Page 19 of Marked By Moonlight

Through the horde of bodies, she spied a familiar flash of maroon ahead. Her heart accelerated and her steps faltered.

Her fingers clenched tightly around her keys, indifferent to thesteel digging into her tender palm as that familiar face came into view and the day’s injustices fled in place of another.

Damn. She still hadn’t figured out how to deal with him and here he was—ready or not—parked alongside the fire lane, arms crossed and leaning against the door in a casual pose. She stopped a few feet from him and glared. Students swarmed around her like fish moving downstream. Eyes trained on him, she paid little heed to them as they hurried past.

“Nice hair.”

Her hand went to her hair. Terry had done wonders with it. Three shades of gold mingled with her brown strands to fashion a creation that resembled honey struck by sunlight. Sassy layers brushed her cheeks and neck in the softest of caresses.

The hair was only part of her transformation. She watched and waited as his gaze traveled a path from her hair to her face to her new outfit: a short, flirty skirt and sleeveless gold blouse. She felt stupidly eager to see his reaction.His.Not a teenage boy’s. But the reaction of a flesh and blood man.

Claire could kick herself. Was she really so desperate, so starved for attention, that she craved the good opinion of someone living under some very unhealthy delusions—even if he was good-looking?

The longer he stared at her in that silent, consuming way, the quicker her breaths came. Noisy, jagged little spurts of air that made her face heat up.

She had her answer.Yes.She had stooped that low.

“Nice outfit.” Something in his tone sounded distinctly insincere. In fact, he sounded heartily… unimpressed. No,unimpressedwasn’t the word. She studied his stony, hard-to-decipher face. Hedisapproved.

“What are you doing here?” she snapped.

“Keeping an eye on you.”

Fleeing students jostled her closer to him. Conscious of being overheard, she hissed in a low voice, “This has gone far enough.” With a deep breath, she bluffed, “I’m going to the police.”

“If you were going to do that, you already would have,” he replied with a light shrug that said he didn’t care either way.

She strove for a smart, pithy reply but came up with nothing. He was right.Why hadn’t she gone to the police?Despite the return of her purse, he had broken into her apartment. He was stalking her. Threatening her. Turning her insides into knots.

As if he could hear her internal dialogue, he answered smoothly, “You haven’t gone to the cops because, deep down, you know I’m right. You feel it in your blood. That wasn’t a dog in the alley. It was Lenny.”

She shook her head vehemently and held up both hands as if she could block his words. “That’s ridiculous.”

Gideon studied her for a long moment, his eyes searching, probing. “You still think he’s alive,” he concluded, shaking his head.

Since he claimed the dog he killed was Lenny—an absolute impossibility—yes.

“Have you heard from him?” Gideon pressed, his look knowing. “Has he come to class?”

“I haven’t seen him,” she admitted, “but that doesn’t mean anything. Kids skip class all the time. It doesn’t mean Lenny is dead or a—” She looked over her shoulder, fearful someone might overhear, but the stampede of students had dissipated to a lone boy, scuffing his sneakers on the pavement as he walked past, oblivious to them. Just the same, she whispered angrily, “Werewolves do not exist.”

His green eyes glittered at her with unwavering resolve. “Lycans,” he corrected.

“Whatever,” she spat back, perspiration trickling down her spine and dampening the small of her back.

“The longer you fight me, the less time we have to find the lycan that infected Lenny. If we don’t—”

“You’ll kill me, right?” Arching one brow in challenge, she held her breath, hoping he wouldn’t agree, that he was just crazy and not truly dangerous.

At his curt nod, her breath expelled from her body in a whoosh. Nothing ambiguous about that. “That’s not going to happen,” she vowed, her voice barely audible but no less determined.

He studied her, his green eyes shrewd, searching beyond her face into her very soul. As if seeing something there, he shook his head regretfully. “The lycan’s already gotten to you. It’s inside you. Maybe it’s already too late.”

“Because I won’t agree to you killing me?” She pressed a hand to her chest, her voice tight. “That’s basic self-preservation.”

He smiled, a hint of remorse in the curve of his well-shaped lips. “This isn’t you.”

“How do you know?” she countered hotly, even more angered because he happened to be right. She was different. Inside and out. “You don’t know me.” She waved a hand in front of her, encompassing herself with the gesture. “Maybe I’m like this all the time.”

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