Taken by Moonlight (14 page)

Spinning
away, Vivienne put even more distance between them. She doubted it would help
her traitorous body, but the space made her feel better. She’d already acted
like a loose woman last night, but at least she could have some class about it
during the day.

“Where are
my clothes?” She paused and added as an afterthought, “And my bag?”

She didn’t
see him move, she was turned away. She didn’t hear him move. The man was
silent, but she felt him, somehow, and knew that he was right behind her. It
was almost as if her body were a sensor and it reacted every time he came
close.

“Downstairs.”

She shook
her head and turned to face him.

“Can you
bring them up.” It wasn’t a request. She wanted her clothes. It was after ten
in the morning and she was in Cedar Creek—oh hell, how was she going to get
back to the city? She hadn’t driven here. He had! Then she remembered taxis.
Thank God for taxis. They went everywhere.

“Soon.”

“What?” She
tugged at the robe. The thing was coming undone again. “Why?” Vivienne
swallowed and faced him. “Look, Conall—um—last night—I don’t—I’m not like
that—don’t—I don’t do things like this so….” She cleared her throat and looked
back to the rumpled sheets of the bed. “I just need my clothes and your address
so I can call a cab, and you’ll never see me again.”

His fingers
caught her chin and he forced her look at him. His expression was serious.

“I know
what you are and are not, Vivienne, and I have every intention of seeing you
again.” She opened her lips to protest but his finger touched them, silencing
her as a vivid image from last night replayed in her mind and sent her to all
shades of red in the span of a few seconds.

He chuckled
as if he knew what she was thinking. She pushed his hand away and walked to the
other side of the room.

“Take a
shower. When you’re finished, your clothes and bag will be here.” Turning to
glare at him, she saw the upward tilt of his lips. “Are you hungry?”

“No.” She
was.

“Come down
after you’re dressed.”

Vivienne
gave a quick shake of her head, feeling her curls bounce around her face.
“What’s your address?”

“Come down
and I’ll tell you.”

Vivienne
scoffed and rolled her eyes. He smiled and turned to leave.

“You know,
some people would call this kidnapping, Mr. Athelwulf.”

Slowly, he
turned to face her. “Some people would, Vivienne….” She opened her mouth to
speak but he effectively cut her off. “But not you.”

Her scowl
was back in place as he grinned and walked from the room.

What was
that?

Drew
groaned, rolled over, sat up, and placed both of her hands over her eyes. The
sound came again, the sound of something shattering. Was that glass? She
immediately went on guard.

She looked
at the time. It was after ten, so both Viv and Max were at work. The only
reason she was still home was because it was Thursday and on some Thursdays and
Fridays the gallery opened at noon. She sat still, and listened. Someone was
moving around in Vivienne’s bedroom. Slowly, she came off the bed and reached
under it for her baseball bat. Clutching it to her stomach, she silently crept
to Vivienne’s bedroom.

When she
stood before the opened door, the sight that greeted her wrung an involuntary
scream from her lips. Feathers, glass, rumpled sheets, piles of clothes.
Someone was definitely in their apartment! A curse reached her ears and as fear
held her rooted to the entrance of Vivienne’s room, a glass vase was suddenly
thrown from some hidden part of the bedroom. She watched as it spiraled upward,
spinning before coming down to the ground in a loud crash. Glass exploded in
all directions, and a piece nicked at her lower leg.

The slight
pain forced her into action. Drew turned and ran, praying she got out of the
apartment before whichever psycho was in there caught her. She opened the door
and ran down the hallway, screaming as she did so. She’d never been so
terrified in her life.

She’d just
arrived at the ground floor when someone caught her. Drew tried to pull away,
but the person enveloped her in warm arms. She focused on his face and relaxed.
Max. His hair was slicked back, his face serious. She didn’t think to ask why
he wasn’t at work; she was simply glad he was there. Collapsing against his
chest, she breathed frantically and gasped out, “Max, someone’s upstairs. In
Vivienne’s room.”

He didn’t
react as she expected. Instead, a frightening stillness came over him. He
easily set her away from him. “Wait here.”

“No! Max,
it’s too dangerous. Let’s just call the police. Oh God, Vivienne left for work
this morning, didn’t she?” Drew’s eyes widened. “She wasn’t here, was she?
She’s at work, right?”

He nodded
and then he was running toward the staircase, his boots slapping against the
linoleum floor. Drew stared after him, feeling her unease grow. It wasn’t that
she didn’t trust that Max could hold his own against a thief: she knew he
could. Max knew karate, and some other martial arts, but still she worried.
What if there was more than one? And no doubt, they had guns! Panic set in. Max
couldn’t dodge bullets like Neo in
The Matrix
. This was real life, not
some Keanu Reeves movie.

She’d
dropped her baseball bat in the hallway. Drew looked around, ignoring the
curious looks she was receiving from some of the tenants, and decided she was
going after her bat and then she was going after whoever had decided to rob
their apartment. They’d picked the wrong damn day, and the wrong people!

Max arrived
in Vivienne’s bedroom to find it as he’d expected: trashed. He did a quick
check, even behind the door. The room was deserted. Vases were broken. Her bed
was ripped apart. It was obvious someone had been searching for something. Her
jewelry was tossed carelessly across the room, the first indication that this
was no ordinary robbery. He felt anger pulse in his veins.

Hearing a
slight shuffle, he ran from Vivienne’s room into his own. A man, dressed from
head to toe in black, ski-mask included, was holding a framed picture in gloved
hands. Max immediately knew which one: their graduation. Vivienne stood between
him and Drew as they all smiled happily for the cameraman. As soon as he entered,
the man dropped the frame and ran toward him. The first blow caught him in the
jaw, and sent him spiraling backward before he regained his footing and charged
the man.

Max had
landed a few solid punches to the man’s face when he was thrown backward by an unseen
force. He attempted to move but couldn’t. An unseen force pressed him down. The
man was suddenly over him, staring with eyes as pitch black as night. Max’s gut
coiled. Suddenly the man pulled the ski-mask from his head, revealing pale
skin, black eyes, and a tattoo of a cross on his neck. He’d seen the man
before, one of the questionable ones in his father’s employ.

“Pathetic.”
The man’s voice was slightly disoriented but Max understood him well. He
stooped, so that he could lean closer to Max, and shook his pale hair. “And you
call yourself a tracker,
half-breed
?” He chuckled in disbelief, lips
parting farther as if to say something else. Before he could speak, he was
flung backward, his body hitting the wall with a resounding thud. A groan
escaped his lips.

Max bounced
onto his feet, and quickly followed, lifting the man and slamming him against
the wall once more. Another groan came from the intruder as his lips peeled
backward to reveal his now bloody teeth. The force of the impact had split his lip.

“Who sent
you?”

A smirk
touched the man’s lips and Max concentrated on his trachea. He willed it
closed. The man’s eyes widened and he began to struggle, his hands clawing at
the invisible restraint at his throat.

“Your
father,” he croaked out and Max allowed him to breathe as that information sank
in. The bastard! His father had specifically assigned him the task of locating
Vivienne but he’d obviously never trusted him enough to see it through. This
only reaffirmed his reasons for keeping her a secret.

“How many
trackers
were sent?”

The man
hesitated only a few seconds before he said, “Two.”

Max
narrowed his eyes. As far as he knew, there were trackers in every race. By
nature,
weres
were trackers, as they depended on their animal instincts
to help them locate creatures. The vampire race had its fair share of trackers
as well, though it was unknown how many. The witches trained their trackers,
putting them through years of grueling and intense hardships before the title
was bestowed. They were skilled fighters, quick at deadly spells, and extremely
good with mental shields. They were also very at ease telling lies. He’d been
lying for more than five years now….

“Where’s
the other?”

“Following
the girl.”

“Where is
she?”

The man
shrugged his shoulders and Max used his hands this time to cut off his air
circulation.

“Okay,
okay.” Max eased his hold ever so slightly. “She’s with a man.”

He knew
that. What he didn’t know was whom. When midnight passed to reveal no Vivienne,
he’d had a strange feeling. It wasn’t like her to stay out so late, especially
as she had work the next morning. Still, he’d given her the benefit of the
doubt, deciding that she was a grown woman, and perhaps, just perhaps, she was
out with her colleagues. He’d waited until two before he decided to call, and
that was when a man had answered. Through the phone, Max had felt the man’s
anger, his rage, all of it directed at him. There had been no ill feeling
toward Vivienne. He’d attempted to find them, but was blocked by a witch, one he
hadn’t been able to trace.

“Who?”

“We don’t
know. I swear.”

Max almost
scoffed. He could swear on Luna herself and Max wouldn’t believe him.

“How did
you track her here?”

The tracker
blinked and Max stared into red-tinged brown eyes. He repeated his question and
squeezed lightly at the man’s throat.

“Last
night, we felt her powers. Traced it to a hotel. She was gone but her bag was
still there. We found this address on her state ID.”

Max almost
cursed. He’d felt something last night, but had been unsure of what it was. It
had made him uneasy but he’d never thought it might have been Vivienne, until
now.

Suddenly,
the man’s eyes lifted to a point beyond Max’s shoulder, and his lip curled,
neither smile nor frown. Instinct and experience had Max releasing him and
dropping to the floor. A dagger came sailing through the air and embedded
itself into the man’s chest, impaling him against the wall. A shrill scream
escaped his lips as Max ran at the other man, knocking him to the floor and in
one smooth motion, pulling off the ski mask that covered his face.

He was
older than the previous attacker, faster and stronger, and their powers clashed
as both struggled for dominance. The tracker flipped Max over, wrapped his
hands around his neck, and combined all of his powers to squeeze.

As his air
supply shut down, Max felt himself dying.

The tracker
must have felt it too, for he smiled and began to speak.

“Did you
think you could beat me,
halfling
?” The smile faded and Max’s lips
opened though no sound emerged. “I always thought you were weak, unworthy to be
called a tracker.” His hands tightened. Max’s body grew cold. “The Grand Wizard
should never have given such a weakling his name—even if he is his half-breed
son!”

The insult
barely stung anymore, so accustomed was Max to hearing them. His body shook
once before he twitched and went utterly still. His eyes remained open, staring
sightlessly upward.

Grunting,
the tracker stood, glaring down at Max in disgust. He turned to the other
tracker staked against the wall by his dagger.
Weak.
Moving over to him,
he retrieved his weapon, barely blinking as the man disintegrated instantly,
turning to black ash before vanishing completely.

About to
collect the framed picture on the floor to produce as evidence of betrayal, as
a means to explain to the Grand Wizard why his son was dead, he froze. A
haunting cold pushed through the layers of dark clothing he wore, chilling him
to his bones.

The tracker
turned just in time to see Max standing upright, his hands loose at his sides,
his skin so pale it looked slightly blue. Those eyes were not the voided black
of a witch, but a startling electric, swirling blue. His hair was now
ink-black, blowing almost peacefully around his face by—by what? There was no
wind….

“What the
fuck?” he hissed out before an invisible force punched into his stomach,
slamming his body into the wall, once, twice…he lost count. Finally, it stopped
and through the pain, he tried to summon his powers.
Bound
. Shock pulsed
through him in waves. His powers were bound, meaning while he could feel them,
he had no way of summoning them. He was an ancient tracker, at the mercy of a
halfling.