Taken by Moonlight (23 page)

“Your
dream?” he replied easily, looking down to the bed where the birds still
played. Leaning forward, he placed a large hand onto the sheets and Cassie
watched in envious fascination as the two birds leapt into his palm. He lifted
them to his eye level and murmured, “It’s a shame they’re extinct.” His mouth
curled for a moment on a snarl before his face relaxed and he raised his hand
higher. It was all the invitation the birds needed. They rose into the air, and
after flitting around the man for a few moments, flew off.

“Wait!”
Cassie screamed, close to hysteria. “What are you doing?”

“We have
more important matters to discuss, Cassandre.”

She tensed
for a second. Right, she was dreaming. Of course he knew her name.

“You’re
sleeping, but you are not dreaming.”

She scoffed
and glared at him. His beauty still affected her but the initial shock had worn
off. Plus, he wasn’t real.

“Sure, I’m
not dreaming.”

“You’re
not,” he cut in immediately, his eyebrows lifting as if daring her to challenge
him.

Cassie’s
lips tightened and she drew herself up to her full height. It was sad he wasn’t
shorter, like most of the scientists she worked with. For if he was, she was
sure she could intimidate him. Well, come very close.

“I am
dreaming, and you, tall, blond man, are a very weird figment of my subconscious
imagination,” she retorted, glaring down her nose at him despite his
superiority in height.

God, but
he really is beautiful,
she couldn’t help but think. Maybe this was her body’s way of telling her she
needed to get laid. She chuckled inwardly.

“I promise
I am no figment of your imagination, though that would be some imagination,” he
replied in that sensual and deep voice of his.

What a
self-obsessed, cocky shit. Why had she created him in her dream, anyway?
Couldn’t she have created a brains-over-brawn guy? Or a brawny guy who didn’t
speak? Or better yet, a hot vet or biologist? This man might look like every
woman’s wicked fantasy, but that didn’t mean he could do simple math or knew
who the current president was.

“I’m much
smarter than I look,” he offered with that same teasing smile on his face.

Didn’t he
stop smiling? What was with the smiling?

“Sit down,
Cassandre.”

She crossed
her arms over her chest and shook her head. “My dream, remember?”

He laughed
before stretching his body out on her bed—how dare he?—and placing both hands
behind his head. She was right. This man was every woman’s
dirty
fantasy. Was this supposed to be a sex dream? Had she conjured him with the
intention of relieving some of the tension she’d been feeling lately? She
cleared her throat and blushed furiously.
If this was a sex dream, wasn’t he
supposed to be making the moves…?

“It’s not
one of those dreams.”

His voice
had lowered and when she turned to look at him, she noticed his eyes were
lazily roaming her body. She looked down, just to make sure she was still
covered. She was. The white tank top and loose-fitting sweats she’d tossed on
before jumping into her bed were still in place, though the intensity of his
stare said otherwise. His lips curled in a half smile and he added, “Sadly.”

“That’s not
a nice habit, reading people’s minds. Especially when you’re in their dreams.”

He chuckled
and patted the space on the bed next to him. Cassie lifted a brow and smirked.

“I brought
you here so you would understand,” he said, his voice serious.

She
scoffed. What was he talking about? Technically, she’d brought him here. It was
still her dream.

“Not
dreaming, Cassandre. You
are
sleeping but your mind is clear. Very
clear.”

“Whatever
you say,
Fabio
.” His brows lifted at the name, and he looked genuinely
confused before he replied, “My name is Alexander.”

“Sure,
whatever. I’m going to wake up soon, and I’d rather spend my time with my
red-billed rails.” Dismissing him, she lifted her eyes to the sky once more.
Where were they? Maybe if she wished really hard they would come back. Or
perhaps she could make a passenger pigeon appear, or a dodo?

“You’re
very stubborn,” he said, as if he hadn’t expected it. “I’d forgotten just how
stubborn humans could be.”

“Hey, dream
guy, you’re not real,” Cassie said, shaking her head for emphasis.

His face
hardened momentarily before he smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes. “You are
right. I’m not ‘real’ in most senses of the word, but I am here to help you.”
Before she could throw out another sarcastic reply, he held up his hand, and
she found she couldn’t speak. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. It was as
if he’d muted her vocal chords. “Nod your head if you agree. Shake your head if
you don’t.”

She
attempted to speak once more, and finding she couldn’t, glared and nodded.

“You like
animals, birds especially?”

She glared
at him but nodded. Fabio—
Alexander
—was turning out to be quite a pain in
her subconscious ass.

“If you
could bring back any extinct bird, would you?”

She nodded.
Of course she would. They were only extinct because humans were stupid and
careless, destroying the animals’ habitats in their quest for ‘better’ living,
inclusive of mega-mansions and fur-skins that weren’t necessary.

He nodded
and closed his eyes momentarily. “What about the saber-toothed tiger? If you
could, would you bring him back from extinction?”

Cassandre
shrugged her shoulders. It would be any scientist’s, environmental or
otherwise, dream to see something as magnificent as the saber-toothed tiger in
the flesh, but that didn’t mean bringing one back was good for humanity.

“You’re
conflicted? Interesting.”

Why
can’t I talk?
she
demanded, knowing full well that somehow, the dream guy on the bed would hear
her. He didn’t disappoint.

“Because
you only need to listen for now.” He rose from the bed gracefully and moved to
stand before her. He touched her cheek, just barely, and Cassie jolted. Had he
just shocked her?

“When the
time comes, you will have to make a decision that will change the world as you
know it.” The smile faded from his face. “Choose wisely.”

What
does that even mean?

“You’ll
find out soon enough, Cassandre.”

He could
feel her. Despite Max telling him Vivienne was with her mother, Conall still
needed reassurance she was fine. The mental link shared by mates allowed him
access to her emotions, and although he felt her fear, he knew she was in no
danger. She was confused, frustrated, and upset, and that was the basis of the
fear she felt. Reassured, Conall concentrated on navigating the SUV on the
highway, and on what Max had just told him.

Vivienne
Bordeaux was a witch.

That much
made sense, as her mother was a witch, and he remembered hearing the chanting
in her mind after their mating. That Max’s covenant was tracking her because
she could supposedly restore the immortality of the witches perplexed him. He’d
been alive for slightly more than four centuries, and he’d never heard of a
creature, at least one who wasn’t a god, that could resurrect the druids. The
immortal sons and daughters of gods had been vengeful creatures and luckily his
pack had never encountered them. Entire witch covenants had been wiped out at
their doing.

“The druids
cursed the witches to a life of mortality. Even if Vivienne is a witch, how can
she reverse something done by the druids?”

From where
he sat in the front, Max glanced at Conall. It was one of the questions he’d
always posed to himself, but found he couldn’t answer. Had he thought it
through before leaving the covenant, he might have asked his father. He doubted
he would have received a straight answer.

“My—the
Grand Wizard thinks a powerful witch can undo the curse,” he replied, catching
himself before he said the word “father.” Max knew that Conall was no longer a
threat to him, as he’d played a part in helping Vivienne, but he wasn’t willing
to reveal that the highest authority in the covenant, the one who was hunting
Conall’s mate, happened to be his father. He wanted to make sure Vivienne was
safe, and he didn’t need Conall Athelwulf and his pack fighting him every step
of the way.

Sighing,
Max ran a hand through his hair, which was still damp from the quick shower at
the apartment. He and Conall had taken less than ten minutes to clean the blood
and grime from their bodies and find fresh clothing before they were heading to
Scarsdale. The ride from the city usually took about an hour and forty five
minutes but at the speed Conall was doing, they were going to be there much
sooner.

“Why
doesn’t Vivienne know she’s a witch?”

“I think
that was her mother’s way of protecting her. Her powers were bound when I first
met her.”

Conall
nodded, remembering the first time he’d met her. He’d been attracted to her
that first night in the park, but the smell of her humanity had tamed his
beast. The second time he’d seen her, at his club, he’d been drawn to something
else, something that hadn’t been there the first time he’d laid eyes on her,
else the night would have gone differently. And that night in the hotel room,
when he’d taken her, she’d been wild and demanding under him, pulling his wolf
close to the forefront in his human body despite the many centuries of control
he exacted over his beast.

“What are
you?”

“A hybrid,”
Max replied, pushing aside the painful memories the word brought forward. That
was the term his people used for any mixes between the races. “Human, witch,
and warlock.”

Conall
nodded. “I thought the warlocks were extinct. Hunted and killed by the witches
almost a century ago?”

“They
were.” He paused. “My mother was human and warlock.”

Max didn’t
remember much of his mother outside of what his father had told him. She’d died
when he was a baby. What he knew of warlocks, he’d read about in historical
scrolls kept by the witches, outlining their creation and demise. Unlike the
witches, who were supposedly created by Luna, the warlocks were a breed created
from liaisons between a witch and a vampire.

In the
early days, when the vampires hunted the witches for sport, many of the vampire
warlords would kill the male witches and keep the females as concubines. The
resulting warlocks mostly favored the witches. They were immortal, walked in
the sunlight, and were quick at learning spells, but their feeding patterns
were similar to the vampires. While the vampires needed blood to survive, their
half-breed descendants needed souls. Sometime around the early twentieth
century, a group of warlocks began attacking witch communities. That became the
onset of a rift between the witches and warlocks. In retaliation, the witches
tracked most of them down, and killed them. Less than a handful, if any,
pureblood warlocks still lived.

Conall was
about to ask Max about his position in the covenant, as he remembered one of
the trackers speaking directly to him, when the car phone rang. He
instinctively reached for his cell phone, but it had been incinerated by the
heat of the change. He quickly reached for the handset. “Yes?”

“The
Council is meeting on Saturday.” As usual, Sloan’s voice was calm and cool, but
Conall knew he wasn’t imagining the concern in his beta’s voice.

After
centuries of bloodshed, the witches, vampires, and
weres
, the largest of
the immortal communities, had decided to draw up a treaty that was satisfactory
to each. As a result, the Council was formed. It was divided into two levels.
There was the International Council, made up of representatives from each race
and country, who would meet once a year to discuss politics, business, and
other issues related to keeping the races in harmony. And there were the state
councils, which usually consisted of representatives from the various groups in
a certain area. As the leader of one of the largest packs, Conall held one of
the four seats assigned to the
weres
in the New York area.

“The e-mail
is succinct. It doesn’t say who’s calling the meeting, but I don’t think it’s
any of the
weres.
I spoke to Dominic and Drako before I called you.
They’re as confused as we are. I couldn’t get in touch with Santiago.”

Dominic and
Drako were brothers who happened to hold two of the
were
seats on the
New York Council.

Strange
, Conall thought. The Council
usually met once or twice, at max three times a year, and that was only when
there was a problem among the races. They’d already met twice for the year. The
last time someone called a third meeting had been almost thirty years ago when
there had been a miniature war between the vampire and werewolf communities.
The last twenty years had been relatively tame, discounting the usual
territorial spats and brawls.