Blood Moon Rising Box Set (Books 1-6)

by Lola Taylor

  Verika’s jaw ticked. Something about the way he talked made her want to punch him in the mouth. Her fingers flexed and then fisted.

  Elijah gave her a curious look. So he needed to drink from them to renew the bond?

  Because their blood inside him means he can control them, she said via their private link. Vampires can glamour a person with their eyes and magic alone, but blood ties always enhance the spell. It ‘seals them,’ so to speak.

  Ah. A slight nod.

  She cocked her head to the side. Didn’t come across many vampires while staying at Hell’s Mansion, did you?

  Not really. Mistress Black was as creeped out by them as I was. Though clearly her tastes have changed, he added dryly.

  Verika nodded at her parents. “Well? Do we have a deal?”

  “Spoil my fun, will you? All right, all right, stop glaring at me. I’ll let them go. Jeez, lighten up.”

  Simultaneously, her parents lowered the blades.

  “Go sit on the couch, or go garden or something.” Rick waved them off with a bored look.

  They glanced at each other and then back at him, confused by the mixture of instructions.

  He rolled his eyes and gave a groan of exasperation. “Good Lord, sit on the couch, sit on the couch! Go on!”

  Her parents’ shoulders relaxed. They smiled and obeyed, quietly walking out of the kitchen and into the living room. Verika watched them as they sat down, all of her weight placed on the balls of her feet. Desperation to be close to them clawed at her, urging her to sprint past the vamp and run to her parents. To hug them one last time, in case this all—

  No. Don’t think like that. Remember what Satine always said? ‘Defeatist thinking leads to defeat.’

  And this was one battle she refused to lose.

  “Well, come on, then.” Rick spun on his heel and strolled toward the back door off the kitchen. “Best not to keep Mistress Black waiting.” He shuddered, stroking his jaw almost as an afterthought. Verika noticed a fading bruise there.

  “At least that’s one thing we can agree on,” Elijah said quietly as they made to follow him.

  Rick stopped and smacked his forehead with his hand. “Oh, and I almost forgot. Duh. It’s been a long day, and I haven’t had much sleep.” He turned around, a sly smile on his lips. “You can’t be conscious.”

  “What?” Verika barely managed to ask before Rick rushed forward. There was a sharp crack, like knuckles striking her temple. Pain bloomed in her forehead, so sharp it short-circuited her brain. Then all went dark.

  The darkness was wonderful, almost comforting, in its all-consuming embrace. The false sense of safety, the bliss of not having to worry about a thing, lasted only a few short moments before everything went straight to hell.

  Verika ran through darkened woods, dressed in a gown of flowing white. The trees were black as oil, their bark like slabs of glass that had been glued together. Beautiful but grotesque, they reflected her terrified face as she ran, slicing her arms, cheeks, any exposed piece of flesh they could latch their teeth onto.

  “Damn,” she hissed as one jutting piece of bark slit open her forearm.

  A howl soared through the misty air behind her, sending chills skittering along her clammy skin. Snarls reverberated off the glassy trees, followed by the thunder of a hundred paws.

  She paused just long enough to scan the inky darkness beyond the mist. Dark forms drew closer, their white fangs and golden eyes seemingly glowing.

  Wolves—hundreds of them, each big as a horse. An awful, low drone—a horn blast—sounded in the distance.

  The terrible realization hit all at once, knocking her into a tree. She gripped it for strength; the bark cut her palms, but she barely felt the pain. Her heart thundered erratically; the air turned unbreathable—or maybe that was her throat closing up. Her thoughts all turned to mud as terror flooded her veins, making her feel slow and stupid.

  “Oh God,” she breathed, her voice a cracked, shaky whisper.

  She was being hunted.

  “Run,” a wicked voice commanded.

  Her body wouldn’t work. It was as if someone had glued her feet to the forest floor—

  “RUN!”

  The furious roar startled her back to her senses. Lifting her skirts, she took off, tripping and tumbling down valleys and ravines. By the time she hit the hard bottom of the forest floor, she hurt all over. Her bones ached as she hauled herself to her feet; her throat was dry, her voice hoarse from the icy air clawing at it with every desperate breath.

  Run, her mind urged her. Must run, must get away.

  The snarls drew closer. The glow of their fangs reflected off the bark of the trees around her.

  No.

  The forest lit up around her as the wolves closed in. Their golden eyes surrounded her from all sides but one.

  She lunged toward the quickly narrowing opening—and slammed up against what felt like a wall of cold, hard steel.

  No, not steel—magic. She’d been boxed in by a wall of pure, dense magic.

  “No!” she screamed, pounding against it. She smashed her bloodied palms on it, streaking its surface with red as she clawed and whimpered.

  Then she felt strong jaws close around her neck, the fangs tearing into her throat before she could draw breath to scream.

  Verika sat straight up with a deep, desperate gasp, as if she had surfaced from an ocean after nearly drowning. Her skin was covered in sweat, the pearly silk sheets she lay upon cold and wet.

  Her hands flew over her throat, her face, her arms. Not a scratch on them. No teeth marks, no lacerations. She was fine.

  She was fine.

  Feeling her shoulders slump as the hysteria drained out of her, she let her head hang for a moment to catch her breath. She closed her eyes, inhaled deep.

  One, two, three…

  Feeling more in control, albeit exhausted, with that weird undercurrent of terror still tickling her senses, she opened her eyes, lifted her head, and looked about.

  The bed was gargantuan, she noted, as was the room it sat in. Four posts of polished, ornately carved ebony with a canopy of silver silk entwined with lavender gauze. The mattress and pillows were the softest she’d ever lain upon. The bed sat upon a dais covered in plush, cottony carpet. A sea of polished dark-brown floors spread out before the dais; a vanity of pure white perched against one stone wall, but other than that there were no other pieces of furniture. No TV, no modern amenities other than the elaborate crystal-and-glass chandelier dangling above the bed. A mirror that was at least as tall as Verika, with a fat gold-and-crystal frame, hung on the wall adjacent to the bed. A fireplace as big as her apartment living room stretched against one wall. It was all so…flashy. Garishly so.

  Crystals of all shapes and sizes lay strewn across the pit of the fireplace, aglow with rainbow-colored flames.

  Verika watched the flames dance, picking up on the slight prickling sensation along her senses.

  Magic. The fire wasn’t real—it was given life by Red Magic.

  Her spine straightened as her inner wolf growled.

  There was a flash of memory—her parents’ attic, butcher knives, blood, Rick.

  She fought to control her breathing as her heartbeat galloped.

  Mistress Black’s home. Or headquarters, or whatever it was. That’s where she sat now, among this fussy finery. She might as well have been sitting in a dragon’s lair, for all the horror she felt.

  She opened her mouth, about to start uttering any spell she could think of to get her out of this mess, when she felt the bite of two cold bands of metal around her wrists. A zing of power zipped through her, making her blood hum and scrambling her thoughts for a moment.

  She lifted her hands, stared at the plain gold cuffs. They were so shiny she could see her perplexed—and frustrated—expression reflected back at her. So shiny she could see the terror, clear as day, in her eyes. Along with the bags under her lids, and the hollows in her cheeks, made more severe by the fire
light.

  Good Lord, did she really look that bad? That drained of life and energy? Had all this stress, this frustration, this fear, this worry, eaten away at her to the point she hadn’t even noticed she’d been wasting away?

  Her sense of self-preservation kicked in, and she shook her head. Now was not the time to be nitpicking her appearance. To hell with it for now.

  She gladly let her brain take over, let it shove her fears down, down, down. Her mind worked as she examined the cuffs with a critical eye, searching for a mechanism to release the clasps. Only there wasn’t one. It was as if someone had molded them to her wrists.

  Once her thoughts had cleared from the hit Rick had walloped her with, and the fog of sleep had lifted, she knew exactly what the bands were. A sinking sensation all but nailed her to the bed.

  They were insurance. Or rather, binding cuffs. A smart move, preventing her from using her powers. Couldn’t say she blamed Mistress Black for being cautious.

  So much for her backup plan. No way was she going to be able to use her magic to help her allies get into the mansion if things went south.

  She swore, annoyed. Oddly, she felt more vulnerable and, strangely, alone being cut off from her magic. It was as much a part of her as breathing, a piece of herself she didn’t know how sorely she’d miss until it wasn’t there.

  Speaking of missing pieces of her soul…

  Her heart leapt to her throat. “Elijah,” she breathed.

  Her hand shot out to feel for him—and patted damp sheets instead.

  Her head snapped to the side, and she stopped breathing for a moment. Where was her mate?

  “He’s quite safe,” said a lovely voice from the doorway.

  Icy fear inundated Verika’s pores.

  She already knew whom she would see, though she was taken aback by the woman’s appearance. Her long hair was all elegant dark-chocolate curls, with no traces of the fiery coloring she’d worn in the astral plane.

  Mistress Black wore a simple black silk robe. Her hair was damp on the ends, as if she’d just gotten out of the bath. And yet she still wore a face full of freshly applied makeup.

  She stared at Verika a long while, almost with astonishment. Her eyes shone with pride and affection and…something else. Something slimy that didn’t belong among the warmer emotions. “You are so beautiful,” she whispered, clasping her hands together because she couldn’t seem to keep them still. “You look so much like my Idrina.”

  “Who?” Verika asked through gritted teeth. God, it hurt just to talk! What the hell had Rick done to her?

  “My daughter,” Mistress Black replied solemnly, her gaze shadowing as she lowered her head. “She was the light of my life.”

  “And where is she?”

  “Dead,” Mistress Black said flatly.

  Verika could see the deadness in the woman’s eyes that revelation brought. “I’m sorry,” she said, because it was the decent thing to say. No one deserved to have their child taken from them.

  Mistress Black shrugged, trying to play it off as if it didn’t matter, but Verika could tell it bothered her deeply. “She died a long time ago…as I should have,” she murmured, almost wistfully.

  Verika blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  Mistress Black crept into the room, that glittering, black gaze poised on Verika like a snake eyeing a mouse. “Do you know how old I am, darling?”

  Verika’s skin crawled at the pet name. “Late twenties, early thirties maybe.” Better to err on the side of flattery, especially with a woman as vain as Mistress Black.

  And she was vain. Already she had paused to look over her appearance in the looking glass suspended on the wall. The fact the mirror was so ostentatiously huge spoke volumes about the woman’s desire to admire herself. Verika was willing to bet every mirror in her lair was body-length or larger.

  Mirror mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?

  Mistress Black managed to pull her eyes off her reflection and laughed daintily. “My dear, you flatter me. I am over five hundred years old.”

  Verika’s eyes nearly bugged out. She looked her over. Not a wrinkle or gray hair was to be found. “How? With an immortality spell?” Such a thing was taboo in the magical arts, but the scholar in Verika was acutely curious.

  “No, darling, nothing so outlandish as that. An ancient enemy wished to wipe me—and all Black Witches and Warlocks—from the face of the earth. She cursed me, yanking my soul from my real body so I could never again be whole. But what she didn’t expect was I found a way not only to keep my body from aging, but to keep my soul alive as well—drak nacana.”

  Verika went still. Had the temperature in the room dropped? When she found her voice, it was whisper-soft. “You used the forbidden arts?”

  Mistress Black pursed her lips, tapped her long, red nails against her hip. “Oh, quit being such a Mary Sue. Yes, drak nacana is part of the Dark Arts. I don’t see why you’re so surprised. I am a Black Witch, after all. Where did you think the Dark Arts came from? They stem from Black Magic, of course.”

  “Just because the Dark Arts hail from Black Magic doesn’t give you free rein to practice them.”

  “Ha! Listen to you, Miss Suzie Sunshine. Are you always this insufferably noble?”

  Verika tempered her glare; her mouth formed a straight, hard line.

  Mistress Black’s expression changed, her amusement vanishing and giving way to something akin to disgust. “Yes, I suppose you are,” she muttered.

  Verika, copying Mistress Black’s earlier nonchalance, shrugged. “I suppose I’m as noble as you are evil.”

  “Evil,” Mistress Black said blandly, barely able to restrain her eye roll. She wandered off to fuss with her hair some more in the mirror. “Is that what you think of me?”

  “You tell me.”

  Mistress Black primed and fluffed her robe. Her eyes lifted to Verika’s in the mirror. “There are few things on this earth more evil than man. Can you argue that?”

  Verika sat on her answer. She really, really shouldn’t. But the werewolf in her—the Johnsons’ influence—reigned supreme. “I can’t think of anything more evil than the bitch I’m looking at right now.”

  It felt good to say that—very good. But her triumph lasted only a few seconds before terror flooded her veins all over again. Oh God. What had she been thinking? One of the most dangerous witches in the world was less than twenty feet away, and she had just mouthed off to her?

  Verika braced herself for the attack. She imagined her head rolling, or Mistress Black melting her bones. The thought, the possibilities, of torture and excruciating death made her sick to her stomach.

  Her entire body locked up as she waited for her fate.

  Mistress Black’s hand had gone still, as had her gaze. She stared not at Verika but at herself, those eyes cold and unblinking. At last, she smiled and turned around. “Well, you got one thing right—I am a bitch.”

  The tension drained from Verika’s shoulders so quickly she nearly slumped over in relief. With iron will, she held herself steady, straight, and proud, knowing that to show weakness in front of this predator meant she might as well offer herself up for slaughter. And she somehow suspected Mistress Black respected defiance. Saw it as a sign of strength.

  Mistress Black studied her, pacing in front of the bed about three feet away. “You have great power within you, Verika. Much stronger than I was anticipating.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “No.” Another slimy smile. “On the contrary, it’s quite welcome.”

  Warning bells went off in Verika’s head, but she swiftly dismissed them. For now.

  Mistress Black stopped her pacing and crossed her arms. “How are you feeling?”

  “I’ve been better.”

  “What are your symptoms?” she snapped impatiently. “Headache, nausea, dizziness?”

  “All of the above, I suppose. My head hurts something fierce from your lackey clobbering me.”

&n
bsp; Mistress Black pursed her lips. “Rick has been dealt with accordingly for striking you. My instructions were to bring you to me unharmed. Clearly, he doesn’t know how to follow protocol.”

  Verika felt she should argue, to tell her it wasn’t right to hurt Rick. But she couldn’t force the words out of her mouth. In truth, she wanted him to pay, dearly, for what he’d done to her parents.

  Instead, she nodded curtly. She cracked her neck. Holy hell, she hurt all over, but none worse than her head. Gingerly, she touched the tender skin over her temple, hissing when it flared with needle pricks of pain.

  “You’re a glutton for punishment, aren’t you?” drawled Mistress Black. “Oh well. At least the test didn’t damage you too badly. I suspect you’re sore all over, yes?”

  Verika paused. “How did…? What test?”

  “I have to test everyone who comes here to make sure they aren’t harboring any spells or weapons of any sort—magical or otherwise,” she said, examining a nail.

  Verika wondered whether Mistress Black had ADD. She couldn’t seem to focus on any one thing for more than a few seconds at a time. She was restless, too. Her weight shifted, and she tapped a slippered foot against the cool wood flooring.

  Verika processed what she had said. Was this magical pat-down test what had caused her wicked dream? “It gave me nightmares.”

  “Unpleasant side effect, I’m afraid.” Mistress Black shrugged and gave an insincere smile of apology.

  Verika nearly rolled her eyes. Yeah, right. That sadistic psychopath wasn’t sorry. If anything, it had given her pleasure to see Verika suffer. Probably got her off.

  Sick.

  “Where’s my mate?” Verika said.

  Mistress Black’s eyebrows lifted. “So demanding. You definitely get that from me.” Another smug smile. Maybe Rick had gleaned more from her than magic. They both had that self-satisfied look, as if they owned the world and everyone in it. Verika hated that, detested people who thought less of their peers based on the delusion they somehow thought they were better. Perhaps it was because she’d been looked down upon her whole life by her coworkers, her classmates, anyone who thought she was a lesser witch just because she hadn’t manifested a talent.