Moon Dancer Read online

  Moon Dancer

  Moon Blind, Volume 2

  Aimee Easterling

  Published by Wetknee Books, 2019.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  MOON DANCER

  First edition. August 15, 2019.

  Copyright © 2019 Aimee Easterling.

  ISBN: 978-1393590675

  Written by Aimee Easterling.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  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

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  It came as a dream but felt like a vision. A wolf’s face in beaten copper, hollows where the eyes should have been. The hand I possessed—broad, ornamented with a ring of twisted fibers—slid the wolf mask into a tightly woven basket that bobbed along the edge of a barely illuminated stream.

  “...The old ways.” A male voice rumbled out of my chest. Quiet drumbeats almost drowned out our words.

  Something clenched inside me. My wolf, sleeping until then, woke and clawed at my insides.

  Pack. Find him....

  This was no time for lupine nonsense. I pushed the wolf down, analyzing the artifact that was being released into an underground watercourse.

  It was ancient. Even in the dim light, I could tell the mask had a story and belonged in a museum. Was it...?

  Before I could fully formulate the question, the artifact was lost into the wild. Like a stick dropped into a stream to race against another, the basket leapt free of our fingers and jumped forward out of reach.

  We didn’t try to stop it. Instead, we stood frozen while the roar of a not-so-distant waterfall was overwhelmed by a rising melody of chants and drumbeats. Weariness of age made our body tremble as the last flicker of copper disappeared into the darkness.

  “Come,” the man murmured. His voice was querulous. “We need you.”

  For one moment longer, we lingered. I couldn’t tell why the man whose body I inhabited wasn’t moving or who he’d been calling, but I understood my own intentions.

  It had been months since I’d visited the past in a vision. No wonder I reveled in the connection. What was this man about to reveal to me? What would...?

  We turned. Hit pause on a cell phone. The soundtrack halted mid-note.

  Wait, what?

  This wasn’t the prehistoric past. This was the technologically overpowering present.

  I woke to the blaring anger of a long-ignored alarm.

  THE FASTER I TRIED to button my white silk blouse, the more my fingers fumbled. No wonder since my nails kept lengthening into claws.

  “Cut it out,” I muttered, grabbing my keys and wallet and stealing one quick glance in the hall mirror. I needed to be on time. I needed to look professional...

  ...And I needed to rebutton my blouse. Because, despite my best efforts, I’d still managed to mismatch the rows.

  My day. My choice, the wolf inside me grumbled. She forced me to drop the car keys back into the bowl by the door then bent our body double until clean cuffs dragged against grubby floor tiles. Run. Hunt. Come, Adena.

  The raven responded to our body language with a caw and a rustle of feathers, hopping off the coat rack to land on our curved spine. Both bird and wolf were willing to blow off the most important lecture of the semester in favor of stalking rabbits in the empty lot three blocks over. Unlike me, they had no concerns about losing our job and winding up homeless when we failed to pay the bills.

  Wolves don’t need houses, my inner beast scoffed. Wolves need pack.

  “How about blood?”

  Hmmm?

  The body she commanded froze, knees pressing against unyielding floor tiles. We sank back onto our skirted bum, the welcome mat managing to scratch our skin despite the fabric in between.

  My wolf was listening.

  “Hot blood,” I elaborated, pressing my index fingernail against the pad of my thumb to measure sharpness. The claw had receded but my human nail was longer than it had been when we’d started our morning power struggle. Still, my nails weren’t so claw-like that I’d have to rush back to the bathroom and clip them. If the wolf accepted our humanity, we didn’t have to be late.

  “Salty. Tasty,” I continued. Testing my muscles, I rose into a more human posture. “Look.”

  Flicking open the drinking spout of the insulated coffee mug, at first I smelled nothing. Then, my wolf’s interest piqued.

  Colors dimmed. Scents sharpened. Saliva pooled in our shared mouth.

  I hurried through the locking of one door and unlocking of another. But my wolf didn’t stay distracted long.

  Now, she demanded as my hand made contact with the cool metal of the car door handle.

  I tried to clench my fingers sufficiently to pull up on the lever, but my left hand was the one that moved without my permission. The mug lifted to my lips. Drink, the wolf demanded.

  I couldn’t bait and switch, so I swallowed the thick liquid I’d bought in the butcher’s freezer section yesterday then primed in the microwave moments earlier. The notion of what I was sucking down repulsed me. The taste was vile.

  The wolf disagreed. Pleasure suffused us. Was she or I the one being strengthened by the liquid some poor cow had lost while being processed into hamburgers?

  The demand that followed was most definitely lupine. More.

  “Once we get there,” I countered. This time, I managed to slide into the car so we could speed toward campus. It was only a three-minute drive and my lecture wasn’t scheduled to begin for another four minutes. I wasn’t yet officially late.

  More! Furry fingers clenched around the steering wheel, swerving us sideways. The car’s fender narrowly missed a pedestrian, who yelled something I was glad was blocked by the closed window. Adena responded from the passenger seat with a round of avian swearing as I turned into the closest lot.

  “We’re almost there.” I needed both hands to park and grab my laptop case, but I rolled my tongue around in my mouth to capture the final molecules of blood.

  The effort was a sop to my wolf and she responded with a minuscule relaxation sufficient to allow me to exit the vehicle. Our knuckles were hairless—mostly. And I found myself able to juggle the mug and the laptop once Adena abandoned me in favor of her customary tree branch.

  Sunny March weather meant the raven preferred to stay outside while I lectured. My wolf had similar inclinations. But the salty liquid on my tongue soothed her. She hummed her satisfaction as I swallowed one last particle of blood.

  The bell tower chimed, knocking me off my stride. Shoot. I’d forgotten that my car clock ran two minutes slow.

  Sprinting, I clung to the mug while rebuttoning my blouse and trying not to let the laptop strap bounce off my shoulder. The halls were empty. Everyone must have already s
ettled into their seats.

  I burst through the door, gazing up at the packed lecture hall. My eyes slid over the back corner, hiccuped as my wolf struggled for dominance.

  She wanted to greet him. She wanted to lick him. She wanted to....

  Squashing her interest, I moved on to assess the room professionally.

  I was late, but the turnout was excellent. I could still make this appearance work.

  “Ah, here she is now.” The new department chair turned to greet me, only a faint twitching in her cheek denoting her disapproval of my tardiness. “Please give a warm welcome to Dr. Olivia Hart.”

  The clapping was effusive. I smiled then leaned over the nearby table, setting down my bag in preparation for hooking my laptop up to the projector.

  And my wolf pounced.

  “Blood.” Her words. My mouth. A titter from the audience.

  Not now! This time I was the one speaking silently. She was the one grabbing the travel mug and upending it over our tilted face.

  Ruby red liquid poured out the hole in the top, glinting in reflected sunlight before gushing over our taste buds. Most we swallowed—after all, the wolf thought this treat was delicious. But some overflowed onto our chin, the table, the neck of our blouse.

  White no longer, my work attire was now streaked with crimson. I glanced down, cheeks heating at the way blood puddled between my breasts.

  This wasn’t how I’d intended my lecture to start.

  Chapter 2

  The wolf had drunk with wild abandon. But she was a predator. Even while reveling in cow blood, she hadn’t closed her eyes.

  So I was privy to the reactions of the audience. Surprise. Disgust. Bewilderment.

  The cluster of archaeology faculty two rows back vibrated with consternation. This open-to-the-public lecture was meant to draw new students into our department. My actions would surely drive our existing students away to biology or math.

  The Archaeology Club was more forgiving. My former-student-turned-teaching-assistant Patricia cocked her head as if waiting for the punchline. She whispered something to the blond freshman beside her. A cascade of nods fluttered down the line, ending with a pencil-stick drumbeat from the pimply boy on the end.

  Between the two extremes, audience members I was unfamiliar with exuded pheromones that tantalized my wolf-assisted senses. Confusion. Excitement. The slick sweetness of fear.

  I swallowed hard. Or rather, my wolf swallowed. We licked blood off our lips, raised our hand to wipe our chin, then sucked on our fingertips.

  We didn’t try to erase the streak of red across the top of our formerly pristine blouse. There was nothing to be done about that so it was better ignored.

  Instead, we turned to face the audience member I’d been avoiding, the only person my wolf was interested in. Claw.

  He perched at the edge of a seat at the rear of the lecture hall, flanked by familiar werewolves. The others were overlookable, but Claw was tall, broad, glowering.

  Magnificent.

  No wonder my wolf advanced a single step in his direction. Our joint body vibrated with interest. She acted for all the world as if—three months after Changing—we were still very much caught in the fickle attraction of the moon blind.

  If so, moon blindness had its advantages. My animal half was so intent upon Claw that she forgot to fight me for control of our shared body. She didn’t notice when I grabbed her tail with intangible fingers and yanked.

  I struggled not to gag as furry feet slid down my gullet and into my stomach. My eyes bulged as her claws scraped against the underside of my skin.

  But now I was in charge and she wasn’t. Time to salvage the lecture.

  “Blood,” I repeated, this time speaking my own mind rather than responding to the wolf’s yearning. “Blood was one of the binders added to rock powders to help colors adhere to cave walls.”

  I plugged the HDMI cable into the side of my laptop, hit a button, then relaxed as prehistoric art glowed into life on the screen behind me.

  “Blood-red ochre was used ceremonially for tens of thousands of years across several continents. Also known as iron oxide, the pigment was painted onto cave walls, used in ceremonial burials, and streaked across bodies, weapons, and animal skins.”

  I dipped my fingers into the blood puddling in the indentation atop my collarbone, used the drying liquid to streak quick lines across my brow and cheekbones.

  Now the cascade of red around me wasn’t horrifying; it was intentional. Was this how the first shamanism had started—klutziness saved from ignominy with a little stagecraft?

  Warm air swirled around my nostrils. The audience was relaxing. As my faux pas faded, I segued straight into Patricia’s promised punchline.

  “For hunters, blood was instantly familiar,” I continued. “Drop a caveman in this lecture hall and he’d know I merely spilled my morning tomato juice.”

  AFTERWARDS, THE STUDENTS mobbed me with questions and effusions. But my wolf slid past so quickly her act bordered on rudeness. What did students matter when Claw was present? Without wasting time on apologies, we took the stairs to the back of the lecture hall two at a time.

  All three werewolves rose as I approached them. The gesture might have been respectful, but it felt more like intimidation. I tensed, fully expecting a mean-spirited comment from one of Claw’s companions.

  After all, Theta was dour by nature and Harry hated me because I’d lost him the job of presidential protector. Both were strong, hard, and capable. No wonder they found it frustrating to cool their heels in a small college town.

  Claw was their alpha, however, so where he went they followed. Now, they let their leader do the talking for the group.

  “Olivia.” Claw’s voice was as sweetly seductive as the cloud of butterscotch surrounding him.

  “Claw.” I breathed the word as I relived our most recent conversation. For weeks, I’d avoided this werewolf who turned my inner beast unruly. But three days ago we’d all been invited to the White House for a formal thank-you from our President.

  There, Claw had finally drawn me aside and forced the conversation I’d been trying to escape.

  “What you and Val want,” he growled, “is an abomination.”

  “I have to do this.”

  “At least hunt with the pack one more time before you make a final decision.”

  “I’m trying to cut that tie, not strengthen it.”

  “You think starving your wolf will make her leave you?”

  “I’m not starving her. I’m segregating her.”

  “That’s the exact same thing.”

  His eyes had said I was an idiot, but his mouth remained silent. We’d left it at that. Or I had.

  Since then, Claw kept showing up just beyond speaking distance. In the cafeteria when I met with a student interested in a career in archaeology. At the edge of my vision when I walked home on a day too warm to be stuck in a vehicle. Outside my bedroom window just before I closed the shades for the night.

  His silent presence should have been creepy. But Claw met my eyes, raised his brows, accepted my silent refusal to budge on my decision.

  Rather than a stalker, he was a sentinel guarding a recently Changed werewolf. He disapproved of my decision, but he wouldn’t try to force the issue. Instead, he watched, waited, expressed his willingness to help if I lost the battle with my inner beast.

  Now, he took a single step forward. His lips parted—for a kiss or a comment?

  I never knew, because Claw’s languid grace shifted into alertness as his eyes flicked up and over my shoulder. Behind you, my wolf warned unnecessarily.

  I whirled, taking in the grandmotherly form of Dr. Inez Sanora, the new department chair. She was one inch shorter than I was, her long gray hair twisted into an unremarkable bun. But her tone reminded me less of a fairy-tale grandmother and more of the big, bad wolf.

  “When you have a moment, I’d like to speak with you.”

  Apparently my joke about tomato j
uice hadn’t hoodwinked everyone.

  “SO,” DR. SANORA STARTED once we were settled in her office. “What’s going on?”

  She didn’t smile. She never smiled around anyone except students. But her dark brown eyes were warm and non-judgmental. This was my chance to spill my guts.

  I didn’t, of course. Dropping my gaze to her empty desk blotter, I redirected into an apology. “I’m sorry I was late and unprofessional. I overslept my alarm....”

  “I don’t mean today. I’m referring to your recent pattern of behavior.”

  I winced, fully aware that I hadn’t been giving my students the undivided attention they both paid for and deserved. Unfortunately, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and all weekend, my wolf consumed me. Which meant coming to the university on an off day—like I had this morning—was a recipe for disaster.

  Before I found a way to voice that problem in a human-friendly manner, Dr. Sanora lost patience with my silence. “What was your purpose in becoming a professor?” She leaned forward. Her head cocked. This wasn’t a rhetorical question. She really wanted to know.

  “I...” It was hard to explain. I’d felt so alone as a child. Teachers had been my lifeline. I wanted to offer that same connection to those I taught.

  Voicing that reasoning aloud sounded pitiful, however. So I went with the obvious instead.

  “Archaeology is my passion. I want to share the past with scientists of the future.”

  Dr. Sanora’s lips pursed and she hummed noncommittally. “Good words, but your actions don’t support them.” She pushed a sheaf of papers toward me and I barely had time to skim the first line before she continued. “I’ve received complaints from half a dozen students who are unable to stay late at night to find a spot in your office hours. They love you when you’re present, but you rarely are.”

  Ungrateful brats. My wolf didn’t need to read the anonymized emails to come to her conclusion. I wriggled my butt against the seat cushion to remind her now was not the time to sprout a tail.