Taken by Moonlight (53 page)

And then,
as suddenly as the pain came unmistakable pleasure. She blinked, glad that
whatever had happened was now over, and turned to look at Samia. The red wolf
had moved even farther away from her.

Vivienne
looked around the circle. Every eye was on her. She found Conall and saw he’d
taken steps forward and was now standing still, his head cocked to the side as
he stared at her.

It wasn’t
like she was bleeding out. Her thoughts shifted when a bulldozer rammed into
her. Well, Samia rammed into her, and she landed hard on her side. She
recognized some things then. When she pushed herself to her feet, she stood on
four, not two, limbs, and she was at a considerably low height, considering she
was five-eight.

What the
hell—?
That thought
was left unfinished because Samia came at her again, and Vivienne barely
managed to get out of the way. She turned to face her nemesis, trying to figure
out a way to get back to her original height before Samia killed her. Samia
rushed her again, this time sinking her teeth into her side.

Every color
faded to red once more, and she felt the darkness return. Pain. Anger. They
triggered it.

Vivienne
shook her herself so hard that Samia was forced to let go. She padded a few
feet away, waiting. Like clockwork, Samia attacked once more, and Vivienne went
low, then sprang up to catch her neck between her jaws. Clamping down hard, she
tasted bitter blood before shaking the wolf and tossing her away.

Samia
wheezed on the ground, trying to lift her body. She failed and a pain-filled
whine escaped her lips as Vivienne slowly stalked her. Pausing above Samia,
Vivienne read the fear and resignation in her gaze. Vivienne snapped her teeth
together, wanting—needing— the kill. She was practically salivating with the
need for the kill, and then there was another voice. The darkness.
Kill her.
She would kill you. Kill her.

She shook
her head, took a fraction of a step backward, and growled down at Samia. The
wolf’s eyes widened as if in disbelief and wheezing still, she rolled onto her
back, presenting Vivienne with her neck and belly.

Vivienne
held still for long moments, and the crowd seemed to collectively hold its
breath. She moved forward, and touched her nose to Samia’s belly before
stepping away.
Mercy
.

Noise
erupted around the circle as Vivienne tried to understand what had happened.
She was inside the white wolf—no, she
was
the white wolf. Somehow she
knew that. How she was white wolf, she didn’t exactly know. How she would get
out of this body she didn’t know, either.

And then as
suddenly as those thoughts came, the environment around her fell away and she
was suddenly inside someone’s house. At least, she thought she was in someone’s
home. She could see stairs. Someone was running down stairs.

“Go,
Cassie!”

Her mother
came into sight, and Vivienne watched in horror as a tracker cruelly jabbed a
syringe into her mother’s neck. Evelyn’s eyes rolled back, and then her head
fell forward.

No
!

She saw the
stairs again, and then the road, the overcast sky. She was Cassie. Somehow, she
could see through her sister’s eyes. Her sister ran for the car, fumbling with
the keys as she did so. Vivienne’s heart stopped.

Cassie was
muttering all sorts of curses and Vivienne was chiming them in right with her.
Someone grabbed Cassie, and her sister began a frantic fight that led to her
escape. As Cassie ran, Vivienne felt her sister’s heartbeat like it was her
own. She was tackled from behind, and with a strangled cry, went down. The
breath was knocked from her body, but Cassie managed a low scream. Vivienne
screamed as well. She felt a prick, as if someone had just stabbed her with a
large needle, and then Cassie faded away and Vivienne lay on the dirt ground, a
frantic Conall above her.

“Vivienne!”
His hands were strong on her shoulders as he shook her.

She sat up
quickly, barely even recognizing she was completely naked before the entire
Cedar Creek community, and yes, all of their eyes were on her.

“Cassie!”

It took
everything inside of him to concentrate on navigating his convertible through
rush-hour New York traffic. The car was built for speed, which was why he was
driving it, while his pack followed behind in the SUV. Still, his mind kept
drifting to other things that had nothing to do with the road. And who could
blame him? In the span of an hour, he’d found out that his mate was a werewolf,
or could somehow access a wolf body, that his mate had either premonitions or
visions, and that it was highly possible Maximilian Cronin’s covenant had just
taken Vivienne’s mother and sister. Separately, any of those three things were
worthy of scrutiny, but together, they made for a ball of chaotic thoughts.

For one,
his mate was a wolf! Not that he had a problem with that, but how? He’d never
smelled it on her before. When Samia had dragged her to the ground, her muzzle
only inches away from Vivienne’s neck, Conall had fought his way through his
betas. He refused to stand by and watch Vivienne die. Laws be damned. He would
deal with the consequences later. He’d just managed to get past Sloan when he
heard Vivienne scream. Immediately, his wolf had come to the surface, demanding
to be released, as that scream signified pain. His change was quickly
approaching when a bright light surrounded his mate, and in the next moment, a
white wolf stood in her place. His wolf retreated briefly in the face of
confusion, as Conall tried to wrap his mind around what should be impossible.
The white wolf was Vivienne. He’d been able to smell her, and although the
scent was slightly different due to the wolf nature, there was no doubt she was
his mate, one and the same. And she’d fought with a grace and viciousness that
made him proud, and sent his beast even wilder than before. If the beast was
attracted to Vivienne the druid, he’d come close to obsession with Vivienne in
wolf form.

And then,
after forcing Samia to admit the superiority of her beast, Vivienne had
collapsed to the ground, shifted back to human form, and remained in an almost
comatose position as, apparently, she’d had a vision. He hadn’t even known that
she could do that. Conall knew of some witches who had premonitions, but he’d
also heard they were rare. He’d held her with fear in his heart, praying she’d
blink and her eyes would focus on him, and when seconds trickled by, he’d begun
to shake her. When the vision passed, she’d been frantic, screaming about her
sister, her mother, going to the safe house, and Maximilian Cronin’s trackers.
Conall had immediately rushed her back to his house, where she’d dressed in
record time as he quickly assembled a team. Minutes later, Vivienne was seated
across from him in the convertible, and Sloan was at the wheel of the SUV,
following.

“Did you
see anything else?” he asked as he switched lanes to go into Brooklyn.

Vivienne
released a breath, and shook her head. He felt her frustration, her fear, and
briefly removed his hand from the gear stick to squeeze her cold hand.

As soon as
Conall pulled up to Evelyn’s safe house, Vivienne leapt from the car and ran to
the front door of the tall brownstone. Conall, Sloan, Raoul, and other pack
members whose names she couldn’t remember, or didn’t know, followed on her
heels. The door was closed but not locked, and her heart thumped as she stepped
inside. Immediately she recognized the staircase down which her sister had run,
the balcony upon which her mother had been drugged.

“Mom!” she
screamed, knowing it was pointless but doing it anyway. She’d telephoned her
mother and sister after rushing back to Conall’s house, praying what she’d seen
was just premonition or a really bad daydream. Something that could be
prevented. Evelyn didn’t answer, which terrified Vivienne even more, as Evelyn
always kept her cellular phone close. Cassie had been the same. No answer.

“Cassie!”

Vivienne
took the stairs two at a time, coming to the balcony, and then heading down the
hallway. Bedroom doors were open. Shattered glass lay against the carpet. There
were dents in the floorboard and walls, as if a huge fight had taken place. Her
heart thumped even harder, raced even faster.

It was
real. Somehow, she’d seen the moment her sister and mother had been abducted.

She found a
room that smelled of Evelyn, and stepped inside. It was untouched, signifying
no interference with the room. The next room she entered was the exact
opposite. The bed was against the wall, as if someone had tossed it there, and
there were char marks on the cream carpet. Although it smelled of her sister,
she also scented others. Trackers.

They’d
obviously been after her sister, and Evelyn had come to Cassie’s defense. How
had they known where to look? Her mother’s safe houses were close to
undetectable. She felt Conall behind her, and then his hand landed on her
shoulder. He was trying to comfort her. Leaning back, she closed her eyes and
let him take her weight. The last time trackers had taken someone she loved,
she hadn’t seen him again.
Max
. And now her mother and sister. She
didn’t know the first thing about finding them. Where was Maximilian Cronin’s
home? Would he keep them there?

“We’ll find
them,
alainn
,” Conall said firmly, giving her shoulder an encouraging
squeeze. She could feel his anger wafting off of him, but couldn’t even revel
in it. She felt…alone.

Vivienne
shook her head. “How?”

“I know
where Cronin keeps his covenant. I also know that he’ll try to contact you
shortly.”

“Why?”

“Because he
wants you both. At the Council meeting, he tried to claim kinship for you and
your sister.” Conall’s voice was cool and level. As she practically melted in
fear for her family, he took control. “He’s going to either send his trackers
after you, or try to convince you to go to him.”

“How can
you be sure, Conall?” Her voice was soft because it took so much effort to
speak.

“Because he
needs you both. At least, that’s what he thinks.”

She nodded
weakly against him, and Conall’s free hand slipped around her waist, turning
her so that she faced him.

Lifting her
chin, she looked into his eyes. She saw reassurance. Determination.

“I promise
you, Vivienne, we will find your mother and sister.”

She wanted
to believe him, and hoped he was right, because her pain was growing larger by
the second. Her entire body hurt. It was as if she were missing a limb, like
someone had cut off a body part, and with the pain and the hurt pulsed the
darkness inside her.

As she
leaned against Conall’s shoulder and closed her eyes, she thought of Maximilian
Cronin. He’d sent his people after Max, her mother, and her sister. God only
knew what he’d already done to Evelyn and Cassie. She shuddered against Conall
and his arm tightened around her.

The voices
in her head, the ones she’d come to accept as part of her druid, whispered to
her. Why should she wait for him to come to her?

Stepping
back from Conall, she opened her eyes. He inhaled sharply, and Vivienne knew
why. She was seeing red once more. No doubt, her eye color had shifted to it.

“Where is
his covenant?” Even her voice sounded different. She didn’t care at the moment.
She had to find her mother and her sister. Outside of her father, and now
Conall, they were the only family she had. She would not let Maximilian Cronin
hurt them. Not if she could prevent it.

Kyros
stared at the young warlock as he tried unsuccessfully to heal the human. She
was beyond healing. He could even smell the onset of death. It wafted around
the sheet-wrapped body like an ominous cologne. The woman had at least ten bone
fractures, an assortment of internal tears, and many bruises. It was a miracle
she was still alive.

Over an
hour ago, he’d projected them to one of his safe houses in the city. It was a
tiny apartment, with barely two small bedrooms, an equally tiny living
room/kitchen, and a bathroom. For all its lackluster components, it was the
safe house with the most spells and charms. Maximilian would not be able to
find them here, at least, not for a few days, maybe even weeks, and by that
time, he intended to be far from New York. When Maximilian had imprisoned him,
what he now knew to be six months ago, he’d only been in New York because he’d
heard of a hidden warlock community in the city. They were said to be a group
of refugees, in a sense, who’d found a way to each other. It reminded him of an
old fashioned warlock covenant, something he’d hadn’t seen in existence since
the witches began mass-murdering his people, and he’d been curious.

Unfortunately,
the same time he’d been researching the community, Cronin’s trackers had been
doing the same, and unlike him, they were prepared to go up against warlocks.
Their numbers had been large, their weapons specifically designed to hold
warlocks. He and another had been captured, but most of the community had
managed to escape. For that, he’d been grateful. At least some warlocks had
escaped the clutches of these bloodthirsty witches!