Betrayed by Blood

by Beth Dranoff

  Betrayed by Blood

  By Beth Dranoff

  Beth Dranoff is back with the second installment of her Mark of the Moon series

  Shapeshifting. Falling in love. Two things that aren’t as easy as they look.

  There are definite perks to being a shifter. Sharp claws, soft fur, sexy creature-friends-with-benefits...but other things aren’t so great. Like, say, being dragged into an apocalyptic war between the species, waged by a she-demon who wants to end the world.

  Meanwhile, things are getting hot and heavy between me and Sam Harding, lieutenant in the local shifter pack. Sam is definitely the commitment type—if only I could be sure that I am, too. I don’t want to lose him, but am I ready for forever?

  Yeah, when this is over, I will absolutely get my life—love and otherwise—together. That is, if I manage to live through this mess.

  This book is approximately 85,000 words

  Edited by Stephanie Doig

  Dear Reader,

  As book lovers, no matter how much we want our favorite stories to go on forever, we know that eventually they will come to an end. The same is sadly true of my monthly letter to you. While I know some of you do look forward to this letter, we’ve decided that we can no longer continue to include it for some practical reasons, which I don’t want to bore you with. So this will be my last letter to you all. But never fear, the good books will continue to come every month and that is what’s most important!

  Still, I get one last chance to tell you all about the amazing books we have in store for you, and I’m going to take full advantage of the opportunity. Are you ready?

  Powerhouse author duo Alexa Riley follows up their bestselling full-length novels Everything for Her and His Alone with a trilogy of spin-off novellas. First up, in Stay Close, a Russian bad boy will do whatever it takes to conquer her headstrong ways and make her his. And don’t miss the next two novellas, releasing later in 2017 and early in 2018, as well as their third full-length novel, Claimed, coming in spring 2018.

  At Noble House, a first-of-its-kind hybrid fetish club that blends real life with the online, three lovers reunite to explore role play and high-tech toys as they battle demons from the past that could threaten their future. Sara Brookes’s Get Off Easy is only the first in her supercharged erotic romance series, Noble House Kink.

  The male/male romance Ethan & Wyatt trilogy by K.A. Mitchell is now available in one volume in mass market print, audio and digital formats. Opposites attract and ignite on campus as optimistic, open-hearted and sometimes clueless Ethan meets Wyatt, who has plenty of reasons for hiding under his hoodie. Together they face a jealous ex, disapproving parents and the most dangerous test of all: real life together off campus.

  Hot in the City author Jules Court is back with her third contemporary romance novella, Tease Me Tonight. Elizabeth Owens spent the last eight years as the responsible and celibate guardian of her little sister, but now Megan’s left the nest, and Elizabeth’s ready to let her wild side out with firefighter Will MacGregor. The only problem is Will wants a connection with Elizabeth that will last longer than one steamy night, and he knows if he gives in too soon to their attraction he’ll lose her. You can also pick up Hot in the City and Enticing the Enemy in digital, wherever Carina ebooks are sold.

  In Betrayed by Blood, the second installment in Beth Dranoff’s romantic urban fantasy Mark of the Moon series, covert agent turned bartender Dana is drawn back to her Agency past by an offer she can’t refuse from a guy she never thought she’d see again. Lured by curiosity, and torn between freedom and restraint, Dana has to decide whether she’s ready to look to the future while leaving the scars of her past behind.

  Romantic suspense author Katie Ruggle, writing as Katie Allen, joins Carina Press with the first of several erotic romance backlist releases leading up to her fall 2017 new erotic romance release. In her Research & Desire series, we’ll publish Erotic Experiments, Natural Selection, Carnal Chemistry and Double Dose in back-to-back months from July through October. Then look for book one of her new series in November 2017.

  Ten years after he rejected her, the Seduction Squad’s newest recruit, Christie Mason, finally has the chance to get her revenge on Theo Ward, but there are some fantasies that are best left in the past and some taboos that should never be explored in Seduction Squad: Tainted by Amanda Stewart.

  Robyn Bachar’s Contingency Plan is the next in her sci-fi romance series, The Galactic Cold War. Privateer pilot Lieutenant Jiang Chen searches for the location of a terrible superweapon, but when the mission threatens to reveal the dangerous secrets of her past, Jiang’s only ally is sexy chief of security Ryder Kalani, who is battling demons of his own. Start with book one, Relaunch Mission, today!

  Fans of TV show The 100 will want to read Zaide Bishop’s Bones of Eden series. Releasing in three volumes in July and August, these continuing stories have it all, from forbidden love to war to a race for survival. First Fall comes out in early July, followed by Second Heart later in July and Third Wave in August.

  That’s all for our dear reader letters, but please follow us on social media—Twitter or Facebook—or sign up for our reader newsletter to be kept informed about all our great reads in the future.

  For one final time, fellow readers and book lovers, here’s wishing you a wonderful life of books you love, remember and recommend.

  Happy reading!

  ~Angela James

  Editorial Director, Carina Press

  Dedication

  For Opher and Zak. All the love.

  Author Note

  While this story is set in Toronto, Canada, it’s a work of fiction. If anything reminds you of someone or someplace you know (or you think I know), that’s great! But I promise—I’ve made it all up.

  Contents

  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

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Beth Dranoff

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  I heard the knock at my apartment door before I smelled him. Them. It was late enough that I checked the peephole, just to be sure.

  I opened the door and saw Sam first. Smiled. Then I saw Jon and my smile widened before wavering, hesitant. Both of them? Here? At the same time?

  So many ways this could go, so few of them good.

  * * *

  “Sandor’s in trouble,” Jon said. So much for for
eplay.

  “Again?” Sandor had only recently recovered from being attacked by frost demons, exact species unknown. OK, four months ago. Still, it felt like only last week I’d gone to visit my boss in that supe hospital I hadn’t realized existed until I needed it. You know, because I was shifting. After Jon’s not-as-ex-as-I’d-thought boyfriend had scratched me. Good times. I could still see Sandor lying in that bed, gnarled fingers twitching as fluids mixed with twinkling crystalline aquamarine blue bits dripped into his veins.

  Things had been awkward between us since the Great Revelation—that the assassin hired to kill me was Sandor’s half brother, Gus (a.k.a. Gustav, a.k.a. Gus Lazzuri), a fact he’d neglected to enlighten me on when shit went down four months ago. We’d been getting past it by stepping around it. Like all primed minefields, sometimes the best approach was avoidance.

  At least that’s the theory I’ve been working with.

  Last time, the attack had gone down at the Swan Song, the bar-slash-restaurant where norms and supes can hang out without killing each other. At least not on the premises. I work there; Sandor owns it. And seriously, hadn’t he been through enough for a six-foot-five demon whose neon-orange-pylon-colored tusks were worse than his actual bite? I glanced over at Sam. “What happened? I talked to him, like, five hours ago.”

  “Not sure.” Sam crossed his arms and leaned a single shoulder against the doorframe of my new place. New to me anyway—I suspected the building itself was more turn of the century by way of abandoned sweatshop.

  “Let’s do this inside,” I said. A sideways invitation, but it was after 10 PM and the hallway was more tropical jungle in July than my interior space of tepid air-conditioned relief. Toronto in June, no matter how your blood flowed, was not for the faint of sweat.

  Sam and I had met about four months ago, right after I’d been scratched and started this whole crazy ride I had no choice but to call My Life. Somewhere between fighting and a semi-successful attempt at banishing bad guys, some skin-on-skin contact of the non-violent variety had started up.

  Interestingly, Jon—who I’d already been seeing, and the one I’d considered my Mr. Right Now until all the shit went down—hadn’t been upset with me for taking Sam on bed-wise. Not that Sam and I always ended up in bed, but you get the point.

  Maybe because Jon hadn’t turned out to be a one-lover-at-a-time vampire himself.

  At least it was warmer now than when it all started.

  “Weren’t you supposed to be working tonight?” Whoops. I was supposed to let someone from the Pack know my whereabouts at all times.

  “Sorry.” I shrugged. “Needed a mental health day. Sandor hired a new drinks guy, Derek, which means I can now officially, occasionally, get sick.” I fake coughed for effect before the sick. “Why?”

  “Someone delivered this to the Pack house on Roxborough for you.” Sam pulled a folded sheet of fluorescent-pink eight-and-a-half-by-eleven paper from his shirt pocket and passed it over before settling into the armchair closest to me. Jon raised an eyebrow at the other man’s familiarity before shrugging and folding himself, all fluid grace and bone and muscle, into the other solo-use seat adjacent to Sam. Nowhere for me to go but my couch, so there I settled in. “I said I’d drop it off after I called the Swan and was told you were home sick.” Ironic emphasis on sick. “Ran into this guy on the way in.”

  “What is it?”

  “Take a look,” Sam said. Well then. Guess he wanted me to do the big reveal.

  Fine. Indigo ink bled at the edges of the scrawled message, and I caught a whiff of what might have been pickled herring.

  Requesting assistance from Dana Markovitz. Your demon has been procured as collateral. Terms to be discussed at 11:30 PM meeting. See location provided on map, below.

  Underneath was a Google Street View printout stuck to the original sheet with something gummy and still moving. Yuck. Also...huh?

  “Anshell wants us to check it out. Find out why they’re asking for you specifically, and how they knew that delivering it to his home would get the message to you.”

  That would be Anshell Williams, Alpha to Sam’s second-in-command spot in the Moon with Seven Faces Pack. Capital P Pack. I kind of belonged, even though my full-status voting membership was still pending majority approval. At least Anshell recognized me—that helped. We also happened to share a bit of a psychic connection; if Anshell intuited I was involved somehow, he was probably right.

  Not that I wanted to admit it.

  “Funny how almost everything that happens in the Toronto supe community lately has something to do with me.” I kept my voice light. Truth was, plenty of recent weird could be traced back to that frigid night on Cherry Beach when Alina—She Who Should Not Be Named Aloud—opened up a portal and allowed an assortment of Scary, Snotty and Clawed Fangy creatures through. All my fault.

  OK, not exactly—it had more to do with something my father and possibly my former mentor Ezra had done to me as a baby—but it did hinge on my existence. Plus I’m Jewish. Any residual guilt was over-determined.

  “Still,” Jon said, using his best placate-the-human tone—there might have been both a tongue and some cheek involved. “They know enough about you to know where you might be. And the threat does involve someone of importance to you. Might be prudent to at least investigate further, yes?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” My words were casual despite the rock of worry that had suddenly taken up residence in my gut. Even after everything, Sandor was my friend. And I couldn’t let bad things happen to good demons—not if I could help it.

  “Where’s your phone?” Sam glanced around at all the usual spots—coffee table, end table, kitchen counter. Except it had died and was charging beside the bed instead.

  Unanswered texts from Sam, Anshell and Jon, plus two missed calls. Another text from sender unknown that I suspected was mobile provider spam-sourced.

  Nothing from Sandor.

  I glanced over at the guys and shook my head. Still, it didn’t mean Sandor was in danger, right? Could just be an early night hookup, and whoever had sent the note was capitalizing on his prior engagement to get me to take their bait.

  One way to check. I grabbed my phone and dialed Sandor’s cell; five rings then straight to voicemail. Tried the Swan Song next. Ten rings before I got the canned message. Still, the place could be busy—we didn’t always answer the phone because, seriously, it was a bar. One more try. This time I reached Janey, one of the other servers; she’d been there almost as long as I had.

  “Hey girl,” she said. My shoulders started easing down from just below my earlobes at her voice. “I thought you were sick?”

  “Sick,” I said, lowering my voice into the octave of hoarse. “Yeah. Listen, is Sandor around? He’s not answering his phone.”

  “Nah,” Janey replied. “Boss Man ain’t rolled in yet. You need me to get him a message?”

  “Are you expecting him?”

  I could almost hear Janey’s shrug.

  “Boss Man does what he wants, right? As long as we get paid, and those wards hold so we got no trouble, I keep my expectations right out there where I can see ‘em. So no, I’m not expecting him. But I’m not not expecting him neither.”

  I tried again. “So you haven’t heard from Sandor tonight?”

  “Nah.”

  “Did he say anything about not coming in?”

  “Nah,” Janey repeated. “We ain’t buds like you two.” Huh. I hadn’t noticed that edge before. Still, ignoring was easier than confronting for now. “Didn’t he say nothing to you earlier when you called in...sick...?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “Yeah, so, let me know if you hear anything. I’m going back to bed now.” Another fake one-two cough for effect. I was imagining her smirk, right?

  “You get better soon, girl,” she said. Yeah, even she didn�
��t believe it.

  Both Jon and Sam were studying my face as I disconnected, waiting for me to say something they could work with. Or maybe they were just thinking about the bed part. I shook my head.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Janey didn’t seem too worried though.”

  “She doesn’t strike me as someone who concerns herself much with those who aren’t her.” Jon’s voice was dry. He wasn’t wrong; I was surprised he’d noticed.

  “Sandor pays us. She’d notice if he was gone at the end of the night.”

  My phone pinged with an incoming text: unknown name, unknown number. Yeah, that always turned out well. I swiped to see more.

  Freeze-frame on Sandor, wrapped in a massive purple tentacle, his eyes bulging and his mouth gaping open.

  Chapter Two

  “Sandor?”

  Except this wasn’t a video chat. Shit. Another ping, another text; I hoped Sandor’s plan was unlimited. It was another image: Sandor holding up a white Bristol board with the time in the note (one hour from now), confirmation of the meeting place (somewhere dark and murky near the Swan), and under what I assumed were additional instructions were the words “no cops.” I snorted back a laugh at that. Right. Because I’d call in law enforcement. Like, ever.

  “You guys got that?” Sam already had his phone out and was talking while pacing, voice low, to Anshell. Would we get backup? Jon, by contrast, hadn’t moved. That, combined with him being breathing-optional, made the whole scene more remote. “Jon? Coming?”

  Jon gave a long blink, then started taking in air again. His skin less waxy with each inhalation even though I knew it was an illusion. The only thing to give Jon extra warmth these days was blood, regardless of how much I might want the situation to be something that was else.

  “Yes.” Focusing in on me, back from wherever he’d been moments earlier, his eyes sweeping up to my tousled curls then down again to my strappy pink Cool Kat tank to the matching pussycat boy shorts painted over my curves. Eyes twinkling now. “I like your rescue outfit.”