Broken Moon by Laken Cane
Chapter Thirty-Two
Worrying about the detective and Lucy learning my secret was the least of my problems. My wolf didn’t care at all what they thought, and though the human part of me did, it wasn’t foremost on my mind now.
I had more important things to think about. To marvel over.
Like the fact that my shift was as seamless as fast as any alpha’s, though it certainly shouldn’t have been. It didn’t take me an excruciating sixty seconds of bone-cracking mess to shift. I simply…shifted.
One second I was fighting not to shift, and the next second, I was a wolf. Part of me stood back in amazement and awe, but just as I hadn’t had time to really dwell on my huge freedom, I couldn’t really think about what had just happened—or why I’d been able to shift the way I had.
When I was my wolf, I was also my human, with my human thoughts. I still knew what had to be done and though I couldn’t hold my spirit snare or try to trap the demon, I could concentrate on getting him out of Lucy, holding on to my blade, and keeping myself out of the demon’s world.
I clamped down on the handle with my strong teeth, and I sliced it over Lucy’s ribs. Overly hard and quite deep, but the situation was too urgent and hurried for finesse. I cut her, and that was the important thing. Even in my wolf form, I cut her.
Her screams merged with the demon’s screams, and she fell back against the wall, mouth open, eyes staring, getting, perhaps, too much of the demon’s mind and certainly too much of his pain. He shot from her mouth as a black, thick smoke, smelling horribly of sulfur and death and other things unrecognizable to my wolf’s sensitive nose. Without a body, he could not grab the blade, so I let it drop, shifted back to my human form, and scrambled for the snare. It was too late, though, to catch him.
The demon was gone, but I knew without a single doubt that he would return to try again. He had no choice, really, did he? He wanted more than anything to get back to his world and to a body that no longer existed in this world.
But I also knew that he was weakened further not just because the longer he spent here, the weaker he would become—eventually he would simply be another spirit—but because he’d been injured once again by his own blade. A blade that held my blood.
Could he cause more death and mayhem before he was rendered ineffectual and harmless?
Oh yes. Absolutely he could.
And I would handle it when he did. Right now, he would go off to lick his wounds, and I—and my blade—would remain in my own world.
Energy like I’d never felt coursed through my body. I vibrated with it. I felt, for a little while, invincible. I shivered as pleasure touched every part of my body and mind, and I wanted to run through the night, high on my wolf.
I turned in a circle, almost drunk, and then my stare landed on the detective. In my strange and overwhelming pleasure, I’d nearly forgotten him.
He sat against the wall, watching me.
“No,” I cried, as the reality of life slammed back into my mind. I fell to the floor, scrambling for my clothes, my weapons, my sanity, and my shield.
He never said a word.
Lucy was motionless and pale and bloody, her eyes closed and her breathing so slow and soft I couldn’t tell if she were alive or dead. But then I saw her chest rise, and I could have cried with relief.
My clothes were ruined, ripped to shreds by my large, muscular wolf and the shift that had exploded through them. I held the rags to my chest, trying not to whimper, and risked another look at the detective.
Once again, his eyes were closed, and he appeared to be unconscious. Maybe he would remember nothing. Maybe he would think it was a dream.
I could hope.
I raced through the house, looking for a bedroom, and I found some women’s clothing in one of the closets. A t-shirt, a long, black coat, and a pair of pants that were two sizes too large. They were also too short, but my boots had survived the shift. I’d tuck the pantlegs into them, and maybe…
Maybe no one would notice I was no longer wearing my own clothes.
In a few short minutes, I was fully dressed and both Lucy and Rick were stirring. My energy had dwindled, changing instead into an exhaustion so deep that I wasn’t sure I could get up off the floor. It was going to take me awhile to get used to the insane and massive transformations.
And we still weren’t done. Not by a long shot. I rushed to the kitchen and dampened some towels, then hurried back to lift Lucy’s shirt and press the towels to her cut. I had a feeling that whatever was going on inside her would be much worse than the cut I’d given her to save her life.
I brushed her hair back. “Luce? Are you okay?” I didn’t glance at the detective when I heard him groan and get to his feet, but from the corner of my eye I saw him sway and put a hand against the wall to steady himself. “How are you doing, Rick?”
“I’ll be all right. Lucy?”
“I cut her, and she needs to see a doctor. There’ll be too many questions if I call 911—but she can heal in the—in Shadowfield’s clinic. The doctor who treated me will take care of her.”
“What’s going on in that place?” But he didn’t sound like he really wanted to know. Just like with the Pocket, any community that minded its own business and didn’t bleed outside their boundaries would not be looked at too hard by law enforcement.
Lucy’s eyelids fluttered and finally, she opened her eyes. “He saw Marcy Davenport in a basement prison,” she said immediately, her voice soft but strong. She struggled to sit up, her hand holding the towels against her ribs, and I put an arm along her back and helped her. “The man who’s holding her built three cells down there. Marcy isn’t the only girl he has taken.” She shuddered and blinked rapidly to keep tears from spilling. “But she’s the only one still alive. The others are buried in his back yard.”
“Where,Lucy,” the detective asked. I was just noticing that he wasn’t wearing his radio, and I understood at once that because of what had happened with Beth, he was likely taking a few days off.
He’d call in for backup once we found Marcy’s location, and would tell them he’d found her because of an anonymous tip, just like he always did. Tonight, the Pocket was going to be in serious upheaval and overrun with law enforcement and news vans. It wasn’t often anyone braved the town, but when they did, they made sure there were enough of them to scare the residents and gangs into behaving. Still, there would be trouble.
“Tall house,” Lucy said, “with a purple door.”
I glanced at Rick as he blew out a hard breath and put his hand to the back of his head. He wasn’t doing well, and likely had one hell of a concussion, but he’d see this thing through. He wouldn’t leave until the young girl had been found and rescued.
“Lucy,” I said gently, “we’re going to need more than that.” Falton was a small village, true, but that didn’t mean a purple door wasn’t going to be difficult to find. Unless…
I stood abruptly. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Rick frowned and started toward me. “What?”
“I’m going to find someone who lives here and ask him which house has a purple door,” I told him.
“You are not going out there alone,” he said, crossing his arms, and that was the moment I knew he hadn’t seen my wolf. Or if he had, he’d believe it was a figment of his concussed imagination, especially since we’d just been talking about wolves.
I smiled at him, but my lip trembled. “I’ll be okay, Rick. I’ll be back with an address. You know how strong I am.”
“You’re not stronger than a group of men or a gun,” he said grimly. “I’ll go find someone.”
“Wait,” Lucy said, before we could get into an argument about who was going to go kick someone’s ass until they told us about a purple door. “Iroquois. I saw Iroquois.”
The detective and I stared at each other, our brows knitted. Then his eyes cleared and he reached for his cell phone. “Hang on.” He tapped on his screen a few times, then gave me a smile that was both rare and startling. “It’s a street name. I doubt there’s more than one purple door on Iroquois.” He began to swipe and tap his phone screen and while he searched for the house, I turned my attention to Lucy.
“I’m sorry I had to cut you,” I told her.
She closed her eyes, flinching as she pressed the towel to her bleeding ribs. “I know you had to, Kait. I’m shocked I didn’t get hurt a lot worse.”
“Yeah,” I said a little grimly. “So am I. When you’ve been patched up and are feeling better, we’re going to sit down and have a long talk.”
But she lifted her chin. “I’m part of the team, and a necessary one. I wasn’t given my gift for no reason, though I have to admit that until I met you and Rick, I wanted to just ignore it all. But now, I can help, Kait. I can finally help. You understand?”
I really did. I sighed. “Okay.”
Her eyes widened. “Just like that?”
I grinned. “You put yourself in extreme danger to save a girl’s life. So yes. Just like that.”
She took my hand. “I don’t remember anything about getting cut. I was lost inside the demon’s mind.” Her eyes were steady, and I didn’t detect a lie in her words. Miraculously, it appeared as though neither she nor the detective had seen my wolf. Then she frowned. “Why are you wearing different clothes?”
“Found it,” Rick interrupted. “The owner’s name is Lee Martin.”
I got to my feet, relieved I didn’t have to think up a lie to tell her. “Show me.”
“I’ll call for back up and send them to the address. I can be there in less than ten minutes if I don’t get stopped.” He hesitated. “Wait here with Lucy.”
Neither Rick nor Lucy was strong enough to walk to Iroquois. His eyes wouldn’t quite focus, he was deathly pale, and Lucy was still bleeding. They both needed medical care—but the detective had to get to the house where Marcy was being held. I needed to be with him. I made up my mind and turned to Lucy. “I’m going to call some friends. They’ll come get you and take you to Shadowfield.”
She nodded even as Rick began to argue. “You can’t bring people into this town, Kait,” he growled.
“The police will be here in droves by the time my guys arrive,” I told him, calm and determined. “No one will fuck with them. I promise. They’ll get her out, and I can go to the house with you.”
“She’s right,” Lucy told him. “Don’t argue, Detective. Call it in. Both of you.” She pulled the towel away from her ribs and showed us her wound. “I’ve stopped bleeding. And Kait, as soon as they’ve patched me up, I’ll go home to Ash. He has to be wondering where we are.”
The cut looked wicked, angry and red and still seeping, and the flesh around it was bruised, but she really would be okay, as bad as she looked.
I gave her a nod, relieved. “Thanks, Lucy.”
I walked into the kitchen to make my call, and Rick began murmuring into his cell phone. In less than fifteen minutes, the awful town of Falton was going to blow up with activity. And the detective and I absolutely had to get inside the house before it did. Marcy’s abductor needed to be caught unaware.
I called the alpha.
He answered almost immediately, and the sound of his dark, soft voice caused me to forget, for a second, how to speak. I took a breath. “I need help, Jared.”
