Stolen Moon Stone
2270 Words
(Jordan's POV)
I stared at Raiden as the potion spread through my system. My friends had taught me so much since I had been here and I was able to now use the witch side of my Gemini Genes.
I’d just made a batch of powerful pain reliever, and I’d drunk the dose as I’d heard him climbing the stairs. The medicine couldn’t make me forget the pain of my soul being torn in two, but it did make me functional. For now.
Like all good things, it wouldn’t last forever. I’d need to be quick, solving my problems before I was in a puddle of agony on the floor. But Raiden was here, close to me, after I'd just destroyed an ebtire street running from him.
I stared at him, hardly able to believe my eyes. It hadn’t been long since I’d seen him, but it had felt like an eternity. I’d missed him. I knew I shouldn’t, but I had. And now that I could feel the bond between us… It was hard not to walk up to him and press my lips to his.
The mate bond drew me to him. He was magnetic enough without it. With it…all I could do was think of our explosive kiss and the way we made love, how good it felt to have him inside me.
It was my damned wolf. I still couldn’t shift ever since the battle, but my beast was most certainly atill there.
Now that I couldn’t hide as a fae, my latent wolf wanted him. I wished she would make an appearance so that I could run beneath the full moon, but instead, she only showed up to pant after the Alpha.
“You’re different,” he said, his eyes shadowed with worry.
“Of course I am. I have transversed into the Gemini.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I’m fine.”
“Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Don’t you think we shouldn’t be doing this?
Talking in a room like nothing is weird?”
“You have a point, but this is important. Are you well?”
“Your eyes aren’t black.” I’d been so swept away by the sight of him that I hadn’t realized he no longer had the black eyes of the Blood Moon curse.
“It’s temporary. A potion from Morgana, a sorceress I met, to help me fight off the effects of the curse. It won’t last forever.”
“A bit stronger, though?”
“How’d you know?”
“Morgana is powerful, and you’re an Alpha male. You’d need a stronger potion.”
“It will work for a while.”
Could he still feel emotion? Or had the potion in his flask stopped working entirely? Did his new potion suppress emotion? I found that I could not ask.
“Why are you here?”
“Selene visited me on the streets of London.”
“Whoa, hold up. She visited you?” He nodded.
“I found it shocking as well. But she had a message that could not wait.”
“About me, I assume.”
“Whatever Kyran seeks—whatever the watcher seeks—is tied up with you. Bound to you.” I shivered, afraid of something like that.
“It’s part of your past, according to the goddess. Part of you and your mother. And the ones who have been seeking you are not finished with you yet. We have to work together.”
I frowned. “That’s dangerous.”
“And that’s what I told the goddess, but she insisted. It’s the only way we can stop them.”
I leaned against the table behind me and sighed. I trusted the seer—of course I did. It would be foolish not to. Could I work with Raiden, though? I had no idea…but it sounded like I would have to.
“The Watcher must know what’s happening to me,” I said. “He done this on purpose. The change was already starting inside me—new magic surging to the surface. He knew that it would be the final straw.”
“How do you feel?”
“Like s**t. If I don’t sort this, it won’t go well for me.” I told him what I knew, but I didn’t want to discuss it, so I finished with, “I saw you this morning.”
Horror flashed on his face.
"Me?"
"You came after me."
"No, I didn't I was at Morgana's. It wasn't me Jordan. It had to of been Kyran."
“Did he come for you?”
“No. Didn’t even see me. I spotted him in London, and I mistakenly threw a trash bin at him.”
“Threw a trash ben at him?”
“I’m more powerful than I realized.” I shivered, remembering the tearing pain.
“But it broke something inside me. My magic or my soul. I don’t know which. But I need answers. It sounds like Kyran or the Watcher will have them.” He nodded, his lips tight.
“We’ll get him back,” I said.
It was another reason we needed to find Kyran. I loved him.
"Where did you see him?”
“Like I said, out in London. I’ll take you there. We can ask some questions, hopefully. Get an idea of what he was doing in the building I saw him leaving when he spotted me.”
“Let’s go.”
“Give me a moment.” I bottled up more of the pain potion and tucked it in the pocket of my jeans.
Ready, I grabbed my slim-cut leather jacket off the back of a chair and shrugged it on, flipping my hair out from underneath the collar.
“Ready.” Together, we descended the stairs. He let me go first, but I was aware of his every movement. Knowledge of him sent heat racing through me. In the main sitting room, Alex stood from her chair by the fire. Penelope was stretched out in front of it, warming her belly, but Randolph was nowhere to be seen.
“Can I help?” Alex asked.
I considered the offer, wanting to take her up on it. But depending on how this thing with Raiden went—depending upon how my health deteriorated—I might need her assistance much more later on. Better to save it.
“Not at the moment, but I’ll let you know. You’re a life saver. Thank you.” She nodded and watched Raiden warily as he exited the tower.
“I’ll be fine. Promise,” I said to her.
“Take care of yourself.”
“Of course.”
I followed Raiden out into the courtyard, and he turned to me.
“Where are we headed?”
“Westchester.e” It wasn’t far. “Let’s go through the Couldron.” He nodded, and we set off across town.
The city was quiet at this time of morning, most of the residents having found their way into offices and shops for the workday. When we passed through the Couldron, Linc was on shift.
“Headed back to the scene of the crime?” she asked.
“Yep.” I didn’t know if he meant Kyran's crime or mine, but both fit.
"It wasn't Raiden we saw, it was Kyran." I explained to hom as he was glaring at Raiden behind me.
“Be careful out there. And dont you touch her. She gets hurt I'm coming for you're ass.”
Raiden nodded and I waved, then slipped out the door, Raiden behind me. We hurried into street and caught a cab, then quickly made our way toward the part of town where I’d last seen Kyran.
Though we rode in silence, tension prickled the air between us. How long could we stay like this? Near each other but unable to do anything about it? Forbidden from doing anything about it? It would drive me mad.
When the driver stopped and let us out, Raiden paid. I stepped onto the pavement and walked up to the narrow brick building that I’d seen Kyran leave.
The long stone plaque over the door had been inscribed to read Museum of Ancient History.
Raiden joined me, a frown on his handsome face. “He was in there?”
“Ran out like his ass was on fire.”
“He had to have been stealing something.” I nodded.
“Information at the very least. Artifacts at worst.”
“Let’s find out.” We climbed the short steps to the front door. I gripped the handle and felt the prickle of magic under my palm. If I’d been human, I’d have been filled with an irresistible desire to turn around and walk away.
As it was, I knew what was going on and pushed my way through into a quiet marble foyer that had been decorated with blue silk wallpaper long ago.
This was one of the rare supernatural properties hidden within London itself, though I’d never heard of it before.
“Hello?” a harassed voice sounded from the top of the gleaming wooden stairs. “Who’s there?”
"Raiden Vulcar.” His voice echoed in the foyer. I considered announcing myself, but it wouldn’t make a difference.
A few moments later, a slender old man appeared at the top of the stairs. He raced down, quick for his age, and skidded to a stop in front of us on the marble floor.
“I am Arsias Vanhaven.” His white hair was wild around his head, and his clothing reminded me of the dwarves’ usual attire, brilliant and perfectly tailored. The suit was a bold blue, the waistcoat neon green silk embroidered with tiny snakes.
“What are you doing here?” From the accusation in his tone, he wasn’t going to buy that we’d come to peruse the collection. That kind of ruse wouldn’t get us what we wanted, anyway.
“I saw a man run out of here very early this morning,” I said. “We’re looking for him.”
He scoffed. “So are we, the bloody thief.”
“What did he take?” Raiden asked.
“Are you his friends?” Arsias' gaze skipped over me and landed on Raiden. “Are you related? You share similar features.”
“An Aquaintance,” Raden lied. “But we seek him for the same reasons you do. He’s wronged us. If you can help us find him, we’ll return whatever he’s taken from you.”
“Can I trust you?” He searched our faces.
“We don’t want the artifact, just the person who took it,” Raiden said. “We’ve been hunting him for a long time.”
The desire in his voice was palpable, and Arsias could clearly hear it. He nodded, seemingly satisfied.
“Fine. Come with me.” He turned and hurried down the hall. We followed.
As we walked, I peeked into the rooms that split off the main hall. They were stuffed to the gills with ancient artifacts, so full that they almost made me itchy to look into them.
So much dusting. How had they acquired all of these objects?
In a room at the back, Aeneas stopped in front of a broken display case. He looked at us, his gaze heavy.
“Ours is the foremost collection of artifacts related to the supernatural world. Highly valuable.”
“But not well secured?” I asked, looking at the broken glass.
Anger flashed in Arsias' eyes. “Very well secured. In all two hundred fifty-six years of our history, we have never suffered a theft.” He tapped the iron edge of the display case. “This has been enchanted to repel the attacks of all living things. And yet, the thief still managed to break in.”
“How?” Raiden asked.
“That, I do not know. A spell that shouldn’t exist, perhaps. Or he’s more powerful than any species we’ve ever seen, able to resist the magic that bound this case.”
“He’s not,” Raidenn said.
“He’s very powerful, but he’s not capable of something that unusual.”
“Magic, then.”
“It makes sense,” I said, and looked at Raiden.
“Kyran might not be that powerful, but the Watcher could be and he is now somehow controlling Kyran.”
I could feel Arsias' attention sharpen.
“Can you tell us what you saw? What you heard?” I asked Arsias, and looked at the case. An empty patch of navy velvet revealed the imprint of the missing object.
“What was taken?”
“I saw nothing.” Arsias frowned, clearly bitter. “But I did hear a commotion. Two, actually. One after the other.”
“Two people?” I asked.
Did Kyran have a partner that I hadn’t seen?
“I do not know. By the time I came downstairs, it was over. The artifact was gone, and the museum was empty.”
“What did he take?” Raiden asked.
“An artifact called the Moon Stone. It has been in our collection since the founding of the museum.”
The Moon Stone? I shivered. Could there be a connection between that and the blood moon curse?
After what the Goddess had told Raiden, this couldn’t be a coincidence. I was connected to whatever Kyran was doing, and I wanted to find out what the hell that was.
- Writer
