Unleash The Moon (The Preternaturals Book 6) (13 page)

She wouldn’t have made it twenty days without losing
her mind. Noah was strong in more ways than he realized.

“
Sydney?”

“
Yeah?” She’d
kind of just spaced out there and wondered how long she’d been
having an internal monologue, grateful wolves couldn’t read minds
like vampires could. Or most vampires, anyway.

“
Look, I know
what I said, but if I had marked you when we first got here you
might have been safer. And with the pack now, if I don’t mark you,
you definitely won’t be safe from the women. They’ll all fight to
be alpha bitch.”

Sydney was doubtful. Wolves tended to respect the
marks of other wolves, but it wasn’t as if they had to,
particularly when a stranger was among a pack that wasn’t his.
Under ordinary circumstances it was respected, but if the pack’s
alpha had ordered an execution, it wouldn’t have kept her safe.
Noah had to know that.

Even among vampires, while a vampire physically
couldn’t feed on a claimed mate because of the mystical protection
it placed upon the other, it didn’t mean a vampire wouldn’t just
separate the human’s head from his or her body if they felt like
it.

Sydney’s eyes went to Noah’s throat. She licked her
lips at the pounding, surging warm blood that hummed just beneath
the surface of his skin. In the years that followed, she would
likely rewind to this day and try to pick apart her motivations to
figure out why exactly she’d done what she did next, but the only
answer that would likely ever come to her was… instinct.

Without thinking, she launched herself at him and
sank her fangs into his throat. She took a couple of pulls of his
blood, then pricked her own tongue with her fang and quickly,
before his wound could close, mixed their blood.

She pulled back and felt the fierce red glow in her
eyes, and she said: “Mine.”

The second the word was out of her
mouth, Noah’s eyes glowed yellow and he growled at her. Growled. At
her. She would have punched
him
in the jaw, except she
wasn’t fast enough. He tackled her, and before she could think, his
fangs were in her throat.

He growled again, and she felt the control he was
trying to gain. That growl was angry. It wasn’t excited or even
possessive. It was rage, and she was possibly about two seconds
from getting her throat ripped out.

“
Noah,” she said
quietly.

His tongue trailed over her neck, then he pulled
back, his eyes glowing golden. “Mine,” he snarled, still
half-angry.

Well. Okay then. At least he’d gotten control of
himself and hadn’t ripped her throat out. But the confrontation
wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.

He struggled to his feet and glared at her for a
second, then he went outside on the balcony. Sydney glanced at the
clock. It was about an hour until the sun came up, but she wasn’t
even tired yet. Normally she’d already be asleep, the
soon-approaching sun already draining her well before it could peak
over the horizon and start its ascent into the sky. A few vampires
out there were so strong that they could, from a sheltered and
shaded place, watch the first red hints of dawn climb into the sky
before falling dead for the day. Sydney had always believed she’d
never be that strong, that the only sunrise she’d ever see was a
manufactured or pre-recorded one playing on a screen. Now she had
her doubts.

This had been the longest night of
her life, and she was very aware of how close it had been to being
her last. Twice. It hurt that the biggest threat to her that second
time had been the man who’d claimed she was his
true mate
. What
did he know about true mates after being locked up like that? He
hadn’t even been raised by wolves properly.

She didn’t follow him outside. She didn’t even want
to see him right now. For better or worse they were tied together.
Instead, she went to the bathroom. She wasn’t sure how long she’d
manage to stay awake, but the clock was ticking down and if she had
any hope of making it until sunset, she had to be in the safety of
the bathroom when she fell dead for the day.

Sydney wasn’t even sure she’d be safe like that, so
vulnerable with Noah right there. She resented that he was her only
protection, and he was behaving like some rabid animal she couldn’t
trust. She ran her fingers over the mark he’d left on her throat as
she looked at it in the mirror. She could see the vampiric demon
rippling under the surface in her reflection. The image had never
been this strong before. It had been the tiniest ghost of a thing
before when she’d looked in a mirror, nothing like her dad’s
reflection which was strong and looked to be more demon than human
half the time.

She could already see the vampire side of her
growing stronger. If she’d somehow fed from Noah before they’d
escaped the city, she had a feeling the barrier would have
recognized her as a preternatural and wouldn’t have let her
pass.

The place where Noah had bitten her glowed in the
mirror. He’d marked her as his mate. There was no doubt about that.
So she should be safe when she went to sleep. Right? The rage rose
up again, and she smashed the mirror. She watched as her bleeding
hand healed before her eyes. Yes, she was definitely different
now.

The bathroom door flew open as Noah raced inside.
“What happened? Are you okay?”

“
You almost
ripped my throat out, and now you’re asking if I’m okay? I’m fine.
Please leave me alone.” She climbed into the tub and propped up all
her pillows. “And shut that door when you leave. We can’t let any
sunlight in.”

Noah shut the bathroom door and
sat on the closed toilet lid. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying
right here until you rise for the night.”

“
Don’t be
ridiculous. When was the last time you ate something? You need to
hunt.”

Something flickered over his face,
and then she realized… he hadn’t hunted anything since he was a
pup. And back then he’d just been learning. Literally everything
had to be so hard for him right now. What else had he not
experienced that most others his age would have?

“
I’ll be fine.
I’m sure I can get one of my new underlings to bring me something.”
He crossed his arms stubbornly over his chest.

Several minutes passed in silence,
and then he said, “Sydney, why would you do that? A pack just
surrendered to me, and you
claimed
me! In the first place,
you’re a vampire. No wolf pack is going to accept a vampire as the
alpha. And in the second place, you might be stronger now than you
started out, but you aren’t strong enough to hold a pack, and if it
looks like you control me, they won’t accept me, either. Not that I
care, but it’s better that they want to follow us than kill us.
Don’t you think?”

This may have been more words than he’d ever strung
together at one time since they’d been reunited.

“
And you marked
me back,” Sydney said. “So it’s okay. Your mark took. And I know my
claim did.”

He put his head in his hands, then looked up.
“Again, Sydney, why? Why would you claim me? Do you know how close
I came to ripping your throat out before I marked you? The wolf saw
that as a challenge. Why would you do that? You’ve been around
wolves enough to know better. Or maybe it’s been so long you’ve
forgotten.”

Sydney wasn’t sure why she’d done
it. It had been instinct. It wasn’t like she’d had a pro/con list
or some grand plan, but reasons that made sense began to
crystallize in her mind now that everything had settled. She wasn’t
entirely sure that any of these reasons were
why
she’d done it, since she
hadn’t planned it, but she could throw it out there and see if any
of it made sense to Noah—if any of it could smooth this
out.

“
How much do you
remember about your parents?” she asked.

“
Huh?”

She took a deep breath and plunged in. “I know your
mom’s a demon, but she was human in the beginning. Do you remember
when your dad talked about how when he marked your mom it didn’t
extend her life past a human life span because wolf marks don’t
work that way?”

“
Yeah,
so?”

“
So, if she
hadn’t ended up a demon, their lifespans wouldn’t have matched up,
and at some point they would have lost each other forever. I didn’t
know at first, but while I was in that place, they ran some tests
and found out I’d stopped aging. So I won’t get old, but in a few
hundred years, you would. Maybe that sounds like forever to us now,
but if you were right and you were going to mark me and tie us
together, how would I feel when you died and left me? Shouldn’t we
have the potential to have lifespans that match? You won’t age now.
At all. If this was going to happen, I had to make sure that
wouldn’t come back and bite us later like it did for your
dad.”

Noah sighed. “But my mom was already dad’s mate when
she later became a demon, and then because of their link he became
immortal, too. And I heard that when Hadrian claimed Angeline, he
got true immortality because guardians don’t die. So it might have
happened anyway, even if I’d just marked you because of you being
already immortal.”

“
Maybe. But what
if it didn’t? Or what if I couldn’t claim you after you marked me?
If I’m your true mate, you should be happy about it, that we don’t
have to worry about that later.”

“
We should have
talked about it first,” Noah said.

“
Oh like you
were going to just
talk
about marking me? I saw
that look in your eyes. You weren’t gearing up for a reasoned
conversation. You were intent on marking me right then. I had to do
it then or never.”

Noah went to the sink. He gripped the edge of the
counter and stared into the shattered mirror. Their eyes met in a
fragment of the reflection.

“
Sydney, I don’t
think I can give you what you need. I’m not good for you. I’m not
good for this pack. I can’t do all this.”

She growled from the pile of blankets in the tub.
“Well now is a fucking great time for that after—”

Then everything went black.

Sydney opened her eyes, snuggled in the blankets in
the tub, a large, warm furry body curled protectively around her.
She glanced over to see animal bones near the sink, and blood on
the tile floor. One of the other wolves must have brought him
something to eat during the day.

She hadn’t even been in the tub when she was yelling
at him. She imagined Noah catching her as she went down and
wrapping her in the blankets. She wondered if he’d shifted to feed
or because he was stronger in his wolf form and could better
protect her. Either way, she knew he hadn’t left her side all
day.

It was hard to stay angry at him under the
circumstances. He couldn’t give her what she needed? Sydney thought
maybe he could do a lot more than he thought he could. He’d done
what needed to be done to get them out of there and find them
shelter. He’d killed his own kind to protect her. When she’d
smashed the mirror, he’d put aside anger and confusion to rush in
there. And now, here he was guarding her.

Sydney ran her fingers through his fur. It reminded
her of when they were kids, before he’d shifted for the first time.
She’d woken up like this so often when they were young, with the
wolf wrapped around her, guarding her. It was understandable why
maybe she and Noah wouldn’t have understood there was something
deeper in their connection, but had their parents not even seen
it?

Or maybe they had seen it and had disapproved. Maybe
that was why they’d been separated. And maybe there was still
another reason she’d claimed him. When they got back they were
going to have to deal with their families. Amidst happy reunions
there could be disapproval from either or both sets of parents.
Werewolves and vampires weren’t known to be very best friends,
after all. There was the occasional odd alliance, but it wasn’t a
normal way for them to interact.

If her father didn’t approve of
this match, Sydney knew he’d try to separate them again. He
wouldn’t care if Noah had marked her. But a claim was something
different. He wouldn’t try to separate them with a claim in place
no matter how much he might hate it. Even so, it would be better to
keep that side of her reasons to herself. Noah wouldn’t appreciate
hearing how to Anthony, her claim trumped his mark, not when they’d
had their first fight over that same subject. With wolves, she was
sure that the mark on her throat was enough. It was possible they
wouldn’t realize there was also a vampire claim in play.

After all, Noah’s mark was pretty screamingly
obvious—and not a gentle one. It was the one mark on her that
wouldn’t ever heal. Her father would be livid when he saw it.

Sydney nudged the wolf. He yawned and stretched and
buried his nose inside the blankets. She was hungry and she wasn’t
about to sink fangs into fur. Gross.

“
Noah!”

He made a snorting sound and snuggled some more.

“
Hey! Wake up!”
Seriously? If she were under attack, she wondered if he’d sleep
right through it.

He stretched again and shifted into his human form.
“Hey,” he said. He was over it, too. Maybe she should schedule all
their fights for right before she fell dead for the day. It wasn’t
the most healthy communication strategy, but it worked.