Moon Sworn (Riley Jenson Guardian #9)

The houses behind Harris's - the ones closer to the pub - were all pretty, well-looked-after places. Which didn't seem the sort of place someone like Landsbury would be living in, so that left the area to the left of the park. It was more isolated, more rundown. The perfect area for a criminal wanting to get away from his past.

I spun on my heel and headed left. The cop was still watching me but, even from this distance, it didn't "feel"

suspicious. More an "I'm bored and there's a leggy redhead wondering around in a bathing suit" type of feel.

Interested, but not aroused.

It struck me then that since I'd woken up in the desert, nothing remotely resembling desire or lust had hit me. Which was odd, because I was a werewolf and sex was an important part of our makeup. But the urge just wasn't there.

It couldn't be just the soul-mate factor. Losing a soul mate might rob a werewolf of happiness and their life companion - and sometimes even their life - but it didn't erase the need for sex. It couldn't. That was ingrained in us and, when a soul mate died, the restriction of having sex only with them was lifted.

But maybe they'd stolen that the same time as they'd taken my memories, I thought glumly.

I headed past the last of the houses lining the paddock, then turned left into what was little more than a dusty side track. The houses lining either side of this track were even more decayed than they'd seemed from a distance, with most needing major structural work as well as a good lick of paint. The sea air obviously played havoc with timber surfaces. There were ten houses in all, and I walked past each of them slowly, drawing in the scents and trying to uncover anything that vaguely resembled Landsbury's stench.

I found it in the last house on the street. I paused and took off a shoe, shaking imaginary sand out of it as I studied the building. It wasn't much to look at, but the windows were unbroken and the curtains appeared to be newish. There was a dead bolt on the front door and padlocks on the side gate, and both were new.

Awareness surged at that moment - someone was coming toward me. Not Harris; someone else. I put my shoe back on and kept walking. A big, dark-skinned man was approaching, and he didn't look happy.

"Well, I'm guessing you'd be Hanna London." His voice was gravelly, and filled with a sense of familiarity that seemed out of place, given he was a stranger.

"That's what my driver's license tells me," I said somewhat flippantly. "Who are you?"

"Mike West, the other cop stationed in this shit hole we call a town. Harris told me that you might wander down this way."

He stopped, waiting for me to get closer. His scent washed across the air - an odd combination of smoke and dirt.

"I didn't realize it was illegal to walk around this section of town."

He turned around and fell in step beside me. "It's not - except when the person doing the wandering has already been warned away from a crime scene twice and was seen there yet again only a few moments ago."

So the young officer didn't only ogle. Good for him. "I didn't go anywhere near the taped-off area. I just walked through the field."

"A technicality, as we both know. Consider this a final warning. If we find you near that field again, we'll arrest you."

I raised my eyebrows. "On what charge?"

"Obstructing an investigation." He glanced at me. His eyes were brown - like almost everyone else in the West pack - but his seemed to hold his emotions clear and sharp. What I saw was resentment, unhappiness, and just a touch of anticipation.

And it was that last one that struck me as odd, because while it wasn't sexual in nature, it did seem to center on me.

"I can hardly obstruct an investigation when there's not a lot of investigation happening."

"That's because we have to wait for the big-city cops to come down and do it. We apparently haven't got the right expertise or knowledge for that sort of stuff."

Though there was no edge in his voice or expression, his derision rode the air, bitter and sharp. Mike West wanted more than what his job was offering. But then, was that really surprising? Most folks who became cops did so because they wanted to help others, or they wanted to catch criminals and make a difference.

And if the emotions I was sensing in Mike West were anything to go by, being a cop in a small town in the middle of nowhere wasn't achieving either of those two aims.

"So the autopsy results haven't come back yet, either?"

He slanted me a glance. "Like I'm going to tell you that. Harris would have my head."

"He doesn't have to know."

Mike snorted. "Harris knows everything. The man has an instinct for it. Makes me wonder why he decided to transfer to a dead-end place like this."

"Well, he is from the West pack - "

"He had a stellar career as a detective in Sydney, but he suddenly ups and runs back here?" Mike shook his head. "The man is mad."

"Or he just missed home turf."

"Yeah, there's a whole lot to miss in this hellhole."

I squinted up at him. "If you hate it so much, why not transfer?"

"I've applied, trust me."

"Then why aren't you getting anywhere?"

"Because it's hard to fill positions in shit holes, and they're reluctant to transfer people out of them."

"So what are you doing about it, besides bitching?"

He laughed. It was a sound as bitter as the emotions that were still swirling around me. "Putting out feelers. Pulling in favors." He shrugged. "Stuff like that."

The snarky part of me wondered just how many favors a cop in nowhereville could actually pull in. Not a lot, one would have thought.

We hit the main street and I turned right, heading back to the store to grab the coffee I'd told Evin I was coming out to get. Mike followed.

"You don't have to baby-sit me," I commented. "I won't go back to your precious crime scene."

Now, going back to the house - that was another matter entirely. And one he hadn't actually warned me away from. Of course, if I got caught breaking into said house, it could land me in a whole lot more trouble.

So shadow and don't get caught, that little voice inside whispered.

Which made about as much sense as pigs flying, but even so, my pulse raced at the thought. Vampires shadowed, and I wasn't a vampire.

Was I?

No, I thought, squinting up at the sun. If I was a vamp, I'd be toast by now. Yet if there was vampire blood in me, it would explain the surprising sensitivity to the sun.

"When you start heading back to the villa, I'll head back to the station," Mike commented. "Until then, consider me a thorn in your side."

"There's obviously very little to do in this town if you can waste time baby-sitting me."

"That's what I've been bitching about, remember?" He snorted softly. "The most exciting things to have happened in this town are your appearance and the damn murder."

I raised my eyebrows as I squinted up at him. "How is my appearance exciting?"

"Well, you got lost, didn't you? Gave us something to do for a day. It's a shame Evin had to find you so quickly."

Had to? That was an odd way of putting it. I climbed the steps and walked into the supermarket. "Well, I'm sorry that we cut your fun short, but I'm damn glad he found me when he did."

"I guess you would be."

There wasn't a whole lot of choice in the coffee department, so I grabbed some Kona and headed for the cash register. Mike followed - a thorn in my side, indeed. As I dragged out my wallet and paid the woman, I squinted up at him and said, "How come he was the only one in the plane?"

"His choice." Mike shrugged. "The logical search area was fanning out from where your car was crashed, not hundreds of miles south."

So how did he find me if he wasn't my twin? Something in my stomach fluttered at that thought, but no matter what I did, I couldn't catch the tail of it and make it something more. Make it a memory.

The woman gave me my change and a smile, and I headed out the door. "So why did he hire the plane?"

And where did he find the money if we were supposedly so broke we couldn't afford to go home and therefore waste the money we'd paid for the villa?

"It's the quickest and easiest way to cover a large amount of ground." He glanced down at me. "Why does this even matter? You were rescued - that's the main issue, isn't it?"

No, it wasn't, but I wasn't about to say that. For some odd reason, I trusted Harris, but I didn't trust his sidekick. There was something about him that tickled my instincts and said wrong.

"I guess it is." I forced a smile. "Now, I'd better get this coffee home before my rescuer gets too grumpy."

Mike stopped on the supermarket landing and leaned against one of the veranda supports. "Don't detour past the crime scene," he reminded me.

"Trust me, I won't."

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.