In the Light of the Moon (Dark War Chronicles) (13 page)

The look in his eyes caught Kass’ attention, but she knew better than
to mention it. Concern and compassion reflected in his dark eyes as he spoke
about Tegan. “She's more than human then." Kass assumed as she dropped the
blanket and went to the closet for clothes. Over a bra, she pulled on a tight
black shirt, and a loose pair of black pants so that she would be comfortable
as she worked at the bar. "You must really be fond of collecting things
than. A rare panther, Tegan, what else do you have that you collect?"

“Get going.” He left and let the door slam behind him.

Kass knocked gently on Tegan's door and
walked in when she heard a soft, "Come in." She smiled at the sight
of the girl sitting in an over-sized chair, reading her book. Her white hair
was pulled up in a bun, and her ever-present sunglasses covered her eyes. After
the conversation with Lucius Kass wanted to ask Tegan what she was, but
refrained.

"Hey, I wanted to talk to you." Kass sat on the ottoman in
front of the chair. "About the stone."

Tegan’s hands clenched the book, every muscle in her body went tense.
"Sent it away.”

“Yes, I know that. Where did you send it?” Kass tried to move the book
out of the way so she could at least see Tegan’s full face.

The woman shook her head. “Sent it away!”

“Okay, so you can’t tell me where.” Kass leaned back and thought for a
minute. “Was it a place you knew?”

The shaking of the head slowed, but Tegan lowered her book. “No.”

“Was it to an enemy?”

“No.”

“Was it to an ally?”

“No.”

Kass frowned, “Then where the hell did you send it to?”

“Away.” Tegan pulled the book back up to read. With a sigh Kass stood
and paced the large room. In the corner a desk was covered in paper and pens.
She went and picked a piece of paper up and grabbed a pen. She gently pulled
the book from Tegan’s hand. “We’re supposed to be talking, remember?”

Tegan huffed. “Obviously it isn’t working. Lucius sent you in here
because I screwed up and sent the stone away. He wants you to try and force the
information out of me, regardless of if it hurts or not.”

Kass hadn’t realized that this could have been painful for Tegan and
silently cursed the vampire. “I just want to help.” She slid the paper and pen
to Tegan. “You sent it away, and that’s all you can remember with your mind.”

Tegan took the pen and frowned. Having laid her arm against the paper
and she took a deep breath while shutting her eyes. Kass smiled. “You sent the
stone away, you must have put an address on there.”

“Sent it away,” Tegan’s hand moved, “Sent it away,” another movement,
more lines with the pen. “Sent it away!” She shoved the pen and paper away and
it went flying to the floor as Tegan cradled her head. “Hurts. Damn this
sucks.”

Kass left the pen and paper for the moment and placed her hands over
Tegan’s. “It’s okay now. Don’t worry about it.”

Tegan moved her hands away with little grace and glanced at the paper
on the floor. “Lucius is pissed at me.”

“Yeah well, I’m not too happy with him right now, so we’re all just a
giant pissed off family.” Kass went and gathered the fallen items and looked at
it. “But it looks like you gave me an address. I’ll look into it, you rest up
and don’t worry about it.” Kass tucked the paper in her pocket before returning
the pen back to the desk.

Tegan nodded and picked her book back up. “Thank you. Be careful
whoever wanted that stone was powerful.” She shivered. “I don’t want to run
into them again.”

“Lucius said that a lot of vampires would take you if they had the
chance. Why do you think this guy didn’t?” Kass asked.

“I don’t know. I know he had complete control over me, so he would know
why I was valuable. It doesn’t make much sense does it?” Tegan leaned back into
her chair and opened her book. “I urge you not to talk about it.”

Kass nodded and headed out the door. Her stomach still churned at the
thought of last night and the meal her panther enjoyed. The beast was content
for now and Kass could feel it again like a second soul. She still needed to
gain complete control again or she could have an incident on her hands where
she murdered an innocent. She rubbed her eyes and jumped into the car, heading
into town as the moon rose above her.

Jax woke to a swift pain in his ribs, the
blow seemed to echo through his body. His eyes shot opened as his hands went
straight to the sore spot. He glared up at Lucius. “What the hell?”

“You were supposed to be gone by sun rise.” He crossed his arms and
glared down at the cat. “You distracted Kassity from her report to me about her
mission. She was more concerned about the smell of your blood.”

Jax rubbed his rib and looked down at his body. “Yeah, well, it took a
little longer to heal than I thought. Sorry. Is Kass still here.”

“Nope, and I told you to stay away from her.”
 
Lucius leaned against the wall.
"Which is why you were supposed to be out by dawn."

Jax growled, "She get back alright?" His panther needed to
know, especially after last night. The brothers would regroup and find another
way to her. He couldn’t let that happen.

"None of your concern. Now get up." Lucius nudged him with
his foot again. "Don't you have something to worry about? Like how her
family is still after her, after you made a half hearted attempt to quit your
job. They are still going to expect her delivered to their door step."

"No, they won't, I made it pretty clear that I was done."
Jaxon stood up and stretched, testing out where the sore muscles were and what
injuries needed to be healed still. "Right. So Kass is working?"

Lucius shook his head. "She's working, but not at either of the
clubs, she's doing a special mission for me and that' s all you need to know.
You will stay away from her."

"You can't keep us apart." Jax pulled on the torn jeans from
the night before. "We're meant to be mated."

Lucius gave a low laugh. "Meant to be mated, of course you think
that. She's one of two female panthers alive in the U.S. Fate hasn't mated you,
there has been no proof yet."

"Is that why you mauled her after we had sex?" Jax asked as
he buttoned his pants.

"No. I was looking for something much more important, something
that would have gotten her family off her back." He snapped. "But it
didn't appear so it doesn't matter. You stay away from her or I will tell her
exactly what you were doing when you were looking for her, who you work for,
and that you planned on giving her over to them."

Jax swallowed, knowing the kind of reaction that she would have to that
information. "Fine, you want to play that way, I won't go anywhere near
her." He snapped. "But once we find out that we're fated, then you're
going to have to deal with it." He walked out and slammed the door to the
room. He made his way through the mansion, trying to push off any scent of Kass
that he passed.

A girl stood in the doorway, one that he had seen acting as a bartender
in Lucius' bar. Her white hair looked too pristine and her eyes were covered as
always. "You look like shit."

"Thanks, human, you look prim and proper." He snapped back
and moved past her.

Tegan stepped forward as if to stop him, when he hesitated she
continued talking. "Kass is with the wolves tonight. She asked Lucius
about you before and was denied an answer. I think you are right."

"Do you know everything that Lucius and I talked about?"
Maybe she could help him out.

Tegan nodded and then looked down the hall. "Kass has issues that
only you can tame, but Lucius is right, she is less likely to trust you if you
are working for her family."

"I didn't know what they wanted from her."

"Then you should talk to her about it, before he tells her or she
finds out another way.” She smiled at him. "Kass and I used to get along
until Lucius started using her against Josh."

"Josh?"

"The vampire that saved her from her family, and used her to gain
access to Lucius’ Kiss. Lucius killed Josh a few weeks ago." Tegan turned
away like she wasn't talking about killing an innocent person. "Good
night, Jaxon, I look forward to seeing you around more."

He watched as she disappeared back into her room. Before he could get
into any more trouble he ran out of the mansion and into the woods, shifting in
mid stride once he was out of view. Running in this form was the quickest way
back to his home. He needed to get cleaned up and see Kassity. His panther
begged to see her to make sure she hadn’t been harmed. An ache formed in his
chest when he thought about his conversation with Lucius, maybe she would be
willing to listen to reason. As a mercenary he never asked questions about his
mission, maybe he should start now. Especially if this blew up in his face. In
the mist of a war, he was going to try and prove that fate was real and that
Kass was his mate. One of the last panther females. The other one he knew
wasn't his mate, he couldn't calm the beast when she came after him. He was
starting to wonder how Kass could be related to that nut job of a family.

Kass walked into the club and tried to ignore
the pulsing music beating around her. Her beast paced below the surface as it
felt trapped by the pounding beats. Scents mingled in the air. The scent of a
couple male panthers tickled her nose and teased her senses, but she pushed it
off. Even if her brothers were here she knew they wouldn't be stupid enough to
attack in a club this full. She got behind the bar giving a little wave to a
glowering Coran as she went to work fixing drinks.

With each beat of the music her stomach churned and her head felt like
it wanted to explode. She should have told Lucius that she couldn’t come in.
Derrik came up and whispered something into the other female bartender's ear
and then walked away. The girl came up to Kass. "Hey sweetie, you should
take a break. You're looking kind of pale."

Without an argument Kass stepped out of the bar, going towards the
break room. She had all intentions of going to the bathroom, but only made it a
few feet before her stomach revolted and she rushed to the trash can. She held
her hair back as she threw up again until she was dry heaving. Gentle hands
came and took the place of her hands, holding her hair out of the way. She
pulled back up and turned around to see who had come to keep to her rescue.
Derrik stood there, arms crossed as his eyes studied her.

"Too much to drink?"

She shook her head. "I'm sorry, I'm just not feeling well."

"You shouldn't have come in."

"I know, but I didn't want to go against Lucius' orders."

"Sit."

"I'm sorry?"

"You heard me, sit." He motioned to the chair. "There's
something interesting on the news that I want you to see." He clicked on
the little tv in the room as Kass sat down and swallowed. As the box flickered
to life as Derrik handed her a can of lemon lime soda and then moved the trash
can closer to them.

Kass saw the news lady look at her notes and then look up on the
screen. "Our next story tonight, is a tragic one. A young boy caught his
mother's death on a camera last night." Kass’ stomach dropped as images of
her killing the woman appeared on the screen. "The boy said that his
mother had handed him her cell phone to play with and the camera was one of his
favorite features on it. He managed to catch this horrible footage of her
death. The police report that he was questioned about the animal. The boy was
too scared to comment on camera." The ear splitting scream of the child
came across the speakers and Kass reached for the trash can again as her beast
paced in her as if to say 'I should have killed him'.

"I know that was you, Kass."

She nodded, but wouldn't look at him.

"What is going on?"

She shook her head as she came up from dry heaving. "Can't say.
Can't really control it." She mumbled as she tried to get the images out
of her head. She realized what Lucius did to protect her human side, now she
wished she hadn’t begged for her control back.

"Kassity, you're killing people. That isn't normal for a panther.
What is going on? I'm worried about you." Derrik put a hand on her
shoulder. "Take a few more sips of the soda."

She did as he suggested and sighed. "Lucius is having me kill
people in human politics so supernatural supporters or supernaturals can take
their place. That's all I know. This is the only kill that I can truly remember
as a human. He stripped me completely of my control, but the other night he
returned part of it."

“Completely?”

Kass looked up at him. "I'm not bonded with my panther. He took
that from me a couple years ago.”

"You haven't tried to get it back?"

She hesitated for a moment. "The original way that I was able to
gain control wasn't normal, it was forced and it was get control or die. I'm
unable to use the same method, I don't know how else to do it." She hated
the fact her voice sounded so helpless as she explained this.