Moon Thrall (4 page)

“Is she all right?” Riley asked, concern deepening her voice.

Court gently turned Skye’s head from one side to the other to look for blood. Thankfully, there was none. He tapped her cheek to wake her, but she didn’t stir.

“What did they do to her?” Kane asked.

Riley made a sound at the back of her throat. “Whatever it is, it isn’t good. We can’t leave her out here.”

“And we can’t take her back to any of our places,” Court pointed out.

Riley suddenly smiled. “I know where we can take her. Follow me.”

Court gathered Skye’s petite frame in his arms and stood. He and Kane followed Riley to her car. After they were inside, Kane and Court began to try and figure out what the vamps had used to subdue Skye while Riley drove.

“It was something new,” Court said.

Kane nodded grimly. “That’s my worry. How many other women are they carting off that we don’t know about?”

“Let’s not think about that right now,” Riley said. “We have Skye. She can tell us what happened and how it made her feel when she wakes up. That should help us figure out what it is. If we don’t know, Minka will.”

Court looked down at the woman in his arms. Skye had yet to move. She was breathing evenly, her golden skin warm beneath his hands.

“Is going to the witch wise?” Kane asked.

Riley gave him a dour look. “Have a better idea?”

Of course, Kane didn’t. Neither did Court. He tried to look up from Skye’s face, but his eyes kept getting drawn back down to her. She appeared asleep, innocent. The fact that she had no idea the shit storm she had created didn’t turn him off. In fact, it’s what interested him.

Her oval face was flawless. She was a classic beauty with her high cheekbones, gently arching black brows, and thick lashes. Her mouth, however, was a seduction all its own. Deep pink lips that were plump and wide.

Tempting lips, enticing lips.

Court ran the back of his fingers down her cheek. Skye might be delving into a world she should stay out of, but Court couldn’t be angry that it had brought her into his life. She intrigued him.

Even if he knew nothing good could come of it.

C
HAPTER
F
OUR

“...depends on how much.”

“It depends on who created it.”

Skye heard the voices, but she didn’t recognize them. Her head pounded with every beat of her heart, making her a little nauseous. She tried to remain still and take stock of things. Especially since she didn’t remember leaving the Viper’s Nest.

“She’s waking,” said a male voice.

“About time,” came a throaty female reply.

Skye didn’t know how people could wake up and remain perfectly still. She had to move. Perhaps it was a learned trait that spies and military people were taught. Though, at this moment, she would have preferred to remain still and learn more about where she was and who was with her.

She opened her eyes and immediately turned her head away from the lamplight that blinded her. Covering her eyes with her hand, she blinked and let things come into focus.

“There you are,” came a friendly female voice.

Skye looked up to see a woman with long dark hair and bright blue eyes leaning over the back of the couch and smiling down at her.

“You took quite a fall,” she continued.

Skye licked her dry lips. She couldn’t remember falling. Hell, she couldn’t remember much of anything other than sitting in the bar and realizing that Matthew was gone. The bastard.

He’d left her!

Fury spiked through her. She sat up, immediately grabbing her head as the pounding intensified. Her stomach rolled violently.

The couch dipped next to her as the same female said, “Here, this will help.”

Skye looked down to see two aspirin in the palm of the woman’s hand. Since she couldn’t think straight with her head hurting so bad, Skye accepted the pills and tossed them in her mouth.

Next, a tall glass of iced tea was put in front of her. Skye took it and drank deeply, loving the taste of the sweet tea as she swallowed the pills.

“Where am I?” she asked. With her elbow braced on her thigh, she carefully lowered her head into her hand. Her voice sounded hoarse, weak. How she hated that.

“Safe,” replied the woman. “I’m Riley, by the way.”

Skye turned her head to look at Riley. “What happened?”

Riley hesitated, her gaze dropping to the floor for a moment. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Being at the bar.”

“The Viper’s Nest isn’t a nice place. You shouldn’t have been there.”

Skye lifted her head to find the source of the male voice, and found the man sitting at a table in the kitchen looking severe and angry. There was a woman with dark curly hair and brown eyes sitting next to him.

These people were strangers. She was in a strange place, with no memory of how she had gotten there. She needed to get out. Now.

“We’re friends,” Riley said and put her hand atop Skye’s. “We rescued you from the men trying to make you leave with them and brought you here.”

Skye frowned. There’s no way she would have left with men she didn’t know. That wasn’t like her. Especially from a bar like the Viper’s Nest with all those vampires.

Her stomach plummeted to her feet. Vampires. Oh, God. Matthew had left her with all those vampires. Why would he do that? He was getting paid plenty to escort her around such places and ensure she was protected.

“She’s remembering,” said the man at the table.

Skye ignored him as she closed her eyes. She searched her mind, trying to fill in the time she was missing between realizing Matthew was gone and waking up here.

“It’s as if there’s a window blocking those memories,” she explained. “Like it’s iced over so thick I can’t see through it. I know there are people on the other side, but I can’t make them out.”

“What about voices?”

This came from a second male. She recognized the voice. She had heard it when she was waking. A shiver raced through her at the rich, seductive sound of it. It took her a moment to focus back on her thoughts. “I can hear someone talking, but I can’t tell what is being said.”

Skye opened her eyes and turned to where the man’s voice had come from. He was sitting half in the shadows where the light from the lamp didn’t quite reach. Though she couldn’t make out his face, she could tell he was staring at her.

She swallowed, entranced by the stranger. He drew not just her gaze but her total concentration. So much so that she forgot they weren’t alone in the room.

He sat still as stone, his hands resting on the arms of the chair. He gave off the impression that he was at ease, but she had the sense that he could be up and ready to face whatever came through the door in an instant.

Their gazes locked and held for several quiet moments. Skye couldn’t look away, no matter how many times she tried. There was something so...beguiling about him. The thread of danger, of something dark and primal, couldn’t be ignored.

She jerked when she saw his eyes flash yellow. Skye blinked and rubbed her eyes. She was mistaken. She had to be. A man’s eyes, hidden in shadow, couldn’t flash yellow. It was absurd.

You hit your head, remember?

Yes. Her head. She had hit her head. That’s why she was seeing things that weren’t there. The explanation was enough to calm her racing heart.

“I’d like to leave,” she told the room at large and lifted her head.

Riley looked at the man in the shadowed corner before she turned her head to the table.

“Not going to happen,” said the man at the table.

The woman next to him glared at him, one brow raised. “She’s not staying here, Kane.”

Riley got to her feet when Kane opened his mouth to argue. “Skye, the one glaring is my cousin, Kane. This is Minka,” she said pointing to the woman. “And you’re in her house.” There was a short pause before Riley looked to the other man. “The silent one in the corner is Kane’s brother, Court.”

Skye hated how badly she wanted to see Court’s face. She told herself it was because she wanted a good look at the people who’d helped her, but she knew it was more primal than that.

Then she frowned at Riley as she stood, her knees beginning to shake. “You know my name.” How was that possible? Skye didn’t have any identification on her. Nothing that would tell someone who she was.

“I think we should ease her into it,” Riley told Kane.

Kane made a face like Riley had asked him to pluck a cloud from the sky. “Ease her into it? She already jumped.”

“She would like to know what the hell is going on,” Skye said, looking at each of them in turn. “How do you know my name?”

Court leaned forward in the chair so that his forearms rested on his knees. She caught a glimpse of chin-length butterscotch blond hair. “Of course, we know who you are. By what happened tonight, others know you’re the one writing the articles about them, as well.”

It was everything Skye could do to remain standing. “You think someone attacked me tonight?”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Kane mumbled.

Riley rolled her eyes and faced Skye. “We think the articles might have upset some.”

Skye took a step back from Riley. “Why do you care about the articles?”

“Look at what happened tonight. You should be worried,” Minka said as she rose gracefully from the chair. She wore jeans and a willowy white shirt that brought out her mocha skin. She walked past Skye to a door that led out onto a porch. “You stepped into something you had no business digging around in. Now you’ve put a target on yourself.”

The only kinds of people that would be upset about what she wrote were the ones who actually believed. Or the ones who were part of the supernatural.

Skye turned her head to watch Minka and saw the glint of moonlight off water filtered through trees. The bayou. They had brought her out of the city.

“We’re not going to hurt you,” Riley said in a soft voice, as if reading Skye’s thoughts. “We had to get you out of the city in case they came back for you.”

Skye rubbed her temple, hoping that would help stop some of the pain. “Tell me what happened. Please.”

“You went into the Viper’s Nest,” Kane said, his voice dripping with derision. “You knew it would be filled with vampires, and yet you willingly went in there alone.”

She took exception to that. “I’m not stupid. I wasn’t alone. I had someone with me.”

“He left you,” Court said.

Skye handed Riley the rest of her sweet tea and started out the door Minka had exited. It didn’t matter how far she was from the city. She wasn’t staying there any longer.

She reached the porch and was turning to tell them just that when Court stood in front of her. The moon hit him square in the face, showing her the hard line of his jaw, the firm contours of his cheekbones, and blue eyes so vivid they were almost electric. He was so tall she had to tilt her head back to look at him. There was space between them, but there was no denying the pure power she saw displayed by the tee that clung to his wide shoulders and thick arms and chest.

He held up his hands, palms out. “Easy, Skye. We brought you here because the vampires were intent on leaving with you. We stopped them, but I know Jacques and Anton well enough to know that they’ll come looking for you again. They’ve singled you out.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Riley and Kane standing in the doorway to her right. To her left and behind her, Minka stood at the railing of the porch looking out over the bayou.

Court sighed and dropped his hands. “We need to know how the vamps got you to leave with them. Tell us that and I’ll drive you back to the city myself.”

“I don’t remember anything,” she said, frustration growing with every second. She cocked her head to the side. “Why do you have interest in the vampires? Most people don’t believe they’re real.”

At that moment, a howl sounded. A howl that was very wolf-like. Skye glanced around her. There were no wolves in the parish, which meant it was a werewolf. She looked at Court with new eyes. Were he and Kane werewolves?

“You live in New Orleans long enough, you see everything,” Court answered.

It was the biggest line of shit Skye had heard all week. She didn’t call him out on it though. Not yet. She wanted to know more about him.

Kane crossed his arms over his chest. “You don’t remember anything, my ass. Lady, you’ve got some nerve. We save your scrawny hide, and you want to give us the runaround.”

“I’m not,” she said defensively as she looked at him. “I’m trying to figure things out. You’re the ones who took me out of the city. Maybe it’s you I should be afraid of.”

“You’re right. It was us that took you,” Court said, a hard edge to his voice. “But we didn’t lead you out of the club. That was the vampires.”

Skye shook her head. “I wouldn’t have left with them. I drank my beer and I was getting up to leave. Then I woke up here.”

“Someone could’ve spiked her beer,” Riley suggested.