The Waning Moon Read online

  He ripped off my panties and his tongue met my bare skin. My whimpers turned into moans as he licked and sucked. Only the weight of his head kept me on the picnic table. When he’d brought me to the edge over and over until the pleasure was nearly pain and my begging had turned into unintelligible gasping, he finally relented and thrust two fingers inside me and stroked. That was all it took and I came wildly beneath him.

  Finally, the aftershocks of my orgasm ceased and he stood. “Up for another round?” he asked.

  I sat up and reached for him. His cock strained against the denim. “That looks painful,” I said. “I’d love to help you out.”

  Isaac grinned. “I was hoping you’d say that.” He undid the button and pulled the zipper down. He was not wearing underwear and the minute he tugged his jeans lower on his hips, his erection sprang free. I reached for it, intent on returning the favor he’d granted me, but Isaac stepped out of my reach. “As much as I enjoy your mouth on me,” he said, “I need to move right to the main event tonight.”

  I smiled up at him. “How do you want me?”

  “Just like that, Princess.” He drew close and thrust into me with one, long powerful stroke. He held still for a moment, then started moving against me. It didn’t take many strokes to bring me to the edge again and only a few more before we fell over together.

  A while later, after we were cleaned up and back in the camper, I turned to Isaac and said, “I’m holding you to that promise, you know.”

  “I wouldn’t expect anything else. Are you warm enough?”

  One of the benefits of sharing sleeping space with a shifter is you’re almost always warm enough. It’s like having your own personal electric blanket. I wasn’t sure if I was cool in comparison, or something about being a dragon shifter made me run colder than usual, but I was thrilled I wouldn’t have to spend the winter in the Northeast without power. The temperatures in Asheville were hovering around freezing, and this was about the limit for me. I slipped into a state of torpidity. It would be easy to hibernate, I thought as I slowly drifted off to sleep.

  I woke the next morning starving and realized Isaac and I hadn’t eaten the night before. I got up and pulled on several layers of clothes before leaving the toasty warm camper. Isaac had turned the heat on when he’d gotten up. I exited the camper and breathed in the scents of cold, fresh air and hot coffee. Perfect. I didn’t see Isaac, but I knew he wouldn’t have gone far. I grabbed my toiletries bag and headed to the little campground bathroom for my morning ablutions.

  After a cursory wash with shockingly cold water, I was ready to face the world. Or at least face my coffee.

  When I returned to our campsite, Isaac was frying bacon on the little camp stove.

  “You are amazing,” I said.

  “Wait until you see the rest of your breakfast.”

  I finished my coffee and headed into the camper to dress for the day. Jeans, knee-high socks, and a t-shirt under a long-sleeved shirt, covered by a zip-up hoodie comprised the day’s fashionable look.

  When I went back outside, Isaac was plating my breakfast. Pancakes with melting butter and maple syrup and a side of bacon. “I am in awe.”

  “More coffee?”

  “You spoil me.”

  “I’m buttering you up.”

  “I’m not going to like this, am I?”

  “Eat.”

  After Isaac made me a second cup of coffee he sat down across from me and devoured his own breakfast. We ate in silence and I tried not to speculate on what he was going to tell me. All I knew is he didn’t want to talk about it, Finn knew I’d have tried to stop whatever it was that happened, and I wasn’t going to like it. Maybe we were twins, separated at birth and had some kind of Luke and Leia thing going on.

  I compared Isaac’s six-foot frame and dark brown skin to my five foot two height, reddish brown hair and tanned but definitely white skin. Maybe not twins separated at birth, then.

  Isaac noticed my smile. “What?”

  “I’m glad we’re not twins.”

  “Me, too?”

  I debated on whether or not to tell him my musings, and decided not to. A little mystery is good, right?

  When we’d finished breakfast and washed up, I returned to the picnic table to nurse my third cup of coffee.

  “Do you want to get in touch with Arduinna and see what’s going on in the world?”

  “Maybe later. Do you want to stop delaying and tell me what this is all about?”

  Isaac sighed, but didn’t start talking.

  I tried to tamp down any impatience I was feeling. It wasn’t easy. Maybe I should be the bigger person and give him more time. “If you’re not ready to tell me, it’s okay.”

  “Thank you, but it’s not okay. I need to tell you. I’ll never be ready. You’ll need to tell Raj and Florence, because I won’t be able to.”

  “Whatever you need, baby.”

  A smile ghosted across his face, and he looked down at his hands. “I promise I’m not delaying, but I need to ask you a question. Can you tell me what happened when you opened the gate?”

  “Before I could finish opening the gate in a controlled fashion, Finn tackled me. It didn’t matter. I’d already opened myself to the gate. Even if he’d knocked me out, it would’ve opened. My part was done. The only difference was there was less control. The gate magic burned me before I could spindle it and send it out. When I did manage to slough off the magic, the gate slammed shut. I don’t know if that was something I did or if it would’ve happened anyway, but it didn’t cease to exist. It made it…” I ran my tongue over my teeth, trying to find the right words to describe what had happened. I tried again. “The gates are unstable because of the difference in magic levels between the two worlds they connect. It’s like opening a door on an airplane in midair or a submarine under water. It needs time to balance the atmospheric pressure on the two sides since there isn’t an airlock. I don’t know if that happened at the other two sites, but it must have because otherwise they would’ve been even more violent.

  “Maybe the answer is to try not to open the gate, but rather to create it?” I was deep into my own thoughts now, and when I glanced up at Isaac, amusement and frustration were flitting across his face battling for supremacy.

  “Anyway, Finn tackled me, and when I looked around to see what was going on since he shouldn’t have gotten the jump on me, I saw a bunch of shifters had attacked, and you and Raj were protecting Florence from a group of marauding trees. I asked Finn what he was doing, and he said he was stopping me. When I informed him he was too late, he clarified that he wasn’t there to stop me from opening the gate, but rather to stop me from noticing whatever the hell was going on with you. I kicked him in the balls, knocked him out with my sword, and came to help you.”

  Isaac grinned widely. “I love you, Princess.”

  I smiled back. “I ran over to you, but the fight was over, and whatever Finn didn’t want me to see was gone. Now it’s your turn.”

  Isaac’s grin retreated. “After you levitated, we were attacked. The rogue shifters attacked first, but there weren’t enough to be a challenge, merely a distraction. All of the shifters went after them. Then a few—maybe five—tree Fae attacked Florence. Raj and I went in to defend her. As I readied myself to deal the killing blow on the last Fae that was my allotment from Raj, it reached out and touched my arm and said, ‘Look.’ I looked up and above my head was a small…window. There was a bed, snowy white, like something out of a romance novel. Emma was chained to the bed.”

  I stared at Isaac for a couple of seconds before getting it. Holy shit. Emma was his girlfriend he’d thought Michelle had killed.

  “Holy shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And then what?”

  “Michelle appeared. She flirted with me. Suggested I come on over for a little bondage fun. When I refused, she laid it out for me.”

  I took a step forward, intending to pull Isaac into a hug, but he stepped back. “N
ot until I’m done.”

  I waited.

  “I have until you open the gate on the winter solstice to make my decision. I can either walk through the gate and come to her, at which time she’ll let Emma go, or I can watch her torture Emma with silver at every gate opening until the last one, when we’ll get the main event—Emma’s murder.”

  “Wait,” I said. “The choices she offered you were to sacrifice yourself for her entertainment or watch Emma be tortured?”

  “Yes.”

  “And she said she’d let Emma go?”

  “Yes.”

  “What were her exact words?” I asked.

  “If I walk through the gate, she will unchain Emma and push her through to this side.”

  I tapped my index finger on my lips. Something didn’t seem right here. “She’s not expecting you to walk through.”

  Isaac said, “I have to, Eleanor. Emma’s been there too long; I can’t leave her there any longer if I can help it.”

  “I’m ignoring the part where you’ve already made up your mind. I want to talk about Michelle. First and foremost, although she has the ability to lie, it sounds like she’s gotten into the practice of telling truths that can be twisted—she’d have to if she’s been among the Fae for this long. It’s a defense mechanism when you’re living among people who don’t lie and can tell if someone is lying. But to make the condition that you walk through means that even if you go through the gate willingly, she’s not expecting you to walk. She’ll have someone positioned nearby to push you or break your legs. She’s not going to let Emma go. She wants to torture you, and she knows torturing Emma is a sure way to torture you as well.”

  I fell silent, thinking. I tried to compartmentalize the part where Isaac had indicated he’d already decided to go; to leave me in an attempt to save his ex-girlfriend. He was willing to walk away from his mate to save some girl he’d dated for a few weeks and put himself back in the hands of a woman he’d been involved with for much longer than he’d even known me. It was illogical to feel jealous of Michelle. She was an evil, blood-sucking bitch queen from hell, but Isaac was going to trust her to keep her end of the bargain and go back to her. Away from me.

  I started pacing. I was not compartmentalizing.

  “Eleanor. Stop.”

  I paced faster. He grabbed me, hands on my shoulders. “Stop, please.”

  I looked up at him and my eyes filled with tears. “You’ve already made up your mind. Without talking to me first. Without trying to figure out another way.”

  “No, no I haven’t. If I had, I wouldn’t have…”

  “What? Told me?” I wrenched out of his grip and resumed pacing.

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “We’re bonded. I know when you’re lying.”

  “I don’t want to leave you.”

  “Then don’t! Don’t leave. Let’s talk it through. Let’s find another way. Or we can go in guns blazing when we’ve opened the last gate and go rescue Emma together!”

  “That’s more than half a year away! That’s months and months of torture.”

  “It’s already been years, and it might not be months on that side. Time moves differently.”

  “Or it might be more years, and who says, ‘let’s not bother rescuing the torture victim now when it’s inconvenient because she’s already been tortured for a long time, what’s a bit longer?’”

  “Inconvenient? You think this upsets me because it’s inconvenient?”

  Isaac stared at me.

  “Losing you to the woman who imprisoned and tortured you for decades is inconvenient? Having my mate willingly walk away from me to put himself into a situation that will likely result in his torture is upsetting merely because it’s inconvenient? Isaac, you are being an ass.”

  I paced faster. My body temperature was rising with my temper and smoke rose from my body. I tossed some heat energy at the empty fire pit and the skeleton of the last fire flared and quickly burned out.

  “Please build a fire, but don’t light it.”

  Isaac didn’t question me. He gathered some wood and laid out a fire. When it was done, I sent controlled bursts of heat into it, trying to individually light each piece of wood to burn off some of my temper.

  When I was calm enough to yell again without lighting Isaac on fire, I turned back towards him.

  “I can’t lose you. I can’t. This is not an option.”

  “Emma doesn’t deserve this. I can stop it.”

  “You don’t deserve it either, and I don’t think she’s going to let Emma go. She’ll keep her and use her to get you to do whatever she wants.”

  Isaac sat down. “You’re right. She’s not going to let Emma go.”

  “Let’s talk it out. Let’s find a solution.”

  I heard the faint rumble of the Hudson and knew Florence was approaching. “Can we talk it out with Florence and Raj?”

  Isaac nodded. “Can we wait until tonight when Raj is here? I don’t want to hear you explain it more than once.”

  “Of course.”

  He kissed me, and I smiled as pain pierced my heart. I was going to lose him. No matter what solution I came up with, I was going to lose him. I closed my eyes and leaned further into the kiss, trying to drown my despair before he felt it through our bond.

  Chapter Sixteen

  FLORENCE ARRIVED BEARING the gift of food. Cupcakes, to be precise. I didn’t want to know how she knew I desperately needed comfort food. I dashed forward to relieve her of the dreadful cupcake burden when a stray thought hit me.

  “Excuse me a moment,” I said before dashing into the camper. I grabbed my small backpack and dug for my notebook. The notebook held the coordinates we’d used when looking for the gates in Portland and in the Black Hills, but I also used it to jot down important bits of information. I thumbed through it and froze when I saw what I’d been looking for. I found Isaac’s cell phone and tapped the screen to get the time and date readout. Yep. Today was Florence’s birthday. Shit, shit, shit.

  I heard her laughing outside and hoped it was at something Isaac had said and not at me. I found my large duffle bag and started digging through it. I had a gift for her. I’d picked up a couple of things along the way that reminded me of her, but I hadn’t purchased a card or anything. I laid the gifts out on the counter, found some clean bandanas, and wrapped them as carefully as I could.

  Isaac and Florence sipped coffee at the picnic bench with the tray of cupcakes laid out in front of them when I went back outside.

  “Happy birthday, Florence.” I felt a little smug when I saw Isaac react and felt his surprise through our bond.

  “Thank you, Eleanor,” she said. “I was positive you and Isaac hadn’t spent last night baking me a cake, and I do love cupcakes on my birthday.”

  “My skills in the kitchen are legendary,” I said, elbowing Isaac when he snorted, “but even I can’t whip up a cake in a camper.” I thrust the package at her. “For you.”

  She untied the bandana and spread it open. Inside were three individually bandana-wrapped packages. She opened the smallest one first. It was a 100-carat spherical blue topaz. She gasped. “It’s beautiful!”

  “It’s your birthstone and the website where I purchased it said it’s a good focusing stone if you need to boost your psychic energy. Open the others.”

  Florence laid down the gem with reverence and picked up the second package. I grinned in anticipation. Inside was a bobble-headed dashboard mountable cowgirl with a stripper pole. I bit back my snickers, but Isaac, who’d not been prepared, could not.

  Florence fixed me with a steely gaze. “She was not a stripper.”

  I lost the control I’d had on my laughter. It didn’t take long before Florence’s mouth was twitching, too, and soon she joined us. We laughed for a while, and every time one of us would start to get ourselves under control, Florence jiggled the little cowgirl stripper and we’d start all over again. Finally, we all regained control and Florence turned he
r eyes to the last package.

  “I’m almost afraid to see what’s in this one.”

  I held my breath.

  Inside was a delicate bracelet. Florence pulled it out and covered her mouth. Tears ran silently down her face and her hands trembled. She handed me the bracelet and held out her arm. I fastened the clasp around her wrist and then she pulled me into a hug. “Thank you,” she whispered. “This is perfect.”

  “What is it?” Isaac asked.

  Florence held out her wrist. “It’s Annette’s name written in her own script.”

  “Wow, where did you get this?” Isaac asked.

  “And where did you get the handwriting sample?” Florence asked.

  “I saw the letter framed in your house. I scanned it and sent it to a jewelry maker I found on the internet.”

  “You had this made in September?” Florence asked.

  “I knew you’d be coming with us and leaving a bunch of your stuff behind, and I wanted you to have this, not only as a small piece of what you were leaving behind, but as a reminder that I will hold to my promise to go Underhill with you when the gates are open to find your sister. We’ve had a lot of down time and I have to do something to let the internet know how much I’ll going to miss it. Internet appreciation and a bottomless bank account are a heady combination. Just wait until the Solstice!”

  Florence hugged me again. “These are spectacularly perfect.”

  “I did forget that today was your birthday. I was holding on to these as Solstice gifts. Now I only have six weeks to replenish my Florence stash.”

  “You know me well, child. Thank you.”

  “Do you have an Isaac stash in there?” Isaac asked, eyes narrowed.

  “Nope. The gift of my body is all you need.”

  “Whatever,” he said, standing up.

  “Isaac Walker, you stay out of my things or so help me, you will never receive the gift of my body again.”