A Killing Moon

by Alexis D Craig

  A KILLING MOON:

  WINGED GUARDIANS

  By Alexis D. Craig

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Alexis D. Craig, Three Fortnights Press

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form on by an electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Book Cover Design by Rebecca Poole of Dreams2Media

  Edited by Elizabeth Anne Lance

  First Edition

  First Edition: November 2019

  ASIN: B07YBG9M9W

  Published by

  Three Fortnights Press

  P. O. Box 168401

  Irving, TX 75016

  Submissions.34Press@gmail.com

  Table of Contents

  Before You Begin Reading…

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty- One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  About Alexis D. Craig

  Works by Alexis D. Craig

  Before You Begin Reading…

  A Killing Moon - The Playlist: these songs were ones I used to fuel my inspiration while writing this book. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did as you listen to them while reading.

  https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2NFga4avqELlQhwWeyOsW2

  Happy Reading,

  Lexie

  Prologue

  CORA

  I know better, I do. There are so many good, valid reasons not to be here I’ve lost count. And yet, as I lean over my half-assed game of pool watching the door, I wait.

  Here is the Calumny, a dingy little out-of-the-way bar in a suburb of Boston, catering to a certain clientele. It made its name as a speakeasy back in the day, a place to come and let it all hang out, as it were, and true to its rusted, beer-stained roots, it’s still very much that kind of scene, only not in the way the owners intended. Surely as I breathe, that is a fact.

  A long bar with mismatched stools, nicked with knife wounds and scarred by cigarette burns, the bartender behind the counter pretends to keep it clean. I appreciate the ruse, even though when I’m here, I drink from the bottle, just in case. The honest-to-Goddess jukebox in the corner has been stuck on Stevie Ray Vaughan’s greatest hits for the last hour, and I’m grateful because in a place like this, the musical selections could be a helluva lot worse.

  This isn’t my normal haunt or neighborhood local. Hell, this isn’t even the town I live in, but the assignment I was given puts my target here, so here I am, and here I’ll stay until he arrives.

  It’s mostly empty tonight, a small blessing, but it’s the far edge of winter, and there are a good many things to do on a Thursday night in February that don’t involve liquor and a pool table with warped cues, worn felt, and a mildly tilted slate. Then the door opens to the night outside, he comes in, and it is absolutely game on.

  I don’t need to look up to know it’s him. The icy winter chill, so foreign in this place, carries his scent—warm woods, leather, and spice—like a winged messenger, full of potent promise. My eyes close for a moment, and I wish my body didn’t immediately wash in heat every time I’m in a damn five-mile radius of him, but there it is, and here I am, making sure my grip on my beer bottle doesn’t shatter the glass and make a mess.

  From the corner of my eye, I watch him, keeping most of my back to him to maintain my anonymity until absolutely necessary. Goddess, he is beautiful. Short, dark hair that looks like he keeps it styled with his fingers, a closely trimmed beard, shoulders that could double as a mountain range in a close-fitting navy sweater that brings out his come-fuck-me blue eyes. His jeans cup his ass just so, and his boots are nice but scuffed enough to look like they might be for actual work as well. Finnegan O’Casey is sexual fucking perfection on a stick and absolutely everything I should not want.

  He is gorgeous, he is fun, he is third in line to the damn throne, and not in the market for any kind of dalliance except with someone of his status and, um… pack. There is that. He’s a member of House Lupine, in line to one day lead Therantia, the unified shifter kingdom—because his sketchy-ass brother would likely abdicate, or at least everyone hopes so—and there’s an unspoken rule with Lupines, especially royals, stick with other Lupines. Mostly.

  There are rumors—whispers, of course—of Lupines who wandered far afield to join up with Vulpines or Ursines, but those are only fairy stories, or in the case of Ursines, cautionary tales of breathtaking violence. At no point in time was there any kind of legend of a Lupine and a Corvid becoming anything at all other than a ruler and their most trusted advisor. That isn’t the job I want.

  I could have gotten close to him the conventional way, joined my father at court as an adjunct advisor to King Niall. I have the schooling, the necessary training and skills. But the intrigues, gossip, and politics never really interested me, so I left the family to find my own way. Hell, we knew each other as kids, a cub and a fledgling who didn’t have anything in common other than our parents’ association, and he was smart and brave… kind. At least, I remember him to be kind. The rumors now suggest some of that kindness may have been bled away from him but preparing to rule a nation can do that to a person.

  As for me, kindness is a goal, but it can be a business liability. I do all right as a—ahem—legal advisor to some of the major shifter businesses in the area, the one to call when things have gone to hell and they need a demon hunter. Work doesn’t define me, though. At least, I try for it not to, with more or less success. Today, though, and for the foreseeable future, I’m on a mission of a different kind. Certainly nobler than being the local corporate fixer can be.

  My sensitive ears pick up his order, scotch and soda, one ice cube, and it’s pretty clear I’m going to need another beer before I have enough courage to do what I need to do. Any other person, any other shifter, and I would have been in there, running my game like I own the joint. This one, though…. Gods and Goddesses, this one makes my palms sweat and my panties scorched. Not a position of strength.

  The last couple swallows of beer are cool on my parched throat, but they don’t quite get the job done, and I catch the bartender’s eye with a raised bottle and a finger. He smiles nervously, like he knows who I am or who Finn is and senses trouble, but he nods once and reaches into the cooler under the counter.

  I watch him grab a seat at the corner of the bar, pretending to take in the game on the flat screen overhead while watching the door like I am, cautious. I think both of us have enough enemies that even our downtime merits a certain amount of circumspection. The fact he’s in here alone says a great deal, but I’m not foolish enough to think he’s unguarded or unprotected.

  In another life, I would have
gone up to him and bought him a drink and charmed my way into his company, but he gets that all the time, at least if the gossip rags are to be believed. They have kernels of truth if you know where to look, so that’s not the play here.

  No, better I bring him to me. Men in general respond better if they think it’s their idea, and he probably would be no different. So, I throw in another row of quarters, rack the balls, and chalk my cue. Deep breath now, moving around to the head of the table, I lean over, line up my shot, and smash my break.

  * * *

  FINN

  I saw her when I came in, bent over the pool table in a pair of jeans that were just short of criminally tight. The knee-high boots made her look incredibly tall, but now that I’m a bit closer, I can see that for the optical illusion it is. I didn’t come here for that kind of entertainment, but tonight, she’s making me reconsider.

  The shotgun snap of pool balls being abused by someone with great strength draws my eyes, and I see she’s over there by herself and sank three on the opening break. Damn. Her face is beautiful and oddly familiar. Her expression as she takes in the billiards landscape is serious, giving her eyes a golden cast, and the way she worries her full bottom lip with her teeth is distracting as hell. She’s in a cozy-looking burgundy sweater with a low-cut vee which draws my eyes… well, let’s just say the view is spectacular and leave it at that. She’s as smoking from the front as she is from the back.

  And that is exactly the distraction I don’t need right now. My father’s dying, and my brother is, for lack of a better word, dissolute. Wouldn’t be a problem, really, if not for my father’s devotion to the line of succession and the letter—as opposed to the spirit—of the law. Sigh. I could formally challenge Brendan for the throne, but that was the aggressive act of a desperate man, and I’m not there. Yet. I’m still trying to find a better solution, but so far none has presented itself, and I’m running low on options.

  She comes around the table and lines up a shot, giving me a breathtaking view of her perfect peach of an ass, and I’m reconsidering every decision I’ve ever made. Damn, but she is absolutely, unreasonably fine. Long black curls brushing the table, dark skin that looks so touchably soft under the fluorescent light over the pool table. I can actually feel my resolve buckling the longer I look at her.

  When the bartender comes around the counter and heads her way, I stop him. The bottle in his hand is intended for her, and gods above and below, the Universe has provided the opening I need. He puts it on my tab as he retreats to the other end of the bar, away from her and me.

  This intriguing woman doesn’t smell like a Lupine, but it’s a scent that’s, again, achingly familiar. Just out of reach in my mind, an itch I can’t scratch. No idea why that would be, really, as we haven’t met before, I don’t think, but damn if she doesn’t exude a sense of peace and déjà vu. She is some kind of shifter, though, because Calumny is not the kind of place non-shifters frequent, and with good reason. No one wants to run into a drunk werewolf, not even other werewolves. Or worse, a werebear. I shudder at the thought before squaring up to cross the room.

  I move behind her and off to the side, shamelessly enjoying the way her ass looks in those jeans and the long line of her back as she leans over the table. Once she takes her shot, I’m there at her elbow, drink in hand.

  She presses a fiver into my hand, murmuring her thanks before doing a complete double take. Her eyes are the most interesting color I’ve ever seen, a mix of well-aged scotch and gold, and wide as they look me over. I’m happy for the perusal, honestly. The niggling sense of knowing is back, but face to face with her beauty, my mind can’t come up with a single idea as to how or when we would have met.

  “You’re not Mickey,” she whispers tentatively, taking a half-step back before straightening her spine. Her sip comes with a raised chin and a challenging expression in her eyes, and while I may be a prince, she looks imperious as all hell, in command, and my original assessment of unreasonable sexiness is all but confirmed.

  “I’m not,” I admit, crowding into her space a little more. She smells sweetly spicy, like orange and jasmine tea and something else I can’t identify, and my curiosity is full-blown. This close, her intriguing facial expressions, sexy mouth, and golden eyes are too much to enjoy from afar. “Anyone got next?”

  She shakes her head, her mass of black curls bouncing around her shoulders and wisping around her face. “No one playing me now.” Her gaze travels around the room as a reminder we’re all but alone. “I’m always up for a game, though.”

  The seductive drop in her voice is like a lick of fire across my skin, hot enough to burn and definitely leaving an impression. If she’s in the mood to play, I’m certainly in the mood to indulge.

  * * *

  CORA

  He takes a cue from the beat-up rack on the wall, more sketchily bent tree limb than pool stick, and snags the blue chalk from the scuffed lip of the table.

  “Finn.” He offers me his hand as he approaches my location at the table.

  No last names, but then, this isn’t that kind of party or that kind of place. “Cora.” His hand is warm in mine, big, confident. Up close, he smells like heaven, some expensive cologne with a hint of the earthy undertone which marks a Lupine. He didn’t go to any trouble to mask his scent. No need to with a face as recognizable as his. “Stripes.”

  “All right.” He shrugs with a half-smile as he sets his drink on the edge of the table and lines up a shot. He sinks one ball and leaves himself a very convenient next shot as well. “What brings you to Boston? Business or pleasure?”

  He makes the shot and ties up our ball count. I do like a challenge. “Remains to be seen, no?”

  I move around to lean against the table next to him as I tip back my beer. A slight shimmy is all it takes to draw his attention away from the game and cause him to scratch.

  “That was dirty.”

  The way he growls makes me want to do it again just to tease him. Damn but he makes it hard to remember my mission. All my hormones are stuck on fuck-him-now-please, and I’m tempted to let them loose. The way he sniffs as he moves past me tells me he’s noticing them, too.

  “You don’t know the half of it.” Dammit, my traitor tongue. More often than not, it does exactly what it wants, and I am left to deal with the aftermath. Still, it wasn’t a lie, so I’m going to let it ride and see where it goes.

  The way he licks his lips in response to that, looking me up and down like I’m an all-day sucker and he’s got nothing but time, only twists the tension in my stomach even more. I’d wear him out like a fresh set of batteries if he’d let me, and I assume that is exactly why I was chosen for this assignment. I’m so his type, and damn if I don’t want to take him for a test drive.

  “So, really, what brings you here? And to Calumny of all places.” As if to make his point, his blue eyes sharpen, and for a moment I’m pretty sure I see teeth, but then he’s fine again, so maybe not. He sips his drink, all casual-like, but the way his eyes track me is anything but.

  This is the tricky part. If I show myself to him, this gets bad, quickly, in front of witnesses. I know I need to contain the reaction but doing so is… complicated. Then it comes to me, the literal go-for-broke plan that will yield either success or failure, and absolutely no middle ground.

  Taking his scotch from his hands, I turn the glass and press my lips to the spot he’d just been drinking from, throwing the contents back in one sustained swallow. Yes, it burns all the way down and tastes like horribly fermented tree bark, but I have shit to do and don’t have time to muck about with tentative dancing. “You wanna get out of here?”

  Finn’s blue eyes are flame-bright, incendiary as he watches me suck on the ice cube from his now-empty tumbler. He rubs the pool cue between his hands as he thinks, looking between me and the table before deciding. Muttering something under his breath that sounds distinctly like “Fuck it,” he takes the eight ball in hand and slams it into the side pocket with
a decisive thunk. “Where to?”

  * * *

  I don’t know why I thought he’d let me drive, but it doesn’t matter. I’m riding in this sexy-ass red Maserati, all flash and sass, and his hand is on my thigh, so I think this might actually work out. I’m not here for this, but it’s very much a bonus I’m willing to use to my advantage.

  We pull up to my three-story brownstone in the older part of town where gentrification is still a few years off, but the tendrils are starting to show. There are purple pansies in my window boxes on the front of my house and rosebushes with the sharpest thorns imaginable outside the ground floor windows. It’s very cute and homey, exactly why we came here. Nothing about this screams ‘safe house’ or ‘heavily armed fortress,’ which is how I like it. The fact it’s both those things, negligible.

  He parks in front, and instead of letting me out, he comes around and opens the door, immediately taking my hand to draw me up and into his arms. He crowds me against the car, all strong arms and muscles and heat, and I just want to know how soft his beard is. Goddamn, his lips are soft, and insistent but not demanding. The gentle brush of his lips over mine as he cradles me close has my body in a riot. I don’t know if I’ll be able to hold back my shift if he keeps this up, and I want nothing else in this world. His tongue delicately swipes across my bottom lip, and my brain shorts out for a second, caught in a feedback loop of sensation. The kiss is anything but aggressive, regardless of how we got here, and I hear a whimpering noise come from one of us as we pull back. The smirk on his lips tells me it came from me. Hell.

  “Just making sure we’re on the same page.” His voice, all soft and rough and affected, makes my knees watery for a second, and I’m glad I have an arm around his shoulders and my fingers in his hair. If we weren’t on the same page, a kiss like that could write a whole damn novel.