Blood Moon Rising Box Set (Books 1-6)

by Lola Taylor

She shuddered, feeling pity and a surprising surge of anger at whoever had marked Elijah.

  In the older part of town—oh, hell, who was she kidding? Every part of Seacrest was old—lay a row of mostly closed storefronts. None were well-known chain brands: Marty’s Men’s Shoes, Elora’s Flower Stop, and so on. All locally owned and struggling to stay afloat, it seemed. Being a few miles off the coast in a remote area, Seacrest never was a popular tourist attraction. There weren’t nearly as many people milling about as she remembered when her parents had brought her here as a child. It made her sad to think her hometown was slowly dying as the world moved on without it.

  They pulled up to an alley and Verika and Elijah got out. Elijah looked over his shoulder at the rusting meter as he followed her into the alley. “Don’t we have to put quarters or something into those things?”

  “Nah. They haven’t worked for as long as I can remember. I think they’re just for show.”

  He adjusted his pace to walk alongside her. Gravel crunched under their feet, and the air smelled faintly like decay. That was probably attributed to the Dumpster hiding in the alley.

  “So, where are we going?” Elijah said, glancing around. His eyes never quite lost their wariness.

  Verika had never really felt sorry for the criminals she dealt with on a regular basis. Most of them were unremorseful or just plain didn’t care how their actions had hurt others. But Elijah wasn’t like that. She almost dared to call him a decent man. It seemed he was just a man caught up in the wrong crowd, and he was paying the price for it by never being able to feel truly safe. She pitied him that. It had to be exhausting, always being on your guard.

  “We’re going to an old teacher of mine,” she said quietly. “She might be able to shed some light on what, exactly, you’ve been tattooed with. Once we make sure it’s not going to come back and bite us in the ass, we’ll worry about finding Mistress Black.”

  Elijah swallowed hard.

  The shop was old, and had always looked that way. The alley was already being swallowed up by shadows, thanks to the fact it was almost dusk. Verika loved all the pretty colors in the fall but hated the shortening days.

  A faded sign barely hanging on by one crooked nail read Broomsticks.

  The new age shop was small, with a little bell that jingled as they walked inside. The sharp, sweet tang of incense, along with the lemony scent of furniture polish, burned her nose as they walked past shelves filled with different potions, books, and all other assortments of magical paraphernalia. The green and white checkered floor from the sixties still hadn’t been replaced, and a violin danced through a Celtic jig in the music blaring through the little boombox situated on the register.

  A rotund woman in her sixties looked up from her bookkeeping, blinked hard, and stared. A smile slowly spread on her face. “Is that my angel I see?” she said in her papery voice. She was by no means frail, though her voice had always sounded brittle. Verika had once caught a glimpse of three long scars running across the woman’s throat. Her favorite childhood book heroine at the time was Nancy Drew. Wanting to be like her, Verika had questioned anyone with a connection to her mentor. All that did was bring home the fact her mentor was a recluse. So, she’d gone to the library and dug up any old newspaper articles she could find.

  One was from the late 1990s about a local woman being mauled by an animal attack. A large dog was to blame. Verika remembered seeing a man hanging around the shop—a werewolf, judging from his signature—but he’d abruptly stopped showing up. Her mentor had canceled her lessons for a month after that, saying she had a “family emergency” come up.

  Verika had never questioned her about the scars. Some shadows were better left buried in the past. Otherwise, if you kept breathing life into them by dwelling on them, they only grew stronger.

  “Hi, Satine,” Verika said, walking forward and embracing the woman. “It’s been a long time.”

  “Too long,” Satine said, still grinning. She looked at Elijah and her face paled. She took a step back, making to grab the talisman on the countertop. It was made of silver, a strong ward against werewolves.

  “It’s okay,” Verika said, stepping in front of Elijah and holding up her hands. “He’s with me. He won’t hurt you, I swear it.”

  Satine kept hold of the talisman anyway, though at least her hand now rested by her side. She stayed a few feet away, eyeing Elijah warily. “What do you want? I assume you haven’t come here to catch up.”

  Verika winced. Maybe bringing Elijah here was a bad idea, but she didn’t know where else to go. There weren’t that many people she could afford to trust. “I have a question for you.” She gestured to Elijah to take off his shirt. He removed it and turned around, allowing Satine to see the tattoo.

  Verika pointed to it. “Do you have any idea what this is?”

  “It’s a brand,” Satine whispered, hand outstretched as if to touch it. Her fingers began to glow red, and the tattoo flared once her fingertips were within an inch of touching it. She hissed and abruptly drew her hand back. “It doesn’t like my power. Darker magic tends not to react well to White Magic. But Blood Magic alone wouldn’t react that way. Someone also used a touch of Black Magic to create this.”

  Verika looked at Elijah, a question in her eyes. He nodded slightly, his expression grim.

  From what intel they’d gathered, Mistress Black was a Black Witch. And she had apparently branded him. But why? Brands worked in the Underworld the same way they did in the human one. They were to mark someone’s property.

  What the hell happened to you, Elijah?

  The idea of Mistress Black thinking she owned him was enough to make Verika’s blood boil. The lights in the room flickered, and the radio hissed with static.

  Satine’s eyes snapped to the ceiling, narrowing.

  Verika looked around in curiosity and the lights and radio settled back to normal. “Odd,” she murmured, perplexed. “I thought it was just in Tennessee—where I work—but it looks like that isn’t the only place having weird power interruptions.”

  Satine was staring at her. “Yes,” she murmured, shaking her head. “How odd.”

  Verika glanced at her watch. They’d already lingered here too long. They needed to get going. “Do you know how to safely remove this tattoo without hurting Elijah?”

  Satine blinked and looked at the tattoo. Fear crept into her leathered face. “It can never be removed, only broken.”

  “And how do you do that?”

  Satine pressed her lips together. “I don’t know.”

  Verika’s teeth ground together. “Don’t know, or won’t tell us?”

  Satine took a deep breath. “There are some things better left untouched—”

  “Look,” Verika said, not in the mood for the runaround. “You said so yourself that I’m one of the most talented witches at breaking spells you’ve ever come across. Just point me in the right direction.” When Satine didn’t reply, she turned on her heel, grabbing Elijah’s hand on the way. “Come on, Elijah. We’re wasting our time here.”

  She was moving so quickly Elijah barely had time to grab his shirt.

  “You don’t understand what you’re messing with!” Satine called. “Some doors aren’t meant to be opened.”

  “Why?” Verika whirled, disappointment on her face. “Because my magic never chose an affinity? Because I’m not special enough, or strong enough, to handle it?”

  Satine’s eyes softened and she stared at Verika with pity.

  Some of Verika’s anger eased. Satine had been like a grandmother to her. She was the one person who understood her magic, who never made her feel different, and had taught her to be proud, not ashamed, of who and what she was.

  For her not to help…

  Disappointment stung her chest, making it tight and difficult to breathe. Without a word, she slipped out of the store, frustrated at not having any answers still.

  With a heavy heart, Satine watched her protégé go. Her hands trembled, had
started trembling the moment the lights had begun to flicker.

  Was Verika aware of the power emanating from her, struggling to be free? In all her years as a witch, and a powerful one at that, never had she before beheld a gift that massive.

  Or terrible.

  She knew Verika couldn’t be completely oblivious to it, not when it was starting to break free of the hold put on it so long ago. Verika was choosing to ignore it, to let logic take hold, and convince her the flickering lights were nothing more than weird fluctuations with the electricity. Satine had thought the girl’s mother had been exaggerating when she’d said never again would that power be unleashed upon the world.

  Now she realized how much of a fool she had been for not believing her. Terror drove an icy spike right into her heart. What would happen when Verika found out the truth? She couldn’t tell her; her mother had forbidden it. “Only train her in what is absolutely necessary,” she’d said.

  And so she had. And it had been enough.

  Until now.

  God help us all.

  They switched cars again, this time driving away in an old Camry that looked like it had seen better days. They’d found it in a junkyard and, thanks to Verika’s magic, were able to make the engine work. Elijah had begrudgingly let go of fifty bucks because he had bet the witch she couldn’t make that piece of shit run. Yet another lesson learned the hard way. That was practically his mantra by now.

  “Did you tell your parents we were coming?” Elijah inquired, as they pulled into a quiet, well-kept suburb. Every lawn was mowed and raked, with fresh coats of paint on the houses and fall flowers bunched into expensive-looking pots. It wasn’t ritzy by any means, but it was a far cry from the neighborhood he’d grown up in when he’d lived in the city as a little kid.

  “No,” Verika said, as she pulled into the driveway of a pretty two-story yellow house with white shutters and two white rocking chairs on the front porch. “In case the DPI has the lines bugged, I didn’t want to risk it.”

  “And they don’t have other ways of spying on you?” he asked doubtfully as she pulled around back. The driveway looked like it had been added onto, stretching around back to another little parking lot in front of a storage shed. Pine trees and a tall, well-made fence surrounded the property, keeping it pretty well hidden from prying eyes.

  Verika grinned as she wrenched the gears into park and the engine died with a sigh, as if relieved not to be running anymore. “Of course they do. But thankfully, I had the foresight to ward the place.”

  “Isn’t that illegal?”

  “Yeah. Sort of.” She shrugged, not concerned with it.

  He smiled a little. So, there was a bad girl in that angelic wrapping after all. The earlier heat at holding her in his arms—a feeling he hadn’t been able to get out of his head, nor how easy it would have been to kiss her right there—still lingered south of his navel. Damn, this witch was making him awfully horny. He attributed that to the fact he hadn’t seen any bedroom action in quite a while, not since he’d gotten on Mistress Black’s bad side.

  A tremble made his gait stiff as they walked toward the back door. Mistress Black was easily one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen. And one of the most vicious, it turned out. But that hadn’t mattered, not when he’d heard her siren song as she lured him to her bed.

  “We can’t stay here long, just for one night,” Verika said, whispering a spell at the door. He heard a soft click and she twisted the knob. “The department thinks I’ve severed all ties with my family.”

  “Why would you do something like that?”

  “To keep them safe.” Her voice grew smaller, her hand lingering around the doorknob. “I couldn’t bear it if something happened to them. They’re all I have.”

  He thought about how lonely she must be. “Then why did you leave?”

  Verika shrugged, hiding her gaze. He had the feeling he’d uncovered a sore topic.

  “You’ve seen this place. There isn’t much here. And there are a lot of locals who view witchcraft as being something the Devil made up.” She looked at him, grave determination shining in her eyes. “My parents encouraged me to get out of here and go somewhere my gifts could be appreciated. They never made me feel ashamed of who I was.”

  He softened. “They sound amazing.”

  “They are.” She opened the door and they went inside.

  The back door led to the kitchen. The interior looked like a cottage. The polished wooden floors were a warm golden hue, and all the cabinetry and trim were white. The walls were all painted the same color, a paler yellow that complemented the sunny trimmings. It looked cheerful, like the house itself was filled with happiness. He wished his own home had been this way. Their father would never let their mother paint, and since she was so submissive, everything had remained in the dull, drab off-white color as when they’d first moved into their farm house.

  “Mom?” Verika called. “Dad?” She waited a few seconds in silence. “Guess they’re out. You thirsty?”

  “No, thanks,” he said, waving her away. “I wouldn’t mind taking a nap, though. My body feels like it’s been put through a blender.”

  Verika snorted, retrieving a glass from the cabinet and pouring herself some water from the tap. “Tell me about it. The side effects from the spell should fade within twenty-four hours. Here, take this.” She handed him some aspirin and the glass of water. “It’ll help.”

  He did as she said and took the tiny red pills without question. She led him up to the second story guest room, which had its own private bathroom. The place was pretty big, probably bordering 3000 square feet. It was well-kept, with polished wooden floors throughout and country-themed furniture. All the beds were covered in quilts and shabby pillows. He guessed this was what decorators called “shabby yet chic.” Mistress Black, oddly enough, had been really into the home decorating networks on TV. She’d always forced him to watch whatever she wanted to watch, which had nearly bored him to death. He couldn’t care less what the difference was between a quartz countertop and a granite one.

  After he was situated, Verika shut the door and Elijah took off his shoes and pants—because he hated sleeping in blue jeans—before crawling up onto the bed. Not wanting to get the pristine white sheets dirty, he only folded back the quilt. He sighed. The mattress was plush but still firm, unlike the silk monstrosity Mistress Black had made him sleep in. That one had no support whatsoever and had always made his back ache in the morning, if he’d managed to sleep.

  He closed his eyes and just listened. Birds chirped outside and somewhere nearby a neighbor was mowing their lawn. Drowsiness quickly settled in. It was just as well Verika hadn’t taken him up on his invitation for a “buddy nap.” Her face had turned a delectable shade of crimson, nearly as lovely as her hair color, and she’d mumbled excuses about putting up more wards before shutting the door.

  He smiled slightly. He wondered how flustered she’d be if he kissed her neck while his hands slowly peeled away her clothes…

  Something warm dripped from his fingers, drawing Elijah’s blue eyes downward.

  He held up his hands and gazed at his palms. They were covered in red paint. He grinned, the potion Mistress Black had made him drink at dinner making his thoughts foggy and all sense of caring scurry out the window. He’d smoked pot once, and this was akin to that high.

  Someone clapped behind him and he turned to see her standing there, her figure silhouetted against the glare of the red lights she kept in her garden of horrors. He said horrors because she had statues of people and creatures she’d frozen over the centuries: demons, warlocks, witches, fairies, even angels. It was the angels she especially loved to torment. She’d always left their wings intact for the sole purpose of plucking their feathers out one by one…

  “I didn’t think you had it in you,” she purred, her ruby lips spreading into a smile. “But you really are a brute when you put your mind to it.” She raised her arms and bellowed, “Our victor, the bla
ck wolf!”

  She gestured down to the ground, at the dummy he’d pounced on.

  He stood there naked, having just shifted back into human form only seconds before. His mouth was slick with something warm and gooey that tasted faintly metallic. His drug-addled brain thought it was more paint, until he started to remember the moments before…

  Elijah awoke with a gasp. He had no idea how long he’d been out, but he felt just as bad as, if not worse than, he did before he’d nodded off. His skin was slicked in a cold sweat.

  Knowing he wasn’t going back to sleep anytime soon, he crawled out of bed with a groan and went into the attached bathroom to shower.

  He lingered under the hot water and steam for as long as he could, letting it erase his horrific memories and soothe his aching body. Mistress Black had been right. No matter where he ran, he’d never truly be able to escape her. She haunted his every thought, never truly letting him rest.

  He both feared her power and loathed her for what she’d done to him. Someday soon, she would pay. And when she went down, it would be he who stood over her corpse, smiling.

  Feeling guilty for wasting so much of the Tate’s water, he quickly shut off the shower and got out. He hadn’t bothered closing the bathroom door since he hadn’t seen a fan in here and didn’t want to steam up the room too badly.

  So, when he heard a very surprised, “Oh!” from behind him, he startled and whirled about without thinking.

  A middle-aged woman stood there. She was on the rounder side, wearing a simple pink cardigan, tan gauchos, and sandals. Her hair was short-cropped and as yellow as the house.

  Her wide blue eyes took him in, immediately drifting downward. They widened even more. Her mouth had been in an “O” shape the entire time.

  Her eyes traveled upward and she blinked hard. “I was about to call the police, but now…” She glanced down again, her eyes fluttering a few times, as if in disbelief. “Consider me ready to be pillaged.”

  Huh? Oh, hell! A hand flashed to cup himself as Elijah frantically groped for a towel. He went to snatch it off the hook on the wall, but it snagged. Cursing colorfully, he yanked harder and the whole hook came off, along with some wallpaper.