I was no genius, but I’d passed high school biology with a solid B minus. Whatever had just happened in front of me was not possible.
Not possible. Not on this planet.
He came out from behind the bar as if everything were perfectly normal and stuck his hand out to shake mine as he introduced himself. “Owen Blakesley.”
“Sienna Luna,” I said weakly, reaching out to take his hand.
If I’d had any sense, would’ve been terrified. But instead, an odd thrill ran through me when he took my hand. And yet I managed to play it cool, using my other hand to indicate his clothing. “No leather for you?”
He didn’t smile, but the corners of his eyes crinkled up in the beginning of a grin. “Not really my style.”
He glanced at Bear-Man. “Thanks, Jamie. I’ll take it from here.”
I would have never guessed that Jamie was Bear-Man’s name. I would’ve bet on something much less civilized.
Jamie nodded and made his way back to the door while Owen sat in his vacated seat at the booth. He leaned forward on his elbows, his gaze serious. “How much do you know about this fairy situation?”
My mind scrambled off in another odd direction. A werewolf walks into a leather bar on Folsom and asks about fairies…
Another bad joke.
Right?
Despite my attempts to remain expressionless, Owen must have seen something in my face that gave me away.
Or maybe he smelled it.
How did werewolves get information, anyway?
“Ah, shit. No one briefed you on the fairies?” He ran his fingers through his hair, inhaled deeply, and dropped his hands back to the table. “Okay. I guess I’ll have to start from the beginning.”
Oh, dude. You have no idea.
I didn’t say that out loud, though.
“No. No one has briefed me on anything.” Something in my tone must’ve given me away because Owen flashed a surprised glance at me.
“It might be better if you told me what you do know,” he suggested.
“I know that my uncle Desmond died and in his will, he made me the owner of this bar—” I circled my finger around over my head to indicate the building we were in—“and he named me alpha of a werewolf pack.” To my credit, I managed not to laugh or shake my head or break down crying when I said the words “werewolf pack.”
Still, Owen narrowed his eyes calculatingly. “How old were you when you first shifted?” he asked.
I chewed on my bottom lip for a second, then decided he would find out eventually one way or another, so I might as well tell him. “I have never shifted. Until last week, I did not know that my parents were part of a werewolf pack. Until five minutes ago, I didn’t believe it when they told me they were genetic werewolves.”
Owen’s face grew paler and paler the longer I talked. By the time I finished speaking, both his palms were flat on the table, fingers spread wide, arms fully extended and straightened out as he pushed back, clearly as stunned by my revelations as I had been by his.
“You’re not a born wolf?”
“If that’s what I think it is—a wolf who can shift from birth without being bitten? Is that right?” I continued at his tense, white-faced nod. “Nope. I’m not a born wolf.”
“And you’ve never been bitten?” his voice went hoarse.
I shook my head slowly. “No.”
When Owen pushed himself to his feet, the table creaked in protest. I got the feeling it was much sturdier than it looked—Owen was putting a lot of pressure on it.
Werewolf strength.
The thought kind of worried me.
He disappeared into the back of the restaurant through a swinging door, then reappeared seconds later. “I need to call the comitatus.”
“The what?”
“Comitatus.” He spelled the word out for me. “Sort of the werewolf version of a war council. It’s a really old word—” He shook his head. “That doesn’t matter. Basically, there are three of us right now who are—were—your uncle’s betas. Second-in-command.”
“You’re talking about it like it’s an army.”
Owen ran one hand through his hair again. “It might come to that if we’re not careful.” With that cryptic statement, he ducked behind the bar to grab a cell phone. Probably they kept one back there for wolves who shifted in the middle of the bar.
They kept clothes on hand for the same reason, apparently.
Because in The Moon Moon, wolves turn into sexy naked men.
I shoved the thought away. Focusing on the gorgeous human version of Owen was a bad idea.
I wasn’t trying to listen, but I caught a few words in the series of phone calls Owen made. Phrases like, “I think we’re fucked, man,” and “she doesn’t know anything,” along with “never shifted” and “not born, not bitten.”
A part of me was glad to know that the werewolves were at least as unhappy with my uncle Desmond’s decision to put me in charge as I was.
At least I wasn’t alone in that.
“What can you tell me while we’re waiting for them to get here?” I asked as Owen disconnected from the last call and made his way back to stand by my table.
“I’m starving,” he announced. “Come back to the kitchen while I make some burgers, and I’ll do what I can get you up to speed.” The head-shake he gave as he led me to the back, however, suggested he didn’t think I would really be getting up to speed anytime soon.
Unlike the rest of the bar, the kitchen was up-to-date and gleaming. I glanced around and made my way over to the stainless-steel counter. I pulled myself up onto it, crossing my legs so that my feet dangled several inches above the floor.
Owen’s trip back here moments before had apparently been to turn on the grill and fryer. Now he pulled out all the ingredients for cheeseburgers and tossed a couple of patties onto the grill. Then he reconsidered and pulled out six more. I can only assume they were for the other wolves who were on their way.
“You know,” he said conversationally, “I was worried when Desmond chose a woman as his successor, especially one who hadn’t participated much in pack life.” He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, but I clenched my teeth and held my tongue. I could let him know what I thought of his casual misogyny later. And I would.
“But that’s nothing compared to choosing a genetic werewolf who has never shifted.” He shook his head in amazement.
“Is it better or worse that I didn’t believe in werewolves until I saw you shift today?”
Owen groaned. “Whatever you do, please do not tell Dean that part of the story.”
“I assume Dean is one of the guys you just called?”
“Yeah. He’s part of the comitatus.” He dropped a basket of fries into the heated grease.
“And who is the other guy? He said there were three, right?”
“Liam.”
“You don’t think it will be helpful for them to be aware of just how little I know?”
“Hell, I don’t know.” His rising anxiety thrummed through his words. This line of conversation was making Owen more and more uncomfortable.
“Okay. We can get me caught up on werewolf etiquette and history later. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on with the fairy you mentioned earlier?”
Inhaling deeply, Owen nodded. “Okay. The problem is the king of the Winter Court.”
“Are all the courts named after seasons?” I asked. My mind flashed back to a fairy tale book I’d had as a kid. I’d loved the illustrations of the seasons, with winter dressed as a bearded man in a light blue cloak, blowing the winter wind from the top corner of the page into the center where huddle children walked in the snow. “Like in books?”
“Yeah. But the other three are involved in some kind of treaty that got set up by a local hunter.”
“History note—what’s a hunter?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. Hunters are people track down rogue supernaturals—those of us who get too carried away killing hu
mans or are bringing the supernatural out into the open too much.” He dropped a basket of fries into the hot grease.
“Wouldn’t that be helpful, though? Not killing, I mean, but getting human help? If you have a problem with the Winter fairy-king, wouldn’t it be nice to hand it over to the police?”
As soon as the words left my mouth, I realized how illogical my logical response sounded. What can I say? I’ve been a law-abiding human for a long time.
Owen huffed a laugh. “Maybe, but I think the consensus is that the potential for human panicking is much more dangerous than any benefit we would get from them knowing about us.”
I nodded thoughtfully as I took in all the information. “Okay. There’s a hunter who has the other courts in hand.”
“Right. Rumor has it that’s kind of literal—I’ve heard that she’s taken the three other courts’ princes into her bed.”
I raised my eyebrows.
Three fairy princes in her bed? Interesting.
“Why can’t we ask this hunter—” I waved my hand as if asking him for a new word.
“Cassidy Irons,” he supplied.
“Why can’t we ask this hunter, Cassidy Irons, to help us with the Winter Court. Maybe ask if she’ll, I don’t know, take that prince, too?”
“The prince of the Winter Court isn’t particularly interested in a human hunter, apparently.”
“So much for that plan,” I muttered. “Okay, then, what’s our problem with the king?”
Owen plated the burgers and fries and handed me two. “Let’s go wait for the guys.”
Just as we placed the four plates on the table, each with two burgers, plus a heaping pile of fries, the back door opened, and two more unbelievably gorgeous men strolled in.
4
Owen introduced the two gorgeous arrivals as Dean and Liam.
If I had seen the three of them out in public somewhere, I might have assumed they were brothers. It wasn’t so much that they looked alike, as it was that they had a similarity in how they moved—they all stalked across the room with eyes of a predator seeking out its prey, glancing in every corner of the room, scoping it out. I might’ve also assumed they were military. They were muscular, all three of them, and toned in that way of men who regularly do manual labor—not carefully bulked up, like someone who spent a lot of time lifting weights at the gym, but strong and somehow more real.
That’s with the similarities ended, though. Owen’s black hair and bright green eyes were distinctly different from Dean’s light brown hair and almost golden eyes. And Liam had blonde hair and deep brown eyes.
The two newcomers paused long enough to give me a nod in greeting before falling on the burgers as if they hadn’t eaten in days.
It was still a little early in the day for me for burgers, so I picked at one and offered the other on my plate to the men—the werewolves—who were apparently now my comitatus.
“Well,” Dean said long moments later, wiping his mouth with a paper napkin and shoving his now-empty plate aside. “Who gets to bite her?”
My back stiffened. “You’re not talking about me, are you?”
Dean blinked, surprised. “Well, yeah. I was.”
“As far as I’m concerned, no one gets to bite me unless I give express consent. It’s the twenty-first century, boys.”
Owen waved off the comment, but not before he made a soft growl under his breath. “Let’s discuss the Winter Court’s King first.”
“I’m afraid you joined us at a bad time,” Dean said, sliding into the new topic easily. “Not only are you going to have to deal with the usual issues facing any new alpha, but we’re also facing something of an invasion.”
“Not that I would call it an invasion,” Liam interjected.
“No matter what you call it, though, it’s dangerous,” Owen said.
“Tell me exactly what it is, then.” I needed the information.
“The King of the Winter Court of the fairies has taken another wolf pack as his own.”
I blinked at him, uncertain how to respond to that, or even what it meant. Owen’s announcement carried the weight of horror behind it, but I didn’t know why he was horrified.
Taken a wolf pack as his own? The King of the Winter Court consorted with werewolves? It was like a Gilmore Girls and American Horror Show mashup. What the hell does ‘taken a pack as his own’ even mean?
Dean answered as if he had heard my thoughts. “It means that the Winter King is using the members of the wolf pack as his slaves. And we don’t know if the wolves agreed to this, if they are under his orders of their own volition, or if they’ve been somehow taken over.”
“Taken over? You mean, like, mind control?”
Werewolf servitude. Now I’ve heard everything. I hope.
“Something like that.”
“You said that this was another wolf pack, right?” They all nodded. “Why, then, is it our responsibility?”
“Technically, it’s not.” Owen wound his fingers together and rapped them against the wood. “But if it is some kind of mind control, some kind of magic that we haven’t seen before, then we need to be sure that it can’t ever be used against our own pack members.”
“In the end, anything that affects local wolves—werewolves or even natural wolves—affects us.” Liam’s mouth twisted. “But that’s not all.”
“No, it’s not,” Owen agreed. “Regardless of whether the wolves are there under duress or on their own, everyone, wolves and fairies included, will expect us to have a show of power when we confront them about it.”
“And that means?” I had a bad feeling about where this was about to go.
Dean leaned forward, meeting my gaze squarely. “That means an alpha who can shift. At the very least.”
“I think the first thing we need to do is arrange for me to…what did you call it? Taking the bite? And then we should check to see if the rumors about the Winter King are true.”
All three men traded glances among themselves.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“There’s one more thing,” Owen said, tapping his forefinger on the table.
“Tell me.”
I was pretty certain that I’d lost my capacity for surprise.
I was wrong.
Dean leaned forward intently. “Who gets to bite you?”
I was about to make a joke, say that they could flip a coin or something, when the weight of their stares finally hit me. “Why does it matter which of you bites me?” I asked, my tone suspicious.
“If I recall correctly,” Liam said, “if an alpha is named before he or she turns, then whoever gives her the bite is her mate. Is that right?” His question was directed at Owen, but I was one who answered.
“Oh, no, it’s not right. It’s not okay. A mate? That’s not going to happen.”
But even as I said the words, a glance around the table brought home how very attractive these men were, and a rush of heat pooled in my belly. The wave of desire that hit me—not for one, but for all of them—made me almost dizzy.
And from the knowing glances they gave each other, they clearly recognized my reaction.
“That doesn’t matter,” I said, addressing my response. “This is not about sex. It’s about power.”
They all stiffened their shoulders and sat up a little straighter. Yep—that was it exactly. Power. No matter how sexy they were, giving any one of them the opportunity to be the one who bit me and became my mate would be to give him far too much power when I didn’t even know the rules yet.
“You’ll be expected to take whoever gives you the bite as your mate.”
The three of them all stared at me with their wolfy eyes.
“I’m expected take one of you as a mate?”
Again, they did that thing where they all glanced at each other. “Not necessarily one of the three of us,” Owen said. His voice was more tentative now than it had been. “But it’s more common for an alpha to take a mate from the ranks of his or
her top leadership.” He spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully.
“Don’t wolves mate for life?”
All three of them nodded, oddly in sync.
“You’re basically telling me I have to get married in the next three days?” My voice had gone shrill. Apparently, the thought of marrying a werewolf freaked me out worse than the thought of being one.
“And in order for all this to happen…” I left a question in my voice, but the sentence itself trailed off.
“You’ll have to take the bite by the day after tomorrow in order to survive the first change during this month’s full moon.”
“And if I don’t?”
The three men looked at each other, their expressions anxious.
“You can’t be a pack alpha if you’re not even a shifter,” Liam said quietly.
“If you don’t,” Dean added, “then we will almost certainly have to choose a new alpha.”
“Oh,” I said, my breath pushing out of me in a sigh of relief. “Let’s do that. If you choose a new alpha, they can deal with this. Any one of you could be alpha. And you’d be a lot better at it than I would.”
“She doesn’t get it,” Liam said.
“Don’t get what?” There was a terrible feeling the pit of my stomach again.
“We can’t just choose a new alpha,” Owen said. “With your uncle’s death and you named as his successor, we have only one option for ousting you from your position in the pack.”
“Just say it.” My voice rose, taking on something commanding tone.
“Your death.” Dean spread his hands out open on the table, palms up. “That’s the only thing that will get you out of your position at this point. You’d have to die. And if you don’t take the bite, someone in the pack will certainly challenge you.”
Shit. I’ve never been a ride-or-die girl.
5
“Challenge me? Like to a fight? To the death?” This was insane.
“Yes,” Owen said. “If you take the bite, everyone will give you through the first full moon cycle before anyone challenges you.”
“Wait a minute. You’re saying that even with the bite, I could end up being challenged?”
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