Blood Moons (38 page)

"What's the prob—Dara, he's an escaped felon."

"Yes, I heard that. I mean, why are you coming after him?"

"I don't follow."

She balled her free hand into a fist on the railing. "Then let me clarify," she said. "You and I had a deal, remember? You gave me your word."

A pause. "I know. But the situation is out of my control now that he's broken the law again."

"Well then, get it back under control. Have John fill you in on what's been happening since you left. To remind you why you need me here."

345

Blood Moons

by Alianne Donnelly

Tristan was behind her, his hands on her shoulders, his mouth at her ear. "Let me talk to him," he said.

Dara considered all the ways in which
that
could go wrong, but finally surrendered the phone. "Don't give him any more reason to dislike you, okay?"

He smiled and kissed her. "I ordered some stuff to go.

They should be bringing it out any minute."

"Perfect," she muttered. "Now I'm being dismissed."

But he let her listen in inside his mind.

"Is this Hunt?"
Calen asked, sounding tense.

"Yes, and I assume you're the agent Dara met with on Niren Colony."

"That's correct. Where are you?"

"Keeping Dara safe."

Again, there was a pause.
"Damn it, a man like you, you
could have gone anywhere, disappeared. Why the hell did you
have to come here? You had to know you'd get caught."

In the face of Calen's bluster, Tristan remained unmoved.

"Why do you ask questions you already know the answers to?"

Calen sighed and sounded defeated when he said,
"I guess
I just need to hear it from you."

Tristan looked over his shoulder and met Dara's gaze. "I love her."

Dara's heart squeezed, even while pleasant heat warmed her entire body. The way he was looking at her ...
Intense.

She felt more tears sting her eyes.
I love you,
she mouthed back, touching a hand to her heart. Tristan was her hero. She couldn't imagine a happily ever after without him.

346

Blood Moons

by Alianne Donnelly

His eyes flashed briefly golden.

The waiter came to drop off their take-out bags then, distracting her.

On the other side of the phone line, Calen blew out a breath.
"I know your story, man. I don't
think
that you're a
menace to society, and I'm pretty sure you won't hurt Dara ...

again. I could almost be convinced that you're one of the
good guys. But I don't know if I can convince everyone else."

"Tell them I can put an end to the killings."

"Can you?"

"Yes."

"Then, as your reward, I suppose, you'd want your record
cleared and, like Dara said, to be left alone."
Another pause.

Dara wished she knew what Calen was thinking right now.
"I'll
see what I can do. It probably won't be much, but if I do
manage to arrange something, understand that it will be
contingent on you stopping this psycho."

"Understood."

"Good. Put Dara back on the phone."

She met him halfway to the elevator with the bags. Tristan traded her phone for them and winked. "This is Dara, mind reader extraordinaire," she said into the mouthpiece, leaning her other cheek against Tristan, needing to touch him. He put his arm around her and squeezed her for a moment so tight he almost lifted her off her feet.

"You keep dangerous company, lady," Calen told her.

Dara grinned. "No more dangerous than you are."

"I don't turn into a feral tiger when I lose my temper."

347

Blood Moons

by Alianne Donnelly

She shrugged. "Well, nobody's perfect. Don't let it get you down."

Tristan laughed and then he did lift her one-armed off her feet to kiss the side of her neck.

They made arrangements to meet at HQ and hung up, but not before MacMurphy wrested the phone away from Calen again to threaten her with cruel and unusual punishment if she didn't come to her senses. In the background, just before he hung up, she heard Calen say, "Give it a rest, John. She's a wild child. You'll never rein her in."

Back on street level, Dara looked far up above her for a glimpse of the blue gray sky. "This place is just depressing,"

she told Tristan.

He tugged on her hand to get her moving. "We'll get out of here soon."

They took a taxi to HQ. Tristan only half listened to Dara describing the sights. He didn't give a damn what she was saying. It was just good to hear her voice, carefree and excited. He paid attention when she pointed out the giant tiger statue in the middle of the square. It was roaring, fangs exposed, and one paw raised to slash out.

"What is it supposed to symbolize?"

Dara frowned. "I have no idea."

"It's a monument to the guy who built the zoo," the driver said.

"So where's the zoo?"

"Used to be right where you're looking. They tore it down years ago to make room for people."

Dara sighed. "Like I said. Depressing."

348

Blood Moons

by Alianne Donnelly

Tristan agreed. He didn't see the appeal of living here. It was a concrete ant hill and, from what he'd seen on the news these last few years, the rest of Earth's major cities were no different.

The taxi pulled up to the curb across the street from HQ.

Tristan already knew what to expect, having seen it in Dara's mind, but the sight of it still made him want to bare his fangs.

He took the bags and crossed the busy street while Dara paid the driver. They'd be waiting for him and he wanted to talk to them, look them in the eye, before Dara got a chance to try to intervene on his behalf.

Tristan had a bad feeling about meeting so many other telepaths. From what he could tell, these people were more like a community than a crime-fighting unit. And he was an escaped felon, about to walk into their midst. For their sakes, he hoped they had some manners and didn't get too curious.

Sharing his mind with Dara was one thing. He didn't need others in his head; didn't want them there. He would be making that clear to them immediately.

Tristan was at the door, his hand on the handle, about to pull it open, when he got slammed with a wave of terror. It washed over him for a disorienting moment, then faded to nothing just as quickly. Heart in his throat, he dropped the bags and raced back down the stairs. He nearly got run over by at least half a dozen speeding transports, but he fought his way through traffic to the other side.

The taxi was already down the block, about to turn the corner, but the driver's mind was filled with mundane things.

He wasn't involved. "Dara!" he yelled out loud and across 349

Blood Moons

by Alianne Donnelly

their link. He didn't get an answer. He scented the air, looking for any trace of her. There was her fear, so thick it sickened him. His claws sharpened without conscious thought as he stalked the street, into a dark side alley, following that scent.

"Dara!"
he called again, but met with darkness. She'd been knocked out. And she'd seen it coming. He roared, wanting to tear the bastard apart so slowly. Brendon Z had no idea what he was dealing with.

The alley led to a dead end filled with overflowing dumpsters. The stench drowned out Dara's scent. It infuriated him even more. He hauled the heavy metal cubes away from the walls, gouging the cement, looking for any way of escape the killer could have used. Tristan searched the walls as high up as he could see, the ground for any indentation, a secret doorway—
something.
And every second he didn't find something, he changed a little more. Too many scents. Too much chaos. He couldn't sort through it fast enough, and the more time it took, the farther away Dara could be getting, and the wilder he became.

MacMurphy and Calen were at the edge of the alley, shouting something he didn't hear. They were too nervous to come any closer, not that he'd let them. Tristan dug through the garbage, praying that he wouldn't find Dara's dead body in the trash.

When his fingers encountered cold skin, he stopped breathing. He had to force his hand to move, to grasp the thin wrist and pull. He replaced the compulsion on MacMurphy and Calen with another and they came running, digging out the 350

Blood Moons

by Alianne Donnelly

trash on top of the body so he could pull her out. A woman.

With a faint, stuttering heartbeat.

When the others had loosened enough trash he tugged harder and pulled her out. She was cold, barely breathing, her clothes filthy and torn. Her face was bruised, her matted brown hair torn out in places. Katie Grayson.

"Call an ambulance!" MacMurphy ordered, checking the girl's neck for a pulse.

Tristan didn't see Calen leave. He didn't hear MacMurphy talking. Everything in him was focused on a small, tattered piece of paper that had been pinned to the girl's chest.

Tit for tat
, it read.

Dara was gone.

[Back to Table of Contents]

351

Blood Moons

by Alianne Donnelly

As long as he lived and breathed, Jeremy Calen would never forget the feeling of looking into the eyes of madness.

And it wasn't even the serial killer. The look on Hunt's face when he stopped digging through trash ... those three seconds in which Jeremy could
feel
everything inside Hunt just stop would stick with him for the rest of his days. He wouldn't have been surprised if the man's heart stopped beating. Couldn't imagine what he had to be feeling.

Could see what it did to him, though. His face
changed
.

One minute he was like something out of a bad werewolf movie, half human, half beast, with huge black claws and fangs Jeremy could see all the way from the mouth of the alley, and the next he was completely human, baffled, terrified. It was almost as if even that tiger inside him got scared into retreat.

A man like that didn't get scared.

Jeremy felt Hunt manipulating him, but he didn't give a shit. He jumped right into that dumpster with John and when they cleared enough of the woman to see that it wasn't Dara, Jeremy didn't know which of them was more shocked.

Hunt didn't stick around for the ambulance to arrive.

Jeremy was glad.

The paramedic said Katie needed medical care ASAP. She'd been hanging on by a thread. Even thirty seconds later, she could have been dead, suffocated by the trash piled on top of 352

Blood Moons

by Alianne Donnelly

her, or just ... given up. She was taken to the hospital and her parents were notified.

But Jeremy and John had bigger issues. Now there were two psychotic killers on the loose, and they couldn't decide which one was more dangerous. One of them had traded Katie for Dara, that much was now clear. So, for all they knew, he wouldn't be looking for more victims until he was finished with her—and that thought made Jeremy sick to his stomach.

The other one, though, wouldn't stop until he found her.

Leaving Niren Colony had been one thing. What would Hunt do? How many people would he plow through to get to his woman now that she was in danger of her life? Would he even be able to distinguish between friend and foe?

They had three agents and six more patrol transports out looking for him. It wasn't as if they had a chance in hell of finding him, but at least John felt as if they were doing
something
.

Jeremy closed himself in the training room to get away from the trainees and their incessant questions. They all knew something was wrong; something had to be, because Dara wasn't there. They knew about the new telepath, and that he wasn't there either, and they wanted to know what the hell was going on. Jeremy had no fucking clue.

Pixie crawled out from under the table where she must have been hiding. He hadn't noticed her before. "Dara made him mad," she said. Then she smiled impishly. "Both of them, actually, but the fluffy one likes it. The crazy one doesn't."

353

Blood Moons

by Alianne Donnelly

He snorted to hear Hunt referred to as the
fluffy
one.

"What are you doing here?" He didn't have it in him to order her out. He'd missed his sister.

"You want a cookie?" She took one off the plate and held it out to him. "It's chocolate. Try it. It'll be good for you."

Jeremy took it, but didn't take a bite. "Pix, do you like it here?" Seven years ago, when they'd come here, there had been nowhere else for them to go. This place had become their home, the people in it their family. But as a full agent now, Jeremy spent more time away than he did here. He hated leaving Pixie alone, but told himself she was safe in John's care. Still, he knew she missed him when he was gone.

He was the only real family she had left.

"You're worried that this isn't the best environment for me to grow up in," she said, reading him easily. She'd learned to talk from reading his mind like an open book. Not surprisingly, her first words had been curses.

"Is it?"

She shrugged, tossing herself onto the sofa next to him.

"There's people like us here."

"What about the city? Wouldn't you rather be somewhere with grass and flowers? Maybe some trees?"

Pixie brightened. "I know what those look like! They're pretty."

His chest hurt. Pixie had never seen them for herself. She could only touch grass in the memories of others. Smell flowers through those who'd seen them bloom outside a hothouse. "How about you and I go on a trip? Would you like that?"

354

Blood Moons

by Alianne Donnelly

She turned to him with her whole soul shining bright in her eyes. "Really?"

He nodded, struggling to make a sound. "Really."

Pixie squealed and ran around the room like a dizzy little bee for a while, chanting, "We're going out, we're going out, we're going out! We're. Going. Out!"