Moon Cursed (29 page)

Then she began to scream.

CHAPTER 21

An hour later Kris was still on the bank of the loch, but she was no longer alone.

She’d only screamed once, and she was embarrassed she’d done that. If she was going to cry out you’d think she would have done so at the sight of her first dead body, not the second. But when she’d looked down, the dead girl’s hand had been resting on her shoe and Kris hadn’t been able to help herself.

A passing motorist had heard her and come to the rescue carrying a tire iron. Alan Mac arrived shortly thereafter, giving Kris a glance that was easy to read:
You again?

She supposed it was odd that she kept finding bodies. Particularly odd that Nessie had brought this one to her. It was almost as if Nessie had been saying,
See? I didn’t do it. If I had, why would I bring you the evidence?

Because monsters reasoned like that all the time.

A hysterical giggle escaped Kris’s freezing-cold lips. She was in shock.
Again.
Luckily, the man who’d come running in answer to her screams kept a lovely plaid blanket in the trunk with his tire iron. Kris pulled it more tightly around her shoulders and huddled on a rock.

Local law enforcement had set up their perimeter and begun to process the scene. A crowd had gathered on the road, kept back by several of Alan Mac’s men. Kris wasn’t sure how long it was, but eventually the wide shadow of the constable blocked the sun.

“Let me guess. Ye were just out walkin’ and lo and behold, surprise! Another body.”

Kris hesitated. Should she go with that? Or tell him the truth?

That she, who had always valued honesty above all else, was considering a lie to the lead officer in a murder investigation showed how far Kris had come from the woman she’d been.

Kris’s gaze went to the arm where she’d seen Alan Mac’s tattoo, covered now by a jacket. He was either a guardian or a shape-shifter. If he was the former, she should tell him about Nessie bringing her the dead. He’d want the monster exonerated. If he was the latter …

Kris cursed beneath her breath. She should pull out the silver Celtic cross she still wore beneath her clothes and take it for a test drive on Alan Mac’s skin. If he fried, probably shape-shifter, and then …

Well, she wasn’t really sure. If the chief constable transformed into one of many Nessies would he be okay with Kris’s knowing that or wouldn’t he? Was a shape-shifter test really her best option with all these people around and the possible shape-shifter wearing a gun?

Alan Mac raised one hand and scratched at his arm, right where the tattoo would be, and Kris blurted, “Yep. That’s what happened. Walking along, saw what I thought was debris on the shore, came down here, and—” She spread her hands. “You know the rest.”

“Mmm,” Alan Mac said. He didn’t believe her. Hell,
she
didn’t believe her. “Did ye touch the body?”

Kris shook her head. Not this time. This time she’d known what dead looked like.

Alan Mac peered out over the loch. “I dinnae know the girl,” he said quietly. “She’s not local. From her clothes, her hair, I’d say American. Which means…” He sighed.

“Shit storm,” Kris filled in. When Americans died in foreign countries, Americans went ballistic. Kris kind of liked that about America.

“Aye,” Alan Mac agreed. “There’ll be no keepin’ it quiet now. I have to wonder who hates Drumnadrochit so much.”

“Hates the village or hates Nessie?” Kris asked.

“Arenae they one and the same?”

An interesting comment. Did he mean that if Nessie was proved a real monster and tourism died, then Drumnadrochit would die, too? Or was he talking about the tattoos? If everyone in Drumnadrochit had one and everyone who had one was a Nessie, then the village and the monster
were
one and the same.

Kris started to see sparkly white lights at the edge of her vision. Exhaustion? Or was her brain about to explode?

She closed her eyes tightly, and when she opened them the lights had receded, though they had not disappeared. She decided to ignore them. “You think whoever’s doing this isn’t from here?”

“I’d like to,” the constable said. “Really, why crap where ye eat?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Why kill where ye live? Isn’t there some kind of rule about that?”

“In the serial killer rule book?”

“Right.” Alan Mac’s impressive shoulders slumped. “Serial killers dinnae like rules.”

“Except for their own. Twisted though they might be.”

“That’s yer statement then? Ye just happened on another body, and ye touched nothing.”

“That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it,” Kris murmured.

He sighed. “Ye can go.”

Kris wasn’t far from the cottage, but she was still kind of surprised, considering the way she stumbled up the hill and zigzagged down the road, that no one offered to take her there. With her shambling gait, no doubt freakishly pale face, the flapping plaid blanket she wore like a cape, and the bag of makeup and food she still clutched in one hand, anyone seeing her might think Kris the local loony. Right now she felt like it.

She reached the cottage, let herself in, and tossed the bag onto the couch. She wasn’t hungry. She was cold, and she was tired.

She stood under the heated stream of the shower until the water went cool, then donned her flannel pajama bottoms, a sweatshirt, and heavy socks before going to bed. When she awoke it was dark and someone was pounding on the door.

Groggy, Kris turned on the light, then, blinded by its brilliance, shuffled into the other room. She opened the door without thinking, and Liam rushed in.

“Are ye all right,
mo gradh
?” He took her in his arms and, still desperate for warmth, she let him. “I heard what happened. I would have come sooner but—”

Kris pulled his mouth to hers. The only way she’d ever be warm again was this.

In the middle of speaking, his lips still parted, she drank his breath, inhaled his heat. Her tongue plunged; her hands clenched on his neck.

His hair, which had been captured in a rubber band, she released; the spill across her wrists smelled like rain.

He began to lift his head, no doubt to ask her again if she was all right, and she nipped his lip. No words now, no thoughts, only this.

She slid her arms around his shoulders, tangled her fingers in that hair, and the movement tugged up her shirt, exposing her to his touch.

His palms were cool like the night, but they warmed, as did she. Her blood seemed to bubble, and she imagined it red and hot, flowing like lava, glowing like magma beneath her skin.

Wherever he touched, she burned. Ah, the blessed, blessed heat. She might die of it or perhaps of wanting it, wanting him.

They left a trail of clothes across the floor, flinging a shirt here, a sock there, then tumbled naked onto the bed in a tangle of limbs, reaching for and finding each other.

“Kris,” he gasped, and she straddled him, shoving his shoulders flat to the bed and leaning down.

“No,” she murmured against his lips, then whispered, “yes,” when he framed her breasts with his palms, stroking the nipples in time with the thrusts of his tongue.

He kept silent, fast learner, although when she lifted her hips and lowered herself onto him he did say something like, “Urgh.”

At first she kept the movements slow, shallow, just a tease, a bit more seduction. She matched them with her tongue, and he scraped the tips of his nails across her breasts to the rhythm of their bodies’ song.

She hissed in a breath, sitting up, liking both the change in the pressure and the view. Liam’s deep blue eyes appeared black in the flare of the lamp; his dark hair spread across the stark white pillow like an onyx fan. His skin, tanned from days spent outdoors, gleamed slick and smooth. She had to touch it.

It
was
smooth, but not hot like hers, and that was strange. She felt on fire. He should be, too.

His palms cupped her hips, urged her to keep moving as she roamed, first her fingers across his chest, then her lips, then her tongue. She explored every inch she could reach. She ached to explore those that she could not. Perhaps after she would examine—

Her head had just fallen back, her hips rocking, very close to the end, when she remembered. She’d planned to search every inch of his body for a tattoo.

She stiffened, and the movement rubbed them together just right. His fingers tightened, digging into her hips, and then she was coming. She couldn’t stop it, regardless of who he was, perhaps
what
he was, and she didn’t want to.

She set her palms over his and rode the tide, rode him, until the last tremor died away.

Before the glow was gone, her mind began to click. Did Liam have a tattoo? How would she find out? She couldn’t inspect him like a monkey trolling for fleas, but there were other ways.

Kris, who had collapsed onto his chest, buried her face in his neck not only to keep him from seeing her thoughts but also because having his skin against hers was as seductive as inhaling the scent of him.

Before she could be completely won over, before she gave in to the desire to lie there and sleep, she rolled to the side, then sat next to him on the bed, trailing her fingers over his belly, his hips, following the path with an admiring gaze. His legs were tightly muscled, with a light dusting of hair, just enough to be manly, not so much that the hair obscured skin. She found nothing but Liam from his face to his feet.

“Turn over.” She pushed at his shoulder, then traced her hands up his legs, drew her nails over his buttocks, brushed her palm over the smooth, unmarred skin at the small of his back, and swept it up his pristine shoulders.

He was clear of tattoos. But what did that mean?

“I’ll nae be able to go again so soon,
mo bheatha.
Ye must give me a bit o’ time.”

She was swamped by a sudden desire to hold him, just hold him close, and never let him go. “What does
mo bheatha
mean?” she whispered.

He turned his head. Their eyes met, and a strange feeling hit her in the chest so hard she couldn’t breathe.

“‘My life,’” he translated, and his hair, which had been spread across his upper back like a curtain, slid sideways.

The tattoo wasn’t very big. But it
was
very Nessie. From the tip of her snake-like head, past her humps and her flippers, right down to her long, thin tail.

Liam saw Kris’s expression and sat up. “What’s wrong?”

“The— That— I mean … It—”

“Did ye want to talk about what happened today? I’m sorry ye had to find her. Sorry it upset ye so.”

“Tattoo,” she blurted. Liam stilled. “You have a tattoo.”

His eyes became wary. “Aye.”

“What does it mean?”

“It means—” He stopped, pursing his lips and looking toward the living room with a frown.

“Don’t lie,” she said, and her voice broke. She didn’t think she could bear it if
he
lied to her, too.

Liam tilted his head, opened his mouth, and someone knocked.

He was off the bed and reaching for his pants before whoever was there had stopped tapping.

“Wait.” Kris got up, too. “I can—”

“No.” The sound of his zipper served as emphasis, if his glare hadn’t been enough. “Stay here.”

He left pulling on his shirt. Kris kept her gaze on the tattoo until it disappeared.

The front door opened. A curse erupted. Kris yanked the quilt off the bed, hastily made a toga, and followed. By the time she got there, her brother and Liam were already bumping chests, or near enough.

Marty’s nose was swollen, and he was sporting two black eyes from the last encounter. Since there wasn’t a scratch on Liam, she couldn’t believe her brother was begging for a second round.

“Go away.” He shoved Liam. “I need to talk to my sister.”

“I willnae leave her alone.” Liam’s tone said without words,
Like you did.

Marty flushed. “I had my reasons.”

“What are they?” Liam asked.

“Yeah,” Kris interjected. “What are they?”

Both men turned. When they saw what she wore, their faces took on comically similar expressions of disapproval.

“Ach, put on some clothes.”

“I have to agree with the limey here,” Marty said.

“
Limey
is for the British, ye Yankee bastard.”

Marty lifted his brows. “Paddy?”

“That’s Irish, ye no-account fool.”

“Jock?”

“There ye go.”

“
Jock
is an insult?” Kris asked.

“Aye.”

“Why?”

“I’ve no idea. It’s what the bloody English say. Something about there being a lot of Scots named John or Jack or some such nonsense.”