Moon Cursed: The Reluctant Werewolf Chronicles, Book 1

by Centanni, Tori

  “I know that. I was there when we caught him, remember? And he’s all chained up right now. I was just asking why he chose me out of all the werewolves…”

  Raff let out a huge sigh and gave a half roll of his eyes he angled his body away from me.

  “What?”

  “You’re not special. He chose you because you’re one of us and he wants to kill all of us.” There was more rancor in Raff’s voice than I could deal with at this hour.

  “No, actually, he picked me because my roommate is hooking up with a vampire. From what he said, I think the hunters found Damien first, but they realized they were outmatched and so they came after me.”

  Raff opened his mouth and after a second of silence, closed it again.

  I was relieved, because if I was right, it meant that the hunters had not followed me home from this orchard. They’d followed me to the orchard. And I didn’t really want anyone else to connect those dots. Then again, I’d pretty much been dragged to the meeting against my will, so it wasn’t like it was my fault if the hunters had discovered the pack’s main headquarters that way.

  “But he says they’re going after Michael next, which means we need to warn him.”

  “So call him and let’s get some sleep.” Raff had dark circles under his eyes and did look a little pale. But there was no time for sleep right now.

  “I tried that. He’s not answering his phone.”

  “Maybe he’s asleep,” Raff said wistfully.

  “He’s dating a vampire. This is evening for him.”

  Raff stood unmoving, except for the slight yawn. I didn’t have time for it. Michael didn’t have time. “Either we go now or you let me take your car.”

  “Okay, okay, we’ll go,” he said, with a baleful glare in the direction of the stairs. “If you think it’s necessary.”

  “I do.”

  Three minutes later, we were back in the car speeding toward Seattle.

  * * *

  Damien’s apartment was dark. It was getting close to dawn, so that wasn’t too surprising, but it still made my stomach churn like a cement mixer. I jumped out of the car before Raff finished parking, ignoring his shouts as I practically vaulted a fire hydrant and turned the corner to get to the front of the building.

  There, my heart thudded like a jackhammer. The glass on one of the building’s front doors was shattered and the door’s handle had been knocked off with serious force. It dangled from the door like a dead limb. I stepped back and looked up, realizing that thanks to the stylish portico over the entrance, none of the residents could see the shattered door or even tell that it was open. Lovely. So even if one of them heard glass breaking from inside their apartment with the windows closed (and it was November—everyone’s windows were closed) they wouldn’t have known what it was.

  Raff came running around the corner. “You really don’t get this whole warrior/protectee thing, do you? I’m going to have to draw you a diagram.”

  He shut up when I pointed to the door, swallowing so hard his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. “Oh,” he finally said.

  “Yeah, oh. What if we’re too late?”

  “Damien is a vampire. He can take care of himself,” Raff said. For someone who called themselves a protector, he didn’t seem all that concerned.

  “You realize Holly also lives here, right?”

  His face paled slightly. “Yes,” he said, but I could tell he’d forgotten or at least hadn’t been thinking about her. “Sasha sent a warrior down here to stay with her, so she has protection. She’ll be okay.”

  I wasn’t convinced. These hunters were vicious and determined, and they knew how to catch people by surprise.

  I rushed inside to the elevator, pressing the button four or five times before Raff grabbed my shoulder and gestured toward the stairs. It was eight stories up and I was almost impatient enough to climb that high, but then the elevator dinged open.

  It was thankfully empty, and we rushed inside, my finger jamming the “8” button so hard it hurt. I tapped my foot as the elevator ascended to Damien’s floor. It look a small eternity, but finally the doors open and I raced down the hall to his door.

  His door was closed. That was good.

  I let myself have millisecond of relief and then knocked. There was no answer.

  “Damien! Michael! Holly!” I shouted as I knocked again, louder and more forcefully. The apartment was large, but it wasn’t so big that they wouldn’t hear my pounding. Raff reached for the door knob. It turned easily in his hand and my heart plummeted into my stomach, landing with a splash.

  He gave me a knowing look and I nodded that he should open it, even though I was terrified of what we might find.

  The apartment was dark and I immediately went for the light switch. I half-expected it not to work, like this was some horror movie, but the lights came on. That was almost worse because we could see the carnage.

  The body in the living room was not Michael’s and the wave of relief was followed immediately by a wave of guilt that I was happy the dead man was not a man I knew. He wore a t-shirt and plaid pajama pants. His hair was rumpled and he had fallen on the floor near the front door. No doubt he’d been heading for the door to fight off the intruders as they barged in.

  The bullet hole was in his chest. Blood had spread around it but there wasn’t the kind of splatter you might see in a slasher movie. He was just there, a dead guy who looked like he was sleeping at an awkward angle on the floor.

  “That’s Kelly. He was a warrior,” Raff spoke so quietly I barely heard him.

  “Michael!” I screeched into the apartment. Raff grabbed my arm, his hand warm around me, and shook his head.

  “They may still be here,” he whispered.

  I didn’t think so. Because we’d been banging on the door for at least a minute and if they were here, they’d have opened fire.

  But I nodded and swallowed the scream that was trying to claw its way up my throat. I let Raff take the lead and move down the hall first, checking rooms. He went door to door, practically kicking them open and then checking inside for intruders. Each time he came out and quietly shook his head.

  The last one was Damien’s room, where Michael slept when he stayed over, and I held my breath as Raff opened it.

  He glanced inside and then darted forward, so I ran down the hall and followed him in. Damien was on the floor near the bed, which was empty. He had a stake through his heart.

  My heart pulsed in my throat. Stakes didn’t kill vampires, just paralyzed them, and it looked like a normal wooden stake, not one carved from redwood which could hold spells that would kill a vampire. Satisfied that Damien would live, I began frantically searching for my friend. I tore the covers off the bed to make sure he wasn’t hiding beneath them and then I yanked the bathroom door open to scour the closet and shower. Nothing.

  “Where’s Michael?” My voice was too high, almost a screech.

  Raff had knelt by Damien and was studying the stake.

  “Pull it out!” I hissed.

  “Is it safe?” he asked.

  “He can’t wake up until you do and that means he can’t tell us where Michael is.” Raff hesitated. My patience had already bleed out of me. “Take it out! His undead heart will be fine.”

  “It’s not his safety I’m worried about,” Raff muttered.

  If it had been possible for my pulse to race any faster, it would have. “Oh my God. Stop being such an asshole about vampires.”

  I marched over to Damien and tugged on the stake. It barely budged. Raff didn’t help me. I had to bend down, grab it with both hands and prop a foot against Damien’s chest to help leverage all of my strength. I pulled as I hard I could and it finally slid out with a soft sucking sound.

  Damien groaned and his eyes flew open. They were dark red, the color of blood, and he hissed at Raff, who jumped back like a frightened cat. He got up, nearly knocking me over in the process. “Where’s Michael?” he demanded.

  My stom
ach churned. “That’s what I was hoping to ask you,” I said. “What happened?”

  Damien sniffed the air, and then ran out into the hallway. He was superhero fast, like the Flash in vampire form, and back in a second. “Holly and Michael are gone.”

  “Thanks, Captain Obvious,” Raff said, almost under his breath, but I was close to him and Damien had vampire hearing.

  Damien ignored him. He grabbed a cell phone off the nightstand to check the time and growled. “It’s almost dawn,” he said, scratching the hole in his chest where the stake had been. Vampires healed quickly. I didn’t know if that healing itched. Now was not the time to ask.

  “Why did they take Michael and Holly?” I asked instead.

  “I don’t know,” Damien said. “They charged in and staked me before I could react. I don’t know how…” He trailed off, frowning as he tried to remember. “It was like they had a gun that shot the stake at me.” He shook his head. “I can’t imagine why they’d want Michael. He’s human.”

  “Mostly,” Raff muttered.

  Damien’s eyes narrowed. “Totally. Michael is more human than you, wolf boy.”

  Raff’s ears turned a little pink.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Why kill one wolf, stake the vampire, and then take the other wolf and a human? Why not kill everyone and be done with it?”

  Damien’s head snapped in my direction, his eyes cut into slits.

  I held up a hand. “I’m not saying that would be a good thing! Michael is my best friend, remember? I’ve known him longer than you. I want him to be okay as badly as you do. And Holly… I don’t want her to be dead, either.” Raff looked slightly mollified by that. “I’m just trying to figure out what the hunters want. If they want all monsters dead, why take two people alive when they’re more than willing to kill? It doesn’t add up. Why do they want them alive?”

  “Leverage,” Raff said. “They can negotiate for their guy back.”

  I remembered John’s words with a shiver. He hadn’t made it sound like the Guardians of Pure Life were the type to negotiate. “Maybe.”

  “Perhaps they’re the bait in the trap,” Damien said.

  My insides hardened into rock. I felt glued to the spot, too heavy to move.

  “Can’t you track him down?” Raff asked.

  “I’m not the blood hound here,” he said. “Perhaps if I’d been able to follow immediately, but they’ve been gone over an hour. There’s no trail left.”

  “What about telepathy?” I asked, desperate to find a way that Damien could zero in on their location and save Michael and Holly. “Vampires and mortals who share blood often develop a telepathic link, right?”

  Raff gaped at me. “How do you know so much about vampires and almost nothing about your own kind?”

  “We can hear each other’s thoughts, but only at close range,” Damien said, ignoring Raff. He dropped onto the edge of the bed and put his head in his hands, defeated. “Unless he were still in the building… but I haven’t heard him since you woke me.”

  I swore. Raff swore, too.

  “How many hunters were there?” Raff asked.

  Damien scratched his chin. He had no stubble. He must have been clean-shaven when he was turned. “I don’t know. More than two. Two came into the bedroom and one of them shot a stake at me and then I was out, but I heard Holly screaming and I’m pretty sure there was at least one more.” Damien sighed. “These guys weren’t amateurs. They were organized like a military strike team. They came in with a plan.”

  Raff went to the window, which was covered with blackout curtains and heavy duty blinds to keep the sun out during the day. He opened the blinds. Damien protested and after getting a good look outside, Raff closed them again.

  “You don’t have any idea where they went?” he asked, impatient.

  “Do you?” Damien snapped back.

  “You never know. They could have said something about where they were going,” Raff said stiffly.

  “If Damien knew, he’d tell us. He loves Michael,” I said, because I needed that to be true. I needed to know my friend hadn’t been taken by vile monster hunters for a dude who was only using him for blood. “Right?”

  “Of course I love him.” Damien sounded tired. “But it’s nearly sunrise and I’m afraid I’m useless until nightfall.”

  “And we’re useless until we figure out where they took them,” Raff said, practically spitting the words. “I need to call Sasha and let her know about Kelly.”

  He stomped out of the room and down the hall.

  I met Damien’s eyes. “We’ll find him.”

  “I’ll contact some of my friends, see if they know anything new,” Damien said, gripping his phone so tightly his skin stretched tight over his knuckles.

  “And I’m going to go find answers.”

  Damien’s lips quirked into a small, wry smile. “Oh yeah, just like that, huh? My God, you really think you can just command the universe to bend to your will, don’t you?”

  I didn’t smile back. “I have to think so. The only other option is to let fate take its course and in my experience, fate is cruel.”

  “You’re twenty-one,” Damien said, exasperated. “What horrible experience could have made you so damned cynical?”

  I swallowed, but suddenly it was hard to breathe. My heart raced as the memories tried to push their way to the front of my mind. I didn’t need them. I’d lived them over and over, a hundred times, but it didn’t matter. Nothing would bring my sister back.

  “Something big, huh?” he asked. I frowned at him. He shouldn’t be able to read my thoughts. His fangs had never come near my throat. “I can hear your pulse racing. I guess there is something that haunts you.”

  “You have no idea,” I said, wiping tears away. “I need to get going. Clock’s ticking.”

  “I assume your people will retrieve the body in the living room,” he said, as casually as one might ask for a ride to the store.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I assume they will.”

  I stepped into the hall.

  “Charlotte,” Damien said, his voice low. “Michael loves you like a sister. Don’t let him down.”

  I didn’t need to be told that. I knew it. But a thought struck me, and I turned and said, “I need a sample of your blood.”

  Damien blinked. He hadn’t been expecting that. But after a moment, he simply said, “Okay.” Apparently finding Michael via any means necessary was more important than questioning why a werewolf wanted a vial of vampire blood.

  “Great. I’ll go find a container.”

  Chapter 19

  Damien and Holly’s apartment didn’t have anything so fancy as a glass vial with a stopper or even an old jam jar, which was how I ended up carrying a Tupperware sauce container full of vampire blood. I was afraid to put it in my purse, as I didn’t know how leak-proof the container was, so I held it on my lap as we drove. Raff kept glancing over at it and swallowing hard, like he was fighting the urge to puke.

  Drama queen.

  “It’s just blood,” I said. “You’re a werewolf. Don’t tell me blood makes you queasy.”

  “Being a werewolf doesn’t mean I like blood. That’s vampires you’re thinking of,” he said curtly. “You seem to think a lot of vampires, in fact.”

  “I like vampires. I wanted to be one, before I got bitten which made it impossible. What’s wrong with that?”

  Raff shook his head and focused on the road, but he kept giving the container of blood the side-eye, which I ignored. “You know, werewolves are cool.”

  “If you have to say something is cool, then it’s not that cool.”

  Raff’s jaw tightened. I could tell he was annoyed, and I had to remind myself that Holly was missing too and she was his pack mate, someone he wanted to protect. He was as worried as I was about finding them alive and getting them to safety. Now was not the time to give him crap.

  When we arrived at Ellianne’s, I knocked several times. I didn’t know a
nything about fae sleep patterns or even if she slept at all. She answered the door in an ethereal silver nightgown that glowed against her pale skin.

  “I suppose you’re here to request use of my library,” she said, her gaze zeroing in on the vampire blood in my hand. She straightened. “Is that for me?”

  “It is. It’s from a willing vampire who donated it for your collection in exchange for our use of your books.”

  “I see,” she said, and reached for it.

  I pulled it back out of her grasp. “For as long as necessary. We don’t leave until we’re done.”

  She frowned but couldn’t stop staring at the container. “All right. For as long as you need, or twenty-four hours, whichever comes first.”

  Raff looked ready to argue that “as long as necessary” could not actually include a time limit—for immortals, the fae are often obsessed with time limits--but I stopped him by handing over the little Tupperware of crimson blood. If we didn’t find anything in twenty-four hours, it was likely to be too late for Holly and Michael anyway.

  * * *

  “This would be a lot easier if she had a digital archive,” Raff said, as he scanned through the same books he’d already scanned through the first time, looking for mentions of Guardians of Pure Life, or anything else that might be relevant, including the names John or Davis.

  Why did Davis sound so familiar?

  I found the book that had mentioned the Guardians of the Natural Order, a name that sounded too similar to be coincidence. There I reread about how the group had formed in 1982 to hunt down Bigfoot, and had broken up sometime in the late 80s. There was was a photo of eight of them, mostly men, with names listed. One of the names was a guy named James Davies.

  That niggling feeling in my brain got louder and then it hit me.

  “Holy crap,” I whispered. Raff looked up. “John’s last name is Davies. John Davies. I saw it on some work papers but totally forgot, because only first names are used on the schedule and I didn’t usually see his whole name.”