Kiss of Moonlight (7 page)

She’d ingrained in Tam the necessity of taking care of herself.
Of believing in herself.
Of trusting what she saw with her own
eyes.

Her mom had raised her to be practical.

And that training had gotten Tam through the worst weeks after her attack, with her sanity intact. Sure, she had issues. Who wouldn’t?

But Tam
knew
she’d seen Cat disappear and this dog reappear in the exact same spot. So either she’d finally lost it…or her eyes hadn’t lied.

Cat had become this little dog.

No, not a dog.
Wolf.

“Werewolf.”

She said the word aloud and when she didn’t hear maniacal laughter, she took a deep breath and said it again.

The dog barked, startling Tam, but the dog’s happy grin and tail wagging didn’t seem at all menacing. In fact, she got up and licked Tam’s face.

“Cat, it
is
you, isn’t it?”

The dog barked again and did an entire body wiggle, those blue eyes gleaming.

Tam started to grin, shaking her head and let her butt hit the floor before she just toppled over.
“Holy shit.”

* * * * *

Kyle refused to think about the situation he’d left at home.

He knew if he didn’t put it out of his mind, he’d never be able to leave Cat and Tam.

The look in Tam’s eyes…

No.

A growl rose up but he swallowed it. They needed silence. Already shifted into his wolf, he ran low to the ground and fast,
Tivr
at his heels.

Rage flowed like lava through his veins. Someone had invaded his space.
Someone who didn’t belong here.
He didn’t tolerate trespassers. He couldn’t. He had too much to hide.

And too much to lose.

It didn’t take them long to reach Tam’s house but it wasn’t soon enough. The two men
Tivr
had seen earlier were already inside.

As he raced for the front,
Tivr
cut off behind him, heading for the rear.

Even though he now wore his wolf’s pelt, he thought like a man. And the man knew he didn’t want to rush in there and start ripping out throats. This wasn’t a kill mission. They needed information.

So he slowed, keeping to the shadows where his black pelt made him invisible as he made his way to the porch. He smelled Tam’s scent all over it, now mixed with two other men. He’d make them pay for that.

As he got closer, he heard voices, though he couldn’t make out what they were saying. By the time he got to the window, though, he heard them clearly. And he didn’t like what he heard.

“Fuck, where the hell is she?”

“She’s supposed to be here. She
never
fucking goes out.”

“I don’t think she’s gone for good. Her stuff’s still here.”

“We’re
gonna
have to wait her out. Shit.”

Kyle fought back a growl. They were here for
Tamra
.

But why the hell would they want her? Something related to the rape? She’d testified against the man who’d hurt her. Were these men here for retribution?

“She wants us to bring the girl back tonight.”

“Yeah, I don’t
wanna
go back empty-handed.”

She?
They were working for someone? Who?

He needed to know.

Slipping around the back, he found
Tivr
sitting at the back door, head cocked to the side as he listened.

Since he needed to be able to talk, Kyle had to retake his human body, and that little hitch in his chest forced him to take a deep breath.

He was a man and his body knew its true form. But there were tales, told to scare young children, of how some
versipelli
became trapped in their animal form, never to be human again. After so many years, they became feral, losing their humanity forever.

As an assassin, Kyle sometimes thought he had to submerge his humanity to do his job. That each kill chipped away another piece of his soul. As a soldier, he had a duty to his king and people. He kept them safe from those who would maliciously expose their secrets or seek to use their powers for evil.

Many of his kills had been
Malandante
, a sect of Etruscan descendents who chose to use their magic against their fellow Etruscans or for monetary gain and power. A year ago, there’d been an increase in
Mal
violence, an attack against a hidden enclave of Etruscan
Fata
, elemental beings of Etruscan descent. Though successfully thwarted, it had been a wakeup call.

Then last month, someone had kidnapped one of the
streghe
in Margie and Cat’s
boschetta
.

Not everyone was convinced that had been a
Mal
attack. The kidnapper had possessed power, but once the
boschetta
had examined the body, they’d discovered the man’s magic had a mishmash of origins. Not just Etruscan or Celtic, but some of both, with a little Norse and Egyptian thrown in, as well.

He’d been killed before anyone could question him. But Kyle knew the man had said something about a “she” who wouldn’t stop.

“All I can say is good luck,”
were his last words.

Against what?

No one had been able to find out and there’d been no other attacks on the
boschetta
since then.

Were these men working for the same woman who’d organized the kidnapping?

And what would they want with Tam?

They needed answers.

“Shift.”
Tivr’s
voice was barely audible and never failed to freak Kyle out, coming as it did out of a wolf’s mouth. No other
versipelli
could do that. But when you were the son of a powerful goddess and a god in your own right, the rules didn’t apply.

Kyle obeyed, more because he’d already planned to than because
Tivr
had ordered him to.

Biting down on his tongue to stop himself from making a sound, Kyle began to call back his pelt.

This process didn’t take as long as calling it forth, because his body knew its natural shape. The wolf was only one aspect of the man, and to bring it out, he had to submerge the rest of him.

In seconds, he felt his body re-forming, the pelt disappearing back into skin, his bones re-forming and repositioning. To anyone watching, his transformation took only seconds.

Then he knelt on the ground, naked. Rising to his feet, he noticed his combat boots, a black t-shirt and a pair of black military tactical pants lying on the porch step. His knife rested on top of the clothes.

Good to have a god around when you needed one. Kyle preferred not to fight naked.

After dressing, he slid back around to the front of the house,
Tivr
at his side. The god hadn’t shifted. They might need his teeth.

Since they had the element of surprise on their side, Kyle figured he’d go through the door, knock out one and keep the other for questioning.

He waited until the men were both in the front room before he kicked the door in.

One of the men froze and
Tivr
streaked through the open door, straight for him. The god would keep him immobile while Kyle ran at the guy who pulled a gun.

Tall and lanky but quick, the man got a shot off before Kyle reached him. The bullet burned across his upper arm without penetrating.

Kyle pushed the pain out of his mind and used his forearm to knock the gun out of his hand. It took the guy a second to bring his fist into play, but by that time Kyle had his hand wrapped around his throat and slammed him up against the wall.

Behind him
Tivr
growled, the sound menacing and deadly. Kyle could smell the stench of fear rolling off the two men, although the one he held had a healthy dose of anger. He fought Kyle’s hold, his fists rising to reach for his face, fast becoming flushed from lack of oxygen.

Kyle took a few punches before he squeezed tighter, depriving the man of all air until his struggles grew weaker. Then he knocked the man’s head against the wall hard enough to make him lose consciousness.

When Kyle was sure the man was truly out, he turned to the one
Tivr
had pinned in a corner.

“You need to start talking,” Kyle said.
“Now.”

* * * * *

By the time Kyle got back to his house, his gut ached so badly, he could barely breathe.

Tivr
hunched behind him, his body and face that of a gangly teen not yet a man. As with all deities, even though he was several millennia old, his appearance never changed.

The Bullet for My Valentine t-shirt and faded jeans fit the image. No bloodstains marred his clothes. Kyle had had to ditch his t-shirt in the garbage can outside so he didn’t scare the girls.

Neither man in Tam’s house had been able to tell them who they worked for. Petty criminals, they’d been sent to retrieve
Tamra
and deliver her unharmed to the man who’d hired them for the job. They only knew a woman was pulling the strings because their contact had used the word “her” once during the conversation.

They didn’t know why the woman wanted
Tamra
, only that they’d been given a list of places to look for her and told not to come back empty-handed. The man who’d hired them had apparently given them a taste of exactly what would happen to them if they failed.
Something extraordinarily painful and apparently magical, if their terrified ravings were anything to go by.

This had been the last place on their list.

After they’d spilled all the information they had, Kyle had taken them outside and killed them. No great loss to society there.

Now, standing with his hand on the hidden latch to the entrance into the safe room, he saw tiny specks of blood dotting the skin. He hadn’t cleaned his hands well enough.

Without a word to
Tivr
, Kyle turned and headed for the kitchen sink, ran the hot water and scrubbed his hands until they retained no trace of blood.

Then he forced himself to walk back to the hidden door and open it.

“
Catene
,
Tamra
,” he called down the stairs. “We’re back.”

Then he held his breath and didn’t move.

Seconds later, he heard Tam say, “Kyle?”

A gut-twisting mix of relief and dread settled in his stomach. “Yeah, it’s me. We’re coming down, okay?”

The soft sound he heard could have been a
laugh,
could have been a sigh. He had no idea.

He took the stairs as slowly as he could, not wanting to scare her by barreling down like a bull. He couldn’t imagine what she’d been thinking while he was gone, what Cat had said. Or what Tam would do when he told her what needed to happen.

He hadn’t let himself imagine the scenario that greeted him when he reached the bottom. His breath caught and held in his chest as he froze.

Tam sat on the floor, the half-grown black wolf on her lap sound asleep. Tam’s fingers slid through the silky fur on his daughter’s neck, petting in a rhythmic motion.

“She fell asleep about fifteen minutes ago.” Tam’s voice sounded calm, cool.
Almost inaudible.
As if she didn’t want to wake Cat. “Please don’t be angry with her. I think she worried herself into exhaustion waiting for you to get back.”

Tam continued to pet Cat as if she’d been doing it for a while now, her fingers gentle against Cat’s pelt.

He opened his mouth to speak but all that came out was, “Tam.”

Behind him, he heard
Tivr
draw in a strangled breath. The god’s body tensed, as if ready to fly across the room and grab Cat away from Tam.

Kyle planted himself in front of the god. Cat didn’t appear hurt. In fact, it looked as if Tam was trying to soothe his daughter.

He drew in a deep breath. “Tam, are you all right? Is Cat okay?”

Tam’s mouth curved in a rueful grin. “Are you asking if I was a little freaked out when Cat changed into a wolf right in front of me? Yeah, you could say that.”

“Did you hurt
Catene
?”
Tivr’s
voice held a deadly menace that made Kyle’s hair stand on end but Tam’s face screwed up into an angry frown.

“Of course not,” she huffed. “Why would you even think that?”

Kyle released the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He hadn’t even considered the idea. Not with the way Tam looked so comfortable with Cat on her lap.

But he’d been terrified that Tam’s already damaged mental health had been affected. She’d watched Cat shift into a wolf. That had to have made her question her sanity.

Obviously, Tam was stronger than he’d given her credit for.

He started to move closer, needed to look into her eyes.
“
Tamra
.”

Shit, where the hell did he start? Neither of them looked injured and Tam’s eyes were clear, not dull or cloudy as if she were in shock. She stared straight into his.

“Are you a werewolf too?”

His heart started to pound so hard he thought his veins might burst. Everything he’d ever been taught by his parents, every internal safeguard he’d had pounded into his brain rose up to tie his tongue in knots.

How did he answer that question? What could he tell her?

She wasn’t part of his world. She was almost completely
eteri
, despite the minute trace of
arus
in her blood.

She was also
his
. Hadn’t he already decided that? Hadn’t he already made the decision to keep her? Or at least try to keep her? Hadn’t he worried all last night about what he would do, how he would explain his life to her?

Well, he still had a lot of explanations to give but she’d already asked the million-dollar question.

“Kyle?”

Cat chose that moment to stir. She snuffled, lifted her head and stared straight at him. Her whimper nearly cut his heart out.

“
Shh
, Cat. He’s not angry.” Tam leaned down and rubbed her cheek against Cat’s silky head, rubbing her hand down his daughter’s quivering back. “It’s okay.”