Shadow of the Moon (13 page)

Again no answer. I pressed my ear to the door. I couldn’t hear any movement. What if he’d bled to death? Had the wound been that serious? I didn’t think so. But what did I know about wounds?

No, he was probably just sound asleep. Should I disturb him? I didn’t have to wake him up. I could leave the cookies on the bedside table for him to find when he woke up.

With my hand trembling in anticipation of seeing him again, I opened the door and peered inside.

His bed was empty. He was gone.

FOURTEEN

I opened myself to allowing in others’ emotions. I was searching for the guys. I figured he’d gone to join them, to discuss strategy or fighting or something.

The emotions began roiling through me. Lots of testosterone-type feelings: bravado, challenging. And then they shifted to joy, pleasure, desire. The girls had obviously joined them.

I found them in the game room, which was situated near the media room. But when I walked in, I didn’t see Daniel.

“He didn’t want the cookies?” Brittany asked.

Her voice forced me through the fog of their emotions. I hadn’t realized they’d noticed me coming in. “He wasn’t there.”

I felt their alarm spike through me.

“Where’d he go?” Seth asked.

“Well, duh, she wouldn’t be here if she knew,” Brittany said.

“We need to search for him,” Lucas said.

“Or not,” I rushed in to say. “Maybe he just wanted to be alone, to nurse his wounds…” And even as I said it, I realized that was exactly what he’d gone off to do. Only he’d shift to do it.

“Crap,” Lucas said as if the same thought had hit him. “Can you sense if he’s in trouble?”

“His emotions don’t reach me.” Had I never told them that?

“Why not?” Connor asked.

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

“Is it something we need to worry about?” Kayla asked.

“No,” Lucas said. “Not now. We just need to find him. Fan out; search inside and out.”

After they dispersed, I set the plate down on a table and began my own search.

I was pretty certain he wouldn’t go outside. Mostly because he had to know that was where we’d search for him. He hadn’t shifted in his room, so he’d wanted someplace where he wouldn’t be discovered. Maybe someplace with a lock. Maybe even someplace where no one would look.

Always when I’d wanted complete privacy, I’d headed to my reading nook. But Daniel probably wasn’t as familiar with the nooks and crannies in the manor.

What he did know was what the elders had revealed to us this afternoon. My heart kicked up its beat. I wasn’t certain how I knew where I’d find him. Was this what the girls had been talking about when we’d been making cookies? Was this a sign that he was my true mate?

I followed the path the elders had led us on that morning. When I got to the room where the ancient texts were kept, I walked through to the bookcase and touched the wolf statue. The shelves creaked open. I looked around, spotted a flashlight, grabbed it, and followed the stairs down.

The door to the armory was closed. I tried to open it. Locked. I banged on it. “Daniel!”

I pressed my ear to the heavy wooden door. Thought I heard motion within the room. “Daniel?”

“Just a minute,” he fairly growled.

The door opened, barely. I caught a glimpse of him pulling his shirt on. I’d never seen him without clothes, and lately they had been thick winter clothes. He was all lean and muscular. I caught a peek of a stomach so flat and taut that I could have balanced a mug of hot chocolate on it. My mouth went dry.

His head popped up through the opening of his sweater. “What?”

He sounded—and looked—seriously irritated with me.

“You. Shifted.”

“So? Did you really think I was going into battle with a gimp leg?”

In retrospect, no.

“Do you know the chance you took? I could have found you in here dead.”

“But you didn’t. Besides, if the bastard showed, I had a silver sword nearby.”

“If it was that easy to kill, it’d be dead by now.”

“So what are we arguing about?”

“That you took a chance—”

“A chance that worked, as it turns out.” Stepping out, he closed the door behind him. “My leg is as good as new.”

“You should have had someone watch over you.”

“And I should have been there when my family was killed. Shoulds don’t mean anything.”

I was never going to win this argument. Besides, why was I mad? He was healed, which increased his chances of surviving tomorrow night. Maybe I was hurt that he hadn’t confided in me, that he’d felt the need to be all secretive about it. Maybe I was also disappointed that I’d missed a chance to see him in wolf form—although he’d had to shift back to open the door.

“How’d you unlock the door anyway?”

He held up a key. “I took a criminology class. Do you know burglars can clean out a house in about five minutes, finding all the important stuff because people hide things in obvious places? The elders hid the key right where a criminal mastermind would look.”

“So you’re a criminal mastermind?”

“Have to think like one to beat one.”

“So we have to think like a harvester?”

“I think we already are. We know he’s coming for you.” He touched my cheek. “I didn’t mean to worry you.”

“I made you some cookies,” I grumbled.

“Awesome.”

I started for the stairs. “I’d ask you to promise not to shift again, but since you broke the last one—”

He grabbed my arm and spun me around. “I didn’t break the promise. I told you I wouldn’t shift unless I had to. I had to. I had to be at my best physically to protect you. I know I haven’t officially declared you as my mate in front of the others and that you haven’t accepted me, but I think I’m going to be getting that ink on my shoulder soon.” He cradled my face. “Don’t you understand, Hayden? I’d do anything, take any chance, to protect you.”

Then he kissed me, and it terrified me to realize how very much I did understand. Because I’d do anything to protect him.

FIFTEEN

The elders were less than thrilled with the fact that Daniel had shifted. Since his hand was no longer bandaged and he wasn’t limping, it was a little difficult to explain the miraculous healing other than with the truth.

As a result, he got stuck washing the dishes after dinner. When he was finished, he joined me in the game room. I was sitting on a stool at the refreshment bar. He sat beside me.

“It’ll come tomorrow night,” I said softly.

Tension was high. To alleviate some of it, the guys had challenged the girls to a Wii tennis tournament. I was having some success at shielding their emotions, probably because, even though they were engaged in spirited play, there was still a somberness in the air.

“We’re going to have a lot of Dark Guardians surrounding you,” Daniel said. “The harvester won’t be able to get to you.”

“And if they die trying to save me? How am I supposed to live with that?”

He took my hand, turned it over, and trailed his finger along my palm where the splinter had been the night we’d played pool. “If you’re thinking about doing something stupid like running away again, know that I’ll find you.”

My heart turned over. I took his hand, brought it to my lips, and kissed it. “I wish we
could
run away.”

And wished I’d known him longer. Had gotten to know him better.

“Their emotions are going to ratchet up before the night is over. You’re going to take a battering,” he said quietly.

“Probably.”

He glanced toward those engaged in the tournament, then turned back to me. “When I first came to Wolford, I did some exploring. I found a place. I’d like to share it with you. Tonight. Will you go with me?”

And I knew he was asking just in case one of us didn’t survive tomorrow.

I glanced around. The elders would be majorly pissed, but I’d had a taste of absolute freedom—no teachers, no headmistress, no elders—when I’d ventured into Athena. But there was safety with the pack.

Regrettably I shook my head. “You could get hurt or killed.”

“No way. I’ve spent most of my life alone. I fight better alone.”

I must have given him a funny look, because he instantly looked as though he’d regretted what he’d said. “But your family—”

“I didn’t live with them.”

“Ever?”

“The last few years I didn’t.” He leaned in and whispered, “Want to know the story? Come with me.”

It was tempting, so tempting.

“You’ll be safe,” he insisted. “Until you have the ability to shift—”

“It could try to abduct me.”

“It could do that here. Besides, I don’t think it has the substance to do that. I mean, it’s an ethereal being. It’s only solid while it harvests, which is why it’s so hard to destroy. There’s only a small window of time.”

“How do you know so much?”

“Because after Justin was killed and I realized this monster killed my family, I’ve been researching everything I could find about them. Ask the elders. They’ll know.”

“And you won’t risk shifting?”

“My promise hasn’t changed. It’s the same as before. I won’t shift unless I have to.”

“Okay, then,” I said. “I’ll go with you.”

“Are you sure this is wise?” Brittany asked me.

She was sitting on her bed, watching as I packed my backpack. “No.”

I wished it was summer so I could wear something that showed a little more of my skin.

“Then why are you doing it?” she asked.

“To be with Daniel. In case tomorrow night…” I let my words trail off. No sense in giving voice to my fears.

She wrapped her arms around her legs, drawing them to her chest. “Do you love him?”

I felt my face heat up. “I don’t know. I have a hard time understanding my own emotions.”

“We all do,” she said. “It can get confusing.”

I plopped down on the bed and faced her. “How did you know you loved Connor?”

“He was all I thought about. I wanted to be with him—even if it was only to be in the same room.”

“But you knew him, because you’d grown up together.”

“Yeah. So?”

“I don’t know Daniel. My body, my heart reacts to him, but there is so much that I don’t know.”

“So you’re going to go out in the woods tonight and play Twenty Questions?” She arched a dark brow in a way that said I was kidding myself.

“Maybe Five Questions,” I said.

She laughed. “Two. Then you’ll be kissing and…” She shrugged.

“It just seems that I should know my possible mate before my transformation. It binds you, right?” I grimaced. “Sorry.”

She waved her hand. “That’s okay. Sometimes I mourn that I’m not a Shifter, but it doesn’t seem to make any difference to Connor. He says he fell in love with me the human way, which is slowly and over time, instead of the Shifter way, which too often is simply
bam!
”

“With Daniel it’s something in between that. For the first time in my life I
want
to feel someone’s emotions and I can’t even guess what’s he’s feeling most of the time.”

“And you think tonight…”

Might be all I ever had.

Daniel and I headed out after dinner. The moon, a bright silver orb in the night sky, looked so close that I thought I could almost reach out and touch it. The stars were like diamonds spread across velvet. It was such a clear night. The air brisk. Not a hint of wisps, fog, or clouds to mar the brightness.

We didn’t take the snowmobile; we hiked. Maybe Daniel worried about alerting the elders to our unsanctioned leaving. But I thought the reason we were walking rested in the camaraderie that came from our trudging along together. We were holding hands, and I realized how much I liked that aspect about him: that he was so comfortable touching, that he seemed always to yearn for it. He never missed an opportunity to touch me.

I’d gone so much of my life not being touched by Shifters. While I’d sometimes embraced girls at school, it wasn’t the same. Their history, their world, was so different from mine.

The moon was high in the sky when Daniel finally led me into a cave. It was pitch-black. I felt the chill of the air against my cheeks.

“Wait here,” he said quietly.

A click sounded, and the flame from a lighter illuminated his face as he bent and lit a candle. Something magical unfurled around me as I watched him circle the room, lighting the various candles, and the flames began to flicker, slowly revealing the haven he’d created for us.

I knew he must have come here earlier in the day to prepare everything. A mound of blankets formed a pallet on the floor, wide enough that we could sleep separately if that was what I wanted. I knew Daniel wouldn’t push for anything tonight. Tonight was just about us growing closer, learning more about each other. Choosing a mate wasn’t to be taken lightly. And it certainly wasn’t a decision that resided with the elders. I knew they meant well, but in the end a connection had to exist between the two Shifters who were destined to be mates.

I knew I cared about Daniel. Knew he cared about me. But was that enough?

He returned to my side, took my backpack, and carried it to the corner, where he deposited it along with his own. Then he returned to me. “It’s not cold once you get used to it.”

“When did you arrange all this?” I asked.

“First thing this morning before everyone else was awake.”

Taking my hand, he led me into another chamber. I heard the familiar click of the lighter. As he lit the candles, the flickering flames unwrapped his gift to me. An underground pool, with steam rising from it. Stacked neatly along the rocky ledge were towels.

“This is what amazes me,” he said, his voice echoing off the cavernous walls. He flicked on a flashlight and shone it in the pool. The water was astonishingly clear. I could see clear down to the rock-covered floor.

“No gunk,” he said. “No algae, no crap. It’s the kind of place that health nuts would have used a hundred years ago.”

“No critters or creatures?” I asked.

“I’ve never seen any, and I’ve been here quite a few times since I discovered it.”

“For solitude?” I asked.

“Yeah. I…Sometimes I need my space. I love Wolford, I appreciate that everyone has accepted me, but groups aren’t really my thing.”

I remembered how my impression of him that first day in Athena was that he was a loner. He’d done nothing to dispel that notion, but it seemed more profound when he put the idea into words. Being alone wasn’t the way of our kind. Although I’d spent a good deal of my time away from Shifters, there was always that yearning to rejoin them, to belong. It was the reason that I subjected myself to visits every summer and winter. “But being a Shifter is all about being part of the pack.”

“Yeah, I know. But it’s never been that way for me. Which is why what I feel for you is so special. I’ve never before wanted to have someone with whom I belonged.”

Before I could even think of a response, he flicked off the flashlight, set it aside, came back to my side, and took my hands. Although I still wore my gloves, I could feel that his hands were steady and sure. “I thought you’d like to go swimming,” he said tenderly, his voice filling the small cave. “It’s almost like a hot tub. In some areas you can feel the water bubbling up from somewhere even farther underground.”

I squeezed his hands, tried to look sassy but probably only appeared ridiculous. I’d never anticipated anything so much in my life, and I wanted to do it right. “Are you going to join me?”

I saw the appreciation for my invitation in his eyes. Maybe I hadn’t sounded totally silly with my efforts.

“Once you’re in the water. Just call for me,” he said.

“All right. I can do that.”

He brushed his lips over mine. It wasn’t enough, but I figured once we were in the pool together, we’d share more. Much, much more.

He left me alone. Removing my gloves, I crouched and skimmed my fingers along the surface of the pool. The water was incredibly warm, almost like a sauna. Hard to believe in the middle of winter, but it was probably coming up through an underground hot spring.

Quickly I removed my clothes and slipped into the pool. It felt wonderful as the silky moisture wrapped around me. I wasn’t going to think about tomorrow night. I wasn’t going to think about the dangers headed our way or how scared I was when my mind slipped off-task and I thought about the harvester. I was going to make the most of this gift from Daniel. I was going to enjoy it as though my life depended on it. Treading water, I relaxed, allowed the warmth to ease the tension in all my muscles. Then I called out, almost giddy with anticipation, “Daniel!”

I watched as a shadow appeared on the wall near the entryway. Low. Four legs. He was coming to me in animal form. At last I was going to see him as a wolf. My breath backed up in my lungs and I glided over to the lip of the pool.

But what stalked into the small cavern wasn’t what I expected. It wasn’t a wolf. It was a panther.
The
panther. The one I’d seen in the woods that first night after we left Athena. I was sure of it. But it couldn’t be Daniel. That night he’d been back at the camp—

After the panther had sprinted away. Daniel had seemed surprised by my revelation that I’d seen a panther. But if he was the creature, then his response had simply been a ploy to throw me offtrack. “Did it frighten you?” he’d asked. I was beginning to understand why he’d been interested in my reaction then. And I had a feeling he was gauging my reaction now.

The panther was as sleek and beautiful as I remembered. It prowled over to me. Its sinewy muscles undulated with its movements. Its strength and power were evident in each motion. It purred low, a rumble in its throat that echoed around me.

Only when it came to a halt before me and lowered its head did I get a good clear look at its eyes. Green. Like emeralds. And I saw more. So much more.

Because when we shift, everything changes except our eyes. They’re the window to our soul. More than our fur, more than the contours of our face, our eyes give us away.

With a tentative hand, dripping with the water from the pool, I reached out and touched its head. “Daniel?”

With a smooth move, like an Olympian scoring a perfect ten, the panther dove into the pool. Daniel emerged from beneath the dark depths.

For several quiet moments, we did nothing except stare at each other, our breaths echoing around us. I didn’t know what to say. In a way I felt betrayed that he’d held this secret for so long. This was huge. All along I’d viewed him as one of us, had expected when I did finally see him transform, he would be all that I was accustomed to: thick fur, barks, and canine growls. I knew there were different clans of Shifters, that not all of them transformed into wolves—but I’d never seen members of one. For me they were as much a legend as the harvester had been.

“I thought you should know,” he finally said in a low voice. “Before you decide whether or not to accept me as your mate.”

Then, because I remained silent, I guess he felt compelled to add, “I’m not a wolf.”

I nodded, blinked, knowing that my first words were crucial, but I wasn’t sure what to say, and what I did eventually say was a disappointment even to me when it echoed around us. “Yeah, I just figured that out.”

“It bothers you.”

“No, I…I just wasn’t expecting it. It was you rubbing your shoulder against that tree that night in the woods.”

“Yeah, I had an itch.”

“Why didn’t you tell me then?”

“Because you’d told me earlier—again—that you wouldn’t accept me as your mate. I figured knowing I wasn’t exactly the same breed as you wouldn’t earn me any points. I—” He looked up as though he was struggling to find the right words. Then he lowered his gaze back to me. “I told you that I volunteered to find you. The first time I ever saw you, I was intrigued. Yes, the elders selected me to be your mate but only because I stepped forward before anyone else could.”

Tears stung my eyes. I’d never felt such a loss for words.

“I know you didn’t feel the same when you first saw me,” he said. “I thought if you came to know me, to see what we had in common, that what was different about us wouldn’t matter.”