Blood Moons (40 page)

Death did not.

The killer was imagining his revenge again. He would make it last a long time for this, and for ruining his plans with Katie.

He had a location already picked out—wide open and very public, and not far from here. He wasn't about to drag her too far. Dara pried the location from him, but got several others along with it.

When he hit her over the head again, Dara had just enough time to shove what she'd found at Tristan before she passed out again.

She woke up with no idea how much time had passed. She was still lying on the floor, it still felt and smelled the same, and her eyes were still covered. But now, on top of that, her head was splitting and her body was in so much pain she could barely breathe. Dara didn't even try telepathy.

Somewhere nearby, Brendon Z was muttering something to himself. She couldn't make out what he was saying, but the fact that he was so unstable he was talking to himself scared her. Was he even speaking English? She picked up on a rhythmic thumping sound and imagined him banging his head against the wall.

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Shit, she was really in trouble here.

The thumping stopped and she heard footsteps coming toward her. The final step brought his foot to within inches of her face. He stopped muttering. "It's time," he said. A heavy blanket fell over her and he hauled her up and over his shoulder. Every bruise and broken bone jarred and Dara screamed. Her voice was muffled by the blanket.

She had no sense of direction. Her head was swimming, but she counted the second until they stopped moving again.

The killer waited for fifteen seconds, then continued walking.

A traffic light? He didn't have any qualms about ripping people apart, but he drew the line at jaywalking?

Dara counted to 217 before he stopped again. This time, he dropped her on the ground and pulled the blanket off her.

He checked the blindfold, added a gag. When he cut the binds on her legs, Dara recognized the opportunity to fight back, but she was too weak to do any damage. He slapped her hard across the face for her efforts.

He was retying her legs to something, like a post in the ground. When he was done, Brendon Z turned his attention to her wrists. Her arm was broken. When he cut the binds, it hurt. When he brought her hands forward, it hurt even more.

When her retied wrists were pulled up so her weight hung on them, Dara began wishing for death.

She thrashed her head, trying to knock herself out again, but all she managed to do was dislodge the blindfold from one eye. They were outside, surrounded by tall buildings that looked like enormous black bricks in the night. Her vision was blurry; she didn't recognize any of them.

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But she did recognize the giant metal claw that rent the air on her right.

Oh God.
He'd chosen the location for maximum effect.

When he was done, it would look like the tiger had torn her apart. She didn't have to look into his mind to know that whatever message he decided to scrawl with her blood, it would include the word
beast.

You bastard!
She wanted to scream. How dare he desecrate the beautiful thing like this!

But Dara had bigger problems than a bloodied statue.

Brendon Z was spreading the blanket on the ground in front of her, laying out a collection of gleaming knives. There were all shapes and sizes, and he arranged them precisely in a row, not a fraction of an inch out of place. He looked up at the sky, searching for something.

Ritual
. Tristan had been right, Brendon Z needed to see the stars above him. His eyes closed and his mouth moved in something like a prayer. To what, she didn't want to know.

Dara couldn't take a proper breath. She was in agony, light-headed and a moment away from either passing out or dying. She wanted to scream for help, but the only sound she made was in her mind, and even that was feeble. Why wasn't she passing out? God, she'd been beaten to within an inch of her life; why was she still alive?

The killer passed a reverent hand over his knives, then picked one out and stood. He was muttering under his breath again as he came to stand before her. His violet gaze was fixed on her chest, not even looking at her face. She tried to reach out to his mind, command him to stop, but it only made 367

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her head hurt more. Dara was helpless to do anything but hang there and watch him spread his arms wide in a sort of supplication.

Desperate for this not to be her last sight on Earth, Dara sought Tristan's face in her memories. She drew on the summer day, a meal shared with friends, and built a world around it, pretending that was the end of her story. Sharing happiness and sunshine with the man she'd fallen in love with. Dara needed that tranquility to comfort her now.

But even that little thing was to be denied her. Her mind was fractured, couldn't hold on to the image and she was expelled right back to the present and the murderous psychopath before her.

He brought the tip of the knife to her chest and cut.

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368

Blood Moons

by Alianne Donnelly

He'd lost her. One moment he'd been flinching at the blows to her fragile body, and the next she was just ... gone.

He'd torn the training room apart in his rage, felt people outside herding others away from him. Tristan didn't care about any of them. The moment he'd deciphered the jumble of images Dara had sent him, he'd been running out the door.

Common sense told him there were others who could help.

Calen and MacMurphy hadn't left his side since he'd returned here after scouring block after block without finding the smallest hint to track. They could be out there looking for her too. But he didn't have any common sense left. He sprinted down one block, then another, looking for the landmarks Dara had shown him.

He'd failed her once already. He wouldn't—
couldn't
—do it again. Her life depended on Tristan making sense of what she'd risked her life to get for him. Helpless, hurt, and so damn brave, Dara had put her trust in him. He
had
to find her.

This city was vast, and all the buildings looked the same.

When he heard sirens behind him, he ran faster, not about to be stopped. But the transport pulled up alongside him and Calen stuck his head out. "Get in," he said. "We'll find her faster if we drive."

"No," he said, his voice inhuman. Instead, he shoved what Dara had given him at the man. The transport swerved, nearly colliding with a lamppost.

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Calen swore and steered back toward him. "Go straight three blocks and turn right," he said. "I'll check out the other sites." Then the transport peeled away, sirens blaring. Soon the night was echoing with a chorus of them.

Tristan ran in the direction Calen had pointed out. Three blocks. He turned right. Three more blocks. Nothing.

He stopped. Drew air deep into his lungs. Closed his eyes to focus, searching, searching. Hunting for his prey. The killer didn't have a scent. Just like in his dream, he was a void where something ought to be. He ignored him for the time being. Dara was his priority. He'd memorized her scent long ago; it was now part of him. Tristan could track her by it anywhere.

He had to do it now.

A rare breeze, kicked up by the traffic of police transports, tickled his nose with a hint.

Tristan breathed it in again, fangs aching.
"I'm coming,
Dara."

He turned right and ran as fast as his legs would carry him. They were outside. And the farther he ran, the stronger her scent became. He was getting closer. Her fear, her blood maddened him, gave him strength to push on. The killer hurt her even more...

Around another corner, he emerged in a small square.

Three hundred yards in front of him, the giant tiger's tail curled to one side. Tristan heard a faint voice, barely a whisper at this distance, but he still heard it. Male. Chanting.

He stalked out, death in his stride, in his claws, aching and curling, ready to rip and tear into flesh. Tristan sought a 370

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mind; found
his.
Looked through his eyes and saw a knife poised against Dara's chest. It cut before he could stop it.

Dara sobbed.

Tristan broke into a run, taking control of the killer's mind at the same time. He made the bastard freeze, back up, far away from his mate. And he relished the pain it caused the son of a bitch. He rounded the statue and launched himself at the killer, changing as he flew through the air. The tiger roared in triumph, landing on top of the violet-eyed monster who would not die. Tristan would show him how it worked.

Mercilessly, he drew his claws slowly down the killer's chest, cutting him open a few inches. Not enough to kill, just scoring the skin and scraping bone. Tristan didn't allow him to make a sound, all the while holding his gaze and letting him know exactly how he would die. Slowly. Painfully.

He relished the panic clouding the killer's mind, the voices that screamed at him, tearing him apart from the inside as the tiger cut into his flesh from the outside. One thing to mess with a mind already messed up. Another to mess with the body attached to it, bringing a shadowy demon to flesh and blood life. The tiger became the demon the killer had learned to fear.

He stepped on his prey's arm, leaned his weight on it, crushing bone. The knife fell out of its hand—
its.
The killer was no longer human, but a thing. To be played with. To be ended. He reared up and let his weight drop on it again and again. Once for every time it had hit Dara.

And he was just getting started.

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"I think I see them," John said and Jeremy turned the corner, following his directions. "Christ," the man muttered.

Jeremy had to bend low over the steering wheel to identify what he was looking at.

Dara was strung up against the tiger statue. He couldn't tell if she was conscious, or even alive. She wasn't moving.

"Do you see Hunt?"

John hesitated. Then he sucked in a breath. "Jesus!"

Yep, he saw him. Jeremy turned off the sirens and drove onto the square, stopping a reasonable distance from the tiger playing with his prey. The killer wasn't yelling, but as Jeremy got out of the car and pulled his gun, his mind was assaulted by mental screams so horrifying, he had to shut them out. Hunt wasn't letting him scream out loud.
Jesus...

John motioned for him to circle around from the other side.

It was a stupid idea, but they had no choice. The tiger was growling, almost a gleeful purr as he dug his claws into his prey. He knew where to cut to cause pain, but keep the killer alive as long as possible. Normally Jeremy wasn't a big supporter of torture. Normally.

As he took in Dara's condition, he began to reconsider.

"Hunt," he said in a carefully level voice. He'd given his word to stop Tristan. With a bullet if need be. But he would do everything he possibly could to not have to honor it. As far as Jeremy was concerned, Hunt was justified in everything he did to the fucker.

The tiger growled at him, flashing enormous fangs.
"Don't
interfere."

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"Tristan," he tried again. "Dara is hurt." She wasn't moving. Her jacket and shirt were cut open, but he couldn't see if the cut had been deep enough to injure her.

Again, the tiger growled, ripping into his prey even more.

Jeremy blocked out the killer's mind. He didn't want to know.

He'd be having nightmares about this for the rest of his life already.

"Tristan, she might die."

That brought his head up. He stared Jeremy down, then glared at John, who'd been trying to reach Dara. The older man stopped in his tracks and held his hands up. "Easy," he said. Tristan looked over his shoulder at Dara, making a pained noise.

The other transports were nearing. John would have told them where to go and to turn off their sirens. It was anyone's guess what the tiger that used to be Tristan Hunt would do if something spooked him. Best-case scenario, he'd run off.

Worst case, he'd go for the nearest neck and take out as many people as he could before Jeremy brought himself to pull the trigger. He didn't want to. Didn't want to have to go back and explain to Pixie what he'd done.

Hunt could hear the others approaching already. It didn't seem to bother him. At least not as much as the sight of Dara, beaten and unconscious, strung up in the statue's jaw—

a statue that uncannily resembled him.

It's my fault,
he'd said back at HQ. Would he see this as a sign that he'd been right?

When he turned his gaze back to the killer, Jeremy was sure the man knew his end was coming.

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Tristan snarled and bit into his neck, mercilessly jerking his head to break it. The killer was left bleeding, paralyzed, but alive. For now. Tristan shook himself out, turned his back on the killer, and stalked toward Dara. He dislodged the ropes tying her legs with his claws, then, before Jeremy's eyes, the tiger transformed into a man. A very big, very naked man.

He took one of the knives laid out on the ground, put his arm around Dara to catch her, and cut the rope binding her arms. She fell limp against him and he cradled her in his arms, sitting on the blanket with her. "Call an ambulance," he said to them, without looking away from her.

"They're on their way," John said, waving at Jeremy to holster his weapon.

As long as he lived, Jeremy would never forget the sight they presented: a man and his mate, sitting in the shelter of a giant tiger protector. Dara would live; Hunt wouldn't allow her to do otherwise. She would heal and regain her strength, and soon she would forget this ever happened.