To Crave a Blood Moon

by Sharie Kohler

  “What? What is it?”

  Her stomach cramped, recalling the pain, the horror of Amy’s death. “I came here last night looking for—” She stopped at the strangled, unrecognizable sound of her voice. “Looking for two girls—” She buried her face in her knees, freezing the burn of tears in her eyes, refusing to let them fall in front of this stranger, refusing to let her emotions out. Keep them in. Funny, considering all she ever did was fight to shove out the emotions of others.

  “Let me guess. Dead.” The coldness of his voice felt like an injection of ice in her veins. “They were dead the moment the pack had them in their sights. You should never have followed them here.”

  She shivered at his coldness. “They were my responsibility.”

  “Your mistake then, to ever let them leave your care and come here.”

  His words fueled her temper. And partly because she believed them. “How do you know so much about it? You don’t appear to be doing that great yourself. If you’re here, I’m guessing you screwed up somewhere along the way, too.”

  Who the hell was he anyway? Her jaw clenched. While she had disclosed a great deal about herself, she knew next to nothing about him. “Who are you? How did you land in here?”

  Silence held for several minutes… and there was still that desperation humming in the cold air, strumming through her nerves. And underneath it, always danger.

  His voice sounded hollow, wearied. “No. You talk to me. Tell me more about you.”

  “Can’t I at least know your name?”

  In the shadows, he shook his head. “It won’t end there.”

  “Where are you from?”

  His sigh floated on the air. After some moments, he answered. “I was born in Spain, but I don’t live anywhere. I have apartments in Barcelona, Vienna, Dublin. No home really.”

  “Wow.” His life sounded exciting. Completely opposite from hers. Travel. People. Adventure. “You must do well for yourself to live that way.”

  “Well enough.”

  “What do you do?”

  He cleared his throat. “Little of this. Little of that. I work on different… assignments.”

  “Sounds interesting. Contract work?”

  “You could say that.”

  “How’d you get here?

  “Enough questions,” he snapped.

  Fingers squeezing around her calves, she demanded, “Why?”

  “Trust me. You don’t want to know me. I’m not the kind of guy sweet little Southern belles need to know.” A thread of warning hung in his words. The dark rumble of his voice made her shiver, and she didn’t doubt he was right. But what choice did she have? She was stuck here with him. She needed to get to know him so she would not feel so terribly alone in this nightmare.

  For a while, neither of them spoke. Strange emotions stirred from him, reaching her across the distance. A gnawing ache that made her rub her own belly in hunger. “You’re starving,” she murmured.

  He laughed a dry, broken sound. “You can tell that, huh?” He stretched his broad torso and held his arms wide, his skin flexing over ridged muscle and his flat, washboard belly. He looked a bit thin, with a lean ranginess that reminded her of a starved wolf. She winced at the comparison, remembering last night again. Werewolves. She wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t seen it herself.

  “They don’t feed you down here?”

  “That’s not part of their plan for me.”

  She tensed. It was the first time he owned up to knowing any specifics. “And what is their plan for you?”

  Their gazes locked, clung. Instead of answering her, he asked, “Who will miss you, Ruby? A boyfriend back home?” His gaze flicked to her bare ring finger.

  She fidgeted where she sat. “No one.”

  “No one? Come. I don’t believe that.” And again she felt that spike of desperation, a jump in the room’s temperature, a sudden blast of need from him. He needed to hear she had someone—a clan of family waiting eagerly for her return. His dark eyes glittered with light across the distance. A chill chased across her skin, puckering her flesh.

  “Well. There’s Adele. My best friend. She’ll freak when I don’t make my plane.” That was putting it mildly. “She’s supposed to pick me up at the airport.” The redhead would probably be on the phone with the U.S. Consulate. Their meeting in a grocery store years ago had sprung an unlikely friendship. Somehow Adele had known, had recognized that Ruby needed a friend in a town fond of gossiping about that peculiar Deveraux girl. She ran the back of her hand against her nose, muffling her sniff. Adele would care if she went missing. No one else.

  The moon sat higher. Silvery light streamed through the window, casting her companion in a chalky luster. Her gaze skimmed the muscled calves stretched out before him. Strange that she carried on a conversation with a naked man so calmly. But then it seemed unfair to feel any embarrassment over his lack of clothing. He couldn’t help the situation.

  “You look exhausted. Get some rest.” He closed his eyes then, but she was sure he did not sleep.

  She felt his alertness. Sensed it in waves on the air. In the cording of muscles and sinew in the long stretch of his legs. The guy was built. Even halfstarved.

  She sensed his tightly coiled tension, his readiness.

  Only what was he waiting to happen?

  She must have slept after all.

  Deep night swallowed the cell in its bleak maw. She rose from the cold ground, her palms pushing her up off the floor. Moonlight filtered into the room. Tiny motes and particles danced in the moon’s glow. Silence hummed around her. A sudden noise scratched the air—a rough moan cut short, as if someone muffled it, bit back or swallowed the sound.

  “Hello?” She rose to all fours. If she knew his name, she would have used it. He huddled in the far corner, a hunkered, shaking shape. Pain flowed from him into her, lancing as a fire-hot needle poking all over her body. She had no hope to block it. At this intensity, it broke past all her shields.

  She started to shake from the force of it. Blood tickled inside her nostrils and she sniffed fiercely. “Are you okay?” Was this death she felt? God, please, don’t let him be dying.

  She crawled toward him, her voice gentle as she placed a trembling hand on his shoulder. The skin felt smooth, warm—hot beneath her fingers. “What can I do for—”

  He turned, moving so quickly he was a blur in the shadowed cell, his eyes a gleaming flash. She crashed to her back on the floor, her head hitting with a painful smack. Hard male body surrounded her, naked flesh burning through her clothing.

  She managed a choking sound.

  “What are you doing? I told you to stay on your side of the room.” His face dipped until his beard rasped against her cheek and neck, the hot whisper of his breath a warm mist against her flesh. “God, you smell sweet.”

  She shuddered, lungs contracting as his tongue swept over her throat in a deep, savoring lick.

  She whimpered as though stung.

  His presence, his touch, paralyzed her. Emotions bled into her, an unwelcome infusion she could not block, try as she might. The same black ravaging hunger she felt from the monsters last night consumed her. Which made no sense. He wasn’t one of them. He couldn’t be. He didn’t possess their freakish eyes. The full moon had been in the sky for hours now and hadn’t turned him into one of them. So why should he project their same dark hunger?

  Why should she feel such fear?

  He was starving. That must be it. She’d never felt starvation before. Apparently it felt this dark. This… deadly.

  Something else simmered inside him, too. Something more. She prodded carefully at the feeling. Lust. It matched that dark craving in its intensity. Frightening, but not as frightening as the dark, clawing hunger. She would do anything to escape that.

  Anything.

  The lust and the black hunger warred, struggling for dominance. The hunger nosed ahead, deepened, grew. She gasped, struggling for breath, staving off her complete descent
into terror.

  “Please,” she pleaded. “Your name.” If he just gave her his name, she would feel connected to him, not so terrified. Maybe she could beat down the hunger. Maybe she could reach him.

  She turned her face into him, seeking. “Please.” Lips on his cold skin, she whispered against his scratchy cheek, ignoring the slight softening inside her at the utter maleness swirling around her.

  “You’re hurting me.” She tried to lift her arms to shove at the impenetrable wall of him, but his hands pinned them down on either side of her head.

  “God, help me,” he groaned, pressing his hardness against her belly in a deep grind. Again, lust.

  “Oh!” Fresh panic flared to life inside her. And a spark of response. His pain, the agony of his hunger threatened to consume her… but this emotion, his desire made her purr and arch against him in shameful response.

  He nudged her higher on the floor and forced apart her legs, fitting his hardness directly at the juncture of her thighs. He released one of her arms. Instead of shoving at him with her hand, beating him, scratching him, fighting him, she curled her fingers into a naked shoulder, hissing at the contact, at the sensation of smooth, male flesh… instantly infused with all his lust, all his need, all his dark wanting. For her.

  Her breasts grew achy, tightening at the tips. He rubbed the head of himself against her in feverish strokes, her slacks the only barrier between them.

  Her mouth opened wide against his bristly cheek. A sharp cry ripped from her throat at the friction, at the pressure between her thighs that wasn’t enough, wasn’t deep enough, hard enough, fast enough. She needed her pants off.

  The lust was enough. Enough to block out all the ugly emotions that had swirled around her moments ago.

  God help her, as his desire rose, the blackness receded, faded to nothing.

  The lust rose, stronger. Hotter.

  “Sebastian,” he spat out, his cheek rippling against her lips as he spoke.

  “What?” She felt drunk, addled in the head.

  “My name… is Sebastian.”

  There. The personal connection she craved, needed, to not feel so afraid. She let the tip of her tongue taste him, lick his bristly jaw, desperate to chase the whiff of menacing emotions even farther away. Instinct drove her. Told her she needed to do this. Sliding her hand between them, she found his hard length. With a shuddering sigh, she wrapped her fingers around him. He seemed to grow even larger in her hand.

  “You’re playing with fire,” he growled, his other hand sliding slowly down her arm, dragging over her bare flesh, sending shockwaves of pleasure through her.

  “I know,” she gasped, flexing her fingers over him and giving him a gentle squeeze. The gnawing ache in him receded, replaced with stark, unadulterated lust.

  And she did know.

  Deep down, at a basic level, she understood how she could let him touch her, how she could touch him like this—a man whose face she would not even recognize on the street.

  Stoking his desires obliterated all those dark, soulsucking emotions. Her survival led her to this.

  Above all, Ruby had always been a survivor.

  She couldn’t stop from responding. Couldn’t stop him as his hand undid the drawstring at her waist and unzipped her pants. His pulsing need hit her like a sledgehammer, leaving her breathless… willing, an accomplice in an act her rational self opposed.

  The back of his fingers brushed her belly. The touch spiked heat straight between her legs. Pleasure. Need. She hissed at the sensation, loving what he was doing. What he felt. What she felt. There was no distinction.

  Desire like this—for her—had never rolled off any man before. If it had, she would not have been able to resist.

  Just as she couldn’t resist now.

  “I’m sorry,” he gasped as he leaned down and pulled off her pants in a single move. “I know you don’t understand… but I can’t stop. I have to have you. So beautiful, so clean.” They hit the floor nearby. Cool air caressed her legs. Goosebumps puckered her flesh. She shook her head, beyond words.

  Remorse mingled with his passion as his weight came over her again, the feel of his hard muscled legs a shock sliding against her own. Hot need drove him and spilled over into her, leaving her writhing and aching with need.

  He swiped a thumb over her cheek. His dark voice rumbled through her, hitting every aroused nerve as he spoke. “This may be the only thing that saves you.”

  Strange words, but she knew them to be true, felt his conviction.

  “Yes.”

  He ripped her panties off then, leaving her exposed. Vulnerable.

  He wedged himself deep between her legs, hard hands falling on her hips, holding her still.

  She widened her thighs for him, offering herself up, welcoming him inside her body as if she did this sort of thing all the time. As if the large hard press of him was normal, familiar.

  She throbbed, the core of her wet with desire. For him. For this.

  Love with a stranger. A man she didn’t even know. It’s not supposed to happen like this…

  He slid strong arms beneath her back, lifting her closer, off the unforgiving ground as if he cared for her comfort. Her head came off the floor.

  Then he was there, hard, large, shoving his way inside her, stretching her with his fullness. No gentleness—just swift, hot need in one driving thrust. Relief. Ecstasy. Gratification.

  7

  She was wet, eager, taking him into her body as a more experienced woman would. Only she was not experienced. Sharp pain shot through her as the fullness of him sank deeply, a throbbing burn buried between her thighs.

  She shoved at his chest and arched against him even as she felt his exultation, his deep pleasure sinking inside her warmth. Those ripples of bliss washed over her, making it the strangest moment of her life… this pain mingling with intense pleasure.

  “Sorry, sorry, so sorry,” he muttered as he slid out of her and plunged back inside. If possible, she felt him even deeper. He groaned, the sound reverberating into her.

  He dove a hand into her hair, holding her for him. His other hand rose to clutch her breast through her tank. “I can’t stop… it has to be…”

  She nodded, murmuring incoherently. His lips found hers, his mouth hot, devouring. Her inner muscles stretched, accommodating the size of him, accepting the pleasure-pain.

  It has to be. Yes, yes, yes…

  He moved again then, faster, each pump harder, more savage than the one before. He was a beast over her and it didn’t scare her. It thrilled her. The hard sound of their bodies meeting as he thrust in and out inflamed her. She lifted her hands to his flexing biceps, nails digging as she hung on, clung. Soft gasps tore from her lips, whimpers that grew louder with each plunge of him inside her until she screamed her need.

  He lowered his head, biting down on her breast through her tank, taking the tip inside his mouth. She arched, offering herself closer for his hungry mouth.

  Her hips lifted in an instinctive move, heels digging into the ground, allowing him deeper penetration. On and on, he moved. Hard, grinding thrusts that drove her into the floor.

  It should have horrified her. For twenty-six years she could never get close to a man and now she let this happen. Her hands slid down his taut, bare back, feeling every undulating muscle. He no longer felt cold. Warm muscle and sinew rippled beneath her palms.

  His pleasure burned raw, deep, primitive, and she experienced every bit of it. She could not even decipher his pleasure from hers anymore. In this, they were one, joined. Maybe it was all his and she just borrowed it, claimed it for her own. She didn’t give a damn.

  Her body tensed, tightening like a wire stretched taut. She exploded deep within, quivering beneath him, but she had no time to soak up the sensation before another was on her. In fast succession, she came again. And then again.

  Her own climaxes had not subsided before she was swept away on his own ride.

  He groaned, the sound str
ange, more animal than man.

  He moved faster then, ruthless as he pounded into her, his hands digging into her hips, raising her from the ground. She looked up into his face, his eyes. They changed for a second, brightened at the centers. Glowed like the moon itself outside their cell. Then his eyes closed. He shouted. The sound reverberated through his body and into hers.

  She took his climax deep inside her, crying out at the intensity, the savagery… ten times what her own climax had felt like. This was wild, brutal, unearthly… like soaring into the sky and leaving her body behind.

  He fell over her, his hard length still buried inside her… filling her, pulsing, a reminder, evidence that couldn’t be escaped.

  She pressed at the muscled shoulders stretched above her, the skin slick against her palms. She sensed his utter, deep gratification. His sudden drowsiness. Safer than the dark killing hunger. Safer than the rampant lust that just swept her away.

  “Please. Get off me,” she murmured in a voice so soft and quiet she wasn’t sure she had spoken aloud.

  He rolled off her and she sat up, snatching her ruined panties. She used them to try and clean herself, refusing to look at him, too mortified.

  Oh, God. Her hand shook as she worked. Not only had she let some stranger take her virginity on the floor of a basement cell—a prison—she had not even used protection. She had lost herself entirely. Tears burned her eyes. How could she have let another’s emotions so rule her that she blocked out her own?

  Because his emotions were stronger, overwhelming. Too tempting.

  She nodded, dragging her khakis on. Everything about him was more intense. More powerful than anyone she had ever met—felt. She’d gone on dates where the guy entertained sexual feelings… it never made her jump into bed with him. Quite the opposite. Those feelings had always made her feel too self-conscious.

  Adele was right. She wasn’t ready for the world.