Crying for the Moon (27 page)

“I do.” He’d never wanted anything more. He had to give Tate the option of leaving though.

Tate’s grin contained a measure of relief, which told Alex everything he needed to know.

“Well, then, no more talk about me leaving. We’re in this together. I assume you have a plan?”

“Yes,” Alex said decisively. “One you can help me with, as a matter of fact.”

“Cool. Lay on, Macduff.” Tate waved his hand in the general direction of the rest of the house with a little flourish.

To his credit, Tate said nothing when Alex led the way upstairs to the coffin room. By daylight, the sight of the coffin sitting in the middle of the room seemed incongruous and out of place.
It
is
out of place
, Alex thought.

He turned to Tate. “I need your help moving this. I need to get it out of the house.”

Tate nodded, as though he’d expected something like this. “You think we can handle it? Just the two of us?”

“Are you trying to tell me you don’t have a tiger in your tank?” Alex’s comment was dry.

Tate flushed. “Okay. You’re right. I’m stronger than I look. So are you, for that matter. But I thought…?” He trailed off.

Alex shrugged. “We should be able to manage it. I don’t want to wait for anyone else to help.”

Tate nodded again and waited for Alex to head to the far end of the coffin to pick it up.

It took them longer than Alex had bargained on to get the coffin out of the house. Not only was it heavy, but its length made it awkward to navigate through doors and down the staircase. At several junctures, they had to back up and reposition to get around a corner, turning the coffin up on its end and walking it like a refrigerator around the upper landing of the staircase. When trying to make the corner down the stairs, Alex managed to smash some fingers painfully against the banister. Good thing, too, that he had lots of spackling material, because he was going to have to repair the gash in the wall they created. It would have been easier with more people, but Alex was determined to get it out of the house as soon as possible.

“What now?” Tate asked, panting slightly as they set the coffin down a good distance from the house in the backyard. “Have you got someplace you can put it in storage? You said no one could steal it from you, right?”

The grass was damp with melting frost. The sky was cold and gray, and the air was heavy with fog, infiltrating the forest around them with a shroud of mist. Tate wasn’t wearing a jacket and he looked cold as he hunched up against the clammy atmosphere. The tips of his ears and nose were pink, and Alex resisted the urge to kiss him.

“They could still steal the coffin and then come after me. Or threaten one of you guys in order to make me reveal its location and help them use it. The problem is the coffin itself. Wait here.” He headed back toward the house, stopping inside just long enough to grab his camera from his desk and his coat before going to the shed out back.

The gas can swung from his hand as he returned to where Tate was waiting beside the coffin.

Tate’s eyes grew large. “Whoa!” he exclaimed. “You’re not serious, are you? You can’t do that, Alex! Isn’t the coffin the source of your strength? Your
life
?” He reached out as though to stop Alex from carrying out his intended action.

“No.” Alex shook his head slowly. “I don’t need the coffin. It killed my parents. It’s holding me hostage to a way of life I no longer want. I need to be rid of it, Tate.”

He unscrewed the top of the gas can and tossed it to the ground. He hesitated as he looked down at the red can in his hands. When he looked up, Tate was staring at him in concern, the wind playing lightly with the hair over his forehead.

“I don’t really know what this will do to me. No one’s ever done this before—not that I know of. I do know I don’t need it to live. Maybe I won’t be as pretty.” Alex grinned a little self-consciously. “Maybe I’ll age a little more rapidly or not heal as quickly or not be as strong.”

“You think I care about those things?” Tate’s voice was sharp. “I’m more worried about what it will do to you when you sever a connection that has been passed down through generations to you. I’m more worried about what the reaction of your
people
might be.”

There was that. He was probably going to be shunned. “They won’t be happy,” he admitted. “But my leaving the Life in the first place set me on the road to being an outcast. Well, that and having werewolves as friends.” He grinned, suddenly feeling freer than he had in centuries. This was who he was now, and nothing could change that.

“You’re really going to do this, aren’t you?” Tate grinned back at him.

“Yes,” Alex said with determination, swinging the can and dousing the side of the coffin with gasoline. He walked around the entire coffin, soaking its surface, until he was almost out of gas. He created a small trail away from the coffin with the fuel.

“What can I do?” Tate asked, when Alex returned to his side and set the can down.

Alex pulled the camera out of his coat pocket and handed it to him. “Videotape it. I want it clear that it’s my coffin that’s being destroyed. I’ll send a copy to Victor. Hell, I’ll post it on the Internet if necessary.”

Tate took the camera and turned it on, adjusting the lens and focusing on Alex.

Alex set the can down and began to speak to the camera. “I’m destroying the coffin, so there’s no point in coming after me or it anymore. There’s nothing in it for you, Victor.”

He reached into his coat pocket and felt around. Empty. Frowning, he switched hands and explored the other pocket. Nothing.

Tate lowered the camera and looked at him with a smirk. “Do you need a light?” He placed his free hand into his back pocket and pulled out a lighter, tossing it to Alex, who caught it neatly.

“Something you want to tell me, Edwards?” Alex asked as he examined the disposable lighter.

“I use it to heat-fix slides.” At Alex’s blank look, he continued. “A vet med thing. Don’t let it distract you from your planned pyromancy.”

“Have I told you how hot I find it that you’re a guy who reads?” Alex smiled to himself as he picked up a stick from the ground. The leaves were too wet to serve as a starter. He found some grocery receipts crumbled up in his pocket and poked them over the end of the stick.

“Be careful,” Tate warned, as he began filming again.

Alex rolled his eyes. “I’ve been lighting bonfires since before…. Well, for a long time.” He thumbed the wheel of the lighter. The receipts took a while to catch, and smoked badly, but when he was satisfied with the flame, he lowered it to his gasoline fuse.

There was a long pause before anything happened, but then the gasoline caught and flared up brightly, running back along its path to the coffin itself.

It went up with a whoosh and a blast of heat that was stronger than Alex expected. He stepped back from the flames, motioning Tate to fall back with him. Together they stood and watched as the fire roared and crackled over the dark wood, purple, green, and blue flames reaching for the sky.

I hope I don’t burn down the entire mountainside
, Alex thought uneasily. Tate silently raised both eyebrows at him, while aiming the camera at the fire. Alex gave him a sheepish grin and Tate bit his lip to keep from laughing.

It was over far sooner than he expected. The fire burned hot, but burned clean, and in less than an hour, all that was left was a large soot spot where the coffin had rested.

Tate had stopped filming when it was apparent the coffin was going to be completely consumed. He handed the camera back to Alex, who tucked it into his coat pocket.

“Come here, you,” Tate said, pulling Alex into a hug. “I’m proud of you. You know that, right? That took some real guts to do.”

Alex kissed him, hard. He could feel Tate’s smile beneath his lips and Tate’s hands came up from behind to pull Alex in even closer, which made him grin in return. The buzzing of the cell phone in his back pocket made Alex jump. He placed enough distance between him and Tate to pull the phone out and look at it.

“It’s Nick,” he said with a frown, as he flipped open the phone. Tate had one hand on his arm, flexing his fingers against the sleeve of Alex’s sweater.

“Nick,” Alex said by way of answering the phone. He smiled at Tate.

“Alex.” Nick’s voice was cool. “Mind if we come by sometime today and pick up our things?”

“Sure. Any time. You know, though, you can leave some stuff here if it’s more convenient for you guys. You know, for the next cycle.”

There was a long pause before Nick spoke again. “You want us to come out again?”

“Nick.” Alex sighed. “As I said last night, my friends are always welcome.”

He could picture Nick nodding on the other end. “Well, only if it’s no trouble.”

Alex laughed. “Define trouble? Speaking of which, I just want you to know, I really appreciate your willingness to come to my defense last night. It was stupid, but in a noble sort of way.”

“That sounds like us,” Nick said. Alex could hear the smile in his voice. Tate leaned in by Alex’s shoulder to listen; his damp skin smelled musky and Alex turned his nose into Tate’s hair to inhale deeply.

Tate smiled enticingly at him and pulled up the bottom of Alex’s sweater to place his hands on Alex’s skin. “By the way,” Alex said, trying not to yelp at the cold touch of Tate’s fingers. “You guys showed up with awfully good timing last night. How’d you manage that? Do you have some sort of werewolf telepathy thing?”

“Yeah.” Nick laughed in his ear. “It’s called a cell phone.”

He could hear Peter in the background. “Tell him I called you from upstairs,” Peter was saying.

“Yes,” Nick said, obviously not talking to Alex now. “And I thought I told you to wait upstairs until we got there. But you didn’t listen, did you? Obviously this is a Mabry family trait.” There was a moment of muffled sound and then Tate punched Alex on the arm and grinned. He made an exaggerated kissing face.

“Eww! Werewolf kissing,” Alex said into the phone as Tate snorted.

“Peter wants his shoes back,” Nick said with great dignity. “And his laptop. Tish wants her fiddle. And I want my guitar.”

“Well, come on over and get them,” Alex said. “But this time, dinner’s on you.” He disconnected the call.

“It would be easier just to let them move in up here,” Tate said. He stretched up to nibble on Alex’s neck. “Then you could move in with me.”

Alex thought of Tate’s beautiful house and all its rooms filled with warmth and light. Too much light. “I’d never be able to take off my shades,” he said.

Tate’s lips quirked into a little smile as he looked up at Alex through the fringe of his hair. “And this would be a bad thing because…?”

“Because the tall boots and riding crop are still in storage somewhere and I don’t know what I did with the key,” Alex said. He was certain, however, that he still had a fedora from back when hats were standard attire for men. He liked fedoras.

“Oh, my.” Tate’s Southern accent became much more prominent. “Babe, we’d better start looking for that key right now.”

About the Author

S
ARAH
M
ADISON
is a veterinarian with a busy practice, a great boyfriend, a large dog, and an even bigger horse. She enjoys hiking along the Appalachian Trail with her German Shepherd and competing her horse in the sport of combined training and eventing. Writing has become a passion that sometimes takes precedence over everything else. In fact, when she is in the middle of a chapter, she usually relies on the smoke detector to tell her when dinner is ready.

You can contact Sarah at
[email protected]
.

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S
ARAH
M
ADISON