell was he talking about? “I said I liked you. Don’t you like me?”

Honestly,
she didn’t know. She spent so much time hating Max, hating him through college,
and then through their time in this apartment. Had she grown even slightly fond
of him during that time? Somewhere from within there was a disbelieving snort
at the question.

Oh
please, you like him way too much for your own good.

That wasn’t
true. She didn’t like Max, hadn’t liked him since the second semester of
freshman year when he’d turned into a first-class asshole. Max didn’t respect
anything but himself and Vivienne. No one else. She’d learned that lesson years
ago.

“I tolerate
you, Max, because I love Vivienne,” she heard herself say. His eyes narrowed.
She wasn’t sure if it was from anger or something else, and she looked away.
She swept her gaze down, and gasped, wishing she hadn’t.
Oh boy
. Max
was…erm…saluting her. A slight tingling sensation erupted at her core as she
recognized that she’d caused that. “I—I’m going to go now. Just don’t do
anything like that again, o-okay?” She slid along the wall in an attempt
to get away from him but he followed her. His hand came to rest near her head.

“Don’t do
anything like what?” His voice had changed, lowered. His eye color shifted to a
sensual light brown color, and she found herself lost in his gaze.

“W-w-what?”

For that,
she was rewarded with a deep smile that tilted in one direction. When he smiled
like that, he reminded her of palm trees and sunny island Christmases. A smile
started playing around her lips before she remembered where she was and whom
she was with. This was Max! The Maximilian Carter who’d teased her mercilessly
about everything in college, who still irked her now, and who’d just chased
away a client because he felt like it. That was who stood before her; that was
who she didn’t like.

“Max,
you’re crowding me.” Her voice was still shaky, but it was clear.

“I know.”
Arrogant bastard.

She reached
up and touched her palms to his shoulders. She gave a hard push, and smiled
when he stumbled backward with a look of confusion on his face. Max had
probably never been rejected in his entire life.

“Did you
forget you were with the ice queen, Max?” she taunted, remembering one of the
names that he’d called her in college. There were many, and all had gotten to
her because they were names he’d given her.

The smile
faded as he moved away and reached for the burgundy towel hanging behind the
door. When it was snugly around his waist, she crossed her arms against her
chest and tapped her foot on the ground. He walked over to the faucet.

“I’ll bring
over whoever I want and you won’t say anything about it. If not, I’m out of
here, and you and Viv can look for another roommate.” She stopped when she saw
his eyes widen in the mirror, as if he’d never thought of that. Men could be so
dense at times. “Understood?”

“Yeah,
whatever,” Max responded at last, turning on the faucet and ignoring her. He
grabbed his shaving cream and sprayed some into his palms, waiting for the
mousse to form before applying it to his cheeks and neck. He reached into the
cupboard for a razor, which he placed at the side of the sink.

“You still
here, Drew? Volunteering to shave me?” His voice was terse and an eyebrow shot
up as a challenge. Shaking her head and rolling her eyes, she turned and
scurried from the bathroom.

Conall’s
eyes snapped open as his ears caught the vibrations of a phone. Sliding from
the bed so as not to disturb Vivienne, who’d been asleep for the past hours, he
followed the sound. At first he thought that it was his phone, that Sloan or
Raoul were calling to report that one of the younger pups in his pack had done
something in a drunken state to put them at risk, but it wasn’t.

He located
the black Motorola phone in the carelessly tossed bag in the living room.
Picking it up, he stared at the name.

Max.

Conall’s
eyes narrowed as he looked at the time above the name. It was after two in the
morning. Why was
Max
calling Vivienne? Why was another man calling his
mate?

Teeth
bared, he flipped the phone open, placed it to his ears and waited.

“Vivienne?”
Conall recognized that voice immediately, and a snarl left his lips. It was the
human he’d vowed to kill, the one who’d ripped her away from him that night at
Fangs.

“Who is
this?” The man’s voice had grown cold. “Where is she?”

Max could
not be Vivienne’s lover, as not only had she come to him untouched, but she
hadn’t had another man’s scent on her body. On the other hand, he certainly
wasn’t her brother. Still, he sounded concerned, and although Conall would make
him sorry for pulling Vivienne away from him if ever their paths crossed again,
he calmed slightly.

“Safe,” was
the terse reply, emitted from between clenched teeth.

“Who are
you?”

“She’s
safe.” With that, Conall ended the call. So his name was Max.

He tossed
her phone back into her bag and headed back to the bedroom. She was now curled
where he’d been, as if she’d tried to find him and had settled for where his
warmth was. Her hair was a wild mass about her head, her arm secured the
comforter right above her belly. He smiled and headed over to the edge of the
bed. Reaching a hand down, he cupped her soft cheek and rubbed his thumb along
the slant of her jaw. She murmured something that sounded suspiciously like his
name, and he smiled.

He was
about to pull the covers back and get into bed beside her when he felt a
distinct shift in the air. It was slight and to someone not as experienced as
him, it would be dismissed. The hairs on the back of his neck rose and he
closed his eyes and waited. It came again, a slight pulsation of warm energy.
He bared his teeth.

Witch.

And he
wasn’t the target. The energy was searching for Vivienne, had traced her to
this hotel room. Conall reached down and pulled her against him, shielding her
essence with his. He felt the energy ebb gradually, and looked down into
Vivienne’s sleeping face.

Why was she
important to a witch? She snuggled closer to him and the covers fell to her
waist, revealing her breasts. Beast and man stirred but both were insistent on
getting her to safe ground first.

Conall
flashed clothes onto both of them and easily lifted the sleeping woman into his
arms. Flashing was a skill most of his kind did not possess, but he was a Celt,
and the Celts had always been linked to magic. He flashed them down to the
parking lot, where his Roadster was. Placing her into the front seat, he scented
the air for any danger before punching in the code to unlock the car without
the keys. Methodically, he popped the trunk, and opened the lone black
briefcase inside, removing the black Berretta and Glock that lay casually
inside. His eyes scanned the underground parking garage as he shoved both guns
into his waistband. He was taking no chances, not with her. Bullets wouldn’t
kill immortals, especially not lead bullets, but it would slow them down. A
bullet to the head slowed everything down.

Conall swiftly
moved around to the driver’s seat, and punched in another code that would start
the car absent key. He sped through the mostly empty lanes of New York City,
his eyes watching and scanning the road. Through it all, Vivienne slept on.

Charles Bordeaux
shifted and reached out an arm to his wife.

It came in
contact with rumpled sheets and a tossed pillow, and he reached out once more,
a soft grunt escaping his lips as he unconsciously searched for her. He came
awake and sat up.

“Evelyn,”
he called softly, wearily. When there was no response, he turned on the dim
lamp beside the bed, and squinted. Where was she? The digital clock told him it
was two-thirty.

She’d
probably gone to the bathroom or to the kitchen. Yawning, Charles pushed the
duvet from his body and slipped his feet into comfortable bedroom slippers. He
groaned as he pushed his body from the bed, reaching out a hand to his back. At
fifty-two, he was beginning to experience the little aches and pains that went
with growing old. A smile touched his lips as he remembered Evelyn telling him
that. His Evelyn had turned forty-five this year, yet she was still as lovely
as the first time he’d laid eyes on her, almost thirty years ago. He’d been a
law student when he met the pretty French girl working in a New Orleans coffee
shop. She spoke English with a heavy accent, and he’d indulged her the first
weeks by speaking to her in the language of his Creole parents. Within a few
months of knowing her, however, she’d settled for speaking only English, and
her accent had all but faded to a light, exotic lilt. Lovely in both a
beguiling and innocent way, vibrant with her lively personality, Charles always
felt lucky she’d settled for him when so many had wanted her.

Evelyn was
not in the bathroom.

He made his
way down the curved staircase of the Scarsdale Colonial that had been their
home for the past twelve years, and into the kitchen. It was dark, and showed
no signs of his wife. There was no steaming mug of cocoa on the counter.

His brows
crinkled.

“Evelyn,”
he called, his voice louder this time.
Where is she?
Chills snaked over
his body as he back tracked and began a quick search through the rooms of the
first floor. The slight pain in his back all but forgotten, he raced up the
stairs, and did the same for the second floor. Panic settled in, though he told
himself there was nothing to be panicked about He was just about to head back
to the bedroom when he caught sight of a strange, white light peaking out from
under Vivienne’s old room door. Odd
,
he thought, Vivienne had always
favored yellow lights, while Cassie chose fluorescent. Had his wife changed the
bulbs?