Huntbound (Moonfate Serial Book 2) Page 3

  He’s right.

  It’s not.

  The world is dissolving around us.

  I’m waking up.

  Chapter Five

  There is no story humans believe we know better than that of Adam and Eve. But the truth, buried within the ancient Greek and Latin, is quite different.

  In the ancient werebeast texts, instead of being created, Adam and Eve were angels who descended from heaven to earth in order to seek out new lands. But they weren’t alone.

  Lucifer, a demon, rose up from hell, and, in the interest of capturing earth, seduced Eve. Some say with an apple, some say with a kiss, others say with something else entirely: knowledge. Not knowledge of the heavens or the earth, but knowledge of herself. Of her desires. And the potential of what she could be if she only gave up trying to construct Eden and allowed for mistakes. For tragedy. For sin.

  Whatever the reason, Lucifer and Eve made love and begot the child, Eth. Unlike Adam and Eve, who could only use their magic to tame the world around them, not themselves, Eth could change his shape. And it was this that was his undoing.

  Because one day Adam found the boy playing by his favorite tree and startled him. When he did, Eth turned into a snake out of fear, revealing his identity instantly.

  Enraged at Eve’s betrayal, Adam burned paradise and used his last reserves of power to banish Lucifer back to the demon world.

  But unlike Lucifer, Eth was not cursed.

  While the children of Adam and Eve lost their divinity and power over time, until they became humans, the children of Eth kept their father’s power to change forms. They were also blessed with chosen mates, so that the tragedy of their grandmother’s betrayal would never happen again.

  - Beasts, Blood and Bonds by Dr. Nina M. Strike

  Returning to reality feels a little bit like trying to latch onto a weak cell phone signal. The world flickers between the white walls of Orion’s prison and the equally empty walls of my childhood home.

  When I finally awaken fully, I lie on my half-deflated air mattress for a moment, reveling in the clearer details and most of all the blessed summer warmth. Even if the plastic of the air mattress is sticky against my skin.

  All too soon thought follows sensation. We may have returned to reality, but nothing is fixed. Lawrence is still missing. Cooper is still dead. And Orion isn’t half the monster I thought he was. He’s suffered just as much as I have.

  And speak of the devil. He’s looming over me. He must have awoken a few seconds ago. His naked, sculpted torso and overgrown hair coupled with his flashing eyes are even more out of place in my childhood home than they were in the dream.

  I pull my tangled sheets up to my chin, even though I’m dressed underneath them. “Hi.”

  I mean to sound resolute, as if I’m ready to move forward and forget about the dream. But it’s impossible when he’s looking at me as if it was my nightmare we emerged from, not his.

  He offers me a hand. “We’ve got to get moving.”

  The covers bunch up around my fingers as I clench them, the rough, artificial fabric a contrast to the softness of his hair I felt only moments ago. He’s right, I know. But I don’t even know how to start finding Lawrence, let alone how to deal with the dead body downstairs. “I—”

  Orion bends over and gently but firmly pries my fingers from the comforter.

  “I can get up myself,” I say. But I can’t. My bones turn to liquid the second his skin brushes mine.

  He lets me go at that, leaving me to get up on my own, his jaw set in a determined line. “I’m going to go downstairs and evaluate the body. Get changed and meet me in the living room in five minutes.”

  I step back away from him, looking at him warily. This is not the man I kissed in the dream. Not the one who looked at me with such vulnerable need.

  Not waiting for an answer, he stalks toward the door.

  “Wait,” I call.

  But he doesn’t stop, leaving me staring at the place he once was. I could come up with a thousand explanations for his behavior, but I don’t have time to filter through them all.

  So instead of ruminating on why Orion is suddenly all business, I tromp over to my duffle bag. With trembling fingers I remove my still slightly damp black ensemble and pull on a pair of wonderfully dry jeans and a baggy t-shirt. The whole process takes less time than I thought it would, and all too soon I’m staring at my bedroom door.

  I tell myself my reluctance to go downstairs is because there’s a dead body down there, but the truth is I’m not afraid of the body, or even of Orion’s mercurial moods; what I am afraid of is the fact that I have no idea how to deal with either. I don’t even how we’re going to find Lawrence.

  From beside the air mattress, my scuffed pink laptop beckons. One check of Tracker can’t hurt. Last night, I didn’t see anyone or anything on it that would’ve helped me find Lawrence, but maybe something’s changed since then.

  I plop back down, the air mattress wheezing as I do. Then I turn over onto my stomach and grab my computer, pulling it in front of me. When I open it up, the screen lights up automatically. In the uppermost corner its battery status blinks at 15%.

  I click the Tracker app icon in the corner of the screen, bringing my nails to my lips as it loads. Finally the app opens, showing a zoomed-in map of my street in Rochester, New York. I flinch when I see two dots hovering right over my location. Orion North and Cooper Dunham.

  Just to be sure, I browse the backwards logs again, looking for anything at the timestamp around midnight or a little after. But nothing strange jumps out at me.

  So I try something else. With a diagonal swipe of my trackpad, I both zoom out and navigate back to the present time, until I’m looking at a full map of Rochester right now. Most shifters don’t like to go inside cities because changing forms is illegal in high-density areas, so I’m not surprised by the lack of the red dots within the inner loop. But I am surprised by the lack of them outside of the city.

  Only last night there were a hundred of them swarming the city limits, like some kind of siege. Now they’re all gone, replaced by the bland beige and white stripes of streets and city blocks.

  I scroll out further.

  Or not gone.

  They’re just forty miles south. Still in the same formation. Out of curiosity, I flip back in time and trace their movements. Strange. They’re too big to be a pack of any one kind of shifter, but they seem to move like one. For the past two weeks they’ve been heading down from Canada. At least I assume they must have been, because they all appear at the border about two weeks ago. Before to that, there’s nothing.

  “Curiouser and curiouser.”

  “Artemis!” Orion bellows from downstairs.

  Shit.

  “Yes,” I call. “Coming.”

  I slam the laptop shut. It feels slightly voyeuristic, knowing that I can find out where any werebeast is at any time. Whether they like it or not. And after everything Orion told me in his nightmare, suddenly I feel a whole lot less comfortable with it.

  My mind still buzzing with the new mystery of the werebeast swarm, I head downstairs.

  I can do this.

  I have no choice.

  Chapter Six

  Orion’s already surveying the body when I reach the bottom of the landing, making wide arcs around it like he’s a seagull trying to find a safe place to land.

  He doesn’t turn around, but he does offer, “You’re late.” The eggshell light of early afternoon streams through the windows and illuminates him from behind, along with a few dust motes spiraling through the air.

  It would be beautiful, if not for the dead body just beyond him. The scene is even worse in the clarity of day than it was last night. Cooper’s yellow polo shirt is bright against the dark red of the already drying blood seeping into the newly refinished hardwood floors. Unlike my parents, he’s not mauled, just a little askew. Somehow that’s worse. As if it proves how little it takes to end someone’s life.

&
nbsp; “Who did this?” I ask.

  “A werecoyote. And he’s heading north.”

  My gaze snaps to Orion. He’s gotten closer to the body now and is leaning over it, still shirtless. Is he allergic to shirts or something? It would be comical, if I didn’t feel like I want to throw up.

  “How do you know?”

  He tilts his head, as if he’s listening, and then takes a deep breath through his nostrils. Oh. Not listening. Smelling.

  “Blood, decay, wood, sandalwood and Caribbean sea salt — that must be the pufferfish. Garbage can and wet fur below that.” He sniffs one more time, but his brow furrows when he does. “Yes, definitely coyote, but deeper underneath even that there’s something else.”

  “Lawrence?” I clench my fists so hard that my fingernails dig into my palms. Please let him be alive.

  Orion stands upright, closes his eyes and takes another, deeper breath, and another, and another. He shakes his head. “No. It’s silver nitrate. They must have used it to cover their tracks, or at least your friend’s. Normally I wouldn’t be able to smell them at all, but I’m mildly immune to silver.”

  “You’re mildly immune to silver?” I repeat dumbly. A flush comes to my cheeks when I realize why. His father kept him in a room poisoned with silver-based chemicals for two years. Of course he’s slightly immune.

  “Can we still follow them?” I ask, my voice cracking. All of this will be for nothing if I can’t find Lawrence.

  Orion doesn’t answer. Instead, he bends down and places his hand on the back of Cooper’s body in the one patch of his yellow polo not covered in blood.

  “You shouldn’t touch him,” I say. “It’s not right.” Touching him makes him real. Makes all of this real.

  “I’ve handled my share of carcasses.”

  “He’s not a carcass. He’s a man.” I swallow, wondering of those carcasses Orion handled how many were animals and how many were humans. Has Orion murdered, too?

  “He isn’t a man. He was a werebeast.” Orion shoves his hands into Cooper’s pockets with no ceremony, as if Cooper’s not a corpse but just some kind of eerily well-rendered coat rack. All of his movements, I’m noticing, have the ease of practice, professionalism. This isn’t the first time he’s rifled around a dead body. Of that I’m sure.

  “His name’s Cooper Dunham, if you’re looking for a wallet. He’s a werepufferfish, and I think he works for somebody dangerous who really doesn’t like gay people. Maybe the werecoyote,” I say, hoping that if I provide the information Orion will step away from the body. I just want to get out of here and find Lawrence. I just want this to be over.

  “Thank you,” Orion says, although he doesn’t get up. He’s fiddling with something in his hands now, but I can’t see exactly what from behind. “And yes, I can still track them, more or less.”

  I blink. Wow. So the werewolf can be polite and answer a question non-cryptically.

  “I don’t have a car, but I guess we could rent one,” I say.

  He places his large hands on his tight, jean-clad thighs and stands up. “We’ll be riding in my car.”

  He turns to me, holding something high above his head: an aerodynamic square of glass and metal. It looks like a smart phone, but one from ten years from now. It must be some kind of prototype. Orion regards it like it’s a strange insect.

  “That must be Cooper’s phone,” I explain slowly.

  “I know that.” Orion frowns, but he brings it down and examines it in a way that makes clear that he most certainly didn’t. “I’ll have to send it to my friend Stephania for testing to get the data off it.”

  “You know we might be able to just plug it into a computer, right? It probably has a universal port.”

  “You’re a clever one. But, no. It’s best that we send it off to her.” Then he shrugs, a roguish grin flirting with his lips. It should be a welcome respite from his clinical demeanor of before, but somehow it just makes things worse. This is all just a joke to him. “I don’t particularly care to mess around with computer bacteria and codes.”

  “Computer bacteria?”

  He waves a hand dismissively. “Viruses, whatever you humans call them.”

  “And your friend is human?” And a girl. Something flares in my belly at that thought, and it’s not desire.

  He grins. “You have nothing to worry about, Little Mate. Stephania isn’t my type. Although you do have her to thank for our first conversation. She gave me the phone to message you with. None of that electronics nonsense makes any sense to me.”

  I cross my arms. “You mean you were logged on to Tracker just to look for me?”

  His grin widens until I can see the tips of his canines and he is pure, satisfied wolf. “Just to find you. Which I did. After you appeared in my dreams I knew that you must be close, and I also knew that you knew that I must be close. So I assumed you’d go looking for me. Otherwise I’d never go on a thing like that.”

  “Bastard,” I splutter. In trying to run away from him, to pin him down, I had in fact been caught myself.

  Before I can stop him, he leans in and presses a kiss to the corner of my lips.

  My hands fly to my mouth. “What was that for?”

  He smirks. “You’re charming when you’re annoyed.”

  I blush. The last time someone called me ‘charming’ was when I was six, singing the national anthem for the school talent show, the only one who didn’t crack on the high note. The moment I got my curves all the guys either thought I was sexy or a cow, with little middle ground. ‘Charming’ has always been a word reserved for the size twos and fours.

  No. Jesus. Focus. I press my hands to my cheeks as if I can wipe away the stain of red spreading across them. Lawrence is fucking kidnapped and there’s a dead body a few feet away. Damn matemark hormones. I will not let him make me forget myself.

  “We need to find Lawrence,” I say lamely. My voice trembles. “How soon can we leave?”

  “We will, Artemis,” Orion promises, all the teasing gone from his voice. “I swear to you, we will. But before we leave, you will show me the rest of the house. While I know for certain that werecoyotes murdered Cooper, it’s possible that someone else took Lawrence.”

  “Fine,” I huff. “Where do you want to start?”

  Chapter Seven

  “The number of times that werebeasts and humans have coexisted peacefully can be counted on one hand. The most famous of course is Rome. Remus and Romulus, two werebeast twins, founded the great city and helped craft the beginnings of a civilization that was as savage as it was sophisticated, as beautiful as it was terrible. The werebeasts led great conquering armies and the humans planned the city, ran the governments, and took care of the details that werebeasts found too boring. But they were not slaves. In fact, the only concession they made was that many of their women ended up becoming weremates. While some of the human men were upset with this, many others learned to adapt, and among the high officials and others homosexuality was seen as a mark of prestige, not of shame.”

  -Beasts, Blood & Bonds by Dr. Nina M Strike

  I tromp up the stairs and Orion follows close enough behind me that I feel like I’m being herded. There’s something too at ease in the way he walks as well, as if this is his own home.

  A shiver passes through me at that thought, and I’m glad that I’m a few paces ahead of him, so that he can’t see me. I try to suppress the memory of the dream, of me screaming out his name, and even worse, what happened after that. The way he looked at me. The way I looked at him.

  But none of that matters now. It can’t. All that matters is finding Lawrence.

  I reach my door, but I don’t stop, wanting to put as much distance between us as possible.

  “This is your friend’s room.” A strong, masculine hand whispers against the small of my back, a guiding touch that instantly makes my spine stiffen and my core clench.

  “Jesus,” I say. As usual, Orion’s managed to sneak right up behind me. I open the door and
walk through it to avoid him, quickly angling my body so my back is against the wall. “Yes.”

  He prowls in after me, and I watch his every movement. He said he’s handled carcasses before. What does he do for a living? Is he some kind of werewolf hit man?

  The room is as clean as ever. Despite everything that’s happened, Lawrence’s bed is made and the refurbished Craigslist furniture is still edging out charming over shabby. The only difference is that I closed the window. Fucking locked it, too.

  Orion gives a cursory glance over the dresser and the phone still lying there, but to my surprise he doesn’t go to pick it up. You’d think that’d be the first bit of evidence he’d examine.

  But then again, maybe not. Orion doesn’t like phones.

  Instead he closes his eyes and sniffs again.

  It should be weird, but the way his nose crinkles is almost kind of enticing.