Huntbound (Moonfate Serial Book 2) Read online

  “That won’t be necessary,” Orion says. He tilts his head, as if looking out a window.

  I follow his gaze and notice three black cars slinking down my suburban street. Hell. I know those cars. They’re the same ones that visited this house seven years ago. They’re the FBSI. “Shit, Orion! Did you see that!?”

  He gives an exasperated sigh. “You’d think they’d try to be a little bit more inconspicuous.”

  “Why aren’t you freaking out?” My heart thrums in my chest. I glance back at the window. They’ve pulled up to the curb and stopped. A woman with dark hair and a darker, crisp suit steps out of the car.

  “Someone must have called them. Damn it! What do we do?”

  “Not someone, Artemis. Me.”

  “You?” I whirl. “Why would you call them?”

  “Because I’m one of their top agents.”

  Chapter Ten

  “You work for the FBSI,” I repeat for what must be the sixtieth time as I buckle up in Orion’s surprisingly unflashy Toyota Camry.

  The last five minutes have been a blur as Orion rapid-fire explained to me that his boss and co-agents would take care of the body while we got started on tracking Lawrence’s kidnapper. The moment I saw them I was ready to leave, to run, so it didn’t take any cajoling on Orion’s part to get me into the car. But as he pulls out of the parking space in a jerky turn — not bothering to signal — I’m beginning to move from confusion to suspicion.

  “You work for the FBSI.” I rap the leather dashboard a few times with my knuckles. “Not only that, but you’re one of their top agents.” Rap. “How is that even possible? I thought the FBSI was all humans.” Rap. Rap.

  Orion’s only answer is to run the yellow light at the end of the street, even as it ekes dangerously close to red.

  “Not very law-abiding for being a policeman,” I comment, still thinking aloud.

  “I’m not a policeman.”

  “Secret agent, whatever.”

  “It’s not a secret. I don’t keep secrets.” If he was speaking with anything but that complete cool control I’d think he was referring to me. But as usual he’s inscrutable.

  I still wince, though. That’s me, secret keeper. Bond resistor. I wonder what my parents would say if they saw me now? What would they want me to do?

  Probably not have sex up against a wall with a supernatural being in my dreams to avoid having to deal with my emotional baggage and then make out with him only one floor above a dead body. Probably not that at all.

  Eugh. I turn away from Orion and look out the window. The weather outside seems to be in just as much turmoil as my mind.

  Despite it not raining, the storm has settled in to stay. The sky is overcast, and the puddles dotting the road don’t seem in danger of evaporating. Humid air presses down on me, hot, heavy and churning with the promise of more rain soon to come.

  Thwap. I switch from tapping my fingers on the dashboard to slapping my palm against it.

  With one hand Orion executes a sharp turn onto East Ave, heading out toward the inner loop, and with his other hand he grabs my wrist. “Stop that.”

  I freeze at the contact. His grip is strong, but not painful. I try to wiggle out of it by collapsing my fingers, but I’ve never had tiny wrists, and even if I did that wouldn’t work. I glare at him. “Let go.”

  “It’s annoying. Enough.”

  “No.” Even through his light but unmovable grip I still manage to tap the leather. Thwap. “It’s been almost twenty minutes since you told me that apparently you work for a secret government organization, and you still haven’t answered any of my questions.”

  With his index finger he strokes the inside of my wrist, tracing the veins with his fingernail, before pressing down with his thumb. The pressure sends a tendril of desire weaving through my blood. “Ask me a question, Artemis. Any question. And I’ll answer.”

  I stop tapping.

  He gives me one last appreciative stroke before letting go of my wrist and sliding his eyes back toward the road.

  “Okay, so how does a werewolf come to work at the FBSI?”

  “I got into a lot of trouble when I was younger after I left the safe house. My friend Cal and I liked to play at vigilante justice,” Orion recites dispassionately. “Some of that trouble got me in contact with the FBSI. When they realized I had a unique skill set, they hired me instead of throwing me in the cage.”

  “The cage?”

  “As I said, werebeasts don’t like to be confined.”

  “Right.” I shiver at that, and look away. “Is it hard working for someone so” — evil — “ready to threaten you?”

  He laughs. “I’m much more experienced now than I was when they first found me. Now I do it because I enjoy it. As I said, I like to hunt.”

  I start at the sound of his laugh. I’ve never heard him laugh before. Smirk, smile, sure, but laugh? It transforms his face completely.

  “Any more questions?” he practically purrs. “Or is it my turn?”

  “Still my turn,” I say, my voice cracking on the last word. “So why you? Why did they pick you to work for them? Weren’t there a lot of werebeasts, umm, captured in the early days?”

  “None that are as good at tracking as me. Or as strong as Cal.”

  “Who’s Cal?”

  “A friend.” Without looking he takes his hand off the wheel again, but this time he doesn’t grab my wrist. Instead he reaches out to touch my hair.

  I still, suddenly cognizant of the sensation. His touch is like no other guy’s I’ve been with, not just because of the instant heat it awakens in my belly — although if I’m honest my panties haven’t been dry since I first saw him — but because of the way I can’t predict what he’s going to do next.

  For example, I’m sure that when he touches my hair he’s going to weave his fingers through it and play with it like he did every other time before. But he doesn’t. Instead he moves my hair away so my neck is exposed.

  I arch my back slightly, my skin feeling sticky against the leather seat behind me, even though I haven’t sweated that much. My body instinctually wants to give him access, wants to present itself. I clamp down on the urge and cross my arms over my chest.

  Eyes still focused on the road, Orion says, “You can cross your arms if you like. But I’m still going to touch you unless you tell me to stop. And you won’t. Because you like it.”

  “Where exactly are we going?” I clench my teeth.

  “I’m not sure,” Orion says. “Normally, I can intuit the direction clearly, but they’ve covered their tracks, so it’s more moment to moment.”

  “But you can still follow them.”

  “Of course I can, Artemis. I’m the best.”

  I roll my eyes. “Did anyone ever bother teaching you humility?”

  “Almost everyone I meet. But usually I teach them in the end.” I wait for his hand to move, but it doesn’t, it just rests on my neck with an unnervingly casual possessiveness, as if we’ve been lovers for years. “You’re the only one who has ever given me any real trouble.”

  I’m as disarmed by his honesty as I am by his touch. Despite the darkness surrounding him, Orion almost makes it a challenge not to trust him. “So how much longer do you think we have left?”

  “I’d say a couple of hours at most.”

  I nod, not knowing what else to say. A couple hours of driving and then what? I don’t ask, afraid of the answer. Will we have to fight? Will he kill?

  The next couple of hours pass slowly. Despite Orion’s assurance that he’s caught the trail, all I can smell are the exhaust fumes from the highway. I wish there was something I could do to speed up the process of finding him, but all I can do is sit here.

  I shake my head, trying to dislodge a curl that’s blown over my face from the breeze sneaking in through the cracked window. Orion got in trouble with the law — that much wasn’t hard to believe. But how did he go from being in trouble with the law to becoming it? His story doesn
’t gel with my experience with the FBSI, either. The agents who came to my house had all worn suits, stiff expressions, and seemed to regurgitate the same ‘classified’ speech anytime they opened their mouths, like mass-manufactured animatronic robots.

  I glance over at Orion and uncross my arms. The wind is tousling his hair back too, revealing the strong line of his jaw. I can’t look away from him. Not because he’s not wearing a shirt, although his toned body doesn’t hurt, but because every time I look at him I see something new. One moment he’s a monster, the next a man hurt by his father, by me. He’s like one of those pictures where when you turn it upside down it becomes something else entirely.

  And none of that fits with this car.

  “Why do you drive a Camry?”

  “Being unseen is just as important to a hunter as being fast. Sometimes even more important. Fancy means visible. And I had Stephania add some modifications to this one.”

  “Okay, well… Don’t you need to wear a uniform or something?”

  The corner of his mouth twitches. “I’m supposed to, yes. Black suit. But I wasn’t on duty when I was looking for you last night.”

  In the light of late afternoon, last night feels almost as unreal as the dream. Here we are, sitting in a car having a causal conversation. It’s almost like he never pushed me up against a wall and made me scream that I was his. It’s almost like I never wanted him to.

  “My turn to ask questions now, I think,” he says darkly.

  Almost.

  Chapter Eleven

  My mouth goes dry. In the last twenty minutes or so we’ve hopped onto the highway, and the suburbs have been supplanted by wide-open fields and an endless gray sky. Not that I can see much of that. We’re hurtling along at a 90 mile an hour blur, and it’s all I can do not to push open the door and throw myself out of the car.

  Orion’s touch I can take. His sympathy, I can appreciate. But him learning about me? Knowing my secrets? They’re the only shields I have against other people. And no matter how compelling Orion’s mysterious beauty may be, he is definitely an other.

  Orion raps his fingers on the back of my neck the same way I did on the dashboard. It sends a thrill of arousal through me and is a reminder. He owns this body. My body. Or at least he thinks he does.

  “What…” He trails off. “Hmm, so many choices, Little Mate.”

  I glare at him.

  He smiles, clearly reveling in the suspense.

  What an annoying, arrogant bastard. So why am I biting back a smile?

  “What is your favorite color?”

  My eyebrows shoot up to my hairline. “Really?”

  He gives gas to the accelerator, sending me slamming back into the seat. Those are some modifications.

  “I could start with something else if you’d like,” Orion says.

  “No. Color is fine.”

  “Good,” he says.

  I’m beginning to get the sense that he didn’t gun the engine because of my incredulity, but something else. His eyes are glued to the road now, and his other hand retreats from my neck to grip the wheel.

  “Is something wrong?” I ask.

  “Nothing immediate. Answer the question.”

  I sit up; the seatbelt bites against my skin as I survey the road. But with my puny human senses I don’t see anything weird. So after a moment, I say, “Black.”

  He snorts. “Of course.”

  “What?”

  “You wore all black the first time I caught you, and you’ve barely decorated your house. Do you always look like you’re going to a funeral?”

  I stiffen at the word funeral, because of all the hidden threads of subtext that link to that one ceremony. I’ve never thought it of it like that. Even though my favorite color changed after my parents’ death, I’ve always thought it was just because I was growing up and black seemed sophisticated. Looking at it his way, I’ve been in one long bout of mourning.

  “Your turn again, Little Mate,” Orion says softly. “If you make it a good one, maybe I’ll sate your desire tonight.”

  Just as I’m about to say something, about how I’m not his mate, how this will all end when we find Lawrence, or perhaps spit out the truth that werebeasts killed my parents, I risk a glance toward him out of the corner of my eye. To my surprise Orion’s not smirking knowingly, or worse looking at me with that kindly, contrived brand of pity most people reserve for a grown-up orphan girl. No. He’s hunched over the wheel, knuckles snow-white.

  My stomach sinks, all my petty fears crystallizing into a single urgent anxiety. Lawrence.

  “What’s going on?” Again I look forward, but there’s nothing there that I can see. Although that may be because we’re going even faster now. The arrow on the speedometer trembles around 95.

  “Lean back,” Orion commands.

  Before I can obey he’s gunned the engine and I’m plastered back against the seat from the G-force. “What the hell?”

  “I’ve spotted them.”

  “I don’t see anything.” I fight against the seatbelt, trying to peer beyond the horizon, but I can’t. The whole dashboard is starting to shake now and the speedometer is pushing 120.

  “Orion!”

  He only guns it harder, speeds around a rickety old station wagon so tightly that I swear we almost snap off their rear view mirror. “We’re getting close.”

  But then I see it. A couple of exits ahead, just where the highway starts to curve into a more forested area, a large white van is weaving around traffic at close to the same speed as us. That must be them.

  I press my foot against the floor of the car, as if pressing on an imaginary brake will slow us, but then I let up. I think of Lawrence. Lawrence is in that van. Who knows what they’ve done to him already?

  “Hold on,” says Orion as he darts around a minivan, getting dangerously close to the divider.

  I grit my teeth. While we were gaining on the white van, they must have noticed us. We’re not exactly inconspicuous. I guess they have sped up, because we’re not overtaking them yet, but it’s hard to tell with everything moving so fast.

  The car jolts as we hit a pothole.

  Damn.

  I’m going to die out here. I just know it. I close my eyes, waiting for the eventual impact or for the car to give out.

  “Artemis.”

  Orion’s voice startles me, but I keep my eyes closed.

  “Artemis!”

  “What?”

  “I need you to open your eyes for me.”

  “Why?”

  “This is not the time to argue.”

  My eyes fly open. My breathing is heavy, my heart still galloping in my chest. But only for a moment. The trembling in the car has calmed, and now the speedometer sits at seventy. All that and traffic’s thinned out, leaving us with a straight shot to the van.

  “I need you to look behind us and tell me what you see.”

  “Behind us? But—” The words die in my mouth the moment I look in the rearview mirror. There, shooting down the freeway like an ebony bullet, is a motorcycle, and much like we were, it’s dodging around the station wagon and then the mini-van. Heading straight towards us.

  “M-motorcycle,” I splutter out. “There’s a motorcycle following us.”

  But before Orion can respond I notice something else. The white van is slowing down. “Orion, look!” Oh fuck — soon we’ll be right up against them, and the motorcycle at the same time. How are we going to handle both of them, let alone save Lawrence?

  “I’m going to get my gun.” With my other hand I pop open the glove compartment just as Orion decelerates. The gun comes flying out of the compartment and into my lap. Please say I left the safety on.

  When after a second it doesn’t discharge, I feel sure that I did. Thank God. Its cool metal vibrates against my leg from the force of our speed. Or maybe that’s me. Either way, I pick it up. I have to.

  “Artemis, put the gun away,” Orion growls with all the force at his command.
<
br />   Maybe it’s the adrenalin pumping up my resistance, or maybe I’m finally getting strong enough, but his werecall slides right off me. I am not going to sit idly by this time. I am going to protect myself. “No. We have to do this together. I can do this.”

  The motorcyclist swerves into the lane next to us. He’s close enough that in a few more seconds we’ll be side by side. Fuck! I swallow and flip off the safety. What am I even thinking of doing?

  “Artemis. The motorcyclist is—”

  But whatever Orion was going to say is cut off because the white van flies off the highway in the one spot where there isn’t a divider and into a nearby field.

  I can see what Orion’s going to do before it happens, before he wrenches the wheel to the right and we go flying off the highway. In that split second all I can do is watch with a gaping mouth as we hurtle off of the road and towards the white van at what must be at the very least 60 miles an hour.

  A white van that’s now smoking. A white van that probably holds Lawrence.

  Please.

  It’s the one word I can think as we remain suspended.