Unleash The Moon (The Preternaturals Book 6) (8 page)

Noah watched as she paced in her cell and circled
Jacob a few times, looking for the first time like the predator she
was supposed to be if she hadn’t been born with only human
strength.

“So I’m right. If you’d found them
and had a happy reunion you wouldn’t have thought about me ever
again.”

“Syd, that’s not true. You know
it’s not. I like you. I told you I’ve always liked you.”

“I hate to think about what you’d
do to somebody you didn’t like. You piece of shit.” She kicked him
in the thigh, barely budging him, but being already injured, he
still winced.

Jacob struggled to sit and pulled off his ripped and
blood-covered shirt. And there it was, the slightest shift in
Sydney’s scent, in her reaction to him. Noah knew without any doubt
that they had been lovers. They had history.

Noah looked away. If he kept looking at the human,
he’d shift and lose his shit. Jacob had two very big marks against
him. He’d betrayed Sydney and brought her to this place, and he’d
slept with her. The first thing made Noah so livid he had to take
long, deep breaths to stay calm.

Don’t react. Don’t react. Don’t react. They’ll know
if you react.

The second thing merely annoyed him. But it annoyed
him pretty strongly. Of course, it was irrational to be upset about
anything Sydney had done with someone else before him. Noah didn’t
even know the circumstances of their encounters. Had he expected
her to remain some pure virgin for him? That would be insane. Of
course he didn’t expect that, especially not when he hadn’t even
been there for her.

He’d just never thought he’d have to look at the
bastard or bastards she’d been with.

And it wasn’t as if Sydney knew he was still alive.
She probably had no idea who she was to him. Even without Jacob,
Noah might have his work cut out for him trying to convince her
that she could be happy with the jerk who’d yelled at her in the
exercise yard. There was some big trust-building ahead of them.
Jacob was the least of his problems.

“
Syd you need to
feed,” Jacob said moving closer to her.

Her lip curled in disgust. “From
you? Are you kidding me? As if I would
ever
want to put my fangs inside
of you again. Especially after you electrocuted me with that black
box thing!”

He’d
electrocuted
her? Noah was
starting to suspect he was being baited here. There was just too
much for him to react to. He’d reacted too emotionally the first
time he’d seen her. Maybe they suspected it was something more than
the hate he was trying to play off now. Was he being too paranoid?
Maybe, but was there any level of paranoid that was too paranoid
given his current living conditions and the stakes involved in
getting him and Sydney safely to tomorrow night when he might be
strong enough to protect her?

The cheery robotic voice filled Sydney’s cell.
“We’re going to have to insist that you feed. You need to keep your
strength up.”

“
This place is
creepy as hell,” Jacob said.

“
Yeah, thanks
for that. I don’t even have anyone to talk to here. You see that
guy over there?” She pointed at Noah and he let his eyes glow and
fangs come out because it seemed to go with the “look how much I
hate this girl” vibe he was trying to throw out.

Jacob turned and looked at him,
then scrambled back closer to her.
Yeah, you better run you little shit.

“
That psycho
already threatened me in the yard and basically told me I can’t
talk to anybody here or they might kill me. So not only am I a
prisoner
again,
now, I don’t even have any friends or people who
love me!”

Don’t be so sure about that.

“
And I just
found out I don’t age, so who knows what that
means?”

“
Come on, Syd.
You’ll feel better when you’ve had some blood.”

When her fangs came out, Noah found himself torn
between jealousy and hoping she’d lose control and drain the guy.
Sydney glared pointedly at Noah, and he looked away. She didn’t
like anybody watching her. Fine. He didn’t particularly want to
watch her suck neck in front of him, anyway.

He tried not to imagine it was him
she was drinking and not that stupid boy. The human was close to
their age, but no
man
would throw someone vulnerable under the bus like
he had Sydney. That was what a boy did.

Several minutes passed while Noah watched as
inconspicuously as possible with his peripheral vision. He could
hear her and smell her, and if nothing else, he would have known
she’d finished when she pushed Jacob away with some effort. He fell
with a dull thud on the thick, shatterproof glass.

The voice spoke again in Sydney’s
cell. “Please
finish
your dinner.”

Sydney seemed horrified by the suggestion. Even
after everything this man had done to her, she couldn’t bring
herself to kill him. It would have been an easy choice for Noah. He
would have killed the fucker in a heartbeat, but she wasn’t like
that. Even from his childhood memories of her, she was too
sensitive. She’d see it as cold-blooded murder.

Noah thought she would fight to defend herself from
a threat. She might kill in self-defense or accidentally, but he
couldn’t see her taking a life for revenge or just for the thrill
of the kill.

“
There are
starving vampires in the world,” the robotic voice reasoned. “And
here you are leaving food on your plate. I’m sorry, but we can’t
allow that.”

The human was distressed, his weakening heartbeat
speeding at the threat. He might just give out from fear. It would
spare Sydney the task of finishing him.

Her face was a solid, stubborn wall. She wasn’t
going to do it. Noah wanted to shake her. She didn’t yet understand
that you didn’t say no here. To anything.

Lasers of UV light blasted from the corners of her
cell. The smoke rose off her flesh and she let out a shriek that
chilled his blood.

Don’t react. Don’t react. You can’t react. Keep it
together. One more day, Noah.

He turned away, feigning boredom, because no matter
how much he knew he couldn’t react if he wanted the opportunity to
get her out of here, he knew he couldn’t remain stoic if he had to
watch this. She just had to survive until tomorrow night.

Finish
him
, Noah pleaded in his mind, as if
he could send her a mental message and have it take
hold.

“
Oh, no,” the
robotic voice said, sounding not at all concerned. “It doesn’t look
like you’re healing. You should finish your
dinner.”

Noah sneaked a brief glance. It was true. She wasn’t
healing. There were several round burn marks on her from the
lasers. She barely had the strength to crawl to Jacob.

“
No, Syd, don’t
do it!” her prey said.

As if her refusal would actually spare the human’s
life. Whatever he’d done to piss them off, they didn’t forgive
easily and he wasn’t getting out of here alive whatever Sydney did
or didn’t do. Finally, she took his arm and she drank until his
heart stopped. Then she collapsed into sobbing fits over the
body.

“
Take him away!”
she screamed. “Take him away!”

The door to Noah’s cell slid open and the big plate
of raw meat was shoved in. He glanced again at Sydney. If he ate
the meat he’d fall asleep. What if they hurt her while he was out?
What if they hurt her more while he was awake and he reacted and
she lost her one chance to get out of here? He had to maintain the
routine.

He shifted into his wolf form and
ate.

The dream world came into focus
sharper and more real than Noah’s waking world. The memories he
couldn’t access in his waking hours came forth bright and crisp. He
was about seven. It had been dark out for a while now, and Sydney
was supposed to come over later. He couldn’t wait to see
her.

But his dad and her dad were outside yelling at each
other.

“
Noah is
strong,” Anthony said. “And he’s her friend. His blood might make
her stronger. The human blood is barely keeping her going, and I
can’t stand to see her cry when she accidentally kills one of them.
She’s just a kid. She’s not like me.”

“
Something we
can all be grateful for,” Cole said.

“
So, you’ll ask
Noah?”

His dad growled. “Never! I don’t care if you and I
have worked together a few times over the years. Those kids have an
unnatural attachment to one another, and I should have put a stop
to it a long time ago. If you think I would let some vampire sink
her dirty fangs into my kid…”

Noah jumped at the sound of flesh hitting flesh and
then growled when he realized the vampire king had just hit his
dad. Cole growled back, and another punch was landed. This time it
was Anthony who let out the groan of pain.

“
Don’t you bring
that little freak near my son ever again, do you hear me?” Cole
said. “In fact, why don’t you keep your vampires at the compound,
and I’ll keep my wolves at the hive? You stay on that side of town.
I’ll stay on this one.”

Noah gasped. How could his dad call Sydney a name
like that? She was the nicest person he knew, and the only kid near
his age that he didn’t have to try to impress. She didn’t care that
he was the alpha’s son.

After the vampire king left, Noah moved out into the
open. “Dad?”

Cole growled and spun around. “How much of that did
you hear?”

He shrugged. How could he know how much he’d heard
or when they’d started arguing? “Is Sydney sick? If she needs
blood, she can have some of mine to get better.”

“
Absolutely not.
I’m sorry, but you can’t play with her anymore. We don’t make
friends with vampires. I should have stopped it when it first
started, but your mom is friends with Charlee, and it just seemed
easier to let it go.”

Was mom not allowed to see Charlee now? He couldn’t
imagine his dad had any power to stop a demon from going wherever
she wanted.

Noah felt the glow come to his
eyes. “That is
bullshit
! You can’t stop me from
seeing her!”

Cole’s nostrils flared. “Where did you learn that
word?”

There was a saying that little wolves had big ears,
and the pack hadn’t been editing their vocabulary around him
recently.

Noah shrugged again and mumbled, “You can’t stop me
from seeing her.”

The alpha’s eyes narrowed. “I’m the alpha. I can
make anybody stop seeing anybody.”

But even at seven, Noah knew that to some degree his
dad was all talk. After all, he wouldn’t throw his own son out of
the pack. Not over something like this. And especially not when he
was still a pup, despite all his big talk.

He didn’t see Sydney again after that. He still
thought about her and missed her. He wondered if she thought about
him and missed him. As soon as he was old enough and strong enough,
he would go find her. But that never happened because the following
year he was kidnapped.

As he was taken away by the magic
users, he thought,
Bet you wish you’d
just let me hang out with Sydney now, instead of getting too close
to the pack kids.

If he’d been allowed to see her, he wouldn’t have
been playing chicken with the boundaries because he wouldn’t have
cared what the other pack kids thought. He wouldn’t have done
something that might have encouraged Sydney to join in and put her
in danger.

***

Sydney sat in her cell staring at the spot where
Jacob had been. They hadn’t even properly cleaned the cube. She
could still smell him in there. A few careless drops of blood
remained as evidence of what she’d done the day before.

What they made you do.

Not long before, she’d been plotting to kill him.
But it had been different. It had been an escape plan to save her
life. But didn’t doing what they said save her life? When she’d
killed him and then watched the guy in the cube beside her shift
nonchalantly into his wolf form and eat like nothing had happened,
she knew she was truly friendless in here.

She’d been given bagged blood this evening. It
didn’t restore her energy but at least she wasn’t killing someone
today. It was something. If they weren’t going to let her feed from
a human without demanding she finish him, this was better.

Sydney studied the burn marks. Several ran up and
down her arms. In the reflective glass she could see one on her
cheek. Another had hit the side of her neck. A normal vampire would
have healed instantly unless he’d been weakened and starved. Not
Sydney. It hadn’t even started to heal a day later. These marks
would scar.

She felt the tears start up again. The wolf stirred
in the corner of his cell. He’d had his drugged meat a few hours
ago, and the sleep was wearing off. He shifted back to his human
form and turned away from her to put on the new clothes they’d
brought him. Sydney got to go for a shower right after waking up.
She assumed the wolf went in the mornings while she was dead for
the day.

She couldn’t even bring herself to find him
attractive anymore. Physically he was still as perfect as ever, but
when he’d nearly made her cry in the exercise yard it had cured her
of any fleeting crush. What was it with her and wolves? When she
was a kid she used to spend every moment until she had to go to
sleep with Noah.