Kiss of a Dark Moon (8 page)

That should have stopped Laurent from siccing the packs on her. Rafe dragged a hand through his hair, stopping himself from plowing his fist into Laurent's face.

Laurent flicked a piece of lint off his blazer. “If you're so worried, then find her first. See that she dies.”

“No problem. We're on it,” Davis chimed in, wiping at his bloodied nose. “Consider it done.”

Rafe laughed harshly. “You two fools couldn't find your assess with both hands.”

Davis's face flushed, his jowls quivering in indignation.

“Fuck you,” Lockhart snarled. “I'm getting tired of your attitude—”

Laurent waved a slender hand. “Silence.” He leveled a cold stare at Rafe. “Just get it done. Both of them. Don't forget the brother.”

Rafe clenched his jaw and gave a hard nod.

“You're just sending him? Alone?” Lockhart demanded.

“Santiago is one of our special agents.”

Special
. Laurent had no idea.

Laurent continued. “No one can bring her to ground better.” He smiled coldly. “Certainly not you two.” Surveying them, he sighed. “The Houston division is a mess. I've got my work cut out for me here. Beginning with assessing all agents and deciding who is expendable and whom we'll keep for retraining.”

The two agents started, clearly disturbed to hear that their jobs were on the line.

Rafe nodded in seeming agreement.

“Report to me once it's done.” Laurent unbuttoned his blazer, the restless gesture signifying that the conversation had reached its end. Pulling a linen handkerchief from inside his blazer, he mopped the beads of sweat from his brow. “I don't need to remind you how important this assignment is.”

Rafe forced a tight smile. No. He didn't need reminding. “Got it.” He looked at the other two agents, warning, “You two assholes stay out of my way.”

Rafe studied Laurent for a moment, from his blazer down to the cut of his well-tailored slacks and back up to the ruthless line of his lips, wondering if he had blinked an eye over killing Cooper, a man devoted to the same cause EFLA claimed to champion above all else: the extermination of lycans, the preservation of humanity. How could he justify that murder? When had the lines between right and wrong, good and evil, become so blurred?

“It won't take me long,” Rafe promised, meaning it.

Laurent sent him a probing, thoughtful look, and Rafe schooled his features into his usual mask of impassivity.

The quicker Rafe finished with Kit March and her brother, the better for everyone, and the sooner he could move on to his next assignment. There were others. Assignments waiting not half as difficult as Kit. Turning, he strode across the lawn.

Perhaps he should quit. Join up with his brother. He missed Sebastian, hadn't seen him in years. Too many years to count. Ironic, considering the times they had nearly killed each other growing up.

Restlessness stirred in his heart. He dragged a hand over his bristly jaw. It was time to move on. To put this job behind him. To play it straight for once. No more pretending to be something he wasn't. Rafe winced. He would always have to do that. To a degree. He had no choice. There was nowhere and no one with whom he could ever be his true self.

The idea of quitting EFLA had never sounded better. The sooner he did, the sooner he could forget a woman he had no business thinking about as anything more than an assignment.

Especially considering he was also a descendant of Christophe Marshan. And the prophecy EFLA feared would come to pass with Kit March had already occurred—with him.

K
it parked across the street from her grandmother's house, her current residence and the only home she'd ever known. Or rather, the only home she
remembered
.

Home
. If it could be called that.

Even at the age of eight, she'd felt more like a tenant, a temporary resident, unwanted and unwelcome.

Even now her grandmother made sure of that, collecting rent and Kit's share of the utilities at the first of every month, seeing to it that Kit purchased her own groceries and never ate a scrap of the food she'd bought and prepared.

Kit did not mind pulling her own weight. She only wished her grandmother would see her as something other than an unwanted obligation thrust on her in the golden years of her life. See her as family. See her at all.

Resting her hands on the steering wheel, she scanned the street, looking for anything unusual or out of place. Her grandmother bore the last name of Carlson. Kit doubted she could be traced through her.

Still, coming here felt risky.

Instinct urged her to hit the highway and not stop until she reached New Mexico. Rafe Santiago was not finished with her.

And yet the thought of the weapons and ammo she kept locked in the chest at the foot of her bed stopped her. And then there was the cross. The gold cross her mother had worn around her neck every day of her life. Even though Kit could not bring herself to wear it, it was precious to her. She couldn't leave it behind.

Not to mention the extra cash she kept in her sock drawer. The three hundred odd dollars in last week's tips would come in handy. She knew she could go to her bank. But she also knew that EFLA would be alerted once she made a withdrawal. Considering a lot of agents for NODEAL were cops—like Cooper—she wouldn't make it out of the city before being arrested. They likely already had an APB out on her. She would need to ditch her car at the first opportunity.

After several more moments of surveying the quiet neighborhood, she slipped her gun from her purse and secured it in the waistband of her jeans, out of sight beneath her shirt. Sliding out from behind the wheel, she crossed the street to the one-story ranch-style house, her gaze darting around her, ever alert as she entered the house.

She had thought of moving out, countless times. After high school. After college. Hell, she'd even thought of running away
before
she finished high school—when Gideon had moved out and the loneliness had seemed too much to bear. When her grandmother had ignored her so completely that she began to wonder if she was invisible, if her existence mattered at all. To anyone.

But something kept her from going. Something besides being fifteen years old and having nowhere to go, nowhere to run. Her grandmother was her family. All she had other than Gideon. She couldn't give up on her—on them. Not yet.

Gideon had been there for her as long as she could remember, arms always ready to hold her when she needed someone. But he deserved his own space now. Even at fifteen, she had recognized that. So she had stayed put, taking comfort in sleeping in the same bedroom that her mother had once occupied, staring at the same rose wallpaper that her mother must have stared at. Watching reruns of
The Waltons
and telling herself a family like that wasn't impossible. It could be hers someday.

She'd stayed out of loyalty. Her grandmother was getting on in years. Kit didn't like the thought of leaving her on her own. Nor could she imagine one day putting her in a home, a place where, ironically, she might feel the same loneliness and lack of self that Kit had felt living with her all these years.

But selfish reasons drove her, too. She'd stayed out of hope—and desperation—that one day she would connect with her grandmother.

She hurried up the drive. Using her key, she entered through the back door, letting the screen door slam behind her to alert her grandmother of her arrival. Her grandmother was the jumpy sort, always faintly surprised whenever Kit entered the house—an intruder, even after all these years.

The smell of freshly brewed coffee hit her once she entered the kitchen. The aroma always reminded her of that first night the police brought her and Gideon here.

She had sat at the kitchen table, her feet dangling inches from the linoleum floor as her grandmother prepared coffee for the officers. She had not lifted her gaze from the bloodstained hem of her nightgown, not even as they explained to her grandmother the events of that night—at least
their
version of events.

She remembered watching the police officer's lips move in slow motion as he explained to her grandmother that her parents were dead. Her father butchered, it would seem, by her own mother.

Later, her grandmother put her in the shower, washing Kit with cool efficiency, uttering not a word as she rubbed her daughter's blood from Kit's toes with her chapped hands. With only the steady beat of water filling the air, Kit watched blood swirl down the drain.

Not a word spoken in comfort. Not a word raised in rage or denial over the shocking news that her daughter had murdered her son-in-law—and been shot dead moments before trying to kill her own children.

“Who's there?” her grandmother's voice, rusty from years of smoking, called out.

“Just me.” Kit left the smell of freshly brewed coffee and entered the living room, the hardwood floor creaking beneath her shoes.

Her grandmother frowned at her from the couch she occupied with Jack, her boyfriend for the last year and a resident of a nearby retirement community where she spent most of her spare time.

The Food Channel blared loudly from the ridiculously large TV screen her grandmother had splurged on last year because she claimed to have trouble seeing the television set from the couch. As long as Kit could remember, her grandmother preferred the television at decibel-shattering volumes.

Her grandmother looked surprised, faint annoyance lurking in her rheumy gaze. “Kit.”

“Good morning.” Kit greeted her over Emeril's signature shout-out.

Her grandmother nodded hello, her gray wig so shiny it appeared lacquered. She brought a glass to her bright coral-pink lips and sipped. Even in June, she wore one of her brightly colored cardigans, purchased in bulk from the Dress Barn.

“I thought you were house-sitting for Gideon and Chloe.”

“Claire,” she corrected, only mildly appeased to see she wasn't the only one subject to her grandmother's disregard. “I needed to get some things.”

“Morning, Kit-Kat,” Jack chimed in his cheery accents. He rose to press a light kiss to Kit's cheek. When he pulled back, his warm gaze settled on her face with attentiveness. “How are you, little duck?”

She smiled. Jack could always make her smile. “I'm fine, thank you. How are you?”

He flipped a wrist in the air. “Ah, your grandmother keeps me busy. We're going to the cinema this afternoon, a comedy Lois wants to see with that Vince Vaughn in it.” He gave a conspiratorial wink. “I think she just wants to ogle the fella and make me feel inferior.”

Kit's grandmother slapped him lightly on the hand. “Not true, Jack.”

“Inferior? You?” Kit clucked her tongue. “Never.”

“Care to join us?” he asked.

Kit's grandmother pressed her lips together so severely they looked as shriveled as prunes.

“No, thank you. I have things to do today.”
Like run for my life.

“Ah.” Jack nodded. “Then would you care for a mimosa or a snack?” He held a stained glass goblet up in the air and motioned to an array of tiny quiches on a tray on the coffee table.

With a fond smile at him, she selected a quiche off the tray. She knew her grandmother didn't want her to linger. The older woman conveyed her displeasure as she fished an orange slice out of her glass with one gnarled, arthritic finger. No words needed to be said. Kit knew how to read the signs. Interrupting her date did not meet with approval.

Chewing, she quickly swallowed down the small bite of egg and spinach. “I'll leave you two alone.”

Her grandmother nodded, dropping her orange rind on the tray and reaching for one of the little quiches.

Kit hovered in place for a moment, feeling that something should be said. She had no idea when she would return.
If
she ever would. After this morning she had to wonder.

This could be the last moment she ever saw her grandmother. She felt that she should say
something
. Anything. But what? What could she say when there had never been a hint of sentiment between the two of them? No matter how much she'd wished it to be otherwise.

At a loss, she turned and made her way down the hall. To the room she had slept in since the age of eight. The room that had once been her mother's—that still felt as though it belonged to her. To anyone else but Kit.

Her grandmother had led her to that room after her shower that long-ago day. Her hair wet and tangled about her head, she'd settled back on the floral bedspread that felt faintly dusty beneath her. She hadn't bothered to crawl beneath the covers. Simply curled into the smallest ball possible and watched the flickering shadows on the walls, wondering if any of them might turn out to be more than shadow, as real as the monster her mother had turned into. As real as her father's corpse, mauled to death by her mother.

The faded rose wallpaper, wilted and peeling in some places, now looked harmless in the morning light. No shadows anywhere.

She moved to her dresser, taking out clothing and adding it to another bag. Grabbing a backpack from the closet, she unlocked her chest and filled it with additional guns and ammo. Zipping the backpack, she moved to her bedside table.

Her mother's cross hung from the lamp, dangling in the air where she could always see it. Some nights she stared at it until she fell asleep, picturing it around her mother's neck, one of the only clear images left to her, in a past before she ever knew that monsters existed. Outside of fairy tales, anyway.

She closed her fingers around the cool chain and slid it into her pocket. On her bed, a ratty, one-eyed bear sat in the center, cozy between two pillows.

Gideon told her their parents had given it to her their last Christmas together. She couldn't remember, but she lied to Gideon, to herself, pretending that she did, pretending the bear meant something, pretending it held an emotional attachment for her.

Turning, she left the bear on the bed.

Finished packing, she slung her bags over her shoulder and turned to leave the room, jumping at the sight of Jack in the doorway.

“Sorry, duck. Did not mean to frighten you.”

“It's all right,” she replied a little breathlessly, her heart hammering.

“Thought I'd catch a moment with you while your grandmother freshens up for the movie.” His gaze swept over the bags slung over her shoulder. “Already on your way out?”

“Yes.”

His gaze lighted on the necklace at her neck. “Ah, you're wearing it. I thought it would suit you.”

Her hand flew to the small bronze amulet hanging from the delicate chain at her throat. Her finger absently traced the gold fleur-de-lis pattern at its center. “Yes, I love it.” He had surprised her with the necklace a few months back, finding it at one of the many antiques villages he and her grandmother frequented. Too bad he hadn't married her grandmother. Then Kit would have had a grandparent who actually cared about her.

She feigned looking at her watch. “Well, I'm running late.”

He stepped aside and motioned her through the door.

She strode down the hall and through the kitchen.

“Kit.”

She stopped in the kitchen and turned to face him.

“Is everything okay?”

Her throat thickened for some reason. Because he cared about her? Or because he had grown to know her well enough to know when something was wrong? She blinked fiercely. Too bad he hadn't been around when she was growing up.

“It's nothing,” she assured him, walking across the kitchen to press a kiss to his bristly cheek.

He nodded, trying, she knew, to look gruff and unaffected. He waved a hand at her. “Go on your way. I don't want to make you late.”

Turning, she hurried outside, the door slamming behind her, the sound ringing in the air with a finality she felt deep in her heart. Her gaze swept her surroundings as she hurried toward her car. Tossing her things inside, she slid behind the wheel.

Pulling from the curb, she noticed a silver Hummer turning the corner and coming up fast behind her. Squinting into the rearview, she recognized the man sitting behind the wheel. Rafe Santiago.

Her foot ground down on the accelerator. He may have let her get away back at her brother's house, but considering whom he worked for—and that they wanted her dead—she wasn't risking another confrontation. And she definitely wasn't letting him follow her to her brother.

Zipping out of the neighborhood, she trusted her knowledge of the area to outrun him. After several more turns, she left the sleepy residential area and turned onto a four-lane highway. Zigzagging out of traffic, she smiled when she noticed him slipping two cars behind. She gunned through a yellow light, chuckling when he got stuck at the red. Before he could catch up, she swerved to the far-right lane and turned. Several more turns put him well behind her.