A Werewolf's Moon (The Council) (23 page)

“Why?” I asked.

“If it must be an equal trade,” Quinn’s father said. “The demon king would have to agree, send our people back in exchange for his men.”

I didn’t think that an evil demon would agree to that. “What will we do?”

“Hunt the demons down, and kill them.” Quinn said.

My heart fell, and I could see Venna sink lower in her seat with the same realization.
“Those poor people.”

The room went deathly silent as we resigned ourselves to what we had to do.

Five sacrifices would be made, not to open the portal, but to keep it closed.

Chapter 23

Quinn

“I don’t see why I can’t go with you,”
Pepper
dogged my heels as we walked down the hallway in my family’s private wing. She was hopping mad, but I wasn’t going to budge. “Quinn, I can help.”

“I told you why.” She wanted to hunt demons with me. Sure. Great! Why not? Just let my mate, who wasn’t trained to fight yet, out there with the monsters sending my people over to the demon world. What could possibly go wrong?
Everything
.
“
Pepper
, I can’t fight and worry about what’s happening to you why’ll we’re out there.”

“You want me to sit here and twiddle my thumbs, but I need to do something.” She followed me into my bedroom. I wanted her to help, more than anything I wanted her to feel like she was capable and strong. That was going to take some time. Right now the stakes were too high. “What happens if you get captured?”

She crossed her arms, “I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

I nodded, shoving the doors to my closet open. I grabbed a gun and tossed it on the bed. “Can you shoot?”

She gaped at it. “What?”

“
Henry
likes his sword. Dmitri has a thing for daggers. I prefer silver arrows and bullets. Can you shoot to kill?” I lowered my voice and let my eyes glow a little for effect. This was for
her own
good. “Better yet, can you sink your claws into someone else, and listen to the
m
scream?”

She backed away from the bed, shaking her head. “I don’t want to kill anyone.”

“That’s what I’m getting ready to do.” I peeled off my clothes, and she just stared at me as I pulled on black cargo pants, filling the pockets with extra ammo. I even made sure she saw me strap a knife to my belt. “It’s them or us. This is what I have to do. The fighting isn’t as archaic as it used to be, but it’s still fighting.”

“You’re trying to push me away.” She said, watching me pull on a black shirt and a vest to carry my equipment. “So what are you, some trained killer? You’re nineteen!”

“I killed my first soulless when I was thirteen. Being a prince or a king in this world doesn’t mean sitting in fancy rooms and waving to your subject’s. They look to us to protect them. How do you think we came into power in the first place? We
took
control. We’re born to fight. We live for it.”

She flinched when I passed by her to pick up the gun. It had to be done.
Pepper
had to understand that she couldn’t just run out there with me and expect to smack the backs of their hands and tell them to be good. It didn’t work like that.

“Is Venna going with you?” she asked.

“No, she’s not.” I said. “And not because
Henry
is keeping her locked up. Think. It’s about couples and family. If I was the one captured, would you sacrifice yourself, to save me?”

“Nope.”
She wouldn’t look at me.

“
Pepper
,” I crossed the room and stood in front of her. “Come on, you don’t mean that.”

She shrugged. “I really wouldn’t want to spend eternity in the demon realm.”

“I’d do it for you.”

Was that a faint flicker of a smile pulling at her lips?
“Really?”

“Yes,” I reached for her hand, lacing our fingers together. “We’re partners. It’s you and me until the end of the world.”

She nodded, prying her fingers out of my grip and heading for the door. “If anything happens to you I’ll never forgive you.”

Damn, I wanted to go after her, but I sensed this was one of the times I should leave her alone. I finished getting ready and headed out. Normally Dmitri would be with us, but we were down a man because of a rogue. He didn’t want to leave Christy. No telling what kind of shape she was in or even if she was still in her right mind.

I stopped off to see my parents. They too were getting ready to go demon hunting. My dad had his computer up with a map of the Capeside Wildlife Preserve on the screen. He’d picked out three possible places where the demons could be hiding. Two were caves. One was an old bomb shelter from the fifties. We doubted they’d take over the ranger’s station, but we’d check there too, just in case.

I volunteered to check the ranger’s station with
Henry
, and then we’d work our way down to the first cave where his parents would be.

Now that I knew the plan, I grabbed a couple power bars and stuck them in my pockets, heading for the main hall to meet
Henry
.

“Wait,”

I turned around and watched
Pepper
hurry after me.
“Yeah?”

She stopped a few feet away. Nervous worry rolled off her in waves. “Quinn, I’ve known you for a month.”

“Okay,” I wasn’t sure where she was heading with this, but I got a feeling it wasn’t someplace good.

Her face screwed up and she clenched her fists at her sides. Her eyes were almost fully glowing. “I’ve gone from nearly hating you and being so annoyed, to liking you. To not wanting anything to do with you, to wanting to kiss you, or just being so frustrated I could scream.”

Yup, I knew this was going to be bad.

“You’re territorial and scary sometimes.” She lifted her shoulders in a shrug.

“
Pepper
, I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt your feelings by making you stay here. And I never meant to scare you.” It became clear to me that she felt lost. She didn’t know what to do or how to help. Fighting demons with me was at least doing something, and I’d refused to let her come. I had to do something for her. She had to know how much she meant to me. Having her fight alongside was something I looked forward to. I wanted her to be my equal.

“You never, not once, ever scared me. Not truly. Things changed so fast, and I didn’t know how to keep up with them. But no matter what was happening, there was this constant throughout it all…and it was you.”

I waited.

“No matter what happened, Quinn, you were there. You are mean and gruff on the outside, but on the inside you’re really like a teddy bear.”

Huh?

“And…and I was scared. I still am scared. I’m scared for you and my dad and everyone.” She squared her shoulders and looked me dead in the eyes. “What scares me
more than anything, are these feelings I have for you because I’ve never felt like this before. I had them before I turned, and now after, I still have them. I was afraid it would be the werewolf that made me want to be with you. But it’s not. It’s only made me surer of what I knew before last night.”

“What’s that?”

“That I like you. That I think you are a good, amazing, surly, sailor mouthed mutt. I wouldn’t trade being with you for anything, ever.”

I picked her up in a hug that had her squealing. “I love you,
Pepper
.”

She took my face in her hands and kissed me. “I love you too wolf boy. Now go, so you can come back and kiss me some more.”

I kissed her again. “Wait up for me?”

She laughed as I set her on her feet. “How could I possibly sleep with you out hunting demons?”

I backed up, watching her, my heart dancing in my chest. “You’re mine,
Pepper
.”

“You’re mine too.” She started walking backwards until she bumped into the door, and blew me a kiss as I phased.

“Are you ready?”
Henry
asked the second I appeared in the main hall.

I nodded, “Sure.”

Zane eyed me. “Are you wearing lip gloss?”

“Shit.” I wiped my mouth on my sleeve.

“Hey, that was a nice color on you.
Should have left it on.”

“I’ll make sure to give you a hard time when you find your witch,”

Zane merely shrugged. “The girl I get with won’t wear that kind of stuff, so I’ll never have to worry.”

Henry
’s eyebrows went up. He looked like he wanted to say something, but he shook his head. “So I hear we’ll be going to the ranger’s station?”

“Yeah,” I took the safety off my gun and
Henry
held his sword at the ready.

Zane braced his hands on his hips, “Hey, I need a weapon.”

I nodded. “Get him a Nerf gun.”

“Hell no.”

“Fine, a foam sword.”

Henry
was gone in a flash of green, laughing, and back a few seconds later with a battle ax. “How’s this?”

He swung it and grinned. “It’ll do.”

I snagged the back of Zane’s shirt as we phased. We’d never been deep in the preserve before, we appeared just inside, near the entrance. It was dark. Well past midnight.

And raining.

“Damn, so this is great.” Zane glanced around, still swinging the ax. “This will help keep them from smelling us, right?”

Actually, it would. “Yeah, and stop flinging that damn ax around. I don’t feel like
regrowing
a limb.”

“You can do that?”

I laughed, “There’s a lot you have to learn, Zane.”

Henry
took the rear. I led, following my nose. We slogged through mud and puddles. It wasn’t exactly my idea of a good time. I wanted to be home with
Pepper
curled up in a toasty room. A nice cushy
couch,
and maybe a bowl of popcorn with bacon bits sprinkled on top…

“Why are you growling?”
Henry
asked

“It’s his stomach,” Zane said behind me.

“Shut up,” I snapped back at him, downing a power bar. “But yeah, I’m hungry.”

“We should get burgers and shakes after this, just saying.”

“Popcorn and bacon bits,” I grinned, thinking
Pepper
would like the concoction.

“Dude, that’s disgusting.”

I leapt over a particularly deep puddle. We came to the dirt drive that curved up to the ranger’s station. The lights were out, and a Jeep sat close to the front door.

Henry
went up and checked it. “The engine is cold.”

I sniffed, trying to detect any residual exhaust. The rain made it impossible. “It hasn’t been started for a while…shit.”

“What?” Zane and
Henry
asked in union.

They couldn’t smell it yet, but I wanted to retch.
“Something dead.”

I walked around the Jeep, tracking the scent to the front door. It was even stronger. I listened closely, straining to hear even the faintest indrawn breath. “It’s empty, of anything alive.”

T
he door opened
without a sound
, thanks to
Henry
. His powers came in useful inside too. He sent a sheet from the bed to cover the park ranger, who lay in a mangled
heap in the small kitchen. It wasn’t pretty, and I wondered if I’d seen anything as grim as the sight before me. The sheet didn’t cover nearly enough to put me at ease.

“Holy shit,” Zane’s voice was low, and I almost told him to go back outside.

“If this is too much I understand,”
Henry
put a brotherly hand on his shoulder.

Zane’s blue eyes started to glow, and he swallowed. “It’s just…I mean, he was a good guy.”

“You knew him?” I asked, my eyes taking in the room and every piece out of place. From the shattered lamp on the floor, to the open refrigerator that had been cleared of most of its contents, it was a disaster.

“Seen him before a couple times,” Zane turned and drew a breath before heading out onto the front porch. “I’ll keep a look out.”

“You think he’ll be okay?” I asked
Henry
. If
Garret
had come, I would have been a little apprehensive, but he’d seen things that Zane hadn’t yet. It would have been hard on him, but not this much of a shock.

“Yes, I’ll make sure of it. If I have to, I’ll
phase
him back to Venna before we finish our hunt for the demons.”

“I’m good guys,” Zane shouted from outside with a new strength in his voice. “I’ll be even better once we get those bastards. So they’ve been and gone.
How long?”