Moon Sworn (Riley Jenson Guardian 9)

And I didn't. But he watched me walk down the long street, his gaze a weight I could feel between the shoulder blades. Mike West didn't trust me, but that was all right, because I didn't trust him, either.

Not one little bit.

D arkness was coming. The colorful flags of dusk took forever to fade, as did the last remnants of daylight. We took pizza out of the freezer rather than ordering in and drank the fresh coffee - which tasted a whole lot better than the muck Evin had been giving me beforehand, but it still wasn't fantastic. But then, Kona was Liander's favorite, not mine.

Liander.

I waited, but no image or information came to match the name. I flexed my fingers against the mug, knowing frustration wasn't going to help, then took another sip. It didn't improve with a second taste, but it was at least drinkable.

Maybe the almost constant, headachy pain in my head wasn't so much caused by blows to my head but rather withdrawal from decent coffee.

After the dishes were washed, Evin glanced at his watch and said, "Well, I'm off to the pub for a beer. You want to come?"

I hesitated, glancing at the sky. "I think I'll go for a walk along the beach instead. I need to stretch my legs."

"Just don't get lost again. I can't afford to hire the plane a second time."

"I wouldn't have thought we could afford it the first time."

He hesitated. "We couldn't. Mom transferred some money to my account. I'll pay her back once I'm working again."

I nodded, and didn't believe a word of it. "I'll see you in an hour or so."

"You will." He shoved his hands in his pockets and walked out.

I waited five minutes, then jumped to my feet, grabbed my purse, and ran out. I didn't bother locking up. There wasn't anything in the villa that mattered to me - everything that mattered was locked behind the hazy pain that still resisted any attempt to ease it.

Evin was taking the main road into town. I raced along the beach, keeping to the shadows and out of sight as much as possible.

When the town center came into view, I cut through a back lane, pausing long enough to check that Evin hadn't actually come onto the main street yet, then dashed across the road to the pub.

It was as crowded and as noisy as the night before. And, like before, it smelled sharply of wolf and humans. This time, though, the scent of desire was more noticeable on the air.

The moon was rising toward fullness - another week and it would be here, so how did a town like this cope with so many humans around? From what I'd seen, it didn't appear to have the wolf-only clubs that most of the major cities did - clubs that protected wolves as much as they did humans. So were the werewolves of Dunedan more circumspect with their sexual drives, or did they simply retreat for the four or five days necessary to ride out the moon heat and subsequent shape change?

And why was I not feeling the force of it? Why wasn't the moon heat beginning to stir through my blood? I was a wolf, wasn't I?

Yes and no, that annoying deep-down voice said. Which was, as usual, no help at all.

I made my way through the crowd, then ducked into the bathroom. It was close enough to the phone that, with any sort of luck, he wouldn't scent me and I just might be able to hear at least some of his conversation.

He arrived a few minutes later. The toilets were at an angle to the phone, so I had a good view of the number pad. He picked up the handset and dialed 0356 - but before I could see the rest of the numbers, some stupid woman stepped between me and the phone and flung out a hand to push open the bathroom door. I jumped back, grabbed some paper towels from the dispenser, and pretended to dry my hands. The woman took forever to pee, so by the time I got back to spying, Evin was already talking.

"Are you all right?" His voice cracked as he said it.

As the person on the other end of the phone answered, he closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the wall. After a few minutes, he said, "I know, I know, but there's nothing we can do about it. We do what we have to, love. Hopefully this won't go on too long."

He fell silent. Then, "I don't know what will happen. You're in contact with him more than me - ask him."

Several moments of silence, then his hands suddenly clenched against the phone. "Damn you, that wasn't - "

Whoever was on the other end of the phone must have cut him off, because he didn't say anything for several minutes. Finally, he all but spat "Fine" and slammed the handset back onto the receiver.

I ducked back as he swung around, listening to the sound of his footsteps retreating and wondering what the hell was going on. Whatever it was, my brother wasn't happy. Maybe my earlier guess that he was as much trapped in this as I was wasn't so far off the mark.

But as much as I wanted to go after him and confront him about what I'd overheard, I couldn't. There were still too many things that I didn't know - and I doubted he would tell me anything yet. He wasn't really desperate enough - or, rather, the situation itself wasn't desperate enough yet.

But that might change as the full moon drew closer. Evin had let slip that he was moon-sworn - and if he was stuck out here with me, then that obviously meant that he and his partner were separated. A wolf who didn't have sex during the moon heat was heading for trouble - and while the moon bond killed the desire for anyone other than your partner, it didn't actually kill the need for sex. Both Evin and his partner would be forced to take others if they remained separated.