Moon Cursed (28 page)

Kris lifted her gaze from the computer to the window where the sun had finally come out and burned away the last trace of mist. Had that happened here?

“Many of these guardian cults employ some type of code—like a tattoo—so they know who is with them, who is one of them.”

“You think there’s a guardian cult for Nessie?”

“Yes,” Edward said simply.

“I’ll talk to them.”

“Unless you wear the mark, no one will tell you a thing. And remember—they may not be protecting the monster; they may
be
the monster. Asking the wrong question of the right person would be a good way to find yourself at the bottom of the loch.”

Kris had nearly found herself at the bottom of the loch once already. She didn’t relish a repeat performance.

Besides, there was someone else she could talk to. When Liam got done guarding the—

Ah, hell.

“What is the matter?” Edward asked. “You look like you’ve seen a—”

“Gotta go,” Kris said, and shut the computer, ignoring calls of: “Kristin! Come back here this minute!” while she considered where she’d look for Liam. She wasn’t going to tell Edward anything until she knew for sure what she had to tell.

Kris headed first for Urquhart Castle, according to all the reading she’d done a favorite haunt of the beastie. Unfortunately for her, but fortunately for the tourist trade, the place was a zoo. She saw no evidence of Liam anywhere.

“This is insane,” she muttered. In more ways than one.

That she was even entertaining the idea that the man she’d had sex with, a man she had started to care for, to trust, was secretly a shape-shifting lake monster, or at least the guardian of one, had her mind scrambling so fast for any other explanation, she felt kind of dizzy.

The more logical explanation was that he was a protector, as he’d said. Sure, he’d told her he protected the
loch,
but wasn’t that just splitting hairs?

She couldn’t believe that she—Kristin Daniels—purveyor of truth, hater of lies, was making excuses for a liar. She should be crossing him off her to-do list and never seeing him again.

“Lied right to my face,” she muttered. Except it hadn’t
smelled
like a lie, and Kris had become very good at sniffing them out.

“His being so hot probably threw off your radar.” Although that had never happened before. She worked in television. She saw hot all over the damn place. What she’d discovered the first week she was on the air was that hot equaled “big fat liar” more than just about anything else.

Beautiful people seemed to believe they were above the rules of decent behavior. Probably because they’d been cut all kinds of slack since “Oh, so cute!” babyhood.

Kris knew she was considered attractive. However, she’d had the truth driven home to her as a teen. She wasn’t pretty enough, sweet enough, smart enough—she wasn’t anything
enough
—to keep her brother or her father from leaving her. So she’d thrown herself into her job, into a quest for success that would echo across the country, if not the world, and would force those who’d turned their backs on her to notice.

Had they? She didn’t think so.

Since searching for Liam at the loch was as pointless as grubbing through the proverbial haystack for that needle, Kris decided to see if anyone in the village knew where he might be. While she was at it, she’d discover if her brother had checked into any of the local hotels.

As Kris strolled into Drumnadrochit, she was, as always, assailed by the heavenly scent wafting from Jamaica Blue. Not only was she unable to resist coffee, considering she hadn’t had any, but she should probably quiz Jamaica about her tattoo. If she could do so without giving away what she was really asking.

Are you a guardian or a human-sacrificing witch? Maybe both.

Wait a second.…
Kris paused with her hand poised to open the door of the coffee shop. Shouldn’t Liam have a tattoo?

She hadn’t seen one. However, she hadn’t looked
everywhere.
She’d kissed, she’d touched, but she hadn’t searched for anything specific.

Other than the specific thing she’d needed at the time. No sign of a tattoo
there.

Kris opened the door to Jamaica Blue.

Well, no help for it. She was going to have to explore every inch of Liam’s body.

Poor her.

A young man—perhaps sixteen or so, with reddish brown hair and very bad teeth—stood behind the counter today. Kris ordered a cup of Blue Mountain and craned her neck to see around him. “Where’s Jamaica?”

“On a buying trip.” The kid handed Kris the cup.

“For coffee?”

He nodded. “She likes to do that herself.”

“When will she be back?”

“Few days.” The boy squinted at Kris’s bruised face. “You walk into a door or something?”

“Something,” Kris agreed, then paid and left the shop, haunted by a strange sense of déjà vu. It wasn’t until she saw the sign for The Myth Motel that she remembered.

Dougal had gone on a sudden buying trip, too.

Kris glanced toward the loch; then she turned and contemplated the motel. Did Dougal have a tattoo as well? Might these “buying trips” coincide with a guardian’s duty at—or perhaps
in
—the loch? How was she going to find out?

Well, she hadn’t gotten as far as she had in journalism—which wasn’t exactly far, but she was still pretty good at it—without knowing how to ask questions.

Kris stepped inside The Myth Motel. Dougal stood behind the counter. His gaze flicked to the mark on her cheek, then quickly away. But he didn’t apologize. She wasn’t sure if she was relieved not to have to address the incident again or annoyed that he’d decided to ignore it. She decided on the latter.

They weren’t married. He had no right to be so angry that she’d slept with Liam. In fact, she wondered
why
Dougal was so angry. His behavior
was
a bit stalkerish.

“What was wrong with you last night?” she asked.

He kept his gaze on the counter and not on her. “I thought we had something.”

“Friendship.”

His lips tightened. “If you’re going to be friendly with him, I don’t want you to be friendly with me.”

Kris narrowed her eyes. She hadn’t planned on being “friendly” with Dougal, so— “That suits me just fine.”

He still wouldn’t look at her.

“I’d like to check if my brother is staying here.”

Dougal glanced up, surprise flashing in what she’d once thought to be intelligent, attractive gray eyes. Now they just looked like eyes. “Your brother’s in Scotland?”

“It was news to me, too. Is he here? Marty Daniels.”

“I can’t give out my guests’ names. You could be a stalker.”

Pot. Kettle,
Kris thought, but she kept it to herself.

“He’s my
brother.
”

“Maybe you don’t get along. Maybe he doesn’t want you to know where he is.”

“He came to Scotland to see me.”

“Then he should have told you where he was staying, because I’m not going to.”

His tone was so
nah-nah-nah-nah-nah,
Kris waited for him to finish the statement by sticking out his tongue. Thankfully he refrained.

She tried to return the conversation to a semblance of civility. “Did you have a nice trip?”

“Trip?” he repeated.

“You went to … something with a
B,
” she said. “A buying trip?”

“Oh. Yeah. Great.” He turned away. “If that’s all, I—”

“Is there a tattoo parlor in the village?”

His gaze flicked to hers. “You want a tattoo?”

“I might. Do you have one?”

“I’m not a biker. Or a soldier. Or,” his lip curled, “an NBA basketball player.”

She was liking Dougal less and less with every passing minute. She kind of wished Liam had broken
his
nose instead of just popping him on the chin.

Kris focused on the spot. “Why don’t
you
have a mark?”

He saw where she was staring and lifted his hand, rubbing his face. “I don’t bruise easily. And he barely touched me.”

Kris would beg to differ, but Dougal still wouldn’t have a bruise. Which just wasn’t fair.

“Lots of people have tattoos these days,” Kris continued. “Lots of people around here.”

“I didn’t notice.”

Kris had a hard time believing that, but she wasn’t going to push it. If Dougal had a tattoo, he wasn’t going to show it to her anyway.

“Thanks a lot.” Kris headed for the door. She couldn’t help it if the sentence came out sounding more sarcastic than thankful. Of course he’d been more asinine than helpful.

“Why him?” Dougal murmured, something in his voice making her turn back, though she didn’t want to.

“Why do you hate him so much?”

“I have my reasons.” Dougal’s expression went from disgusted to sly. “Maybe you should ask yourself: Why do you
like
him so much?”

“What kind of question is that?”

He twitched one shoulder. “You haven’t been here more than a week. Are you the kind of woman who falls into bed with a man that fast?”

Kris almost asked,
What kind?
but decided that she didn’t want to hear anything else from a man whose opinions of women and sex were slightly outdated. She should count herself lucky that she hadn’t felt the overwhelming attraction for Dougal that she’d experienced the first time she’d seen Liam at Urquhart Castle.

When she’d frenched him and she hadn’t even known his name.

“Huh,” she murmured. That
so
wasn’t like her.

“Yeah,” Dougal agreed, though he could have no idea what she was thinking.

Kris walked out. She wasn’t going to listen to any more of Dougal’s crap. However, he had made her wonder what it was about Liam that had caused her to behave contrary to all her usual habits.

Was it because he was beautiful? Because he had an accent? Because he was manly and mysterious? She wasn’t the type to fall for that.

So why had she? Kris couldn’t answer that for herself any more than she’d been able to answer it for Dougal.

After stopping at the Drumnadrochit version of Walgreens and purchasing heavy foundation and powder to cover her bruise—she’d only brought along the bare basics of makeup to Scotland—as well as a sandwich and chips, Kris headed to the cottage.

She’d just come over a hill, leaving Drumnadrochit behind and a stretch of empty road ahead, when a splash from the loch drew her attention. Believing she’d again see a whole lot of nothing, Kris cast a quick glance toward the water. This time what she saw there made her stumble and nearly fall, before stopping dead and staring.

Because, this time, something stared back.

The head that lifted from the surface could have been that of an eel, a snake, an otter. But the large, humped body that played hide-and-seek with the waves was nothing like any of the three.

Kris glanced around. They were completely alone. No cars on the road. No hikers in the hills. No boats dotted the water anywhere in sight.

“Figures,” she muttered. She was not only without a camera but also without witnesses.

The creature just floated there, nearer to the shore than a being of her size should be able to float. Though Kris’s feet felt encased in cement shoes, she forced them across the road and down the slight incline to the loch, expecting at any moment for the monster to disappear. But she didn’t.

Kris stood at the water’s edge. Had Nessie ever revealed herself to anyone like this for long? If she had, no one had ever admitted to it. Which made Kris wonder if anyone who got this close went swimming and never came back.

Kris began to inch up the hill, away from the beastie. Her heart thundered so loudly she thought she might faint. Her face was hot, her hands like ice. She felt kind of sick to her stomach.

The creature continued to drift, head lifted, glistening eyes the same shade as her gray-black coat fixed on Kris. Then she—was it a she? If not, then why the Nessie?—shifted, a flipper flapped as if shoving something in Kris’s direction. Like a ballet, slow and graceful, the monster’s body slowly slid the other way, creating a wake that brought a bobbing
something
toward the shore.

Transfixed, Kris forgot about retreating and instead retraced her steps until her shoes slipped in the wet dirt at water’s edge.

“Jamaica?” she whispered.

Nessie tilted her head as if she knew that name. Then she sank straight down, disappearing from view, leaving no sign that she’d been there, not even a ripple.

Something bumped against Kris’s toe. She glanced down.