Page 88 of Marked By Moonlight

Gideon stared at him. It couldn’t be that easy to save Claire. Could it? True, he had never thought how one might save someone from shifting. Before Claire, he had never wanted to.

“Don’t believe me.” Darius shrugged. “Claire does, and I promised to keep her safe.”

Darius’s words ripped through him like a bullet, reminding him that where he had failed, this lycan had managed to deliver.

Then he remembered one important fact. “Locked up with you is safe?”

“The rest of the world is safe from us, yes.”

“But she’s not safe fromyou.” Gideon was no fool. He knew what would happen between them in that room once they shifted, and he couldn’t stomach the thought.

“She is what she is. As am I.” He waved a hand at Gideon. “She doesn’t belong with you.”

“But she belongs withyou?”

“I’m a lycan. She’s a lycan. You are not. Think about it. I’m offering her a chance, a way out without risk to others or her soul.”

Gideon struggled against Darius’s offer, wanting to deny it, wanting to reject it as a possibility, knowing that releasing Claire meant giving her up—that she would belong to Darius. He couldn’t deny his feelings for her any longer. He loved her. He wanted her to live. Even if it meant living without him. Even if it meant giving her to this lycan.

He lowered the gun until it hung loosely from his fingers.

“All right. Let’s find her.”

“Gideon.” Kathleen Morgan sounded frantic. “I’m so glad you called. Have you seen Claire? We haven’t seen or heard from her since she left here.”

The knot in his gut tightened, twisting. “When was that?”

“Tuesday afternoon.”

“Did she say where she was going when she left there?”

“She needed to clear out her room at work,” Mrs. Morgan explained. “The school is using it for summer school classes. And a teacher needed to talk to her about a student.”

His fingers tightened about the phone. “Did she mention the student’s name?”

“Lenny, I think.”

Of course Claire would have gone to hear what the teacher had to say. “Don’t worry. We’ll find her.”

Less than an hour later he walked the halls of Roosevelt High School with Darius at his side. A handful of faculty still roamed the building, but it had the air of an abandoned ship. Most doors lining the halls were closed, the panels of glass next to them revealing darkened caves within. Summer vacation was well under way. He stopped a lone student, a boy lugging a saxophone case, and got directions to Claire’s room.

Her classroom was unlocked. He flipped on the lights, blinking against the sudden fluorescent glare. The room was empty save for the uniform rows of desks. One box sat on her desk and several more littered the floor.

“She never finished,” Darius announced, peering into a box.

Gideon’s gaze swept over the room. “She was interrupted,” he surmised aloud.

Darius lifted a backpack off the top of a desk with two fingers. A Hello Kitty mirror hung off the backpack’s zipper. “Hers?”

“No,” he answered, pulling her chair out from her desk, discovering her purse discreetly stashed on the cushioned seat. “She wouldn’t have left her purse.”

“Now what?” Darius asked.

“Let’s check the office downstairs. Maybe someone talked to her. Saw something.”

Darius pushed himself off a file cabinet and followed. As they neared the front office, they passed dozens of large photos displaying championship football teams, drill teams, and other school clubs.

“Hey, hold on a minute.”

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