Leopard Moon Read online

  "My parents are dead. They died when I was sixteen." She was only half-lying at least, so that made her feel somewhat better about the lies that were to come. "I went to stay with my aunt, but she didn’t really want to be saddled with a kid. I left as soon as I graduated." She kept her face open and her voice soft and watched Anita’s reaction carefully.

  "Oh, I’m so sorry, hon." Kess relaxed at the solicitous tone in the landlady's voice, but tensed again as she continued in a firmer voice. "There’s nobody who we should have on file, you know, in case?"

  Kess shook her head. "No, ma’am. I lost touch with most of my old friends when I had to move away to live with my aunt. It’s just me now." She allowed herself a small smile. This too was true; it was just her now, though she did have a family she could lay claim to, had she wanted.

  "And you’re eighteen?" Kess nodded. She thought she heard a hint of suspicion in Anita's voice, but dismissed it. Her ID, license, and a set of papers would prove she was eighteen, though she was still some months from it in actuality. "You attending school here?"

  "I hope to. Right now, I’ve been working to save money so I can take a class or two while I try and get scholarships or grants for full time study." How she wished that were true. But she could never really apply for college and hope to attend. Not now at any rate. It was too dangerous to risk staying in one place with her father and Sek still searching for her. "I figured I’d get a job and get my feet under me--I picked up a job application while I was at the Barn." Now that she was moving away from the fabricated history of herself, she felt more comfortable.

  Anita settled back in her chair. She smiled as she spoke of the Barn. "That’s a good spot. It stays busy the whole year since it’s a local’s place. The students stick to bars and restaurants closer to the school and the resort folks usually stay up on the high mountain rather than drive back down here. Oh, some venture down and they tip well when they do," Anita winked at her, "but you’ll make steady money there regardless."

  Kess leaned back, luxuriating in the heat of the fireplace. She felt like she had passed some test with Anita. She hated lying, but it was the only way for right now. She had fled the last place after only a few months; she needed time to rebuild her finances so she could make a more permanent departure, maybe even out of the country. She thought that Sek wouldn’t find her so quickly outside of the U.S. And it meant that no one would be able to give him or his bloodhounds much to go on if she did have to bolt. The less anyone knew of who and what she really was, the safer they all would be.

  "Come on, I’ll show you the rooms you can choose from," Anita said, offering Kess a hand up. She accepted it gladly. She hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in almost three days, choosing to catch naps in the car at rest stops during the day. The couch and the fire were very tempting, but there were still things that had to be done.

  As they climbed the stairs that led to the upper floors, Anita went over the payment schedule. "These are just the bedrooms with private bathrooms," Anita said as she led Kess down the hall. "We thought about opening up the other rooms, but people seem to like the privacy that having their own bathroom gives them."Anita keyed open a door off the right of the staircase. "Take a look in here while I open up the other one. You can pick between the two."

  Kess went in to have a look. The one window in the bedroom looked out on the street from the front of the house. Too exposed-- it offered no way to come and go unseen. She dismissed this room without looking further and went to see what the other room offered.

  "Anita?" she called when she was out in the hallway.

  "Back here," came the muted reply. "Head straight back down the hall and then turn left."

  Kess did as she was instructed and turned into another bedroom. This one was smaller than the first room, but after getting a good look, Kess didn’t care. The window at the back of the room showed her a view of trees and the back yard. This was the room she’d be taking. A fireplace sat on the outer wall flanked by windows on either side that looked out on the wooded back of the house. A rocker sat in front of it. A chest of drawers sat against the wall across from the bed.

  "Closet is here," Anita said, holding open the door for Kess to peer into, "but the real gem is back here." She closed the bedroom door and opened another one that it had been hidden to reveal the bathroom. It was floored in white and black tile, but Kess only saw the white claw foot bathtub. It had been fitted with a shower head and circular shower curtain so it could function as one, but why would you want it to? This was the kind of tub that you could drown in if you relaxed too much. The sink and toilet were tucked close to an eave.

  "This one--I’ll take this one. It’s great." Kess smiled a tired smile. This was much better than she’d been hoping for and light years better than the last place she’d lived.

  ************

  The sun was setting by the time Kess had finished getting everything settled with Anita and brought her bags up the stairs. Anita had offered to help, but then the phone rang, relieving Kess of the need to politely refuse. The conversation and companionship in the last two hours was more than Kess had in the last three months--outside of work anyway--and it was going to take some effort to get used to it.

  She dropped her duffel bag and backpack at the foot of the bed. Eyeing the bed, Kess stretched all five foot nine inches of herself, thinking nothing would be so nice as dropping down onto that mattress and letting sleep have its way with her. But sleep would have to wait a bit longer. First came something that was now a ritual when she settled someplace new. She never knew when she’d have to leave in a hurry and by means other than the front door.

  Peeling off her jacket, she threw it on the rocking chair. Her shoes followed. She opened up the window at the farthest corner of the room that overlooked the back of the house. She stuck her head out to get a better look at both the trees nearby and the back wall of the house itself. The wind whipped her hair in her face and the temperature was taking a nosedive now that the sun was behind the mountains, but she ignored it. She groped her way out onto the sill, and craned her neck to find a thick enough branch among the foliage in the tree branches that grew near the house.

  Holding on to the side of the window with one hand, she swung out a bit more, gazing at the perimeter to see if anyone was watching. There were no lights on at the back of the house. She knew that her pupils had grown to an abnormal size, catching any stray light they could so she could see clearly in the growing twilight.

  Kess took a deep breath to steady herself. It had been weeks since she'd changed, and she was nervous. She didn't like letting even a small part of her animal self come through, and definitely not in a place where she might be discovered. She took another careful look around. Satisfied that there was no one to see her, Kess focused her attention inward, calling up the cat side of herself that slept dormant beneath her human skin.

  Her fingers and toes began to morph, growing shorter, stubbier and lightly furred. Knife-sharp claws popped out of the skin between her finger and toes, making clicking noises against the sill. With one last look around, Kess leaped lightly to a thick branch a good ten feet away, latching onto it with clawed hands and feet. She scrabbled to the trunk and held still until the branches stopped shaking, then looked out through the needles. No one was there to see her.

  She carefully made her way down the tree trunk, then crept through the backyard, finding her way mostly by hearing and touch, to the low stone wall that bordered the parking area. Satisfied that she had one escape route covered, she ghosted back through the yard and back up to the tree, pulling herself up using sleek, powerful muscles and clawed fingers. She couldn’t risk a full transformation to her leopard form now, but a little wasn’t going to hurt. She’d just make sure to eat well tomorrow to fuel the small transformation of tonight.

  Kess inched back along the thickest branch until she felt it bend slightly beneath her weight. She stopped, backed up a bit, then launched herself toward her open window
. She caught the frame, feet landing lightly on the sill, and slid into her room. She breathed out slowly, crouching on the rug, slowly letting her eyes and hands return to normal. When everything was as it should be, she stood and closed the window and curtains.

  It was freezing in her room. She started a fire in the fireplace, content to watch the tiny flames begin to lick the kindling. This weather was going to take some getting used to. She had never ventured this far north before; her kind--werecats--preferred the warmer, more humid climates. This cold was not something she liked. If she could stay curled on the couch in front of the fireplace downstairs, then she might enjoy living up here, but she had to work, not hibernate. She was just going to have to deal with it. In the last year, it wasn’t the worst thing she’d had to get used to.

  Adding another log to the fire, Kess eyed that bathtub. Oh, she wanted nothing more than a nice long soak in it, but tonight she needed sleep more. A quick hot shower was all she had energy for, so she stripped down and turned the water on as hot as it would go. When the bathroom was full of steam and condensation dripped off the mirrors and metal surfaces, she stepped inside, blissed out as the water pounded on sore and tense muscles.

  She pulled her hair forward, working shampoo through the long strands. It was down to the waistband of her jeans now—she should probably get it cut soon. It would certainly make showering faster. But she liked her long hair; it was sleek and black and reminded her of the girl she used to be. As much as she disliked what she was and everything it had cost her, she wanted to keep some vestige of that girl from before.

  With her hair over her shoulder, she soaped her back, feeling the raised scars of claw marks from previous fights with Sek. Weres healed quickly, but there were always white scars left behind from were-inflicted wounds. She quickly rinsed, not wanting to think about it. Bad enough he’d found her out at the last place. She would have to be more careful here. She turned off the tap and squeezed the excess water from her hair before wrapping herself in a towel.

  When she opened the bathroom door, the billow of steam that preceded her fled like a ghost toward the ceiling. The bedroom was warmer now, thanks to the fire, but Kess still hustled to her duffle and pulled out a clean t-shirt for sleeping before returning to the sauna of the bathroom. The cool air was clearing the mirrors so she settled in to run a comb through her hair.

  The girl she caught sight of in the mirror startled her for a moment. She hadn’t really had a chance to look at her reflection in three days. The face that stared at her was still hers, but subtle changes were working in it—the roundness of girlhood had been departing slowly over the past months, but now it was completely gone, leaving adult angular features set in a heart-shaped face. Her eyes were large, and a vivid greenish-gold. Her skin had long since lost its Miami tan and she was now paler than she’d ever been. There was a terseness about her mouth, and she knew she no longer smiled easily or often. She looked too thin, but that was due in part to being on the road and unable to eat regularly or well. She didn’t like to think about the werecat metabolic changes that required her to eat far more than was normal for a girl her size and to go heavy on the protein.

  That metabolism was kicking into high gear as the moon waned. Legends said that werewolf changes followed the full moon and Kess took that as fact, since she hadn’t had occasion to meet one herself and didn’t really want to. But a werecat’s change tracked to the waning moon, and crested when there was no moon at all in the sky. That was when she and her brethren would be at their strongest. That was when the lure of the change would be at its height, and while no were had to change, there were consequences that came from ignoring your nature for too long.

  She knew that as she grew, the integration of both parts of her—cat and human—would be seamless. The more often she changed, the more quickly it would happen. That was part of why she chose to fight against the change rather than embracing it. She’d seen what could happen if you let your animal instincts rule you.

  Kess put her hands over her face for a minute. She hated what her life had become, and how messed up her family was. But she had to leave, for the good of her clan. They couldn't afford anything that might cause a clan rift right now so it was better for everyone that she left. And honestly, what could she expect her father to do about Sek anyway? Hospitalize him? Drug him up to his eyeballs? Kill him? None of those were options. The only thing that made any sense was for her to stay as far away from her brother as possible.

  Knowing all of this still didn't help. She hated running, hated the changing, hated having her life dictated by something as stupid and distant as the moon. In her bag, she had a daily planner with the phases of the moon, but she didn’t need it, not really. Her body knew what it wanted and what it needed and when it needed it, and most of those needs weren’t in line with what Kess wanted for herself. And then bring the clan into it, and all of their wants and needs and expectations, and Sek…

  She pushed away from the sink quickly. Nope. Not going to think of him, not here, not now, and certainly not when she was this tired. Kess gave her hair one last wringing with the towel and dragged her comb through it a couple of times. Everything else could wait until the morning. She padded back to the bedroom, dropped another log on the fire, closed the grate and climbed into bed.

  In the warm darkness, she said a silent prayer to whatever might be listening that this time, in this place, maybe she could find some peace.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Cormac was jogging through the late autumn woods, pacing off the perimeter of his family’s property. The McNeils owned a couple hundred acres of the deeply forested mountains in western North Carolina and his family worked hard to keep it private and protected. Burke, his cousin, loped beside him in the form of a large grey wolf. Cormac had lost the rock/paper/scissors game, which meant he had to do the patrol as a human. It was faster and easier in wolf shape, but the pack's Alpha and Beta--Cormac’s and Burke’s fathers, respectively--had determined it was better, not to mention safer, for one person in each patrol party to remain unchanged.

  It meant that he was the one responsible for calling for help if they needed it, for dealing with any interlopers on their property, and for keeping the clothes for the other in case a quick change was needed. And it meant that Burke got to run along tirelessly beside him, grinning his smug wolf grin.

  Cormac's pack didn't look markedly different from regular wolves. The only difference that set them apart was size. Werewolves were larger, weighed significantly more and stood taller at the shoulder. Burke's wolf shoulder came up almost to Cormac's hip; an actual wolf would stand maybe three feet high.

  It was getting on towards dusk and Cormac knew they'd be running out of light soon. He knew he slowed Burke down so he picked up his pace, only noticing that Burke wasn’t following him when he didn’t feel the occasional brush of a furry body against his running pants. Cormac stopped and looked behind him. Burke was moving up a game trail they had passed. It branched off to the left of the main trail. He beckoned Cormac over with a jerk of his head.

  Cormac eased over, edging past Burke to see what his cousin had found. He moved slowly up the game track, on the lookout for what might have attracted Burke's attention. Hidden in the brush was a steel trap, probably meant for a bobcat or maybe a fox. It wasn’t one of the humane catch and release ones; this one was designed to snap on the animal’s leg and disable it until the trapper came back. Cormac found a heavy branch and triggered the trap, flinching as the metal teeth bit deeply into the bark. Burke growled low in the back of his throat and Cormac nodded.

  "Someone’s poaching on our land. There may be more of these out here, so keep a nose out." Most traps were baited with a strong scent marker, so Burke would be able to sniff it out.

  Cormac pulled out his cell, relaying the information in a text to his dad so that the next patrol would know to be on the lookout and the word could be spread throughout the pack. Trapping was allowed in North Carolina but this
was private land. He knew no one in his family would have set those traps. They didn’t have need of another animal’s fur. Most of them came equipped with their own.

  He and Burke continued on, covering ground quickly. They were almost finished with the sweep of their assigned part of the property when they heard something coming through the trees. They stopped and waited. After a few more minutes of rustling and thrashing, a short man emerged from another game trail carrying a bloody sack. In his hands was a rifle. He stopped short when he saw Cormac and Burke-wolf.

  They stared at each other in silence for a few moments. "You're trespassing on private land," Cormac said, keeping a sharp eye on the man's hands. Burke put a little space between them, making sure the man had two targets.

  "I didn't see no sign." The man held the rifle in a white-knuckled grip.

  "Doesn't mean you aren't trespassing." Cormac chose to give the man the benefit of the doubt--maybe he hadn't seen the large posted signs strewn throughout the edges of the property or maybe he thought ignoring the signs was worth the risk. The man's clothes were worn and dirty and he looked haggard. He could be in desperate straits with the economy the way it was. And desperation made men do a lot of dangerous things. "What's your name?" Cormac asked.

  The man looked uncomfortable. "Silas Turner."

  "Well, Mr. Turner, now you know." Cormac spoke calmly. He wasn't really worried that he and Burke would be hurt; he was more concerned for the man's safety and the anonymity of the pack.

  "Man's trying to make a living is all." The man nervously stared from Cormac to the wolf.

  Cormac nodded. Trapping was a hell of a way to make a living, even as a supplement to regular income. He wasn't entirely unsympathetic, but he couldn't have traps set on his family's land. Werewolves were smarter and stronger than regular wolves, but they could still be hurt in a trap. And having a stranger traipsing through their property was never a great idea.