Taken by Moonlight (28 page)

“Be silent,
both of you!” Zahira’s voice was loud and clear. Centuries of living in Europe,
and then in the Americas, had wiped out most traces of an Egyptian accent.
“He’s still our alpha. Let him speak.” She glared at both Brennus and Gresham
before turning to stare expectantly at Conall.

He
contemplated what to tell them about Vivienne. While he and the Elders did not
always agree, he trusted them.

“My mate,”
he purposely used the term while staring at Brennus and then Gresham, “is a
druid.”

Silence.

Brennus
lifted a questioning brow and Latriel voiced the opinion of the group, “What do
you mean, Conall?”

“The druids
were banished….” Verity began softly only to trail off and stare at him with
the question in her eyes.

“Vivienne
was born after the druids were banished. She is one of two existing druids. The
other is her twin sister.” From the expressions on their faces, Conall could
see the Elders still didn’t understand. Like he had when Evelyn had told him,
they were still trying to make sense of his words. To further explain, he
added, “Her mother is the descendant of a druid.”

“So…she is
a druid?” Brennus questioned, looking doubtful.

Conall nodded.

“Witches,” Gresham muttered in disgust. His eyes were filled with anger, and his hand shook as he
lifted it to point at Conall. “You would tie us to the witches?”

“Apparently
he would tie us to the
druids
,” Latriel corrected dryly, earning a look
of derision from Gresham and a scowl from Brennus.

He was
about to speak when Brennus interjected, “Druids? Witches? It doesn’t matter.
They have always been viewed as the same by our people!” He paused and snapped
his teeth together. “There was a better chance of us accepting a human than
witch!”

“Your
acceptance—” Conall began angrily.

“Brennus,
you forget yourself!” Zahira chastised, straightening her back as her cold
brown eyes warned him. “Brennus does not speak for the rest of us.”

“He does
not,” Verity added in a calm voice. Like Zahira, Verity’s hair was streaked
with gray, and she had a cool elegance about her that spoke to her years of
living as a noblewoman in various European countries.

Conall held
his breath, intent on reminding Brennus that he was alpha of the pack, that
he’d been the one to establish Elders as advisors, that he did not need their
acceptance to select a mate. While their approval was wanted, it was not
necessary. He nodded once, feeling the retraction of claws that had sprouted
after Brennus’s statement. He closed his eyes and twisted his head, first to
the left, then to the right in an attempt to relieve his tension.

“Vivienne
was raised human. She recently learned of her heritage, and about the existence
of other species.”

“How do you
know she won’t expose us? You say she was raised human? There is too much of a
risk.” Brennus stopped when Conall’s eyes flashed yellow before bleeding to
their human blue. The Elder made an angry noise in the back of his throat but
held his tongue.

“When will
we meet her?” Zahira asked, swiftly changing the subject and taking Conall’s
attention from Brennus. She knew Conall well enough to know that the alpha was
close to losing his temper, and a lost temper meant a fight, possibly between
Brennus and Conall. Since she’d been in the pack, she’d never seen a fight
between an Elder and an alpha, and she didn’t care to see one in her lifetime.

“As soon as
I can guarantee her safety,” Conall replied immediately. When most of the
Elders simply looked confused, he added, “Vivienne and her twin are being
tracked by Maximilian Cronin’s covenant. Cronin believes that sacrificing them
will bring the druids back and reinstate his immortality.” He looked at every
face gathered, from Brennus, who sat farthest to his left, to Zahira, seated
the farthest to his right. “Vivienne is my mate in all things but one: the
ceremony. Human, druid, witch, it does not matter. She is my mate and I
will
protect her from any and all threats.”

“It is only
natural that you do,” Verity replied, which gained nods of approval from all
but Brennus and Gresham.

The topic
shifted to the Council meeting that had been called and Conall told the Elders
what Sloan had told him. He left out the part concerning Cronin’s potential
involvement with the meeting, wanting to be certain of it first. By seven
o’clock, most of the Elders had filed out of his office. Zahira remained where
she was, staring at him with all-seeing eyes.

“Yes?”
Conall asked, rolling his shoulders. The tension was still there. “You’ve
always had a temper, Conall, but never like this.”

She earned
a glare for her honesty. Zahira brushed that off with a little smile.

“I haven’t
slept,” he began gruffly, an attempt to explain his short leash to the woman he
viewed with maternal affection.

Zahira
chuckled and stood. “Slept? You think your temper has something to do with
sleep?” She approached his desk and he lifted his head to stare up at her.
Zahira did not look a day past forty, with her smooth, golden complexion and
vivid eyes. “Your wolf is uneasy because while you have staked your claim on a
mate, he has not.” She paused and waited for those words to sink in. “I will
begin the preparations for a mating ceremony, if only to keep the heads from
rolling.”

She smiled,
which let him know she was teasing, before turning and walking from the room.

Vivienne
awoke in a new body.

She looked
the same, she’d checked her mirror to make sure, but everything just felt
drastically different. When she’d placed her feet to the floor after waking up,
she’d almost purred. She could feel every bumpy ridge of the soft carpet. Even
the little fibers tickled her toes. And as her stomach grumbled and twisted,
she’d inhaled deeply, finding that although in her bedroom, many feet away from
the kitchen, she knew exactly what her mother had prepared for breakfast.

It was then
she began experimenting. She focused her attention on her other senses, finding
that if she tried hard enough, she could hear random conversations, probably of
the people outside her house. An image of two bouncers from Fangs entered her
mind as she remembered zoning in on their conversation and hearing them. Her
eyes followed suit. From her position against the opposite wall of her
medium-sized bedroom, she could make out a pencil dot on the other wall. Better
yet, she could see it in different sizes. Her eyes were working like magnifying
glasses.

That, along
with the odd things that had happened as she was in the bathroom, would
definitely take some adjusting to. She’d been hitting the bottom of the shower
gel bottle, hoping that there was at least a pearl of body wash inside, and
growing quite frustrated, when the bottle suddenly pitched from her hand. She
didn’t throw it nor did she drop it. It just flew from her hand and spiraled
into the trashcan. And then there was the matter of her dropping her plate.
She’d closed her eyes, expecting the loud crash and pain of dish shards hitting
her lower foot. When there was no sound, she opened her eyes to find the dish
hovering inches away from the floor. After she shrieked and stepped away, the
dish fell to the floor, cracking along the middle.

“How are
you feeling?” Evelyn asked later in the day.

Vivienne
shrugged her shoulders. Physically, she felt fine. Mentally, she was still
getting adjusted to it all. She’d awoken with the intention of going to work
today, and then she’d remembered that life as she knew it was officially over.
No more normal. Less than twenty-four hours ago, she’d been told that she was a
druid, and witches were out to get her, and then there was Conall. She knew
he’d been in her bed last night. As soon as she woke up, she smelled him on her
sheets. Her eyes had been closed, arms reaching for him, before she realized
what she was doing. Her reaction was immediate, instinctive. She remembered him
calling her his
mate.
He’d mentioned them belonging to each other. What
did that even mean?

She shook
her head and settled for answering the questions she understood.

“Everything
is…sensitive. My ears, my eyes, my skin.” She paused and rubbed her arms
through the woolen sweatshirt that she wore. “If I focus, I can hear
conversations outside. Strange things have also been happening. A bottle flew
from my hand, and the plate just now.” Her mother had witnessed the plate in
silence.

“This is
all very normal, ma chère,” Evelyn assured her before asking curiously, “How
far can you hear? Can you hear to the end of the block?”

Their home
in Scarsdale was the last house on their block. It looked up the street at all
others and marked the end for those drivers thinking there was elsewhere to go.

Vivienne
closed her eyes. It was hard to mentally picture where the end of the block
was, but after some seconds of concentration, she finally picked up on a
conversation about two dogs. Something told her there were two women with small
dogs, standing at the corner having that conversation.

“Two women,
older women, talking about their dogs.”

She opened
her eyes to find Evelyn nodding in wide-eyed fascination at her. “Mrs. Knox and
her sister. They walk their dogs at this time every day. It seems as if you
have the senses of a
were
, Vivienne,” she explained to Vivienne’s
unasked question. “The druids were masters at spells and matters of the mind
but the
weres
have always had the dominion of the senses.” She paused.
“The incidents you mentioned: the bottle flying from your hand and the plate
hovering above the ground, you are doing it,
ma puce
. Druids have always
been able to circumvent spells to move things with their minds. I’m not sure
but I think when you dropped the plate, your body reacted to protect you, hence
the hovering.”

When
Vivienne simply stood there, stunned by this information about her newly
acquired powers, Evelyn said, “There is much to teach you and little time.” She
clasped her hands behind her back and looked away from Vivienne’s searching
gaze. “I am sorry, Vivienne, for keeping this part of your heritage from you. I
thought that perhaps you would be able to live a human life with a human
husband and never know, at least for some time. I didn’t think. I’m sorry….”
She trailed off with an apologetic, uncertain smile. “Sit down,
ma chère
.”
As Vivienne moved over to the breakfast table and took a seat, a large book
suddenly materialized in Evelyn’s hands. Dark brown and worn, it looked like a
relic from another time. Taking a seat opposite her, Evelyn placed the it on
the table.

“This was
my mother’s book of spells, given to her by her mother.”

Evelyn
pressed a delicate hand atop the relic before opening it. It immediately went
to the middle page. Vivienne stared down at the page. It was blank. Her
eyebrows lifted in her mother’s direction.

“First, I
will teach you to hide your powers.” Evelyn touched a finger to the page and
the neat, cursive writing slowly began to bleed into it, until it was a bold
black. Vivienne tilted her head and stared from the newly appeared writing to
her mother’s face.

She was
ready to learn.

After an
intense day of learning and relearning spells and incantations, Vivienne was
finally able to sit on the porch steps, as she’d done countless times in the
past, and relax. After a few unsuccessful tries at hiding her powers, she’d
succeeded, and it was for that reason Evelyn allowed her onto the porch. Not
only was the house protected, but Vivienne could shield herself. She’d also
learned a spell that could take her from the porch to the living room in a
matter of milliseconds, though not without a feeling of nausea.

She sat
alone, as Max and Drew had returned to the apartment to search through the
mess. She hoped her mother’s jewelry was still there. Evelyn hadn’t mentioned
it, but she knew how much her mother prized those pieces.

Her legs
hung down before her, encased in skinny jeans that still fit—unsurprisingly—as
the cold wind whipped her hair about her face. It was a chilly day. She didn’t
mind though. She was actually beginning to understand Cassie’s fascination and
obsession with all things nature. It wasn’t so bad: the sounds, the smells, the
feeling of the sparse sunlight on her skin.

She’d just
closed her eyes, tossed her head back, and leaned against her elbows, basking
in the day, when her entire body went on the alert. Her eyes snapped open and
she sat up, looking around for—she didn’t know what.

A black SUV
was heading in her direction. Her spine stiffened, but she remained as she was.
It stopped directly before their house and the window rolled down.
Conall.
She didn’t think it was possible to tense up and relax at the same time but
that was exactly what she did.

Beautiful.

It was a
whispered caress in her mind that sent little electric shocks across her skin.
A look of horror entered her eyes as she recognized the new strength of her
attraction. Yes, the man did wicked things to her body, but he was usually
standing near her to instigate a reaction. One word and her body reacted as if
he stroked her.