Unleash The Moon (The Preternaturals Book 6) (17 page)

Noah pulled her into their room and locked and
barricaded the door.

“
Are you upset
with me?”

In response, he shoved her against the wall, his
lips pressed against hers. His mouth trailed to her throat to place
kisses there as well. “Why would I be upset with you?” he rumbled.
“The pack loves you. They like you more than they like me.”

“
Does that
bother you?”

His mood changed like a switch had been flipped.
She’d thought they were about to do exactly what the wolves
downstairs thought he’d dragged her away for, but now he seemed
different, his own mask slipping. He sat on the edge of the bed and
put his head in his hands.

Sydney stood there for a minute, not sure if he
wanted comfort or space or what to do for him. She’d obviously said
something wrong. Maybe he was angry or jealous. The pack had
already bonded with him somewhat, but they still weren’t at the
drinking buddy stage, something she’d managed in about fifteen
minutes when they’d returned from the hunt.

He looked up, and everything fell away. The image
he’d erected to protect her and get them safely back home was gone,
and in its place, he was just that little boy again. Fiercely
protective of her, but just some guy. Not the technological savant
who’d orchestrated their escape. Not the superhero who’d
slaughtered humans and werewolves to keep her safe. Not the alpha.
Just the man.

He sighed. “No, Sydney. It doesn’t bother me. I’m
relieved they like you, and that you’re sociable enough to keep the
pressure off me. I don’t know how to be around people. They’re
going to figure me out.”

She sat beside him on the bed, leaning her cheek
against his shoulder. “They don’t know your history. And even if
they did, if you are strong enough to lead them, what does it
matter? You escaped a near-impossible-to-escape place that was
well-guarded.”

Noah shrugged. “They had holes in their security.
Big holes. That was luck. If it hadn’t been for that, I never could
have gotten us out, even with the unnatural strength I had on my
side last night.”

“
It wasn’t luck.
Everything came together for us. It was all meant to
be.”

“
You sound like
the seers.”

The cities had a lot of those. Cary Town, not so
much anymore.

Then Noah broke down for real. All that he’d held
in—possibly for years—all that he’d been through the past few
nights came flowing out of him. Sydney held him and let him get it
out. She hadn’t been in that place for very long, thanks to
Noah.

She tried not to think about what would have
happened if he hadn’t been there. She would have had no hope. She
never would have been strong. She would have spent the rest of her
days in that sterile cube and out in the exercise yard trying to
fade into the background so some random therian or vampire didn’t
kill her simply for existing as something weaker than them.

Even if she managed to survive that, deep down she’d
known they hadn’t intended to keep her long. She was a curiosity.
Perhaps they wanted to use her blood in experiments to determine
how it might benefit them, but in the long run there was little she
could offer that couldn’t be gotten from any other vampire, and her
blood didn’t infuse magic with extra power like therian blood did.
There would have been no reason to keep her alive.

The experiments with the UV light lasers had
confirmed it. If she’d died in all that? Well, who cared? They were
merely curious, and curiosities didn’t last long in this world.

Sydney closed her eyes, trying to stop seeing
Jacob’s lifeless face. Yes, he’d betrayed her. He’d deserved to die
at her fangs, but not under those conditions. It had felt all
wrong. But her few days of fear and captivity only put a finer
point on Noah’s.

What had he gone through? Not just seeing her like
that in there, but what had they done to him for all those years?
Even if they’d only ever kept him captive and drawn blood every day
for use in their magic, it was still beyond cruel to keep a wolf in
a small enclosure like that, to prevent him from being socialized
properly and from having a pack.

“
Noah?”

“
Yeah?”

She wasn’t sure if him crying in front of her was
because macho hadn’t been properly socialized into him, or if it
was because she was his mate, and he trusted her that much. She had
to believe it was the latter because of the mask he’d worn while
captive and again now with the pack to keep things under control.
He wasn’t stupid. He’d known how he had to be in order to stay
alive both on the inside and on the outside of those walls.

“
I might be able
to help with some of this stuff you’re dealing with. Maybe I could
soften the edges,” she said.

“
How?”

Sydney hesitated. She’d never
manipulated emotions before. It wasn’t a skill she’d had. But now,
with Noah’s blood and all the changes that had taken place, if she
was truly a
real vampire
now, as his mate, she could help him. Her lack of
hypnotic abilities had been connected to all the other weaknesses
she’d inherited from the accident of her unnatural birth. It was as
if she were a battery that just hadn’t had enough juice to get and
stay going. But now she did, and every door that had previously
been closed to her stood wide open.

“
It’s this
mental connection thing. Vampires can do it with humans when they
feed normally to some extent, but it’s especially strong with
mates. The emotion part, anyway. Vampires can’t get into their
mates’ thoughts, but we can help with emotion. I can’t make any of
it not have happened, but I can help you get through
it.”

In reality, while she she couldn’t read his
thoughts, as his mate she could implant new, happier memories. But
she knew he wouldn’t want that—to never know what was real or fake
inside his head. Taking the worst of the sting from his history
would have to be enough.

“
Okay.” Noah
held out his arm.

She didn’t ask why he didn’t offer his throat. There
were limits to everything, and maybe that was too much intimacy for
what she was about to do. Maybe he wanted to keep that as something
associated with other things.

Sydney bit into the offered arm and tasted all the
anguish he’d tried to keep locked away from her. All the self-doubt
and insecurity. Those stupid fucking bastards. She wanted to go
back in and kill every single one of them that Noah hadn’t gotten
to. She wanted to rip down their shiny city and leave it in ruins,
like they’d left vampire and therian societies in ruins, like
they’d left lives in ruins—including Noah’s.

She thought about his parents mourning him, about
her parents mourning her. She thought about everything Noah had
lost even in spite of all he’d recently gained and would have
returned to him. She thought about all of these things, and as she
drank she let those thoughts go and focused only on sending him
peace and warmth and security—all the things he probably couldn’t
even remember having.

She melted against him as his free hand ran through
her hair, and she started to cry as if his pain was transferring
into her. And maybe it was. Only it was more distant and detached
because it hadn’t actually happened to her. Still, the emotion
swamped her.

“
Stop, Sydney.
This is hurting you.”

Big stupid wolf. Of course it hurt her. But it would
hurt her no matter what. If she had no power to help him, it would
just be the same powerless uselessness she’d lived with for nearly
three decades already. It would be a slow-burning pain as she
watched him unravel from the pressure of trying to be all the
things to everyone that he’d never been properly taught to be.

When she’d taken the worst of what was on the
surface and replaced it with something better, she pulled away from
him. “I’m not letting my mate suffer in silence pointlessly. What
have you got to prove? After all the years you were in there and
everything you risked to get us out? You told them all that I was
their alpha, too. If that’s true, let me take on part of this.”

After a long time, he nodded. “I just don’t want to
cause you pain.”

“
You gave me
strength. Let me give you some peace.”

“
When you put it
like that, it sounds completely reasonable,” he
said.

They held each other for a long time just breathing
each other in, and then somehow their matching breaths turned into
caressing and kissing, and then they were two entwined naked bodies
making love.

“
I can’t believe
this is only your second time doing this,” she
said.

Noah growled. “Hey!” But he wasn’t mad.

They spent the next couple of hours alternately
exploring each other’s bodies and snuggling together in the
bed.

He nipped over his mark as his hand slid down
between her legs for what felt like the thousandth time that night.
“We’re going to have to move the bedding back into the bathroom
before the sun comes up.”

Sydney groaned and stretched. “That’s still so many
hours away. And I can’t move. I think you broke me.”

He laughed. A real laugh. “Somehow I doubt that.” A
beat passed, then he went very still.

“
Noah?”

He raised a hand to silence her, then he got up and
prowled to the door. He poked his head into the hallway, then came
back inside. “Sydney, I need your help.”

She jumped up, thinking there was danger. But when
she reached him, she saw the problem. It wasn’t danger. Outside in
the hallway were freshly killed rabbits, wine that looked to be
several decades old—probably from before the wars—and clothes for
Noah. Most likely cobbled together from other pack members.

“
I need to learn
how to ride a motorcycle,” he said.

“
Okay. I have no
idea what that has to do with the pack paying tribute
but…”

Sydney gathered up the clothes and wine, while Noah
brought the rabbits inside.

“
I was just
thinking that I feel better, and I think I can handle it tonight. I
wanted to know if you wanted to go with me.”

“
Definitely.”

Noah shifted into his wolf form and demolished the
rabbits in short order. Then he pounced on her and licked the side
of her face like he had when they were kids and all she’d known was
the wolf.

“
Ewww, gross,
Noah! Get off me. You have rabbit breath!”

He licked her one more time, then shifted back to
his human form. “I’m going to grab a shower before we go. Come with
me.”

“
My legs don’t
hold me up anymore.”

“
I’ll hold you
up.”

Chapter Nine

Sydney blushed when she and Noah reached the bar,
and the wolves started howling at them. She didn’t think his
original intent for taking her upstairs had been sex, but it had
been the pack’s assumption. And she knew they smelled like it.
Werewolf noses didn’t lie.

She stuck close to Noah because she didn’t want to
be pulled away by the females for gossip. Their jealousy was barely
contained. It had been much easier to gain acceptance with the male
members of the pack. She wasn’t taking some spot they’d fantasized
about having in the hierarchy. But the bitches could get over it
because it wasn’t as if Noah had been a longstanding member. They’d
just met the guy.

“
Are you okay?”
Noah asked.

“
Yeah, why?” She
looked up to find several of the wolves had taken several steps
back.

“
You’re
growling. You look ready to attack.”

“
Oh. Sorry. I
was thinking.”

Noah went back to speaking with Milo. Sydney hadn’t
heard an official announcement, but the pack had either been
informed through gossip, or they’d simply intuited that Milo was
the new beta. Or maybe he’d been Shira’s beta as well.

Noah’s feelings about trying to run a pack with his
history were beginning to seem logical. How were a wolf who hadn’t
been properly socialized in a pack for most of his life and a
vampire going to successfully run a whole pack?

“
Why can’t we
just leave tonight?” the beta asked.

Noah pulled Milo and Sydney farther away from the
others. “Motorcycle lesson?”

“
Well, yeah, but
I meant after that. Or tomorrow night. We could leave tomorrow
night.”

Noah growled. “Why are you in such a hurry to leave
your home?”

The beta glanced around to see if anyone was
eavesdropping, then he turned back to Noah and Sydney. “I didn’t
want to say anything, but the night Shira brought you guys here,
one of our wolves didn’t come back from the hunt. He could have
been killed by a vampire or in the fight when they were creating a
diversion so you guys could get away, but he also could have been
taken. We haven’t found a body. If they captured him, we’re sitting
ducks. The den isn’t safe anymore. We have to leave.”

In Sydney’s opinion, this den had never been
particularly safe. It was too close to the established city for her
taste. She could understand why the vampires would troll outside
the cities, waiting for a human to disobey the grand order and be
thrown out to the monsters. But why wolves?