The Waning Moon Read online

  He let go of my chin, but I didn’t duck my head this time.

  “If there’s something else bothering you, spit it out, but don’t hide from the truth behind the cheap veneer of half-truths. You may be Fae, but you don’t have to adopt all of their customs right now. You love Isaac. You’re not really afraid of being bound to him. You have the power to make choices, and just because it doesn’t feel like a choice to you doesn’t mean it’s not. It means you have a strong conscience that eliminates some choices before you even consider them. Suck it up.”

  “Wow,” Florence said. “That was quite the speech.”

  Raj looked slightly abashed. “I’ve lived a long time, and I know a lot about human nature. I was briefly royalty at one point as a human and know a little about the difference between the perception of a non-choice and the actuality. In fact, that comes up a lot when you’re an awesomely powerful vampire, too.”

  “Feel better?” Florence asked.

  “Yes. I appreciate you, Raj.”

  He stood up and bowed. “My pleasure, Your Highness.” I held my hand out, and as he kissed it, he whispered in my mind, “It would be my pleasure, you know.”

  I rolled my eyes again. “Nice try, Dracula.”

  “Please don’t invoke his name,” Raj said. “If Mircea is involved in things it’s likely Vlad is around somewhere, waiting to make trouble.”

  “Wait, General Aldea knows Dracula? Please tell me the story.”

  “Some other time. It’s late. You need your sleep for your big day tomorrow. I’ll see you in the clearing behind the pack house before moonrise. I’ll be the one in the sunglasses looking for shade.”

  “It’s ten minutes before sunset. You’ll survive.”

  “If there was doubt about my survival, I’d skip it. Did you miss the part earlier where I said I wasn’t looking for death?” He took a few steps back into the dark and then disappeared.

  “So?” Florence asked.

  “I’m okay.”

  “He’s a handy fellow to have along, isn’t he?”

  “I rather like him. I’m glad he’s here.”

  “Me, too.”

  Chapter Twelve

  THE CLEARING WAS full of shifters I didn’t recognize. Even after being in and out of the house for a couple of weeks, I’d really only spent time with Luis and met the wolves who did the cooking. I looked for familiar faces and found them dotted throughout the crowd. Not all of the faces reflected associative happiness, or even careful neutrality. I wondered if they were angry because I wasn’t a shifter or if Christopher had told them I was Fae. Or because Christopher had told them after this month’s full moon, they’d need to move out of the city or be prepared for a rapid downshift in technology. I shrugged slightly. Whatever was making them angry, hopefully they would manage to keep it to themselves during the ceremony.

  “I will ensure no one causes any trouble for you, my sweet,” Raj’s voice said in my head. I spotted him on the edge of the crowd. There was a large empty space around him. Maybe he was the cause of the shifter’s anger. I smiled at him before turning my attention towards the portion of the crowd we were quickly approaching. Luis and Christopher stood in the center of the clearing waiting for us. There wasn’t much officiating that needed to be done, but as Alpha, Christopher had the authority to keep his pack in line and declare our bonding a good one.

  Finally, I looked to my left at Isaac. He looked as nervous as I felt, and for some reason that made me feel better.

  “Are you ready?” he asked.

  I couldn’t answer in the affirmative, but I squeezed his hand and started towards the Alpha and his mate.

  “We are here to witness the joining of this man and this woman under the light of the Hunter’s moon,” Christopher said. “We will bear witness to the words they say, to the flesh they exchange, and to the bond they create.”

  Isaac started, “Eleanor Jane Morgan, I choose you to be my mate. I ask you to share my life. I pledge to you my flesh to seal our bond.”

  “Eleanor?” Christopher prompted.

  “Ishaq ben Ekkileb,” I said. Isaac stared at me in shock for a second, and I tried not to think about how that name came to me. There’d be time to freak out later. Now, I had to get through this before the moon turned everyone present into animals. I tried again, “Ishaq, I choose you to be my mate. I ask you to share my life. I pledge to you my flesh to seal our bond.”

  “Words declare intent, but only flesh and blood can create an unbreakable bond,” Christopher said.

  I tilted my head, exposing my neck to Isaac. With the moon on the rise, his teeth were pointier than usual and I tensed for the pain. And it was painful as he tore the smallest possible piece of flesh from the side of my neck and swallowed it. He lapped up the blood and the pain dulled to a sting in moments. “Your flesh is my flesh, your blood flows in my veins. We are connected until death,” Isaac said.

  He tilted his neck, and I stood up on tiptoes to reach him. My teeth were regular and much less lethal. It took a little more work to get the small chunk of flesh from him, but I did it, swallowed, and licked up the blood. I tried not to think too hard about what I was doing. Barfing during the ceremony was probably a faux pas.

  “Your flesh is my flesh, your blood flows in my veins. We are connected until death.”

  When I finished speaking, magic surged through my veins. The moon was a tangible presence in my life and I was restless and hungry. It quickly realized I was getting Isaac’s emotions in addition to my own.

  “The bonding is complete; the connection has formed.”

  “Witnessed!” yelled the pack.

  “I can’t hold on much longer,” Isaac said. I looked up at the moon, partially obscured by hazy clouds, then at the shifters surrounding us. A few pack members had already gone furry, and the rest weren’t far behind.

  “I understand,” I said. “Have fun tonight. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Take care of her,” he said over my head to Florence and Raj. I wanted to object to the notion I needed someone to do that, but felt the depth of his love for me at that moment and couldn’t.

  Florence and Raj stepped forward to flank me on either side.

  “Of course,’ Florence said.

  “Always,” Raj said. “I give you my vow.”

  That was a little more than I was expecting, and from the surge of surprise I felt from Isaac, more than he was expecting as well. There was no time to dwell on it, though. He kissed me again and quickly stripped.

  “You are a lucky woman,” Raj said as Isaac removed the last of his clothes.

  “She is, isn’t she?” Luis said, eying Isaac appreciatively. He took off his tux, too, and in the blink of an eye, the only beings left on two legs were me, Raj, and Florence. Christopher and Luis led the pack off under the light of the moon leaving us alone.

  “Ishaq?” Florence asked with a disingenuously neutral voice.

  As soon as the name came out of my mouth, I knew there would be questions. These would at least be easier to deal with than Isaac’s.

  “Florence, do you ever open your mouth and have words that didn’t make a full traverse through your brain come out?”

  “Yes, when a prophecy hits.”

  “The same thing happens to me from time to time. When I’m dealing with Arduinna occasionally, or talking to other Fae. And there are some other times when I think I’m going to say one thing and something else comes out. I’d been thinking I didn’t know Isaac’s middle name, and then when I opened my mouth, that’s what came out. It was weird, but I’m guessing Ishaq ben Ekkileb was his original name.”

  “You are correct,” Raj said. “His thoughts confirmed it when you said it, but it is a name he hasn’t heard in a long time, and one he thought he’d left behind.”

  I felt terrible. It’d been inadvertent, but I didn’t want to cause him pain.

  “It was an old memory,” Raj said. “It’s that way with those of us who live a long time. It’
s hard to hold on to the early days and much becomes faded and buried unless there is a catalyst to bring those memories to the surface. I’ll need to be careful to never be in a situation that might result in you true naming me. I’m not sure I want to know what would come up if I heard my original name for the first time in centuries.”

  Raj smiled, but I didn’t think he was kidding.

  “True naming is an interesting talent,” Florence said. “And one that will be extremely useful as you continue to deal with more and more Fae. The Fae guard their true names closely. Generally the only people who know the true name are the parents and a life mate. They believe that information in the wrong hands would give someone power over them and it’s considered rude to ask.”

  “Shit!” I said.

  Raj and Florence looked at me.

  “When I met Harvey, the tattoo artist, I asked him what his name was instead of asking him what he wanted to be called. He answered true. I thought maybe it was because I was royalty, but maybe it was more than that? Anyway, I made a mistake. He answered in front of me, Isaac, and Finn. I wonder if Finn compelled him later through the power of the name to tattoo on the iron bands.”

  “That is a possibility, I suppose. I always thought the fear of sharing one’s true name was more of an affectation, but there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in my philosophy,” Raj said.

  I decided to change the topic of conversation before the subject of my true name came up. “Did either of you recognize the name?”

  “Ishaq is the Arabic version of Isaac,” Florence said.

  “And ‘ben’ means ‘son of,” Raj added. “I don’t know what Ekkileb denotes, though.”

  “Arabic, huh?” I asked. “So many questions! Like ‘where were you born?’ and ‘how did you get to this country?’ I’m hoping the answer to that second question is ‘voluntarily.’” Power and heat rippled through my body. The thrill of the hunt was causing my adrenaline to pump overtime. I caught the scent of the deer ahead and moved to cut it off. I leaped out of the underbrush and toppled the deer, sinking my teeth first into its right rear hamstring to cripple it and then I tore out its throat. I felt the hot blood pouring over my muzzle. I tilted my face up and howled my victory to the full moon.

  And then something cold dropped on my forehead and looked around. I was reclining on the sofa in the family room at the pack house. Raj was holding me, and Florence had placed a cold washcloth on my head.

  “What the everlasting fuck?” I said.

  “Excellent question,” Florence replied.

  “That mental bond must be a lot more powerful than I thought,” I said. “I thought it was supposed to let us consciously communicate over long distances and give a general directional sense when I concentrated. I didn’t think I’d get thrown into his mind when I was thinking about him.”

  “Perhaps it is because it’s new,” Raj suggested. “Maybe it will calm down with time.”

  “It might be because you are not a shifter,” Florence said. “I’m not sure if there’s another case of a shifter and a Fae bonding like this. Your bond may be more powerful.”

  My skin heated up as the urge to shift overtook me. “I need to fly. Getting the hunt though the mate bond is agitating the dragon.”

  “Are you going to join the shifters’ hunt?” Florence asked.

  “I don’t want to cause a panic.”

  “You should hunt with Isaac tonight. It’s traditional,” Raj said.

  “He needs to stay with the pack for control.”

  “Now that you are fully bonded, you will be all the control he needs.”

  “I am not an Alpha.”

  “Yes you are,” Raj said.

  “If he loses it, I can always sit on him until he changes back.”

  “Good plan B,” Florence said.

  “I’m going to strip.”

  “Good plan,” Raj said.

  “It’s probably bad form to hit on me on me when I’m officially mated to someone else.”

  Raj didn’t look even a tiny bit repentant. A row of white teeth shone in contrast to his dark skin and his grin widened enough that I saw his sharp canines. “The day I stop flirting with you is the day I’m staked through the heart.”

  “You can go now,” I said. He mimicked crying, I rolled my eyes, and he left. I stripped down and found a robe to put on so I could get to the back yard without anyone seeing me naked. Once I was outside and alone, I shrugged off the robe and shifted. I flapped my wings a couple of times and launched myself into the sky. I circled slowly a couple of times while I determined Isaac’s general location. Finally, I felt him to the northwest and took off in that direction. When I got close, I sent out a tentative thought.

  “Isaac?”

  “?”

  “Hunt with me tonight, under the moon?” I tried to send him a picture of me as the dragon.

  He didn’t communicate back in words, just images and emotions. He sent me a vision of him out of control, ravaging my lifeless body. I replied in kind with the picture of my dragon-self sitting atop his wolf-self until he calmed down.

  The next thing I received was a kind of wolfy laugh, and I knew I’d won. I saw him trot up to a large wolf I identified as Christopher and communicate with him, then he turned and ran into the forest towards me. I found a clearing and landed to wait for him. He ran up to me, then lay down in the snow and rolled over, exposing his belly and throat. Raj was right about me being Alpha. I nudged him with my snout until he stood again. I wanted to hug him, but with the wings and claws, I wasn’t sure how.

  “Hunt?” I asked silently.

  He sniffed the air until he found the scent he was looking for. He tilted his head at me, then took off. I quickly rose to the air and followed. He chased down a deer and directed me to go into a clearing where I’d have space to land. When the exhausted deer entered the clearing, Isaac hamstrung it and I swooped down and finished the kill. We ate together and spent the rest of the night running until we were tired. We found a small clearing and I curled up with him next to me.

  He sent back a feeling of contentment, and we fell asleep.

  When I woke the next morning, I felt oddly stiff in places I’d never been stiff before. I stretched out my arms and heard an “Oof!” before I remembered I was still a dragon and was sleeping in a clearing in the woods outside of St. Louis. I moved my head enough to see Isaac stretched out on the ground beside me. He’d changed back to human at some point and lay there gloriously nude.

  “Good morning, mate,” he said.

  I grinned, which since I was still a dragon, probably wasn’t as alluring as I’d like it to be. I pulled myself together mentally and shifted back. “Good morning.”

  He kissed me, and between the newly wakened bond intensifying our arousal and the fact we were alone and naked, it didn’t take long for the kiss to become serious.

  When I ran my hand between his legs to grasp his arousal, I felt the sensation twice and it left me gasping. I lowered my mouth towards him, determined to find out how crazy I could make us both, but Isaac stopped me.

  “Eleanor, I can’t take that right now,” he said. His voice was at least an octave lower than usual. “Too intense, I won’t last long.”

  “I’ll bet you can find other ways to satisfy me,” I said. My mouth was inches above his cock, and I blew out gently, teasing him. He quivered below me, but lost any resistance. When he let go, I took him into my mouth, sliding slowly up and down his shaft while I kept on eye on his face. His eyes rolled back in pleasure and the combination of the visual plus the mental feedback was incredibly arousing. I grew wetter and wetter. Letting him slide out of my mouth, I moved up his body and sank down on top of him, sheathing him in me. I had to stop. The sensation, stuck on a feedback loop, was almost overwhelming. When I got control of my breathing again, I started moving. Slowly at first, but it didn’t take long to lose control. I rocked us to completion in seconds and fell against his chest gasping.


  “That was incredible,” he said.

  “I had no idea it would be like that,” I replied.

  “It’s much more intense than I expected. I can’t decide if I hope our bond calms down a bit or if it stays like this always.”

  “It’d be nice if we could adjust the settings ourselves,” I said. “Like keep it on low when we’re in company or when you’re hunting and turn it up when we’re making love.”

  “Maybe keep it on low when I want to last longer than a teenage boy,” he said.

  I smiled and leaned forward and kissed him. When he nipped my lower lip, I wiggled. My excitement fueled his and he hardened inside me. He quirked an eyebrow at me. “Again?”

  “Always with you,” I said.

  “Do you two ever do anything else?”

  I sat up and whipped my head around. Finn stood at the edge of the clearing, his face set to a carefully neutral expression. I could tell, though, by the tightening around his eyes and the vein pulsing in his forehead that he was angry.

  “Do you ever spy on anything else? Can’t you find another way to get your rocks off besides watching something you can’t have?”

  “What are you doing?” Isaac asked through our mental link.

  “Pissing him off, I hope,” I replied the same way.

  Finn’s expression was no longer carefully neutral. He looked incensed.

  “Is there something you wanted?” I didn’t want to give Finn another show, but didn’t want to move off Isaac and expose us both further. Neither of us had clothing available.

  “I came by with a warning,” Finn said.

  “Okay, warn away.”

  “I’d rather talk to you alone.”

  “That worked out so well for me last time.”

  “I see you got that problem taken care of.”

  “Fuck you, Finn. Say what you need to say and get out.”