Lunar Marked (Sky Brooks Series Book 4)

T
his is a work of fiction
. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

M
cKenzie
Hunter

Lunar Marked

© 2016, McKenzie Hunter

[email protected]

A
LL RIGHTS RESERVED
. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author/publisher.

C
over Artist
:
Nicole Anderson

* * *

Q
uell slowly walked
around the
Hidacus
, studying it, his face blank. His fingers ran lightly along the branches as though dealing with fractured glass. I stood a few inches away, looking at the odd plant as if it were the first time I’d seen it. Its thick, obtrusive trunk overtook the small, darkened greenhouse, willowy branches stretching out and swaying ever so gently. The slender stems of its leaves pumped with a constant rhythm like a pulse. Tiny buds filled with sappy fluid gave off the fragrance of fruit and metallic scent of blood.

The silence stretched as Quell periodically looked in my direction before returning his attention to the plant. His onyx eyes, which always seemed searching and distant, watched me with curiosity. With fondness I remembered it wasn’t a year ago that distinctive green eyes looked back at me, which were a result of him feeding off Hidacus. It had become his brand; his mark, as well as a constant reminder of his past, when he felt he had betrayed humanity. A constant and explicit reminder of the abnegation of human blood and his disdain for humanity.

The silence remained as he approached me. Should I have expected anything more from Quell than silence and emotions so deeply hidden that at times he seemed elegiac? Naively I did. There was a part of me that had wanted some display of excitement from Quell when I’d told him I had a surprise for him. I’d been nearly bursting with excitement as I led him to the backyard to show him the greenhouse I had built for him.

Ten minutes had passed since I first showed him the greenhouse. He’d spent most of it examining the plant with a stolid expression. One moment he was near the plant; the next he was in front of me with his mouth slightly parted, but words wouldn’t come freely.

“You did this for me?” he finally asked.

“Of course. I don’t need it.” I looked around the space and admired the plant again. I wished Steven would at least come out for a moment to see it, too, but he was in the house sulking as he had since I first asked him to help me with the greenhouse. He’d mumbled and griped in protest throughout the construction process, saying almost hourly, “Now we are building a little playhouse for your vampire?”

I guess in some odd sense Quell was my vampire. I felt responsible for him and wanted to keep him from killing others as he had before. When he had his first taste of human blood after years of abstaining, he’d killed five women. I still wore the burden of that guilt. If I hadn’t forced him to feed from me, he wouldn’t have done it. But after he was staked and it sent him into
reversion
, I needed to feed him to save his life.

I wanted to make sure Quell never killed like that again. He became my responsibility.

Like an elusive shadow he moved effortlessly throughout the room, regarding the plant. “You know Michaela has forbidden me to use it.” Michaela, his creator, had destroyed the Hidacus that he once used to feed on in one of her many irrational fits of rage.

“No. You were forbidden from
having
the plant. It’s
my
plant, at
my
house. Michaela doesn’t have a say on what happens here,” I said with a smile.

His movement was so quick I hardly had time to adjust to his presence in front of me. I would never get used to the way he looked at me—a combination of intrigue, adoration, and aversion. His touch was gentle as his hand ran along my arm. “I sometimes forget how beautiful you are,” he said softly as his fingers continued to trail down my arm until it reached my wrist. His thumb rubbed rhythmically along the pulse there.

It was the first time he’d ever said anything like that, and I wasn’t sure how to respond.

He moved even closer, his lips barely brushing mine before he pulled away and watched my reaction in silence. Then he kissed me again—longer, genteel, searching. When he moved away, there was a gentle sadness lingering on his face.

“You are leaving, aren’t you?” he asked.

Quell was more perceptive than I gave him credit for. I nodded my head, barely committing to my assertion. But I owed him more than that. I owed him the truth. My life was getting complicated. Trying to find the Tre’ase that created Maya, a spirit shade whom I hosted and who was keeping me alive, was going to take me away from home longer than I expected. I wouldn’t be there for him. There was a lot of guilt entwined in my gift. “No, I am not leaving, but I may not be around as much,” I admitted.

He looked at the Hidacus and then at me again, his hold on my hand tightening to the point of becoming uncomfortable. Still close, he leaned forward and rested his forehead against mine, the palm was gentle as it rested against my face. He kissed me again, his lips firm against mine, unquenched desire seemed to have erupted in him as desperation melted into the kiss. When he pulled away abruptly, he presented me with the same emotionless look I had become used to.
Quella Perduta, the Lost One.
And nothing seemed more fitting.

After a long moment of silence, he spoke so softly it was barely audible. “I will miss you”. Then he kissed me lightly on the forehead, and it felt vacant, cool, and sad.

“I would never leave without telling you. You know that, right? I’m coming back.”

“Promise?” he whispered.

“Promise.”

Steven cleared his throat. Quell barely gave him the pleasure of an extended glance before returning his attention to me.

“You should try the Hidacus,” Steven suggested. “See if it is as you remember.”

Quell brought my hand to his lips and kissed it.

Steven stepped farther into the greenhouse. “Go ahead, give it a try,” he reminded Quell again, a little firmer this time. Usually his gentle features held a certain congenial warmth, but now they were hard and unwelcoming. Quell continued to hold my hand and made no effort to move.

“I will,” he said, dismissing Steven, and within moments it seemed like he had forgotten Steven was there.

He guided me over to the plant. It wasn’t as large and lavish as the ones he once had at his home, but its willowy presence overtook the small space. I became aware again of its fruity, metallic smell and the even pulse-like thumping of the nodes. The stems moved as though they were controlled by a light breeze. He broke off a stem and sank his teeth in it, extracting its sap, but he didn’t drain it. Instead, he broke it apart, the sap welling to the surface, and then he pressed it to my lips. It tasted just like the one I’d tried at his house, a deep berry flavor with a hint of metal. A fruity version of blood.

I could still feel the cool tingle that Quell’s lips left on mine and reluctantly admitted to myself that I wouldn’t mind feeling it again. There was something intriguing and comforting about it.

Steven stayed, making his presence known, which made the prior effortless interaction between Quell and me become uncomfortable. Steven relaxed into the wall, like a shadow, his green eyes reflecting anger and disgust he wasn’t able to mask.

“Is it as you remember?” he asked.

Quell nodded, his attention split between me and the Hidacus.

“From my calculations and the last time you visited Sky, you should spend some time getting better acquainted with it,” he said with a smile that was strained but pleasant. It was forced because I never failed to comment on the scowl that always peeked through and overtook his face each time Quell visited.

Steven led me out of the greenhouse, his hand firmly on my elbow, and didn’t say a word until he’d led me into the house. “What the hell is going on between you two?”

“Nothing.”

“That didn’t look like
nothing
to me.”

“Don’t make it into more than what it is. We’re friends.”

“
We
are friends,” he asserted. “That wasn’t a friend kiss. Please tell me the last time I kissed you like that?”

“Yesterday.” I referred to the peck on the cheek he’d given me when I brought groceries in and he’d noticed I stocked up on his favorite snack. Fifteen bags of dill-flavored chips that he would mess up by adding hot sauce to it. I didn’t know what was grosser, the smell of it or watching him eat it and claim it was a “southern thing,” something I am sure he’d made up. Something no one from the south would willingly admit to eating or enjoying. “
That
was a very passionate kiss,” I joked, trying to diffuse the situation.

“Quell’s was hardly a friendly kiss on the cheek. He likes you, and please don’t give me that ‘we are friends’ or ‘he feels indebted to me’ garbage. What I saw in there was intimate. Sky—” Frustrated, his hands washed over his face as he displayed a level of distress that was new to me. Based on how poorly he was handling the situation, it was new for him as well.

“You’re making it a bigger deal than it is and reading far more into it,” I said in a soft voice, as gold rolled over his eyes. I needed to rein this in.

“No,
your
vampire is becoming a problem”. It was said with the same disdain that Ethan and Sebastian used when they spoke of most vampires.

“I’ll handle it.”

“You keep saying that, but when will he stop being something that you have to handle? One mistake—yes, saving him from reversion was a mistake—and now you feel eternally responsible for him. I call bullshit. Let him go, and whatever happens, happens.”

“Even if you don’t trust his intentions, trust mine. Somewhere in the middle of all this I started to care for him, and whether or not you think my obligation to him is foolish, you need to trust me. I would do whatever it takes to keep him safe—just as I would do with you.”

Steven was like a younger brother and I hated fighting with him. The disagreements about Quell were getting redundant and becoming a constant obstacle between us. Our eyes locked for a long, tense moment. He raked his hand through his hair, the longest I’d ever seen it, loose ginger waves dangling just above his ears. “I can’t just sit here and watch you make a mistake that can’t be easily fixed without wanting to do something. You’re tying my hands, and I don’t know what to do.”

His ragged, heavy sigh broke the silence that followed. “You are binding yourself to him with unwarranted loyalty, and you won’t let me fix it,” he said. His eyes had lost that gentle twinkle that I’d gotten used to.

“Because there’s nothing to fix.”

“Sky, I always want to fix things for you, and that won’t change.’ When I see you putting yourself in a situation that will ultimately end badly for you, I don’t know how to ignore it. Watching it happen is getting harder for me. This is going to end horribly.”

He shook his head, and said, “I have to be away from it—from you. I’m moving out.” He didn’t give me a chance to respond. He went into his room and closed the door. That was a gut punch that I wasn’t prepared for—couldn’t be prepared for, didn’t want to be prepared for. Long moments crept by as I stood staring at the door, hearing him move around, probably packing.

I waited longer than I should have for him to come out and our argument or whatever it was to end like it always did—with him running the tips of his fingers over my face then pressing his forehead against mine. Or I would do something like that to him. Real apologies never needed to be voiced. That was better than one. We understood it, and it worked for us. But we’d never had a fight like this.

* * *

T
he next day
I worked with Josh in the pack’s library as I tried not to think about Steven moving out despite hearing him packing his things as I left. Josh glanced up from his notes several times, studying me a little more each time and opening his mouth to speak but deciding against it.

In less than a week, Steven would be all moved out. Each time I thought about it, I got queasy. He was a constant when things seemed chaotic and his presence made things a little better. Less frenzied. Josh came to his feet, still watchful as he paced the large space, unable to resist looking over my shoulder at the book. The moment he did, the words vanished, leaving us with weathered vellum.

The closer he got to me the harder it was to ignore the changes in him. His outward appearance was the same. Carmel-colored hair was disheveled as usual; defined features and a strong jaw drew focus to the cerulean eyes. The soft fabric of his t-shirt silhouetted the muscles of his slender body, and intricate tattoos overlaid whatever skin was left uncovered. Just a few inches over six feet, he used to be unassuming despite being one of the most powerful witches on this side of the country. But things had changed. Magic was a muscle that he had ignored and deprived of constant exercise. He had become stagnant and relaxed in his skills, and a couple of months ago he was dominated again by another witch. One slight too many against his ego and he now seemed to be diligent about not allowing it to happen again.

He wasn’t depriving his magic muscles anymore. Now his magic was obtrusive, an overbearing and uncomfortable force that made being around him different. It was a roaring wave instead of the gentle, soothing breeze it had once been. Is there such a thing as overusing magic? His miscreant smile was the same; his blue eyes were always gentle, the color like those of his brother, Ethan, the Beta of the Midwest Pack, but Ethan’s held a hint of steel. The playfulness of Josh’s wasn’t enough to smooth off the sharpness that was there now. They were off—he was off.