Under the Moon (4 page)

“When?”

“Not long ago. Four days apart.”

That wasn’t much time. Leeching was hard. It took preparation. Travel wouldn’t be an obstacle—Oregon to Rhode Island was still less than a day, even with layovers. But for someone to have leeched two of them that close together…

“We have to be talking about two people,” she said, the fear doubling until Nick shook his head.

“They say it was the same guy. They’d know.”

Of course, Tanda and Chloe would know. It wasn’t like a murder, the victims unable to describe their attacker. Leeching left the goddess alive but powerless. Bile crept up the back of Quinn’s throat. She didn’t ask about protectors. Her friends both had regular power sources and had never come under threat, as far as she knew, so they wouldn’t have had one.

She swallowed hard. “Do you think he’s moving this way? Is that why you came?”

He lifted a shoulder. “No one knows where he’s going next. It’s a sure bet he’s going somewhere, though. Here is as likely as anywhere else.”

So there was no concrete reason Nick was here. Not an external one, anyway. Logically, she didn’t need him now, but something deeper, more visceral was fiercely glad he’d come. The part of her that she’d closed up tight, determined not to allow light and hope that didn’t exist, cracked open.

She reached for Nick’s beer and took a long swallow, forcing herself to concentrate on the practical. “He won’t be after me yet. Not if he’s doing any kind of research on us. And he has to be, to get two in four days.”

Nick made a half-agreeing motion with his head. “Tanda and Chloe both use their abilities commercially. It wouldn’t be hard to collect information on them, especially if he’s a computer geek like your guy in there.” He indicated the closed office door.

“Well, their websites, sure.”

“And their customer bases,” Nick said.

The population at large ignored the hundred or so goddesses in the United States. Most people had never met a goddess or seen one at work. It made sense that the leech would target ones who operated publicly. Which Quinn did, so Nick was right, she was a potential target.

She grimaced at his raised eyebrows. “My point is, if I am a target, he’d have to be studying me.” Her body shuddered when she resisted the urge to look over her shoulder. “And if he’s studying me, he knows when I have access to power. He’d be foolish to try to leech me when it’s not the full moon. ” She lifted his bottle toward her mouth again, but he grabbed it away and drained it.

Quinn continued. “A leech would have to get close to his target, tune into the energies she uses before he can take her power. If she’s away from her source—or if the source is away from her—there’s no power to take. Right?”

“Right,” Nick acknowledged. He raised his hand to signal for another beer.

“So let’s table that and discuss this.” She jabbed a finger at the screen. “Do you know what it’s about?”

Nick slowly shook his head, studying the words as if they were a code.

“What does it mean?” she demanded. “Rogue from what?” The word still made the back of her neck prickle, even though it had no support. Not like “murderer” or “rapist” did. It taunted with its intangibility. How could they fight a threat they didn’t understand?

He shrugged. “No idea. Never heard it used like that before. Any responses to the e-mail?” He closed it and opened her incoming mailbox. Though Quinn doubted there was anything private in there, she pulled the computer back around anyway.

“No,” she said after a minute of scanning. “Nothing. That’s odd, since this came in last night. And I didn’t get a separate message about putting it on the agenda.”

“You know her?”

She opened the e-mail again. She hadn’t even noticed who sent it, but she knew almost everyone in the Society. The message was signed, “Jennifer in Mississippi.”

“Not well. You?”

He shook his head. “She’s not one of mine.”

“Whose, then?”

“You know it doesn’t work like that.” He rubbed his hand over his mouth and shadowed jaw. “I don’t know who’s where, unless it directly affects one of my assignments.”

“Which makes this kind of thing a helluva lot easier.”

Nick grinned at Quinn’s annoyance. “What kind of thing?”

“You know.” She floundered for a second before pointing at the word “rogue” on the screen. “That. It’s…unsettling.”

He blew out a breath. “Well, nothing we can do about it now. I guess we wait for the meeting and see what’s what.”

She rebelled at the idea of sitting back and doing nothing, but there was a more immediate concern. She raised her eyebrows at him. “You’re coming to the meeting?”

“If you are, of course I am.”

“But why?”

He looked at her, something churning deep in his eyes that she hadn’t seen there before. “Leech, Quinn.”

“I told you, he won’t come now.” She moved to shut down the computer, unsure why she was so agitated about him being here that long. He usually stayed for only a week at a time, close to the new moon. She could handle being with him for a week, since he was more of a constant presence than an interference. But clearly that wasn’t going to be the case this time.

“I don’t care. He could capture you now, hold you until the moon’s full again. I’m not taking a chance.” Nick stood to pull on his jacket. “I have to drive to Marion to pick up a few things. Don’t look at me like that,” he said when she frowned. “It wasn’t on the way, and I had to stop here and see you. I’ll be back before you close. Stay around people and don’t lock me out.”

Quinn wasn’t sure which was stronger, her annoyance at his high-handedness or the warmth of knowing he’d been in such a rush to check on her in person. “I’ll have your room made up for you.” Her dad had always kept a couple of rooms above the bar ready in case of severe weather or stranded motorists, but to save money when he died, Quinn had made them into her personal living space. When Nick was here, he stayed in the room farthest from hers and closest to the outside door.

“Stay around people,” he ordered again, and she rolled her eyes.

“I promise, Dad.”

His glower made her grin, but it fell as soon as he disappeared through the rough wooden door into the darkness outside. The noise and movement in the bar faded around her, and she slipped back to when they’d first met. She was twenty-three, Nick twenty-one and fresh from Protectorate training. Quinn had just helped a friend escape from an abusive boyfriend. She’d been pretty cocky back then, high on exploring the extent of her abilities. Using shields and telekinesis, Quinn protected the friend and her kids when the boyfriend tried to stop them, so they were able to collect all their things and get away without him following. Quinn remained behind as the friend fled to a shelter. Turning the tables on the bully had been fun. She’d tested the limits of her element control, setting him on fire without letting him actually burn and sucking enough air out of the room to make him think he was going to suffocate.

But of course, she’d been stupid and arrogant. Her friend disappeared into the system, so the boyfriend came after Quinn. He was smart enough and knew enough about her to wait until the new moon, when her only defense was physical. She hadn’t seen it coming, foolishly closing the bar alone while her father was away at a convention. The boyfriend had shoved through the door as Quinn was locking it, knocking her back onto the floor. She’d stared up past his passionless face at the rage in his eyes, and cold, foreign fear paralyzed her. Somehow, when he reached to grab her shirt, his fist cocked, she’d dredged up the strength to fight back. The fiasco had earned her a broken arm.

Nick arrived a few days later, informing her that her mother had called the Society, who contacted the Protectorate. Quinn wanted to be furious, but she wasn’t stupid. Besides the fact that vulnerability and nervousness had become her companions, she was a young, unattached woman. Why would she fight having a hot, rugged, mysterious guy at her side? Especially one who drove a muscle car and wore a beat-up leather jacket, trappings she knew were meaningless, but damn, they were hot.

At first, Nick stayed until the boyfriend was arraigned for the assault charges and released on bail. He’d been spotted lurking once, but Nick’s presence kept him away. Nick spent some time training Quinn in self-defense, and when the threat appeared averted, the Protectorate moved him on to another assignment.

Quinn had hated the cold pit of fear the incident had left in her, and she refused to do nothing when there were so many people she could help. They’d established a system to help abused women get out of their situations, and Nick’s assignment turned permanent. He set a random schedule to deter anyone who might be planning an attack, always overlapping with the new moon. When Quinn’s father had his fourth, fatal heart attack and her mother died from an infection a few months later, Quinn took over the bar and her goddess business grew naturally into other, less directly dangerous work. Her reputation included the presence of a badass protector, so the threat against her became dormant, and their working relationship became routine.

Their friendship had started with their first words. Quinn couldn’t remember them now, only that whatever Nick said had snagged a connection inside her with the strength of platinum. He wasn’t a silent, lurking presence like a normal bodyguard. They debated physical versus energy-sourced protection. The defensive perspective he provided gave her a new way of looking at the world, and it made her stronger. And even though he was never there to see it, she was better able to serve her clients during the week around the full moon.

They enjoyed the same TV shows and movies and even shared political and social opinions. Quinn would have called them soul mates, but the one time they’d seemed to be venturing over that line, Nick had made it clear he wouldn’t go there. Month by month their friendship had deepened, as had both her feelings and Nick’s determination.

Shaking off the melancholy, she spent some time clearing tables and shooting the shit with her regulars. She needed to put a buffer between her unsettling moments with Nick and talking to Sam. He was so sensitive to her moods he’d instantly know what she was feeling, and things were bad enough between them without pulling Nick into the mix. Eventually, she felt clear enough to go bring Sam up to date.

This time when she entered the office, instead of pretending he hadn’t noticed her, he eyed her carefully from head to toe.

“You’re okay?”

“Yeah, why?” She set the laptop on her desk.

“I heard the commotion. I was on the phone, and by the time I came out, everything looked fine.”

“Just a drunk. We got rid of him.” She shoved her hair back and leaned against the side of her desk. “We have a problem, Sam.”

He stared at the pencil he was twirling between his hands. “I don’t think we do.” He seemed to steel himself and looked up. Hurt flickered in his eyes before a wall went up. Quinn forgot what she’d been about to say. “We settled everything last night. I’ve been your employee, and a tool—”

Appalled, she cut in. “You’re not a tool, Sam, you’re my friend. My
family
. I can’t—”

“Will you shut up and listen?” He stood, the pain replaced by anger and determination. “I don’t want this to change anything.”

Quinn opened her mouth, sorrow and regret surging, but he stopped her with a sweep of his hand.

“You are my best friend. I understand that you can’t care about me the way I’d hoped. But you still need me. I don’t want you to send me away. I can—”

Someone knocked on the door and opened it without waiting for a response. Katie came through and zeroed in on Quinn, apparently not noticing their tension. “Nick’s here.”

Sam threw up his hands and let them slap down onto his thighs. “Great. Perfect timing.”

The women, used to the friction between the two men, ignored him. “Thanks, Katie. Can you please tell him his room’s ready?”

“Sure.” Katie closed the door behind her.

Sam paced across the few feet behind his desk, muttering something about competition.

“He’s—” Quinn stopped her automatic protest. It wouldn’t do any good to say that Nick wasn’t competition, since it wasn’t exactly true and Sam might take it the wrong way. She bit her lip. Did he still hope she’d change her mind?

He halted, obviously making an effort to rein himself in. “So what’s he doing here now, anyway?”

Quinn didn’t have time to respond before Nick sauntered in.