Hunter's Moon

me people would be afraid. Then after they died, you pulled me out of my special school, and I was too afraid to tell you.” Her eyes met mine as a tear slid down her cheek. “I thought you might send me away. When I got older, I got better at controlling it, so I never said anything.”

I cupped her cheek. “I never would have sent you away.”

Lana crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s probably wise your parents told you to keep it secret. Nero’s been experimenting with psychic females for their breeding program.”

Beside me Aren stirred and sat forward again. “What kind of special school were you in?”

“Brightwood Academy.”

I nodded, trying to swallow my fear about the news Lana just shared. “It was a school for gifted kids, but after our folks were killed, I pulled her out and moved across town. I didn’t want whoever murdered our parents to find us.”

“It was more than that.” Nadya’s voice was so soft I barely heard her.

I frowned. “What?”

Her eyes met mine, before looking at the others. “It was a school for children who display unexplained psychic gifts.”

My jaw went slack. “That’s not what I understood.”

“They didn’t advertise the types of gifts. You just assumed it was for reading and writing.”

“So you are psychic?” I tried not to sound betrayed, but I felt like the rug had been yanked out from under me. I’d raised Nadya from the time she was ten years old. How could she have kept such a huge secret from me?

“Calling someone psychic is really generic.” Nadya fidgeted with the sleeves of her sweatshirt, sliding them up her forearms slightly. “Like I said, I can touch people and sense things about them, usually their emotions, but sometimes deeper things. It depends how open they are.”

“Like reading their mind?” Adam asked.

“It’s not that clear.” Nadya shrugged. “It depends on the person, but I usually get images I have to decipher.”

“When I hugged you, you saw what I was, didn’t you?” I had to ask even thought the answer seemed obvious. I needed to understand how it all worked.

“Not exactly. You behaved differently, and I saw a jaguar, but I didn’t realize people could actually shift into animals. I wasn’t sure what it meant.” She paused and added, “How did you get bitten?”

“I got mixed up with the wrong guy.” Admitting it out loud was like tattooing idiot on my forehead. I got up, crossing my arms. “I think we have bigger issues to talk about now, though.”

Lana nodded. “We need to discuss how you want to handle your sister with the Pack.”

“Handle?”

Adam nodded. “Now that Gareth and Jason know you’re involved with Aren and in this mess with the werewolf bounty hunter, the rest of the Pack will find out soon, if they don’t know already. For now, they think Nadya’s a nanny to help Lana with the twins. But it’s only a matter of time until they notice the similarities and the timing of Nadya coming into our lives. I think we should come clean with the rest of the Pack.”

My chest constricted. Was I going to have to explain to Nadya why the entire Pack hated me? As if he sensed my wariness, Aren got up beside me.

“No.” Aren shook his head. “We need everyone focused on Fonthill. If we bring up Nadya’s family history, it’s going to cause more drama we don’t have time for.”

I watched Adam weighing the decision. As the Alpha of the Pack, it couldn’t be easy for him to lie to them, but Aren had a good point.

Eventually Adam nodded and stood up. “You’re probably right.” He turned toward Nadya. “Until this is over, you’re just our nanny.” My sister agreed and Adam went on. “Is there anything about your gift that we could use to help us in this mess?”

“Not unless I touched him.” Nadya laced her fingers together, keeping her eyes on her hands.

The thought of Fonthill touching my sister made my skin crawl. “I’m doing all I can to keep that from happening.”

Aren glanced at his brother. “What if the Pack figures out who Nadya really is? I noticed the family resemblance right away.”

“We’ll deal with it if it comes. For now, we’ve got enough on our plates.” Adam focused on Nadya. “You understand you can never tell anyone about werewolves and jaguar shifters, right?”

Nadya chuckled. “Like anyone would believe me.” She sobered and met his eyes. “I’ve kept my secret my whole life. I won’t have any trouble keeping yours.”

Adam started to smile. “Fair enough.”

I hugged my sister and kissed her cheek. “When this is over, we’ll talk, okay?”

“Definitely.” She stared into my eyes. “Be careful.”

“I will.”

I watched her as she made her way down the hall to check on the twins. No wonder she’d always been so good with children. It never occurred to me that she might know what they needed even if they couldn’t tell her.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Aren

While I haggled with Adam and Sasha over some sort of plan to take care of Fonthill, I noticed Lana hunched over her laptop. Her fingers moved in flurries over the keyboard, and her expression went from concerned, to intrigued, and finally to frustration.

Someone knocked at the front door before I could ask her what she found. My shoulders tensed. It was after eleven o’clock at night, past bedtime for door-to-door salesmen and religious missionaries. I gestured to my brother to stay put, my instinct to protect my Alpha kicking into high gear, and headed for the door.

I recognized the scent before I reached for the handle and opened the door a crack.

“Sebastian.” I glanced past him. “Alone?”

“Until you alert the neighborhood,” he grumbled.

I stepped aside to allow him in, keeping myself between the jaguar and Adam. “What brings you here?” Sebastian’s dark eyes locked with Sasha’s and a surge of jealousy stabbed my chest. “I asked you a question.”

He finally turned my way. “I have information, but I would be happy to walk out of the door and cease putting my own life in jeopardy.”

“Wait.” Lana got up from her chair. “Please, come in.”

I followed him into the room, kind of hoping he would make a move so I could beat the crap out of him. Sebastian took Lana’s hand and kissed her knuckles in a cheesy gesture that went out of style a hundred years ago.

“Motherhood agrees with you, Little One.” He turned toward Sasha. She brought her hands up to her hips before he could reach for her, making me smile. He straightened up. “It is good to see you, too, Sasha. Living among wolves hasn’t improved your manners.”

“Spare me, Sebastian.” She rolled her eyes. “You risked a lot to come here. Spill it.”

He raised a brow. “‘A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed one too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.’”

Lana moved back around her laptop. “Percy Shelley, right? Mary Shelley’s husband?”

“Like Frankenstein’s Mary Shelley?” I shook my head, ready to knock the information loose if he didn’t stop speaking in cryptic poetry.

“Exactly.” He focused on Sasha. “I located a file on the Lycan Squad experiments.”

I glared at Sebastian. “So what did you find?”

He kept his attention on Sasha and Lana. “The government had a top-secret contract with Nero. A program