Steal the Moon (2 page)

“I’ll have the bartender bring you some,” Zack said, getting ready to motion a waitress over.

I shook my head and made a sour face. “It’s Tom tonight. Tom always puts too much Triple Sec in. It tastes too orangey.”

Sarah picked up my cues. “That’s right. His Cosmos are awful.”

“Zack’s are like heaven,” I told Sarah and then we both turned on the werewolf with feminine sighs and big doe eyes.

“I’m not a bartender anymore,” Zack groused.

“With talent like yours, Zack, you’ll always be my bartender.” Before Zack signed on for the hazardous duty of protecting me, he’d been a bartender in one of Dev’s clubs. He was a genius when it came to vodka. I still manage to talk him into making me drinks from time to time.

Zack sighed. “Fine, but only because it’s your birthday. I’m going to teach Tom how to make them. But Zoey, if you aren’t sitting here when I get back, I’m writing that report. You have no idea how creative I can get. I lie awake at night thinking of all the ways you could be killed.”

Sarah slapped the table as he walked away. “He’s very unfriendly. You should talk to Dev about that.”

She didn’t mention talking to Daniel. Dev was the one who might be moved by tears and feminine cajoling. Daniel was that rock someone shoved against a hard place. Unfortunately, unlike many things I could talk Devinshea into, he was in complete agreement with Danny on this one. It was getting harder and harder to get my way. The longer we all lived together, the more they realized to survive me they had to stand together. It was a lesson I wish they’d never learned.

“Won’t work,” I replied. “The boys love Zack and Lee. They never let me do anything.”

“Until Daniel hunts down Lucas Halfer, I doubt you’re going to get anywhere on that front,” Felix pointed out.

Lucas Halfer was the dumbass demon who’d gotten the jump on me six months ago and managed to pretty much kill me. He’d also killed Dev, but we’d been surrounded by vampires, and their blood brought us back. I’d gotten Halfer tossed out of Hell, and apparently he was holding a grudge.

“Watch this,” I said in a whisper as a lovely young woman walked past our table with a wink in my direction. She was dressed to kill in a halter top and jeans that made her golden skin shine and showed off her toned body. I kept my voice as low as possible. The music was thumping all around me and there was the loud chatter of the crowd, so if I kept it down, even Zack’s super hearing wouldn’t be able to make out what I was saying.

“Who is she?” Sarah didn’t take her eyes off the woman as she made her way toward the bar.

Zack was working the cocktail shaker when he caught her scent. One minute he was pouring out pink Cosmos and the next he was spilling said drink all over the place. I smiled as he lost his perfect control.

“She’s Lisa Hernandez.” I answered Sarah’s question with great satisfaction. “She’s Angelina’s older sister. You remember Justin’s girlfriend?”

“Yes.” Sarah had become well acquainted with Daniel’s vamps.

There were six of them, not including Chad, who we’d sent to spy on the Council. The Council didn’t know the rest of them even existed. Daniel found them and turned them. They were loyal to Daniel instead of the all-powerful Vampire Council. Angelina was a werewolf who’d come to Daniel for protection last year when her pack leader tried to force her to mate with someone she didn’t even like. Daniel had matched Justin and Angelina, and now they were happily living in my house since I’d agreed to move into Ether with Dev and Daniel. They shared my house in the country with a vampire/shapeshifter couple.

When I’d needed this particular favor, Lisa had been more than happy to oblige. “She’s a wolf, of course, and she’s also…in season.”

Sarah’s mouth dropped open. “That is so mean and evil and kind of brilliant.”

“I think Zack is going to drool,” Felix pointed out. “Yes, he is.”

The well-dressed wolf fumbled to dry off his sleeves and tried to straighten his jacket. Though Zack had taken a blood oath to my husband and was his official animal servant, he modeled himself after Dev. Daniel might be all strength and power and brooding intensity, but Dev is silky and smooth. He was always immaculately dressed and polished. You wouldn’t catch Devinshea Quinn wearing a wrinkled Spiderman T-shirt and jeans that might or might not have seen a washing machine lately. That was Danny’s territory.

A few weeks into his gig, I noticed that Zack started to emulate his boss. He’d traded his flannel shirts for silk and the jeans became cashmere slacks. He started a meticulous grooming routine and even joined my weekly mani-pedis. He claimed it was all part of his job, but he didn’t join me for the waxing portion of my spa day. All this had transformed the former bartender into a total big city hottie. Unfortunately, the nature of his job left him with little time for the ladies. I was just giving him an opportunity.

I watched as Zack smiled. It wasn’t quite that intimate, sexy smile of Dev’s that always set my heart racing, but he was trying. It isn’t easy emulating a man who would have been worshipped as an actual sex god in the olden days, but the werewolf gave it a go. Lisa smiled up at him, and I thought I saw Zack skip a couple of breaths. He looked down at his watch and his face fell a little when he realized how much of his last hour was left. He re-poured our drinks and added a third for that vixen Lisa, who accepted it with a sultry smile. Zack moved quickly to bring Sarah and me our orders.

“Here you go, girls.” He left a shaker on the table. “This is full so just pour some more if you need it.” Zack gave Felix a manly handshake. “Felix, since you’re here, I thought I’d just go hang out at the bar. I don’t want to get in the way of all the girl talk, you understand.”

“Absolutely,” Felix replied smoothly. “I’m sure I can handle the women.”

He couldn’t, but I wasn’t about to say that. Felix was absolutely the least scary thing at that table. Sarah and I were way scarier than Felix ever thought of being. Felix was a freaking pacifist. I liked guns and blowing things up. Sarah was a witch who had a way with dark magic. But if it made Zack feel safe leaving us in Felix’s incapable hands, I was willing to go with it.

Zack practically tripped over his expensive loafers trying to get back to the luscious Lisa.

“Poor Zack,” Sarah said with sympathy as she took a sip of her drink. “Damn, he’s good. He missed his true calling. Oh, well, when Lisa dumps him later, he can mix his own drinks.”

“I’m not that cruel. Lisa has no intention of dumping him. She’s had her eye on him for a month. She just hasn’t been able to get too close because he’s always working. I think our horny little wolf is going to be satisfied with tonight’s outcome. See, I’m nice. It’s just too bad I can’t use it more to my advantage.”

Sarah glanced around. “Where is she?”

I gave her a “don’t give up the game” look and she settled back down. Sarah’s recent sojourn on the Hell plane may have netted her one hot husband, but it had done nothing to keep her subterfuge skills sharp. “She’ll be here. When she walks up to us, we need to pretend she’s an old friend.”

Shaking his golden curls, Felix sighed. “Do I need to point out how upset the boys are going to be when they inevitably discover this plot of yours?”

I didn’t need that lecture. “They aren’t going to find out. Why do you think I went to so much trouble playing wolf pimpette? Daniel and Dev both told me they don’t want to talk about this particular problem. I’m just following orders. Besides, they’re so busy getting ready for this big werewolf meeting they don’t have time to follow my little plots.”

“And you aren’t going to say anything,” Sarah warned him.

Felix held up his hands in complete surrender. “I just thought I would point out the obvious. The relationship Zoey finds herself in is dependent on trust between the three of them. I wouldn’t want her to screw everything up just because she wants to avoid a fight.”

But I really, really wanted to avoid this particular fight. They were completely unreasonable, and I wasn’t going to let their male pride and bravado get in the way of doing what was right. They should have known me well enough to figure out I wouldn’t let the subject drop. If they weren’t going to help me, I would find someone who would.

“Here she comes,” I whispered out the side of my mouth as Jane Nichols walked off the dance floor in her mini skirt and tank top. She looked super cute and young. On the surface, she looked like the girl you went to college with and wished you still saw on a regular basis because she was so much fun. She didn’t look like a badass werewolf private detective.

“Oh, my god, Zoey Wharton!” She practically squealed my name. She jumped up and down and pulled me into the girliest hug ever. I glanced back and saw Zack was comfortable the
Legally Blonde
reject wasn’t a threat. Even in the werewolf world, a female like Jane is considered soft and sweet right up to the point when she takes your head off. Her blonde Barbie look is one of her greatest assets.

“Jane, it’s been so long,” I said with a sorority sister sincerity. It hadn’t been that long. I’d been talking to her almost daily on my cell.

Jane seated herself and we chatted lightly, as though we were catching up. When I was satisfied that Zack was paying attention to Lisa and nothing else, I looked at Jane and asked the question I’d been asking every single day for the last six months.

“So where is Neil?”

Chapter Two

I missed Neil Roberts every second we were apart. He was my best friend and official gay husband. He’d been my bodyguard and my playmate. Everything that had gone on in the last six months didn’t quite seem real because I had yet to share it with him. I might have been able to handle the separation if I knew he was off somewhere having a good time and enjoying his life, but he was in trouble.

Neil had been Daniel’s servant for several years. He was a crucial member of the crew I worked with. Before Daniel had come clean about his status as the Council’s
Nex Apparatus
—a really pretentious way of saying he was their assassin—we made our money the old-fashioned way. We stole things. We specialized in arcane objects no human thief would touch.

Neil was the muscle. Sarah was our witch. Daniel handled everything we needed a broody vampire for, and I held us all together and took care of anything that required a deft touch. Over the years, we’d become close.

That all changed six months ago when Daniel had forced his will on his servant.

Danny had been riding a high from feeding off some supercharged sexual energy and discovered his new power over his preferred animal, the wolf. Neil was angry because his lover had been the one chosen for sacrificial lamb duty. Back then I sided with Neil, causing a rift between myself and Danny that led to my untimely death and Daniel’s refusal to even hear Neil’s name spoken.

I didn’t blame Neil. Maybe he should have hung around and fought it out with Danny, but I understood the impulse to run. I also understood how stubbornness could put a person into a corner it was hard to get out of. I wanted to reach out to my friend to let him know I was still here for him. I just needed to find his ass first.

“He’s been really hard to track.” All the bimbo act had been erased from Jane’s demeanor. “I started in Vegas where Sarah saw him last.”

Sarah nodded and shared a look with Felix. “I wasn’t very helpful, I’m afraid. He hugged me. He told me to ask you to forgive him. Then he changed and he ran off.”

The minute Felix had picked up Neil, he’d come out from under Daniel’s influence and been able to act on his own again. He fled Las Vegas that night with nothing but the fur on his back. I made sure to put money in his bank account, but as far as I could tell, he hadn’t touched it. He was alone with no money, no cell phone, and no friends.

“I suspect he spent most of the winter in wolf form. I have reports of a white wolf wandering the Sangre de Cristo mountains in Colorado. Most of the wolves in the area are gray or brown, so he stands out,” Jane explained. “I tracked him for a while in my wolf form, and I spent a couple of days running with him, but I couldn’t get him to change into his human form.”

I took a long breath. At least he was alive. “How did he seem?”

Jane frowned. “He seemed weak. It’s surprising because staying in his animal form for that long should have made his wolf incredibly strong. It makes it harder when you’re in human form, but his wolf should be solid. Do you have any idea why he was weak? He was thin despite the fact there was ample game in those woods.”

I had a theory, but I suspected Jane wouldn’t like it. “Do you know who my husband is?”

Jane nodded, but her expression was blank as though she didn’t want to give away her real opinions on the subject. Daniel was a controversial figure even in the vampire world. Jane was a wolf, and wolves rarely trusted vampires. What I was about to tell her wouldn’t make that trust any easier. “I know who Daniel Donovan is. Everyone in our world is aware of him. Your faery made sure of that.”

The last bit was said with a hint of salacious question. Lots of people were interested in our living arrangements. I had learned to ignore it. “Neil was Daniel’s servant.”