Stray Moon

Dedication

For my parents, who’ve always stood by me.

You’re my Gaius and Elspeth (minus the magic stuff).

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Acknowledgments

About the Author

By Kelly Meding

Copyright

About the Publisher

Chapter 1

I was in hell.

Not the literal pit of Hell (never been there, thank Iblis), but a very special kind of hell disguised as an official debriefing on the events of the previous week. A week that happened to star five of the most insane and physically painful days of my life, thank you very much. It’s not easy trying to explain my decision to assist a Master vampire in discovering who’d kidnapped a dozen of his kin, especially when the rest of his bloodsucking brood held a trailer park hostage for their own safety.

Surprisingly, my superiors didn’t give me as much shit for it as I expected.

No, the biggest issue that I and my dwindling team of US Para-Marshals were facing was credibility, since the brains behind all the bad shit that went down turned out to be one of our own.

I’d been beaten, brought back from the brink of death, and basically destroyed for the better part of a week.

And sitting here was so much worse.

The interrogation room at the US Marshals’ field office in Baltimore had all the personality of a prison cell. Three tan walls, a two-way mirror, a plain metal table, a chair on either side. To the naked eye, it was no different than a thousand others across the country. To someone sensitive to magic, though, it was a prison. This room had protective wards beneath the plaster. Tiny holes in the surface of the table could produce a silver nitrate mist capable of sedating a werewolf or vampire (as well as some species of demon). And the suspect’s chair could be electrified with the flip of a switch.

Guess where I was sitting?

Only a handful of these Para-equipped interrogation rooms existed around the various field offices, because interrogations of Paras rarely happened in such an official capacity. The two specialized Para-Marshal squads (one of which I unofficially led at the moment, because our former chief was dead) had minimal oversight by the Marshals’ Office. As long as we dealt with the threats and kept the violence down, they paid our expenses and let us do our jobs.

The lack of oversight was probably why this whole mess had gone down in the first place. Not that they’d ever admit that.

And not that it mattered right now. My ass was planted behind the table of that blessed room for three really big reasons.

One: Adam Weller, former leader of the West Coast squad and ex-living person, had used government money and Para-Marshal resources to kidnap vampires from various lines, and to play around with dark magic via his very own necromancer.

Two: our superiors weren’t sure who among us to trust, because two of our Para-Marshals turned out to be double agents, working undercover for some other shadow organization interested in paranormal activity.

Three: my version of events kept clashing with those of pretty much everyone else, because I had apparently bargained away all memories of a guy named Jaxon Dearborn.

What in heaven kind of name is that, anyway?

So yeah, the Marshals’ Office kind of frowns on traitors, double agents, and uncorroborated stories. Me too. But I didn’t know how many more times I could repeat myself to these people before I lost it and unleashed the Quarrel on them.

I wonder if they realized how close I was to exerting the half-djinn legacy my father gave me. Seeing the marshals who were handling this case devolve into their most argumentative and combative nature, quarrelling with each other instead of me—well, that would have been a nice change of pace. Might even have been fun.

But I like my job, so I held my power in check. For now.

The room didn’t have a clock, but I’d guess I’d been sitting there staring at my own reflection for almost an hour—ever since Marshal Keene heard my entire version of events for the fourth time, and then stepped out for coffee.

My stomach growled, reminding me it hadn’t been fed for ages. I’d been given a soda and turkey sandwich a while ago, long before my last allowed bathroom break. Worse than the boredom and hunger, though, was the lack of communication with anyone I cared about. I hadn’t spoken with my teammate Novak, a fallen incubus who’d been tortured with salt water and whose wounds no one would tell me about. Nor my boyfriend, Vincent, who’d been kidnapped by Weller and used as blackmail to make me cooperate. Not with Woodrow Tennyson, either, the Master vampire whose line I’d helped save, and who’d saved my life twice in return. And not even my own mother, who’d been in our team headquarters when the cow shit hit the magical fan on a farm in southern Delaware two days ago.

Two. Blessed. Days. Of me telling the same story over and over again, and no one telling me why I had supposedly forgotten six years’ worth of memories of Jaxon. My patience with this entire flipping circus was almost gone.

I stood and stretched, arms over my head, up on my tiptoes. Fatigued muscles burned, and something in my back popped. My abdomen gave a sharp twinge. I pressed a hand over the spot where the necromancer, Lord Robert Adelay, had stabbed me with a silver melon baller (yes that really happened). The thing had punctured a lung and nearly killed me. I would have died, actually, if Tennyson hadn’t been there. If I hadn’t fed off him—a big, big no-no, considering the eternal enmity between djinn and vampires.

Truth is, a week ago, I’d have smacked you in the mouth if you’d suggested I would ever call a vampire a friend, much less call one of the most powerful Master vampires in the world a friend. But Tennyson and I had gone through the wringer together, physically and emotionally, and I’d learned to trust him. He was fiercely loyal to the vampires he’d sired during his five-hundred-plus years, and watching him deal with the violent deaths of twelve of his children had torn at my heart in ways I didn’t expect. We’d been together almost constantly for five days, and I actually found myself missing him, the infuriating jerk.

I considered asking for another bathroom break, just to break up the monotony of staring at the walls. I needed to do something, bless it all.

But when I took a step toward the two-way mirror, I found myself standing in mist.

Freaking mist.

The interrogation room was gone. A fine blue mist swirled all around me, as if stirred by a gentle breeze, but I felt nothing. No sensations of wind, of moisture, even of temperature. This wasn’t real.

Hello? My voice didn’t echo.

A woman appeared in front of me, less than five feet away. She wore a flowing white dress and had white flowers in her black hair. Her ebony skin glowed with an ethereal light, betraying her power. Shiloh Harrison, she said.

Oh goodie. Powerful people who knew my name. Who wants to know?

Chandra Goodfellow.

It took a moment to place her. After I looked past the white dress and glowy skin, I recognized the West Coast Para-Marshal. We’d only met once before. She was relatively new to Weller’s squad, a moon witch recruited about a year ago.

Moon witches are relatively rare and have one of the more interesting origins among the magical folk. More than a thousand years ago, the goddess Brighid was summoned by an Irish queen who was unable to conceive. Brighid agreed to make the woman fertile and grant her six children—children who would grow up strong and powerful and worship Brighid. The woman agreed without insisting on any other terms, such as gender. The queen was desperate to give her husband a son, but bore only daughters. Furious at her inability to provide an heir, the king had his wife killed and the daughters enslaved.

When Brighid found out—the girls were in their thirties by that time, because an immortal goddess’s attention tends to wander—she killed the king and gave his land to the daughters. She also gifted them with a drop of her blood, making them strong, extremely intelligent, fertile, and immortal. When one daughter is killed, she is reincarnated into the next child of any woman who carries Brighid’s blood, with all of the memories and acquired knowledge of her previous life.

We call them moon witches because their power ebbs and flows with the tides, much like a woman’s fertility cycle. Aside from the ability to reverse infertility for a price, moon witches can disappear into shadows, astral-project, and reverse the magical abilities of others. Rumor has it that a drop of their blood is like an insta-steroid, giving the drinker a brief burst of strength, skill, and battle-readiness.

Given the fact that I’d recently met and then pissed off Brighid, meeting one of her little minions in an astral plane made my stomach flip in a bad way.

I’d say it’s a pleasure to meet you, but I’m currently on your boss’s shit list, so forgive me for not, I said.

Chandra frowned. I’m not here for the goddess.

Then what?

I’m here for the Andersons.

Who?

They’re one of the mated werewolf couples who have gone missing.

Right. Fourteen mated pairs of werewolves had recently disappeared in California and Florida. All members of registered Packs, their respective Alphas had no information on the missing. Novak and Kathleen, a double-crossing dhampir ex-teammate of ours, (and apparently Jaxon) had visited both Alphas during our investigation, and they’d turned up no real leads. Thirteen of the couples had no children. Only the Andersons had once had children—three, all of whom died one night from carbon monoxide poisoning that somehow didn’t kill the parents.

You knew the Andersons? I asked.

Yes, I did. I heard Raymond and Alice’s pleas for children, and I went to them. Normally I can only affect the fertility of humans, but they were willing to pay the price to try.

What was the price?

She scowled. The price is between myself and my couples. As I said, they were willing to go against Pack law and use divine intervention. And it worked. They were blessed with three beautiful, healthy pups.

Until the pups died.

Yes. Pack laws forbid autopsies, but they were blessed by Brighid’s blood. They should have lived long, healthy lives.

I saw where this was going, but asked anyway. Why are we talking about this?

I believe those children were murdered, under orders from the Homme Alpha, and I want answers. But more than that, I want to bring the Andersons home. The Andersons and the other missing werewolves. I fear for their safety.

And you want my help?

Yes. Our squads are divided, our strength diminished as two separate entities. As one unit, we could solve this.

We could if we weren’t all suspended from active duty.

The suspension will be lifted once our superiors acknowledge our innocence. We’re not responsible for what our leaders have done.

No, we weren’t responsible, but that didn’t stop a big ugly splotch of guilt from staining my conscience. Guilt that I didn’t notice what was going on, or realize that my former boss, Julius Almeida, had also been complicit in these underhanded dealings. A deeper look into his accounts showed a fat little retirement fund in a Swiss bank, fed into a little at a time by blood money. Illegal money.

The double-crossing jerk. The more I learned, the less I mourned for his painful death and brief afterlife as a reanimated head.

He was the past, though. Right now, I really wanted to find those missing werewolves. Considering the fact that Weller had kidnapped forty-six vampires so his necromancer could practice turning them into controllable revenants, the werewolves must have a terrible fate awaiting them. And unlike with vampires, djinn have no issues with werewolves, and I sympathized with their plight. I needed to bring them all home.

Okay, I said. Once I get out of this flipping holding cell, I’ll help you.

And your team?

I won’t force Novak to help, but I’ll ask him.

And Jaxon?

Crap, I kept forgetting about him. And I wasn’t comfortable bringing a stranger into this new mission, but if Chandra knew him, maybe it was okay. Yeah, sure, him too.

Thank you.

The mist disappeared, replaced by the drab tan walls of my holding cell. I had no idea if minutes or hours had passed. Judging by the familiar hunger rumbles in my stomach—as opposed to stabbing pain—I’d say minutes. But you never knew how time reacted when you moved to different planes of existence. I’d visited a different plane during my encounter with Brighid, and what had been maybe a thirty-minute conversation had taken the entire day back in the real world.

Magic was a funny bitch.

The door swung inward, and someone not Marshal Keene stepped inside. He was average height, well-built, with sandy hair beneath a US Marshals ball cap, and pale eyes. His face was sharp, too angular to be handsome, but he wasn’t hard to look at, either, even though he was clearly exhausted. Sure, he wasn’t wearing a smart suit like Keene, but he still screamed Fed under his black t-shirt and jeans.

Oh, hell, no, I said. I am not repeating that whole thing for a fifth time. You want to know what happened? Go read the transcripts. I’m done for the day.

Surprise lifted his eyebrows and parted his lips. I’m not here to debrief you. Nice voice, smooth and comforting, with a faint lilt. Easy to listen to. He must have done a lot of suspect interrogations.

Lucky for his balls, he wasn’t here to interrogate me. Then what do you want?

He took another step closer, those eyes that weren’t quite blue (hazel maybe?) studying me like I was a bug in a jar. I stared right back, a clear challenge, until he . . . kind of deflated. His shoulders drooped right along with his mouth. It’s true, then.

You want to be more specific?

Shiloh, it’s me. It’s Jaxon.

My supposed teammate who everyone said I’d forgotten about. No, not forgotten. Bargained away my memories of him. "You’re Jaxon?"

Yes.

Okay, good, then maybe you can answer a question for me.

I’ll try.

Why you?

What?

I circled the table to stand in front of him, out of reach, but less distant than before. Why did I lose all memories of you, specifically? No one will tell me.

Tennyson didn’t tell you? He was with you when you woke up in that farmhouse.

Obviously he didn’t if I’m asking you, jackass.

He flinched. Sorry. This is just . . . surreal. Six years, Shi. Everything’s gone?

Apparently, and I want to know why. Why you?

Twin spots of color darkened his cheeks. He looked away. At the floor, the walls, his feet. He was embarrassed. That did not do happy things to my stomach-ulcer-in-the-making.

Finally he said, In order to find the necromancer’s location, you made a bargain with a sidhe. The Fair Folk prefer to bargain in precious things like memory, so you agreed to give up a memory in exchange for her information, which would be erased once the necromancer was killed.

Okay. Something about all that seemed vaguely familiar. At one point during our questioning, Keene had asked about a memory bargain with a sidhe, but everything around that was hazy, like it was being protected by a film of wet cotton. The sidhe was probably protecting herself by not letting me recall the specifics of our encounter. "I buy all that. Why memories of you?"

You didn’t know it would be me at the time, Jaxon said. He was still avoiding eye contact. The bargain was for all your memories of the . . . the person you loved most.

That socked me right in the gut. My breath caught. I studied the man in front of me more closely, seeking . . . something. Anything to show me why I loved him the most. He had a magical aura, so he wasn’t one hundred percent human. Magical creatures of different species rarely worked together well for long periods of time, almost as if their unique differences became like the same ends of a magnet. They pushed the other away.

We . . . loved each other? I asked, my voice oddly hoarse.

He looked at me. Hazel eyes swimming with defeat. Hurt. In our own unique ways, we did. We always cared for each other. Do you remember rescuing your father from a magic abuser about six years ago?

Clearly. My father, along with several other magically inclined people, had been kidnapped and held as part of a madman’s sick sideshow, making them show off their powers to rich people all around the country.

I was one of the people you rescued that day. It’s how we met.

Something in his words seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place him in my own memories of that day. Telling him I didn’t remember seemed kind of repetitive, so I stayed silent.

Four years ago, we gave in to our attraction and tried for a relationship, he continued. It only lasted a year, but we stayed the best of friends. We like to give each other grief, but we always have the other’s back.

But . . . What? I didn’t know how to make my swirling thoughts into coherent statements. Or questions. A perfect stranger was telling me we’d had a sexual relationship, and I didn’t know this guy from a hole in the wall. The only reason I hadn’t called bullshit yet was his demeanor. Sad instead of pushy. Patient instead of demanding I believe him.

It’s a kick in the head, isn’t it? he said, almost to himself. Finding out how much you mean to someone, only they don’t remember a single thing about you.

I’m sorry. It felt like the right thing to say, even though I hadn’t done anything wrong. Had I?

Your bargain helped us save a lot of lives, Shiloh. I can’t fault you for that.

Maybe not, but I can blame myself for all of the grief you’re feeling over this. You lost something, too. Supposedly. But why lie about our shared past? If this guy really did know me, he knew I hated liars, so he had to be telling the truth.

This entire situation was a frustrating mind-fuck, and I really needed to get out of this room before I did unleash the Quarrel.

He didn’t say anything, apparently preferring to stare at me like a kicked puppy. I had the oddest urge to hug him and tell him it would all work out. But I didn’t make it a habit of hugging perfect strangers—even ones who insisted we had six years of forgotten history. He stared until I got uncomfortable.

So, what are you doing here? I asked.

Jaxon shook himself out of whatever deep thought had caught him. We’re free to go. I thought you’d like a ride.

Home?

Well, no, you’ve never told me where you live. I don’t think you told anyone except Julius. I meant headquarters.

You know where HQ is? Okay, stupid question. Sorry, of course you must know. Um, you’re not going to pepper me with questions the whole way, are you?

His lips twitched. Was that a smile? No, but I’ll answer any you might have. And we won’t be alone. Novak is coming back. His hands are still healing from the saltwater bath they got, and he needs a little help.

Not that he’d ever admit it.

Exactly. Elspeth is here, too, and she wants to stay close. I think she likes being able to mother us all a little bit.

My mom’s here? More than anything else, I wanted to see her. To talk to her and get a nice, big Mom Hug. I’d dragged her into this investigation, nearly gotten her killed, and she’d still hung around to tend our wounds and lend a hand. Maybe she could help me figure out this whole Jaxon thing. She’d be totally frank with me about anything I asked.

She’s waiting downstairs. She’s been raising hell, demanding she see you.

She’s like that. Fiery when she wants something.

I remember. His eyebrows knit together. Sorry.

For what?

"I don’t know. I suppose using words like remember feels weird. I’m not trying to insult you or anything."

I raised both shoulders in a shrug. "I know that. I’m not going to suddenly get all sensitive about the word remember."

Okay. He angled his body and indicated the door. After you.

I didn’t like him on my six, because I didn’t have a clue who he was, no matter what anyone else said. And it bugged me that I couldn’t get any sort of real read on the guy. Even when I spoke with perfect strangers, I could glean something about them by their words, body language, et cetera . . . but not Jaxon. If a sidhe really had taken my memories of him, it could be a side effect of her magic—and that was still a big blessed if.

I squared my shoulders and left the room first. We were in a government building, so it wasn’t like he could try anything. Or maybe he could. I had no idea what his Para status was. I strode down a sterile corridor, past other interrogation rooms, to an elevator. In no mood to wait, I took the stairs.

We came out on the first floor in a wide lobby with a scattering of uncomfortable-looking chairs and fake potted plants. Two suited marshals, including Keene, were standing to the side with Novak and my mother, and no one in the group looked happy.

Mom spotted me first. Shiloh, honey.

She met me halfway, and I didn’t care that I was in a building full of colleagues. My mom was here, alive and well, and I was so glad to see her and be out of that awful interrogation room. I let her pull me into a solid hug. Her heart beat wildly against mine, and her hands seemed to be everywhere, testing for injury, reassuring herself that I was real.

Are you all right? she asked when she decided to let me breathe better.

I am now, I replied. Starving, but otherwise fine. You?

She took a shuddering breath. "This is exactly what I needed. I heard what happened on that farm, and I needed to see for myself that you’re okay. Are you sure you’re okay?"

Elspeth Ann Juno was in full-on mothering mode.

Mom, I’m okay, I swear. I would kill for a nice rare steak, though. I winced at my own words, because they made her flinch. I’m an unapologetic carnivore from way back, but I usually went for medium. The whole rare thing was probably a lasting side effect of having drunk Tennyson’s blood twice in the last week in order to, you know, not die. The bloodlust wasn’t fun, but it also wasn’t fatal. I did miss Tennyson’s presence, though, which was somewhat alarming.

I could eat, too, Novak said.

I pulled away from Mom and approached Novak. The fallen incubus among us was a shadow of himself. Six-two, built like a professional linebacker, and gorgeous as sin, Novak had been created to seduce men and women into giving up their souls to Hell. Even when he’d fallen into disgrace and was banished from Hell, he maintained a virility and sex appeal to match even the most popular male movie star. But something had changed after he was imprisoned and tortured on that farm. He seemed distant, almost exhausted. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen him yawn, much less be anything except ready for sex or battle. Now, though—he looked done.

"Hey, hot