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

by Kat Kinney

  Jake’s nostrils flared. “If anything happens to me, my father will—"

  Suddenly he stiffened, eyes rolling up in the back of his head. Hayden and Ellie leaped back as he collapsed at the foot of the dais.

  Guillermo shook his head. “Thank you. That was growing tiresome.”

  Ellie lifted her eyes to mine, face twisted in revulsion. “Did you just—”

  “That would be me.”

  She sucked in a sharp breath, gaze shifting to River, who sat draped across his chair with the predatory grace of a panther. Because in addition to being possibly the most arrogant prick ever born, my youngest brother was also a master of neural manipulation. At the lightest end of the spectrum, his gift allowed him to erase years of memory with a flick of his eyes. At the darkest, he shredded minds effortlessly as a bullet fired from a gun.

  Stepping around the corpse, Guillermo turned to London. “This is your last chance. What coven and where? We’ll have the information off the hard drives within the hour. If we find out you’ve warned them—”

  Her eyes grew hard as jade. “And for the third time, I had no part in this. When I find out who betrayed me—”

  A crash sounded from somewhere off-screen. London whirled, vaulting from her chair just as the image went black.

  A cold weight settled in my chest at the sudden, almost imperceptible shift in the room. Jake was dead. London Blake would be in a dungeon somewhere before dawn. Topher, being a shifter, they might allow to live if they could find a pack to take him in. And that left only—

  As if Hayden sensed what was about to happen at the same time as I did, she threw herself in front of Ellie.

  “You can’t.”

  “I’m sorry.” Guillermo dipped his head, genuine regret tinging the words. “But I’m tasked with protecting more than just one life. One pack. One region. Werewolves are being targeted for extinction at the highest levels of the human government because of a single mistake. I cannot allow more lives to be lost.”

  The chopsticks in Ellie’s hair quivered. “I would never betray my sister.”

  “Perhaps not purposefully,” he allowed. “But the tiniest slip could allow for her to be captured, tested, her blood profiled and used as a means to out us all. For this reason, we do not allow humans to retain knowledge of our existence. The risk is simply too great. That leaves you a choice. To be voluntarily turned, or to have your memory altered.”

  I lunged for him, making it half a foot before Tracers yanked me back. “That could kill her. Best case scenario, we’re talking nightmares, flashbacks, anxiety attacks, breakthrough memories. Yeah, she’ll go on living a normal life. But deep down, she’ll always know in the back of her mind something isn’t right and won’t understand what. And none of us will be able to tell her.”

  “The choice is hers.”

  Hayden bared her teeth. “Newsflash. When you can’t say no, something isn’t a choice.”

  Everyone began shouting over one another. Hayden clung to her sister, both of them crying. I fought against the Tracers holding onto me, desperate to get to Hayden. My mate. The girl who was the other half of me. She couldn’t lose Ellie. Not like this. Not after everything they’d both been through.

  “We make her pack.” The room died down, eyes turning my way. “Hayden and I get formally mated. We’ll do it by the next full moon. Ellie will be bound to the pack by blood. She won’t tell. I swear it.”

  Hayden’s eyes locked with mine, a momentary flash of surprise quickly followed by a sharp tightening of the bond. She nodded, but I had already felt it, her answer unmistakable.

  Yes.

  And I knew then whatever came, we would face it together. I would fight for her. For us.

  “She’s about to start medical school,” I continued. “You know how badly we need doctors who understand shifter physiology. Just look at everything August has gone through. She’d be an asset to us. What’s more, this is my fault. Hayden never would have left town if it weren’t for me. Her sister never would have been in danger. Don’t punish them because of my mistakes.”

  Guillermo lowered his head. “Ethan, you know this goes beyond the risk to just one person. Every week the Council is forced to clean up database records, break into government and law enforcement facilities and destroy evidence, and yes, alter memories that could lead to werewolves being exposed and annihilated. We can’t make exceptions.”

  “He’s right.” Brody said in a low voice. And then to Ellie, “I’m sorry.”

  I glared daggers. None of my brothers would look at me.

  Breathing hard, Ellie turned to Hayden. “I can’t do it. I’m sorry.”

  Hayden’s face fell. “I swear to you we would find a way to make it okay. Violet loves Cocoa Puffs. She’s still me. We’d just feed your wolf tofu—"

  “Please don’t make this harder. I wouldn’t feel like me. And I know if I was doing this because I was being forced, I would resent it. I’d rather just… forget. Can you understand that?”

  Hayden began to silently cry. “I love you.”

  “Don’t let us grow apart. Not because you’re trying to protect me. Not because I’m confused and have blank spaces. You have to fight for us. Promise me.”

  “I promise.”

  At a silent nod from Guillermo, River stepped forward.

  “Fuck you, River,” Hayden spat.

  I went to her side, holding her back as my brother took Ellie’s face in his hands, examining her thoughtfully. Ellie glared up at him, a full foot shorter and looking in that moment like she could totally kick his Tracer ass.

  He smirked. “This might go a little easier if you stopped silently screaming how much you hate me.”

  “Like that’s going to happen. You’re Kylo Ren. Complete with evil mind laser.”

  “I’ve been called worse.” He dipped his head. “Think of something good.”

  “Ethan,” Hayden choked out, fingernails digging into my arm. “Let me go—"

  “I love you,” I whispered into her hair, wishing I’d been braver, that this of all moments didn’t have to be the first time she heard me say those words. And vowing then and there that I’d never hold back with her again. “You have to stay quiet. The more vivid her memories of this moment are, the stronger the emotional marker, the harder they are to rewrite.”

  “I hate this.”

  “I swear to you on my life, we will make sure she is okay. If it takes going down there every day, if we have to sit out in parking lots in your deathtrap Volvo, if I have to sit through a thousand rom coms while you two eat Thai food and paint each other’s nails, you will never lose your sister.”

  Hayden shuddered in my arms.

  Tears filled Ellie’s eyes. “Please don’t do this,” she whispered. “I’m not a danger to any of you.”

  River didn’t blink. “I’m sorry.”

  “I hate you.”

  “They always do.”

  And as the room looked on, Ellie collapsed in his arms.

  Epilogue

  Hayden

  GOLDEN PRE-DAWN LIGHT WARMED THE CLIFFS overlooking Lake Austin and the copper red Pennybacker Bridge. The last stars were just fading from the night sky, winking out as wisps of high clouds overhead began to glow a brilliant pink. The wind stirred the hem of my vintage A-line dress, fluttering the skirt printed with tiny black skulls as I watched a lone swan skim the surface of the water.

  It was Halloween. It was my birthday. And, oh yeah. One other thing. Ethan and I were getting married.

  “Okay, one? I got up at 4 a.m. just to make you a Thin Mint triple-shot smoothie, which in retrospect I’m pretty sure should require a warning label.” Head pillowed in my lap, Ethan plucked at the strings of my ukulele. “And two, I let Cal put me into this suit. Three—"

  I cut him off with a kiss, fingers twirling lazily through the dark strands of his hair. His eyes fluttered closed, face falling slack as dappled sunlight from the leaves overhead played across his features. And yes, in
a dark gray suit and skinny tie, he totally looked hot enough to jump. Which was one more reason we’d nearly been late.

  “You show me yours and I’ll show you mine.”

  He smirked. “No way.”

  We’d made the drive down from Blood Moon in the early hours of the morning, leaving time to sneak up the trail to one of Austin’s most famous overlooks so Ethan could sketch me as the sun rose. It wasn’t the only sketch he’d done in recent weeks. I’d even convinced him to pull out his painting supplies and reserve wall space in Dark for pieces to sell to tourists and locals. But some portraits, like the one of me laid out over our bed holding my guitar and wearing nothing but his shirt and my boots was definitely staying in the private sketchbook he kept in the nightstand.

  Ethan smoothed a strand of hair away from my cheek. “I keep thinking I’ll blink and none of this will be real. That you won’t be real. That I can’t possibly deserve this. Deserve you.”

  In answer, I lifted our intertwined fingers to my lips, his thumb stroking lightly over the E.K.C. tattooed onto my fourth finger. Just below it was a heart with a crooked line bisecting its center. Two broken halves fused whole. He’d gotten my initials tattooed in place of a ring as well, the small H.C. inked indelibly in gothic lettering just above a tiny violet. A promise that even if so many other people in my life had run, he was here to stay.

  “Then I guess I’ll just have to be here every time you open your eyes.”

  The corner of his mouth quirked. And through the bond, I felt his wolf arch in pleasure.

  We’d celebrated our own private Halloween the night before, watching American Horror Story and making homemade lasagna with beef, spicy tomato sauce, parsley, fresh basil and fennel from the garden out at the ranch, and so many succulent layers of ricotta and parmesan cheese, Ethan practically had to hold me back from the oven while it baked. After garlic bread, salad with cold tomato wedges and tiramisu that had Violet so excited Ethan couldn’t keep himself from laughing as he tormented me one forkful at a time, we managed to keep our hands off each other long enough to carve the giant pumpkin that was currently sitting out on Dark’s counter. Its face depicted a spooky collage of cats, bats, a skeleton, and a ghost, with the words Just Married in an arc across a moonlit sky.

  And okay, we might have taken a few make-out breaks.

  My phone buzzed.

  CadburyFunny: Nearly there. So excited! Had near-cat-versus-bouquet-incursion but yours truly totally saved it with her mad Jedi skillz.

  CadburyFunny: Cat emoji. Lightsaber emoji.

  Me: Um, yeah. Things not to include on your vet school apps…

  The memory wipe had worked. Ellie had woken up on Ethan’s couch the following morning with a splitting headache, the sudden desire to switch her career path to veterinary school and the memory of getting lost and falling out in the corn maze during the storm. Piper and Meera had barely been phased by our absence. Apparently, River had been to visit them, too. I was so going to kill him.

  I checked in with Ellie daily, probably to the point of being obnoxious, and Ethan had promised me we would drive down to Austin every weekend to spend time with my family. I’d been nervous on the first visit, but Ellie now believed Ethan and I had reconnected when he came to see me play a gig. Although I couldn’t be sure how much to read between the lines and anxiety gripped me each time I stared down at those three little blinking dots, waiting for her texts to appear, I was pretty sure she was coming around to the idea of him.

  “You ready for this?” Ethan pressed our joined hands to his heart. He’d removed his jacket, rolling the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows.

  I traced my index finger over the infinity symbol he’d gotten tattooed on his forearm just above his wrist cuff. The elvish script neatly obscured my claiming mark, curling around and back again until the lyric formed a closed loop.

  Love is not surrender. Love is earned.

  I’d already started getting calls from agents, wanting to know when Daisy Addiction would be performing again. My bandmates had been found alive and unharmed in the back of a mobile home an hour outside of Austin. Tracers had moved them to a closet in the back of Jake’s apartment and modified their memories before calling in a tip for the police.

  Since it looked like Daisy Addiction would be taking a break for the next few months while they recovered, I was considering picking up a few open mic nights on my own. Maybe writing some songs for acoustic. I felt alive for the first time in months, like the world was mine again to explore. Daisy Addiction would be back. In the meantime, I would spread my wings.

  I drew Ethan’s wrist to my lips.

  “Yours.” A single word. Five letters I’d penned around the petals of the daisy tattoo he’d once drawn on my arm as we stood separated by miles. And now I would be his. Forever.

  Rising, I tugged Ethan to his feet, twining my arms around his neck. “By tonight we’ll be out at the cabin. Just you and me, listening to the sound of the waves and the cicadas as we watch the sun set out over Lake Buchanan.”

  “And you’ll be mine,” Ethan breathed against my lips, gripping me by the waist as he held me in place. Our tongues met, the kiss quickly turning heated.

  A cough sounded from behind us. Piper, Meera and Ellie stood waiting, my sister in a silk blouse, heels and a skirt. She handed me a bouquet of blood-red roses and soft white daisies, tied with a trailing red bow.

  My laidback aunts, who had never imposed a curfew and had been the ones to help when I streaked my hair every color of the rainbow, for once had been surprised when we had announced we were engaged and getting married at the end of the month. Piper had privately called to ask if there was anything else I needed to tell them. (Which, no, there wasn’t.) But they’d quickly recovered, and Meera had gotten ordained online so she could marry us at sunrise over the lake.

  Now Piper chewed her lip, staring at my head. “Okay, no judgement, but—"

  Meera elbowed her. “You realize when people say no judgement, it’s just so they can be super judgy.”

  “They’re just—”

  “I think they’re cute. Quirky. Let’s be real. Were we ever really expecting ice sculptures, boutique dress fittings and cake tastings with this one?”

  “Okay, I’m just going to come right out and ask. Is this like a Halloween thing?” Ellie reached up to adjust my headpiece, smoothing my veil so it fell over my face. “We all get the blood-red Docs and the skulls—”

  I narrowed my eyes, which Ellie, of course, ignored. “I feel like I should maybe be insulted by that—”

  “—but you don’t even like cats. I’ve always seen you as more of a dog person.”

  Our eyes locked, my heart seizing for one terrible, endless second. And then Ellie blinked.

  “Did things just get really… weird?”

  Ethan slipped an arm around my waist. “You’ll have to excuse her. Blair’s doesn’t open until six and someone can’t function without her chocolate doughnut fix—”

  “Um, you know I'm standing right here?”

  He smirked, reaching up to adjust the little veil I’d hot-glued behind the black cat ears I’d worn the Halloween when he’d kissed me three years before. The night that had started it all. “And as for the cat ears, this is kind of our anniversary. Ready, Daisy?”

  In answer, I threw my arms around his neck and let him spin me in a slow circle.

  Ethan

  “DON’T BE ANGRY,” Hayden said, her Volvo shuddering as we pulled up to Dark. Once again, she’d insisted we take Death Trap even though he barely made fifty-five on the interstate.

  But whatever. She’d married me. I’d just start hiding chocolate in my truck until she was subliminally conditioned to lunge for it every time we came downstairs.

  “Uh oh.”

  “It’s not that bad.”

  “You stole all my socks and hoodies.”

  “Um, hello. Honeymoon? My plans for you this weekend do not involve clothes.” Cranking the car into
park, she reached for her bouquet. “But kind of worse.”

  Which was when my brothers filed outside. West leaned in the window, which amazingly, given this was Death-Trap, still rolled down.

  “Heard there was a wedding.” He grinned, tucking in a pale-blue button down over the Spiderman costume he’d clearly had on at school that morning. “We doing this or what?”

  His voice betrayed nothing, but I could see the faint shadows beneath his eyes, two weeks of fatigue taking their toll. Topher had been assigned to our pack. And my brother had stepped up to serve as his sire until he was ready to live independently. For the time being, Topher was in one of the holding rooms back at the ranch, pissed as a wet cat and talking to none of us. But he was safe. And that was a start.

  “Uh?” I turned to Hays, who batted me with her bouquet, then pulled a yellow post-it out of the glove box, which she promptly stuck to my forehead.

  I peeled it off, squinting. “Wow, when I told you last night I wanted to try this—”

  “Pervert. And FYI, you are a total art snob.”

  Grinning, I kissed her. “Kidding. I can totally tell it’s a wolverine. But why is he eating a dandelion?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Get out of Axel before I bite you.”

  I pocketed the note. (Violet, a big, floppy daisy in her mouth, I love you scrawled across the top.) Yeah. I was never letting this one go.

  The moment I got out, August had me in a headlock. “Thanks for letting us know you were getting hitched.”

  I elbowed him, and after a beat, he released me, smoothing his coat and tie. “Brody’s still pissed about the pack receiving a formal censure. Didn’t seem right to put everyone in the middle.”

  “It’s your wedding. Pretty sure that’s grounds for a one-day time out.”

  I looked down. “You know why it had to be this way. Ellie shouldn’t see any of you. It could retrigger her memories. It’s a risk even having me come down to Austin. Hays and I just figured we’d have the wedding there with her family and the official mating in a few weeks when we induct her into the pack.”