Mrs. Wallace was still coming to the bench outside The Teacup every dark morning. She was the only customer who did. Everyone else knew there was no way the day vamps were coming back anytime soon while the night endured.
I’d got some I.V. drips and fed blood to Lucy and Polly to keep them sustained. That was all I could do while they slept on.
And still had no katanas and no Cindy!
I went to sit with Mrs. Wallace, bringing some tea and brownies. G joined us too.
“How are you this morning?” I asked.
“Still hopeful,” she said. “I know this is only a blip.”
“Yeah. It must be.”
“You’re kind boys, both of you. There’s no need to sit here with a silly old lady like me.”
“You’re not silly,” I said. “We both like your company.”
She sipped her tea from my china cup. “Are you boyfriends?”
I looked to G, who chuckled. “No, Mrs. Wallace,” he said.
“That’s a shame.”
I suppressed a frown.
“Do you miss America?” she asked the wolf.
“Sometimes,” he replied. “But my life is here for now.”
For now? What the hell did that mean? Oh! He might be up for doing a runner. But then why would he go with me?
“I always wanted to visit as a girl,” Mrs. Wallace said. “But life got in the way.”
“Maybe one day,” Gabriel offered kindly.
“I’m far too old for that business now,” she countered and took a bite of her brownie. When she finished her mouthful, she said, “These are wonderful.”
“Aw, thanks.”
“You see? There is still some joy in the world, even when times are as scary as these.”
“Happiness in a cake,” Gabriel joined in.
“Why not?” she said and took another bite.
* * *
I was dreaming of petals in the snow again, frustrated by the white noise. That was until some words started coming through.
“Akira…” a female voice said.
“Hello?” My heart rate went up. “Holy shit! Hello?”
“Akira.” Her voice was echoey and a bit creepy.
“Who’s there?”
There was no one out in the snowy dark.
“Hello?” I repeated.
“Akira.”
“Yeah! That’s me! Who are you?”
“Akira…you…four moons will you know…change…break…moon.”
“I don’t understand. Can’t you tune yourself in or something?” Screw this dream and this cryptic bullshit. Why was this woman sticking to the rules of frequency? “Come on! You need to give me more.”
“Mazoku…blocked…finding…”
Okay, from that, I got that the mazoku were blocking her. Fine. They were wankers. “Can you—”
Boom. Just like that, I shot up awake in bed.
“Ah, shite!” I barked and checked my phone.
It was seven in the morning of the never-ending night.
Right. Time to think about the dream. Four moons. Something was going to break. The moon was going to break? Change was coming, and the mazoku were in the way of the full story. I took out a notepad from the drawer in my bedside cabinet and jotted it down.
What did it all mean?
“Aki?” Gabriel called from the kitchen. He’d been staying over here, both of us insisting we stayed here and not at his penthouse. That wasn’t home, and I had to look after Lucy and Polly. My dad had allowed it, having wolf guards posted out on the street twenty-four hours a day.
“Yeah?” I answered.
“Thought I heard you,” he said. “Would you like some tea?”
“Please.”
It was time to tell him about the dreams, to put this info together. Okay, it didn’t make sense, but it was about the moon. All of this pointed at the moon. At least we had a starting point.
Yeah, a really fucking confusing one!
Chapter One
These new katanas sucked greasy balls.
Yeah, they did the job of slicing and dicing well enough, but they weren’t the same as my two energy-sucking beauties I’d lost. Shame, I couldn’t bounce over to Japan and track down that swordsmith geezer, Ryoka Takeda, and get him to whip me up some more. Tough luck, though. The man was a mega recluse. Probably lived in some mountain cave somewhere.
Still, a boy could dream.
My arms were crossed, blades resting on each shoulder of the banshee. He was panting, missing some teeth thanks to some kicks to the gob from me. Proper roughed up.
“End of the line, bruv,” I told him and brought my swords together like they were the most hardcore scissors in the world. Had to move fast with these dicks. They’d scream and send you on your arse, and then you’d have that whole issue with their long nails trying to slice your body open.
His head rolled and bounced down the slope of dry earth.
A scream, the good old mega high-pitched banshee howl, and Gabriel (a.k.a. G) came whizzing past me, tumbling down the slope. He almost took a dive into the mucky river that ran under the huge concrete flyover above our heads, vehicles roaring across, oblivious to the violent shit going on beneath them.
The Krystals, a dynasty of celebrity banshees, were out for blood, my name at the top of their hit list. Actually, I was probably the only name on that list seeing as I’d taken down Daria, a reality TV star, on a previous hunting job. She’d murdered someone else’s man, and I’d been hired to take her power so someone else could torture the fuck out of her, then probably end her when they got bored.
I was only doing my job. Had to pay the bills. But now these fuckheads were a serious thorn in my booty cheeks.
How the hell were there so many of them in that family? What were they, half-rabbit? They seemed to breed like it!
The dead guy was some hanger-on, and this woman who’d sent G down the slope was some executive producer. She’d been stalking me, even went off on me in a kebab shop when all I’d wanted was doner meat and some chips after too much beer a couple of nights ago.
Bitch. Trying to kill my vibe like that. Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have got tanked up in these dangerous times, but a guy needed some fun now and again.
“You!” She pointed at me. “Look at my outfit.”
Uh-huh. “Why wear designer shit when you’re coming at me? And white? Serious balls up there.”
She was covered in dirt and blood. Probably thought this was gonna be smooth. Hadn’t she got the memo after I’d killed the last four of her family members? Okay, fine. G had taken down two. Call it a draw.
I dove out of the way as she launched herself at me. Forward roll, spring back up to my feet again. Boom.
She screamed as I spun, and back I went. Rather than a heavy landing, I managed to do a backward roll, while annoyingly dropping my swords, and ended up in a crouch.
G was on his feet. He shifted into wolf form—fur of jet black, his eyes a blazing gold. His blue tracksuit and trainers were nothing but shreds beneath his paws. The shift was quick, but he’d told me once it hurt like hell. Didn’t ever look like it did, though. G was too hardcore to show it. Plus, well, he was the beta. Had to keep up the bad-arse aura.
He let out a howl of his own, distracting the banshee for a moment. I drew a small blade from the holder in my socks and let it fly. Damn! She ducked and ran, leaping over the river to the other bank. Man, those banshees could defo pull off a jump.
She laughed and flipped me the middle finger.
Oh, hell, no!
I broke into a run, G too. He cleared the river first, into the woodland to the right. At least she hadn’t gone left and out into the busy traffic navigating the roundabout. Maybe she should’ve for her own safety.
I sent Bob and Rose out to keep a tail on G. I was fast, but he was faster, and banshees were quick on their toes too if they needed to be.
My gray-furred wolves burst into life, their eyes orange fire. Being half-werewolf
and unable to shift, my two wolfy babies were an extension of my senses that no one else could see.
They lit up the dark with their radiance. My trainers pounded the ground as I followed the mesh fence running alongside me on the left. Any moment now, the cackling banshee would scale it. Why was she cackling? Clearly having a fun old time of it.
This sucked. I wasn’t getting coin for this bullshit. No, what I would’ve been paid for was taking down the human guy who’d screwed over his wealthy witch wife in a divorce. She didn’t want the Supernatural Containment Unit (SCU) on her arse by hexing the wanker, so she’d asked me to cut him down. Not kill. I didn’t always kill. Just take off a limb, then send it to her so she could work on getting the chunk of money back he’d stolen. Yeah, calling it anything else but theft was a big no-no in her eyes. He’d stolen it, so she wanted it back. A limb for a shed load of cash. He’d had affairs and shit, took advantage of her. I was happy to do it.
The banshees showing up had fucked it all up for me, losing me a grand.
They had to pay. One down, one to behead. Or gut like a fish. Whatever worked.
Another scream. I froze, catching the back end of it, then dove out of the way just in time as G came crashing through the trees.
He sprung back up onto all fours, shook his flanks, growled, and tore off after her.
“Catch me, catch me, catch me!” the banshee’s high-pitched voice squealed in the distance.
Ah, fuck this!
Bob and Rose were still following her, sending pulses of warmth as G ran past them. They loved him, went all goo-goo over the guy.
I mean, he was mega-hot, so, yeah. But that didn’t mean I had to go all hot under the collar for him. Like now, at a really inappropriate moment, thinking about when I’d kissed him on my living room floor, and how much I wanted to do it again.
Desperately…
No. Not G. He was my friend and one of my dad’s wolves. His job was to always stay by my side because it was what my dad wanted. And what Dad wanted, being the High Alpha, he always got. His word was final. That applied to me and to most of the world, seeing as he was the most powerful man on the planet, sitting on the most powerful of seats here in London, doing his ruling thing.
I liked having G by my side.
I liked having him stay over every single night since the moon got stuck two weeks ago.
I liked standing outside the living room door, listening to him sleep in the makeshift bed I’d made for him out of cushions and duvets—I had an impressive stack of soft and fluffy things.
I liked G.
Fuck off!
I pushed all my energy down into my feet, running away from all that thinking stuff. Now wasn’t the time for this. I had a damn banshee to slaughter.
* * *
I scaled the fence, clearing the barbed wire. A branch from an overhanging tree scratched my face as I went over. I landed on the other side with my swords out, ready to kill.
The cackling and shrieking had gone quiet. I took a moment to gather myself, tune into my babies, and get a lay of the land. G had stopped running, Bob and Rose invisible by his side. The scent of the banshee was fading.
This side of the fence was an abandoned recycling plant, the huge warehouse in a state of decay, the wide-open concrete space beside it, presumably a former lorry park or something, was nothing but weeds and rubbish. The remnants of a bonfire were nearby, with a shit load of cider and beer cans around it.
I dashed over to G, who was still in wolf form, beside the building. His eyes followed my every move.
Beyond Gabriel, was another fence, barbed wire twisted along the top of it, a heavily chained up gate that would open onto a dead street lit by the weak light of lampposts—some of them subsiding. Above my head were some more lights along the warehouse roof, flickering. The fact they were working even a little bit was a miracle.
What a shit hole this place was, another ghost from the past. Not part of the slums, just left to rot, not needed, a total waste of land. Unless you liked beer and bonfires, that was.
The warehouse windows were all boarded up. A door close by was slightly ajar, a breeze block keeping it sort of closed. Must be squatters inside.
Gabriel shifted back to his six-four human form. His naked human form.
I couldn’t help myself, I had to drink in that dark skin, that muscle, that powerful body, that huge cock. Fuck! Were my eyes lingering too long on his meat? Long! Ha! It sure was long!
“Aki?”
I blinked, my eyes rolling up to meet his twin, green orbs. “Yeah? What happened? She get away?” Could he see my boner?
His attention was fully on my face area. “Getaway car,” he said. “Dammit.” G was from Texas, USA, and had a sexy drawl that made me think of—
Nothing.
He was my friend.
Man, was my dick hard!
This shit needs to stop!
“You okay, Aki?”
I dry swallowed, nodding. “I’m good,” I squeaked.
He cocked an eyebrow. “Are you sure?”
I nodded again.
“Want me to put some clothes on?”
I shook my head.
“I’m not making you uncomfortable?”
Another shake of the head. I cleared my throat. Seeing werewolves naked had been a part of growing up. Part of the norm. And I’d seen G’s balls several times.
But since I’d kissed him, I’d been thinking—
Nothing.
Nope.
I was just appreciating his hotness. I’d been sad and feeling the feels when I’d landed a kiss on his sweet…soft…juicy…and…and—
I’d just needed comfort because I’d seen Colin again, and the past had come to smack me upside the head, then drag me through the fucking thorns. Yeah, I’d needed an escape. I shouldn’t have kissed him, but there you go. Still buddies, still out doing our thing in the streets with a moon that was glued to the sky.
Me and G. Against the world.
I was working hard to not look at his abs, let alone that shaft of—
I needed to get laid, clear the cobwebs. I hadn’t had time for nookie business. My beer kick the other night had been about getting pickled, not shagging. I’d been too off my box for that malarkey anyway. But I so needed to rock the mattress at some point. It’d help. And when the window of opportunity opened up for me, I’d jump through it with bells on my balls.
Focus!
“Sorry, G. Talk to me. She had a car waiting?”
His emerald gaze scrutinized me for a few more seconds. What did he really think about that kiss?
I rolled my shoulders, trying to shake the thoughts off.
I needed to bake something. If I couldn’t shag, I’d bake. Yeah.
“The car,” he finally said, “was right outside those gates. She was in it before I’d cleared the fence back there. She’s long gone.”
“Fuck. She’s gonna be the biggest pain in my arse.”
“We’ll stop her.”
He was damn right. Lana Krystal was gonna pay.
Over on the dead road, two werewolf guards appeared. A man and woman in black, with black caps, watching from the shadows. I could only just make them out.
Ally and Drew. By orders of the High Alpha, there had to be two wolf guards near me and G at all times. That was one of his conditions for letting us live at my flat instead of G’s swanky penthouse.
Even thinking about my dad made my scalp prickle. We still had a conversation to have about my half-brother, Zach. A serious fucking convo.
Ally and Drew would only step in if needed, not getting involved in the hunt. After all the shit that’d gone done with Mama Rita and Zach, as well as some mazoku outside of their pen, dear old papa insisted on the extra protection. No arguments.
Mama Rita, an elf, had been my bestie. Turns out she wasn’t really, and she’d slept with my dad years ago after my mum died. She’d had a son, Zach, who was half-wolf, half-elf. Dad had wanted him dead. Both
of them, actually. Mama Rita wasn’t happy about that, so went on to befriend me, hiding herself from my dad, and concocted some plot no one quite understood. She’d killed some werewolves in some fucked up ritual. Then she’d captured Zach, who had been accused of the wolf murders. When I’d tracked them down, she’d used me like a fucking puppet to stab them together with my swords, taking away their elf energy. A spell had sent my swords into the moon. It’d been stuck ever since.
Instead of dying from being skewered by my two katanas, she performed a spell that merged her and Zach, as well as the mazoku (shadowy demons) she’d managed to free from their prison and also trap in a trapping circle. It’d been proper fucked up the way they’d melded as one creature—a two-headed monster loaded with mazoku.
Why she’d done that to the moon was a mystery, and so were her motives. Well, it was clear she wanted revenge on my dad, and would probably go for world domination with all the demon juice inside them. Them? Was the creature a them? Not really ‘cos Mama Rita was in the driving seat. Zach had been an innocent victim, not even knowing she was his real mum. The parents he’d always thought were his weren’t.
If only I could help him. I’d only just found out he was my brother, and I wanted him back, to get to know him, to save him from that crazy bitch.
Whatever Mama Rita’s reasons, Zach was her child, and she was punishing him because of my dad. Our dad. Man, my head couldn’t take it.
“Aki?”
I blinked.
The Mama Rita/Zach/mazoku hybrid hadn’t been seen since its creation.
“Aki?”
I caught myself staring into space. “Sorry. Mind wandered.”
“We should get out of here.” His phone buzzed. “Yes. All good. We’re heading back now.”
“Who was it?” I asked.
“Ally. Come on, let’s go home.”
We scaled the fence with ease, Ally and Drew offering a silent nod each before heading back to their vehicle.
Four Moons: The Complete Collection: (Books 1 - 4) Page 21