Wicked Moon (The Reluctant Werewolf Chronicles Book 2)

by Tori Centanni

  I sighed. I’d agreed with Raff that it was high time I learned how to be my best werewolf self. That meant honing my heightened senses of smell and hearing. But I didn’t need to do it every time someone came to the door. Especially not the day after a full moon, when I was worn out.

  Still, Raff showed no signs of backing down. He folded his arms across his muscular chest and remained planted in my way.

  I gave the air a quick sniff and smirked. “It’s Michael.”

  I reached past Raff for the door knob. He put a hand on the door to keep it closed.

  “How do you know it’s Michael?”

  He must have known it, too, because Raff was familiar with how Michael smelled.

  I rolled my eyes. “I can smell his lemon verbena soap and the ammonia tinge of his hair dye. It’s him.”

  Raff finally moved away from the door so I could open it for my best friend. Michael was loaded down with a heavy backpack and a rolling cart full of lighting and sound equipment.

  “Hey, Michael,” I said.

  I hadn’t seen him in a week or so, not since we’d gone to scavenge what we could from the ashes of our burned down rental house. There wasn’t much worth salvaging. Most of it went straight into the dumpster rented by our old landlord, who was having the lot flattened so he could rebuild.

  I owed Michael’s boyfriend a debt on that score: Damien had used his vampire powers of persuasion to convince both the police and my landlord that the torn up basement room I’d used to transform into a wolf, complete with shackles to keep wolf-me restrained, was nothing to be concerned about. Score one for vampire magic.

  “Charlotte,” Michael said in greeting.

  His hair had been freshly dyed an inky black, and there were tiny black spots on the back of one hand where the hair dye had stained his skin. A hand which now also bore a silver ring. That was new. It matched his lip ring. The stud in his nose was opal, and he wore a black shirt with a purple vest over it and skinny black jeans that he could pull off in a way I never could. His makeup, including heavy eyeliner and a purple-black lipstick, was flawless. The only chip in the perfect facade of Michael, goth makeup god, was the spot of concealer on his throat that was failing to cover a dark bruise.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “I need a place to record. Damien won’t let me film at his place. He thinks it’s a security risk.”

  Raff cleared his throat. “He would be correct.”

  Michael jumped. He obviously hadn’t seen Raff lingering at the side of the door, and now he swallowed uneasily and gave me big, pleading puppy dog eyes.

  “I was hoping to use your bedroom. I need to queue up a few videos so my channel isn’t dark all month. These past couple weeks have really hit my revenue stream.”

  Michael made a pretty decent living doing YouTube makeup tutorials, though lately he’d been getting quite a few hits on his personal channel, “Confessions of a Vampire’s Boyfriend.” Most of his subscribers didn’t think vampires were real, of course, they just thought Michael was funny and hot. Which he was.

  “Yeah, okay,” I said. “It might be a little messy.”

  I wasn’t exactly diligent about throwing my socks in the hamper or making my bed.

  “That’s not a problem.” Michael pulled his rolling cart over the threshold.

  “I didn’t say it was okay,” Raff said, glaring at Michael, who stopped short and glared right back.

  “It’s fine,” I said, tugging Michael’s shoulder to aim him away from Raff.

  They were about the same height and both were pretty narrow-framed, but otherwise total opposites. Raff had blond hair with fading blue streaks that stood in stark contrast to Michael’s inky locks. Raff was all lean muscle, and Michael was just lean. His cheeks didn’t look as sunken has they had a couple of weeks ago, and his t-shirt wasn’t hanging on him like a sheet, which I hoped meant he was eating regularly again. But still, Raff was larger and shifted his weight in a way to show it.

  “It’s my house,” Raff said.

  I gave him a don’t start look and took Michael’s backpack. It nearly hit the floor because it was about five times heavier than I’d expected. I shot him a questioning look. Michael shrugged, and I led him upstairs, where I quickly pulled my comforter over my bed and picked up any stray socks and bras so they wouldn’t end up in the background of a web show.

  “Thanks,” Michael said. “I appreciate it.”

  “Of course. I’m sorry Damien is being so draconian about his place.” I grinned.

  Michael rolled his eyes at the Dracula reference. Usually he was big on puns, but he didn’t have a huge sense of humor where Damien was concerned.

  “It’s not a big deal,” Michael said, “He’s a vampire. He’s allowed to be worried about security. Especially after… you know.”

  I blanched, swallowing uneasily. He was referring to how last month, monster hunters had broken in, staked Damien, killed one werewolf and kidnapped a second. They’d also kidnapped Michael. Raff and I had rescued Michael, but the werewolf who was taken, Holly, didn’t survive.

  “Understandable,” I said.

  He nodded and then ushered me out of my room so he could set up his recording equipment.

  The next time the doorbell rang it was a pizza, because I finally gave in to my gnawing wolf hunger. I’m always hungry, but on the days before, during, and after the full moon, I was ravenous. I ordered large two pizzas, one with meat and one without in case Michael was willing to grab a few slices and wanted to eat vegetarian, which he sometimes did.

  Raff must have been as hungry as I was, because he didn’t give me the second degree before I opened the door or force me to explain how I knew it was a pizza. Instead, he had plates ready to go when I brought the pizza boxes into the kitchen.

  We ate with gusto. I polished off two slices of each pie and Raff did the same. I washed mine down with Sprite. Raff drank water.

  I was merging the remaining pizza into one box when the doorbell rang a third time. Raff and I exchanged a look. Raff’s eyebrows rose in question.

  “I’m not expecting anyone else,” I said. “And my one friend is already upstairs.”

  Raff grunted and cautiously headed toward the door, sniffing and listening for clues to who might be on the other side. The fact that he wasn’t making me do that told me he was worried.

  It wasn’t late—barely eight o’clock—but it was rare for us to get visitors who didn’t call first. Raff’s pack mates—my pack mates, too, I guessed—communicated via a chat app on their phones and were good about giving a heads-up if they were going to pop by.

  “Werewolves,” Raff whispered.

  I couldn’t tell if he was more surprised or concerned as he opened the door. I stood to his side, slightly behind him, curious to see who they were.

  They were not werewolves I recognized, but the scent of werewolf—a little like how dogs smelled after a bath combined with the scent of human sweat—cut through the night air. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, a visceral reaction to potential trouble.

  There were two werewolves, both wearing black leather jackets over black pants. The man was taller than the woman but not by much. The woman had brown skin and dark hair, and the man was a burly white guy with a shaved head.

  Raff and the man stared at each other, gritting their teeth as they folded their arms over their chests. The woman looked bored but kept an eye on Raff, as if making sure he didn’t attack. No one said anything, which was super awkward, and I shifted uncomfortably.

  Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Hi,” I said.

  The man blinked and turned to look at me, his brow furrowed.

  “We’re from the Portland Pack. I’m Rayna, and this Owen,” the woman said, her shoulders square. “We’re here to request hospitality from a member of the Northern Washington Pack.”

  “Hospitality or aid?” Raff asked.

  It all felt so formal that I was afraid to speak ag
ain.

  “Only the former,” Owen said. Rayna shot him a look. “For now,” he added.

  Raff nodded again. “Let me check with my Alpha.”

  Owen made a derisive sound, but when I looked at him, he didn’t appear to have moved a muscle, and I wondered if I’d imagined it. Raff disappeared into the house to make a call. I stood there, unsure what to do. Even I realized that I wasn’t allowed to invite them in, which was weird as heck. So we just looked at each other, saying nothing, for a solid three minutes while the cold December chill blew into the house.

  Finally, Raff returned.

  “I’ve been granted permission to extend the pack’s hospitality to you,” he said with a slight bow.

  Rayna and Owen bowed back and then stepped over the threshold.

  I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. This whole thing was silly. They were fellow werewolves asking for a place to crash, and it was being treated like some hardcore negotiation.

  Once they were in, they stood around the living room, examining the premises like there might be traps in the ceiling ready to drop on their heads. Raff headed upstairs and, not wanting to stand around exchanging odd looks with strangers, I followed.

  I’d forgotten Michael was in my room until I passed my door and heard the muffled sound of him talking to his camera. Raff headed straight for the linen closet.

  “Where are they going to sleep?” I asked.

  Raff’s house had three bedrooms: the master, where he slept; the former guest room which was now my room; and a small bedroom he’d turned into an office, where he did most of his web design work.

  “Sofa pulls out,” Raff said as he pulled a stack of sheets down from a high shelf and handed it to me so he could get blankets and pillows.

  “Is that, you know, hospitable enough?”

  Raff glanced at me sideways, and I shrugged.

  “I don’t know how this works. It seems pretty uptight to me. Like maybe you’d be obligated to offer them a bed.”

  Raff smiled. His smile was gorgeous, like the rest of him, and I tried to ignore the little flood of warmth in my chest.

  “The rules of hospitality between packs are pretty basic: it means we won’t harm them and they won’t harm us. We won’t get in each other’s way. It doesn’t mean I have to serve tea on trays and platters of hors d'oeuvres or anything.”

  “You don’t have to tease me,” I said.

  Raff’s smile faded and he leaned closer, lowering his voice. “I’m not teasing. I’m trying to explain that hospitality in this sense just means we, as pack warriors, won’t kill each other or fight for dominance. That’s it.”

  I swallowed and thought of Rayna, imagining how badly a fight between the two of us would go. I couldn’t see her muscles beneath her leather jacket, but if she was anything like Raff and the warriors from his pack—our pack—then she had lots of them. I, on the other hand, had only lifted weights when Raff insisted on dragging me to the gym, and I hadn’t been particularly consistent about it.

  Once Raff had blankets and pillows stacked in his arms, he kicked the closet closed with his foot, and we headed back downstairs. The warrior wolves were standing in the exact same places, as if they hadn’t moved.

  Or as if they didn’t want us to think they’d moved.

  I shook my head. I didn’t know where that thought came from. Raff dropped the blankets and pillows on the easy chair, so I did the same with the sheets.

  “Can I offer you refreshments?” Raff asked.

  Five minutes later, after finally convincing our guests to have a freaking seat already, we were in the kitchen making coffee and I was reheating some pizza for them, since they finally agreed to accept food. Both wanted the meat lover’s special, of course.

  I put the pizza on plates and set them on the coffee table in front of each of them. Then I dragged chairs from the dining table into the living room to make more seating. Raff brought mugs of coffee for all but me, and I popped open a can of Coke.

  Rayna and Owen sat with their backs straight and stared at the mugs and plates like they might be poisoned. They seriously needed to relax. Their uptight attitude was making me nervous.

  “What brings you to Seattle?” Raff asked pleasantly, as if they were tourists in town for a good time.

  They exchanged a look.

  “Business,” Rayna finally said.

  It wasn’t exactly an opening for conversation. I wished Michael wasn’t in my room so I could go hide until they left.

  “Odd for the Portland Pack to have business all the way up here, especially on short notice,” Raff said. “Isn’t it?”

  “It’s unusual,” Owen agreed, finally lifting the mug and giving it a good sniff before daring to take a sip. Once again, I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.

  “Can I ask what your business is?” Raff kept a smile plastered on his face and managed to make the question sound mild, almost casual, as if he were only asking to be polite.

  The pair exchanged yet another look, so Raff and I did the same. Our look seemed to say, Are they for real?

  “We might as well tell them,” Rayna said. Owen looked like he was ready to argue, but Rayna ignored him. “One of our packmates went missing last night, and we tracked them here.”

  “Oh, is that all?” I asked, before I had time to really process what I was saying.

  The words flew out. But seriously, someone gets a little wild in wolf-form and makes their way to Seattle… Didn’t seem like a huge deal to me.

  Although, when I thought about it, I guessed a wolf couldn’t exactly drive and it was a long way to run, even at wolf-speed—which, to be honest, I didn’t know. By the time I made that connection, all three of them were staring at me like I’d grown a second head. I swallowed.

  “What Charlie means is, it’s good you’ve been able to track them this far,” Raff said. “And I’m sure you’ll find them quickly.”

  “That’s the problem,” Owen said gruffly. “Trail went cold. And we heard about how your wolves went MIA last month.”

  A chill ran over me. Our people hadn’t gone missing so much as they’d been taken by murderous werewolf-hating monsters. If the same thing had happened to this other wolf, well, it meant a whole lot of bad things, including the fact that the monster hunters were not as gone as we’d thought.

  Before anyone could comment further, Michael stomped down the stairs, hauling all of his gear. From the hardened expression on his face, he was pissed. His gaze glossed over the visitors and then landed on me with the heat of a laser point.

  “Charlie, can I see you outside?” he asked and then headed out the front door, giving me no choice but follow.

  Chapter 3

  Michael stood rigid, his jaw clenched tight. At first I thought he was mad about the unexpected visitors somehow ruining his makeup videos. But then Michael pulled a book out of his backpack and held it up accusingly.

  “What is this?” he demanded.

  I swallowed past a lump that was rapidly forming in my throat.

  The book he held was one I’d borrowed from a faerie woman who had a whole library of books on supernatural creatures. This particular handwritten tome was about thralls, which was a not-very-nice word for people under the influence of vampires. I’d grabbed it specifically because I’d been worried about Michael and I wanted to see what the book had to say.

  The book was not reassuring. While I knew some vampires did fall in love with mortals and have long, lasting relationships, a heck of lot more of them were only using their human companions for blood. I didn’t think that was true of Damien and Michael, or at least, I hoped it wasn’t true. But recently Michael had been eating less, looking more sickly, and seeming more distant.

  Technically, I should have returned the book weeks ago, and I was still working out the best way to do so without incurring said faerie’s wrath. In the meantime, I’d been keeping it on top of my dresser so I wouldn’t shove it in a drawer and totally forget about it. Which was fine, b
ecause unlike in our old, shared house, Michael was almost never around. He and Raff didn’t get along, and he’d never even been in my bedroom here before tonight.

  “Well?” Michael demanded.

  “It’s a book from Ellianne,” I said.

  Michael narrowed his eyes, the effect magnified by the vast amount of eyeliner he wore.

  “She hands them out like candy now, is that it?”

  I grabbed for the book, but Michael pulled it out of my reach.

  “Interesting choice.”

  He flipped through it so roughly I was worried he’d tear a page, and then Ellianne would tear me to shreds for defiling part of her collection. Michael read aloud:

  “‘Thralls have no will of their own. They are enslaved by their vampire masters, doing whatever they’re told for the chance to get another taste of vampire blood and the unlikely chance they will made into a vampire themselves one day.’” Michael looked up from the page and narrowed his eyes. “What the hell is this?”

  “It’s just a book,” I lied. “You know I love to read about vampires.”

  “This isn’t about vampires. It’s about their friends and lovers, written by some moron who thinks sharing blood with a vampire means you lose your free will.”

  “Not everyone who chronicles the supernatural is right,” I said, folding my arms over my chest.

  Michael shook the book so vigorously it almost flew out of his hands.

  “This book is wrong. And you know it’s wrong. I’m not like that.”

  “I grabbed it off the shelf because I thought it would be interesting.”

  It had been, though I agreed the author was biased and anti-vampire.

  “You think I’m Damien’s little minion,” Michael said, his glare boring into me like a drill.

  “Of course I don’t,” I said, and that was true.

  I didn’t. I was worried about Michael, but that wasn’t the same as thinking he’d become a vampire’s mindless zombie love slave.

  “But.” He said it like a challenge.

  I sighed. “But sometimes I worry that Damien is using you.”