Bite This! (A 300 Moons Book) Read online

  His daughter waited for her friend to rise, which she did with a strange hissing sound. When they came out from behind the desk, Darcy could see that the girl’s legs were encased in some sort of metal braces that made a pneumatic sound as she walked.

  “Everyone but Dad calls me Pan,” said Ionna, “this is my friend Jess, otherwise known as the Terminator.”

  “Um, hi, I’m Darcy,” she ventured. She’d been more comfortable when the meeting was a little less friendly.

  “Nice to meet you,” Jess said, then leaned in conspiratorially. “And sweet move on the door.”

  “Thanks,” Darcy said.

  “Be careful,” Pan warned, “she’ll try to recruit you to join her super-friends.”

  Darcy didn’t know how to respond.

  “I love your boots,” Jess said.

  “Thanks,” Darcy said. “I love your…”

  She glanced down, remembering the metal contraptions on the kid’s legs. Shit.

  “Carbon fiber pneumatic actuated exoskeleton?” Jess offered. “Thanks. I got in a little deep at one of the poker tables downstairs. When I didn’t have the cash, the casino goons paid me a visit. Now I need these.”

  She gestured down at her legs and shook her head sadly.

  Dear god.

  Everyone in the room froze in silence.

  After a painfully uncomfortable few seconds, Panchenko’s daughter doubled over, snorting with laughter.

  “Holy shit, Jess,” said the other girl, straightening up and wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. “I think she actually believed you. Priceless.”

  Darcy couldn’t help but smile. Her foster siblings at Harkness Farms would love Jess.

  “It’s okay,” Jess said with a smile of her own. “I was paralyzed in a car accident. My friend made these for me. They help me walk. It’s okay to check them out. They’re awesome.”

  She did a little dance on the marble floor.

  “Ladies?” said Panchenko from the doorway. “Are we going or not?”

  29

  One harrowing elevator ride later, Panchenko led them into a storage and shipping area in the basement level. The ceiling was about two stories high. The space was poorly lit and filled with wooden crates and forklifts.

  “I was connected with Ms. Sharp through a business contact. She needed to ship some things. I was acting as a holding area until her cargo found a home,” Panchenko explained as they walked.

  He opened a door at the very back corner of the enormous area and flicked a switch.

  Fluorescent lights strobed on giving the white walls an unhealthy purplish glow.

  It was completely empty.

  Darcy was overwhelmed with the chemical smell of disinfectants, recently used.

  But she could also smell the horrible things the disinfectants were meant to mask.

  “If I’d had any idea what she was doing, I never would have let her into my establishment. But she’s gone, without a trace,” Panchenko said stiffly, as if it cost him greatly to admit he’d made a mistake.

  “Gone where?” Darcy asked.

  “My men are looking into that. I want to have words with her,” he said, a slightly ghoulish smile lifting the corners of his mouth slightly. “I’ve already had a forensics team in to sweep the place. I’d be more than happy to share the findings. I don’t like being made to look like a fool.”

  Though she could question many things about Panchenko and the way he ran his business, Darcy believed him as far as Sharp was concerned. Besides, she could easily read his heartbeat and smell his sweat. He was telling the truth.

  “I’ll put some of my people on it, too,” she said lightly.

  “Good idea,” he replied. “See what they can sniff out.”

  Sniff out.

  Was he messing with her? Did he know?

  She studied his face, but his expression told her nothing.

  “I look forward to your return to work,” he smiled.

  That was about the last thing she’d expected.

  “Thanks,” she said simply.

  “And next time you feel like you need my attention, please, just give me a call.”

  As if on cue, Darcy’s phone sounded the ping of an incoming text.

  Finn Butler:

  I need to see you. Now.

  30

  Darcy jogged down the plush carpet of the casino to the theatre. She rubbed her index finger against her phone case, wondering if there would be another message.

  Something wasn’t right.

  Finn had told her to meet him here at the theatre, and nothing more.

  She opened the door gently but the sound reverberated through the huge empty space. Black leather stadium seats led down to the stage below. All of them sat empty.

  On the stage, there was equipment that was in the middle of being set up - or maybe it was being broken down, it was hard to tell which. There were lights on the stage floor. Prop tables had been pulled out of the wings and were strewn with silks and assistant costumes.

  Her stomach twisted as she realized that Finn had likely lost his job over helping her and Luke.

  She finally reached the bottom, and spotted him, nearly at the back of the stage, standing in the shadows next to the Aztec Tomb. The enormous prop had been in his dressing room the last time she saw it and it had struck her as odd. It looked so old, so… authentic for a phony magic prop. She thought she remembered him saying he didn’t use it in his act.

  Alarm bells started to go off in her mind.

  Something wasn’t right.

  She hopped onto the stage and the look on his face confirmed it.

  “Finn?” she asked, hoping she was wrong.

  He didn’t reply. But his hazel eyes observed her mournfully, as if his heart were breaking.

  And then she heard the footsteps. There was someone in the wings. Darcy had been so focused on Finn she hadn’t allowed her wolf senses to come out.

  Or maybe they were already fading to nothing. Maybe she was losing her wolf to the 300th moon.

  She turned to the resounding thud of heavy boots on the stage floor, knowing already who it was. The blond hair and the eyepatch confirmed it.

  Draven.

  The big man’s face twisted in an evil smirk.

  Her heart sank as she realized the truth. Finn must have sold her out.

  She glared at Finn.

  “I have five sisters, Darcy. What am I supposed to do?” Finn said, lifting his hands slightly as if to indicate he’d meant her no harm.

  Fire surged in her chest at the idea that these monsters had threatened his family.

  But hadn’t Finn told her he had four sisters?

  “It’s not like I can just make this problem disappear,” Finn continued.

  What?

  Draven peeled off his suede jacket and threw it over a prop table.

  Finn took advantage of the moment Draven wasn’t looking and winked magnificently at Darcy.

  He wasn’t selling her out after all.

  Her heart soared for an instant, before she realized the truth.

  It was worse than that. He clearly had some crazy plan that would probably get them both killed.

  Darcy felt a fleeting gratitude that Luke was safe with Kate.

  Draven stretched his arms and cracked his knuckles as he slowly approached her. The tape was gone from his fingers. He must be feeling better. She wouldn’t be so kind next time she got ahold of him.

  Darcy stood her ground, waiting for him to attack.

  Instead, he stopped about twenty feet away from her.

  A growl unleashed itself from deep in her chest.

  “Nice to see you again, too,” Draven teased, one eyebrow raised.

  “Go fuck yourself,” she told him.

  “That’s not very ladylike. Where’s the kid?” he asked.

  “Somewhere you’ll never find him,” she said.

  “Somewhere like Harkness Farms?” he asked. A smug grin stretched his hideous face
. His good eye sparkled with a sinister mischief.

  Darcy took a step toward him, the growl building in her chest again.

  In a fluid motion, Draven slid a gun out of his belt.

  “I know what you’re thinking. But after our little run in the other night, I made sure to load up with silver. Your shifter healing won’t help you,” he chuckled.

  “You said no one would get hurt,” Finn protested.

  “Shifters aren’t people,” Draven said to Finn, never breaking eye contact with Darcy. “They’re just filthy animals that forgot their place. And when an animal bites, it gets put down.”

  Darcy fought the anger that threatened to overwhelm her. There was no way she could cover the distance between them before he got at least one shot off.

  No, he was very smart to stay back,

  But maybe she could goad him into coming a little bit closer.

  “That’s pretty funny coming from someone on a leash like Sharp has you on. Does she make you sleep on the floor, or does she let you in bed at night?” she teased.

  She could hear his heartbeat increase. But he stood his ground and didn’t take the bait.

  Shit.

  “We gave you a chance. You could have just handed over the kid and walked away. But your kind is too stupid to know what’s good for you,” he told her with a sour smile.

  “There’s nothing stupid about protecting family,” Darcy replied.

  “The kid doesn’t have any family. He’s no kin to you.”

  “Blood doesn’t make family. Luke is my family now, my pack. I won’t let you hurt him,” she said in a clear voice.

  “You’re getting taken out of the game, little girl. You won’t be around to stop me from doing whatever I want to him. Or the rest of your little family of freaks.”

  Draven laughed as he thumbed back the hammer of the revolver.

  Darcy tensed her legs to leap. In joy, she felt her wolf pressing hard at the doors of her consciousness, ready to burst free. Not gone after all.

  “Darcy,” Finn called.

  The world went into slow motion.

  Darcy watched the hammer fall.

  She caught a glimpse of the flash of the muzzle.

  Right before Finn threw himself between her and the gun.

  31

  “Finn!”

  The scream cut the air as Finn stepped in front of the gun.

  But there was no time to reply, or to allow himself to be troubled by her despair.

  Finn pulled his consciousness in tight. He slid his focus carefully but quickly inward from the room to the stage, to the gun to the air whistling in the path of the bullet.

  Then he reached out and found the bullet.

  He pushed his mind into it, from the shining surface into the humming molecules of the silver itself. The pentagonal structures of shining material bumped and wriggled against each other like a microscopic mound of puppies.

  He wrapped his mental energy around them, like fingers curling into a fist.

  He opened his eyes.

  The bullet hung in mid air, a few feet from him, spinning lazily.

  “What the hell?” Draven asked.

  “Sorry, Draven,” Finn said, closing his hand around the bullet. You were right about one thing. Someone needs to be taken out of this game. But it’s not going to be Darcy.”

  Finn opened his hand.

  The bullet was gone.

  It had been replaced by the black poker chip.

  The chip pulsed malevolently, hungrily swallowing the glare of the stage lights.

  Finn tossed it.

  It hit the stage and rolled right up to Draven’s feet, falling sideways and hitting the stage floor with a light tap.

  For an instant there was utter silence.

  Then Draven laughed and leveled the gun again.

  Before he could take aim, ribbons of black lashed out of the chip, wrapping around Draven’s legs.

  His mouth dropped open mutely as the inky tendrils climbed him like ivy, covering him in shadow.

  His eyes went wide with terror as they reached his chest.

  Finn made a sweeping motion, and the door to the Aztec Tomb opened.

  Darcy stepped forward to stand beside him.

  “You’ll regret this,” Draven whimpered.

  “Not as much as you and your boss will regret threatening our family,” Darcy spat.

  Our family.

  Emotion threatened to topple his delicate control over the magic, so Finn set the gleaming thought aside to enjoy later.

  As the shadow reached Draven’s face, Darcy kicked him, sending him backward.

  She and Finn watched as Draven stumbled backward into the Aztec Tomb.

  Finn shut the door gently.

  Darcy gasped as he moved to open it again.

  The door opened to show that it was reassuringly empty now.

  “Where did he go?” she breathed.

  “I’m not really sure. And I don’t know how to bring stuff back once it’s gone,” Finn remarked. “That’s why I don’t use this thing in my act.”

  32

  Darcy gazed at Finn for a long moment. His hazel eyes burned with emotion.

  The theatre was so large, so silent and they were so alone. No bad guys, no little boy.

  Adrenaline still pounding through her veins, Darcy licked her lips. She’d spent her adult life courting independence. She didn’t want it anymore. But she didn’t know how to give in.

  When he leaned in, she closed her eyes, but his kiss never came.

  “We’ve got to get you back to the woods,” he whispered into her hair.

  Her wolf.

  She had turned her back on the wolf to save her family.

  But the tingling under her skin told her it wasn’t gone yet.

  “Let’s go,” Finn said firmly, grabbing her hand.

  They flew down the long hallways and darted around the machines and tables, traversing the labyrinthine casino as quickly as they could.

  The air outside was cool against Darcy’s face as they ran, hand in hand, to the parking garage.

  She hopped onto her Harley and Finn swung on behind her. They put on helmets and took off, speeding through the darkened city.

  Finn’s arms were warm around her waist. She tried not to notice the sure sign of his desperate need for her, pressed against her back.

  Every crack in the pavement jostled him against her, until her body burned with need.

  The tattoo on her belly burned too.

  Faster, Darcy, faster.

  There was no time to drive to the Poconos. She went south on 95 and headed for Tarker’s Hollow. If she could make it back to the college woods she could shift and run until her wolf was part of her again, forever, couldn’t she?

  They swung off the highway, through the larger suburbs.

  At last the tree canopy of Tarker’s Hollow beckoned.

  Darcy slowed down as they passed the cedar shake Victorians and stone colonials with their lush gardens, winding paths lit by solar lanterns and the occasional candles in the windows. The waxy leaves of rhododendrons shone mysteriously in the moonlight.

  The stone pillars welcomed her to campus. She turned off her bike and they hopped off.

  She marched into the woods, Finn following her. She took off her clothes as she walked.

  “You don’t have to stay out here. Just take the bike and go into town. You saw the little village. The coffee shop is open late, I’ll find you in the morning,” she told him.

  “No, I’m staying out here. I know I can’t keep up, but I’ll be here when you’re done,” he told her.

  They had reached the stone monuments that marked the top of the amphitheater. Moonlight revealed the rows of semi-circular granite benches below.

  “All this just to get to another theatre,” Finn observed.

  “Very funny,” Darcy smiled, peeling off the last of her clothes.

  She paused, looking up at him, her whole body stretched taut betwe
en the pull of his big body and the scent of the woods.

  “Go on, love, I’ll be waiting,” he urged her.

  She turned toward the trees and slid into her wolf form.

  She’d been afraid the shift wouldn’t come, but the change was easier than it had ever been.

  “Amazing,” she heard him whisper as the stone stairs came up to meet her.

  She turned back to him.

  He smelled like fresh coffee and sunshine. And a bright smell, so clean it almost hurt her nose - that must be his magic. Delicate vestiges of Luke’s scent still hung around him too.

  She found herself butting his hip with her head in approval.

  He laughed, the rich timbre of his voice was like a waterfall.

  “Darcy, I don’t know how much you can understand me. And I don’t really know how this three hundred moons thing works, but… these last forty-eight hours have been the best of my life,” he said gruffly. “It’s time for you to run now, come on, I’ll get you started.”

  She cocked her head at him in amazement as he leapt down the first few steps.

  He was traveling quickly for a human; especially for one of such enormous size.

  Darcy’s whole body was electrified with delight. She sailed down three stairs at a time to beat him to the stage, then dropped to her belly, paws splayed, to wait for him.

  He was coming for her as quickly as he could. But the woods were too close now. Darcy could smell the mice, the owls, and the sweet fatty scent of a rabbit.

  It was too much.

  But maybe she could get him to follow…

  She spun on her belly and then dashed into the trees, ears flattened to her head, rear legs and tail tucked under clownishly as if she were being chased.

  She could feel his tread reverberate in the rich soil beneath her paws.

  But then the wet, lazy thump of a jackrabbit’s heart came to the front of her consciousness and she lost her tie to the human world.

  Thump, thump. The smell of the world’s most tender filet mignon on legs which made the chase like playing the world’s most awesome video game.

  Crashing through the trees and underbrush, Darcy Harkness let herself go to the wolf, her heart as light as a feather.