Lycan Moon: An Urban Fairy Tale (Lycan Evolution Book 1)

by Rick Gualtieri

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  EPILOGUE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR – RUBY CRUZ

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR – RICK GUALTIERI

  BONUS CHAPTER

  LYCAN MOON

  Lycan Evolution - 1

  R. Gualtieri

  Ruby Cruz

  Copyright © 2017 Ruby Cruz, Rick Gualtieri

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission of the author. Your support of author’s rights is greatly appreciated.

  All characters in this novel are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The use of any real company and/or product names is for literary effect only. All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners.

  Edited by Megan Harris:

  www.mharriseditor.com

  Cover by Christian Bentulan:

  www.coversbychristian.com

  Special thanks to our awesome beta readers. Your invaluable feedback helped us chip away all of the rough story concepts to reveal the chiseled sculpture beneath.

  LYCAN MOON

  Rowan Sinclair has trained for a life in the shadows. As a member of the Guild, she's vowed to mercilessly hunt werewolves or die trying. But when one approaches her, claiming to know her missing father's fate, she decides to do the unthinkable - work with one of the very monsters she’s sworn to destroy.

  Dean Mason is a man living with a curse, doing whatever he can to keep the beast inside from sating its bloodlust under the light of the full moon. When a chance meeting offers a tantalizing glimpse of a potential cure, he’ll do anything to end the nightmare.

  Now destiny has united these two predators, each possessing the key to something the other desperately needs. Their partnership will lead to either their salvation or mutual destruction in this urban fairy tale where there's no such thing as happily ever after.

  PROLOGUE

  John Sinclair touched the pistol at his side, assuring himself of its presence for the umpteenth time. It was a quirk he’d picked up as a boy that even a lifetime of hunting hadn’t been able to erase. Still there, as always, sitting snug in its weathered holster.

  Chiding himself for once again giving in to the old paranoia, he leveled his breathing, reached out with his senses. Something faint niggled at the far reaches of his perception – not quite tangible in his consciousness, but definitely there. A lesser hunter would have dismissed the feeling, but he knew from experience what that meant. This was no false alarm. A werewolf was somewhere nearby.

  He’d been tracking this particular wolf for weeks, ever since that rich family on the Upper West side had gotten mauled to death. The police had fed the media some bullshit about the killings, but his connection on the force told him what he already knew. Wolf attack.

  Goddamned whelps!

  The victims had not only been mutilated beyond recognition, they’d been partially devoured – the bones gnawed on like a puppy’s chew toy. He felt a small degree of sympathy for both the ritzy couple and the servants who’d been killed in the attack, but at least they’d been found and laid to rest. The same couldn’t be said of their grown son. He was missing, probably torn to shreds, and his bones either buried in the park or at the bottom of the Hudson.

  Poor rich bastard.

  The police were pinning the killing on the chauffeur, also missing. Though John agreed they were on the right track, he didn’t think the chauffeur did it for the money as the papers were saying. He was betting the man was one of them, most likely the very same wolf he was hunting.

  His cell phone vibrated once in his pocket, an incoming text, but he ignored it. His daughter, Rowan, was one of the few who had his number and the only one who ever used it, but if she’d been in trouble or had a lead, she’d have called. The girl was probably just bugging him, despite having been taught better, wondering if he’d found anything yet.

  Though he knew it would piss her off, he powered down the device. Damned thing would tip off the wolf if it heard the buzzing. It was common knowledge in the Guild that whelps could hear a fly taking a shit from a hundred paces.

  He didn’t need her help anyway. He’d been hunting werewolves since well before she was born. Only reason he carried the piece of junk in the first place was because Rowan insisted on it.

  Damn millennials and their smartphones.

  He’d spent a lifetime learning to trust his instincts, look for real clues like the hunters before him – a tradition dating back hundreds of years.

  According to the forensics report, the killer had left a faint blood trail leading two blocks east toward Central Park. Unsurprising. There had been other attacks, not to mention multiple disappearances, in that area in the past year. The police thought they were random, unconnected, but he and Rowan suspected otherwise.

  Who’d have ever thought Central Park West would be the home of a pack, or at least their hunting ground? Then again, this was New York City. Weird and this town went together like white on rice.

  He scouted the neighborhood closest to the latest killing while Rowan patrolled a couple of blocks east, in and around the park entrance. She probably thought she’d gotten the more dangerous assignment, but his gut told him otherwise. If anything was going to happen beneath this month’s full moon, it was going to be here. He’d have bet a month’s worth of case files on it.

  John reached out with his senses again, the tingling at the base of his neck stronger this time. The wolf was definitely near, probably trying to sniff him out. Let it try. He wasn’t one of this area’s hoity-toity easy marks. He’d been born and bred upstate, practically a hillbilly compared to these trust fund types. It was also where he’d been trained.

  He knew exactly what would happen next. Werewolves were stupidly predictable – fierce, savage, and deadly as all hell, but not much smarter than actual wolves when in the grip of the moon. The whelp would lock on to his scent, then circle in closer, using the shadows until such time as it was certain of an easy kill. Then it would pounce. Pity, the only thing it would be eating this night would be a hollow-point silver bullet.

  It would be another notch on his belt and a reminder for Rowan that she might be younger and faster, but it would be a cold day in Hell before she was bett...

  He paused mid-step, suddenly on high alert. In the space of a second, his senses went from a dull tingle to practically screaming.

  The hell?!

  Before he could react, there came a sound from his left and the goddamned whelp came at him like a runaway freight train – fangs bared, ropes of saliva hanging from its massi
ve mouth. Every instinct commanded him to run, but that would be fruitless. Besides, hunters never ran. They stayed and fought, even if it meant their death.

  Sadly, it seemed death was the likely option. This wolf had caught him by surprise, seeming to opt for what amounted to a hit and run ambush, but that was impossible. Whelps weren’t nearly that smart.

  Unfortunately for John, his reaction time wasn’t what it used to be – a combination of being caught off guard and his body being well past its prime. He yanked the gun from its holster, but his first shot was sloppy, unsteady. Nevertheless, the creature let out a yip of pain. For a brief moment, John held out hope, but he’d only grazed the beast’s massive arm.

  He fired again, but the monster was already on the move, dodging with preternatural speed until it was within reach of him.

  With a roar of rage, the wolf rose to its full height, towering over him, and batted his weapon away before he could empty it into its muscular midsection.

  Having no other recourse, John backpedaled down an alleyway, giving him time to draw his knife. The short blade glinted in the dull moonlight, but the beast seemingly took no notice of the new weapon. Its red eyes fixed on his as it charged.

  There was no time to dodge. John took the full brunt of the wolf’s weight. He landed on his back, the air knocked out of him. Before he could so much as suck in a full breath, the creature’s jaws clamped down on his shoulder. His leather jacket might as well have been paper against its assault. Razor sharp teeth tore through flesh and into bone, eliciting a tortured scream from the aged hunter.

  John was certain he was about to be ripped to pieces, but then the weight on his torso suddenly withdrew, as did the teeth which had been tearing into his arm. When he opened his eyes, he saw the beast had actually retreated and was sitting – sitting! – staring at him, its head tilted to the side as if trying to comprehend what it was seeing.

  He’d known many a hunter who had lost their nerve in the midst of battle, only to forfeit their life. That number included his wife, Moira, Rowan’s mother, fool of a woman that she’d been. But he’d never heard of another hunter losing their mind like he apparently was. The thing almost looked like an oversized puppy, for Christ’s sake.

  And still it sat, staring at him, its eyes seemingly full of something that should have been alien to it – intelligence. No. That was impossible. Maybe the damned thing just hadn’t liked the way he’d tasted.

  Whatever the case, it was sitting there now, a perfect target. Sadly, John couldn’t take advantage of the situation. His gun was nowhere to be seen.

  Worse, he could feel the lethargy settling in, the first effect of a bite. Werewolf saliva had mild sedative properties – the Guild still had no idea how in the hell that had evolved – calming its prey and subduing it for the eventual feast, a situation not helped by the fact that he was bleeding badly.

  He reached for his phone, but his fingers were already numb. The device clattered out of his grasp and onto the sidewalk, its screen dark and dead, like he soon would be. What a fool he’d been to suggest to Rowan that they split up and cover more ground, so he could keep the kill for himself, and then to turn off the one thing that could have saved him. Now he was down, wounded, broken, and with hope quickly fading.

  He could do nothing but wait, his body betraying him, his eyelids heavy. His consciousness waned as he anticipated the final attack, praying it was quick.

  Rather than the sting of razor sharp teeth sinking into his throat, he heard a shout and felt a heavy thump on the ground beside him. Before he could so much as wonder what was happening, though, the darkness claimed him.

  1

  Ro glimpsed the first rays of sun through the trees as dawn broke. The night had been a bust. She hadn’t heard from her father in hours and all her calls went straight to voicemail. The stubborn old man had probably turned his phone off, much as he did just about every hunt despite her protests to the contrary.

  She’d found no sign of wolves during her patrol. The most excitement she’d had was when a drunk vagrant had bugged her for change, then had gotten violent when she told him to take a hike. She didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but it certainly hadn’t been a spinning kick to his face which had crushed his nose into pulp.

  He’s lucky it wasn’t his balls.

  She headed west out of the park and to where her dad was supposed to be patrolling. The ritzy brownstone where the Mason killings had occurred was only a few minutes’ walk away. The street was relatively quiet. It was still too early for all except the most dedicated of athletes or employees.

  She tried her dad’s cell again with no success. Where the hell was he? She rounded the brownstone and checked the alley across the street. Nothing but the usual detritus. In a similar fashion, she examined all the places her father might have found to hide out – recessed doorways, alleys, lower level landings, even shrubbery.

  One early-riser stuck her head out the window and asked what she was doing. “My keys,” Ro answered easily. “My stupid boyfriend and I got in a fight and he threw them out the car window.”

  The woman’s face softened ever so slightly. “Good luck with that,” she replied before closing the window with a definitive thump.

  Ro continued her search, her unease growing with every passing minute. She swore to herself. If he’d gone off to grab some coffee, without bothering to tell her, she was going to suture his damn phone to his hand.

  She finished searching the block, then widened her search parameter to the next one over. Roughly twenty minutes later, in a narrow alleyway that branched off to several gated gardens on either side, she found her first clue. Two shell casings from a .38, the same caliber her dad used. She examined the ground and walls flanking her and found a small spray of blood on the side of one building. Following it, she spied what appeared to be a larger pool further down the alley, near one of the gardens.

  She knelt and dipped a finger in it. Still wet, but thick and congealed. A few hours old at least. Her heart racing, she stood and glanced around, looking for any further signs of what might have happened. If her father had wounded or killed a whelp, he wouldn’t have hesitated to contact her so as to brag. That he’d gone radio silent instead terrified her.

  Ro stepped out of the alley and onto the sidewalk. She needed to be away from the shadows, out in the light and the warmth. She pulled out her phone and dialed a number she’d hoped never to call. A smooth voice answered. “Hey, babe. Calling to trade hunting stories?”

  “No, Kane. I need your help. My father’s missing.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Ro resented having to call in the other hunter, but she couldn’t think of a better course of action in her current state of mind. She couldn’t exactly go to the nearest police station and report her father missing. Even if she ignored the part about werewolves and fell back on his day job as a private eye, the cops would still want details as to what he was doing in a ritzy neighborhood all night. His normal clients weren’t exactly the type to live in a place like that, something they could easily check. The blood evidence in the alley and the fact that he’d discharged his weapon would only further complicate matters. Even if he turned out to be okay, they’d still be finished in the city. The Guild would reassign them rather than potentially draw heat onto themselves.

  Kane was a detective with the NYPD, an invaluable resource when it came to accessing police records in their search for possible werewolves and their victims, not to mention helping to keep the heat off of them. He’d been the one to tip them off about the increasing number of attacks on the Upper West Side, giving them copies of the police reports and crime scene photos.

  The Guild had stationed him in the city just eighteen months ago, citing the need for an increased hunter presence in a major city of New York’s size. Her father hadn’t liked the other man from the start. “He’s careless and full of himself,” he’d groused one morning after a particularly difficult kill.
“The ignorant jackass nearly got us both slaughtered tonight.”

  But aside from searching all the nearby hospitals for her father, she had no other avenue to turn down. No one else in her life knew she was a werewolf hunter. To the world at large, she was just another working class girl living an ordinary, paycheck-to-paycheck life.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Ro swallowed back the fear rising in her throat. If she dwelled on it too much, she was certain it would paralyze her. He’s probably just holed up somewhere catching some sleep, she tried to reason. But he’d never abandoned her like this after a patrol.

  She considered the possibilities.

  If he was injured, he’d have definitely reached out to her. She had her nursing license and was more than capable of stitching up most non-fatal wounds incurred during a wolf fight. He would only have gone to a hospital if he’d been in dire need, and even then would have fought the effort ... unless he wasn’t capable of doing so. That led to the worst case scenario – he’d either been wounded so badly as to have been dragged off by the wolf or...

  A wave of nausea at the thought caused her stomach to roil. She grabbed hold of the coffee cup in front of her and held onto it as if for dear life until the sensation passed.

  “You’re looking good after a night out.”

  She looked up to find Kane standing over her in the upscale café, mere blocks away from where she’d found the blood. He had a smug grin on his face, but at least he’d come quickly – small favors and all of that.

  Instead of taking a seat across from her in the booth, he slid in next to her and leaned in close. She cringed inwardly, though she knew this was the only way they could openly discuss what they needed to without being overheard.

  “I found blood and casings, same as what my dad uses,” she said in a low voice. “I haven’t heard from him since two, and his phone is off.”

  “Let me guess, this happened a few blocks from the Mason house?” When she looked questioningly at him, he simply shrugged. “There’s a couple of desk sergeants I keep well-greased. On the down low, of course. They keep their eyes open for me during the full moon. Don’t worry. The calls that came in got filed as nothing more than kids with firecrackers.”