Page 33 of Marked By Moonlight

“No,” she raged, wanting to gouge them from her face.

Her hand closed around the ceramic toothbrush holder just as Gideon burst into the bathroom. He caught her arm before she could let it fly.

Prying the toothbrush holder from her clenched fist, he tugged her away, his grip warm and firm on her arm. Shards of glass cut into the bottoms of her feet and she winced, stumbling against his chest.

Gideon looked down. “Damn,” he muttered, sweeping her into his arms and carrying her out of the bathroom. Claire soon found herself on the bed, her feet propped in Gideon’s lap as he plucked glass from the soles of her feet, his hands surprisingly gentle.

She watched him silently for a moment before asking, “Why are you doing this?”

His brow creased as he concentrated on her feet. “You might be a lycan, but it’s still gonna hurt to walk around with glass in your feet.”

Claire wet her lips. “I mean, why are you helping me?”

He looked up, studying her for a moment before returning to his task. “We’ll head back to town today. We don’t have a lot oftime, so you’re going to have to help. I need to know everything about Lenny. Family, friends, where he liked to hang out. There’s a good chance he knew the lycan who infected him, so we’ll start by retracing his movements of the last month.”

Claire considered him for a moment before nodding. He was helping her, trying to stop her from turning into a bloodthirsty monster. A killer. She shut her eyes and gave her head a slow shake. That was all that mattered.

Opening her eyes again, she asked, “What happens when we find the one who infected Lenny?”

“I’ll kill him.” He said it so simply, like he killed all the time, and it was then that Claire finally accepted that he did. All except her, a small voice in the back of her mind reminded her.

“After you kill him, the curse will be broken.”

At this, Gideon hesitated, his hand hovering over her foot. “If he’s the alpha, yes.”

“Alpha?”

“Each pack has one alpha and every lycan can be traced back to that alpha, either through birth or infection.”

“So if you kill the alpha, the rest of the pack will become human again?”

“No.” His eyes cut directly to hers. “Only those who aren’t damned.” Lowering his head to examine her foot closer, he explained, “If you kill and feed, you’re lost. It doesn’t matter if your alpha is killed or not. The curse can’t be broken after you’ve fed. There’s no going back after that.”

Claire shook her head. “What if we can’t find Lenny’s alpha?”

“You’ll shift on the next full moon. And you’ll kill.”

Claire sat motionless, too horrified to even flinch as he plucked a chunk of glass buried deep in the arch of her foot. His words rolled over her, too horrible to believe. Except she was past denial.

“Even if I don’t want to?” she asked, trying to keep the desperation she felt from rising in her voice.

“Lycan instinct is too powerful. You won’t have a choice.”

Gideon slid her feet from his lap, his eyes locking with hers in a silent message.And neither will I.

Claire nodded. The words hadn’t been spoken aloud but she understood. She understood that the man who had saved her life in a dark alley might very well become her executioner. Gideon March would not spare her life twice.

Gideon buried his hand in his pocket, rolling the silver bullet between his thumb and forefinger. The bullet he had originally planned for her.

He had tracked her down intending to end it once and for all. His lips twisted wryly. That he had nearly taken her on the floor only confirmed in his mind that he had gotten way too involved with his target. He had lost all objectivity. Time was running short and she was a ticking time bomb.

Only face to face with her, he couldn’t go through with it. Unbelievable. After all the trouble she put him through, he couldn’t do it. At least not yet.

He watched her collect her things from around the cabin. Her movements were quick, purposeful. Her feet padded silently over the floor, all sign of injury gone. She clearly didn’t realize what a mess her feet had been. The average person would have needed stitches. He grunted, sliding his hand out of his pocket. Hell, she took a bullet in the chest. The average person would be dead. He might as well face the fact that there was nothing average about Claire Morgan. Or his feelings for her.

Determination etched her features as she packed. Misplaced determination. But then that was his fault. He was only prolonging the inevitable. Giving her hope he had no right to give. He ran a hand over his bristly jaw, asking himself what the hell he was doing.

The odds were against her. Lenny had been alone. With no clues to go on, it would be hard enough to locate the lycan responsible for infecting the kid—and next to impossible to track his alpha. But it was a chance. A chance Gideon’s parents never had.

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