Moonlight Read online

  There was an urgency in Lucas’s voice that I hadn’t heard before. I’d fallen asleep wrapped in the cocoon of his embrace. I didn’t know when he’d left me, but now he was crouched beside me, shaking my shoulder. I squinted at him. I hadn’t expected to fall so soundly asleep, and I resented that he was waking me up. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just a feeling I have.”

  The words hit me like a jolt of caffeine. And I could feel it, too. It was like that first night, the tingly feeling I’d had, that sense of being watched.

  “Mason. They found us,” I said.

  “No way. They didn’t have trackers in their group. And this area is too well hidden.”

  “We didn’t know they had scientists in their group either—and they did.”

  “Good point.” He shoved a backpack into my arms. “Here, you wear it. I may have to shift.”

  I started pulling on my boots. “What are we going to do?”

  “Have a look around and, if we need to, run.”

  He stood up with that graceful, lithe movement he had. Then he reached down, took my hand, and pulled me to my feet. Still holding my hand, he began leading me toward the waterfall. “I want you to wait by the entrance until I’ve checked—”

  A figure stepped into the entrance, and just like in some corny movie, he was wielding a gun. It wasn’t anyone I knew, but Lucas stiffened and shoved me behind him. He eased a little closer to the waterfall, then he tried to push me back. “Go out the other side.”

  “Oh, Lucas, do you really want her to miss the party? And where are your manners? Shouldn’t you introduce your brother to your girlfriend?”

  Devlin? This was Devlin? I peered around Lucas for a better look. I thought if it weren’t for all the hatred in his eyes, Devlin might have been handsome. At one time he probably was. What had changed him?

  Lucas emitted a low growl and went very still.

  “Don’t even think about morphing,” Devlin said. “I loaded a silver bullet into the gun. If I shoot you while you’re in wolf form, it’s hopeless—you’ll be dead. Maybe not immediately, but eventually.”

  “I know how silver works. What do you want?”

  “The return of my rightful place as leader of the pack would be nice.”

  “The pack leader serves as leader of the Dark Guardians. He protects the existence of our kind. You led Keane to us.”

  “That’s just a guess on your part, but it so happens that you’re right.”

  “Did you lead them here?”

  “No. Those idiots. I washed my hands of them when they didn’t kill you. They took off in their choppers. I imagine they’ll be back. But I don’t care. They were supposed to do an autopsy on you, study you. Instead they planned to draw blood and swab your mouth. Where’s the fun in that?”

  “You’ve put our entire existence at risk.”

  Devlin released a deep sigh. I kept trying to find even a hint of Lucas in him, but I couldn’t. His hair was only one shade: black. His eyes were a lifeless gray. What had happened to make him the way he was?

  “Our existence was already at risk. There are so few of us left. Do you think any Static female is going to mate with us? God, I hate what we are.”

  “Just because one girl—”

  “One girl? She was everything to me. My own family wouldn’t accept her. She wouldn’t accept me. I shifted to save her life one night when some thugs attacked her in an alley, and all I did was horrify her. Do you know what it is to name your mate and then know you can’t have her? To know you’re destined to spend your life alone and lonely? To always be empty and have no love to fill the void?”

  “I know it was hard—”

  “You don’t know anything! But you will. Before the next full moon, you will. You’ll know what it is to hate what you are. I went to Keane because I wanted to find a cure for what I am. I wanted him to make me normal. Instead he wanted to make everyone like us.”

  “So you’re not working with them?” I asked.

  I felt Lucas stiffen again. I knew he wanted me to quietly disappear, but his brother was dangerous.

  Devlin didn’t answer my question. Instead he said, “If you’re not with her when she shifts for the first time, you could lose her completely. Your heart will break and then you’ll understand my pain.”

  “I’m going to be there for her.”

  “We’ll see.” Devlin began moving slowly into the cave. Lucas turned to face him, pushing me away in the process.

  I don’t know what I was expecting. Maybe I thought they both would shift and go at it. I mean, if Devlin wanted Lucas to suffer, he needed him alive.

  So the explosion echoing through the cavern and Lucas flying backward into the waterfall stunned me, and my instincts took over.

  My horrified scream was lost in the roar of the rushing water as I dove in after him.

  Being a strong swimmer was an advantage when tons of water was crushing down on you. Those rescue lessons I’d taken when I’d worked as a lifeguard didn’t hurt either.

  Any other time I might have marveled at how luminescent the pool was with the moon shining through the clear water, but all my efforts were focused on retrieving Lucas. I wrapped an arm beneath his arm and around his chest before shooting back to the surface. I swam to the edge of the pool, away from the waterfall.

  “Help me, Lucas,” I ordered.

  I heard him groan, felt him trembling, and was aware of his warm blood flowing around me. I tried to push him out of the water. “Lucas, please.”

  With another groan and herculean effort, he surged up and belly flopped onto the grass. I shoved him completely out of the water. Then I hauled myself out and knelt beside him.

  “How bad is it?” I asked.

  “Bad,” he answered through clenched teeth.

  I eased up his T-shirt. With the moonlight and the faint rays of the approaching dawn, I could see the dark ragged hole in his side and the blood flowing from it. I tore off my shirt, leaving just my tank underneath it. I’d tear it off, too, if I had to. I pressed my shirt to his side to try to staunch the river of blood.

  “Are you sure you can’t shift?” I asked. “Just for a few seconds?”

  “If he does, he’ll die.”

  I was startled by Devlin’s voice. I wasn’t sure when he’d joined us, but I should have known he’d want to see his handiwork.

  “He can feel the burning of the silver. He knows I wasn’t lying about the bullet,” Devlin said with satisfaction in his voice. “I don’t want him dead. I just wanted to prevent him from stopping me.”

  “Stopping you from what?”

  He jerked me to my feet and before I could protest, he’d looped and lassoed a rope around my wrists, securing them tightly, then jerking me toward him. “From taking you away.”

  He started pulling me and I dug in my heels. “You’re insane.”

  “According to Nietzsche, ‘There is always some madness in love.’” He glanced over at me and smiled a cruel smile. “I was a philosophy major.”

  “Lucas did what he did to protect the pack. You can’t punish him for that.”

  “Of course I can. What I’m doing only has to make sense to me. That’s the beauty of madness. Now, you don’t want to fight me, because I have more bullets in this gun. Killing you would take you away from him permanently.”

  “I’m going to die anyway. Lucas said I wouldn’t survive if he wasn’t with me.”

  “Guess we’ll find out.”

  He tugged on the rope, pulling me along behind him. I wasn’t afraid of dying. Okay, I was. I was terrified by the thought. I didn’t want to leave Lucas behind, but I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t go easily, but neither did I resist with everything in me.

  I glanced back over my shoulder. Lucas was struggling to his knees. Please don’t follow, I thought. Save yourself. Wait for me.

  I was optimistic that one way or another I could escape and find help for Lucas.

  It wa