“Just lie still,” a girl said softly. “I‘m not trying to hurt you, but this may sting a little.”
A scream involuntarily erupted from my throat when the girl touched my leg, as it felt like she was branding me with a hot iron. I shot upright and jerked my leg away from the young brunette.
Looking down, my eyes focused for the first time on an ugly gash down the outside of my right thigh. I knew how it had happened, but my mind refused to believe it.
I shook my head in disbelief as my hands shot up to hold back a sob.
Through my tear-filled vision, I saw the girl put a wet cloth in a bowl of pinkish water. My blood. That‘s all she had touched me with: a wet cloth, not a branding iron.
“My name is Lea.” She didn‘t say anything else, just waited for me to let that small introduction soak in.
“Mena,” I said with a quivering voice.
A smile stretched across her pretty face, but she didn‘t reach for the cloth. It was clear she was giving me the time I needed to trust her.
Relaxing a little, I scooted toward her and straightened my leg out, giving her silent permission to clean the wound.
“I‘m sorry—”
She shook her head. “The fault is mine. I should have at least put some numbing spray on that bite before trying to clean it. I wasn‘t thinking. Jaxon will be furious—”
“Wait—what did you say?”
“There‘s a numbing medicine I can put on it, so it won‘t hurt you as I clean it. You may feel a little discomfort, but it should at least be bearable—”
“No, you said it is a bite,” I snapped, and then shrank back, ashamed of my outburst at the sweet girl.
She only sat on the stool and looked at me with kind but sorrowful eyes.
I swallowed hard. “What bit me?” I whispered, my eyes stinging with fresh, hot tears and dreading what she would say.
She averted eye contact with me and stood quickly. “I‘m going to go get that numbing spray and some ibuprofen. It‘ll help with the pain—”
“Tell me, please.” I pleaded with words and my eyes when I grabbed her hand and she was forced to look at me again.
She sighed. “I‘ll send Jaxon in to talk with you when he‘s through speaking with Phoenix. I‘m not sure how much I‘m allowed to tell you. The wait shouldn‘t be long. I‘ll be back soon to help you get cleaned up and dress your wounds.” Her gaze fell before she turned toward the door to leave. “You will heal quickly, so we need to get the dirt out.”
She left me in the room alone.
Sitting there waiting to find out what had happened to me was driving me out of my mind.
Jaxon.
Was that the guy who had saved me? Had he survived? Had the horrible thing Marc turned into let him live? Or had he killed my husband?
I was surprised to realize that it wouldn‘t have bothered me in the least if someone had answered the last question with a yes.
One thing was certain: I couldn‘t sit in this room and wait any longer.
Wincing as a sharp pain shot up my leg, I placed my foot on the cement floor and limped toward the door.
There was no sound coming from the other side as I put my ear to the door to listen, so I took in a shaky breath and tried the knob. It turned freely in my hand and I opened the door to find a dark hallway.
The walls were made of gray stone and the air was cool. It seemed like I was underground, as I saw no sign of natural light to state otherwise. There hadn‘t been any windows in the room they had put me in, so the guess was an uneducated one still.
Raised voices came from my right and my head shot around to see a faint glow at the end of the hall.
After taking a few steps in the direction of the heated argument, I discovered a door was ajar and that was where the voices had issued from.
“Why can‘t you see what an asset she is to us?” a male voice said, and after peeking through the gap between the door and the jamb, I realized it belonged to the guy who had gotten me away from Marc. He had lived and followed through on his promise.
I felt a sense of relief rush over me. Then another male spoke.
“She is a danger to us if she lives, Jaxon, and you know it—”
“Not if you turn her before her first change tonight. The moon will be at its fullest this night and we will have missed our chance to make her hybrid—”
My hand shot up to stifle a gasp and both males‘ heads turned swiftly to look toward the door. My feet shuffled back and I bumped into the wall behind me, and then I turned and ran. I had to get out of there. I still didn‘t know what had happened to me, but what the two men were plotting didn‘t sound like anything I would be interested in: death or turning me into one of those beasts I had seen Marc turn into.
This isn‘t real! I tried to force my mind to accept it, but my pounding heart beating against my ribcage and my bare feet slapping the cold concrete with each step I ran suggested otherwise. This isn‘t real! This isn‘t real! This isn‘t real!
Jaxon was suddenly in front of me and I slammed into his hard body. He wrapped me in his arms and I struggled to break free of his hold, but he was so strong.
I screamed, “This isn‘t real!”
Chapter 8
Jaxon
“Mena, it‘s me,” Jaxon said. “I won‘t hurt you. Calm down.”
“Let me go!” Mena screamed. “You‘re not turning me into one of those—those things that Marc is.” She jerked away and he let her go. She stared at him as she tried to catch her breath. “Why would you want to turn me into one of them?” Her lower lip trembled. “And how—how is that even possible?” she yelled, but Jaxon didn‘t speak. She wouldn‘t be ready to listen to anything he had to say until she calmed down a lot.
Mena turned her head to look back down the hallway, and then in the other direction. “How do I get out of here? I need to leave this place.”
“You can‘t leave,” Phoenix‘s sultry voice said from behind Mena, and her head whipped around in surprise. It was clear she was questioning why she hadn‘t seen anyone where the male stood now, so close to her.
Jaxon and Mena both stiffened as Phoenix‘s long fingers came up to caress Mena‘s cheek. “Don‘t—” he started.
Ice blue eyes turned slowly to glare at Jaxon, cutting his sentence short, but Phoenix never removed his hand from Mena‘s face. “She is a pretty little thing, isn‘t she, Jaxon?”
Jaxon hesitated only a moment. “Y—yes, Master.”
Phoenix nodded once and pursed his lips together into a thin line, as if contemplating what to do next. Looking back to Mena, he said, “I‘m sure you have questions. I swear nothing will happen to you until after you have made your decision.”
“My—my decision?” Mena stuttered out.
Phoenix simply removed his hand from her face and held it out in the direction of his quarters.
Mena
“Have a seat, Mena,” the man said.
He was one of the most attractive men I had ever seen in my life. Wavy, chestnut hair fell nearly to his shoulders and loose curls framed his face. His intense eyes, that seemed to bore through to my very soul, were the color of ice glaciers. Against the light bronze color of his skin, they appeared to glow as they studied me.
I tried not to stare at him, but it was quite difficult not to with what he was wearing, or rather what he wasn‘t wearing. Broad shoulders complemented a well-defined, shirtless chest. His sculpted torso was lean and would put any male model that I had ever seen to shame. The faded blue jeans he wore fit him extremely well and his feet were bare. There was nothing feminine about him, but he was so handsome he was pretty. An Adonis reincarnated perhaps.
The clearing of a throat snapped me out of admiring my captor, and I glanced over to see Jaxon with his hand held out to a couch. He raised an eyebrow nervously, and I looked back to the other male. He was waiting for me to obey him; that was clear now. When he‘d offered me a seat, he had actually given me an order to sit down, his seduc
tive voice only making it sound like he was giving me an option.
I inhaled deeply as I sat on the edge of the cushion.
The corner of Adonis‘ mouth twitched in amusement. I found that irritated me profusely, but I wasn‘t sure if it was my anger or the lust that he was stirring in me that caused me so much agitation.
My hands curled into tight fists on my lap to keep from fanning my blouse. It was hot in the room all of a sudden.
“My name is Phoenix. I hear you‘ve met Jaxon. He informed me of what occurred with the werewolf leader and his pack—”
Despite how much I wanted to cry, I laughed instead. “Werewolf?”
Phoenix‘s eyes darted to Jaxon. “I thought you said she knew.”
“She saw him change. It doesn‘t mean her mind accepts it. She‘s in denial.”
“Wait, you‘re saying that werewolves are real, and that a man I have been married to for over twelve years is one of them?” I said, and didn‘t feel like laughing anymore. I actually felt a little dizzy.
The two men stared at one another for a long moment before Phoenix looked back to me. “Not just a werewolf, Mena, but the werewolf. He was the pack leader. We‘ve been trying to discover his true identity for over a decade, so we could ruin him publicly, but he covered his tracks well.”
I sat there and tried to process what they were telling me, that my husband turns into a monster once a month. They didn‘t look crazy, but they sure sounded like it. I shook my head. Werewolves weren‘t real. But if they weren‘t, then what the hell had Marc turned into?
I locked eyes with Jaxon and remembered an earlier question I had asked him that had gone unanswered. “Why would you want to turn me into one of them?”
He wasn‘t the one who answered.
“You already are one of them,” Phoenix said, and I reached out and grabbed the arm of the couch to steady my swaying body. “Actually, you are now the one, Mena. You became one of them the moment your husband bit you, and you became the pack leader a second later when you put a silver bullet through his heart. To become a pack leader, you have to take the life of the current one.”
I couldn‘t breathe.
Chapter 9
Phoenix
The girl intrigued him. That was a fact, perhaps even more so than any other female he had ever met before. And that was saying a lot for this one.
Jaxon had been right: she was enchanting, but Phoenix had killed plenty of beautiful women, as well as not, in his long life. Her being the new werewolf pack leader only made him want to drain her of the enemy blood that much more.
Was he toying with her? Maybe. Mayhap it was the way Jaxon had begged him to spare her life that kept him from breaking her neck then and there. Could be. Jaxon had never really asked him for anything, which was why he still held second in command status.
The guy had said it was his fault entirely the girl had been bitten in the first place, but Phoenix knew that to be untrue. He was the only one in the area strong and fast enough to take on the pack leader. And that‘s when Phoenix realized why the girl‘s heart was still beating: she was a human girl—the wife of the pack leader no less—and she did something he himself had been unable to do since the male had defeated the previous pack leader: kill him.
She couldn‘t stay here, he decided. She belonged with her pack. Their leader belonged with the mutts. Of course, if they returned her to them like she was now, they would see how weak she was and she would be dead before her first change.
The thought angered him, and he grew even more pissed because it had. She was a werewolf; why should he care if the beast was killed?
Disgusted with himself, Phoenix turned away from them to give the girl privacy while Jaxon consoled her.
The least he could do was get her cleaned up and fill her stomach while her humanity was still intact.
After making a quick call, Phoenix placed his cell phone on the bar and just watched her. It was obvious Jaxon was enamored with the girl—any fool could see that—and if he turned her into a hybrid—as Jaxon suggested he do—the girl would be sired to him and he would rule over two-thirds of the underworld. It wasn‘t the worst idea Jaxon had ever come up with; it was actually a pretty damn good one, but Phoenix knew what would happen to him if he sired her. He wouldn‘t be able to let Jaxon have her, because he would want her.
Phoenix shook his head at the thought. No, I will not share my throne with anyone.
Mena
A soft knock at the door made me jump to my feet in alarm.
Something was seriously wrong with my body. I had never moved so fast before, and the achiness I had felt after waking earlier was almost gone. My eyes widened in stunned disbelief as I glanced down at the wound where Marc had bit me. The dried blood was still all over the tattered material of my pants, but there were only faint pink lines where the injury had been.
My focus shot back to the door when the knock sounded again and a low growl echoed throughout the room. I gasped and slapped a hand over my mouth when I realized it was me who had done it.
Jaxon cautiously took my hand and helped me to sit back down on the couch. “Calm down, Mena. It‘s just—”
“Enter,” Phoenix said, as if my behavior was normal for him, or maybe he had been expecting it. Well, I hadn‘t been expecting it, and it was definitely not normal for me to go around growling at sudden sounds.
“Oh, God,” I said, and began to tremble. “I‘m a dog.”
“Shh… It‘s okay—” Jaxon tried again to comfort me, but I didn‘t need comforting; I needed freaking answers… and a cure!
I shot to my feet again and hurriedly put some distance between us. I warned him with my eyes to stay away.
He was either smart or scared, because he only stood there with his palms up. His stance was defensive, so I didn‘t feel threatened by him. Taking in a deep breath, I relaxed a little, but didn‘t go back to sit beside him. I wasn‘t ready for that just yet. I didn‘t know if I ever would be. I could tell he was doing everything in his power to try to make me comfortable, but his gestures were having the opposite effect on me.
“Sit them on the table. Thank you. You may go,” Phoenix said, and I looked over to him in time to see the girl I had awoken to earlier closing the door behind her as she left the chambers.
There was no expression on Phoenix‘s face when I looked back at him.
“I had a hot meal and dry, warm clothing brought in. Eat while the food is still warm, and you can use my lavatory to clean yourself afterward.” Phoenix lowered his head and his brow furrowed in what appeared to be confusion or thought. I only stared at him. Slowly taking the back of the chair in his hand, he pulled it out from the table and gestured with his other hand for me to take the seat. “The steak is not poisoned. However you preferred your meat before, I think you will discover rare to be your preference now.” My nose scrunched up in distaste, and he grinned. “I swore no harm would come to you until after you made your decision, Mena. Please eat something.”
I still didn‘t know what decision it was that I had to make, but an amazing scent came from the plate and I didn‘t care about anything in that moment except eating. My stomach rumbled and my feet involuntarily moved to the table.
Chapter 10
Phoenix
He waited until he heard the bathroom door click shut before turning to Jaxon.
“I think you need to leave.”
Jaxon‘s eyes widened. “But why? Mena needs me here—”
“She does not need you now, nor will she need you in the future. She is the queen of a werewolf pack, Jaxon—”
“You can make her hybrid and rule over—”
“Do not interrupt me again!” Phoenix thundered, and Jaxon fell to one knee and bowed his head.
“My apologies, Master, but I think—”
“You think,” Phoenix spat. “Your thinking is going to get you killed! I will share my throne with no one,” he finished quietly.
Jaxon waited a moment to mak
e sure he wouldn‘t make the mistake of disrupting Phoenix again. “Why would you have to share your throne with anyone? You will own her and rule over the werewolves as well as the vampires.”
Phoenix nodded. “That may be true, but there is one tiny detail you are forgetting.”
Jaxon‘s eyes closed as he exhaled. “The bond.”
“Yes. The bond. I refuse to make myself vulnerable—”
Jaxon‘s head shot up. “I can do it. Surely I‘ve lived long enough—” His words were suddenly cut off as Phoenix‘s fist connected with his jaw. The punch knocked him back ten yards into the wall. A few shards of stone fell as Jaxon‘s body crumpled to the floor.
“Even if you were strong enough to make her hybrid, do you think I would actually let you live and become my equal as pack leader over werewolves? She is a werewolf. You are a vampire. Enemies, Jaxon. Immortal enemies. The two are not meant to bond. She‘s better off dead, but, if she cooperates, I will let her own pack do it and save me the trouble. Like you said: it‘s entirely your fault she was bitten, right? We‘ll just let them fight over who will be their next leader.”
Jaxon swallowed hard, and Phoenix could tell he was still trying to figure out a way the two of them could be together.
“You will not be with her. I forbid it. Now, leave my quarters while I talk with her. I don‘t want your interference if she disagrees with me.”
Jaxon got to his feet and wiped the stone dust from his clothing. “And if she disagrees with you, what will you do?”
Phoenix contemplated his options, but quickly came to only one. “Kill her.”
Mena
Like Phoenix‘s living chambers, his bathroom was exquisite. Everything was top notch fixtures and furnishings that had to have been shipped to him from overseas. The style was unique to say the least. I wondered if he had decorated everything himself or if his wife had done it.
Accepting the Moon: Prequel Page 3