Taken by Moonlight (20 page)

Who were
these guys, how did they appear out of the hole, what was the hole, and was she
dreaming again? Was meeting Conall a dream, too? She stared at the breadth of
his back. No, this was real. He was real. But that meant the men were real as
well, didn’t it?

“Max, bring
the girl,” someone said loudly, and Vivienne jumped.

“No.” It
was Max who answered, his voice easy and slightly bored. “Come get her
yourself.”

“What
girl?” Vivienne asked, her voice rising slightly. “What do they want? Who are
they?”

“You’re
defying a direct command?” the voice continued, shocked. Seconds passed in
silence and the voice spoke once more. “Ah, I see. You switched sides, turned
traitor.” There was a pause, and Vivienne could hear the rapid beating of her
heart, and wondered if anyone else could. The voice continued, “We have no
quarrel with you, wolf, but we will kill you if you stand in our way. Step
aside. This is not your fight.”

Wolf?
Vivienne’s eyes widened and she
looked to Drew, who was staring at her with a look of fear across her features.

“It’s
okay,” Vivienne whispered, though she knew it to be a lie. Something
was…horribly wrong. Men did not appear out of black holes that formed in the
center of walls!

“It is when
you’re after my mate.” Conall’s response was slow, and almost lazy. Mate? Who
was his mate?
What
was a mate? Vivienne looked between the two men. What
the hell was going on?

The man in
black inhaled sharply and scoffed. “She’s a witch. You’re an animal. It’s
forbidden by both races.”

Conall
snorted, letting the slight pass. Calling any of the
weres
an animal,
despite the truth of the theory, was almost the equivalent of calling him a
human—an insult. Men had been killed for less, but Conall was saving his energy
for the fight that would come. He’d counted ten, many of them fidgeting
nervously, telling him they were just out of training. A few were older, more
experienced, but he was old, and had fought witches and vampires both when the
odds weren’t in his favor. He’d lived to remember it. His opponents hadn’t. He
remembered what the tracker had said about Vivienne. So she was a witch. Maybe
she was like Max, able to hide that side of her under a human façade. It did
not matter. Either way, witch, human, or something entirely different, she was
his.

Max lifted
a brow and shook his head. “It’s always amazed me why my father made you
captain.” He paused and crossed his arms before his chest. “You never were the
brightest bulb, were you, Merikano?”

Merikano’s
eyes flashed angrily but he dismissed the comment with a wave of his hand.
“There are two of you; ten of us. Either way, the girl is coming with us.”

Conall took
another step back, placing a hand at Vivienne’s middle. He gave her a light
push, motioning for her to move back.

“Then come
and take her,” Conall retorted easily, his voice belying the tension in his
body, the rush of adrenaline passing through his bloodstream.

Instinct
told Vivienne her questions were best saved for later. She reached over for
Drew’s hand, which was sweaty and cold, much like her own, and slowly began to
move back.

“What’s
going on?” she whispered to Drew, who shook her head and replied dejectedly,
“Everything.”

The
vagueness of that answer only prompted more questions. What did she mean by
everything? What the hell was going on? Were they in some kind of trouble?

“Kill them
both,” Merikano commanded, and then utter chaos broke out. Vivienne and Drew
quickly huddled themselves against the wall and watched, bug-eyed, as the men
wearing black attacked Max and Conall.

Her heart
pounded in her throat as Conall barely dodged the tip of a sword swinging
toward his neck. He recovered quickly, grabbing the man and twisting his arm. A
crack followed by a howling scream rent the air, and Drew turned her face away.
Grabbing the sword, Conall thrust it into the man’s belly and pushed him back.
Vivienne winced, but felt no pity. He’d almost killed Conall.

“Conall!”
she screamed in warning as another man attacked him from behind. She watched as
the man’s dagger embedded in Conall’s back, feeling his pain even as he turned
and launched at the man. She couldn’t see what happened to the attacker, but
only seconds later another was at Conall’s back, and another. Max wasn’t faring
well, either. They were both impressive fighters, but against so many in an
enclosed space.

Where was
her cell phone? She was going to call the police. As soon as she thought of
that, she shook her head. How was she going to call the police? What would she
tell them? “
Come quickly, some ninjas appeared out of a hole in the wall and
are trying to kill us
?” They wouldn’t send cops. They’d sent a psychiatrist
and a straightjacket.

At Drew’s
high pitched scream, Vivienne turned to her. Drew had covered her mouth with
her hands, and was staring off into the distance at Max, who’d just been run
through by a now-bloody sword. Vivienne cried out in shock and stood, watching
in horror as the man—Merikano—pushed Max back, a cruel smile on his lips and
the sword held proudly in his hand. He advanced on Max but was suddenly blasted
back. What looked like a ring of white flames rolled into a ball landed on his
chest and he was flung against the wall. Max clutched his side and began to
move. A trail of blood followed him. Merikano recovered, this time launching
his very own flame ball at Max, who pitched from where he stood and landed with
a dull thud on the floor, steps in front of them.

Drew and
Vivienne rushed to him. His lips were blue-tinged, his eyes glassy, his face
scrunched in pain—and was that anger?

“Get out
now. Take the stairs to the second floor.” He bit down as if he were fighting
off a bout of pain. “Fire escape at end of hall. Find your—mother.”

Before she
could even think to respond, her hand was in his and he was whispering something.
Latin?
Vivienne briefly wondered before her body felt stifled once more,
as if something inside her was being locked away. She felt stifled.

Max’s
glassy eyes moved from Vivienne to Drew and then back. Something was pressed
against her palm. A key, her car key. How did he have her car key? “Car behind
apartment.”

Saving
those questions for another time, Vivienne eyed the rapidly growing red stain
on his shirt, and shook her head. “Max, you’re hurt. We need to call the cops,
and an ambulance. What’s happening—?”

There was
an angry snarl somewhere in the background and Vivienne lifted her eyes in time
to see Conall being attacked by three of the men. She almost ran to him, but
Max’s hand tightened against hers.

“Now, Viv!
Go! We’ll find you!”

A howl split
the air, and moments later, the three were flung away. Vivienne stared in awe
at the man who’d passionately loved her only hours ago as he tossed back his
head. Tendons jumped to the surface of his skin and she heard the distinct
sound of cracking bones. A memory—an image of Cassie falling from a tree in
their backyard, landing oddly on her arm, followed by a distinct, popping
crack—surfaced before retreating in lieu of the sight before her. Conall’s
jacket and most of his shirt had been ripped to bloody shreds, making it easy
for her to see that the size of his arms and legs was increasing. Her mouth
fell open. His eyes, the beautiful blue, turned to a sinister yellow, with two
black pupils, and black fur began to materialize on his arms as his clipped nails
lengthened to razor-sharp talons.

“Holy—”
Vivienne began, staring at the sight.
Dear God!
She blinked to make sure
she wasn’t imagining it. No. She wasn’t. When had her life become the basis for
the next bloody movie? This was a scene straight out of
Van Helsing
,
except the wolf man wasn’t Hugh Jackman, but Conall, and damn it, these things
were not supposed to happen in real life!

“—Shit!”
Drew finished. Someone had to say it, and Vivienne’s mouth was currently
hanging open, unable to formulate coherent words as Conall’s body continued to
change. His lips pulled back in a snarl and she blinked at the length of his
canines. They hadn’t been that long before. No, she would have felt them, with
him using his lips so intimately against her. An image of him behind her,
biting her shoulder, suddenly pushed to the forefront of her memory and she
clasped a hand over her mouth.

At that
moment, Max cursed. His body arched off of the ground and both women looked
down, jumping back when he turned blue, and black bled into his hair like
water. His eyes opened, and swirling silver-blue stared up at them moments
before he disappeared. He was there one moment, and then he wasn’t.

Vivienne
reached for Drew’s hand and yanked.

Second
floor
.
Fire
escape
.
Window
.
Now
.

Men in
black clothes who looked like ninjas had just attacked them, Conall had changed
into a wolf-man-thing, and Max was some sort of alien with freaky eyes. They
were getting the hell out of here! Questions later. Safety now.

They’d just
made it to the door that would take them up flights off stairs when it suddenly
opened and Vivienne found herself feet away from one of the ninjas. She didn’t
think. She reacted. She kicked her leg out, catching him between his thighs. It
was the one thing you weren’t supposed to do in karate class, but she was
bending the rules a bit. Anticipating he’d double over, she brought her knee
up, and connected it with his face.

She heard
the words “shit” and “bitch” as he went down, one hand between his legs and the
other at his nose, but she was already moving past him, Drew trailing behind
her. She’d reached the second step when she froze and moved backward. Five more
of them were advancing on her. Vivienne’s heart stopped for a few seconds as
she frantically looked around. The man she’d kicked and kneed was getting up,
and Vivienne and Drew sidestepped him and moved back into the lobby, their
backs plastered against the walls as the other men advanced. Vivienne looked
over to where Conall and Max, both changed into unfamiliar things, were
fighting with the others.

“Grab the
girl. Take her back to covenant.”

One of the
men was speaking, but she couldn’t tell which one. They were all masked, and
only their eyes and a portion of their brows were visible.

Drew and
Vivienne clutched at each other.

“Which
one?”

“Both.”

One of the
men stepped forward and grabbed her arm, and Vivienne reacted by hauling back
her other hand and aiming straight at his face. He sidestepped her punch, but
he couldn’t sidestep the knee to his groin. She was getting good at kneeing
people.

“Fuck,” he
groaned, and Vivienne took that moment to scream. Following her lead, Drew did
the same.

“By Luna,
grab them already!”

The men
advanced, and she heard Conall calling her name. A hand was suddenly at her throat,
squeezing. She closed her eyes. This was it. This was how she was going to die.

Her body
grew cold, as if brushed by a stiff winter wind, and then an almost burning
heat swarmed through her. The man holding her neck released her immediately,
clutching his hand and shaking it as he stepped away.

There was a
slight sound, like the far-off crashing of waves across cliffs, followed by a
voice she’d all but given up on ever hearing again. She wasn’t speaking English
or French, but whatever the language, Vivienne would always recognize the
slightly accented, level pitch of mother’s voice.

Dazed, she
could only blink as the men’s eyes widened and they backed away. Lifting a hand
to her throat, she coughed. Drew was instantly at her side, dark eyes searching
out the owner of the melodic voice.

“What
is
that?” Drew finally asked.

“Show
yourself, witch!”. They looked around, staring from Vivienne to Drew, and then
at the wall behind them.

Witch
? Her mother was not a witch.

Evelyn’s
voice grew louder, her pitch higher. Whatever was being said was being repeated
over and over again.

“
Reverto
!”
The word echoed, and then came, “
Abolesco
!” And then they were being
interchanged, until they sounded as one. Latin, Vivienne concluded, unsure of
why she knew that or how she knew that the word
reverto
meant “return”
and
abolesco
meant “vanish.”

The voice
stopped suddenly, and Vivienne blinked. Her mother’s voice had soothed her, and
without it, hysteria threatened to take over.

“Hurry up
and grab them. Something’s off here,” someone murmured in a low voice.

A bright
light appeared behind the men, the equivalent of a powerful flash, and then
Vivienne heard her mother, loud and clear. The men turned to face Evelyn, and
one by one, they screamed and then disappeared.