Dark: A Dark Paranormal Romance (Blood Moon, Texas Shifters Book 1)

by Kat Kinney

  Headlights crested the top of the hill, sending me flat onto my belly down in the grass. The car slowed. Senses on high alert, I inched backwards towards a low barbed-wire fence. A door opened.

  I stilled.

  Ben folded his arms, leaning against the hood of the cruiser. “You okay?”

  Releasing the barbed wire with a low twang, I scrambled up.

  “Where’s August?”

  “He’s asleep. The doctors are running tests. They’ve got him sedated.”

  I pulled at the ruined hem of my shirt.

  “Got everyone back at the house pretty worried,” Ben continued, dragging the toe of his boot through the roadside gravel. “River threw a fit after you left. Cal and Dallas were out looking for you.”

  I frowned. Ben kicked some more rocks and leaned over to pull a pile of clothes out of the front seat. My garbage bag was there, too. At the sight of it, my stomach churned.

  “Somewhere you were planning on going?” He leveled me with a look.

  I shrugged, thinking of my social worker, Mrs. Parsons, who always smelled of cats and garlic bread.

  “Know this hasn’t been the easiest year.” Ben scratched his jaw. “But you’ve got people here who care about you, even if maybe you can’t see that yet.”

  When I still said nothing, he sighed.

  “Why don’t you get changed and I’ll take you on up to the hospital?”

  He took a step towards me. I shrank back, the barbed wire catching on my ruined shirt.

  “You wouldn’t let me go with you before,” I accused.

  Ben didn’t even blink. I wasn’t fooled. All it would take was me getting into that car, and I would be dragged down to the sheriff’s office. Probably after my outburst back at the house, they would have me assigned to juvie this time. And then I would never see August again.

  “You know this isn’t your fault, right? August didn’t get sick because of what we talked about last night.”

  I said nothing. But inside, I was back at the kitchen table. The long fluorescent lights hummed overhead, making my head spin, knowing, knowing what was coming even before Sofia said the Caldwells wanted to adopt us. Me picking at the placemat. And August bursting into tears.

  Reaching into the front seat, Ben pulled out a paper sack. Placing it and my clothes a few yards from the shoulder of the road, he walked around to the driver’s side.

  “You change your mind, I’ll wait a little ways up the road.”

  Inside the sack was a juice box, two pale white strips of string cheese, and a slightly smashed peanut butter, honey, banana and granola sandwich that had Dallas written all over it.

  I stared at that sandwich for a long time, trying to figure out if it contained ghost pepper flakes like that one time. Maybe ground-up crickets.

  (Or as it turned out, just cinnamon. Dallas was weird.)

  Ben’s cruiser was idling at the top of the next rise. I squeezed my eyes shut, swallowing back the animal instinct to run. Instead, I opened the door.

  “Has August ever gotten sick before?” Ben asked once the dry, scrubby Texas hills were flying by. “Maybe when he was little? Did your parents ever—”

  “I don’t remember,” I said sharply, clenching my fingers until my nails dug into my palms. My heartrate accelerated, the wolf clawing just beneath my skin. I never thought about that day. Never thought about the accident. Couldn’t.

  Ben glanced over, brow furrowed. We rode the rest of the way to the hospital in silence.

  August lay curled on his side, a plastic tube taped to the back of his hand, looking smaller than I’d ever seen him. Sofia stood over him, fingers sifting through his hair, eyes ever trained on the door. Always the Tracer. A lump the size of a softball clogged in the back of my throat. I gripped the cold metal bedrail, watching a furrow form in August’s forehead as he fought to breathe. I tried to speak, the words choking in my throat. And then, to my horror, hot tears welled up. Humiliated, I scrubbed at my face.

  Pack laws weren’t the same as human. Ferals who couldn’t be brought back from insanity were destroyed. Your right to property or position within werewolf society extended only to what you and those loyal to you could hold. Where did that leave a six-year-old boy with an illness none of us had ever seen?

  Images slammed into my skull. A sliced-up banana for my Cheerios. A man with square-framed glasses hunched over a laptop. Reminders not to miss the bus. My backpack slumped by the door. A police officer crouched down, her young face soft with concern—

  All of it, gone.

  Gone.

  Gone.

  I wadded everything up into a tight ball, dark and toxic as a cancer. The nightmares. The stomachaches. Everything that kept me up at night. None of it mattered. Only one thing did.

  Two months later, in the old county courthouse downtown built of pink Texas granite, I stood beside my brother before a judge. By then August had suffered two more episodes. Sofia had taken him to Dallas to see a doctor. A supply of veterinary painkillers sat in the medicine cabinet at all times.

  I couldn’t have said for sure when it happened. Maybe after that day in the hospital. Maybe because of that stupid cinnamon-peanut-butter-banana sandwich. More likely it was the day I caught Ben crying out in the barn where my brothers wouldn’t hear. But somewhere along the way, between nights catching fireflies, family dinners where Brody and Cal fought over the last fish fillet, and trips to the Dairy Queen after Ben got off from work, the Caldwell place had started feeling like someplace I could see myself calling home.

  And so when the judge asked if this was what I wanted, I answered without hesitation.

  And became Ethan Kirby Caldwell.

  9

  Ethan

  FLASHING RED AND BLUE LIGHTS lit up the night sky outside the trailer park. We were escorted past the police barricade on foot, wind from the fire thrashing the tall cottonwoods that lined either side of the long gravel drive. I threw an arm up, smoke and hot ash stinging my eyes. Hayden kept her head down, her dark ponytail whipping against my cheek.

  Yeah, she was pissed. I’d promised her my brothers and I would handle this, keep her safe. Keep her sister safe. And instead we’d been going at it in the bathroom at a club while someone torched her place. All because I destroyed everything I touched.

  A wall of heat slammed into my chest right as we reached the line of neon-yellow fire engines. Hayden staggered back, fingers curling into the fabric of my shirt. Hoses snaked out from multiple trucks like the intestines of a disemboweled beast, spewing water as flames streaked the night sky an eerie orange. A caustic, chemical stink seared the air. Eyes watering, I lifted the collar of my shirt.

  “Oh my god.” Hayden caught sight of the gutted remains of her trailer. Gagging, she doubled over.

  Brody, who was in uniform along with a group of deputies, started towards us. Hayden wiped her mouth while I rubbed her back and held her hair out of the way. One of the EMTs, all geared up, shoved a water bottle into her hand, shouting to be heard over the hiss and snap of the hoses.

  “–need to get you both out of this smoke.”

  “I got this.” Brody clapped him on the shoulder. “They’re with me.”

  He jerked his chin, motioning for us to follow. Hayden rinsed her mouth, face pale and drawn. We passed Dallas, who was handing out BBQ sandwiches to the fire crew and first responders out of the back of his SUV’s tailgate. Beside him, Lacey poured water and sweet tea from ten-gallon jugs.

  “We’ve got problems,” Brody said once we were standing off behind the waving line of yellow crime scene tape. “Two scents. Both shifter. Our guy from the video plus a new player. West is out there tracking them now, and I just texted Cal. They’re gonna have a hell of a time finding anything with all the smoke and wind—”

  “How did he get so close?” Hayden demanded.

  “There was a shift change.” Brody propped his hands on his service belt. “He slipped through.”

  “If Ellie had been there�
�”

  “She wasn’t.”

  Hayden glared daggers. “That the best you got?”

  My brother leaned in. “You want to know how many people have been busting their tails to keep you and your sister safe—”

  “Hey,” I growled, getting up in Brody’s grill. “No shit we’re all tired and getting sloppy. But her fracking trailer is on fire. Some guy is out there hunting her. So you’re not going to freak out on her for getting upset about it.”

  My brother’s eyes grew hard as ice chips. “You wanna try that again?”

  Hayden’s head whipped around. “Why is Lacey here?”

  Brody’s eyes flicked to mine. I gritted my teeth, suddenly getting it. Lacey. The shift change.

  “Hays—”

  I turned just in time to see her take off in a dead run.

  “The f—" I barked, bolting after her.

  Brody cursed. Dallas lifted his head from the sandwich line. Vaulting one of the coolers, he jumped in front of that five-alarm train wreck a second before Hays reached Lacey. She lunged around him and he made a grab for her. A warning growl ripped from my throat. Startled, Dallas threw up his hands.

  “You bitch!” Hayden shouted.

  Oh, for the love of hell. My girl had pipes. Literally everyone, from the volunteer firemen to the EMTs loading equipment back onto their rig, turned to gape. Because hey, it was the Caldwells. Free barbeque and a show.

  “Whoa, chill out.”

  Hayden darted for Lacey again, forcing Dallas to sidestep to keep between them.

  “Are you crazy?” Lacey hissed. “Shut up.”

  “She doesn’t want the pack offering me protection.”

  At this, Lacey paled.

  Reaching them, I grabbed Hayden around the waist. “Daisy, c’mon—”

  Wrestling like a wildcat, she clawed at my arms. “She’s the one who’s been texting me threats.”

  “No, I haven’t—”

  “Keep your damn voices down,” growled Dallas.

  Setting a clipboard aside, the county fire chief started over our way. Brody cursed under his breath.

  Fuck. My. Life.

  Dallas whipped around and shoved me hard in the chest. “This is your goddamn fault, Emo.”

  I knocked his hand away. “The hell?”

  “Both of you dickheads, lock it up,” Brody hissed.

  And the next second, everyone in the clearing was staggering under the lead-blanket weight of my oldest brother’s power. I grunted, feeling my limbs turn to jelly. Although nowhere near as strong as Ben, Brody had inherited similar skill in mind control. He couldn’t yet send scores of attacking vampires writhing to the ground or hold someone in thrall for days without giving himself a serious migraine, but you’d better believe there had been a chorus of crickets when the question had arisen of challengers to his claim as acting Alpha. My wolf went wild, roaring to the surface, my skin prickling as the change tried to force itself on me despite the moon not being full.

  “No,” I slurred, staggering into Hayden, who struggled to keep me upright. “Don’t touch me.”

  But it was as if I’d downed a spiked drink. The flashing lights swirled, my reactions sluggish, Hays’ cool fingers at the back of my neck the only thing keeping my wolf from clawing free and killing everyone in the clearing. Defeated, I slumped to the grass.

  “Everything all right over here?” The chief eyed Hayden, and then me, shaking like a freak down on the ground. “Looks like smoke inhalation. Better get on over to the rig, son, let the EMTs take a look.”

  And yeah, I didn’t miss that tone, the same one he used to use whenever Ben would have people over to the house and I would hang back, unable to come up with anything but a cursory shrug to the requisite, How’s school? Like he was just waiting for me to confess I planned to blow the place up.

  “He’s fine.” Hays smoothed my hair back as someone shoved a water bottle in my face.

  Brody popped a stick of gum in his mouth. “How much Xanax has he had today?”

  I glared daggers, unable to stop shaking. Half this town assumed I was always strung out. Meth. Heroin. Why not add a prescription drug addiction to the list?

  The chief gave Hayden a hard look. “What’s all this about?”

  But Brody pulled him aside, lowering his voice as if we all couldn’t still hear. “Sorry, Chief. You know my brother’s never been able to go a month without stirring up some sort of trouble. I’ll handle it.”

  “I hate you,” I slurred, which came out like I’d eaten a pack of particularly hairy gym socks.

  My brother kept his eyes straight ahead, even as a muscle in his jaw twitched.

  It hit me then, as Hays had to practically drag me off the ground, that Brody’s power was barely affecting her. That even though she was newly changed, I was the one who completely lost it anytime someone got past my mental shields.

  “Ethan—” she started.

  Humiliated, I shook her off, staggering over hoses and into parked cars as we weaved our way towards Brody’s cruiser out by the fence. Over the howl of the fire, I caught snippets of his conversation with the chief.

  “—never been able to keep his fly up… yeah, the girls got into it back at the house on Sunday… real catfight.”

  I collapsed onto the hood of the cruiser, rage and revulsion roiling in my gut. Hayden fitted herself into my side, pressing her lips to the scar at my wrist. My hands shook from the need to punch something, my breaths sawing in and out like I’d just run for miles. The bond tightened, my heartrate gradually evening out.

  Hayden buried her face in my neck. “I shouldn’t have lost it back there.”

  I pulled her to me, breathing in the scent of her mint shampoo and wishing I could make the rest of the world go away. “Believe me, I’ve done worse. We’re gonna find this guy. I swear it.”

  She nuzzled my throat. “I love you.”

  I swallowed, wanting to scream that she shouldn’t, that I was too screwed up to be any good for her. That if I couldn’t protect her when it counted, if I was the one who fell apart and needed her to pick up the pieces when her damn home was on fire, she should find someone who deserved her. Even if the idea of her with anyone else made me want to rip out my own throat.

  My phone buzzed. I checked the screen.

  Prickhead: WTF is your girlfriend’s problem?

  I looked up. Dallas was chewing up the ground at the tailgate of his SUV, steam practically coming out of his ears. A pair of police officers was clustered a few yards off, giving Lacey the second degree. I flipped my brother off.

  Me: Can you kill Ellie’s phone remotely and still track her?

  River: I’m fine, fuck you very much.

  Me: right. because this is all about you

  Me: so can you do it or not?

  River: it’s done

  Hayden coughed again, doubling over.

  “I’m gonna find you more water,” I murmured, smoothing her ponytail behind her shoulder.

  One of the EMTs retrieved two bottles from a cooler, then forced me to stand there while he took my blood pressure and checked my pupils. I was about to ask if he wanted me to strip down so he could check me for track marks when I caught the look on Brody’s face, and decided against it.

  Halfway back to the cruiser my phone buzzed.

  Cal: We got company. Checking it out.

  Briefly, I dropped my shields and reached out for him and West, trying to get some sense of how far away they were. West was running, the smell of strange wolf twisted up on the wind with all the smoke from the fire.

  I pocketed my phone, nearly back to the cruiser by the time I noticed Hayden wasn’t sitting on the hood where I left her.

  “Hays?” I called, breaking into a jog.

  Red and blue strobes from the engines bounced eerily off every reflective surface, casting abandoned trailers, overturned lawn chairs and a rusted Ford truck in shadow. I reached for the door handle, instincts screaming.

  “Hayden!�
�� I shouted.

  Heads turned. Brody started towards me. Biting down on the scar linking me to Hayden, I broke into a run. Instantly, my wolf roared to the surface.

  Ethan.

  Ignoring my brother’s shout through the pack bond, I kept running, reaching the back fence separating the trailer park from miles of scrub land and the local state park. Heart pounding, I squeezed through a gap in the chain link.

  I was just to the far side when his scent hit me. Hayden’s stalker had been here minutes before. If that.

  And he’d taken her.

  West, I snarled, surging forward—

  —only to nearly trip over something tangled up in the underbrush. Using my phone as a flashlight, I scanned the tall grass at my feet. My heart stopped.

  There in the weeds, Hayden’s scent still clinging to it, was my leather jacket. Scattered a few yards away were her boots—

  A roar ripped from my throat. The change tore me from my skin, rage and grief knifing through my skull. With a snarl, I bolted off into the trees.

  Sharp cedar branches tore at my fur. I tumbled down an embankment, slicing a gash under one eye on the rough limestone basin at the bottom. Somewhere out in the night, I could feel Hayden’s heart beating, could smell her shock and terror. She was still alive.

  And I was going to end the bastard who took her.

  I ran for what felt like miles, the muggy night air rippling through my fur as I crossed low Texas scrubland and splashed through cold spring-fed creeks that briefly washed away Hayden’s scent. Shifting back to human, I pressed my lips to the scar at my wrist. North. Wolf again, I ran on. I was gaining on her every minute, so close that when I felt her yip of pain, I almost thought I heard its echo on the wind.

  Rage blurred my vision. He’d hurt her. Hayden, who drove me insane abbreviating every order for mocha, macchiato and macchinetta when she knew she needed to take a freaking handwriting class, who stole my hoodies and made them smell like her shampoo, put her cold feet on me at night, swore with those innocent blue eyes that she wasn’t hungry when the server at Guillermo’s asked what she wanted, then proceeded to devour all my sweet potato fries, and for reasons I’d never understand, loved me. And I would maim, kill, and utterly destroy anything in my path if that was what it took to get her back.