Hunter Moon (The Moon Series) (22 page)

He smiled at her as he passed by to get his coffee. When he had it in hand, he returned and sat down across from her. “It is good to see you again,” he began before taking a sip.

“You too,” she replied with what she hoped was an easy smile. This cloak and dagger stuff was nerve wracking as all hell, and Kess was glad that it was almost over. Having to pretend she was unaware of what exactly Lukas was up to was not coming easily to her. Instead of saying anything, she took another sip of her tea.

“My time here is almost up,” he said, and Kess thought she saw a flicker of fear pass through his eyes. But then he blinked and there was nothing in them but the blue of a cloudless sky. “I would like to spend more time with you.”

“Do you have to go back to Europe?” Kess tried to put a bit of dismay into her voice.

“Not to Europe,” Lukas said. “But I am…” he trailed off, searching for the right word, “expected somewhere else.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she replied, dropping her hands into her lap so he wouldn’t see her fidgeting. Kess reminded herself to stay calm, making a conscious effort to keep her breathing even. “Unfortunately, I have to take a trip myself in a few days.” She smiled sadly as she said it.

Lukas looked startled. Good. Kess wanted him off of his game. Let’s see how he liked it when he wasn’t the one in charge. “You are leaving?” He sounded like he didn’t understand the words she’d just spoken.

Kess dropped her eyes. “I’m afraid so. I have some personal business that I need to take care of. I’ll be out of town for several weeks.” There, suck on that for a while.

“You do not know when you will return?” His expression was still relatively calm, although Kess thought she could see the faintest hint of worry in his eyes.

She shrugged. “I’m not sure. There’s a lot to be done. It will take as long as it takes, I suppose.” She hid a smile behind her napkin.

Lukas ran a hand through his hair, ruffling the blonde layers. He no longer appeared quite so unruffled. “When do you depart?”

Kess cocked her head at his odd phrasing. It wasn’t the way people her age spoke and it always felt forced and too formal to her. “In two days. I wanted to tell you in person.” She bit her lip and looked down, as if she were shy. She wasn’t, not at all, but Lukas didn’t know that. “I didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye.”

She peeked at him from under her lashes. Lukas looked like he didn’t know what to do. Kess was certain this put a kink into his very ordered plans, and for that she tried not to grin. His face was confused, as if he were arguing with himself inside his head. She took sips of her tea and waited for him to say something.

Finally, he seemed to come to some kind of decision. He leaned forward and smiled, but she noticed that it never reached his eyes. Kess had to fight the urge to pull back; instead, she gave him an encouraging half-smile. “I would like to see you one last time, before you leave. My birthday is tomorrow and I hate celebrating it alone. Are you free tomorrow evening?”

Kess plastered that half-smile onto her face even as her heart sped up. Here we go. She forced herself to nod, making her smile bigger. “I’d love to.”

Lukas pushed himself back from the table. “Do you remember where I live?” At her nod, he smiled, but again, there was something off about it. Kess hid a shudder. Lukas was distracted, almost as if he were listening to someone speaking in his ear. “Shall we say six o’clock?”

“Sounds great.” About as great as having my stomach pumped. But Kess managed to put some excitement into her expression. She was just a girl flattered to be asked out by a cute boy; she was not a werecat who was likely to be hunted at some point after six o’clock tomorrow evening.

“I look forward to seeing you then.” He pushed his chair in and took his cup back to the counter, giving her a wave as he finally exited the shop.

Kess took a few steadying breaths, finally able to give in to her nerves. She waited a few minutes to make sure he wouldn’t come back in for something, then took out a disposable cell phone. She entered in the number of another disposable cell and then typed in a text: 2morrow nite @ 6. His place. She waited for the confirmation that the message was sent, then removed the SIM card. She would have to trust that Laila had gotten the message.

She waited a few more minutes, finishing up her now lukewarm tea. Kess sighed. Everything hinged on the plan going off flawlessly, otherwise she might wind up a stuffed addition to Lukas’ little menagerie. She pushed away from the table, refusing to think about it. She’d be fine. She’d fought Samara and her clan of werehyenas, she’d faced down her brother. She and her friends could handle this hunter.

Kess took the empty teacup back to the counter, disposing of the SIM card along the way. She tucked the disposable phone into her pocket, planning to toss that in another part of the city. When she was sure she was calm again, Kess left the shop.

As soon as she stepped onto the sidewalk, Kess felt eyes on her. She was being watched. It could be by her own people—and it probably was—but it also might be Laila, Sebastian, or Lukas. Kess made her way to the car, ignoring the sensation of all eyes on her. The paranoia was a reminder of her days on the run.

Suddenly, she wanted nothing more than to see Cormac. It was stupid, she knew. He couldn’t take this task from her, nor did she want him to. He’d put himself in enough danger for her already. But it didn’t stop her from wanting his comfort, or from needing to feel the safety and strength of his arms as he wrapped them around her to pull her in close. She needed that right now. She needed him.

Kess pulled out into traffic, making only one detour to dispose of the phone, before turning her car towards home. Cormac was waiting for her. And if this was going to be her last night with him, she didn’t plan to waste a minute of it.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Laila watched Lukas through the high powered binoculars from her perch atop an adjacent building. He had the drapes open on his gigantic picture window and he was staring out at the ocean. Occasionally he would turn his head and speak to someone not in view.

She adjusted her headset that picked up the feed from the bugs she had planted in his house. He was arguing with someone, but she couldn’t make out who. And whoever it was hadn’t made an appearance in front of the windows yet, so she just had to listen and hope for an ID—although Laila was pretty sure who the other person actually was.

The werejackal looked through the binoculars again. Lukas seemed agitated; his pacing was choppy, as if he couldn’t decide where exactly he wanted to go. His arm movements were more exaggerated than before. And the tone of his voice through the bug, well, Laila thought the boy should probably schedule a massage for himself, and soon. He seemed a little tense.

Good. Let’s see what we can do to make that worse. She smiled grimly to herself and took a look over at the rifle that lay beside her. Laila was sorely tempted, but she would wait. There were other weapons at her disposal that were far more dangerous. She wanted Lukas to know she was coming, to feel the fear of being hunted himself. After all, it was only fair.

Another man joined Lukas at the window. He was tall, impossibly thin, and dressed all in black. Well, hello Zamiel. Nice of you to show up. She thought she saw his eyes flick over to the building she was spying from, but dismissed it. Still, he smiled broadly before turning his attention back to Lukas.

“Time is running out for you as well,” Zamiel was saying. His voice sounded strangely distorted coming through the earpiece. “Hunt or don’t hunt, it makes no difference to me. I will always collect what’s mine.”

“I haven’t had time to plan or scout.” This from Lukas. Laila found it disconcerting to see the action from a distance but hear their voices directly in her ear.

“Do what you did with the werejackal.” Zamiel said, definitely throwing a grin in Laila’s direction that time. He knew she was listening and watching, but he was making no move to warn Lukas. What was that about? And what kind of deal had Lukas made with him?

Laila gritted her teeth. A growl escaped her throat at the mention of Mebis. She looked at the rifle again. Tempting, but no.

Her attention was captured by a quiver in the wire she wore wrapped around her pinkie finger. Someone was coming. She didn’t need high tech gadgetry to warn her; a simple tripwire was more than sufficient. She pulled the slack wire off her hand, dropping it into a pouch at her hip. She slung the rifle over her back and crept to the side of the roof, behind an air conditioning unit. She had her exit strategy, but she wanted to see who it was that was coming for her.

Of course, she might be being paranoid. It might just be a janitor or service man coming up to the roof. But Laila knew that you always trusted your instincts. So she hid. Even if it was the building’s super, she’d have a hard time explaining what she was doing up here with a rifle. She highly doubted he’d buy skeet shooting as an appropriate answer.

The man that came out of the door made Laila’s breath catch in her throat. She’d been right to hide. Sebastian had caught up with her. She knew him by his reputation and by his infrequent visits with her father. Finn had left her a message on her phone warning her that he was in town to bring her before the Keepers. The Anubis Knight practiced a rare form of fighting, involving strategic hits to specific pressure points that rendered his opponent unable to fight back.

Crap, Laila mouthed silently. She had no intention of going toe to toe with Sebastian—she couldn’t. There was no way to block his strikes and she wasn’t going back to New Orleans until her business with Lukas was finished. She wondered how he had tracked her down.

He raised his head, scenting the air. Laila saw the Knight’s nostrils flare. She could feel muscles tense, ready to spring out, but Sebastian followed her scent to her observation point instead of turning to her hiding place.

She’d stayed long enough. No need to tempt fate any further than she already had. Laila kept low, creeping around to the back of the building. She moved silently, grateful for the stealth that Master Toshi had drilled into her. When she reached the corner, she hooked up her ropes, snaking one down the side as quietly as she could, keeping her eyes open for signs of Sebastian.

He came around the corner at a dead run. Laila was already over the side, the rope wrapped around her arm in a complicated hold. She pushed out, aiming not for the ground, but rather the building next to it. She swung out, not far enough, and angled her body to take her back to her building.

“Laila, stop!” Sebastian warned, his hands on the metal hooks.

Laila smashed into the side of the building and used all her strength to push off. She unraveled the rope from her arm with a twist, then caught herself on the metal ladder of the fire escape of the neighboring building. It slammed down into the next section at her momentum. With a flick of her wrist, she freed the metal prongs and slung the rope and grapple downward.

She was already moving, using the grapple to break a nearby window and ducking through it while winding the rope up. Laila thought she heard a curse, and then a bang of something heavy hitting metalwork. She stowed the grapple away as she burst out the door and into the hallway. There was no way he could have made that jump on his own. Still, she wasn’t planning on sticking around to see herself proven wrong, so she hauled her ass to the stairwell that led to the ground floor.

Laila flung herself over the railings so she dropped a floor at a time. She looked up briefly when she heard the door to the stairwell open and slam shut a few floors above her and she quickened her pace. She blasted out of the side door, shoving the rifle deep into a trash bin, and sprang into the nearest crowd of people, content to let the pack of people hide her and her scent. She didn’t look back to see if Sebastian had followed her.

Only when she was out of the neighborhood, always sticking to crowds and busy areas, did she breathe a sigh of relief. The disposable phone buzzed at her hip, but she ignored it for the moment. She needed to get back to home base to collect the items she would need for the hunt tonight without being followed.

She had a lot of work to do.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Kess dressed carefully. She didn’t know how exactly the evening was going to go, but she knew that she was going to wind up in leopard form for part of it, so she didn’t want to wear anything that she’d miss. Eventually she settled on a simple skirt that flared to the knee, a plain white top and a pair of flats that she could run in. She pulled her long hair into a ponytail and then turned to check out her reflection in the mirror.

“You look beautiful,” Cormac said behind her.

She met his eyes in the mirror and smiled at him. His grey eyes were murky with worry. He didn’t like her going in alone, but he hadn’t fought her on it. He was letting her take the risks she needed to take. She was the clan leader; it was her responsibility.

“I’ll be fine, Cormac,” she assured him, in a voice more confident than she felt. Kess didn’t know if she would be coming out of this unscathed, but she could put on a brave front for him.

“I know,” he said, pulling her into his arms. “I know you will be.”

She kissed him then, not wanting to talk anymore. They had a workable plan, but there were still a lot of wild cards in play. Laila, Sebastian, Lukas himself—anyone of these could ruin their carefully thought out scheme. Kess put it out of her mind, choosing instead to focus on the feeling of Cormac’s mouth on hers, of the sensation of breathing the same breath, of melding into one body.