Page 92 of Marked By Moonlight

“Looks like they’re dining in tonight,” Gideon pronounced grimly.

“With only five bodies to feed on, they can’t have more than half a dozen lycans inside. The rest probably ventured out to hunt, leaving the others behind to keep an eye on Claire.”

Darius grimaced as if struck by a troubling thought.

“What?” Gideon prodded.

“The first time—” Darius paused, clearly uncomfortable. “The first few times a lycan shifts, things can get out of hand. They can wreak a lot of damage, lose control. It’s often pack custom to mate with the initiate after they feed.”

Gideon’s hands dug into the earth in front of him, the moist soil slipping underneath his nails and filling his palms. The thought of Claire shifting, turning into one of them and enduring orgy sex filled his throat with bile.

The image of his mother fully shifted flashed across his mind—the gore on her face, his father’s blood on her monstrous hands. He hadn’t allowed himself to consider Claire actually shifting before. Not in reality. It was never supposed to come down to this. He had meant to either save her or destroy her. Now it appeared neither might occur. He shook his head and cleared his thoughts of all emotion, zeroing in on the mission at hand, slipping into his familiar role of hunter.

His gaze drifted back to the house, sizing up the lycans as they carried the bodies of their victims inside.

Gideon motioned to the window at the side of the house. “Let’s go.”

Darius grabbed hold of his wrist, stopping him. “It grows late,” he announced in that oddly formal speech of his.

Gideon followed Darius’s gaze to the purpling sky, the brilliant streaks of red and gold a painter’s dream. The sun had already disappeared below the treetops, forsaking them to the coming night.

Darius’s voice was no less firm for the quiet solemnity with which he spoke. “If we’re not out of here in time—”

“Don’t worry,” Gideon cut him off, giving a quick, single nod. “I’ll kill you.”

Darius’s lips twisted in a crooked smile. “Somehow I thought you’d say that.”

“No prob.” With a small amount of wonder, he realized he wouldn’t relish destroying the lycan. Hell, first Claire, now Darius. He might as well forget about being a lycan hunter and go into the business of lycan preservation.

“Let’s go.” Gideon crawled through the grass, calling over hisshoulder in hushed tones, “With any luck you’ll be back in that room of yours before moonrise.”

Claire dozed in and out of sleep with Nina’s head cushioned in her lap. She had quickly gotten over her fears of touching Nina and used a length of rope to bind Nina’s arm to her chest. The basement grew colder as the day faded, disappearing into shadows, and she covered Nina with a tarp.

“Miss Morgan,” Nina whispered in the stillness.

“Hmm?” Claire asked, trying to fight the hunger pains clawing her stomach.

She trailed her fingers through Nina’s hair, soft as a child’s. With a pang she realized Nina was just that—a child. Sometimes she forgot that her students, trapped in their almost grown bodies, were still children. Lenny had been only a boy. A lost boy whose sad life met an even sadder end. She blinked at the tears springing to her eyes.

Her inadvertent role in Lenny’s death pressed down on her chest, an invisible weight. No matter what happened she would never forget how Cyril had used her. Even if she succumbed to the curse and lost her soul, she would remember. Somehow she would cling to a shred of humanity, a bleeding scrap to bury deep and pull out one day when the chance arose. On that day she would make Cyril pay for all he had taken from her.

“Does it seem darker to you?”

Claire glanced at the single window. The muted beam of light was higher now, hitting the wall and not the floor.

“Just a bit.” Her voice quavered on the lie.

“I’ve been thinking about the way I’m gonna die—”

“Nina, don’t—”

“Please, let me say what I have to.” Nina grabbed her hand. Claire gasped at the unexpected coldness of her slight fingers. Her dark stare demanded she listen. “You could kill me before you change.”

She shook her head and pulled her hand free of Nina’s grasp, the horror of what she asked too much to contemplate.

Before she could voice her protest, Nina rushed on to say, “Over there. Take one of those.”

Claire followed her finger to where several pipes lay stacked near an old furnace. Instantly, she understood what Nina would have her do.

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