Page 6 of Broken Moon

“Lucille, I—”

“It’s okay, I understand,” sheinterrupted. “I’ll just clean up and go back to the woods with you to get thedemon-summoning sons of bitches.” She grinned, but her pale face was paperwhite, and her eyes were too wide.

“You can stay here,” I said, maybesurprising myself more than her. It wasn’t like I trusted people. But for somereason, I trusted Lucille the psychic. I was a good judge of character, andbesides, she wasn’t a total stranger. Or a man.

I left her standing therestaring after me as I went to fetch a bottle of water from the kitchen and mykit from my bedroom closet.

Five minutes later I tapped onthe bathroom door, then went in when she invited me to do so. She stood at thesink, staring into the mirror, but hadn’t attempted to so much as turn on thewater faucet.

I set the bottle down. “Theguest room is across the hall. You’re welcome to it.” I handed her one of myt-shirts, a robe, and a thick pair of socks. “Make yourself at home—but stayout of my bedroom.” I grinned. “I’ll be back.”

She met my stare in the mirror.“It’s like déjà vu, you know. Having dreamed about this night for so long, andnow I’m actually standing here in your bathroom, and I know—” She abruptly cutoff whatever it was she’d been about to say and gave me a wan smile. “I’ll behere when you get back. Be careful. And,” she called, when I was nearly out thedoor, “thank you, Kait. Thank you for everything.”

I climbed into my car, glad I’dgotten the crossover SUV when I thought about the three people I was going toput into the backseat. I didn’t want any of them sitting next to me, thoughbehind me wasn’t much better. I put my leather-wrapped kit into the passengerseat and gave it a pat, then started the car and went to free the trio.

Chapter Three

My “kill kit” contained thetools of my trade. It was a demon-killing, vampire-staking,supernatural-hunting satchel that I loved more than anything else I owned. For yearsI’d added pieces to it until it was nearly bursting with the necessary—andperfect—items I needed to not only make a good living, but to satisfy thecraving in my soul to…well, to hunt. To catch. To investigate.

But first, I’d had to gothrough some shit. To become an adult and move away from my mother.

After we’d been kicked out ofthe pack, life had been good, really. With the money my mother had and thepayment the wolves had given her to help us start over in a human world, she’dput us up in a hotel.

Two months later I’d come homefrom school and found her busily packing, smiling for the first time since mydad had died. “I found home,” she told me.

Home was a big, crumbling oldhouse on a five-acre property outside the city, part of a little town calledHuntersburg. Making the place livable and working her gardens were what got mymother through those first extremely difficult years.

“Hard work is the bestmedicine, Kaity.”

“I thought laughter was.”

“Well, we don’t have a lot ofthat right now, but we have an abundance of hard work ahead of us.”

And did we ever. So much work.We fell into bed at night exhausted. Even wolves got tired. She didn’t let merest except long enough to do my homework, and one morning I woke up andrealized the months had flown by and I was feeling better. At least mentally.

When the full moon came, shedid what she could to help me, but our alpha had not hobbled her, and she wasforced to leave me so her wolf could run. Only extremely powerful wolves orhobbled wolves could resist the pull of a full moon, and she was neither.

She never apologized for mychildhood. It wouldn’t have occurred to her. Wolves did not have soft lives. Strongwolves helped strengthen the community, and there was no place for weaklings—atleast not in the Stone Moon Pack. We were often challenged by rivals attemptingto kill our alpha and absorb our wolves. We were attacked by our natural enemy,the vampire, at least a couple of times a year. We had to fight other shiftersto defend our territory. Not just the wolves, but bears, coyotes, and foxes, toname a few.

It was a constant fight todefend ones territory against invaders and to keep safe a pack that otheralphas wanted to rule. Wolves needed numbers, and one way to get them was tokill an alpha and take them.

It was a hard world.

But nothing was as hard asbeing cast out of your pack and tossed into an unfriendly world where you hadto not only defend against humans, but other nonhumans—while keeping the factthat you were a wolf secret from the human world. Actually, that part wasn’t ashard as one might think.

I’d left my mother’s house whenI was twenty-two. It wasn’t like I was leaving her alone. Her neighbors alllooked out for one another, and she’d met two women—both of them just a littleon the eccentric side, like her—and they’d moved in with her before I left.They’d needed her, but she’d needed them as well. Maybe she’d known I wanted toleave for the city. By the time I was ready to go, she was well ensconced inher country life with her part time job at the local diner, her housemates, andher social activity, and I was free to strike out on my own. I visited her everyweek.

She wouldn’t admit it, but Iknew the constant pressure of my pain wore on her. There was nothing she coulddo about it, and that fact was hard on her. No mother wanted to see her childin agony.

It didn’t help that she thoughtmy hobbled wolf had driven me mad. When I was a very small kid, I’d begunseeing the spirits of people who’d passed. Died. Yeah. I was one of those “Isee dead people” people. Only my mother hadn’t known that. Not long after wemoved to Huntersburg, she’d caught me pointing my finger at someone shecouldn’t see and yelling at them to leave me alone.

I was a kid then. A kid full ofanger and pain. The only dead person I wanted to see was my father, only henever showed up.

I could see them, but I couldrarely hear them. Half the time, they didn’t even know I could see them, andI’d learned early on to pretend like I couldn’t. People didn’t like it whenthey found out I could see dead people. My former alpha, for instance.

Fuck him.

I drove as far into the woodsas I could get, which wasn’t all that far. I grabbed my kill kit and thenjogged back to where I’d left the humans and the demon pile, hoping a copwouldn’t drive by, see my car, and decide to investigate. Not that I didn’thave my connections in the JPD, but only one of them actually believed I hadsupernatural abilities.