Shades of Moonlight (5 page)

And allowed the
Mal
to spread unchecked.

“Cole. You have a minute?”

Turning from the window, he made sure he had his game face on. He wasn’t sure it would help. Sometimes he thought Dorian Pelligrini could actually read his mind.

It didn’t help that his
praetorian
had been with him since he’d been nineteen. Now Cole was
legatus
of the
lucani
legion. He’d inherited the title of king from his father and he’d managed to keep the
lucani
from splintering into several pieces over the last two years.

But even though he was thirty, she could still make him feel like a stupid kid with nothing more on his brain than sex and drinking.

Vaffanculo
, he really wished that was all he had on the brain.

“What’s up, Dorian?”

She stopped just inside the door. She wouldn’t come any closer unless he specifically invited her to.

“I heard about Mara. When are they going to try to break the rest of the spell?”

“Sounds like you’re worried about her?”

Dorian shrugged and Cole hid a grin. Anyone who met Mara was taken in by her sweetness. Apparently Dorian had had the same reaction.

“The girl didn’t deserve what those bastards did to her.”

“No, she didn’t. And I don’t know when they’re going to attempt to break the rest. Margie said the first part knocked them all on their asses. They want to regroup before they try the second. Come in and sit, Dori. You’re making my neck hurt.”

She shook her head. “No time. Have you forgotten? You’ve got a meeting in five minutes.”

Holding back a sigh, he nodded. “I haven’t forgotten. Is she here yet?”

“No. But you know she’ll be on time.”

He nodded. The Goddess Turan was never late. And every time she showed up, she left him with more questions than he’d had before she showed up. “And one of these days maybe she’ll actually tell me why she comes to talk.”

Dorian leaned against the doorjamb, dark-brown eyes staring at him with single-minded focus. “Maybe she likes the company.”

Her deadpan delivery made him grin and brought out an answering smile on her beautiful face. Years ago, he’d accepted the fact that Dorian was one of the most beautiful women he’d ever met, smart and sexy with a dry wit not many people realized she had. He’d never been attracted to her sexually but he often wondered if she ever thought about sleeping with him.

Hell, they spent most of their time together, which meant if he went on a date—which he did occasionally—she went as well.

Which made him wonder if she had dates of her own.

What would she do if he flat-out asked her to sleep with him?

Probably lay
him
out flat with a left hook. He’d seen her take down bigger men.

“Cole? Is everything okay? You haven’t seemed yourself lately.”

He didn’t feel like himself lately. He felt out of it, a beat off. Ever since he’d returned from New Orleans a year ago, where he’d held his first
congress
, a meeting of the North American
lucani
packs.

That meeting hadn’t gone as planned. He’d nearly lost his sister Arabella and his best friend Steven Castiglione there.

And this past year had been…eventful, to say the least.

They’d gained a new goddess and added several members to their extended family. Some of whom had
Mal
ties.

That should’ve worried the hell out of him. But Grace had proven her loyalty to the
lucani
. And her daughter and son and their cousin Mara were innocent pawns in
Mal
games and Cole would never turn them out.

Hell, his best friend Steven had been born
Mal
and he’d more than proven his loyalty to Cole and Arabella.

“Times are changing.”

Dorian’s eyes narrowed in concern but her tone was droll. “Are you going to sing now? At least give me fair warning so I can leave before my ears bleed.”

Cole shook his head, frustration and fear bubbling in his gut. Neither of which he ever showed outside this office. “Aren’t you worried about what’s coming?”

Dorian took a deep breath and released it on a sigh. “Of course. But that just means we have to be ready for anything. So that’s what we do.”

If only it were that easy. Because the person who needed to be sure the
lucani
knew what to be ready for was him. And he couldn’t fail. The fate of an entire race depended on him.

“Cole. You’re over-thinking.”

“No, this time I don’t think I am.”

Dorian rolled her eyes. She actually fucking rolled her eyes at him. “Fine. You want to mope for a few minutes, have at it. But just remember. You’re not dealing with a bunch of pansy-assed humans. We’re also wolves. We’ve got fangs and claws and we know how to use them. If people forget that sometimes, that’s their problem.”

“
Vaffanculo
, you sound like you wish we were back in the forests spending most of our time in our pelts.”

Coming from Dorian, that was a shock. She was one of the most human
lucani
he knew. Even in her pelt, she retained a sense of humanity.

“That’s not what I’m saying at all. And you should know that. What I
am
saying is that maybe some of our people have forgotten what it means to be
lucani
. What it means to be Etruscan.”

“You think I don’t know that? I deal with it on a daily basis. More and more
lucani
are moving out of the dens and into the cities. Taking drugs to suppress their change. Our birthrate has been declining for centuries.” And even more frightening, at least two teenage
lucani
who he knew of had not been able to call their wolves.

It was almost as if the lucani were losing their identity.

“Then maybe they need to be reminded.”

“Of what?”

Dorian straightened away from the doorjamb, long and sleek. “Of who they really are.”

Then she turned and headed toward her office at the back of the house. Leaving Cole to wait for a goddess alone.

“He’s a pretty happy guy, isn’t he?”

Mara nodded, smiling. She couldn’t stop smiling.

She’d spent several minutes crying at Grace and Kaisie’s house at the first sound of Arin’s voice. No, he couldn’t speak, but his happy burbles when he caught sight of her made her burst into tears.

She’d thought Race was going to turn and run for the door. It would be a short trip, considering he’d planted himself in front of it the second he’d closed it behind him.

He’d stayed there while she listened to Grace talk about Arin’s night. She saw Kaisie walk over to talk to him at one point but Race never took his eyes off her.

It could’ve felt creepy. It wasn’t. Not at all.

It made her tingle all over. And when she thought about that kiss last night…

That made her heart race.

And just thinking about it in those terms made her smile. Arin smiled back and she rubbed her nose against his before she lifted her head to look at Race. His gaze had sharpened to a laser focus, taking in her every move, though he appeared to be talking to Kaisie.

“So you and Race. I like him.”

Mara should’ve been expecting Grace’s straightforward approach. Even so, she couldn’t stop the blush from painting her cheeks red.

“Oh, you don’t have to be embarrassed.” Grace reached out to pat her on the jaw and give her a smile. “Hell, if I were a few years younger, he’d be on my wish list too. Too bad there’s never a good time for anything nowadays. But some things you just have to make the time for, in my opinion.”

Grace’s words stuck with her as she and Race made their way back to her little house.

The snow had stopped, leaving everything with a coating of white. Fresh. Clean. Amazingly quiet. Almost as if she couldn’t hear again.

But that wasn’t totally true. She heard Race’s quiet breathing above her as he carried Arin on his back in the metal-frame backpack, though he barely made a sound as he waded through the snow. On the other hand, she sounded like a herd of elephants. Which was music to her ears.

She was listening to the crunch of the snow under her feet when Race dropped a heavy hand on her shoulder, stopping her in her tracks.

“Don’t move.”

His voice was low, almost subvocal. A warning.

She looked up at him but his attention was focused to his left.

They’d been following the tree line of the forest. It’d never occurred to her to be worried about wild animals. She lived with a community of wolf shifters.

But this wasn’t a wolf.

A black bear lumbered toward them from the forest. She sucked in a sharp breath, fear making every muscle in her body tense. She wanted to take Arin and run but she knew that was the worst thing she could do.

She held her breath, waiting for Race to tell her what to do. Hoping he had a plan.

The bear looked directly at them, made its way straight toward them. And stopped only a few feet away.

Then, like Winnie the Pooh, it sat on its haunches and growled at them. But it wasn’t a growl. It didn’t sound angry. And the bear made no attempt to lunge at them.

It sat there, waiting.

“Okay,” Race said in that barely audible whisper. “We’re going to—”

Arin began to babble loudly. And squirm in the backpack. Fear made her heart pound.

Blessed Goddess, please—

Arin stopped and the bear began again.

And her mouth dropped open.

They were talking to each other.

Yes, it sounded totally crazy but that was the only explanation she could come up with because whenever Arin babbled, the bear fell silent and when Arin stopped, the bear answered.

It was the most amazing thing she’d ever witnessed. And the most terrifying.

She didn’t know how long it went on but she did know Race was ready for anything. He hadn’t moved his hand from her shoulder, the weight both a comfort and a warning.

Finally the bear moved, lumbering up onto its four paws. She couldn’t contain the gasp that left her lips and, even though it was silent, Race somehow heard her. His hand tightened on her shoulder, not painfully but in warning.

The bear never looked twice at either her or Race. It turned and made its way back into the forest, leaving her and Race to stare at each other.

“
Vaffanculo.
What the hell just happened?”

She shook her head. Even if she could speak, she wouldn’t know what to say. The shock was slowly wearing off, leaving her with the sense that something momentous had just happened and she had no idea what.

Other than the fact that her six-month-old son had apparently talked to a bear.

“We need to talk to Cole. Come on.”

Race grabbed her hand and pulled her along in his wake.

She stole several glances at Arin, who wore a big, happy grin. He clapped his little hands, as if he were having a great time.

It didn’t take them long to get to the den’s main community of houses. Cole kept a home there, though it mostly served as his office. The building looked almost plain, as did the rest of the houses in their community. To the outside world, it looked like any other rural development, set in the woods miles from the nearest city.

The houses were made from wood and stone, all local material. And almost all had only one floor, a nod to their Etruscan roots. Cole’s home was no exception.

Race beat her to the door, his fist banging against the wood until she swore she heard it echo through the forest.

Seconds later, a tall woman opened the door, dark eyebrows raised.

“Dorian, we need to talk to Cole.”

Mara recognized the woman. Cole’s
praetorian
, his personal guard. The first time Mara had met her, she’d wondered why the
lucani
king’s safety would be entrusted to a woman who couldn’t weigh more than one hundred forty pounds and stood nearly six feet tall.

She’d only thought that until she’d gotten a glimpse of Dorian working out in the community building across the street. Now she knew better.

“What’s wrong?” She waved them into the house, her gaze traveling between Race and Mara. “What happened?”

“We need to talk to Cole.”

“Then talk.”

Cole had appeared in one of the doorways toward the rear of the house and Mara was struck as she always was by his quiet sense of strength. The
lucani
king was handsome in conventional terms, with dark-brown hair, dark eyes and perfect cheekbones.

But he had an air about him that was…imposing. She never failed to feel intimidated in his presence. And to know that her welcome here hinged solely on his opinion…

Would he kick her and Arin out now? Where would they go? How—