To Crave a Blood Moon (23 page)

Moments later, her gaze returned to him. She studied the hard line of his profile as he gazed out into a black night punctuated with the flash of passing headlights. “You always sit where you can see the door, don't you?”

The waitress arrived with their food. She left after making a fuss arranging Sebastian's plate before him.

“You'll learn to do the same. If you're going to survive.” He stared at her with dark intensity. “You're going to need to get colored contact lenses for your eyes. They're a beacon for anyone who knows about us. You're lucky you live in such a remote area.”

Lucky
. She didn't feel it.

She started to point out to him that Lily didn't wear contacts, but stopped herself just in time. Lily didn't need to disguise herself from the world to survive. She had Luc. “The lycans in Istanbul didn't wear contacts—why not?”

“Some pack lycans do. It just depends how confident they are. How big the pack. Strength rests in numbers. Gunter's pack was fairly large. You won't have a pack to cover you.”

No, she didn't have a pack. She didn't have anyone. After pissing off Adele, she wasn't even sure she had her.

“Beau Rivage is pretty much off the radar. If a pack of lycans lived here, our population of forty-five hundred would have noticeably suffered.” And she could only assume no lycans meant no hunters were hanging around either. So she didn't have to worry about some agent picking her off coming out of the supermarket.

A pair of motorcycles pulled into the parking lot just then. The riders climbed down, set their kickstands and entered the restaurant with helmets tucked under their arms. They were different from the other patrons. Hard eyes with cruel lips. Those pitiless eyes traveled the room, missing nothing. They landed on Sebastian and Ruby.

And stayed there.

Ruby tore an onion ring between her fingers, her stomach inexplicably knotted.

The pair exchanged glances as they took a table beside their booth, hardly sparing a glance at the menus the waitress brought them, gazes intent on Ruby. She shifted on the booth's seat. Somehow she didn't think it was because she looked cute.

Sebastian arched a brow at her, appearing relaxed and easy with his arm flung behind the back of the booth. Except his eyes told a different story. The light at the center writhed. The muscle in his jaw flickered. Tension simmered in him.

“Why are they staring?”

“Don't you know?” He smiled as if they discussed something light and amusing. A normal couple out to dinner. “Look at them, Ruby. What are they?”

Sipping her tea, she studied them covertly. The hardened features, the eyes like ice. One of them sat with his hand buried in his jacket pocket.

“Hunters,” she murmured, quite sure they were human even with their inhuman eyes. Hunters passing through, probably heading their way south to one of the bigger cities—Lafayette, Baton Rouge or New Orleans.

“Yeah. NODEAL agents. So much for Beau Rivage being off radar.”

She didn't bother explaining that they only ran
into them because they'd left town for a truck stop on a busy highway. She'd think twice before doing that again.

“What do we do?”

“Finish our food and leave.” He finished the last of his burger as if two hunters didn't sit feet away, staring them down like prey.

Ruby played with a crisp onion ring, no longer able to eat.

Finished, Sebastian tossed a couple bills on the table. “Let's go.”

Ruby slid from the booth. Sebastian gripped her elbow, guiding her from the restaurant. She didn't need to look over her shoulder. She felt them follow. Felt their adrenaline on the air, pungent as sweat in a locker room.

Her heart accelerated in her chest. Sebastian led them outside, as if he were unaware of the two agents on their heels. At the door of her car, he stopped and turned.

“Evening,” he greeted. “Can I help you guys?”

The pair exchanged looks. Both buried their hands deep in their jacket pockets, and she knew they were armed, that she and Sebastian probably stood in the line of fire.

One of them spoke. “We're not after you. Just give her to us and you can walk away.”

Clearly they didn't realize Sebastian fell in the nonhuman category, too.

He cocked his head as if considering. “I don't think so.”

“Look,” the other one bit out. “You don't know what you're dealing with. Do yourself a favor and get in your car and drive away now. While you still can.”

“I think it's more accurate to say
you
don't know what you're dealing with. Walk away, forget you ever saw her, and you can live.”

They laughed, the sound a low chuckle that grated her nerves. “You should keep better company.” Their laughter stopped. “You're a dead man now.”

Guns flew free. Her heart seized.

Ruby smelled the burn of silver on the air as bullets exploded from the chamber.

Sebastian's hand slammed down hard on her shoulder, shoving her, pushing her clear, but she was already moving, diving to the ground. He didn't need to propel her out of the bullet's path. Instinct took over. A burning will to survive coupled with a keen animal impulse.

With blurring speed, she landed hard and rolled. Gravel crunched beneath her body. The smell of sun-baked dirt filled her nose. In a flash, she popped up in a crouch, fingertips poised, ready to push off the ground and spring.

But she didn't need to.

Sebastian was on the hunters like a pouncing tiger.
She watched as he yanked down on their guns, twisting one weapon around and firing into one of them. The silencer muffled the shot. With a scream, the hunter fell hard to the ground, clutching his thigh, fingers pressed tight over the gushing wound. Her nostrils flared and her mouth salivated at the coppery-sweet scent. She took a step forward.

Sebastian loomed over the one still standing, his voice thick and guttural as he spoke. “You better leave and take your friend with you before I inflict more damage than that.” His face shifted then, blurring into the sharp lines and curves of an animal, then flashed back. “The permanent kind.”

“Christ!” the hunter cursed, jerking back a step before helping his cohort to his feet. The two staggered away, cursing beneath their breaths and shooting several glances over their shoulders at Sebastian and Ruby.

Legs braced apart, Sebastian stalked after them a few steps, his body radiating menace, hands curling at his sides as if he wanted to go after them.

Ruby watched as one helped the other onto his bike. They revved their engines and disappeared from the parking lot, tires spitting gravel.

Sebastian moved to her side again. “Nice way to dodge a bullet.”

“Yeah. You, too.” Her voice shook and she swallowed as she glanced around at the still and silent parking lot of the truck stop she and Adele ate at a couple times a month. Her stomach knotted. It would never be like that again, she realized. Her world was changed. She had changed. She had thought, coming home, that she would not have to confront it. She could safely hide. As always.

“C'mon.” Sebastian pulled her toward the car. Moments later, they were driving, heading toward the back parish road that led to her house.

She trembled in her seat, her hands twitching in her lap. In a strange way, this was worse than Istanbul. The ugliness had reached her here. Nothing bad was supposed to find her here.

“You okay?

She nodded. “What about those hunters?”

“They'll be fine.”

She shot him an annoyed glance. “I know . . . but . . .” She waved a hand. “You let them go. Will they come back?” Invade her world?

His lips pulled into a hard line.

“They will,” she snapped, an edge of hysteria entering her voice.

“They'll report to their supervisors and NODEAL will likely recon the area, looking for us.”

She bounced her head against the headrest. “Great.
Beau Rivage is a small town… how hard can it be for them to—”

“Calm down.”

“Calm down? That's easy for you to say. You don't live here. You don't have a home, a life here. You'll be gone in a few days and I'll be—”

“You can come with me.”

She rubbed her hands over her arms. “No. I can't. I can't go back out there.”

“You're no more safe here than out there.” He gestured widely with his hand.

“Damn it,” she ground out, rolling her head against the headrest. “Why didn't you…” her voice faded.

“Kill them?” He cut her a glance.

Callous, but true. She had been thinking that. Desperate, angry, she wished they weren't out there.

She said nothing for a long moment, and then, “They were out to kill us.”

“Yes.” His hands tightened on the steering wheel.

“Haven't you killed hunters before?”

“For a long time I've hated hunters as much as lycans.” His knuckles grew white. “A lycan raped my mother, but hunters killed her… tracked her down and assassinated her because she was a Marshan. Even when she was past the point of breeding, too old to give birth to another dovenatu, no longer a threat to them, they shot her down like a dog.”

“I didn't know.” She lifted a hand to touch him but let it drop back in her lap at the hard coldness of his expression.

“Yeah.” His lip curled back from his teeth. “I hate fucking hunters.” He swung his gaze to her again. “But I'm tired of killing when it doesn't seem to do any good. There will always be packs. And there will always be hunters.”

But he chose not to eliminate a pair of hunters now? She shook her head. When letting them live was a threat to her? When they would just show up and try to kill her again?

She couldn't help herself. Frustration swelled inside her. “Well, you didn't do me any favors.”

“We'll get ready for moonrise tomorrow. And when it's over, you'll leave with me. It's the safest thing to do.”

Suddenly the control she thought she had claimed for herself since returning home began to slip between her fingers, elusive as water. “Like hell I will.” Rational or not, she wouldn't let that happen. The choice would be hers. He wasn't taking it from her.

“Damn it, Ruby.” He shot her a frustrated glare. “You can't pretend this will all go away.”

“Especially with you alerting the world about me.”

With a groan he dragged a hand through his hair.
“Look.” He inhaled. “For now, we'll just focus on getting through the next few days.”

“Fine.”
The next few days
. She dragged a shuddering breath into her lungs. The memory of lycans as she had seen them… mauling Amy and Emily… made her chest tighten. She knew this had been coming. Despite trying to ignore its approach. Despite pretending it couldn't reach her, couldn't get to her here. It would. It had.

Sighing, she propped an elbow on the door and stared out the window into the dark night. Woods crowded the narrow road. Another car approached and Sebastian hugged his side of the road. Branches scraped her door. The car passed. Dirt and rocks ticked against the side of the car.

The moon followed their vehicle, nearly full, a great glowing eye peering between a latticework of branches. “I'll call Adele.”

“Sure she'll still come?”

“One fight doesn't break a friendship.” At least not theirs. Ruby needed her. Adele wouldn't let her down. Adele she could rely on. No one else. Not Sebastian. She wouldn't let herself need him.

Sebastian followed one step behind Ruby as she hurried inside the house, staring at her slim back, the
rigid set of her narrow shoulders—and cursed beneath his breath.

He rubbed a palm against his nape. Was he trying to sabotage her efforts? Force her to stay with him? Leave with him? Need him no matter what? No matter that she had a plan in place that actually might work. Might make his staying with her totally unnecessary.

His feet thudded up the porch steps.

He should have killed those hunters. He wasn't into mercy. Not when it came to hunters. He would have killed them before. Before Ruby.

Just who am I anymore
?

The old Sebastian would have squeezed the trigger without blinking. Instead, he'd let them live. And he was afraid he had let them live so that Ruby would have to leave. With him.

On the porch, he paused. Skin tightening, he turned and faced the night, a sudden awareness settling in his bones.

“Sebastian?” A board groaned. He heard her step away from the front door, the porch creeping imperceptibly beneath her feet as she moved toward him.

“Something's coming.” He stared out into the night even though he knew he would see nothing. Nothing was there. Yet.

Her gaze burned into his profile. Wind rustled through branches, tugging leaves loose. Silvery moonlight drifted
through the branches, casting patches of light on the ground. He sniffed the air. It was still there. That faint hint, a whiff…

“The hunters from the diner?” Panic fed her voice.

He shook his head, his features tight, itchy as he turned his face into the breeze. “No. They're gone. This is something else. Something…”

“What?”

“Something distant.”

“Distant? Then how do you even know anything's coming?”

He heard the incredulity in her voice, but he'd spent a lifetime honing his instincts. First, running. With his brother and mother. Always one step ahead of lycans and hunters. Then tracking. Hunting. Always hunting.

Years of hunting. No friends to speak of. No parents. Even his brother he let slip away. All so that he could bury himself in the hunt, the kill. Maybe not the best life, but one that had taught him how to survive… how to detect threats when they were only a whisper on the air.

He'd been at the game long enough to know when the tables turned and suddenly
he
became the hunted.