Blood Moons (15 page)

Blood Moons

by Alianne Donnelly

not physically. Anything she got came with a trickle of background and images.

Blanc was talking to a prisoner. Dara could sense him looking around every so often to make sure no one was watching. He was standing in the one place where the security feeds wouldn't catch him, and he couldn't stay there long, otherwise it would look suspicious. This prison was vast.

Too many prisoners, too many places to keep an eye on. The surveillance team usually just kept a general eye on things, not looking anywhere too closely.

It was a system flaw that Blanc exploited. Right now, he was in the clear. Whoever he was talking to was willing to make a deal and the only way things could get fucked up was if someone in the surveillance room decided to listen to the audio feeds. He couldn't give them a reason to do it.

Blanc didn't like being there, but he had no choice. The man wanted something, and Blanc was cornered. If he refused this, bad things would happen. He couldn't risk it. To him, this was damage control, pure and simple.

Dara's frown deepened and she tried shifting her focus a little to look into the man inside the cell. His mind was very different from Blanc's. Completely clear of any clutter, almost as if he had tunnel vision. As if he didn't concern himself with anything. Even this prison didn't bother him. What he wanted from Blanc, and the fact that he couldn't get it—
that
bothered him. His ego was bruised. He was supposed to be the big boss of this place, and he had to ask a
guard
for
permission
to do this.

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There seemed to be a time element to it too. They didn't have much longer to do whatever it was the prisoner wanted.

He had information, something he shouldn't, and soon his chance would be gone.

The guard finally relented.
"Tomorrow night,"
he said.

"Why not now?"

The lights came on.
"That's why,"
Blanc replied, and walked away. Dara stayed with him until the elevator door closed behind him. She couldn't see past that barrier.

"It might be time I taught you how to hide," Tristan said from above, his tone grave. He was all business again and she just knew there was another grueling day of practice and testing in the works. While it was nice to know that Tristan was so eager to take up the fight, Dara knew from experience that he would be utterly merciless about it.

The siren rang through their block, the wake-up call. Dara groaned and sat up. She didn't want to go anywhere. Couldn't she just curl back up and pretend to sleep? Or possibly
actually
sleep?

Tristan hopped down from his bunk. "We stay here," he said as the doorway zapped open. "You don't mind skipping a meal, do you?"

Dara was famished, but shrugged. "If it was anything worth eating, I would. It's not." Tristan wouldn't deprive her of food if it wasn't something important.

"Good," he said with a nod. Not a smile, no "Good morning, last night was great," nothing.

"Grouch," she accused. And last night
had
been great.

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the mind-blowing sex should have been the straw that broke her. Instead, Dara had never felt so ...
normal
. And content.

Not in her entire life. She could learn to really love that feeling. Maybe...

Could she seduce him to get that feeling again?

"Always," he said, and she couldn't tell whether he meant her words or her thoughts. She opted for the latter, which significantly improved her outlook on the day to come.

She darted around him and closed herself in the bathroom corner before he could stop her.
"Ha!"
Dara grinned triumphantly.

"You'll pay for that,"
he said, his shadow looming large just outside the screen.

She sent him a mental image of her sticking her tongue out at him. His response made her knees turn to jelly and she had to brace herself against the sink to keep from melting to the floor. Tristan was taking over her mind. Her vision darkened until she could perceive only what he allowed, what he showed her. She felt his touch, as if he was physically there with her.

His ghostly hands roamed over her body, cupping her breasts, teasing her nipples, then moving down while his mouth brushed over her shoulder, the side of her neck. Her fingers curled around the sink when he touched her abdomen, then lower, dipping into the curls and stroking, stroking...

He flooded her mind with memories of the night before, bringing her instantly back to that moment just before his cock plunged into her. She could feel it even now, the slick head circling her entrance, teasing while he stroked her clit.

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Images, sensations. Dara felt him as if he stood just behind her, her back to his chest, but he wasn't really there to keep her upright. She had to do that herself. Of course, he knew exactly how difficult it was. He made it even worse.

Stroked harder, faster, kneaded her breasts, caressed her body; once again, she felt his hands everywhere. His mouth, too.

The onslaught, the sensory overload, became too much.

Dara cried out as she came, still clutching that damned sink and shivering from head to toe. She knew he could feel what she felt. Knew it, because he reflected it back to her, amplifying everything. Prolonging it.

When he finally released her, withdrawing his mental touch, she reached out a shaky hand to turn on the water.

"That wasn't fair,"
she told him.

"Maybe not,"
he allowed.
"But was it good?"

And that was when she realized something. A playful Tristan was dangerous. He made her forget where she was and why. He made all of it not matter, made her not care that she was on a planet far from home, locked deep underground with legions of sociopaths, killers, and rapists. He forced her to drop all the guards she'd spent a lifetime putting up—

feeble as they were—and destroyed those he'd taught her to build, and Dara was left naked and exposed, forced to rely on him completely. And she took what he gave her, because she was greedy for it. Anything to help her pretend everything was happy and nice; that this was just another normal day, in her normal life, with her not so normal boyfriend.

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But it was all an illusion. By giving in to it she might as well blindfold herself while she waded into a pool of sharks.

Dara was just setting herself up for disaster. Sooner or later she would be caught on her own without him there to protect her. It was just a matter of time.

It crushed her to see the illusion shatter. Plunging headfirst back into reality, she now felt more vulnerable than ever before. She should never have opened herself up like that.

Needing some distance to regroup, Dara closed herself off from Tristan and took her time washing up. When she came out again, Tristan was pacing, his jaw clenched. "Don't do that again," he told her as he went past for his turn in the bathroom.
"You can't shut down like that."

The screen closed behind him, leaving her bewildered.
"I
can't have privacy in my own mind?"

There was a metallic groan on the other side. What had he done?
"It's not about that."
He sounded the same as always, but Dara sensed she'd ... hurt him somehow.

"Then what's it about?"

"You need to keep alert. When you shut down, you may as
well have made yourself deaf and blind. The cell is open;
anyone could have gotten in. What if I wasn't here?"

His words made sense, but it wasn't what was bothering him. Dara decided to push.
"If you weren't here, I wouldn't
have had to do it."

He was silent. She'd surprised him.

"I'm not used to sharing my mind with another person,
Tristan. It's like the ultimate invasion of privacy. By now you
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probably know everything there is to know about me. To the
last detail. Do you know how weird that feels?"

And that was another thing she couldn't get over. Tristan knew her better than anyone she'd ever known, because he had access to her most secret thoughts.
She'd
done that.

She'd allowed him entrance, when he hadn't done the same.

She still had no idea who Tristan Hunt really was, because every time he'd opened up, Dara had been too busy enjoying his body to even glance at anything but his surface thoughts.

So stupid!
she berated herself.

Dara took her comb and dragged it ruthlessly through her hair. She felt like crying. Because of one mindless decision, because of one stupid phone call, she'd lost everything.

Everything.
Even her mind wasn't her own anymore.

The screen opened and Tristan stepped out. He rubbed a hand over his clean-shaven jaw, looking at her as if he was at a loss for words. "You know me," he said.

"Do I?" she retorted. "Enlighten me, then. Are you the boy, still huddling in the dark? Or the stone-cold killer, tracking down his target, regardless of who stands in your way? Or the scholar who reads dead languages?"
That
hadn't escaped her before. The voices in his mind that sounded like gibberish, the memorized passages, they were in languages so rare most people didn't even talk about them anymore.

"Or are you someone completely different and I just haven't figured it out yet?"

"Maybe I am all of those things." He sounded dejected, as if admitting what he had been, and what he might be, was 138

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shameful, but he was doing it anyway, to put her at ease. His shields lowered a little more, as if in invitation.

Dara didn't go snooping. She recognized this might be her chance to learn about him, but something held her back. She was ... afraid. Of what she might discover.

Tristan sighed, but didn't shut her back out. She got the impression that he didn't want to. He
liked
this connection between them; liked sharing her mind and thoughts. It probably hadn't occurred to him how one-sided he made it.

Made, because he was the more skilled telepath. He set the rules and Dara wasn't strong enough to challenge them.

Yet.

The surprise came when he lowered his shields even more.

Because he did it
for her
. It mollified her somewhat that he was making such an effort. He was meeting her halfway, or at least as much as he was able.

It still didn't change what was.

"I know what you did,"
he said. Of course, he'd read her mind.
"I know you dreamed the murder and called it in."

There was a quiet assurance in his mind-voice, as well as curiosity.
"I don't know why. You had to know they'd suspect
you. So why
did
you call it in, Dara?"

Dara dragged the comb through her hair a couple more times in those angry brushes that snagged and broke her hair while he watched and winced. How to answer? Waking up in the midst of that horror, still seeing the blood all over the walls—she could see it coating
her
walls for a moment—

hadn't been nearly as bad as the realization that the dizzying back-and-forth between killer and victim had been real.

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Empty hunger, compulsion, anticipation.

And in the next instant seemingly irrational paranoia. A person just walking home from work, sensing that he was being followed. Then darkness. More fear. Heart racing so fast it was a hum.

And in contrast, the
other
heart beating strong and steady.

A perverted sense of pleasure from the chase, the hunt.

The knife in his hand—her hand. But it wouldn't be used.

Not yet.

The muffled scream.

The kill—he took his time. Building up the anticipation.

The pain—it was everywhere. Hot, searing. Endless.

The blood—all around her, soaking her.

The solemn quietude afterward that lasted only a few moments before restlessness took over and the thirst for blood built up again.

She'd sat there in the dark, shaking, crying, fighting for breath. Part of her mind had still been torn between the two of them, the one now dead and quiet, and it had sickened her.

"He was gone",
she told Tristan,
"but still close enough to
be caught. If they just got there fast enough. They didn't."

The victim had been screaming in her mind; his invisible mouth open wide, silently screaming and screaming. A sound not heard but felt. She couldn't make it stop. It wouldn't stop.

"I had to do something."

She hadn't thought. She'd just picked up the phone and dialed the police. She'd been wheezing and sobbing as she'd told the officer on the line where the dead body was.
"It'll still
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be fresh,"
Dara had told her, fighting down a wave of nausea.

"The killer just left."

Another drag of the comb. This time, Tristan took it out of her hands. "Are you PMSing or something?" he said out loud while he mentally brushed her memories away.

"Hunt!" Her reproach carried no weight at all.

He smiled crookedly, but his eyes were serious.
"Time to
get to work."

"What exactly are we working on today?"

He sat on the floor to face her.
"Skewing perception.

Sounds easy enough when it's just one or two people, but
when it's a room full of them, it gets a little tricky. And you
won't be able to fool machines."

Dara took a breath to get rid of the bad feelings and memories and sat down on the floor. "Yoga hour?" she teased.