Leopard Moon (24 page)
She felt the bed dip with the weight of someone sitting on it. Sek sat there, having come in from the French doors that led out to the pool. He had closed them behind him, cutting off the breeze. She frowned as she looked at her older brother. He’d been moody a lot lately, switching between highly infectious good humor and violent rages followed by bouts of sullen depression. She wasn’t sure what to expect.
"Don’t you knock?" she asked, rolling back over to continue sifting through the information packets.
He lay down on his stomach next to her, picking up forms and glossy flyers idly and tossing them aside. "I can’t believe you’re thinking of leaving me."
"It’s just college, Sek." She rolled her eyes. Over-dramatic was the order of the day. "I’ll be back."
"I’ve told Father you should attend U of M. He’s told me he can make some arrangements."
"That’s great, except I don’t know if I want to stay here for school." She was irritated. He'd gotten increasingly weirder in the last couple of years, more possessive and strange. He’d gotten more erratic since his own change hit, but now Sek was always trying to make decisions for her and it was driving her nuts. She wasn’t his toy to move around like he wanted. He’d been worse about it recently, especially since her own change happened. She was pretty sure it had been his suggestion to their father that she be homeschooled. He kept tabs on her when she went out with friends, sometimes showing up to take her home well before she was ready to go. She knew he loved her and worried about her safety, but he was smothering her. On the few times she had snuck out without him knowing, he’d been furious.
"What have you been up to all day?" Kess decided changing the subject to something Sek was interested in would derail any further talk of school. "More meetings?"
Sek grinned, eyes glinting in the light from her reading lamp. "Research actually."
"More leopard stuff?" Her brother had been fixated of late on finding out where their clan of wereleopards might have originated. It seemed a little weird and unnecessary to Kess, but it was keeping him busy and sort of out of her hair.
He nodded. "Egypt is looking more and more likely. Maybe even descended from the followers of Bast." He grinned at her. "How'd you like to be a goddess, little sister?"
She shrugged. "I'm not sure how that would really be important, you know,
now
." Kess eyed him dubiously. It was all fine to look back on ancient history, but she couldn't understand what good it would do them today. Sekhmet had never really been interested in their origins before. She wondered what might be going on with him to change that.
"The old ways are sometimes the best ways," he remarked. Kess frowned at his cryptic words. Best ways for what exactly?
He was playing with her hair. She swatted at his hand, but he grabbed one of her pillows and popped her in the head with it. She rolled, snagging one of her own and swung wide; he dodged out of the way lazily. Then they were running around her room, each trying to smack the other, knocking over picture frames and lamps in their near misses. She leaped from the bed at him, putting all her weight behind the swing and sent them both over toppling over. They fell to the carpet, laughing in a tangle of limbs and Kess remembered how much she dearly loved her brother sometimes.
He rolled on top of her and began to tickle her. She was very ticklish along her belly, which Sek knew and used to unfair advantage now. She tried to throw him off, but she was laughing too hard and finally, when she thought she might puke or pass out, she screamed through the laughs, "Enough!"
He stopped but didn’t let her up. "Say uncle," he panted, having winded himself trying to hold on to her wriggling body.
"Uncle," she said, worn out from the scuffling. Sek looked down at her, one of those looks that made her so uncomfortable on his face. "I said uncle."
His mouth swooped down on hers and Kess was too stunned to do anything at first. Then she pushed at his shoulders, breaking the kiss. "Get off," she hissed. His mouth came down again, but she moved her face so he worked at her neck. "I mean it Sek," she shouted. "Get off!"
"I love you," he whispered against her ear, but she shook her head, trying to buck him off of her. His grip loosened and she twisted out from under him, breath coming in short, sharp bursts. He was up off the floor in a second, all feline grace and stalk.
"Get. OUT!" She was furious and revolted. He was her brother for God’s sake. They weren’t animals.
He lunged at her, slamming her into the wall, holding her there. Familiar dark eyes stared back at her, but that wasn’t her brother in there anymore. It was a stranger who tried to kiss her again. When she turned her head away, he muttered, "Don’t fight, Kess. It's supposed to be like this with us."
"I'm your sister!" She remembered all of his talk the past months about the Egyptian pharaohs, all of his research into ancient Egypt. She felt her stomach tighten with dread. Osiris and Isis were brother and sister.
"So? Cats mate with their sisters all the time."
"We’re not cats! We're NOT ANIMALS!"
"But we are," he whispered, mouthing her ear and pressing up against her, pushing her harder against the wall. "Not all the time but the same needs drive us. We need to mate, to reproduce. You’ve felt it. I've seen it. You're like me."
Kess dropped, using gravity to break his hold on her and skittered away from him on hands and knees. The house was huge, and no one usually was in her wing of it except her. No one would hear her screaming. She had to get away. For the first time in her life she was well and truly frightened.
Sek grabbed her from behind, pulling her back to him and spinning her around. He was on top of her then, not gentle and not caring how much he hurt her. She screamed at him and he backhanded her. His face was twisted in a snarl, pupils mere slits. He didn't look anything like her brother; he looked like an animal. One of his hands slipped down to her hip, working at the waistband of her shorts.
Kess had one option left to her and she took it. She changed beneath him, the force of it throwing Sek off of her. She spun, her shape now that of a black leopard, and hurtled through the glass doors and out into the Florida twilight. She'd fled Miami that same night.
Griff was suddenly in front of her--she didn't know when he walked up--and helped her over to a barstool in the corner. He disappeared for a moment and then was back, a highball glass with amber liquid in hand. "Drink," he ordered, handing it to her, but her hand was still shaking so much that she sloshed some of the liquid down her shirt. She gritted her teeth and gripped the glass in both hands. Going into hysterics was not going to help her now. She needed to think. She swallowed it in one gulp, surprised at the burn as it went down. At her questioning look, he said, "Whiskey. You needed it. What's wrong? Is it those guys at your table?"
"What?" Kess wasn’t sure how he knew, but was grateful he did.
"I can smell trouble a mile away, girl, and those guys reek of it. And you’re so white I could use you as a tablecloth. What’s going on?" He crossed his arms over his burly chest and looked at her sternly.
"That's my brother out there. He’s come to take me back." Kess wasn’t sure how much of her past Griff had been told. She knew that Cormac had told the pack about her and her were-status, but he didn’t go into details and she didn’t think it wise to pry in pack business, especially after they agreed to let her stay. That had been more than she'd ever expected.
"Did he see you?"
Kess shook her head. "I don't think so."
"Good." Griff sounded relieved. "When’s Mac getting here?"
She checked the clock on the wall. "Any minute." Then she stood up as she came to a horrible conclusion. "Sek can’t see him." Kess knew that if her brother ever found out about Cormac, he wouldn’t be safe.
"I’ll take care of it. And we’ve got to get you somewhere safe for a start." His eyes were dark as he looked at her, weighing the options open. "Stay here. I'll send Mac to you when he gets here."
She sat there in the kitchen, huddled as small as she could make herself. She wanted to know how Sek had found her so quickly--unless he’d been tracking her since she left California or even New Mexico. She thought she’d done a much better job at hiding her tracks this time. She wondered if he her father was with her brother or if he had stayed back in Miami. She had thought that when she'd received his package in New Mexico that it had been his way of saying good-bye, of respecting her wishes. She'd been wrong.
Someone was in front of her, calling her name as if from a long way away. She slowly came back to herself. Cormac was crouched down, his face next to hers, saying her name. He held her bag and coat in one hand. She blinked slowly, looking around, not entirely sure where she was.
"We have to go," he was saying, handing her the coat. "Griff is taking care of them." Kess nodded and forced herself to focus. She could fall apart later, when there were miles separating her and her brother.
They went out the back way and were met by Burke and Finn. Kess was surprised to see them, but knew she should have expected it. Pack protected pack. A threat to Cormac meant a threat to all of them. Griff must have called them as soon as he realized something was wrong.
It was raining harder than it had been when she'd come in and she flinched as the drops pelted down. The four of them ran quickly through the parking lot, toward Cormac's Jeep. They were drenched before they were halfway there but she didn't care. The cold and wet made her as unfeeling on the outside as she felt on the inside.
"Finn, follow Cormac. I'm going to wait here for Dad." Burke looked each of them in turn, but when he came to her, Kess couldn't meet his eyes.
"We'll meet you at the Lodge. Call if anything changes." Kess felt Cormac wrap his arm around her as he spoke. "We've got to let my dad know he's in town."
Cormac hustled Kess over to the Jeep and shoved her in, eyes open for an ambush. Finn was waiting in Kess' car, ready to drive it over to the compound. He climbed in and started the Jeep, turning the heat up as high as it would go. Kess hunkered down in her seat, water dripping from hair and clothes, a study in misery. She held her bag to her chest and stared out the window.
Cormac drove on in silence, looking over every once in a while. At one point he caught the telltale glimmer of tears tracking down her pale cheeks, but she cried quietly, no sobs or sniffles, as if she didn't even realize she wept. He clenched his hands on the steering wheel, wishing it was Sek's neck. Griff had grabbed him as soon as he came in the bar, whispering that Sek had shown up, and led him to the kitchen to spirit Kess away before her brother saw her.
He reached over and took Kess' hand in his. It was ice cold, but her fingers squeezed his tightly for a moment. She still wouldn't look at him. He kept his eyes on the road, flicking up to check the rearview mirror frequently to make sure Finn still followed. He doubted Sek and the other one would try to follow them up the mountain, but Finn knew how to watch for a tail and if Sek did try it, well, Cormac would enjoy removing him from pack land. Permanently.
He drove past the low stone wall that marked the beginning of the property and continued up the gravel road to the lodge. He drove around back, parked the car and went around to help Kess out. She slowly raised her head to look at him, the pain in her eyes almost a thing apart. "Come on, babe," he said, scooping her up and holding her against his chest. He ran through the rain, to the back door and let them in. She buried his face in his neck, holding on tightly. He climbed the back stairs up to the room that was still his even though he had a place of his own.
The room was dark and cold, so he turned up the thermostat. He set Kess down in a chair by the bed and began pulling off her boots. He took the bag from her and peeled her out of her sopping coat. She let him, limp as a rag doll. Occasionally a shiver would break out along her entire body. "You need to get warm," he told her. She looked at him dully.
"I'm scared," she said without warning. "I don't want to go with him."
Cormac gathered her up in his arms. They were both wet and cold, but if she was talking now, warming up would have to wait. "So you won't. It's your decision to make, not his."
"I'm scared for you too. If he found out about you…" She trailed off, winding hanks of wet hair around her hands, yanking on the strands. He placed his hands on top of hers to get her to stop. "You don't know what he's like."
"It's okay," he assured her. "I'm right here, right now. I'm fine. And I intend to stay that way."
She turned in his arms, facing him. Her face was drawn and serious. "You don't understand."
"I do," Cormac insisted. "He's dangerous. He's not in his right mind and he's obsessed with you. And anyone he finds you with is in trouble. I know all that, Kess. And I'm not worried because he can't make us do anything. He can't make you go home with him, he can't make me stop loving you. These are our choices. Not his."
She looked up at him, surprised. "You love me?"
He pushed a strand of wet hair behind her ear. "Yes. I most definitely do."
She wrapped her arms around his neck. Her mouth was turned up in a slight, sad smile as she put her face close to his. "I don't want to lose you," she whispered in his ear. "I just found you."