Redemption: Moon Fever Book Three (Redfern Shifters 3), page 18
“It’s just moon fever,” Dee said. “It makes you horny. You went through it. You must remember.”
Stella shivered—part agony, part delight. “I remember.”
“I want to fuck anything right now,” Dee continued. “It just happened to be Jasper I was next to.”
Stella shook her head. “I think the Fates are going to match you with him tonight.” A sharp, cold tingling sensation came over her lips as she said it. “I can feel it. I know it’s true.”
“But how? Aren’t you bonded to him?”
Stella had decided not to tell anyone about the witch’s herbs. It wasn’t something she wanted Dee running after as well, given they didn’t know the risks. “I thought I was, but we may have screwed that up with the long separation.”
Dee flung up both hands. “I don’t want him!”
“The Fates don’t care,” Stella said.
“He’s yours! You were matched on Fever Night!”
Stella held Dee’s gaze. “We fucked it up.”
Dee let out an angry sigh and kicked a stone on the sidewalk. “I thought you’d fixed it.”
“So did we,” Stella said. “But then he got the fever again, and I didn’t.”
Dee bent over and picked up the stone, then hurled it across the street into the school playground. Years of softball had given her quite an arm. It nearly reached the multipurpose room. “And I did,” she said sourly.
Stella regarded Dee, who hadn’t seemed impressed with how far the rock had gone. Being a physical miracle came naturally to her. “You admit you only feel the attraction to Jasper,” she said, swallowing over the sour taste in her mouth.
“It’s disgusting. He’s like a brother,” Dee said. “Or he should be. I don’t want to drool over him.”
“And not anyone else,” Stella prompted. “Like, say, Oliver?”
Dee made a mock-retching sound. “Fates forbid.”
It was hard for Stella to hear such a clear confirmation of her worst fear. “That’s moon fever. It’s matching you to Jasper.”
Dee turned on her. “So what did you do to fuck it up? He rejected you, but then you came back. I thought everything was cool.”
Stella looked away and continued walking. She could talk about the old Nightrock curse or Jasper’s rejection, or she could just accept her life as it was and deal with the situation the best she could.
“A few days ago,” Stella said, “I thought I’d never be able to hurt anyone the way I’d been hurt. I saw a girl at the diner who’d been moon called, talking to her parents, and I thought I wouldn’t be able to let her go through the kind of pain I went through. If she was matched with Jasper, I mean. I’d have to let her have him, just because I couldn’t let another woman feel what I felt. I thought I’d step aside and let the Fates make their choice.”
“Was that Roni Rivera? I saw her on my patrol,” Dee said.
“It doesn’t matter who she was,” Stella said. “I don’t care anymore. Do you get what I’m saying?”
“Not really,” Dee said.
Stella turned to face her, having to look up to meet her eyes. “Before,” she said with emphasis, “I felt guilty. But now…”
Dee looked blank. “I don’t get why you’d ever feel guilty.”
Stella’s pulse was racing, but her voice was steady. “Now I know I have to fight for what I want. I have to fight for myself. Nobody, not even Jasper, can do that for me.” She lifted a hand, extended a finger, and pointed it her heart. “Jasper is mine. Maybe the Fates want him to be with you—maybe the full moon would bless you with an eternity of happiness—”
Dee made a face.
“But I don’t care,” Stella snapped. Her voice rose with each word. “He’s mine. I’ll fight the curse, I’ll fight the Fates”—she turned her finger around and aimed it at Dee—“I’ll fight you.”
Dee recoiled in alarm. “You don’t mean that.”
Stella just stared at her.
Dee shook her head, hands up. “I don’t want any mate right now.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Stella said.
“And I definitely don’t want Jasper,” Dee went on.
“But you do.”
“I don’t want to hurt you, Stella.” Her face became imploring. “And I don’t want to hurt my pack, which is what would happen if I messed up the alpha’s happiness. I mean, he’s obviously really into you.”
“The Fates don’t care.” Stella straightened her shoulders. With each word, she felt like she’d grown an inch.
“I don’t want any of those things, but mostly, especially”—she was as loud as Stella now—“I don’t want to kill you!”
Stella nodded, calm for once, knowing her path. “But I want to kill you.”
Dee gasped. There was a long, terrible pause. “Stella. If I fight you, I’ll win.”
“I know.”
“I’m almost twice your size,” Dee said. “I’m much tougher, much stronger, much better trained to fight.”
Stella nodded. “I know.”
“If the Fates put me and Jasper together tonight,” Dee said, increasingly frantic, “with the bonfire there, our pack watching, and the full moon looking down on us—our instincts will take over.”
Stella knew she was right. She could see it. She had seen it, repeatedly, in her waking nightmares. “Yes.”
“I don’t want it, but you know how it is,” Dee said. “You’ve been to enough Fever Nights to see the same thing I’ve seen. I’ll try to resist it, but Jasper was the only shifter I’ve ever heard of who was able to walk away from his fated mate like that.”
“I know,” Stella said again.
“I might not be able to do what Jasper did. He had all that hate for your father, sorry to say, and he thought he was protecting his mother. That’s a lot more justification than I’ll have. I mean, I don’t want him, but I like him. I respect him. We’re friends.”
“I know.”
Dee growled in frustration. “Stop saying that! You can’t fight me! If it comes to that, you’ve got to give him up. The Fates will let you go—you said you don’t feel the moon fever, so you can choose. Your life is more important than some guy, even an alpha.” She put her hands over her mouth, her toughness breaking. “I could kill you. I don’t want to do that. Please. Don’t make me.”
“I can’t give him up,” Stella said. “I won’t.”
A tear streamed down Dee’s cheek. “So why are you here? You wanted to give me time to warn my parents that another one of their children is going to shame the family? Because if I kill you, even if I’m mated to the alpha, not only Jasper will hate me. The entire town will hate me.” She laughed harshly and swiped the tear away. “Hell, those terrified cat shifters we saw this morning love you. They’ll probably find the courage to come into town just to slit my belly open to avenge your death!”
Stella shook her head.
“They would! Everyone loves Poodle! They make fun of you, but they love you,” Dee said, wiping her face again. “Even I-I—” She pressed her lips together and turned away.
“I have an idea,” Stella said calmly.
Sniffling, Dee dragged the back of her hand across her nose. “You’re going to kill yourself now and get it over with, save me the pain? That sounds like something you’d do. You know, to be nice.”
Stella actually smiled. Someday she and Dee would have to go somewhere fun together, a girls’ trip to Vegas maybe. “I think you should leave Redfern,” she said.
Dee wiped her hand on her pants, then stared at her a moment. “I should what?”
“Not permanently—just tonight. And maybe tomorrow. To be safe.”
Dee kept staring at her as if she’d spoken gibberish.
“You’ve already shown you’re immune to some of the forces that affect the rest of us,” Stella said. “You’ve got that secret witch gene.”
Dee held up a hand. “Trust me, I’m not immune to moon fever. It’s so bad I think I’d fuck you if there wasn’t any other option.”
Stella couldn’t help but smile. Hopefully they could joke about that someday. “When you’re farther away from him, does the urge to… to—”
“Fuck?” she offered.
Stella fisted her hands. “Does it go away?”
“Maybe,” Dee said slowly. “A little, yeah.”
“There you go. You should run away. Right now.” Stella glanced up at the sky. The moon wouldn’t rise for several more hours. “Stay away from Jasper on Fever Night.”
Dee closed her mouth. A thoughtful frown formed on her brow. “Just… leave?”
“Yes,” Stella said firmly. “Just leave. Temporarily.” She could feel her wolf howling in appreciation. Mate. Ours. Mine.
When Dee didn’t refuse outright, Stella began to feel hopeful as her wolf. She pressed her lips together to give Dee time to think it through.
Please, Dee, she begged silently. Please leave. Leave him to me.
“When I see that moon,” Dee said finally, “I’m going to feel really, really desperate to get back here. One way or another, I’ll just come back.” She suddenly caught Stella’s hand and hugged it to her chest. “I’m so sorry, Stella. I know I will. I want him even more than I’m letting on.”
Stella uncurled her fingers and pressed her hand over Dee’s heart. She could feel its powerful beat under her ribs.
Dee was strong, so strong, but she did have her limits.
“You’re going to need help,” Stella agreed. “It has to be a shifter. Somebody as strong or stronger than you are. One with friends as backup.”
“But won’t I just end up, you know, jumping whatever wolf dude is there?” Dee asked. “I don’t want to be matched forever with anyone right now, but if I have to be, well, I want to stay in Redfern. And I could do worse than the alpha.”
Stella ran her tongue over her sharpening canines, fighting to control herself. “That’s why it can’t be a wolf dude,” she said slowly.
A spark of revulsion appeared on Dee’s face. She narrowed her eyes. “You don’t mean…”
Stella nodded. “You have to go to Simon DaSilva.”
Chapter
Thirty-Six
While Stella was gone, Jasper started to think about how unnatural it would be at Fever Night with your mate already at your side.
There was the human superstition about the bride and groom seeing each other before the wedding, and as he got out of the shower and put on a clean set of clothes, trying to choose something he thought Stella would find irresistible, he decided it would be best for them to follow the same tradition. There was no harm in grabbing all the good luck they could get.
Of course, given that she’d already left him alone, he was making lemonade out of a truckload of lemons he already had, but…
The Fates would be more likely to bless them if they at least pretended to be following the old ways. He’d arrive alone, desperate and hungry, and so would she. Under the moon, their eyes would meet, they’d feel the pull, the undeniable urge, and then—
They’d tie the knot. Consummate the match. Make it official.
End the nightmare and start the dream.
He combed his damp hair away from his forehead. It had gotten too long, and heavy strands fell in his eyes when he looked down. Looking in the mirror, he struck a pose and winked one blue eye.
What had she called him? The hottest guy in Redfern, the one everyone wanted?
Well, he didn’t care about everyone. He only cared about her.
He turned and combed his hair with the part on the other side. He wasn’t sure, but he thought it looked better. Sexier.
And then he changed his mind and combed it on the other side.
And then flung the comb across the bedroom and ran both hands through his hair, messing it up the way it always was.
Their fated bond wasn’t going to notice what side his hair was parted on. It just fed his hope that he could make his life what he wanted if he tried hard enough.
He could have Stella if he—
Messing up his hair again, he spun away from the mirror and strode out of the bedroom.
There was no if. He would have her.
He went into the kitchen, but there was still no sign of Ruby. Max had told him she’d left the property completely that morning, gone out of range of his cameras, and he’d said he couldn’t remember her ever having left before.
“She’s been a shut-in for decades, to tell you the truth,” Max had said. “She told me she had agoraphobia. I didn’t want to embarrass her by telling you. I wonder what happened. New therapy?”
The curse broke, Jasper thought. Ding, dong, the witch was free.
He looked at the clock. It was almost six. He rubbed his jaw, knowing the stubble would be back by midnight. It would be rough against her face when he kissed her. It would be rough on her neck… her belly… her inner thighs…
Enough. He had to move.
After instructing Max to tell Stella he’d be waiting for her at the clearing, he left the house and hiked into the forest.
Chapter
Thirty-Seven
After all her worries and all her scheming, Stella actually forgot to dress up for Fever Night. She’d been shocked to find Jasper gone when she got back to the house and then distracted by her hunger—the pie at the diner was the only food she’d eaten all day, and she just had to take care of that before facing another full moon. Anything could happen, and she had to be ready.
Dee had eventually agreed to leave Redfern, but there was no way to know if she’d actually have the willpower to drive her car away from Jasper—or stay there. So instead of primping, Stella had spent a few hours online going over fight moves for women in hand-to-hand combat. If there were websites for shifters learning strategy for fighting in animal form, she hadn’t been able to find them. Obviously, until now, she’d found the idea of violence repulsive, so she’d avoided anything that glorified the aggression of their kind. She’d had a lot of catching up to do.
With her mind rehearsing kicks and evasive maneuvers—she’d never win on strength—Stella hiked up through the darkness to face the Fates.
She’d eaten a piece of leftover lasagna, and now it formed a heavy lump in her stomach. And would it have killed her to have brushed her hair? It was short, but she wasn’t bald—it needed styling. She couldn’t shift just to avoid a bad hair day.
Combing it with her fingers, she inhaled the mountain air, trying to relax.
She’d done what she could. She would fight if she had to.
But she was breathtakingly nervous. Stopping between a gap in the trees, she looked up at the full moon, bright and round overhead, and tried to soak up its strength.
“I love him, and he loves me,” she said aloud. Silently she added, So fuck off and let me have him.
Feeling a little better, she resumed hiking.
The last time she’d walked through this stretch of forest, she’d been running for her life. Somewhere off in the undergrowth to her left was the tiny cocktail dress her father had made her wear. She wouldn’t know until tonight if that scrap of fabric had brought her good luck—or simply continued the bad.
She tripped over a root and fell to one knee. Brushing herself off, she reflected that cat shifters probably never tripped, even in human form.
She thought of the charming, generous Simon DaSilva, and felt hope. If anyone could stop a fierce, feverish wolf shifter like Dee, it was him—and never stop singing while he did it.
But she couldn’t let herself get complacent. Bringing her hands up into a defensive stance, Stella took the next turn in the trail and saw the flickering bonfire ahead.
It was oddly quiet. Usually on Fever Night there was talking, singing, laughing, shouting. Instead, all she heard was the distant pop and crackle of burning wood.
She wiped her sweaty palms on her jeans. She’d been prepared for a fight, but this made her nervous in a different way. Eyes wide, legs braced for a shift, she walked slowly into the clearing.
A few dozen familiar shifters stood silently around the bonfire, all in human form in various states of dressed and undressed, their hands clasped behind their backs—watching her.
Dee wasn’t among them, which was a relief. But something was wrong.
She’d been ready to go hand-to-hand like a gladiator in the Coliseum before a roaring, bloodthirsty crowd, and instead there was…
Reserved silence. It made her stop and look around, holding her breath.
It wasn’t normal. They looked so serious. Her heart began to pound as fast as a hummingbird’s wings.
“Stella,” Jasper said behind her.
She turned. He was right there, just a few feet away. He wore black, like last time, but the collar was unbuttoned; she could see the dark curls on his chest.
My mate, her wolf declared.
“What’s going on?” she asked, swallowing hard.
“What’s going on? It’s Fever Night,” he said. His gaze dropped down over her body, a slow smile forming on his lips. “I’m glad you wore that.”
“It’s the same thing I always wear,” she said. “The shiftable clothes. I still only have one set.”
“Well, I’m glad you wore that. You know why?”
He was looking at her as if wanted to eat her. “Why?” She was self-conscious about the pack staring, possibly judging her for not wearing something sexy or stylish.
He grinned, his teeth flashing in the bonfire light. “Because they disappear like magic.”
On the ground beside them, a pile of quilts and blankets had been laid out. Just like on any other Fever Night, the bedding was there for matched couples.
But they were the only couple. Everyone else was just standing there. She saw Dee’s parents, Oliver, Luis, teachers from school, the Russos, Rafe’s sisters, Max, Brittany, and more. She couldn’t see who was on the other side of the bonfire, but most had moved closer when she’d arrived.
She realized one reason it seemed so strange. Everyone there was from Redfern. “Where are the Riveras?” she asked, remembering the woman in the diner with her parents. Fever Night always included multiple packs; it was how their bloodlines stayed diverse and healthy.
