Blood Moons (42 page)

Call in more help only if it's absolutely necessary."

383

Blood Moons

by Alianne Donnelly

Amelia flipped a switch and typed something on a small pad on the side of Dara's bed. When the scanned image of her body appeared above her, Amelia focused it on Dara's head and brain. "Just in case," she said.

Tristan glared.

"What?" she said. "You don't know what this might do to her. What if something goes wrong? This way we can at least see
where
it goes wrong."

"And you have a great way to observe and document physical evidence of telepathic activity."

She blushed, but didn't turn the scanner off. "It's a win-win, as far as I can see." Amelia had learned her lesson all too well in New Alaska. She wasn't about to start experimenting again, especially not on someone's mind. What drove her was sheer curiosity, the scientist in her always wanting to look for answers. Tristan supposed there was no harm to it.

"Are we ready?" he asked the team.

Senior agents—ten of them—stepped up and everyone else backed away toward the walls to give them room.

"I'll wait for your signal," Amelia said, her syringe at the ready.

"I'll go first," Tristan said.

MacMurphy nodded, trying to reassure him. "We're right behind you."

Tristan took Dara's hand in his, needing to feel her with him in any way he could. Then he closed his eyes, steadied his breathing, and sank slowly, carefully into her mind...

384

Blood Moons

by Alianne Donnelly

There was fog all around him. So thick, he couldn't see his
own feet. Nothing had changed since the last time, then. He
was walking blind, feeling his way with the toe of his shoe
before he put his weight on it. One careful step after another,
he made his way, arms outstretched to feel what was before
him.

The next step brought his foot onto something hard.

Wood. Old, grooved, but sturdy enough. Planks nailed
together to form a bridge of some sort. No, not a bridge—a
pier. He almost stepped right off the end of it. Tristan
crouched low to trace its edges, then reached over to feel for
water. There wasn't any. He had to duck his head below the
level of the pier to see the dry, sandy bottom of what used to
be a lake.

He sat up again, commanded his physical body to move his
hand. He didn't care whether the others were in by now.

They'd just have to deal with it. "Hello!" he called. "Dara!"

After a moment, the fog stirred. He could feel a breeze,
but couldn't tell which way it was coming from. Tristan stood
up, looking around for any sign of movement.
There!

Somewhere in the distance beyond the pier, a pair of
flickering red lights, like fireflies. Barely visible, but there. At
the same time he saw them, someone else sounded the
alarm, "pointing" in that direction.

Tristan took off at a run, fell off the pier into a deep ditch—

the lake bed. He picked himself up, changed shape, and loped
blindly toward those lights. He tripped, he fell. He got up,
never once looking away from those lights, afraid they'd
disappear and he'd be just as lost as before.

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by Alianne Donnelly

The other end of the lake was even deeper. He collided
with an almost sheer wall of brittle dirt and sand. He shook
himself off, backed up a few steps, then jumped, hoping he'd
make it. His front claws just dug into the edge of the
precipice, but the earth crumbled beneath him and he slid all
the way back down.

Growling, he backed up farther to get a running start and
tried again. He got a better grip this time, dug his hind claws
into the sheer side and hauled himself up over the edge. The
fog was thinner here; he could see a few steps ahead. The
lights were brighter as well.

Where were the others?

Immediately, three lights winked in the distance around
him: the other telepaths announcing themselves. They were
coming toward Dara too. The tiger bristled to have others so
close to his mate, but the man knew he might need them.

He kept running, chasing the red fireflies, dry grass
changing to mud beneath his paws, then to foliage. There
were suddenly fallen trees to jump over, thick shrubs he had
to claw his way through. He was in a forest, giant trees
forming shadows against the fog all around him. Tristan
slowed. He knew those trees.

The red lights winked out for a moment, then reappeared,
but they were fading. Fear of losing them spurred him on and
he ignored everything except his path. As the fog thinned
even more, he began to hear sounds, birdsongs and insects.

A howler monkey somewhere high above him. It was a
melody he was all too familiar with.

386

Blood Moons

by Alianne Donnelly

Again, the others announced themselves, four of them this
time. They were closing in on the red lights. Tristan picked up
speed, needing to get there before the others. He roared at
the top of his lungs, sounding his position. The red lights
swirled madly, then winked out again. Tristan ran headlong in
the direction they'd been, not daring to blink.

They took longer than before to reappear. If he didn't find
them soon, they'd disappear completely.

"Over here!" someone shouted. Tristan followed the sound,
ran across a fallen tree, and landed in a clearing shaped like a
hexagon, bordered by giant, twisting tree roots. He could just
make out MacMurphy to his right, and a woman on his left.

Knew there was a third on the other side of her, and someone
else catching up.

Tristan didn't acknowledge any of them. He was frozen,
staring at a giant pillar of what looked like crystal, standing in
the middle of the clearing. There was no more fog here and
that crystal shone, as if lit from underneath.

Inside it, Dara stood, her hands placed on the smooth
walls, looking at him. She could move in there, he realized,
but couldn't get out. He approached slowly, changing along
the way, then matched his hands to hers. A brilliant tear
glittered its way down her cheek. He couldn't feel her through
the thick wall.

Tristan leaned his forehead against the crystal, pushing to
get a sense of her. Any small hint.

Like a punch in the stomach, he got her memories...

Pain. So much of it he couldn't breathe. Darkness. Then just barely catching a glimpse of a knife poised at her chest.

387

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by Alianne Donnelly

She ran. Retreated so quickly, she shocked herself. One second there, about to die, the next running across a grassy field, death nipping at her heels, grass wilting behind her as she ran.

Running, running, so fast ... She dived into the forest, looking for him—her safety net—to catch her. She ran until she found his lair, a clearing surrounded by lush flowers.

Bordered by giant roots as a defensive wall.

She tripped. Fell. Sensed the knife's cut. Ducked for cover as a massive boom shook this world. Then she sensed the threat retreat. Knew it was safe again. Got up to run back...

And collided with the crystal wall.

Tristan shouted and punched the crystal, pounded at it,
trying to break through. He circled around, looking for a
weakness. The crystal was smooth from all sides, rounded at
the top like melting ice, but solid all the way around.

Christ, he was losing it again. He could feel his chest going
so tight he couldn't take a breath. What he was seeing was
affecting him physically, and the physical distracted him,
pulling him back out. He fought it with everything he had. He
had to get Dara out somehow.

The others were on the other side, conferring, putting
ideas together. There had to be a way. Nothing was ever
perfect. Everything had a flaw; Tristan just had to find it. He
sank to the ground, leaning his back against the crystal and
digging his hands into the soft earth to think.

Then he looked at his hands. In the dirt.

He turned around so fast he startled Dara, but she shook it
off quickly and met his questioning gaze. She looked down at
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the ground on her side, and when her eyes met his again,
they were filled with stubborn determination. She nodded.

They dug into the earth at the same time. Tristan changed
again, the tiger more suited to this than the man. He braced
his hind legs and dug down with his front claws, scraping
them against the crystal, but he didn't care. Blocked out the
cloying screech it produced.

Tristan knew it would take Dara longer to dig a hole big
enough from her side by herself. He wouldn't meet her
halfway, but dig himself all the way to her if he had to. The
crystal wall was two feet thick. By the time he got down to its
edge and across the bottom of it, Tristan was completely
underground, with the others waiting for him outside.

He was digging his way up now, dirt falling into his eyes,
his nose; he ignored it. There should have been complete
darkness, but he could still see where he was going. Finally,
the ground above him began to give way. He widened the tiny
hole, made it bigger, big enough for a person to pass
through.

When he caught Dara's hand, he was human again.

Fingers curling tight around her wrist, he pulled...

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389

Blood Moons

by Alianne Donnelly

September 27th, 3028

"You are
not
building a castle here!"

"Why not? The Jenkins, two parcels south, are building a cathedral. And it's not even an original design. They're copying Notre Dame, down to the last pew."

Dara sputtered, turning another circle on the hill where he'd taken them for a
picnic
. There were vast open spaces as far as she could see. On one side, the hill lowered gently to a bright white beach and a lake the size of Gray Dublin. On the next side, the slope was almost a sheer, jagged drop into a thick forest. She refused to go too close to that edge. And on the third side the hill was
tiered
, as if someone had cut into it halfway up and made a level platform.

Tristan put his hands on her shoulders. "Stop spinning.

You'll make yourself dizzy," he said with a self-satisfied grin.

"This is the perfect place for it."

"Not to mention," Calen chimed in drily, "that Torrey doesn't have official building regulations yet. If you're going to build, now is the time. And it just so happens, you're not the only whimsical idiot on this planet, either. I heard of at least three more castles going up, and those are developers.

They'll be building entire villages to go with the castle."

Whimsical
was definitely the right word to describe Tristan.

As if the past decade had never happened, as soon as he'd stepped foot on Torrey, he'd completely let go of it all and it was like watching a brand-new person look out over the 390

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by Alianne Donnelly

world. He was carefree, playful, took joy in every little thing, like a kid who still saw wonder in the world. On this world, that didn't seem so out of place.

Dara had asked him about that a few days ago. Looking at her with his eyes glowing with emotion, he'd said that he was getting a new start, and he wouldn't waste it dwelling on his past life. He'd rather live the one he had now, with her.

He was determined to make this one a fairy tale. But just how literal was it going to be?

Dara stared at Calen. "Why are you encouraging him?"

"Why shouldn't I?" he returned, grinning. "I'm not the one who'll be living in it." No. The Calens had bought themselves a nice lakeside cottage with an acre of land, where he'd already begun planting an orchard.

Pixie laughed and twirled around. "This is where the ballroom can be," she said.

Dara shook her head. "No. No, this will
not
be happening."

Tristan turned her toward the lower tier and pointed to it.

"See that there? That's where the
bailey
will be," he told her proudly. What the hell a bailey was, she had no idea.

"Stop talking like it's a done deal. I will
not
be living in a giant cave on a hill. Period. And where would you even get the stone, anyway? Not to mention,
how
would you even haul it here?" She held her hand up when Tristan opened his mouth to reply. "No, don't tell me. I really don't want to know." Knowing him, he'd probably already thought of every contingency
before
he even told her about all this.

What was it with that man and castles? Ever since she'd woken up in the hospital, he'd talked about fairy tales and 391

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by Alianne Donnelly

happy endings, and every time he'd mentioned their future home, he'd called it a castle. Until now, Dara had thought he was talking metaphors.

"Pixie, you want to help me out here?" Tristan said.

"Wha—don't bring her into this!" That was all she needed.

One more person trying to persuade her that this was a good idea.