Taken by Moonlight (16 page)

Conall
reached out a hand, and she took it. His eyes entranced her. When he leaned in,
she stepped forward, meeting him for the kiss. His hands clutched at the dip in
her back; her hands pushed into his hair. He backed her against the table.

A sound
jarred her lips from his as she turned to see what it was. Eli stared at them,
his eyes large and curious, but as soon as she turned he looked away. Conall
continued to trail quick kisses by her ear, unaffected by his nephew standing
mere feet from them.

Jesus, did
she have no decency? Gathering her scattered wits about her, she pushed Conall
back, and tried to close her legs. Thank God she wasn’t wearing a skirt. He wasn’t
deterred. It was like moving a large, solid, brick house. His tongue circled
her ear, and she moaned, clutching at his back briefly before scrambling around
him.

“I-I should
g-go now.” She cleared her throat, and took two steps back when Conall turned
and looked at her with those predator-like eyes of his. She could see he wanted
to chase her, knew it would excite him almost as much as it would her.

Drawing in
a deep breath, he nodded and said, “I’ll take you home.”

“Where is
the girl?”

The quiet
but deadly voice resonated around the wooden walls of the room. The witch to
whom it was directed, a tracker by the name of Timothy, felt the urge to cower
as he faced the powerful Grand Wizard, but resisted.

Maximilian
Cronin, a tall and looming presence despite his age, had pushed himself up from
the leather chair to fully glare at him. Like many of their Elders, his hair
had long since grown white, and he wore it in an impeccable cut that pulled
back from his forehead and barely touched the tops of his shoulders.

“We
couldn’t find her—” Timothy began, hoping the tremor he’d heard in his voice
was a figment of his imagination.

“You
couldn’t find her?” Maximilian continued, his voice rising an octave. His thin
nostrils flared as he stepped around his desk and slowly walked over to the
witch. In a gray turtleneck sweater and loose pants, he wasn’t dressed to
intimidate, but he did. Timothy swallowed nervously as the Grand Wizard’s eyes
seemed to darken.

“No, my
lord,” Timothy replied, bowing his head in submission. “We only felt her for a
span of minutes and traced her. We—we couldn’t find her…after.”

Maximilian
let out a grunt of impatience and waved a pale, thin hand. “Where are the
others? Five were dispatched. Where are the rest? Where’s Malachi?” Malachi, as
one of his captains, should be giving this debriefing, not Timothy.

Timothy
tensed. “Dead—”

Maximilian’s
eyes narrowed to thin slits. “Dead? How is it that two of my trackers are
dead?”

“Your
son….”

“I didn’t
ask you about my son.”

Timothy
nodded, and shifted uncomfortably. “My lord….” He swallowed, unsure of how to
communicate what he’d seen. “Max killed them.”

The Grand
Wizard’s head snapped back, and Timothy could read the surprise in his eyes
before his face was rendered expressionless.

“Is that
so, tracker?” he finally asked. He reached a hand up to his chin, thoughtful,
as if he were contemplating that possibility.

“Yes.”
Timothy cleared away the lump in his throat and looked to the space just to the
left of the Grand Wizard. “After we followed her to the hotel, Ophelia found a
bag with the woman’s address book. We used it to get to her apartment. Malachi
and Jared left first. I followed after but I was too late. Jared was dead and
Malachi was slowly being killed by Max.” Timothy paused as the scene replayed
in his head.

After
trying and failing to find the girl’s essence, he’d flashed himself to the
apartment, where Jared and Malachi had gone. The other two had remained in the
hotel, searching for any other clues. As soon as his body materialized, he’d
heard the sounds of fighting. Silently, he’d crept toward the noise, and looked
on in confusion as Max and Malachi attacked each other. He’d watched in
mounting horror as Malachi killed Max, and then in absolute terror as Max came
back from the dead, turned into something he’d never seen before, and returned
the favor. He hadn’t waited around. Instead, he’d sent word to the others that
they were to return to the covenant.

“So you
fled?” the Grand Wizard interrupted. Timothy focused once more on the powerful
leader of his covenant, noticing that his eyes had shifted to a witch’s black.
He briefly wondered if Maximilian had been in his head, watching as his mind
replayed that horrifying scene. He hadn’t felt him but he doubted anyone could
feel the Elder’s presence in their mind.

Shaking his
head, he answered, “Well, no. Max turned into—”

“I will
deal with my son later.” His eyes shifted back to their normal hazel hue and he
looked to Timothy. “You fled, isn’t that so?”

“Yes, my
lord.”

“Since you
failed to bring the girl to me, did any of you find anything useful?”

Timothy
nodded. “A picture, my lord. I found it in the girl’s room.”

It was a
black and white portrait of two identical sisters. Both were seated on stools,
smiling at the photographer. As Maximilian continued to stare at the portrait,
a sinister smile touched his lips.

Twins
. Of course. They were twins. He
thought back to that day of their birth, when every witch had felt the surge of
power usually associated with the birth or death of a powerful witch or druid.
Only Grand Wizards and Elders had understood the true extent of the power, and
even then, they hadn’t recognized it was two druids, not one. He grimaced,
feeling a twinge of anger snake up his spine at being so tricked.

That witch
had hidden well the fact she’d birthed twins. His lip curled in a snarl as he
thought of her.

Evelyn,
Annabel’s only child.

Like a few
of their kind in the eighteenth century, Annabel, a beautiful female, had been
the daughter of a druid and a witch. Many had vied for her attentions,
including him, but she was not interested, and with her druid mother constantly
hovering, no witch had openly challenged that stance. But then, she’d betrayed
them.

At that
time, there had been no Council to keep the peace between the creatures and
every immortal defended his own. Trackers were sent out to get justice for
their races. His covenant had been tracking a werewolf responsible for the
death of two witches in Paris. Annabel had been with them. They’d tracked him
to a small village and split into groups to find him faster. Annabel had
disappeared. Even her essence could not be found, and their covenant announced
her dead. Her mother blamed them, and as an important member in the druid
circle, she’d created hostility between the druids and witches. Years later,
they found the wolf, Henri Dumont, in Paris. It had been a bloody fight, but
against three ancient witches, he was brought to heel and defeated.

Maximilian
found out later why the animal had fought so viciously, refusing to die even
when it was obvious he had no choice. It was desperation. He’d been protecting
his mate and child.

Annabel had
mated a wolf.

He’d barely
glimpsed her angry, tear-stained face and extended belly before she vanished.
It had taken many more years before he found her again, and when he did, it was
without the child. By that time, the druids were no more, and the curse cast
upon all witches and their descendants had devastated their community.
Maximilian had sacrificed Annabel, along with the half-druid witches like her
he’d found over the years, hoping to resurrect the druids and plead their
clemency. When that failed, he’d searched for Annabel’s daughter, but she’d
grown into her powers, had learned to shield herself from him, from even the
most powerful of them.

Years had
passed without him feeling or sensing her and then, Maximilian remembered the
day clearly. He had felt the shift in dimensions, a stifling calm, as
everything stood still for long seconds, as a new druid was born. The covenants
had been in uproar, wondering who had birthed a druid with them all banished,
and their hybrid descendants dead, but instinctively he’d known it was her.

Evelyn.

Maximilian
had tracked them for years, from country to country, state to state, and
finally after years with nothing to show for it, he’d sent his son after the
child. He’d supervised Max’s training himself, as his son was unique, and had
dispatched him knowing her mother would be unable to identify him as a witch.
That was one of the few benefits of Max’s maternal side. And now, he was being
told Max had betrayed him. He ground his teeth together. He’d warned him, his
son who wanted so badly to prove he was a Cronin, despite the mixture in his
genes.

He
refocused on the portrait. The girls looked like darker versions of Annabel,
but were no less beautiful than she’d been. Anything less than perfection would
make a mockery of what they were. Druids. Not one, but two. Twins usually
signified a balance. Which balance?

When the
witches had banished the druids for the evil they’d wreaked upon mankind and
immortal alike, the druids had cursed them to a life of mortality before
disappearing into the realms. It was only through powerful spells that he, and
other ancients, continued to live, but those would one day wear off. Even now,
he could feel the fragility of life, the brittle bones, aching joints, wrinkled
skin, in his own hands
.
To be brought low by druids, the bastard sons
and daughters of Gods….

Maximilian
wanted his immortality back, craved it, and was willing to do anything, even
resurrect his mortal enemies, to do it.

“What did
you see my son do, Timothy?”

Timothy
didn’t answer for a few seconds but then he stuttered and began repeating his
earlier story. “He killed Malachi, my lord. He changed into some…creature and
killed Malachi.”

“Is that
so?”

“Yes, my
lord.”

“Did anyone
else see this transformation?”

“No, my
lord.”

“That is
good.” He paused and tucked the picture into his pants pocket. “You will forget
everything you saw concerning my son. He was never there.”

“But, my
lord—”

The Grand
Wizard’s voice dropped an octave and his eyes turned black. “You were ambushed
by the twins. They killed Malachi and Jared. Max was not there.” He paused
until Timothy nodded. “You will tell the others that the girls are dangerous.
They killed Malachi and Jared. Max was never there.” A chant filled the air and
Timothy’s eyes—already glazing over—closed momentarily before he nodded. “Good,
Timothy. You’re dismissed.”

Vivienne
had the distinct feeling she was being watched as she stepped from the double
doors of Conall’s house and followed him to the large black SUV parked on the
street. Telling herself that she was being paranoid, this wasn’t
The Scarlet
Letter
and there was no “A” on her chest, she lifted her eyes to scan the
area, only to find her instincts were right.

She
was
being
watched and from what she could see, by many pairs of eyes. Lowering her head
and wishing for pair of large aviator glasses and a Jackie Kennedy-like head
scarf that would loop about half of her face, she quickly walked to the SUV and
slipped into the front seat. After meeting Conall it seemed her destiny was to
relive college, this time partaking in all the wild and embarrassing things
she’d easily foregone years ago.

She stared
from the mercifully tinted window at scattering of people on porches, lawns,
and even in the middle of the street. This had to be a rich neighborhood. It
was Thursday for crying out loud, not Saturday. Normal people had jobs,
nine-to-fives, and the sort that they couldn’t just up and miss. She sighed.
There were a few children gathered but instead of running around as they were
wont to do when released by parents, they, too, stared in her direction.
Although she found it odd that the children weren’t in school, kindergarten
mostly, Vivienne dismissed it. They all probably had underpaid nannies.

Feeling her
face heat, she decided that rich or not, Conall’s neighbors were extremely
rude. It was not nice to stare. Thank God she wouldn’t be coming back here.
Rolling her eyes, more at the fact she was that clichéd girl leaving her
lover’s house and being caught, Vivienne checked her phone for missed calls and
messages.

As soon as
her eyes caught sight of Max’s name, she felt guilty. He’d called her twice, no
doubt worried she hadn’t come home last night. She was about to heap the blame
on Conall, when she reluctantly decided it was on her. It wasn’t Conall’s fault
that when he was touching her, her mind refused to work. It wasn’t his fault
she’d craved—she looked out the tinted window to where he stood conversing with
Raoul—and still craved all the delicious things his tall and muscular body
could give her.

Hot.
That was it. Despite the brisk
temperature outside, it was extremely hot in the car. Her fingers fumbled with
her jacket as she unbuttoned it, then moved to the clear buttons of her shirt.
She paused.
Strange.
She could have sworn the buttons on this blouse
were bigger. She dismissed that almost immediately as she undid two more
buttons and fanned herself with her collar.