Page 42 of Marked By Moonlight

“I’m waiting for someone.” Not exactly a lie.

“Sure,” he mumbled a touch resentfully before returning to his friends.

A glance around revealed several eyes focused on her. Many of which belonged to pimply-faced prepubescents like the one she ran off. Any of those eyes watching her could belong to a lycan, she reminded herself. Ageless eyes, disguised in a youthful shell. Still, she found it hard to remember this when—

Whoa, there. A man walked her way. Not a kid. Claire leaned forward as he approached in all his black-leather-pants-and-Henley glory. She rested an elbow on the table and set her chin in her palm, her body warming and tingling as he approached.

“Where’ve you been all my life?” he asked.

God, guys actually said things like that? Sadly, it didn’t sound that bad coming from his lips.

Flipping her hair over her shoulder with a flirtiness she never knew she possessed, Claire patted the seat beside her and opened her mouth, ready to invite him to sit down. Then she remembered her purpose tonight. Darting a glance across the room, she met Gideon’s unhappy gaze head-on. His eyes glittered dangerously.Swiping one finger swiftly beneath his neck in a cutting motion, he indicated she should end the conversation and set this one loose.

With a sigh of reluctance, Claire repeated her earlier excuse, “Sorry, I’m waiting for someone.”

With an odd sense of frustration simmering inside her, she watched him walk away. She turned a glare on Gideon. He stared back at her with a glare of his own, shaking his head side to side as though disgusted.

What’s wrong with basking in the admiration of an attractive man? She wasn’t getting any attention from Mr. Lycan Hunter over there. At least not the kind her body craved. She was the one looking death in the eye. If she wanted one last hurrah, who was he to stop her?

They walked silently through the parking lot, their feet crunching over loose gravel, the distant thrum of Aerosmith beating steadily behind them. The air was thick and balmy, the loss of the sun doing nothing to ease the stifling humidity.

“We’ll try again tomorrow,” Gideon said.

She nodded and forced a smile despite the defeat lodged deep in her chest.

Her skin began to hum, prickling with awareness. Her smile slipped. They were in a particularly dark part of the lot, the last security light several feet behind them. Her feet skidded quietly to a stop. She scanned the parking lot, her vision adjusting to the night, flitting over the hoods of cars and trucks, seeing well despite the darkness.

Gideon stopped ahead of her, apparently realizing she wasn’t walking next to him any longer. He turned to face her. “Claire?”

She wet her lips and inhaled deeply, smelling… something.

The tingling in her skin intensified, the tiny hairs on her neck standing on end. Turning her head left and right, she peered at the shadows lurking in the far end of the lot, feeling the eyes that watched her every movement.

They weren’t alone.

Then she heard it. Feet flying like wind across the parking lot. Gaze flying to Gideon, she opened her mouth to cry a warning. Before she had the chance, a dark blur flashed between them, knocking Gideon down.

A clammy hand slammed over her mouth, smothering her scream. She tasted the warm saltiness of sweat and animal over her open mouth. An arm snaked around her waist and lifted her off her feet.

She struggled, kicking, jabbing, thrashing as she was heaved higher off the ground.

Gideon’s grunts and curses came from somewhere below her kicking feet.

Her captor was strong. Too strong. Far stronger than she. And intuitively she knew.

He wrenched her around to face him. He was young. And yet not. The way his gaze scoured her face and body, so knowingly—it was as though he knew her intimately. That look spoke of years lived. She had never seen him before, yet she knew him. Just as he knew her. As a species recognizes one of its own. In one startling instant, she realized just how well she knew him.She was him.

“Claire,” Gideon shouted.

She tore free of her captor’s gaze, no less magnetic for his brown-colored contacts, and searched for a glimpse of Gideon again. She spotted him rolling on the ground, locked in struggle with another lycan.

“Don’t worry about the human.” Hard fingers dug into hercheeks, forcing her to face her attacker again. “Tony will take care of him. Right now I want to get to know you better.”

Fabric ripped. It was an ugly sound. Frightening. Violent. Her hands dove for the tattered scraps of her halter top.

“Why are you fighting it?” he demanded, seizing her hands and squeezing the bones of her wrists until she feared they would snap.

“Come on, baby. I could smell you a mile away.” He cupped her chin, cold fingers fanning her cheek possessively as he nuzzled her neck, his wet breath rising hot and rancid to her sensitive nose. “You’re hurting for it. Let me make you feel better.”

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