To Crave a Blood Moon

by Sharie Kohler

  Ruby watched as one helped the other onto his bike. They revved their engines and disappeared from the parking lot, tires spitting gravel.

  Sebastian moved to her side again. “Nice way to dodge a bullet.”

  “Yeah. You, too.” Her voice shook and she swallowed as she glanced around at the still and silent parking lot of the truck stop she and Adele ate at a couple times a month. Her stomach knotted. It would never be like that again, she realized. Her world was changed. She had changed. She had thought, coming home, that she would not have to confront it. She could safely hide. As always.

  “C’mon.” Sebastian pulled her toward the car. Moments later, they were driving, heading toward the back parish road that led to her house.

  She trembled in her seat, her hands twitching in her lap. In a strange way, this was worse than Istanbul. The ugliness had reached her here. Nothing bad was supposed to find her here.

  “You okay?

  She nodded. “What about those hunters?”

  “They’ll be fine.”

  She shot him an annoyed glance. “I know . . . but . . .” She waved a hand. “You let them go. Will they come back?” Invade her world?

  His lips pulled into a hard line.

  “They will,” she snapped, an edge of hysteria entering her voice.

  “They’ll report to their supervisors and NODEAL will likely recon the area, looking for us.”

  She bounced her head against the headrest. “Great. Beau Rivage is a small town… how hard can it be for them to—”

  “Calm down.”

  “Calm down? That’s easy for you to say. You don’t live here. You don’t have a home, a life here. You’ll be gone in a few days and I’ll be—”

  “You can come with me.”

  She rubbed her hands over her arms. “No. I can’t. I can’t go back out there.”

  “You’re no more safe here than out there.” He gestured widely with his hand.

  “Damn it,” she ground out, rolling her head against the headrest. “Why didn’t you…” her voice faded.

  “Kill them?” He cut her a glance.

  Callous, but true. She had been thinking that. Desperate, angry, she wished they weren’t out there.

  She said nothing for a long moment, and then, “They were out to kill us.”

  “Yes.” His hands tightened on the steering wheel.

  “Haven’t you killed hunters before?”

  “For a long time I’ve hated hunters as much as lycans.” His knuckles grew white. “A lycan raped my mother, but hunters killed her… tracked her down and assassinated her because she was a Marshan. Even when she was past the point of breeding, too old to give birth to another dovenatu, no longer a threat to them, they shot her down like a dog.”

  “I didn’t know.” She lifted a hand to touch him but let it drop back in her lap at the hard coldness of his expression.

  “Yeah.” His lip curled back from his teeth. “I hate fucking hunters.” He swung his gaze to her again. “But I’m tired of killing when it doesn’t seem to do any good. There will always be packs. And there will always be hunters.”

  But he chose not to eliminate a pair of hunters now? She shook her head. When letting them live was a threat to her? When they would just show up and try to kill her again?

  She couldn’t help herself. Frustration swelled inside her. “Well, you didn’t do me any favors.”

  “We’ll get ready for moonrise tomorrow. And when it’s over, you’ll leave with me. It’s the safest thing to do.”

  Suddenly the control she thought she had claimed for herself since returning home began to slip between her fingers, elusive as water. “Like hell I will.” Rational or not, she wouldn’t let that happen. The choice would be hers. He wasn’t taking it from her.

  “Damn it, Ruby.” He shot her a frustrated glare. “You can’t pretend this will all go away.”

  “Especially with you alerting the world about me.”

  With a groan he dragged a hand through his hair. “Look.” He inhaled. “For now, we’ll just focus on getting through the next few days.”

  “Fine.” The next few days. She dragged a shuddering breath into her lungs. The memory of lycans as she had seen them… mauling Amy and Emily… made her chest tighten. She knew this had been coming. Despite trying to ignore its approach. Despite pretending it couldn’t reach her, couldn’t get to her here. It would. It had.

  Sighing, she propped an elbow on the door and stared out the window into the dark night. Woods crowded the narrow road. Another car approached and Sebastian hugged his side of the road. Branches scraped her door. The car passed. Dirt and rocks ticked against the side of the car.

  The moon followed their vehicle, nearly full, a great glowing eye peering between a latticework of branches. “I’ll call Adele.”

  “Sure she’ll still come?”

  “One fight doesn’t break a friendship.” At least not theirs. Ruby needed her. Adele wouldn’t let her down. Adele she could rely on. No one else. Not Sebastian. She wouldn’t let herself need him.

  Sebastian followed one step behind Ruby as she hurried inside the house, staring at her slim back, the rigid set of her narrow shoulders—and cursed beneath his breath.

  He rubbed a palm against his nape. Was he trying to sabotage her efforts? Force her to stay with him? Leave with him? Need him no matter what? No matter that she had a plan in place that actually might work. Might make his staying with her totally unnecessary.

  His feet thudded up the porch steps.

  He should have killed those hunters. He wasn’t into mercy. Not when it came to hunters. He would have killed them before. Before Ruby.

  Just who am I anymore?

  The old Sebastian would have squeezed the trigger without blinking. Instead, he’d let them live. And he was afraid he had let them live so that Ruby would have to leave. With him.

  On the porch, he paused. Skin tightening, he turned and faced the night, a sudden awareness settling in his bones.

  “Sebastian?” A board groaned. He heard her step away from the front door, the porch creeping imperceptibly beneath her feet as she moved toward him.

  “Something’s coming.” He stared out into the night even though he knew he would see nothing. Nothing was there. Yet.

  Her gaze burned into his profile. Wind rustled through branches, tugging leaves loose. Silvery moonlight drifted through the branches, casting patches of light on the ground. He sniffed the air. It was still there. That faint hint, a whiff…

  “The hunters from the diner?” Panic fed her voice.

  He shook his head, his features tight, itchy as he turned his face into the breeze. “No. They’re gone. This is something else. Something…”

  “What?”

  “Something distant.”

  “Distant? Then how do you even know anything’s coming?”

  He heard the incredulity in her voice, but he’d spent a lifetime honing his instincts. First, running. With his brother and mother. Always one step ahead of lycans and hunters. Then tracking. Hunting. Always hunting.

  Years of hunting. No friends to speak of. No parents. Even his brother he let slip away. All so that he could bury himself in the hunt, the kill. Maybe not the best life, but one that had taught him how to survive… how to detect threats when they were only a whisper on the air.

  He’d been at the game long enough to know when the tables turned and suddenly he became the hunted.

  “Let’s go inside.” Grasping her elbow, he led her into the house. But not before casting one more lingering look over his shoulder. They needed to move. As soon as moonrise ended. He would give her no choice.

  In days, they would be gone from here. And far from whatever was coming for them.

  24

  Ruby paced the floor of her vegetable cellar. The concrete was cracked in several places, leaking moisture from the earth. The air felt cool even without the benefit of air conditioning. In summers past, whenever the AC gave out, she and he
r mother would fold laundry down here with only each other and the radio for company.

  A lone mattress sat on the floor, a blanket tossed over it. For her comfort. She shuddered. It was hard to imagine ever feeling comfortable with what was coming.

  Sebastian leaned against the wall, watching her beneath a heavy-lidded gaze as she prowled the cell, waiting for Adele. She couldn’t help it… her mind drifted to another room about the same size halfway around the world. Her mouth dried. But this time it would be only her down here.

  “You’ll be okay down here?” Adele called, her feet falling soundly as she descended the wood steps. She carried a pillow and a jug of water with her.

  “Sure.”

  Adele stopped next to her. “Just want to make sure.”

  “Yeah, well. I don’t have a choice.” She spoke distractedly, rubbing the side of her face. “Have I told you how much I appreciate and love you for doing this?”

  The two of them had patched things up, but Ruby still regretted the harsh words she’d spoken.

  Adele brandished the syringe, flicking it once with her finger. A drop of fluid glistened from the tip. It would knock Ruby out within half an hour. At least according to Dwayne’s instructions.

  She held out her arm and didn’t flinch as Adele pushed the needle through her flesh. Not when the alternative—being awake and cognizant during her transition… feeling nothing but the blood hunger, the terror of her body becoming something else—was the only other option.

  Pressing her arm close to her side, she rubbed the spot of injection. “You should go ahead and leave now.”

  Adele’s eyes glinted wetly. “I’ll leave the basement, but not the house. I’m here for you, Ruby.” Her nose wrinkled and she winked. “I’ll wait it out with lover boy upstairs.”

  Heat crawled her face and she tossed a nearby pack of toilet paper at her friend. It bounced off Adele’s back as she moved up the steps.

  “Don’t come down here until morning,” Ruby reminded sharply.

  Adele’s feet beat out a steady rhythm. “You’ve only said that like fifty times.”

  Sebastian arrived at the top of the stairs, his frame filling the doorway. “I’ll see that she doesn’t.”

  Ruby nodded stiffly. He hadn’t touched her last night. She had waited, lying in the dark, desperate for him. And he had not lifted a hand toward her. She didn’t know what moonrise would bring, but she knew she would survive it. And she would not go with him when he left.

  That meant he would be gone in three nights.

  An ache throbbed beneath her breastbone. As eager as she was to put moonrise behind her, she was not eager to say goodbye to him. She moved to sit on the mattress. “I expect French toast in the morning,” she called to Adele’s retreating form.

  “If you’re making it,” Adele shouted from just beyond the stairs. “You know I can’t cook.”

  “I’ll cook.”

  Sebastian lingered at the foot of the stairs. She felt his hesitation, sensed his unease…

  He shuffled closer, away from the stairs.

  “You can’t stay,” she said, her voice fast. “Go.”

  He couldn’t hold her hand through this. No one could. They weren’t the same. Fully shifted, who knew how she would react to him? Sure, he could handle himself against any single lycan—her. But she wouldn’t put him to the test. She wouldn’t put herself to that test.

  “You can’t be here.”

  “Ruby.” He shook his head. “I can handle whatever comes.”

  “I’m alone on this. I have to be.”

  His indecision hovered between them. His compassion. It undid her. She had vowed to do this alone, had vowed to handle it. To keep control of something in her life, of this at least. She couldn’t rely on him. Couldn’t let herself need him.

  “I’m always alone,” she added. “That’s the way I like it.”

  Her words seemed to affect him at last. His features hardened. “Of course. I understand exactly.” And that’s because he did, she realized. They both felt the safest in solitude. Trusting only themselves. Neither would have it any other way.

  With a brisk nod and a curt “good luck,” he took the steps two at a time.

  Then, halfway up the steps, he stopped. Turning, he drove a hard line back down the steps toward her, his mouth pressed into a hard, determined line that made her stomach clench.

  Before she realized his intent, he seized her by the shoulders and kissed her long and hard. Just when the kiss began to swing into something else, something that sent licks of heat twisting through her belly, he broke free. Nose to nose, he stared starkly at her for several moments. His ragged breath fogged her bruised lips and she leaned forward for more, another taste.

  But then he was gone.

  She listened as the door clicked shut and multiple locks fell into place, resounding in the silence of her cellar, echoing in the hollows of her heart. For now, and all the generations to come.

  As the sun dipped behind the trees standing guard over the house, Sebastian strode a hard line over the floor, walking from the bookcase to the edge of the living room and back again. Impending night hummed outside. His ears picked up the slightest sounds, detected the life beginning to stir, insects and animals that had lain low all day moving now, ready to prowl free.

  Adele sat on the couch, legs curled under her, flipping through a copy of Food and Wine, a sweaty bottle of Dixie hanging loosely from her fingers.

  Being up here—while she was down there—didn’t feel right. He was here to watch over her, protect her—from herself and others. That’s why he’d come after her.

  Was that why? Really?

  He shoved back the small voice inside his head and listened for the smallest sound from below, even though he knew she wouldn’t have shifted yet. It took a high moon before that could happen.

  “Pacing the floor isn’t going to make the night pass any quicker.”

  He glanced at the female on the couch. With her ample curves and sultry mane of hair, she would have spiked his interest any day of the week. Before. Before Ruby. Only thoughts of Ruby consumed him now.

  He and Ruby had shared a lot in the last month—imprisonment, fear and torture… their bodies. He could not claim such closeness to anyone else. He’d gained a certain comfort with her that he shared with no one else. His hand tightened into a fist at his side. She could walk around his head… and he didn’t mind.

  “You care about her.” Adele watched him with catlike eyes for a moment, then looked down at the magazine in her lap again, flipping pages. “I think you probably even love her.”

  He opened his mouth to deny this, but she only cut him off. “Don’t lie.” Her glossy lips quirked. “I know these things. I’m surprised Ruby hasn’t already figured it out, but then I guess her own feelings probably get in the way. She probably thinks what she’s feeling from you is just her own heart talking.” She laughed hollowly and heaved a sigh. Her gaze drifted over him, her eyes hardening. “But this is new to Ruby. I hope you’re not going to break her heart and bail out on her like everyone else in her life. Because if you mess with her, you’ll have to answer to me.”

  He smiled at that. A threat from a mortal woman . . . “Yes, ma’am.”

  She nodded as if matters were settled. “So how long are you going to hang around up here?” She motioned to the floor with one hand as she flipped another page. “Ruby needs you down there.”

  He stared at her for a moment, her words sinking in. She was right. What the hell was he doing up here? Ruby was scared. Frightened. No matter what she said. The transition alone would feel like she was being torn inside out. As a boy, those first times had been nothing short of traumatic. Until he learned to embrace it, to stop fighting his body’s change. Now he did it with ease, in a blink of the eye. Ruby wouldn’t know how to do that.

  Even different as they were, he could help her through it. Coach her through the worst. He could handle one lycaness. He was stronger, older, mo
re experienced, not a mortal in danger of moon-driven hunger. And none of that should bother him anyway. Loaded with sedatives, she would sleep through the worst of it. She probably wouldn’t even know he was there. But he would. He would know.

  He had to go to her.

  “What are you waiting for?” Adele asked.

  “Absolutely nothing.” Turning, he headed toward the kitchen, stopping at the door leading to the cellar that he had added extra locks to—intent on one goal. Ruby.

  Ruby needed him. It was enough. It was everything.

  One hand on a bolt, he jerked to a sudden stop. The hairs on his flesh sprang to chilling awareness, vibrating. Rotating on his heels, he moved, passing back through the living room, past Adele’s watchful gaze, pausing before the front door.

  A threat approached. Outside. Just beyond the porch. His every nerve buzzed in warning, his skin tightening, stretching. His bones pulled, at once painful and darkly satisfying.

  “Adele. Get upstairs. Now. Hide yourself.” Even as he instructed this, he knew it wouldn’t matter. Whatever coming wasn’t human. If the creature defeated him, Adele couldn’t hide.

  “What—”

  “Go!” he barked.

  She scrambled from the couch. Her feet thundered up the stairs.

  The familiar heat of the beast rose up inside him, preparing to battle whatever advanced as his hand closed around the doorknob, his mouth dry as sandpaper. He couldn’t lose. Ruby was just below. Defenseless, sedated.

  Growling, he shook his head. How could he have thought he could ever leave her? He would never feel satisfied with the notion of her alone during every moonrise with only Adele, a mortal, to serve as watchdog. How could he have thought that would be okay? Right now, in this moment, with darkness closing in, the moon rising on the night, and a faceless threat drawing closer, she needed him.

  And she always would.

  He opened the door and stepped out onto the porch. A figure emerged from the trees, his strides slow, deceptively easy, the rolling gait of a predator.