“What…?” Ethan tried to back up farther but hit the wall. “Why? I’m not dangerous! I just… I won’t let anyone find out what I am.”
“It’s not that simple. We can smell you. You won’t be able to hide. But if you had something to offer me, some vital piece of information, I might be able to provide you protection.”
“If?” Ethan picked up on the important word choice. “And if I can’t?”
He gave Ethan a hard, cold look.
“You’ll kill me…. We had sex, and you’d just kill me, just like that?”
“It wasn’t exactly a mutual arrangement. You attacked me.”
“I….” Ethan was going to be sick again, especially since he knew that was true. “I-I….”
“Relax, I could have stopped you. I chose not to. Finishing what we started was more appealing.”
“Yet you’d still kill me?”
Ethan thought the man—wolf, whoever he was—looked sympathetic, like he didn’t want to kill him, but Ethan couldn’t be sure what his answer might have been because the door burst open.
“Bash!” A beautiful Asian woman with eyes that glowed violet came in with a snarl on her face. “I was gone ten minutes! What the fuck just happened? Are you bleeding?” She rushed to the man’s side, and perfectly painted fingernails alighted near the bite mark on his neck.
“Deanna—”
“You fed him? Are you insane? And what is that smell?” She reared back, sniffing the air like she’d caught the scent of something unpleasant. “You fucked him? Seriously? When Jay is in the city right now, practically gagging for it before every negotiation? Bash!” She smacked his arm.
Bash? As in Bashir Bain, the boss Siobhan at the tattoo parlor had promised to show Ethan’s portfolio to?
“Please do not refer to our neighboring city’s Alpha as ‘gagging for it,’” Bash droned.
“Well, he is.” Deanna gave him another firm smack. “He’s also technically your fiancé.”
“You’re engaged?” Ethan sputtered, feeling like an unwanted flea on the wall, especially when Deanna’s glare turned his direction.
“It’s political,” Bash said, as if being engaged was of no consequence when they’d just had sex, “not romantic. And why did you come back in here?” He returned to Deanna.
“I called Siobhan to clean up the shop and to have her deputies finish patrol. Like I was going to leave you alone with him. As soon as I got back down here, I smelled blood.”
Bash glowered. His exasperation was a little adorable while dealing with someone like an overbearing sister instead of threatening Ethan’s life.
Right—Ethan’s life. Because he was a vampire now, and these “shifters” wanted to kill him if he wasn’t useful. He wondered if it was possible to make a break for the door since Deanna had left it open….
“Don’t even think about it,” she growled, barring his exit with her eyes flashing like an animal’s caught in the light.
“I-I….”
“You are a threat to everyone here, to this entire neighborhood, and to the city. There are shifter families depending on us, and Bash is stupid enough—”
“Deanna,” Bash bit out sharper, moving to intercept her as she started backing Ethan into a corner.
Families? Ethan was terrified for his own sake, but it was hard to not feel like the bad guy when they were defending families and afraid for their welfare with him around.
“Calm down and listen to me,” Bash said, but as soon as he reached for her, she whipped in his direction and… froze.
Because Bash had frozen—face slack, eyes springing wide with the brown turning blue and blazing brightly, while the whites of his eyes went black and a third similar eye flashed on his forehead.
“What—”
“Shh!” Deanna hissed, and before Ethan could process what was happening, Bash was speaking, his voice a resonant echo like being caught in a wind tunnel.
Mothers who saw and fathers who heightened
Three with the power, but one unenlightened
All will suffer if two cannot triumph
Together against him can you be defiant
“Is he okay?” Ethan reached to help steady Bash since Deanna seemed frozen too, but she shouted at him to stop—
“Don’t!”
—all too late, because when Ethan gripped Bash’s arm, everything went white.
Then exploded into technicolor.
He saw Centrus City, but darker and different, the streets drenched in blood and fear like out of a horror movie, only to change on a dime, as if becoming covered in a fog of false bliss.
People walked the streets with eerie smiles in place of their recent terror, and at the center of it all was a single figure whose face Ethan couldn’t see, but he was there too, Ethan himself, at the man’s feet, staring up at him in adoration.
With Bash beside him.
Ethan gasped, the wine cellar reforming with a jolt. Yanking his arm from Bash, Ethan saw Bash come to with a similar start, eyes returning to normal.
“Who are you?” Bash said to Ethan like he was the spectacle. “What are you?”
“Me? You’re a werewolf!” Ethan shouted, stumbling away from him. “And whatever the hell that was!”
“A vision,” Bash said calmly, calculating and still. “A prophecy. Yes, I’m a werewolf. I’m also a Seer, but I’ve never experienced something like that no matter how many visions I’ve had. They’ve never been visions before, not really, only words, and usually words I don’t remember. But you saw what I saw, didn’t you?”
Ethan fidgeted uncomfortably. He didn’t want to lie, but he didn’t know how to answer.
“I saw humans and shifters like mindless followers serving a vampire with a hidden face,” Bash said.
A vampire? Of course. Ethan knew somehow, even though he hadn’t seen fangs. “And us too,” Ethan admitted quietly, “at his side, just as captivated, like zombies.”
“I wasn’t captivated by him,” Bash said with a curious tilt of his head, observing Ethan as though he could see right down to the bone, “I was captivated by you.”
“What the fuck are you two talking about?” Deanna bellowed, reminding them of her presence. “You actually saw a prophecy?”
Prophecies? Seers? This night kept getting stranger, but Ethan tried to focus on what he could grasp and to remember what Bash had said while under his trance. It was connected to what they had seen, that much was obvious, but what did it mean?
“When Ethan fed from me, he was able to enthrall me,” Bash said, which—what did that mean?
“That’s impossible,” Deanna dismissed. “Vampire thralls don’t work on shifters, especially not on an Alpha.”
“I broke free eventually, but it still happened. For a few moments, I was entirely subservient.”
“That’s why you fucked him?”
Bash cringed but said, “Partially.”
“I… hypnotized you into sex?” Ethan’s stomach churned with the threat of more blood spewing.
“Like I said, I could have stopped you once I snapped out of it. I chose not to.”
“Wait,” Deanna broke in, looking as nauseated as Ethan felt. “He can enthrall shifters? And his sire will be able to control him. Fuck!”
“What?” Ethan’s eyes snapped to her.
“That’s how sires work,” she spat, like it was his fault he didn’t know these things. “Your maker, the vampire who turned you, if he commands you to do something, it will be nearly impossible for you to refuse. You’re tied to his blood.”
Bash had obviously come to the same conclusion, but it just made Ethan feel more like he might start hyperventilating—though he didn’t seem to need to breathe anymore, which… weird.
“Is that how shifters work too?” Ethan asked. “When you turn people?”
Bash and Deanna shattered the tension by laughing, though Ethan hardly saw what was funny.
“This isn’t the movies,” Bash said. “We’re a
race, not an infection. That’s reserved for your kind now. We can’t turn others. We simply are how we are born.”
“Oh.” Everything was starting to make sense, but that didn’t make Ethan feel better about his chances of survival. “So, I’m a parasite who was put here to control you, because then my sire can control both of us, and maybe, somehow, control everyone in the city?”
“So it would seem,” Bash said, his mirth fading back to shrewd consideration, “though I’ve never heard of such a thing being possible. Even so, it would be foolish for your sire to try. He’d know how readily we’d want to kill you to prevent that. Even if you succeeded in enthralling me, the others in my pack would be more than enough to take out two vampires, and me as well if necessary.”
Deanna’s eyes burned in Ethan’s direction.
“Then what does he want?” Ethan asked. “Why did he do this to me?”
“Oh, he wants my city,” Bash said. “I’m sure of that. Maybe more than just one city. It’s how he plans to accomplish it that worries me.”
“We know the answer to solve that problem,” Deanna growled—actually growled this time—and shit, there came Stage Two like Ethan had seen from Bash, with fangs and claws and black fur sprouting.
“Please….” Ethan hit the wall again.
“We’re not killing him.” Bash slid between them to hold Deanna back.
“Bash—”
“We’re not killing him.”
The triphammer of Ethan’s heart eased at Bash’s authority. At least his heart still pumped, though it felt unnatural now and far too fast. As Bash turned to him, Ethan muttered a weak, “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. Your freedom comes at a price. I expect loyalty. I expect for you to do absolutely everything I ask of you. And in return, I will show you mercy to find out what is going on. But if you step out of line….” He moved closer, keeping Ethan pinned.
There was something about the way he smelled, not just the lingering scent of sex but something indescribable, that kept Ethan paralyzed. He’d blame it on the man being gorgeous, on his animal magnetism, but it was more than that.
“If you become a larger threat,” Bash warned, “if I ever fear that your sire has a chance to get a foothold in this city like we saw in that vision, I won’t hesitate to end you. Do you understand?”
Ethan understood why Bash was Alpha. Power radiated off him. “I understand. I’m still grateful. I get that this is bigger than me—”
“Do you?” Deanna cut him off, arms tight across her chest. “This is insane.”
“Ethan isn’t a conscious part of this,” Bash said. “He’s being used like his sire thinks he can use me.”
“And you have this insight how? Because you stuck your dick in crazy tonight?”
“We didn’t—”
Bash held up a hand to silence Ethan before he could finish that defense, and he wisely shut up. “What’s to stop this unknown enemy from siring someone else if we kill Ethan? We still don’t know how he’s as powerful as he is. His sire might have ways to make any fledgling like him. What we need is information. Keeping Ethan alive is the right call, but I need your backing if anyone questions me.”
Deanna looked at him as though Bash had grown another head—which at this point wouldn’t have surprised Ethan. “How do we know he isn’t just playing Bambi?”
“Bambi? This guy killed me!” Ethan exclaimed. “I had a chance to start over, and he ruined my life. His eyes….” Ethan trailed off as the image came to him.
“His eyes what?” Bash pressed. “What color were they?”
“Yellow. I can picture them now.”
“Not feral or even hungry.” Bash huffed as though not surprised. “Do you remember anything else?”
“No. I’m sorry, I—” Ethan’s phone rang in his pocket, catching them all up short. “Um….”
“Who is that?” Bash moved closer again, emanating that smell that almost made Ethan dizzy. The room was large, but with two shifters crowding him, he felt more like he was back in his five-by-five cell at Glenwood Penitentiary.
After pulling the phone slowly from his pocket, Ethan checked the name.
Leo.
“It’s my uncle.”
“Then answer. We don’t want him thinking anything is out of sorts.”
“That would be out of sorts,” Ethan countered. “I haven’t been talking to him. Trust me, he won’t be surprised if I don’t answer.”
“Shitty family too, huh?” Deanna asked snidely.
Ethan’s stomach gurgled with guilt, because he owed Leo an explanation for why he’d run away to Centrus City instead of going back to Glenwood after prison, but he didn’t know what to say.
He definitely didn’t know what to say now.
“He’s a good man. It’s just complicated. He’s not really my uncle, but he raised me after my parents were killed.”
“Killed?” Bash repeated as the phone’s ringing came to an abrupt end.
It was so common for the subject to come up when Ethan met someone new, he didn’t even stutter. “Slaughtered more like. I was there, but I don’t remember anything. I blocked it all out. Why?” he said when the others shared a long look. “You don’t think this is connected?”
“Slaughtered parents is suspicious,” Bash said. “Cause of death?”
“A knife? No one was ever sure, but there was a lot of… blood.” Ethan’s eyes darted to the splatter on the floor.
“Why won’t you talk to your uncle?”
“I haven’t spoken to him since I went to prison. I felt like I let him down.” How could Ethan face Leo after stooping to the level of a criminal, no matter how much his efforts had meant to that family?
“Falsifying evidence to get a child killer put away isn’t the evilest of deeds,” Bash said, and Ethan’s attention whipped back to him.
“You heard? Wait, does that mean Siobhan’s a werewolf too?” Ethan’s eyes widened.
“Lizard. Not all shifters are wolves. Deanna is a panther.”
Ethan looked at her with newfound awe.
“This is the artist Siobhan interviewed?” Deanna laughed a little hysterically. “That’s why you wanted the portfolio. But back up a sec. You’re a cop?”
“CSI. And former. I couldn’t go back to my job in Glenwood after what happened. They all called me crooked, wondered who’d paid me off. Only the family ever believed I’d done it because I….” He stopped. It didn’t matter anymore. “They never caught my parents’ killer. I didn’t want someone else to get away with murder when I could do something about it. But I was still wrong.”
“Again, I gotta ask—better for a child killer to go free?” Bash seemed intrigued by Ethan’s story, given the glint in his eyes.
“I don’t know. I figured Centrus could be a new beginning. That I could make up for all the wrong I’d done by setting up a PI firm someday. Art’s just a hobby, something I love, but the tattoo gig would have been temporary. I’ve always wanted my life to be about helping people.”
“Urg,” Deanna groaned. “Well, he certainly sings a pretty tune, but for the record, I still don’t like this.”
Turning to her, Bash ushered Deanna toward the door. “Give me a minute alone with him. Then I’ll be up.”
A dozen dissensions danced in her violet eyes, but she didn’t voice any, simply frowned at Ethan and said, “I’ll be watching you,” before tossing her hair with a dramatic exit.
When she shut the door, Ethan felt again how suffocating it was to be caged.
Bash continued to exude power and control as he moved back into Ethan’s space. “Here’s the deal. Until I can be certain you’re trustworthy, you don’t leave this room.”
“What?” It was a cell, and worse than the one Ethan had recently been freed from. “Please. Solitary confinement is torture.”
“It won’t be solitary. You won’t be alone for long, and I will properly outfit this room to be livable. You have my word.”
&
nbsp; “What about a bathroom?”
Bash fought a smirk. “Your body handles waste differently now. That won’t be necessary.”
“For real?” That would be hard to get used to, though convenient.
“As for a shower and other necessities, I will accompany you any time you leave here. For now, stay put.” He spun about as dramatically as Deanna had.
“Wait! Can you at least answer a few more questions about what I am?”
“Such as…?” Bash turned back with some impatience.
“Like… what can kill me? A stake? Silver? Crosses?”
Again, that smirk appeared. “None of the above will make much difference. A good clean shot to the heart and you’d bleed out like anyone else. Other locations, however, and you’ll heal better than any human or shifter ever could.”
“What if I get beheaded?”
“Try not to do that either.”
“Sunlight?”
“That is a problem if you don’t feed, so you will need to be careful. Stay fed and you can still go for walks in the daytime, but the sun will never be your friend again. Sunglasses will be a must from now on, and you’ll likely never enjoy another day at the beach.”
“Never did before anyway,” Ethan muttered. He was more of a night person and a homebody, but that didn’t mean he wanted to live in a werewolf’s basement. “How often will I need to feed?”
“At least once a week to start. Eventually, it will wean to monthly or even longer.”
“How—”
“We’ll get to that. For now, I’ll take care of you.”
Ethan believed him. He seemed like he must be a good leader, protective and understanding with his pack.
Bash’s eyebrows raised expectantly for more, but when Ethan didn’t say anything, he started for the door again.
“What if I kill someone?” Ethan blurted.
Bash paused, though this time, he didn’t turn around. “Then you kill someone, and we’ll deal with it.”
The clang of the door felt weightier when he left, and even though Ethan trusted Bash, never in his life had he felt so secluded, not even in prison.
By the Red Moonlight Page 3
