Total eclipse of the moo.., p.8
Total Eclipse of the Moon, page 8
His name tumbled out unnecessarily and a little dreamily, "Shane."
His hold on her squeezed to a degree that had her heart pounding harder, but not in fear. He wasn’t hurting her. To be turned on was a gross disregard of self-preservation. Staring up into his face, she was aware he could kill her right here. A quick snap of her neck or he could knock her out and take her anywhere. But this was Shane, who just saved her. And whose core mantra was honor. He looked into the souls of his adversaries and judged. Was her soul worthy of life?
For breathless moments, they stared.
His forefinger moved over her forehead where she’d whacked herself on a branch during the fight. Then he lifted one hand to examine the defensive cuts across the back of her hand and wrist. His voice went to a hoarse whisper as his finger hovered over her cut-covered knuckles. "What happened to your powers? You’re in danger while this weak."
His vivid blue eyes were on fire when they locked with hers. The look had nothing to do with interest in her magic loss. He’d suffered for wanting her just as much as she’d ached for him. Her heart gave a little leap.
Although his features were completely absent a smile, she felt one—a blasted, wistful one—tug at her lips. Her mind was completely occupied by that night in Puerto Rico. "It’s complicated."
"How long have you been like this?"
She swallowed hard and struggled to maintain eye contact. "Eight months, give or take a bit."
He held up his wrist to show off his curse tattoo. His eyebrows rose.
"It was my choice to give you some relief from having to answer its call. I chose to pay the price."
"It wasn’t a price you needed to pay." He wrapped his fingers around the back of her neck. The warmth of his skin on hers in such an intimate location sent tingles down her spine. As he leaned in while fixated on her lips—oh my, he was going to kiss her—he whispered, "What do you need to do to get your powers back? Can you take it back? Undo it?"
Shane’s appeal lay in his certainty of what was right or wrong. He had tremendous loyalty to his convictions.
"If I answer your question, will you answer mine?" She traced the ridges of his chest to the collar of his shirt, giving in to the temptation to touch his bare skin above the collar, following the edge of his collarbone.
He stared at her finger where it touched his chest and bit the corner of his lip before looking back into her eyes. The brightness of his look disarmed her with its tenderness and passion. It made answering his question harder. She felt as if he could see past her tough exterior, straight to her soul.
"Fair trade, I suppose." He put a finger on her ear and traced its curved edge, the simple move sending chills scattering through her. "You answer first."
"How do I know you’ll answer?"
"Guess you’ll have to trust me. Do you trust me?"
She rested her whole palm against his chest over his heart where could feel its strong beat. "I’m not sure what I have to do to get everything back."
"And your question?" His mouth hovered over hers.
"Are you going to get revenge for me leaving you cuffed and then not staying put in Mexico?"
"I had to make a promise that I won't intentionally hurt you to get free of those handcuffs. So, you're safe. You were smart to not stay put in Mexico since I ended up in a complicated situation after I took care of MI6."
"Then why are you mad at me?"
"For putting yourself at risk here and almost getting killed. For making me feel this way." His face flushed.
"I didn't cast a spell. I swear. Stop glaring as if I did. I can't help that I'm sexy."
He said hoarsely. "No matter what happens, my priority is freedom for me and for my brothers. I’ll do anything to get it."
She lifted onto her tiptoes and brushed her lips against his.
It took him a second to respond. He gripped her arm, preventing any possible escape, and moved to deepen the kiss. She moaned, mouth open, her tongue searching for his. His answering growl had her pressing tight to him. So many months of unending torture dreaming of him. She wanted him to forget everything else and take her somewhere where she could strip him naked. She longed to hear him cry and scream her name over and over.
He pulled his mouth off hers but didn't let go of her. "Swear to me on your soul, Madeline, that you will never—and I mean never ever—again use a Sleeping Beauty kiss on me. No crossed fingers. Swear it."
"I swear I won’t do it again."
The space between them disappeared as her arms wrapped above his shoulders to cradle his head. He snaked an arm around her waist and grabbed a handful of her ass. They needed privacy. They needed a surface. The bench would work. The side of the building looked promising.
Desperation clawed at her, eroding her control. The months apart dissolved. The tension, the pent-up frustration, all the times she’d touched herself while longing for him…
He grabbed her hands where they worked the zipper of his pants and brought them behind her back. She blinked up at him, confused and dazed. He bent his head to her neck and kissed a spot on her shoulder. His heart beat hard. Little pants of breath from him hit her neck.
She was the first to speak as they stood there. "You’re really good at that."
"At what?"
"Making me hot. Kissing me. Making me forget where we are."
His mouth curved upward a bit as he took a step away. "This has to be some sort of spell you cast on me, which we need to reverse. But…" He righted his shirt, fixed his pants, and put distance between them. "We have company."
"I hate that I missed some good action. Had to wait for the sun to set. Limitations, you know." A vampire she recognized as Antonio stalked down the small path between plants. He paused above the lycan body. "Charred lycan. Horrible stench." He waved a hand in front of his nose. "Is he dead?"
Shane shot him a double eyebrow raise. "Unless he's about to become a zombie, I'd say so. Not our doing. The collar killed him."
The vampire cocked his head at her, evaluating. "It’s been a while, Madeline."
"Antonio." She nodded stiffly, cold suffusing her. "How can you possibly be friends with Shane?"
"We work together. It helps to have someone like me on the team." He leered an expanse of white teeth and sharp fangs. The problem with the vampire was he had certifiably psychopathic tendencies, according to Cora. When Cora met Antonio fifteen years ago, he had trouble understanding others’ emotions. He was able to detach from situations too easily. Cora speculated it was more age-related rather than a true psychopathic problem. The older all nonhumans got the tougher it was to connect to others.
"How do you know her?" Shane asked.
"Mutual acquaintance."
"Why did you never mention this?"
"You never asked." Typical of the vampire to know Shane wanted to find her yet not mention they’d met before. "It’s not as if my meeting her in passing several years ago through a mutual friend would’ve been remotely helpful to you."
"We could’ve gone to the mutual friend." Shane's cheek muscles tightened.
"That would’ve been a bad idea. Madeline may be a passably gifted witch, but…" Antonio said to her, "How is mi bruja hermosa?"
She blinked at him. He'd just called her aunt his beautiful witch?
"Does she still have green or purple hair?"
"It’s a different color now."
Antonio and Cora had been in the middle of a short-term fling when Madeline met Antonio. On one of Madeline’s vacation days from dodging MI6 assassins, she’d bumped into the vampire at Cora’s home. Memorable, since he’d been naked in the kitchen drinking blood from a travel cup when they met. His inability to emote, obvious from his lack of care about her distressed state that day, had put a gigantic damper on his and Cora’s relationship. No one as highly sensitive and emotional as Cora could tolerate someone so blatantly cold on purpose. Cora said she tried to teach him how to feel, but as much as they both enjoyed the sex, Antonio couldn’t connect. She guessed if he "worked with" Shane then in a life-or-death situation he’d be useful since he could probably remain detached and be deadly to the extreme.
Fully expecting them to part ways, she announced, "We should all leave."
Shane bent over at the waist. His left hand was trembling. The side of his face twitched. The skin from his eyebrow to nose jerked in small spasms.
"Shit," Antonio said. "On a scale from zero to ten, where are you, Shane?" He whipped off his suit jacket and wrapped it around Madeline. He said low to her, "To hide the blood that’s all over you. We’re about to have to move fast and no doubt will run into people. You’re going to stay with us until you and Shane chat, but first, we resolve his current issue."
"What’s wrong with him?" She tried to figure out why Shane seemed different. In the low ambient light, his irises had gone dark. Gone was the brilliant blue color of a summer sky in the tropics. Had to be something to do with the demon inside him.
Shane stuttered, "A-a-at le—least a nine."
"Keep up with me, Madeline." Antonio hoisted Shane onto his shoulder without so much as a grunt, a tribute to his strength. In a blink, he was running with his load through a knee-high hedge maze illuminated by a few dim streetlights.
"What’s going on?" She ran beside the vampire through the gardens, branches catching on her pants.
He paused beside an oak tree to evaluate the entry where two police cars had pulled to block the exit, lights flashing in the dark night. On a whisper, he said, "This demon and Shane might sort of have a truce, but when they merge the aftermath is bad. I think they’re battling for who’s in charge. We have minutes to make sure this body stays the Shane we know."
Chapter Nine
Antonio veered for the welcome center near the entrance to the gardens. "We need a different way out." He pointed at the front gate. "Policía."
Police lights lit up the night.
Inside a small building that reeked of minty cleanser, he set Shane in a chair. "I'll take care of the docent."
"Are you going to kill her?"
He reared back with a scowl. "I am not a monster." He lowered his voice. "Stay with Shane. You run away, and I will be pissed."
"Why should I stay?"
"You want out of here or not?" He held up his hands. "Besides, he wants to speak with you. That means you stay."
"To talk about what?"
He shrugged a dramatic rise and fall of his shoulders. "Maybe that you did the maldición...the curse on him? Maybe that his dick's in a twist over el encanto you cast?" He stalked off muttering, "Brujas." Witches.
She knelt in front of Shane and squeezed his hand. "You with me? Or am I with the demon?"
He stared sightlessly at her. In an outward hiss of breath he said, "Fighting."
Antonio returned to lift Shane and led through a back room and outside. The exit avoided the front gate and the police.
Up the street, Madeline scooted into the back seat of the vampire's sedan, holding her small backpack tight to her body, while Antonio positioned Shane upright in the passenger front seat. He clicked the seatbelt across Shane with far more care than she would’ve expected for someone that couldn’t access emotion. He got into the driver’s seat and pawed around the dashboard.
What was she thinking, getting in the car? Her opportunity to commune with the dead spirit of her son would happen soon. She needed to find somewhere safe and private. That wasn’t here. Most certainly wasn't with either of these two nearby.
But she couldn't leave Shane like this, not after he helped her.
Full-body shakes hit Shane, sweat streaming down his face. She leaned between the seats to push hair out of his closed eyes, "Stay with us, Shane."
She leaned between the seats and put a hand on Shane's shoulder, not that it got her his attention. "What do we do?"
"Ayúdame a encontrar... Help me find the fucking USB plugin." Antonio ran his hands over the dashboard.
Shane muttered incoherently.
"Try the glove box." She put a hand on Shane’s cheek, feeling the fine tremors as they worsened. "His face is literally spasming." She squeezed his forearm. "Shane? Can you hear me?"
No response from him. She jerked away from him at the sound of police sirens closing in on them.
"Aquí!" Antonio slipped a white cord into the driver’s side of the center console, scrolled on his phone, and shot her a commanding glare. "This demonio has one weakness that scares it back into hiding. I discovered it in México. I know not why it works. Neither does Shane. Cantar...sing. It’s our only hope of bringing Shane back."
"Singing?"
He cranked the car and hit the gas as a heavy beat blared from the radio.
"Pop music?" she asked, slamming her hand to halt her slide into the back door as he cornered the car hard.
Antonio bellowed out the melody in tune. His body bopped in time to the beat, head rocking from side to side.
She burst out laughing at the suave, eons-old Spanish vampire singing this female empowerment anthem while weaving through traffic.
He turned up the volume and shot her a glare. Shane wasn’t twitching any more. His body had gone still. Pop music forced the demon into compliance?
Okay.
She nodded to catch the beat, letting it infuse her. Heat radiated through her chest. Her limbs felt weightless. Energy sparked as magical sensations she hadn’t felt in over a year jolted through her body. She gave a small shoulder shimmy and then full shoulder shake. How she longed to stand up and move. This song had a powerful beat.
It’d been ages since she let loose and simply sang and danced. She seat-danced, full arm movements and even butt shimmies, singing out of a place of pure joy. Magical energy zipped through her in renewal. Right before the next chorus, she tapped Shane on his shoulder. "Come on, sing with me."
She sang the chorus with Antonio. The vampire smiled at her in the rearview mirror, obviously appreciating her incredible seated dance moves.
Shane rotated in his seat. His eyebrows raised with a level of coherence in his gaze. The blue was back in his eyes.
She waved her hands in the air and let the music fill her. Demons might hate pop music, but witches powered up on it. She’d forgotten the release and liberation that came from the pleasure of the music becoming the focus of everything for a few short minutes.
Shane’s baritone filled the space, warming her further from the inside out. With a gleeful laugh, she sang with him, going an octave higher than him.
The song came to an end, the silence deafening.
"Got more on there with good beats like that?" she asked.
Antonio chose a new one.
She scrutinized Shane’s eyes to confirm they remained aquiline clear blue. She winked at Shane. "Smite me with it, Antonio."
Shane chuckled.
Belting the melody at the top of her lungs, she shimmied in the back seat.
Shane watched her as if transfixed. "You’re glowing."
She did a pshaw move with her hands and assumed he referred to how happy the music made her. She continued to let the beat move her.
When the song ended, Antonio said to Shane, "Drink."
Shane reached to the floorboard and came up with a can of soda. He downed it in seconds, following it with a second. He and Antonio made eye contact. Shane squeezed the vampire’s shoulder. "Thanks. I’m going to rest."
Within moments, he breathed deeply, sleeping.
"He’s asleep just like that?" she asked. "Pop music followed by a heavy sugary drink and he’s out?"
Antonio's brow wrinkled as he glanced Shane's way. "The demonio takes much energy from him."
"Interesting." She leaned through the seats to watch him breathe. A small rotation, and she squinted at the vampire, who she caught sneaking a worried glance toward Shane. "You don’t seem psychopathic to me." She slapped a hand over her mouth and scooted deep into the back seat, slumping. "Did I say that out loud?" Oops.
The vampire smirked. A mask of superiority descended over his face in the rearview mirror. "Is that what Cora said about me, bruja?" Even though that meant "witch," this time the way he said it was more of a caress than an insult.
"You just… You seem as if you have some ability to feel."
"Ah, Cora." He put his hand over his chest and sighed. "Tan malvado belleza." Such a wicked beauty. He added in English, "I was young and an idiot when we were involved."
"It was about fifteen years ago. For someone like you, that’s no more than an eye blink in time. I wouldn’t label you young back then."
"A lot’s happened in those years. I’m now working with a demon-possessed lycan, and the bruja who is this lycan’s archenemy is in the back seat helping me stabilize him."
"True. Strange times. Why are you working with him? A vampire helping a lycan? Mortal enemies working together?" She scooted back to sit deeper in the leather bench seat and clicked on her seatbelt.
"We're no more enemies than you and him, if we are speaking of intra-species hate." He met her gaze in the rearview.
"I don’t hate him."
"The bug has bitten you in the ass." Antonio smirked.
"What bug?" Something was getting lost in translation. The vampire didn't mean a literal bug nor that she was "in love" with Shane. She wasn't. Maybe infatuation. Maybe lust.
"When you join Shane’s team, he makes the most cynical believe in his truth. He never loses when he puts his mind to a mission. That means you now comprender it’s best not to bet against him."
A chill scattered across her shoulders. "You can drop me off anywhere and I'll take off." The streets looked empty.
"No." Antonio didn't stop. "Shane flew a long way to save you. You will give him a few minutes."
Not tonight. "Can we do this tomorrow? I have plans tonight."
"No."
Antonio dumped two cloth bags filled with non-refrigerated food on the kitchen counter inside the "safe house" two hours outside of Madrid. The one-story, three-room white stucco abode, surrounded by a few acres of overgrown landscaping, was in desperate need of a power wash and yard care. Dust coated every surface inside. It smelled of mildew from disuse, but after months of being on the run, this was far better than anywhere she’d stayed recently. She was used to no bed, making do with concrete floors in warehouses or alleyways, rarely having a blanket, and often being thoroughly soaked through her clothes. Warm clothes, clean sheets, and a full belly were wonderful when she could get them, but not necessary for survival.
