Blood Moons (24 page)

Blood Moons

by Alianne Donnelly

He ignored that. "How did you know a murder was occurring?"

A trick question. But he was very subtle about it. All hard-faced and intent, as if he was asking something she'd already answered a dozen times, but wanted to catch her in a lie. "I didn't. I knew after the fact."

"Were you at any time during the past three months in contact with the murderer?"

Define contact ...
"No."

Calen's gaze flickered over her face and posture to spot a lie and Dara couldn't be sure if he saw anything. She couldn't feel his mental probe anymore. It worried her a little. "How did you know anything at all then?"

"A dream. It felt very real. Maybe some sort of premonition? But about the past ... if that makes any sense."

She brought her nightmare to the surface of her shields in case he was still broadcasting and she just couldn't feel it.

Shouldn't he know she was blocking him? Maybe he wasn't as strong as he thought.

The door opened with enough force to make her jump.

"Hey, Dara," Tristan called, "you coming? The water's great."

Calen raised an eyebrow. "Friend of yours?"

Friend, ex-lover, guard dog, the scary thing with huge
fangs that stalks people at night...

"I am very sociable," she told him, then to Tristan she said, "Come in, there's berries."

He was at the table instantly. "I love berries," he said, with a grin for Calen's benefit. He may as well have been another 215

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agent. His charm was all a mask and underneath it his sharp mind missed nothing.

"Are you who I think you are?" Calen asked him.

Tristan shrugged, taking a handful of berries and throwing them into his mouth one at a time. "I don't know who you think I am," he said between bites. "These are good." He took another handful.

Calen looked Dara over speculatively. "Hmm. Sociable, indeed."

Dara took offense at his tone. Instead of talking to the agent, she addressed Tristan. "You want to sit?"

He shook his head. "I don't want to ruin your chairs. I'm all wet from the lake."

It was only then she noticed that except for his bare feet, he was fully dressed. Soaked through and making a puddle on the floor.

"Were you pushed into the lake?" Calen asked.

Tristan turned his gaze on the agent. "People don't push around a man like me."

"I'll keep that in mind."

What was it with men and their thinly veiled threats of excessive violence? "Are we done here?" she demanded of the agent.

"I got what I came here for," Calen said cryptically and got to his feet. "You are ... a remarkable surprise, Miss Frost. But you're not as subtle as you think." He straightened his immaculate suit. "Get comfortable here, Miss Frost. It'll be a while before you'll be allowed to leave. Especially if you don't cooperate."

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"You know, it just figures that a government operative would pick on someone who can't defend herself," Tristan said. "Why don't you try your tricks on me? See what happens."

"No, I have no ties to the government," he said offhandedly. "I am an acquisitor, Mr. Hunt, if you'll pardon the crude metaphor. I have a shopping list and, well, let's just say you're not on it. For now. Someone will be in touch, Miss Frost."

"What the fuck did you do?" Anger overrode the sheer terror that had fueled him on his way here. The agent was gone and now there was no one to focus it on but Dara.

"Where were you?" she demanded at the same time, shoving at him.

His jaw ached like the devil and his fingers itched like there was an army of ants digging their way through his flesh. It was all Tristan could do not to bare his fangs and pin her to the ground. "Are you out of your fucking mind?" he snarled. "Weeks I spent teaching you, training you. I leave for
one day
and you throw it all away with one monumental fuckup. Do you want to die?"

"How the hell was I supposed to know they'd send a telepath?" She shoved at him again, which just stoked his rage. "If you'd been here, maybe you could have warned me.

I'd have been better off if I never met you! Then they would have just chalked it up to dumb luck that I saw anything at all."

He heard the growl in his mind a split second before his head started splitting like a log. The pain was blinding. He 217

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roared, clutching his head to keep it from exploding and all the while his claws dug into his skull. Dara's fright barely registered as his back bowed, making him bend forward. His muscles tightened until he thought they would tear like his clothes, popping stitch by stitch.

Through the thundering of his heart and the roar of pain inside his head, he heard his breaths rumbling in and out of his lungs like a giant bellows. He didn't even try moving his jaw; it felt wired shut, but he knew it was because his fangs had changed before his face could.

Then his face did change and he screamed. And the sound was more animal than human.

The shifting and tearing and breaking inside him brought him to his knees, his body rearranging into something else.

He didn't have time to be afraid. The pain consumed him, blinding him to his surroundings and deafening him to everything, even Dara's frantic voice inside his head. Tristan had the impression of her terror and the scent of her nearness, but that was it.

Then he felt her arms around him and it was agony far beyond what he was already feeling. He was two seconds away from shoving her off him, no matter the consequences, when he felt her in his mind. She muscled her way inside, took advantage of his inattention and forced her will on him, taking control when he could not. She filled his mind with pictures of green fields, a forest in the distance, spurred him on to run there, run where he was safe.

Tristan obeyed, because it was the only thing he could do.

He ran. With ground-eating lopes he fled for those trees, 218

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aching for the sweet coolness of shadow and dew. And each time his paws met the ground, he saw himself a man. Eyes glowing golden, fierce, body larger, stronger, but human.

Dara didn't let the pain touch his mind, though his body writhed, tormented.

Then the blinding sunlight was gone and he was in the trees. The pain began to subside, leaving a dull ache he could at last control. Tristan forced himself to breathe slowly, evenly, though his ribs felt broken. He focused on that coolness in his mind, in the forest, filled the places around him with giant trees and snarls of enormous, twisting roots, perfect hiding places. He put birds in the trees and insects hissing and chirping on the ground. Their songs muted the drum of his heartbeat, eased the pain in his head.

He felt his fingers changing, contorting back to their normal shape, and there was no pain in that. His fangs receded, dormant once more, and with them gone, his face changed back and he could finally flex his jaw.

Tristan was back. On the floor, shaking uncontrollably, with Dara's arms still around him and his fingers digging into her to hold her there. He didn't dare open his eyes, fearing what he would see in hers when she looked at him.

After analyzing his blood, Amelia had tried for hours on end last night to trigger a change in him, using everything from sensory stimuli to chemical injections. Nothing had worked. Nothing had so much as altered his senses. What was it about Dara that had this effect on him?

He could already hear people approaching at a run. No doubt the ruckus he'd made had attracted an audience, but 219

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he knew Amelia was among them, probably with an EMT or two.

He was going to need them. The new patch he'd been fitted with would have transmitted throughout his change and Amelia would have every detail of it saved in her notepad.

Tristan could save her the trouble and just tell her what happened. Except that he didn't feel much like talking at the moment.

Christ, how was he still breathing after that?

As his head slowly stopped spinning, he became more and more aware of his immediate surroundings. Dara was shivering against him. He was cold in his wet clothes, on the hard floor, and ... he smelled blood.

A group of people forced their way into the bungalow.

"Get my kit!" Amelia ordered, coming toward them.

"What the hell have you done to him?" Dara yelled. She was crying and Tristan couldn't even sit up by himself to try to comfort her. He wanted to tell her he was all right, but couldn't manage to get his mouth working properly. The beast he'd become inside his mind was no longer capable of human speech.

Strong arms lifted him onto a stretcher. Hands pried him away from Dara. They were all talking, thinking at the same time and he couldn't make sense of it. Dara was arguing with Amelia. A team of four orderlies were cataloging his physical state in their minds, thinking the same thing in different orders, confusing the fuck out of him.

And then they were outside and the glittering sunlight warmed his chilled flesh. They were moving fast toward 220

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Amelia's labs, through the forest where the quick flashes of light between tree limbs made his eyes want to roll back in his head. Tristan reached blindly for Dara. She was there, he could hear her, feel her in his mind, but she was on a different platform behind him.

Once again they emerged from the forest, from shadow to sunlight to cool darkness as he was brought inside the facility.

Once more the flood of voices washed over him, more people coming close, watching, talking, debating.

His eyes fluttered open for a moment as the tranquilizer jabbed into his shoulder.

Before he passed out, he saw Dara on a stretcher not five feet from him, her arm in bandages, soaked with blood.

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15th day of the 4th Blood Moon, 3028

It was dark when he finally came to his senses and opened his eyes, and for a moment, Tristan thought he'd gone blind.

He fought his way through the thick fog of grogginess and tried to sit up. He couldn't. Baffled, he twisted his wrists inside the restraints. His legs were bound up to his knees and he could feel a band stretching across his chest.

He pulled sharply with one arm and broke the restraints, muscles screaming. It hurt too much to do the same with the other, so he felt with his free hand for the release mechanisms. "Lights," he croaked, but his voice wasn't loud enough. His mouth was parched and his throat was sore.

Tristan moistened his lips with a sticky tongue and tried again. "
Lights
." They came on instantly, piercing needles into his head through his eyes. "Low," he said. The lights dimmed.

Free of the restraints on his upper body, he tried to sit again. He had to twist to his side and do it by degrees. By the time he started working on the bands over his legs, Amelia came in, a tranquilizer in her hand.

"Are we suspending civilities between us, lass? Has it come to that, then?"

"How are you feeling?" She pocketed the syringe.

"Like I was run over by a shuttle."
Repeatedly.

Amelia came to help him with the restraints and adjusted the bed so he could sit up and lean back. "We've had a trying couple of days."

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Tristan groaned. "What did you do to me?" He was having a hard time just focusing his mind to form a sentence.

"Nothing," Amelia said, then amended, "Nothing else. You started a physical change. Somehow you managed to stop and reverse it, but the damage it did was ... Suffice it to say, if you didn't have your regenerative abilities, I'd be wondering how you're alive right now."

"Tell me," he prompted.

"There were no video feeds this time, but from what I could gather from Dara—"

"Dara!" Tristan straightened so quickly a rib that had just healed cracked again. "Where is she? Is she okay?"

Amelia pushed him to lean back again. "She's fine. She's resting from the surgery, but the damage wasn't as bad as it looked."

He brushed her hands away.

"Tristan you can't—she's sleeping. You need to rest!"

Tristan was already hobbling out the door. "So either help me or shut up."

She didn't help. But she followed close behind and he didn't need to see inside her head to guess what she was thinking.

Tristan followed his instinct, dragging his feet down one long corridor, then another, leaning on the wall for support when his knees buckled, until he found her. There was a large window into her room; he could see her on the bed, bandaged, with tubes stuck in both arms. She was sleeping, but he could tell how weak she was.

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"From what I could gather," Amelia said, "you changed about halfway. It was mainly in your upper body, mostly your head and chest and arms—it seems to progress downward, which would appear to confirm my theory that the trigger must be perceived. And it's also why you can walk now. Your legs weren't affected as much."

"Damage?"

"Torn muscles, broken ribs, dislocated joints, massive internal bleeding..."

"Not to me," he said. "To her."

"Dara sustained some muscle strain and a number of deep cuts. She was trying to hold on to you is my guess, even when your body mass increased beyond what she could handle. When you reached out to her, your claws cut pretty deep. One of the claw marks was millimeters from her lung. A single deep breath and it could have been punctured."

Tristan staggered back.

"Tristan, she'll be fine. I'm more concerned about you. You kept ... changing after we brought you in here. We had to keep you under for almost two days now."

I'd have been better off if I never met you!