Free Crying for the Moon by Sarah Madison Page B

thoughts. No individual vampire was a match for a were pack on the hunt. He’d have to ask Nick when they arrived what he should expect. He wondered if he’d get a reasonable answer. In the few conversations he’d had with the pack over the past few days, he could hear the irritability and stress in their voices. Even Tish had been sharp and bitchy, which had astonished Alex at the time.
    He caught himself holding his breath when he heard the sound of Nick’s old van chugging up the drive. Stepping out onto the porch to watch it pull in, he glanced around anxiously for EPT and gave an internal sigh of relief when the cat was nowhere in sight.
    In a moment of whimsy during the summer, Nick had painted the dilapidated Chevy van to look like the Mystery Machine from the old Scooby Doo cartoons. The irony of this never failed to make Alex smile whenever he saw it. His amusement was short-lived tonight, however, when Nick’s pack spilled out of the van to stand in the driveway. A frisson of unease rippled through him as he watched the members of Nick’s pack make eye contact with one another and then silently approach him, letting Nick take point. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as he felt their collective lethality, as palpable in the air as the scent of blood after a kill.
    “Alex.” Nick’s voice was gruff, almost growling. He and the others stayed just out of the edge of the light thrown from the open door. Behind him, Alex could see Peter tipping his head back to sniff the air. The light caught his eye as he turned his head, and Alex saw the bright gold flare he normally associated with wildlife and car headlights.
    “So how does this work, Nick?” Alex asked, deliberately keeping his voice casual. “Maybe we should’ve talked about this earlier?”
    A flash of white teeth gleamed in the dark: Duncan, reacting to his statement. Exactly what that reaction was, amusement or anger, Alex couldn’t tell.
    “The moon will be up soon,” Tish said softly, her voice rich and sultry. Alex could feel the heat and sexual excitement in it and something stirred inside him as well. “When it does, it would be best if you stayed indoors. We’ll come back at dawn.”
    “Okay.” Alex frowned. “But I do have a request. There’s this one little cat—”
    Nick cut him off sharply. “It doesn’t work like that. If it runs, it’s prey. You know that, Alex.”
    “Are you saying you have no choice in the matter?” Alex knew he sounded belligerent and that wasn’t helping matters, but damn it, he had to try. “That you can’t choose your prey?”
    “If we’re sated, yes.” Duncan’s input was unexpected, and both Tish and Peter turned to look at him. “But when we first change, when the rush of the bloodlust is upon us, no.” It must have been his imagination, but he sounded a little regretful to Alex.
    Peter was shifting his weight on his feet, glancing alternatively at the sky and the forest behind them. He reminded Alex of EPT waiting for breakfast, and he felt a pang of impending loss. Stay away, little cat.
    “How’s about this?” Nick peeled off his shirt over his head and dropped it at his feet. He toed off his boots as he continued to speak, his words a slow and measured drawl. “We undress now and head out, putting as much distance between the house and us as possible. We were planning to go up on the mountain anyway. No sense in calling attention to ourselves by slaughtering Farmer Joe’s prize Holsteins.”
    He started unbuttoning his jeans. Behind him, the rest of the pack was following suit. The very casual nature of the disrobing was somehow mesmerizing, and Alex found himself wishing the moon would come out so that he could see the gleam of moonlight on all that bare skin before he realized how counterproductive that would be. He felt the heat of desire stirring inside him again, and he suddenly pictured Tate undressing in front of him instead.
    Tate, standing in front of the hearth,