Moon Cursed (Sky Brooks Series Book 5) Read online

  Nearly ten minutes had passed and I was getting tired of watching her watch the house. I stepped outside. “Sable, do you need something?”

  “You haven’t found your human pet?” she asked, reminding me of vampire speed because she’d cleared the twenty feet between us by the time I’d asked the question.

  “Kelly is still missing. Do you know of anything more you can offer to help find her?”

  Distracted, she had a look on her face as though she was trying to prevent herself from inciting chaos or doing something malicious. It was obvious that those were her favorite things, and anything else was tedious. She had taken a strange liking to Gavin, the pack’s resident were-panther. When she’d threatened to kill our pack’s nurse—Kelly—out of jealousy, it had strained their relationship. When Kelly had gone missing, he’d ended things with Sable. Since then, she’d made an effort to help us find Kelly.

  “He still thinks I had something to do with it. He will not speak to me.”

  Dammit. I’d asked him to speak to her. We didn’t need her unrequited obsession to make her any more unstable and volatile than she already was.

  “He doesn’t. Gavin’s distracted, he wants to find his friend.”

  She kept saying the word over and over. “Friend? Friend?”

  I nodded, but I wasn’t definite about that, either. The pack’s friendship and love were hard to define and even harder to understand. What most people considered restraining-order-stalker-obsession was just them making sure you were safe. It was their version of friendship that could only be defined as peculiar.

  “Do you know anything more, Sable? Before, you told me that other people were missing. Have you noticed more?”

  “The witches have been silent. It’s never good when the witches are silent.” And then she was gone. Of course sticking around for more questioning was too much to ask.

  Thank you, Sable. Here I was missing my daily dose of crazy.

  She was right, the witches had been silent since my last encounter with them. I’d gotten Ethos killed and ruined their chances of getting the Aufero back or possessing the Clostra, much less using any of the spells in the latter. I was somewhat surprised that they hadn’t tried to retaliate, but after their fight with Josh, the Creed, which consisted of the most powerful witches in the country, was now down to two members. Perhaps they were busy trying to find suitable replacements, or nursing their battered pride.

  CHAPTER 2

  The size of the pack’s retreat was always overwhelming and seemed unnecessary to me. I understood why we had the infirmary. It came in handy—a lot. But the sheer size of the place was staggering, especially when you were searching for a kitten. When had Josh called me to ask me to meet him in the library, he’d assured me Gavin was at the house. Gavin and Dr. Jeremy had taken the lead on looking for Kelly while the others were split between dealing with the pack’s ongoing business and Logan.

  I caught a glimpse of him as he moved around the corner. His sleek physique embodied the panther he housed. His sinewy body and lissome movements made him difficult to track; he was also an excellent hunter, which was something I was always aware of when I dealt with him. I continued down the hall. “Here, kitty kitty. I have something for you. Come out, come out wherever you are.” I glanced into the rooms I passed.

  “Don’t call me kitty,” his rough voice commanded from behind me. I spun around. His dark eyes narrowed on me. “Skylar, what do you want?”

  I smiled, large and cloying, hoping he would respond similarly. He didn’t.

  Ignoring his dour look, I reached in my bag and pulled out my little gift. I stepped closer, clipped a red key hook with a bell at the end to the belt loop of his jeans and tapped it. It jingled. “Now you don’t have to keep scaring the hell out of people with your skulking.” My smile broadened and I gave the bell another playful jingle. He wasn’t amused. At. All.

  The deeply seated scowl wasn’t going anywhere. I ignored it and asked, “About Sable—”

  “I’ve spoken to her already. I will not keep giving her the ‘we’re done’ conversation. Whether or not she accepts it is her problem and hers alone.”

  That was a different issue, and I just didn’t have the time to delve into it now let alone repair it. Fixing it wasn’t an option, and I personally liked the idea that he was no longer dealing with her. Eventually, when she lost interest in him, she would lose it in me, too, and I would stop getting her odd visits whenever it suited her.

  “Okay. But she thinks you aren’t speaking to her because you believe she had something to do with Kelly being missing. I don’t think she does.”

  His shoulders sagged. I concluded that he realized that, too, and was misdirecting his frustration to Sable.

  “Sable believes the witches have been too silent. I’m not sure if they have anything to do with things, but maybe we should find out what they’ve been up to.”

  His long fingers stroked over his lips as he considered it. “They have been quiet,” he acknowledged. Then he turned and started to walk away, because normal conversations with him only happened by accident. When he was done, there wasn’t a good-bye or some tautology like “it was nice talking to you.” Nope, His Weirdness just walked away. This time when he walked away, the bell jingled. He made an irritated sound, turned around, and dropped the now-crushed bell and keychain loop at my feet.

  “And that’s why you can’t have nice things,” I teased. “You won’t be getting any more gifts from me if that’s how you’re going to behave.”

  Gavin’s dark chuckle drifted down the hall.

  The witches, the manimal that had died in my neighbor’s home with chemicals in his body that were synthetic versions of those found in were-animals, the feral man that Winter and I had seen in the forest—they all seemed to be linked somehow. But I had a hard time attributing it to the witches. Those things didn’t seem like anything they would be involved in. They seemed like something the Makellos, the self-professed elven elite who lived in Elysian, would have their hands in since they had a penchant for experimenting and making odd, eerie animals.

  After my conversation with Gavin, I went to the library. We were putting on a heck of an act like we were trying to help Logan, so much so that Ethan, Josh, and I were in the library looking over spells to remove his curse. I hoped it was just an act. It didn’t feel or look like one. Books, notepads, cups of coffee that we’d filled several times, and a laptop were tossed about on the table. Josh and I kept using the laptop to look up things.

  Josh looked disconcerted and glanced over at his brother, who was standing behind me, looking over my shoulder at the book I was reading, translating the Latin words before I could pull out my phone to Google them. I was wondering how Josh had found time since the last time I’d seen him to get more tattoos. Now he had a full sleeve of them on both arms, easily visible from under his t-shirt.

  He slid a book across the table to Ethan. “This would go faster if you had your own book. Sky’s done this before—many times. Even before you decided you wanted to start helping. So if you plan to help—then help.”

  Ethan glared at him and then the book, dismissing them both.

  As with anything between the brothers, Josh accepted the implied challenge. “Have a seat, brother.” He flicked his finger, and a chair that was against a wall pushed into the back of Ethan’s legs; another swift movement of his finger and Ethan was given a magical nudge into it.

  Most people could always count on their sibling rivalry to be a source of entertainment. This contest involved one of the strongest shapeshifters in the country, Beta of the most powerful pack in the world, and his brother, one of the most talented and strongest witches alive. Sibling dynamics weren’t enough. Each had to subtly demonstrate his dominance over the other’s perceived defiance.

  After a few minutes of perusing the book in his hand, Josh asked Ethan, “Have you had any luck getting a lead on Chris?”

  Ethan relaxed back in the chair and then sho
ok his head.

  “How long has she been gone?” Josh asked.

  “I’m not sure. I wonder what the hell Demetrius did to her to make her leave and go underground.”

  “Are we really going to do this? You’re going to find Chris to give her to Logan like she’s property?” I snapped angrily.

  “Sky, don’t do this,” Ethan said in a low voice.

  “Don’t do what? Have ethics that get in the way of what you’re thinking about doing?”

  “Sky, this isn’t a black-or-white situation. It’s not about morals, it’s about survival.”

  “I understand what you’re saying, I just don’t agree with it. I thought we were going to present the illusion that we were looking and not actually look for her.” I figured we needed to focus on the lesser of the two evils. “Why don’t we work on a way to remove his marks first?”

  Josh looked at Ethan, aggrieved. “You didn’t tell her?”

  “Tell me what?” I asked, my attention jumping between the two of them.

  “Don’t you think you should tell her? I didn’t agree to this. We’ve done some crappy things before, but this is low. Very low. His obsession should not be our obligation,” Josh said in a low drawl.

  “You know I don’t want to do this. We don’t have a lot of options,” Ethan shot back.

  They kept going back and forth, but they didn’t answer my question. “You all are looking for Chris to give her to that monster? Are you insane? She escaped from one, only to be handed over to another.” I stood, glaring at both of them, finding them equally culpable.

  Josh might not have agreed with it, but he had sat idly by and let the decision be made to do so. Perhaps I was being unfair to him, but everything I thought and felt was clouded by a haze of anger, regret, and apprehension. I felt stifled by the lack of options and my guilt was making things even harder. They were doing these horrid things to save me. That burden was becoming increasingly hard to handle, and the gnawing feeling of not knowing why my life was so important to the pack bothered me. They had made more than enough deals with people and incurred costly debts, all for me. What about me was so important that they made deals with the unscrupulous and allied themselves with those that they hated? And now this.

  I turned to Ethan. “How can you do this to her? You know she’s hiding from Demetrius because of what he did to her.”

  I didn’t have details, but the Master of the Northern Seethe had approached me about using our resources to find her. When questioned about why she was missing, he’d admitted that he’d punished her. Demetrius prided himself on breaking people and took great pleasure in taming “the wild ones.” And if anyone ever fit that description, it was Chris. Unrestricted by any defined codes of ethics, she seemed to adhere to her own, which differed from the norm. She allied with whoever could help her cause, and for the right price, there wasn’t any job she wasn’t willing to do. And the very reasons Demetrius saw fit to “break” her were the same things that drew him to her. Ethan still denied she was the vampire’s lover, but since Demetrius had a polyamorous relationship with Michaela, the Seethe’s Mistress, I didn’t know why he was so sure of that.

  “I know, Sky. I have no intention of handing her off to him, but if we need more time, well—”

  “Well what, Ethan?” Revulsion crawled along my spine, the suffocating feeling of something heavy overburdening me, the nauseating sensation of bile creeping up the back of my throat. Plain and simple—I was disgusted. Disgusted with my pack. I realized there were unsavory things that we had to engage in, but this was one I would dig my heels in on and refuse to accept.

  Ethan leaned in, and I forced myself not to withdraw my hand when he touched it. “Sky, I give you my word, we will not be giving Chris to Logan.” There seemed to be an implied “unless,” and I didn’t like that at all.

  “You have to promise me that under no circumstance will you do this. I’ll concede to removing his marks, but we can’t give him a person. We can’t devolve into monsters.”

  Ethan made a face, a combination of amused and bewildered. His smile possessed the same conceit, confidence, and danger that I’d become too familiar with. Gunmetal rolled over his eyes as they narrowed on me. I tried unsuccessfully to hold them. “Concede? Sky, I do believe you have misunderstood your position in this pack. We consider your desires, but Sebastian and I make the decisions. You don’t concede anything.”

  Then you both better decide not to do it. I really hoped I’d kept that in my head. Something invoked a primal nature in animals, that primordial need to subjugate those that challenged an Alpha’s dominance. And although Ethan was the Beta in Midwest Pack, it was common knowledge that the strength of the pack was that we essentially had two Alphas. Ethan took on the role of Beta, but he was far from it. In any other pack, he would have been the Alpha.

  Taking on a submissive role seemed like it should have easy. I was in a submissive position to Ethan and Sebastian, but the intimacy that Ethan and I had obscured that role. I was with him; we were two people having a disagreement about an issue. It was up to both of us to come up with a solution. But in the pack, if there was a problem, it was up to the five ranking members, led by Sebastian, to come up with a solution and make it right. It was the rules—I hated the rules.

  We lived in a world of intangible rules and tenets blurred in so many shades of gray that it was no longer decipherable, but there remained one thing that was well defined—pack rules and dynamics. Even if the world erupted in chaos and everything was reduced to rubble, the pack rules would stand among the ruins. Many things the pack did toed very obscure lines between right and wrong. Deeming something ethical or unethical was dependent on whether it helped or hurt the pack. The boundaries between what they considered acceptable and unacceptable behavior were as tenuous; their rules were the only constant. Guidelines that they lived and died by.

  I’d learned that the hard way when I’d tried to convince Ethan not to challenge Sebastian after the Alpha had been gravely injured. The pack rules required him to do so if he didn’t feel that Sebastian could lead. He would have to challenge him if he didn’t step down. Ethan had been prepared to kill his friend because of pack rules. It still left an acrid taste in my mouth and had given me an even stronger disdain for the pack’s amoral system I’d bound myself to.

  I lowered my head, hating the feel and taste of submission. When I looked up, Ethan was frowning. He leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. “I promise you, I will do everything to come up with something you can live with. Okay?”

  I nodded.

  “At what point should I be offended that I didn’t get any kisses and promises? I said something very similar to you this morning, and not once did you cuddle me, and I damn sure didn’t get any gentleness or sweet kisses. I’m starting to feel like you like Sky a little more than me,” Josh said in exaggerated offense.

  Ethan laughed. “As if there’s a contest.” He stood and slid the book he was holding onto the table and started out the door. “I definitely like her more than you.” He closed the door behind him, barely escaping the books that Josh had lobbed in his direction. Ethan’s laughter floated down the hallway, but it was his promise that had lifted my spirit. He’d promised me, something he’d never done before.

  We returned to looking over the various books that were stacked on the table. “I don’t think we’re going to find anything that will work,” I admitted, scanning over the small stack of books that we had gone through without success. “The spell we did with the Clostra removed everyone’s curses, why didn’t it remove his markings?”

  Josh made a face, and although he hadn’t resigned himself to defeat, he seemed pessimistic, which wasn’t like him. “A very unique and powerful spell must have been done to make them,” he said. Then he absently thumbed through a book. “What type of witches could do that?”

  “That’s the same thing I was thinking. I feel like there’s something missing in the story.”

  Josh nodde
d. “If it was just a spell done by the witches, I’m not sure I want to get on their bad side by removing it.”

  I wholeheartedly agreed. Which brought up another problem. The witches had been fractured for a long time. There were many who didn’t affiliate with the Creed, and most of them were powerful. Marcia had been known to find a way to punish those who were stronger than her for minor infractions. I couldn’t help but imagine there was a small but powerful group of disgruntled witches out there. I just hoped they weren’t as bitter and closed-minded as Samuel.

  I had been in the library with Josh for several hours, looking at spells with the hope that we would stumble on something even if it could only help us understand why Logan’s marks remained, when I glanced out the door and saw Steven’s reddish curls disappearing around the corner. I immediately jumped up and darted out of the room to follow him. He kept walking even after I’d called his name. He’d been behaving funny and I wasn’t sure why. He didn’t answer or return my calls, and his text replies were simple one- or two-word responses and an occasional emoticon.

  He was just about to get in his car when I caught the edge of the door. “You didn’t hear me calling you?”

  He didn’t answer. Steven was too sweet to openly admit he was ignoring me and would rather not answer than ever tell me a lie. “Are you angry with me? Did I do something wrong?”

  “No, Sky, of course not.” But he wouldn’t make eye contact. I waited until he looked up and searched the wide, gentle eyes that always concealed the skilled predator that lurked behind them.