Taken by Moonlight (7 page)

Raoul’s
eyes flickered yellow briefly, and Conall knew the other man’s wolf was just
below the surface. Sloan’s demeanor, on the other hand, was calm and watchful.
He didn’t resort to wolf form unless it was absolutely necessary.

“Find Eli.”
His nephew would have to make do with the few hours he’d had at the place. “We
leave for Cedar Creek within the hour.”

“I told you
we should have taken her to the hospital,” Drew hissed as she stared at
Vivienne, fully dressed and lying unconscious atop her duvet, and then to the
man at whom her rage was directed.

After
Vivienne had fainted, the cab arrived and Max lifted her into it. Instead of
telling the cabbie to head to the nearest hospital, Vivienne’s
idiot
friend had given him the address of their shared apartment. Ignoring Drew’s
many protests, many of which included her telling the cabbie to head to the
nearest hospital, Max had offered the driver a crisp hundred-dollar bill, and
afterward, Drew’s pleas had fallen on deaf ears.

“Vivienne
hates hospitals,” was the only response she received from Max as he tilted
Vivienne’s head and placed a cup containing some kind of liquid to her lips.

“Vivienne
hates hospitals? Seriously? This isn’t a game, Max. So what she doesn’t like
hospitals? She could die!” Drew yelled, and then looked down to see if Vivienne
had had any kind of response to her tone. Her friend hadn’t moved, not even to
shift or blink. She’d moved in the cab, but as soon as they’d put her to bed,
Vivienne had been still except for the easy rise and fall of her chest.

Having
reached her limit, Drew moved around Vivienne’s bed to where her cordless phone
rested. Max might be dense and stupid when it came to things like these but she
was not and she certainly was not going to let Vivienne die because Max was too
stupid and stubborn to realize the seriousness of the situation.

She’d
picked it up, pushed the on button, and dialed “9” before Max reached her and
tugged the phone from her hand.

“Give me
the damn phone, Max! I am not playing with you!”

“She’s
sleeping. Calm down. She’s—”

“Look, last
time I checked, you were not a doctor so you give me that phone right now or
I’m going to kick your ass and take it from you!” She grabbed for the phone but
Max lifted it above his head, making it impossible for her to reach it. “Max,
this is Vivienne’s life we’re talking about!”

“Just shut
up and listen to me,” Max said, his voice rising as he looked down at her. “Her
pulse is stable, her breathing even. She’s resting. And I’m not a doctor but I
took an EMT class, didn’t I? Viv’s my friend, too. I wouldn’t sit here and let
anything happen to her just because she doesn’t like hospitals. But I don’t see
the point in freaking her out any more by taking her to one when it’s not
necessary.”

As Drew
weighed his statements, she gradually calmed. He
had
taken an EMT class
during college, but did that really qualify him to make such a decision on
Vivienne’s behalf? She was just about to counter with that argument when a
groan suddenly touched her ears.

Max was
already moving to Vivienne’s side. She did the same, taking the other side of
the bed.

Vivienne
blinked rapidly, and she lifted her hand to cover her eyes.

“Light too
bright?” Max asked, his voice the gentlest Drew had ever heard him use.

A nod later
and the room slid into darkness before a dim lamp was turned on.

“What
happened?” Vivienne’s voice was hoarse and gravelly, the voice of someone
waking for the first time after a long sleep.

“You were
drugged,” Max said bluntly, and Drew watched as Vivienne’s eyebrows lifted in
confusion. When Max mentioned that, Drew remembered why it had struck her so.

How had she
been drugged? She hadn’t had anything to drink.

Drugged?
Vivienne thought with a long
shudder. On her birthday of all days, she’d been drugged. The irony. No one had
attempted to drug her in high school or college, when she’d been her most
reckless, but now that she was a grown woman of twenty-three, someone had
dared.

She
whimpered at the pain in her head and tried to think back over the events of
the night. She remembered briefly going to the Four Seasons, and then heading
into a club. That was it. Everything from there on was either hazy or blank, an
effect of the drug, she decided. After a pounding headache started when she
pushed too hard, she gave up trying to remember for now. She was so tired
anyway.

“Did we
have fun, apart from that?” she found herself asking, even as her lids closed.

“Loads,”
Max replied immediately.

Drew’s
voice came later, just before she fell into a dreamless sleep, “Yes,
fun
.”

After changing
Vivienne into more comfortable clothes, and with Max’s help, getting her under
the duvet, Drew left Vivienne’s room with Max beside her. It was nearing four
in the morning, and while she was tired, there was something on her mind.

“‘Night,”
Max said as he began walking in the direction of his room. He’d opened his door
and was almost inside when Drew followed him, calling out, “Hey, I need to
speak to you.”

Max turned
at the door and pulled it open wider, so as to give her space to enter. Drew
lifted a brow. Why couldn’t they speak outside?

“Because
Vivienne’s sleeping.” Max answered her unspoken question easily, and Drew
frowned, her lips curling slightly, at him. She really hated that he knew what
she was thinking most times.

Stepping
into his room, Drew looked around, surprised to find it was extremely clean.
She hadn’t been to his room—well, ever. She’d looked inside on passing a few
times but she’d never actually stepped into the place. Everything was neatly
organized, from the books that dominated his bookshelves, to the neatly
organized rows of shoes in his open closet.

Drew was so
busy looking around the room she almost forgot about the man who resided there.

“What do
you want to talk about?” His voice came from somewhere behind her and Drew turned
to face him.

She was
about to begin speaking when her eyes came in contact with his naked torso. Max
had removed his shirt, and his hands were on the buttons of his pants. Her eyes
lifted slowly, tracing the deep cuts of muscle against his abdominal area, the
thin line of darker blond hair that started at his belly button and disappeared
in the waistband of his pants, before she whipped her gaze up to land on flat,
pink nipples.

Swallowing,
Drew quickly looked away. She thanked her lucky stars her complexion was so
dark that the heat that rushed her face would not show through. Max was
gorgeous. He was. It was fact, but Max was also an asshole. She had no business
ogling him in his room, with that big, comfortable-looking bed right behind
him.

“Like what
you see?” Low and deep, his voice taunted her.

Clearing
her throat, Drew shook her head. “It amuses me how often you seem to forget
that I’m not one of your floozies. If you’d put some clothes on, this
conversation would be over faster.”

Moments later
he stood before her, a plain white T-shirt and plaid pajama bottoms covering
his body.

“Does this
please you, my lady?” he asked sarcastically, turning to showcase his clothed
body.

Drew
nodded, glared at him, and said, “Vivienne wasn’t drugged. I don’t think so,
anyway.”

“What?” Max
asked, his brows crinkling in confusion. “What are you talking about? You saw
her. She was obviously drugged.”

She shook
her head, and the braids swayed. “She couldn’t have been, Max. She didn’t even
have anything to drink. I was with her the entire time, Max. I would know.”

He drew in
a breath and continued to stare at her. When he made no move to say anything,
just continued to look at her, Drew grew self-conscious.

“You’re
positive this guy gave her nothing to drink?”

Drew nodded
once as she explained to Max, in detail, what had happened. She started with
Vivienne approaching the man on her own, kissing him like a lost lover.

Turning
away, Max walked to his bed, and leaned against it, seemingly absorbed in
thought.

“So, she
wasn’t drugged,” he said, almost to himself, his forehead crinkling.

Drew walked
over to him, until she was practically standing between his legs.

“No, I
don’t think she was.” Max lifted his head, and the two stared at each other for
a long time.

“Maybe he
drugged her some other way…?”

“I don’t
think so.” Drew paused and inhaled deeply. “I think there’s something wrong
with Viv.” Max lifted a brow at that and she continued. “Max, maybe Viv’s
sick?”

Vivienne
glared at Max and Drew for what seemed like the hundredth time since she’d
awoken that morning.

After
stretching and finding her body felt somewhat different—more sensitive—Vivienne
had tossed the duvet and headed for the bathroom. Along the way, she’d been
intercepted by the two people who were now subject to her glares. They’d asked
her how she felt, if she wanted anything, all concerned questions of friends
that she’d answered graciously before showering. She remembered being told
she’d been drugged last night, but except for the sensitivity of her skin,
Vivienne felt nothing that would indicate the remainder of a drug in her
system.

Her shower
complete, she had gone to the kitchen to find breakfast laid out for her.
Quaker Oats, milk, orange juice, egg whites, and a slice of toasted bread, all
compliments of Drew. She’d thanked her friend and attempted to eat as much as
she could. But after hours of watching them “volunteer” to do things for her or
ask after her every five minutes, Vivienne started to grow frustrated. What was
wrong with them? And why hadn’t Max and Drew argued once since she’d awoken?
This had to be a new record.

She was
sitting in the living room, her laptop on the center table before her, when
Vivienne noticed that instead of the television, which was playing some sappy
Lifetime movie, Max and Drew were watching her.

Sighing,
she closed the laptop, causing them to look back to the television. “Okay. What
is it? Why are you two acting so strange and don’t tell me that it’s nothing
because it’s obviously something.”

Max sighed,
running a hand through his hair before rubbing at his brows. “We just want to
make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m fine,
guys.” Vivienne laughed softly, and shook her head. She’d been drugged in the
company of the right people, people who loved her and who’d taken care of her.
It wasn’t so bad. “I am. I feel fine, and I look fine, don’t I?”

After
sharing quick glances with each other, they nodded very reluctantly.

“Good, so
stop worrying so much. I’m beginning to think that whatever I was slipped
wasn’t really a hard drug, probably a few painkillers. I don’t feel like I’ve
been drugged, although it’s not like I have the experience to tell.” She paused
and looked between them. Max was on the loveseat, and Drew in the armchair on
the other side of the living room. “My point is that I’m fine. I have the most
amazing friends, and you guys took care of me last night, but you don’t have to
keep hovering, though I love you even more for doing it.” When they both gave
her genuine smiles, Vivienne added with mock seriousness, “Plus, I have to get
this brief written for Hastings by tomorrow and I won’t be able to concentrate
if you two keep hovering.”

It was
times like these, times when Arnold Hastings was staring down at her with that
hard frown and those unflinchingly cold metallic-colored eyes, that Vivienne
thought of handing in her resignation.

Why was the
man always so cold, anyway? He was one of the equity partners, meaning he had
more money than he could spend, and he was the most sought-after attorney at
the firm. Almost every case he took turned out favorable for the client, even
if the client lost! To make matters even worse, he wasn’t the stereotypical
attorney: fat, ugly, awkward or any other socially demeaning things. On a given
day, Hastings looked like he’d stepped off the cover of GQ or Forbes. Tailored
suits, square jaw, calculating gray eyes, thin lips. He also had a full head of
silky white hair, which had to either be a good color done professionally in a
salon, or a hereditary gene, because his face belied that hair. He couldn’t be
more than thirty-five, if that old.

He probably
had a trophy wife, beautiful with Botox and implants, trophy children, all in
private schools and geared for an Ivy League education, and a big house, but
the man couldn’t manage to crack even one smile on a good day. And up until
now, today had been a very good day. She’d been present when he’d closed the
deal on behalf of one of his major clients, the Cedar Creek Companies, and had
felt a great ounce of pride knowing that she’d drafted part of the now-signed
contract.