Moon Cursed: The Reluctant Werewolf Chronicles, Book 1

by Centanni, Tori

  “I barged into a vampire’s apartment to demand immortality when I was bitten by his roommate. I mean, in my defense, it seemed like a great plan at the time but still. I’m not really in a position to talk.”

  He licked his lips and kept his gaze on the road ahead. “I asked to be turned.”

  My head whipped around so fast I was surprised I didn’t get whiplash. “Wait, what?”

  “See? I told you. You think being a werewolf is a curse. A disease. You can’t imagine anyone wanting to be one.”

  I had to bite my tongue. He was right. I couldn’t imagine it. Wanting to be an immortal vampire? Sure. Wishing you could be a beautiful and eternal faerie? Not possible but sure, it was appealing. Wishing you could cast spells and learn magic like a witch? Definitely. But wanting to be a werewolf didn’t really compute. Then I remembered what Jean said, about how some people actively sought it. It was so hard to wrap my mind around.

  “Look, I don’t get why anyone in their right mind would want to be a bloodsucking monster,” Raff said. “Vampires can’t see the sun and they’re forced to drink blood. Plus, most of them don’t survive the first year.” He shot me a look daring me to argue, but he was right. Most vampires didn’t. They failed to learn to control their bloodlust and became hazards to vampirekind by threatening to expose their existence to mortals. In those cases, their sires often killed them. It was considered a mercy. Others died because they were too tempted to see the sun again or got too distracted and didn’t get to shelter before sunrise.

  “Yeah, that’s true,” I agreed.

  “I wanted to be a werewolf. I wanted to experience being a powerful, majestic creature under the full moon, and I wanted to be with a werewolf. I want to prove to her that I not only accepted what she was, but that I loved it, and understood it in only the way a fellow werewolf could.”

  “Anna,” I whispered, almost under my breath. I hadn’t even meant to say it aloud, but the realization had escaped on my tongue.

  Raff grimaced. “Yeah. It didn’t work out, obviously. I bet you think that makes me extra idiotic.”

  “Actually, I think it’s kind of romantic. And if it’s what you wanted anyway…” I shrugged. “Michael is probably going to become a vampire for Damien.” If he’s not dead already. I didn’t say that part out loud. “And it makes sense. He wants to be a vampire anyhow, and they love each other… Or at least, I hope they do.”

  “We’re going to save him. And Holly,” Raff said, his hands squeezing the wheel. “And then you’re going to take a crash course in werewolves.”

  “That’s probably a little overdue,” I admitted.

  Raff snorted. “Only a little.”

  We turned onto a narrow road surrounded by thick foliage on both sides. Branches scraped the car’s sides. The map app declared that our destination was half a mile away, on the right. My stomach tightened and my skin itched. I wanted to find Michael so badly, but I was also terrified of what kinds of traps the hunters might have set up in case of just such a rescue mission.

  “Maybe we should have insisted on backup,” I said, trying to fight down my nerves as the car slowed.

  “We can’t risk taking resources from the pack until we know something is here,” Raff said, killing the headlights in order to make a stealthier approach. Dusk fell early in November and it’d gotten dark about thirty minutes ago. “It’ll be fine. We’ll scout around and if our people are here, we’ll figure out how to get them out.”

  “Okay.”

  My heart pounded as the car glided through the dark. Lights shone up ahead. That must be the cabin we were searching for. Raff pulled off into an alcove between some trees to get the car off the road.

  I had my hand on the door handle when the first bullet broke through the windshield.

  Chapter 22

  I screamed as gunshots rang through the air.

  “Get down!” Raff snarled. I’d already ducked down into the seat as far as I could manage.

  A bullet exploded through the windshield. I made myself as small as I could. It didn’t feel small enough. Raff counted to three and then pushed the driver’s side door open, rolling out as more shots were fired.

  My ears rang and I couldn’t tell if the shooting had stopped. The sound seemed to echo forever. All I wanted to do was run, but I was frozen in fear and unable to make myself move. I didn’t know which was worse: staying in the car or bolting outside.

  The passenger door opened and I screamed again.

  “It’s me,” Raff said. “There were two of them out here. I got one and his gun,” he waved a silver pistol and I shuddered at the sight of it, “but the other one ran back to the cabin to warn the rest.”

  “And we don’t know how many hunters that might be,” I said.

  “No,” Raff said. “We don’t.”

  My lips were dry and my limbs were shaking. Raff helped me out of the car while all of my instincts screamed to get back in and drive away as fast as possible. But Michael might be in that cabin and I couldn’t leave him.

  Raff shoved the gun into my hand. I stared at it. It was warm, from someone else’s hand and Raff’s, and probably from being fired. It made my palm sweat and I wanted to drop it. “I can’t… I don’t know how to use this,” I said.

  “Hopefully you won’t have to.” He stood behind me and raised my arm, his hand covering mine over the gun’s handle. He pointed out the safety and how to aim. “It’s small, but it might kick back on you so if you do fire, be prepared for that. Don’t fire more than one bullet at a time. And don’t get the bullets anywhere near me, Holly, or yourself. They’re silver.”

  I nodded, feeling woefully ill-prepared for this. Why the hell had I agreed to come into the woods with one other person armed with his brute force to rescue two people from a group of bigoted, militant monster hunters? Clearly, lack of sleep and worry for my friends had left me totally unhinged.

  “This would be a lot easier if we could transform into wolves and tear out their throats.”

  “It would,” Raff agreed. “But it’s going to be okay.”

  He sounded so sure of it that for a moment, I felt reassured. But then I remembered how these guys had clearly been expecting us. No doubt they were the kind of folk who stockpiled arms and they’d proven they were happy to shoot first and ask questions later.

  “We’re doomed,” I muttered.

  “That’s the spirit.”

  Raff took several steps toward the cabin, then paused, tilting his head and sniffing the air. Satisfied that no hunters were hiding in the trees, he gestured for me to follow. I did, sniffing the air as well to see if I could sense anything. I could smell the hint of gunpowder, and maybe the ghost of sweat along with the moss and the wet, woody smell of the forest. We inched toward the cabin, sticking close to the tree line until Raff stopped suddenly right before the clearing around the house that the cabin’s porch light illuminated.

  “We need to stick to the shadows,” he whispered, sinking into the trees.

  I followed his lead, diving into the foliage, too scared to do anything else. We moved through the dark, careful to step over plants and around branches as much as possible. Every little crackle and snap sounded impossibly loud over the blood thundering in my ears. I felt like a water buffalo in a china shop, sure they could hear every misstep and broken twig. And maybe they could, but they didn’t have werewolf hearing or our enhanced sense of smell. It didn’t feel like much of an advantage, but it was something.

  We edged around to the side of the cabin, which only had one small window on the bottom floor, its A-frame roof leaving no room for windows on its second story. The small window was made of frosted glass, likely a bathroom. It was the best angle to approach it at, as it gave the best chance of not being seen, unless someone was standing in the shower playing lookout.

  “Stay close to me,” Raff said, turning to face me, as if to check that I hadn’t run off into the trees.

  “Planning on it,” I whispered back
.

  I could barely see his smile in the dark. He did have a handsome face, damn him. He leaned in close and for a second, I thought he was going to kiss me. Worse, I kind of wanted him to. But instead, he whispered, “Let the wolf out a little. She can help you.”

  And then he turned to step out of the trees, leaving me super confused and a little disappointed. The wolf? The thing I became for a very short window of time each month? How the hell could she do anything? She was me, and not a part of me that could I could activate at the moment.

  But then, what did I have to lose?

  Hey wolf? Do your thing, I thought. I felt silly for it. And sillier still when nothing happened. I didn’t hear a howl in the back of my mind or anything that might constitute a response.

  But then I heard whispers from inside the cabin. I blinked. The cabin was at least six yards away and it felt like my hearing had zoomed in on it like a camera with a telephoto lens. Maybe that was my wolf hearing. Or maybe the idiots inside just sucked at keeping quiet. I couldn’t make out the words, just the sounds of speech.

  I titled my head. My tongue flew out of my mouth like I was tasting the air. I immediately pulled it back because that was kind of weird and I didn’t want Raff to see, but I could taste sweat and oil, gun powder, and silver. I could distinguish three separate sets of body sweat and soap. None of it familiar, except the faintest hint of Holly’s strawberry shampoo.

  And I could smell Raff, sweet sweat mixed with pine, a smell that blended right into the forest. I shook my head, as if I could shake off the scent and swallowed uneasily.

  Raff had made it to the corner of the cabin and pressed himself up against the side of the house, leaning around the back to check things out.

  I swallowed and stepped out of the trees, my nose sniffing like a dog following a scent. I’d noticed changes in my sense of smell since I’d been bitten—once I yelled at Michael for having a bad smell in his room and it turned out to be a rotten piece of pepperoni in the far corner where it had fallen behind a shelf after he’d temporarily set a plate on it in the middle of the night—but I’d never actively used the ability. If anything, I’d tried to suppress my heightened wolf senses because they were a nuisance. No one wants to smell their coworker’s six-month-old dirty sock that’s balled up in the bottom of their locker inside of an old gym bag, after all. But now I was smelling and tasting the air, trying to sort sweat and hair oil to count the number of bodies inside.

  And there was another smell, too. The scent of death. Raff had taken out one of the hunters already, and though he didn’t yet smell of decay, there was an aroma that danced on my nostrils that was unmistakably that of a corpse.

  I didn’t smell Michael or Holly other than the faint whiff of strawberry. I got the impression they were locked away, out of the way of whatever battle showdown the hunters were planning to have.

  “There are three of them,” I said to Raff, so quietly the words barely made a sound. That meant there was at least one more hunter than we’d already encountered. Hopefully that was the extent of their numbers.

  He nodded sharply in agreement, giving me the ghost of a smile before the grave expression returned. He pointed to the back door, which was past one large picture window in the middle of the house. I understood his plan: barge in and attack, catching them as much by surprise as possible. Granted, they knew we were here and the element of surprise was mostly lost. All we could do was hope to catch them off guard.

  Inside, someone spoke again. It sounded like they were moving toward the front of the house. That was good. If they were facing the front door, we might have a few seconds before they turned around and started shooting silver bullets at us.

  Silver, which would poison and kill us even if the bullets didn’t. Even the smell made my nostrils burn.

  My throat was dry and my stomach churned in time with my pounding heart. My fingers tightened around the pistol’s handle. It didn’t feel like enough.

  Raff made a sign with his fingers and then bounded for door. I wasn’t sure whether his signal had meant for me to wait or to follow, so I did both. I waited until I heard the door bang open and then I ran for it. Inside, the hunters shouted and guns went off. I stopped short of the door, terror exploding like ice in my veins.

  I wanted to run back to the car, but I couldn’t leave Michael.

  I couldn’t leave Raff.

  I took a deep breath and edged to the door. Raff had gotten one of the hunters on the ground and taken his gun. The other two were pointing guns at Raff, who was pointing his pilfered gun at the center of one of the hunter’s foreheads. The other hunter was slightly to his left, with a gun aimed at Raff’s temple, while the hunter in his sights had a gun aimed at his chest.

  What this situation needed was not more guns. I tried to find a solution. It was a puzzle and I didn’t have an answer.

  “Put your gun down, you mutt,” one of the hunters sneered at Raff. “Or I’ll shoot.”

  “I’ll shoot your pal if your finger so much twitches near the trigger,” Raff said. His shoulders were taut and his voice dripped with murder. I had no doubt he would.

  “Doug is prepared to die for the greater good,” the man without the gun aimed at his head said.

  Doug’s eyes widened, not entirely prepared after all. “Why don’t we all just put our guns down and talk about this?”

  “Doesn’t seem so ready to die,” Raff observed.

  “No one has to die,” Doug said, his voice getting higher.

  Raff’s back was to me, but he turned his head ever so slightly and I got the impression he knew I was there. He must have smelled me. “Where are our friends? You took a young man and woman and we want them back.”

  “You mean the blood bag and the bitch?” the man who did not have a gun in his face “bravely” snarled. What a jerk.

  “Where are they?” Raff repeated.

  “In the cellar,” Doug said. He was a coward like the rest of his little friends, but at least it was working in our favor. “Through the kitchen,” he added, when Raff didn’t lower his gun.

  I stepped into the house. Despite the fire burning in the little wood stove in the corner, the house was freezing. The men wore camo jackets and hats. Animal trophies, elk and moose heads, decorated the wood paneled walls. The furniture had been pushed out of the way to prepare for this bloodbath. I swallowed, my throat dry.

  “Well, well, well, if it isn’t another bitch. Whatcha doing, son, breeding them?” the cockier hunter said, leering at me.

  I aimed my gun at him and he hesitated, trying to decide whether it was better to leave his gun aimed at big, burly Raff who had his friend in his sights, or me. He apparently thought Raff was the bigger threat because he decided to keep his gun aimed where it was.

  “Fuck off,” I said, and went into the kitchen.

  The kitchen looked like something out of the 1970s: orange countertops and matching orange appliances with beat up cabinets in a dark wood. The entrance to the cellar was a pair of wooden doors set slightly above the floor next to the counters that lined the back wall. There was a lock on them, of course.

  “Cellar keys,” I called.

  “Where are the keys?” Raff asked.

  The gruff man laughed.

  “Harv has them,” Doug said.

  Poor, cowardly Doug. At least the guy didn’t have a death wish. I could respect that.

  “Which one is Harv?” I asked from the kitchen doorway.

  The other man sneered and shot Doug a murderous look.

  “On the ground,” Doug said, glancing away from his angry pal.

  “Don’t help them, you idiot!”

  “He’s got a gun to my head.” Doug spoke slowly, apparently irritated that he had to spell out the situation for his bone-headed pal.

  “You know that some sacrifices must be made for the greater good,” his friend said.

  I bent down and patted the unconscious Harv down to find his keys. His body was warm, but I didn’t t
hink he was still breathing. His keys were in one of his many coat pockets. Harv was, luckily, the sort of guy who kept only the necessary keys and there were only three on his ring, not counting the key fob for his truck.

  I raced back to the cellar door and fumbled with the keys, desperate to get the right key in the lock. Of course it was the third and final key that I tried. The lock clicked and I pulled it off the chain that held the cellar doors shut, throwing it across the room. Then I yanked the doors open.

  “Michael? Holly?” The cellar was pitch black. A staircase led down. I blinked and then focused into the dimness.

  “Down here!” Michael called. His voice was strained and raw, but it sent waves of relief crashing over me.

  I raced down the stairs, skipping several and using the railing as a guide. My feet hit the stone ground as gunfire erupted above.

  Chapter 23

  The gunshots blasted most of my relief away as new panic sank its claws into me. I hesitated, unsure if I should run back upstairs.

  “Over here,” Michael said again, and the decision was made. I had to help him first.

  I pulled out my cell phone and used a flashlight app to illuminate the space. I almost dropped my phone.

  He was at the back of the cellar. His arms had been tied together with Zip-ties. So had his legs. He looked pale and little dirty, his hair greasy and in need of a wash, but otherwise he looked okay. Relief tried to swell up inside me, but then I turned my light on Holly, and it deflated like a sad balloon.

  Holly was lying in a hospital bed, the kind with railings on either side, the back adjusted so she was half-sitting. Not that she was awake. Her head lulled to the side and her eyes were closed. Her lips were swollen and cracked. Leather bonds attached the metal parts of the bed were strapped around her wrists and ankles. She’d been dressed in a granny flannel nightgown with little pastel flowers all over it. I somehow doubted it was Holly’s own sleepwear.

  An IV snaked out of one of her arms, the plastic tube attached to a bag that hung off the pole behind the bed. My first impulse was to rip the needle out of her arm, but I stopped myself on the off chance it was actually helping her.