Under the Moon (Goddesses Rising) Read online

  “I get not wanting to start a panic, but they can’t sit on the knowledge. People have to know. It’s bad enough Tanda and Chloe had no warning.”

  “They’re probably trying to avoid being bombarded,” Sam said. “They’ve got to have their hands full. This is way beyond pamphlets and PR.”

  “I guess.” But Quinn still didn’t agree with their methods. After a moment of hesitation, she added a line to the e-mail asking if anyone had heard about a leech and clicked send.

  Sam bounced his pen against his pad. “How does someone become a leech, anyway?” He directed the question at Nick. “I mean, not just anyone can do it, right? Or everyone would.”

  “Not a lot of people know goddesses,” Nick said. “So not everyone would.” He crossed a leg over his knee and stretched his arms over his head before bracing his hands behind his neck. The heat in Quinn’s belly spread and added bite. She stared at the computer screen and clicked refresh on her e-mail in-box, waiting for her body to subside so she could tune back into the guys’ conversation.

  “When was the last time a leech actually existed?”

  Sam’s question was rhetorical. There hadn’t been a leech in their lifetime. Goddess fairy tales abounded with leeches instead of trolls and witches or the specter of nuclear war. Parents lumped leeches in with child abductors, piggybacking warnings with lessons about not talking to strangers. But they never discussed how a leech came to be. Quinn hadn’t even known until she met Nick. As a protector, he had extensive training in all possible threats.

  “So?” Sam scowled at Nick, then at Quinn. “Why are you avoiding the question?”

  Nick raised one eyebrow at Quinn. She sighed. “A leech can only exist if a goddess bestows power on him.”

  “What?” Sam sat up sharply. “They can do that? You can do that?”

  “Yeah, but…no, not me. But some goddesses, yes.” Quinn hunched her shoulders a little. “Not like donating blood or something. It’s tied into her abilities, I guess, and the recipient has to be male and receptive.”

  “Who wouldn’t be receptive?” Sam asked. When Nick and Quinn both looked at him, he made an “oh, come on” face. “I’m not saying I would. I mean—”

  “Receptive as in physically capable,” Quinn said. “And there’s no way to test for that or anything. Right?” she confirmed with Nick.

  “As far as I know. But it’s not like anyone teaches this stuff. No one wants it to happen. The legend is that she can only give power to a man, and since he won’t be a natural vessel, he’ll have to constantly reacquire it. So he becomes—”

  “A leech.” Sam blew out a breath. “Okay. So a goddess had to have started this.”

  Quinn didn’t say anything. She had no idea of the actual process involved and wasn’t sure she’d understand it if she did. Goddesses were vessels for energy, similar to batteries but with only short-term storage. Each goddess had a different capacity and manifestation, so she supposed some had the ability to transfer power to a vessel with the capacity to receive it.

  She hated the idea of any goddess she knew doing such a thing. They didn’t come into their power or even know what would feed it until they hit age twenty-one. Because their life expectancy was higher than a normal human’s, they weren’t fully mature, and fully connected to the world’s energy, until then. The whole process of determining the source and training to channel the energy was different for every person and meant a long learning curve. Who would go through all of that and then give some of it up? Who wouldn’t care about the damage they could do if they created a leech?

  The more immediate concern, she decided, was determining who was next so they could prevent it. Stop the leech, then find who’d created him.

  Sam seemed to be going down the same road she was. “Quinn, does the roster list details about the goddesses? Like power source, age, stuff like that?”

  She shook her head. “That’s kept in a database at headquarters in Boston, but general members don’t have access.”

  “You’re the board’s secretary, though, not a general member.”

  “Good point.” Quinn leaned over to access the computer. “I’ll see what I can get.”

  “Tanda’s your age, right, Quinn?” Nick drummed his fingers on the desk.

  “A year younger.” She entered her officer code and password to access the Society’s protected web pages. “Chloe’s older than us, by maybe six or seven years.” Midthirties to maybe fiftyish would be the ideal age span for leeching. Leeching a young goddess would be like eating celery to put on weight—more effort was expended than benefit gained.

  Quinn logged into the live forums and saw that Alana, the Society’s executive director, was online. She IMed her a request for access to the database. Alana responded immediately.

  ED: Why do you need it?

  QUINN C: We’re trying to track the leech.

  She watched the screen for a few minutes. Alana didn’t respond. She felt Nick and Sam looking at her and glanced up. “I’m working on it.”

  The computer chimed.

  ED: The board and security team are in charge of the investigation. Your assistance is not required.

  There was the sound of a door closing and the screen read, ED has gone offline, 11:22 p.m.

  “Shit.” Quinn stared at the screen, stunned and a little hurt at the abrupt cut-off.

  “Well?”

  She slapped the lid down and bounced back in her chair. “Nothing. She said the board and security team are investigating and they don’t need our assistance.” She busied herself crumpling up scrap paper, but Nick guessed what she was thinking anyway.

  “They heard about me going rogue and know you’re mine.”

  “Tell me again what that means?” Sam sounded exasperated.

  “We don’t know!” Quinn and Nick said together.

  Sam shook his head, looking disgusted. “Don’t you think we’d better figure it out? Or why this goddess you’ve never met would say it?”

  “I dunno, maybe she’s got a hard-on for Quinn.” Nick swung to face her. “Maybe she’s the one who created the leech, and she wants to get rid of me so you’re vulnerable. Which would make you an immediate target.”

  It was too logical to refute. “Maybe.”

  Sam, who’d been packing his computer into his tote, paused. “I should stay here tonight, then.”

  “Hell, no.” Nick swung himself upright and clapped a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “You know I’ve got it covered. Besides, you two keep saying she can’t be leeched until full moon.”

  He slid out from under Nick’s hand. “It can’t hurt to have another set of eyes and ears here.”

  “It’s okay,” Quinn said to stave off a fight. “I really believe nothing’s going to happen tonight. Go home and get some sleep.”

  Sam slung his bag over his shoulder, looking unhappy. “I’ll make sure they don’t need me out front. Let me know tomorrow if you come up with anything brilliant.” He didn’t look back as he left.

  Nick flashed his crooked grin at her. “Alone at last.”

  “Shut up.” Her fatigue had grown exponentially over the last hour. The only blessing was that it overwhelmed the residual hunger. Sam’s exit had deflated all the tension, too, and the relief left Quinn’s muscles as lax as her brain.

  Well, she didn’t know everyone’s age or power source, but she knew some. It wouldn’t hurt to write those, at least. She picked up the roster to make notes in each record.

  Nick watched her for a few minutes. “You look exhausted.”

  Quinn shot him a glare. “That’s probably because I am. It’s the end of the cycle,” she reminded him. “I’ll be okay.”

  “Why didn’t you recharge?” He toed off his boots, the action serving to add casualness to the question. “Isn’t that part of Sam’s job?”

  “No,” she snapped. “It’s not.”

  Nick didn’t move, but Quinn swore his entire body had tightened. “Since when?”

  “
Why do you want to know?”

  “Why won’t you answer me?”

  Both their tones remained mild, but undercurrents surged. Quinn couldn’t face this now, not after last night’s emotional turmoil and today’s revelations.

  “It’s none of your business, Nick.”

  He drew in a breath. “Yeah, you’re right.” With a groan, he stretched until his fingers scraped the low ceiling. “I’m beat. You mind if I head to bed?”

  “No, go ahead. You know where things are.”

  “Yeah.”

  She flipped a page, skimmed the list, and made a couple more notes. Nick didn’t leave. She waited, but he just stood, the air heavy with everything he didn’t say.

  Finally, he moved away. “Good night, Quinn.”

  “Night, Nick.”

  When he closed the office door, she laid the roster on her desk and drew a deep breath of her own.

  She hadn’t wanted to admit it, but Alana’s response rattled her as much as everything else tonight. Maybe more. The leech threat was general, and even the “Nick is rogue” thing wasn’t about her. But Quinn was used to being in the midst of everything the Society did. Barbara Valiant, the president—who Quinn suspected was over a hundred years old—often consulted with her to get the “younger generation’s perspective.” Quinn had served on a dozen national committees since she’d turned twenty-one, ran the Ohio chapter for four years, and was finishing her second term on the board. When she went to meetings in Boston, she always had dinner with Alana, whom she’d thought was a friend. Her abrupt dismissal didn’t compute.

  Unless they’d not only heard Nick had gone rogue, they believed it.

  And they thought Quinn was involved.

  Chapter Three

  Fear and ignorance have always put Society members in danger. This reality spawned the Protectorate, an ancient organization of bodyguards, discrete from the Society, self-governed and autonomous and funded by a centuries-old wealth managed in trust. Any goddess away from the source of her power who may be a target of those who want to do harm will be assigned a protector.

  —The Society for Goddess Education and Defense, New Member Brochure

  …

  Quinn tried, but despite her exhaustion, she couldn’t sleep very long. There had never been any question that they would try to stop this guy. Nick hadn’t bothered to suggest they hole up so he could bar the door and keep her safe. Sam had automatically gone into investigative mode. She knew their priority was still keeping the leech away from her, but none of them wanted anyone else to be harmed.

  Every time she started to doze, her brain woke her with a new angle, so finally she got up and returned to the computer. She spent hours doing research, both online and in some of the historical archives on the Society website, trying to figure out what “rogue” meant in the context of either goddesses or protectors. There wasn’t much about rogue goddesses. They documented the birth and progress of every known goddess and, since one was born an average of once every year and a half, it wasn’t difficult to do. Lineages made it unlikely that a new goddess would escape the notice of the Society. If a goddess was unable to pay her Society dues, a sustenance fund covered it.

  Quinn knew a few goddesses who disdained the politics of the organization, and a few more who preferred a freer existence, but they all still maintained minimum levels of membership to stay part of the Society’s community. In the last hundred years, three goddesses who had problems with the Society had been labeled rogue. Only one had gone on to do things that went against their general moral code.

  Quinn supposed that would be hard for regular people to believe. Goddesses were all about power, after all, and power corrupts. But as far back as goddess history went, the abilities that came with their heritage had been accompanied by compassion and wisdom. Goddesses were rare; goddesses doing harm even more so, and those that did were quickly taken care of. Gods were nonexistent. Some claimed men hadn’t learned the lessons of corruption and therefore eliminated their line of descent long ago. Quinn didn’t quite believe that. Goddesses were still human, and there were plenty of normal women who were corrupt.

  Others thought one or more of the “original” goddesses, who’d had much greater abilities in a world unpolluted and not yet depleted of resources, had deliberately eliminated the gods’ ability to procreate. No one knew for sure.

  Regardless, even in the information Quinn had found about the rogue goddesses, there’d been no mention of rogue protectors. Maybe the Protectorate archives contained something, but of course Quinn didn’t have access. She wasn’t sure if Nick did, but he was treating the whole thing so lightly, she didn’t trust him to check.

  She needed to go to Boston.

  …

  “I don’t know why we can’t take the Charger, that’s all.” Nick slammed the driver’s door and unlocked the trunk. After handing Quinn her duffel, he unloaded his pockets into the trunk’s storage case. She counted two pistols and three knives.

  “Because I don’t want to take three days to travel,” she said. Again.

  “You wouldn’t be driving. It would be no more than twelve hours there, twelve back, tops. That’s barely a day.”

  “I’m in a hurry.” She swung her bag over her shoulder and headed toward the terminal. “What’s your problem with flying, anyway?”

  “It’s not the being-in-the-air part—”

  “Let me guess. It’s takeoffs and landings.”

  “Nope. It’s the lack of viable escape routes.” He held out a hand to stop a cab so they could cross to the terminal. “Kinda hard to protect you when there’s nowhere to go.”

  Quinn smiled. “Great, you can relax. There won’t be anything to protect me from.”

  “Never let down your guard.” He moved ahead of her to scope out the counters. Midafternoon, midweek, the crowd wasn’t too bad. Nick stood watch while Quinn used their e-tickets to check them in at the self-service kiosk, and he maintained his vigilance through security and down the concourse.

  “Nick, please,” Quinn protested after he made yet another three-hundred-and-sixty-degree spin. “I feel like we’re on a stealth attack for the U.S. military.”

  He glared at her but settled down. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

  “I know. But I have to go.” She slowed as they approached their gate, noting the line of people stretching away from the boarding pass scanner and spilling out onto the main concourse. The gate attendant announced boarding for their flight, all rows, and they joined the line, slowly moving forward.

  Quinn handed over her boarding pass, waited for the attendant to run it through the scanner, and continued down the Jetway. She was on the plane before she realized Nick wasn’t right behind her. The attendant glared when she tried to go back, so she found her seat, stowed her carry-on bag, and settled in, feeling the seconds tick by into minutes before he appeared at the front of the plane.

  “Problem?” she asked when Nick appeared, scowling, three disgruntled-looking passengers following him down the aisle.

  “Damned pass wouldn’t scan.” He zipped his duffel, tossed a book onto his seat next to Quinn, and straightened. “I’m gonna do a quick walk-through. Stay here.”

  “Will do.”

  She picked up his book, surprised to see an old Dean Koontz horror novel. Nick wasn’t the reading-for-pleasure type. She tried to think of what he usually did during downtime, but there hadn’t been much. When he was with her he was always on alert, always engaged either with her or the people around them. The realization that after so many years there might still be things she didn’t know about Nick Jarrett was unnerving.

  As soon as the thought crossed her mind, she rejected it. Reading preferences aside, he was no stranger to her. She knew well his need to be in control, his surface amusement at everyone and everything around him, his snap judgments about people. She understood his compassion, the legacy he followed. He did the job he did because of a deep nobility, something he’d deny but t
hat had been the foundation of the wall they’d set between them. A wall introduced by his words but bricked by her own distance.

  A few moments later, he dropped into his seat and held out his hand for the book. “Full flight.”

  “Anything suspicious?”

  “Nope. Ninety percent business people, ten percent frazzled families.”

  “Exactly what I would pretend to be, were I after me.” She handed him the book. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you read.”

  “You’re gonna sleep most of the flight. I need something to do.” He tucked the book into the pocket in front of him, then tilted toward her to dig underneath him for his seat belt. His scent rushed through her, spiking her in place with his hard chest and broad shoulders only inches away. The burn faded slowly after he sank into his seat.

  “So.” He turned his attention back to her. “Who are we seeing in Boston?”

  Quinn had spent the day shopping, packing, and leaving instructions for her staff. “I thought Sam would have told you.”

  Nick snorted. “Sam doesn’t tell me squat. What?” He shrugged at her disbelief. “I’m competition. Guys don’t help the competition.”

  “You’re not,” Quinn said without thinking. Nick’s mouth quirked in his familiar half smile, but before he could say anything more on the topic, she changed it. “I need to see Alana in person. Something’s up, and she won’t tell me online or over the phone.”

  “Aren’t you going to see her next week for the meeting?”

  “We can’t wait until next week.” She didn’t tell him about her growing uneasiness. He’d think it was fear of the leech, and it wasn’t, really. The leech was frightening on the level of hurricanes and car crashes—he may never come after her. But Jennifer’s e-mail and Alana’s IM blow-off were more personal, the reasons more unknown, and that was scarier. Quinn was afraid waiting a week would allow the chasm the Society was building around her and Nick to be too deep to overcome.