Page 54 of Luna Rising

“How long ago did he leave?” I asked.

Winter shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe, two hours ago? It’s been a while.”

I concentrated on the invisible yet indelible tie connecting me to Ewan. He was upset and doubting himself, feelings he didn’t want me to know about. I pushed harder against his barriers until pain flooded the bond. My heart broke for him, and I wanted to soothe his emotional injuries.

I threw the covers back and slipped off the bed. “I need to find him.”

Winter was on her feet. “No. Zara, please. Don’t make this worse than it needs to be.”

“He’s hurting. Whatever’s done is done. Now, he needs me. You can’t stop me.”

She didn’t try, making me uneasy to touch the doorknob, but Walter’s oily magic didn’t zap me, and the metal turned without resistance.

“Do you want to put some clothes on?” Winter hurried to keep up with me.

“No point. I’m going to shift as soon as I get out of here.” I stopped abruptly and turned to her. “Where is here, exactly?”

“The house where I’ve been staying. We’re on a lower level, like, beneath the ground. We ran out of bedrooms upstairs.” She shrugged sheepishly.

“Point me to the nearest exit,” I said, trying not to let my impatience show, though it did feel like Winter was purposely delaying my departure.

“Stairs. They lead to the main level.” She pointed to a door at the end of the hallway.

I took off, and she ran to catch up. I wasn’t quite moving at vampire speed, but Winter’s fae legs were no match. There was a collective in the upstairs living room. They had all been talking when I burst through the door. My appearance rendered the group silent.

I stopped and found Charlie sitting beside Birch on the couch and was relieved when he didn’t tense upon seeing me. I started and stopped an apology several times, not sure how to say sorry for such an awful act. Biting him was unforgiveable.

“It’s okay, Zara. I’m totally fine. Still a little high from the venom in your fangs, but I don’t mind that at all. You didn’t know what you were doing, and I should have known better than to lean over a drugged vampire.”

“I’m so fucking sorry.”

“I know you are.” Charlie grinned impishly. “But I wouldn’t say no to a new shirt. You aren’t the neatest drinker.”

I appreciated his attempt at a joke, though I hated that he was trying to make me feel better when I was the one who had attacked him. I didn’t deserve his empathy. There would be time for me to sort out those tangled emotions later. Ewan needed me. The ache in my chest was getting worse, like he was unconsciously tugging on our bond to see if I would come.

“Careful with him, kid,” Walter called as I strode to the front door. “He’s risen. He’s every bit as much Stavros as he is Ewan.”

I paused in the doorway and glanced over my shoulder, noting the teenager trying not to ogle me. “Oh, I’m counting on it.”

Finding Ewan in the vast mountain range that encompassed Taurus territory wasn’t terribly difficult. I tracked him using the bond instead of his scent, navigating the villages on four paws and instinct. Snowflakes floated down from a dark sky to create layer after layer of fresh powder and cover my footprints as I made them.

It felt good to stretch my wolf. She had been couped up too long. I’d been afraid to let her out since transitioning, not sure how my vampire bloodlust and her natural predatory instincts would mix. Especially after the Kilbi incident. So far, I had zero desire to maul anyone, though the only other souls I saw were the patrol wolves and they stayed clear of me.

The closer I got to reaching Ewan, the stronger his pull. He was like a giant magnet drawing me in, and I was nothing more than a paperclip helplessly caught in his force field. I was amazed everyone in the canyon and beyond didn’t become ensnared.

Not surprisingly, his hiding spot was high up in mountains, in a cave that no one could have reached on two feet. I scrambled up the steep incline and into the entrance. Flames from a fire cast flickering shadows on the stone walls, providing more than enough light for my wolf to see.

“Go away, Zara.”

Power rippled along my spine from the command and made my fur stand on end. I kept going, traveling deeper into the cave toward the sound of his voice. I rounded a corner and saw him sitting on a stone slab in front of a small fire wearing only a pair of navy sweatpants. Since he could have laid naked in the snow and made angels without getting frostbite on his goodies, I assumed he’d made the fire out of habit.

“I’m serious, Zara. Leave. That’s an order from your alpha.” He stoked the flames with a stick and refused to look at me.

I shifted and stomped over to stand beside him, hands on my bare hips as I stared down at the man I had loved for so long and debated whether to smack him or soothe him. “You realize an alpha command truly only works if you mean the words,” I said, tone light and conversational, even though I really wanted to point out that I was the victim in all of this.

“I don’t want to talk.”

“Okay. We won’t talk,” I said, making a show of glancing around the cave for some way to occupy our time.

---