by Mina Carter
Table of Contents
Copyright
Call of the Moon
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Epilogue
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About the Author
Copyright
Copyright 2014 Mina Carter
Cover Art by Mina Carter
Published by Blue Hedgehog Press: Nov 2014.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
EBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared, or given away. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is a crime punishable by law. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded to or downloaded from file sharing sites, or distributed in any other way via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000 (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/).
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real in any way. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Author's note: All sexually-active characters depicted in this work of fiction are 18 years of age or older.
Call of the Moon
By Mina Carter
Chapter One
“You have blood on your ass. Here, let me.”
The deep male voice interrupted my reverie in the motel shower, sliding between the sound of the spray and the thunder of trucks on the freeway outside. A large, callused hand cupped my rounded derriere and rubbed at the offending spot of dried blood. Not mine, I hastened to add. In my line of work, blood, dried or otherwise, was an occupational hazard.
Sighing in contentment and rising anticipation, I thrust my hips back, as Jasen, my lover of just over six months or so, climbed in behind me.
“Christ Gwen, you got it in your hair as well.” He grabbed the small bottle of shampoo from the shelf and dumped the contents on my head. “What did you do, roll around in the stuff?”
I shrugged, a moan on my lips as his strong fingers massaged the apple blossom solution, or some similar concoction into my scalp. Jasen had magic hands, the guy should have been a masseuse. Seriously. Or a model. An underwear model. He had an ass and a package I could drool over all day.
“Wood chipper. Only way to get rid of the body. It’ll drive the cops batty.”
I hunted vampires, among other things. Unlike Buffy, though, my job didn’t end at the staking. In real life, vampires and other nasties didn’t conveniently go “poof” in a cloud of dust and make things easy. Oh no, the bastards were just as much trouble dead as they were alive.
Almost every nasty I knew reverted to human form on death, which meant the average hunter was extremely adept and inventive at getting rid of the bodies. There was an urban legend that a British hunter actually mailed a vamp to seventeen different locations. I half believed it. The postal system here was just about crap enough.
Moral of the story? Never piss one of us off, because no one would ever find the remains.
Jasen got inventive with his hands. Those oh-so-clever fingers traced the shape of my ass and downward. I tensed and parted my legs in blatant invitation as I waited for that perfect moment—when he spread the lips of my pussy and went to work.
He didn’t. His hands rubbed the soapy lather down my thighs, working it up in a storm as he grumbled some more about blood. I pouted in disappointment.
“Baby, since when has a little blood bothered you?” I teased, wriggling my ass in hopes of getting some action.
Action always got an equal and opposite reaction. Somehow I didn’t think Newton was talking about sex in a shower, though. With a small growl, he surged to his feet, flipping me around and pushing me back. Before I could think, he had me against the wall, the feeling of cool tile against my back, and a hard male body pressing urgently into me.
His hands bit into my hips, less ample than they had once been, after nearly six months in the saddle. I bit back a whimper. He was always a bit rough just before the full moon, as dominant urges and other stuff we didn’t talk about rushed to the fore. My secret shame was that I loved it.
“Doesn’t. Want to smell you,” he growled, a feral light in his eyes as he buried his face into my neck. He bit lightly, making me jump at the sudden sensation of pleasure-pain. When he was like this, I never knew what he was going to do next.
One time, we’d messed about in the car, me teasing his cock as he drove. Grunting a curse, he’d pulled into a rest stop, and the next thing I knew, I was spread over the hood of his car. In full view of the road. God, that had been a good night. If I’d had any inhibitions before meeting him, I sure as hell didn’t now.
I soon found out what his next move was. As I wriggled, he grabbed my leg and hauled it up over his hip. I moaned as the thick head of his cock fitted into the grove of my pussy lips and slid upward.
“God, you’re hot. I want you…fuck you hard and fast.”
He pulled back for a second to look into my eyes, and I saw the battle waging there. The need for sex, the feral instincts that drove him, fighting against the horror of what he’d become. Even if I hadn’t been so attuned to the moon’s path, I would have known something was wrong just by looking at his face.
Jasen…my hunter boytoy…was infected with the were-virus.
“Fuck me then,” I offered, arching my back to present myself to him. Relief flooded his eyes at the permission. We’d done everything we could to stop the first change. Wolfsbane, blessed ointments, spirit quests. So far so good, but each month, the creature got stronger. The only thing that held back the feral urges was sex. Hard and fast, sometimes rough, sex.
I expected him to press the advantage, part my legs wider and waste no time getting that thick cock, balls deep inside me. To my surprise, he didn’t. A deep rumble in the back of his throat, he ran his lips down my neck, nuzzling and rubbing his cheek against me. His larger body surrounded mine, protective and possessive at the same time. His hips canted, his cock riding back and forth over my clit, eased by the slickness of my arousal. The small bundle of nerves ached, begging for more.
Until Jasen, sex had been very much take it or leave it. After a hard night’s hunting…I’d mostly leave it in favor of sleep. Now? I was ready to get down and dirty at a moment’s notice. Where this addiction had come from, I had no clue. But I wasn’t about to argue. Not when there was a young, extremely hot guy ready to indulge my every perverted fantasy.
“Oh god, yeah. That feels good.” A moan escaped me as his heated shaft rubbed faster over my slick lips and the swollen nub of my clit. It wasn’t enough, though, I wanted that cock inside me. Now, quicker than now, preferably yesterday.
The demand he quit fucking about and got on with the actual fucking hovered on my tongue, but I didn’t get chance to utter the words. He dipped his knees and thrust. One short, hard movement that filled me to the stretching point.
My head dropped back against the tile as water cascaded over me. It was a power shower set to the max, so I felt every little pinprick as his cock throbbed thi
ck and hard inside me. The smell of warm skin, shower gel, and sex surrounded us as the steam built in the small enclosure.
Jasen reared back to look at me. Our gazes locked as tightly as our bodies were. His nostrils flared, and the tiny muscle in the corner of his jaw jumped. It always did when he fought for control. Amber leeched into his hazel eyes, a bright ring around his irises that stilled my heart right in my chest.
“Jasen? You still with me, babe?”
My voice was kind of level, if slightly breathless and lover-like. Since I was unarmed, in a shower cubicle with a guy about to shift into something four-legged and furry, I should have gotten a medal for not freaking out.
“Stay with me, hun. I’m right here, feel me around your cock. Tight and wet, feels good…doesn’t it?”
I rolled my hips as I spoke, trying desperately to keep the begging note out of my voice. I could already see the inscription on my gravestone: Here lies Gwen. Fucked, literally.
Come on. That had to work. Because if it didn’t, I was all out of ideas. The only weapon I had in here was the shower gel. Perhaps I could squirt it into his eyes, get past him to the bedroom, and to the weaponry there… As soon as the idea entered my mind, I dismissed it. This was Jasen. Not some random wolf I hunted.
Besides, I wasn’t really defenseless. I still had a few tricks up my sleeve…abilities no hunter alive had, apart from me…or should have. Skills no human should have. The cost was too great. I’d use them to save him, but only if I had too.
“Ooh.” He blinked as I slid back down his shaft, impaling myself on his hardness. When he opened his eyes, the amber was gone, replaced by shining hazel.
“Oh god, yeah. That feels fucking fantastic. Do it again,” he demanded, claiming my lips in a hard kiss. His tongue thrust past them, tangling with mine in an erotic duel as he took me against the tiled wall with a power and precision that threatened my very soul.
Chapter Two
Some women owned handcuffs, especially for sex. Unless they were seriously into an alternative lifestyle, those cuffs tended to be of the pink, fluffy kind. Mine were police-spec steel. They hadn’t been bought with sex in mind, or anything other than as part of a costume. The sort of creature I hunted, I didn’t get close enough to slap a pair of them on, not if I could help it. Most would happily try to disembowel me at that range.
The cuffs were part of my “cop” persona. In addition to grifting and short cons, most hunters were chameleons. We’d impersonate anyone and anything to gain the info we needed to put the monsters down, and to keep people safe.
But what could I do when I was head over heels for one of those monsters?
I watched Jasen sleep. He’d fallen asleep after our bout in the shower. I wasn’t surprised. He’d been like a machine, the power in his body frightening as he’d fought the beast within, wearing it out the only way we knew how.
Lifting his arm, I slipped the cuff around his wrist and locked it. The other went around the steel bedstead and locked with a light “click.” He murmured in his sleep, burying his face deeper into the pillow. The scent of linen and warm man wafted up to me as exhaustion filled every cell of my body. We’d been on the move for weeks, tracking the wolf pack, but every time we’d thought we’d finally had them, we’d been too late. Sometimes just by minutes, but always too late.
Steeling myself against temptation, I stepped back. “We” were running out of ideas to keep him human and hold back his change, but I was just getting started.
* * *
Half an hour later, I walked into a dive on the wrong side of town. How did I know it was the wrong side of town? The blood around the door was a good indication. Oh, it wasn’t visible, that would have sent the local “norms” into hissy fits, but I felt the shiver crawl over my skin as I passed through it.
I stopped for a second to absorb the feeling. It was the same sort of shiver one got when stepping out of an enchanted circle drawn by a topnotch magic-user, or a demon trap. Which meant someone in here was the real deal, and not the average neo-pagan, tree-hugging hippy playing with things they had no business meddling with.
I moved farther into the bar, eyes sharp for any more clues. I despised “play” witches. Magic was serious business, not something to piss about with to impress people, or to create trinkets and love potions. The real stuff wasn’t nice, it wasn’t fluffy, and it certainly didn’t give a crap about “harm none.”
It was powerful, harmful…brutal in the wrong hands. And it always, always carried a price. It just depended on whether the user was willing to pay it.
I got the usual cursory once-over from a few of the customers. I wasn’t young or blonde, and my ample tits were safely covered with a black t-shirt. Plus, I had a mean-ass look that could freeze anyone at a hundred paces. I blamed it on being British. All that “stiff upper lip” stuff made a body surly at times. That—or I was just a bitch. Actually, I should cut the crap and go with the second.
“I’ll take a vodka and lime.”
I slid onto the stool at the end of the row and plunked an elbow on the counter as I addressed the barman. He looked sideways at me, flourishing his wet cloth across the surface in front of him, before straightening. I flicked a glance down. His cleaning technique wasn’t up to much. Too much cleaner, not enough elbow grease.
Crap, crap, crap. I had to remember I wasn’t running a diner anymore. That was months…no…a lifetime ago. And I sure as hell didn’t miss it.
A glass appeared by my arm, ice chinking together in the clear liquid. A slice of lime perched jauntily on the rim. Lime, nice touch. Most places used lemon, which bugged the shit out of me. It was vodka and lime, not vodka and bloody lemon.
“Just passing through?”
I picked it up and shrugged. The sharp, artificial tang of cordial assaulted my nostrils. Real fruit—chemical drink. Well, I supposed I couldn’t have everything…or I would’ve been the Queen of England, with a harem of hot young men at my beck and call.
“Maybe…might stick around a while. Looking for someone.”
He lifted an eyebrow, the bushy slug crawling up his forehead toward a bald pate that shone in the overhead lights. Never a good look for a guy. His towel flicked, red-white- red-white as he wiped glass after glass, and put them back on the shelf.
“Someone in particular? Or anyone?” He slid a glance over me. “Lady who looks like you…could have your pick of the guys in here, if’n you were of a mind.”
I ignored the lewd look, even though every instinct I had wanted to introduce his face to the bar. Several times. I leaned forward, my expression cold as a winter storm.
“Someone very specific. The guy who put your defenses up.” His gaze flicked to the grills on the windows. I shook my head. “The other defenses.”
He froze, looking at me as though I were the Antichrist, or Barney the Dinosaur. One might laugh, but I’d once caught an episode of the purple monstrosity whilst out of it on painkillers and cheap whiskey. To tell the truth, at three in the morning, after I’d dug shotgun pellets out of my thigh, that fucker was scary.
“In the corner.” He jerked his head toward one of the shadowed booths. “Mr. Brown.”
“Mr. Brown? You’re kidding me, right?” I snickered as I slid off the stool, grabbing my drink on the way. I might have been here on business, but vodka, even cheap vodka, was vodka. “Does that make you Mr. Pink?”
“Huh? No. My name’s Johnson…why?”
“Never mind.” I waved in dismissal as I headed for the back booth. Some people had no culture.
The booth was dark and shaded. Which, of course, it would be. This was magic, and it required a certain ambiance and theater. Actually, that was total crap. Most tree-hugging people assumed magic required it, but they were wrong.
Real magic users, the big boys…people like that asshole Merlin and his like. For someone with that level of power, magic and all its components could be as easily traded under the bright lights of a fast food joint as it could in the
grubby and dingy confines of Big Dave’s, or whatever this shit-tip was called.
My heels clicked on the flooring as I approached. The itch between my shoulder blades told me I was being watched. Eldritch eyes watched me from the darkness. As soon as the thought crossed my mind, I sniggered, imagining a pair of them sitting on the table, grumbling to one another. Yeah…I passed the “insane” horizon years ago.
I didn’t hover outside the booth and wait to be invited. Screw that, I’d been figuratively and literally kicking doors down and stomping my way in for years. Sliding into the booth on the side my instincts told me was unoccupied, I looked right into a cold gaze.
It took a lot to make brown eyes cold, but this guy managed it. Spider-thin, he sat hunched over, a half-finished pint with a soggy rollup cradled in his hand. A look of surprise completed the scene.
“What the fuck do you want?”
I ignored the question. “I presume you’re Mr. Brown?”
His gaze shifted.
“Maybe I am, maybe I ain’t.”
I sighed and plunked my Sig on the table, finger curled around the trigger. Normally, it was considered bad form to bring a gun to a magic fight, but with Jasen’s condition progressing so rapidly, I was kind of short on time.
“Let me ask that again. Are you Mr. Brown?”
His gaze remained steady on me, ignoring the gun on the table like an elephant in the room.
“That won’t do you any good.” He wriggled his fingers in an ominous “mystical” gesture. I wasn’t buying it.
“Cut the crap. It will take you at least two seconds to frame the simplest spell, and a lot less for me to put a bullet through your skull.”
He froze, the rollup in his fingers burning merrily away. I ignored the acrid, yet mellow smell of the smoke, in favor of staring him down. I’ve always had a good stare…a great stare. Even cats and small children gave up after a while.
“You’re curiously well-informed for a hunter.”