Leopard Moon (18 page)
"Shit," he muttered, putting her clothes on the hood of his Jeep. He shucked off his clothes quickly, shoving them on top of hers, before jogging to the edge of the wood and changing.
He was off, following the signs of her passing. He howled to let the others know he was out here. He had no idea how they'd react to a black leopard in the woods—in their woods, for this was on the compound proper. An unknown werecreature showing up uninvited in their territory--on their property--would not be well received and Cormac knew it. And with Kess freaking out, he had no idea what she would do if she felt threatened. Or what the pack would do to her to protect themselves.
He ran, a streak of silver-tipped fur beneath the dark canopy of evergreens. His huge front paws thudded into the frozen ground. He heard another howl, this one different from the first, a call to hunt. He recognized Burke's answering howl--he could always pick out his cousin's wolf voice, even if he had problems with some of the others. If Burke was out, that meant Finn was too. So at least two of them were running tonight. He heard a third howl, but this one was farther away and Cormac hoped it stayed that way. He hoped to find Kess well before the pack did.
Another howl, this time closer and Cormac pushed himself to go faster. Burke's scent crossed over Kess' tracks so he knew his cousin had found her. Kess was fast, but he didn't know much about her endurance; wolves were used to covering a lot of ground in a day. Burke could follow her for hours unless she could give him the slip, which he doubted she’d be able to do—not in their own backyard. Burke was tenacious and if he thought the safety of the pack was threatened he wasn't likely to let that go.
The sounds of snarling and a feline roaring came to him over the still night air from somewhere far ahead of him and to his left. He bounded off, big paws thudding into the barren ground, eating up the distance in a ground-devouring sprint. He didn't hear the sounds of fighting yet, which gave him hope that he could make it in time to prevent anything stupid from happening.
He found Burke and Finn snapping at a dark shape that was backed against a tree. The leopard batted at the two wolves who bristled and snarled back, angling for an opening to take the beast down. He heard the low rumble of Kess' growl. He barked at the other two, trying to get their attention. The slight distraction allowed Kess to climb up the tree and crouch in the low braches. Finn howled and kept scrabbling at the trunk, doing nothing but tearing off bark in long strips, but Burke finally turned his head in Cormac's direction. He loped over, and followed Cormac a few feet away, but kept his eyes on his brother and the tree.
Cormac changed, the cold night air chilling him. "Burke. We need to talk." Burke-wolf whined, looking back again at his brother. "Trust me."
Burke changed, but the look on his face told Cormac that he needed to talk fast. "What the hell, man? There's some kind of big cat we ran across..."
"It's Kess."
Burke gaped at him. "What?!"
"Kess is the cat. Wereleopard actually. She's scared and I need to get her down but I need you two to back off before somebody gets hurt."
"How long have you known about this?" Burke's face went still, eyes narrowed. "You haven't told your dad." He shook his head. "You are in some serious shit, you know that?"
Cormac nodded in agreement. He needed a way to make Burke understand. Things were so clear to his cousin—you did what you were supposed to do. Burke was probably going to be the next Beta after Griff. Burke's eyes were accusatory.
"I know I am. And I'll tell my dad tomorrow, I swear," Cormac said, glancing at Finn who was just prowling the base of the tree now. "I'm sorry, man. Just let me get her down."
"Finn!" Burke beckoned his brother to him as Cormac walked over to stand beneath the tree.
Cormac stared up, barely making out the dark outline of the wereleopard. "Kess, you can come down now. It's okay." He saw the glint of her green-gold eyes, then he heard a rustling as she began to move. He backed up, giving her plenty of space. He checked on Burke and Finn, both back in human form. Finn looked like he'd been struck on the back of the head with a board, so Burke must have filled him in.
The leopard climbed down the tree head-first, then leaped lightly to the ground. She came to stand at Cormac's right, not quite within touching distance. Her ears were laid back, but she didn't snarl or growl, content to watch and wait.
"Holy crap," Finn breathed, eyes huge.
"I'm going to take her home," Cormac said, looking at his cousins in turn. "You don't need to worry about her tonight."
"Tell your dad," Burke warned. "Or I will." He grabbed his brother and led them back into the woods.
"Come on, Kess. Let's go." Cormac changed back into a wolf and led the way back to his cabin.
At the Jeep he changed back, pulling on his frigid clothes. Kess disappeared behind the vehicle, and groped for her sweater and jeans after her own change. They walked in silence back to the house, both barefoot. Cormac lit a fire in the fireplace before heading to the hall closet to snag a blanket for Kess.
She looked miserable. She was still stunning, but sadness enveloped her, making her seem small. Her eyes were red and swollen and she hadn't stopped shaking. He was worried about her, but worse, he was worried about them. He would have to talk to his father—to tell him what Kess was. And now that Burke and Finn knew, it would have to be soon—tomorrow. He wasn't sure if he was ready. Or if she was.
He draped the blanket over her shoulders and put a kettle on the stove. She was clutching the blanket like it was a lifeline, but otherwise hadn't moved. She didn't look up when he sat at the other end of the couch from her. He was still trying to figure out where to begin when she spoke.
"Thank you. I'm sorry I got you into trouble."
He rubbed the back of his neck. "Can you tell me what happened? I mean, did I do something..."
"No, no, it wasn't you," she whispered. In a small voice, she said, "You are wonderful." Cormac couldn't help but smile at this stroke to his male pride. He saw the muscles in her jaw jump as she gritted her teeth and he wondered exactly what was going on in her head. A tear leaked out of her eye and she dashed it away angrily. Finally she spoke again, as if she had come to some kind of decision. "It's my brother, Sekhmet.
"My brother, he has these ideas. About purity of the line and a lot of old Egyptian stuff. He wants the clan to breed true. He used to talk about it all the time when we were together in Miami." She shuddered and Cormac stiffened. He had a bad feeling about where this was headed. Were/were pairings were more likely to produce a were offspring, although it wasn't guaranteed. It was like a recessive gene--you could try and stack the deck in your favor by only mating with a known werecreature, especially if they descended from a full were-pairing themselves. "He was a little too interested in me, I think, because of it. I tried to talk to my dad about that, but Sek was somehow always there. I didn't get to see much of my dad without Sek."
Cormac listened to the story of Kess and her brother, of what happened that set her off running in the first place. She didn't go into detail, didn't seem ready to do that, and Cormac was grateful that she didn't because he wasn't quite sure if he was going to be able to sit still very much longer. To take a trust like that and twist it, it was unfathomable to him. He thought of his younger sister and couldn't understand how Sekhmet could do that to Kess.
"He's unbalanced, I think," Kess finished. Cormac had to bite his tongue from saying what he thought Sek was. She didn't need his anger. "I've done some research about his behavior patterns, some of the changes that he went through. I think there’s something mentally wrong, maybe bipolar, maybe something else. Then he’s got all these ideas about ways the clan should be and I just don’t know what's wrong with him. But his obsession is not normal, even for us." She shivered and he got up to bring her a cup of tea.
She accepted it with murmured thanks. He sat back down. "And you never told your dad what he did?"
Kess took a sip, then shook her head. "I was afraid of what would happen. The clan isn't in the best of shape, and this would probably only make things worse. I didn't want to be the cause of it." She looked down. "And I was afraid. Of what he'd think of me."
Cormac looked at her, trying to read what was going on inside her head. He thought that she was in earnest when she said she didn't want to cause any more upheaval in the clan. But the idea that she was worried that her father might blame her for what happened, or take Sek's side against her, or worse, not believe her at all, was far worse than any thought of clan upheaval to him. He didn't know what to say that. He put his arm around her.
She finally looked at him. "I shouldn't have brought you into my mess. Now you're in trouble with the whole pack."
"Last I checked, it was me chasing you," he said, trying to lighten the mood. He'd known what he was doing when he decided to keep the information about her to himself. He didn't regret it.
"Bet you wish you never caught me."
"Not even a little bit." He smiled at her startled expression. He put his hands on her shoulders, rubbing them through the blanket. "I'm not going anywhere."
He got up, taking her hand, leading her back to his bedroom. She hung back when she realized where they were going. He gestured for her to go in, but didn't follow her. "Get some rest in here, okay. I'm fine on the couch. If you want to change, there's t-shirts in the top drawer."
He was turning to leave when her light touch on his arm stopped him. "Cormac," she said, lifting her eyes to meet his, "I had a really good time tonight. You know, before...," and she leaned up and lightly kissed him on the mouth.
He brushed the back of his hand across her cheek. "Me too," he answered, a soft smile playing around his lips. "Good night, Kess."
The door closed softly behind him. He went out to the living room, grabbing another blanket and pillow as he went. Stripping down to his underwear, he lay staring at the fire for a long time as it jumped and flickered. He had no idea what he was going to say to his father.
Sek paused in front of the closed bedroom door. It was the door to Kess' room and it had remained closed since she'd left, only opening for the cleaning service. He didn't like to spend much time in this wing of the house. It reminded him of what was missing. But since the death of his father, he found himself walking the halls when he was unable to sleep.
He opened the door, the first time he'd done so since he'd discovered she was gone. It still looked the same as when she left it and when he entered the room he felt like he was back in time. He could almost hear her quick feet slapping against the tile floors, her laughter as she spoke on the phone to one of her friends. He could envision her flopped on the bed, as she had been the night before she left...
Sek shook his head to clear the memories that clung like webbing in his head. He remembered wanting to show her how much she meant to him, how much he loved her. He hadn't wanted Kess to go away to school; both he and his father thought it best that she stay within clan territory. He wanted to convince her that she could have everything she ever wanted right here. With him.
It had gotten away from him though. He'd been rough with her, more than he ever intended, but he hadn't expected her to fight him. Sek knew Kess loved him. He had chalked up her distance and moodiness around him to teenage rebellion. He thought that once she was over this phase, they'd be closer than ever.
Instead she'd fled like smoke.
His cell phone rang. "Hello?"
"Sekhmet? It's Charles." The investigator's voice crackled over a bad connection. "I've got a lead on your sister."
Sek stiffened, barely believing the words his investigator spoke. "Where is she?"
"Don't know yet. She's headed back east though." He broke up. "...men on it."
"Do whatever it takes," Sek ordered, clamping down at the thrill that surged in him. They hadn't found her yet.
But they would.
Cormac dropped Kess off at Bran and Anita's boarding house before heading over to campus to drop off the last of his library books from the semester. As he was leaving the boarding house lot, he got out his cell phone and called the Lodge. His mother picked up the phone after a few rings.
"Hey mom," Cormac answered. "Is Dad around?"
"He's out in the workshop. You need me to get him?"
"No, but I'm coming by to talk to him. Make sure he doesn't leave, okay? I'm coming from school so I should be there in a little while."
"Everything alright?" There was concern in her voice, but then again, there always was when it came to her children.
"Mmmmhmmm. Just need to talk to him about something before he hears it from someone else, that's all. Nothing big." Cormac didn't want to worry his mother--that would come later, once he told his father.
"Okay, sweetie. See you in a bit."
The drive over to the library helped him clear his head and get a handle on the events of last night. Burke and Finn now knew that Kess was a were. Cormac knew he had a grace period with Burke before his cousin went to tell Alaric, but it would not be a long one. Truth be told, part of the reason he was heading to the university and not directly to the Lodge was because he was procrastinating. He had no idea how to bring this up to his father—he had hoped to have more time with Kess and more time to introduce her to his family before having to bring up her were status.