The Lunar Effect

by C. J. Pinard

  This went on for an hour. Even when guys—and even a girl—came up to me and tried hitting on me or asking me to dance, I would barely risk a glance at them to turn them down before putting my gaze back on my target.

  While Kellan seemed busy working, he would still take a second to scan the club for me, and once his stare landed on me, he would stare me down, and then go about his business. When two more hours had passed, I was finally rewarded when I saw him walk toward me. Now he had the two men flanking him once more. I swallowed hard and stood stock-still, letting him come to me.

  A high counter lined the edge of the dance floor of this place, and I stood there with my drink set on it, my arm resting next to it. As the speakers pumped out the latest popular hip-hop song, I looked up at him with wide eyes, as he was now in my space.

  In a voice way too deep and silky to be human, not to mention it had some kind of sexy accent to it, he said, with stormy eyes peering into mine, “Why have you been staring at me all night?”

  There was no joking, playfulness, or flirtation in his voice.

  I squared my chin and said, “I haven’t been staring at you. I believe it’s you who has been looking at me. I’m just trying to have a good time here.”

  “You’re a little liar,” he came back immediately.

  Remembering what my endgame was with this guy, I took a deep breath to calm my temper and put on a false smile. “You always walk up to pretty ladies and call them liars? I mean, really, you’re not going to get any with that kind of attitude.”

  I watched in satisfaction as his hard edge softened a little, and he clamped his jaw shut as he thought of something to say. A quick glance over his shoulder showed me that one of his goons had appreciated my joke, as he was fighting a smirk.

  “At any rate, you didn’t answer my question,” he came back in that sexy accent of his.

  What was that? Australian? English? Hell if I knew.

  I took a slow, provocative sip of my drink, and then asked, “What was the question again?”

  He looked slightly amused, but then put on his serious mask again. “Why have you been staring at me and my men for the past two hours?”

  I smiled, and replied in a cocky tone, “Believe me, I haven’t been staring at your men at all. Just you.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Is that right? Why is that?”

  I ignored the question and said, “Where are you from? Love your accent.”

  He, in turn, ignored my question and said, “I’ll ask again, what your issue? You here to meet some sparkly vampire who’s going to sweep you off your feet?”

  His comment had shocked me, but I was above showing my astonishment. “Vampire?” I made a dramatic gesture of looking around the club slowly, then back to him with a sexy smirk on my lips. “Oh! This is a vampire club? That would explain all the freaks.” Now my hands were on my hips.

  His eyes stormed with something other than rage, and he took a step toward me.

  I took a step back.

  He took another step toward me, his goons mimicking his every move.

  Pretty soon I felt the wall hit my back and Kellan was in my space again, and I had nowhere to go.

  When his stare broke mine and traveled down my face, landing on my lips, I smirked again until his gaze reached mine once more.

  Without any sort of preamble, he reached an arm around my backside and pulled me to his body before leaning down and pressing his cool lips to my warm ones.

  A slight groan may have left my throat and traveled into his mouth. I couldn’t say through the pounding of my heartbeat in my ears.

  But when his tongue snaked in uninvited, it wasn’t like I minded. I may or may not have pressed my body into his, grinding myself unabashed into his body… which felt like it had been carved from marble.

  Realizing that this was exactly what I had been envisioning earlier at the bar with Beckett, and remembering I had a boyfriend, I suddenly sobered from the lusty high he’d put me on, and pulled back from the delicious kiss.

  I looked up into his crystal-blue eyes and said, “You.”

  Not looking the least bit confused, he threw me a half-grin. “Me.”

  Untangling myself from him, I practically ran out of the Moon Chasers and didn’t stop running until I’d reached my apartment complex.

  Thursday was too far away. I needed my friend now.

  I didn’t even realize I had hopped in my car and was driving the thirty minutes to see Sanja until I had almost reached Boulder.

  She looked bleary-eyed but calm when she answered the door to the home I used to share with her. The home my parents still owned and were graciously renting to her and another roommate I hadn’t met.

  “Sit, please,” she said, indicating the sofa. “Do you want anything?” She pointed to the kitchen area.

  I shook my head. “Just some answers.”

  Nodding, she took a seat on the couch adjacent to mine. “I’m happy to see you, Ayla, but not under these circumstances. It’s two a.m. What is so urgent?”

  I wrung my hands together, unsure where to start, so I just started at the beginning, from my weird vision while having drinks with Beckett, to the toe-curling kiss Kellan had given me at the vampire club.

  After listening intently, Sanja’s eyes were big. “Okay, first I will start with the biggest question. Who the heck is Beckett?”

  Crap.

  “Um, he’s a friend of mine.” I shouldn’t have left out the most important detail about him, but I knew she would snap if I told her he was a vampire.

  “I know how to do truth spells, you know,” she said in a scolding tone.

  Crap. Again.

  I put my left thumbnail in my mouth and began to chew on it… a childhood habit I thought I’d broken years ago.

  “Well, Beckett may or may not be a vampire.”

  Her chocolate-colored eyes went wide, and then mildly accusing. “You befriended a… vampire? Are you insane?”

  “I think I am, actually.”

  “Not funny, Ayla. You hate vampires.”

  I sighed. “About that. I don’t think I hate them. I think I hate one or two in particular… especially Linden.”

  She shook her head as if she was confused. “Who is Linden?”

  “The asshole who killed Austyn.” A lump of grief suddenly made an appearance in my throat.

  Her eyes went wide. “What? How do you know this?”

  “By quitting school and asking around.”

  Sanja seemed pretty speechless at my comment, but then said, “You could have finished college and still asked around.”

  I saw the angle she was working and smiled slyly. “Nope. I had to find a crappy day job to support me in order to be able to sneak around at night to get the answers I needed.”

  “Your quest for vengeance is going to be the end of you, my friend,” Sanja said, seeming sincere.

  I laughed humorlessly. “No, it will be the closure I need.”

  “I’m not going to ask where you went to find this… closure… these answers you seemed to have acquired.”

  “It’s better that way,” I said with a wink. “You don’t want to know.”

  “So tell me about this man you had a vision about, and then later kissed. And don’t worry, I won’t tell Ryder.” It was her turn to wink, but she was really bad at it, so it looked more like her eye was having some sort of twitchy fit.

  Biting back a grin, I said, “He’s a vampire, too.”

  “What the hell, Ayla!”

  I laughed because I knew that was the response I was going to get. “He’s Linden’s first lieutenant.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Ew, vampire hierarchy. So outdated and stupid.”

  I lifted my eyebrows. “And witches don’t have hierarchy?”

  She waved a dismissive hand at me. “No, not really. We have the head witch of each region, then there are sub-heads for each city in the region…” She stopped herself. “Okay maybe we do have a slight hierarchy.” />
  “That’s what I thought,” I said triumphantly.

  “It’s good to be systematized, unlike wolves, y’all are just a bunch of unorganized animals.”

  I grinned slyly at her. “We like it that way. So we can be free. Anyway, we have an Alpha and a Beta of each pack. That’s all we need.”

  “I will admit that is probably a little easier than dealing with witch or vampire politics.”

  I just nodded in agreement.

  “I want to analyze this so-called ‘psychic vision’ you had while having drinks with… what was his name?”

  “Beckett,” I replied.

  “Ah yes, Beckett. I assume you’ve never had anything like that before?”

  I shook my head. “Hell no. Nothing even close. I couldn’t even figure out that my parents were witches, for God’s sake.”

  “True,” Sanja replied, looking down, as if in thought.

  “What was that anyway? Do you witches get visions? It freaked me out when I had it, but when hours later it actually happened—you know, in real life—I about lost my shit!”

  She shook her head and looked at me. “No, I don’t get those. I can’t tell the future, I don’t have that gift. Some witches do. Just not me.”

  “Bummer,” I said.

  I watched as she looked down, as if thinking hard. “I have an idea. I’m going to do a reveal spell on you.”

  I furrowed my brows together. “What does that mean?”

  “We witches can do subtle spells when we are trying to figure out what kind of supernatural creature someone is.”

  Still confused, I said, “You already know I’m a wolf.”

  She nodded as she stood. “Yes, but wolves aren’t psychic. Like, ever. And they certainly can’t fly. They are the simplest of creatures. No offense.”

  I watched as she walked back to room and quickly came out with a red cloth and an incense stick. She set the items on the coffee table.

  “By the way,” I said, looking past her and to the hallway, “where’s your roommate?”

  Without looking at me, she said, “She spends the weekends at her boyfriend’s place.”

  Relieved I hadn’t disturbed her, I watched as Sanja pulled a lighter from the small drawer set into the coffee table and lit the incense. She then removed a glass ashtray-looking thing from the drawer and set it on the red cloth, then placed the lit and now smoking incense stick on top of it.

  The smell was sweet, but pungent. I had never been a fan of incense, especially since it sort of hurt my overly sensitive nose, which was why I preferred candles because the scents were milder, for the most part. I, of course, I didn’t say anything to Sanja about it.

  “Stand as close to the smoke as possible,” she instructed me.

  I stood, not breathing through my nose, and put my thighs up against the table, letting the smoke drift over me.

  “Give me your hand,” she instructed, her hand out, palm up.

  I did as she asked, and held my breath when she pulled a sewing needle seemingly out of nowhere and stuck my finger—hard. The prick was deep, and I watched as she squeezed my finger so my blood could drip onto the glass ashtray-looking thing that held the incense stick. She let go of me and then closed her eyes.

  Sanja stood right next to me and started to chant: “Se revelare verum tuae.” Over and over.

  I watched in fascination as my blood drops began to move around the dish on their own. Then, before my eyes, the blood turned blue, then red, then blue again, and then it morphed into some kind of strange purple concoction. When it had stopped changing colors, Sanja stopped chanting.

  “Well, that is… interesting.”

  “Can I sit?” I asked.

  She nodded, and I sat back down with my finger throbbing hot as it quickly healed. “Why did the blood turn purple?”

  She grinned. “I think I know why. See, wolf blood stays red when I do this spell. Vampire blood turns blue. Witch blood turns green.”

  “Show me,” I said, pointing to the dish. “Do it again.”

  She chuckled. “I can’t use my own blood for a spell, I need another witch.”

  “Dammit. So what does purple mean?”

  She stared down at the strange-colored blood, and then said, “Blue and red make purple.” She slowly lifted her gaze to mine, looking surprised.

  It took a minute for it to register in my brain, but I finally understood. “You’re saying I’m both wolf and vampire. That’s not possible.”

  She nodded. “But it is. What do you know about that vampire who attacked you that night?”

  “Nothing, except that I don’t think he’d been a vampire very long.”

  “How do you know that?” she asked, genuinely curious.

  I smiled at the memory. “Well, when I told him I was a wolf, he took off like a bat out of hell. No pun intended.”

  Her lips lifted into a grin matching mine. “Because he thought the rumors that wolf blood was toxic to vampires was true.”

  I nodded. “Exactly.”

  “That’s a rookie mistake. Most older vamps know that’s just a myth.”

  “I’m learning this. My new friend, Beckett, still believes it. I never corrected him. I think he’s a fairly new vamp.”

  “You think?” Sanja said, looking concerned.

  I nodded. “We haven’t had the whole ‘how long ago were you turned’ discussion. I’m sure it’ll come up soon, though.”

  She looked down at the blood again, seeming deep in thought, then back to me. “If a new or fairly young vampire attacked you, that would make sense why your blood is showing you as a hybrid—“

  “Hybrid?” I asked, staring at my friend in horror.

  She nodded and pointed to the glass dish. “Yes, that is what hybrid blood looks like. If this newbie vamp bit you, he would have injected way too much venom into you. Think of it like a baby rattlesnake. They bite someone, it’s more lethal than if an adult rattler bites a person. The baby rattlers can’t control the amount of venom they inject. Same with new vampires. It takes years—and I do mean years—to learn to control the bite and the venom.”

  “I’m confused,” I said, my head spinning at her snake analogy.

  Sanja inched closer to me on the couch and grabbed my hand. “He poisoned you, Ayla. You now have so much vampire venom in your system, you’re a hybrid. Half wolf, half vampire. If you were human, you would have been completely turned into a vampire from his bite. It’s why you’re getting psychic visions.”

  “I’ve only had one,” I retorted.

  “Doesn’t matter, you’re changing.”

  “Vampires are psychics?” I suddenly asked, curious.

  She nodded. “Some of them, just like some witches. Depends on the person. Or creature, in this case.”

  My head began to spin, so I put my head down and rested my arms on my knees. After a few deep breaths, I looked at my friend and said, “So what you’re telling me is that I’m now a psychic half-vampire, half-wolf creature? Am I going to start needing to drink blood?”

  She nodded, a sympathetic look on her pretty face. “Yes, you are a hybrid, and I’m not sure about the blood. Don’t you get enough during your full-moon shifts?”

  Reeling in disbelief, I nodded my head. “I guess. It’s hard to say.”

  We sat in silence for a few minutes, then I looked up at my friend. “I’m going to kill him, Sanja.”

  She placed her warm hand on mine and nodded. “I know you will.”

  Chapter 22

  Unfortunately for me, I had to take a weekend off from vampire hunting to go to Wolfe Point to do my thing.

  “You fucking stink, Ayla,” Aden said, ushering me inside the trailer so we could strip and preserve our clothes before the full moon was at its highest.

  Pulling my shirt off over my head, I folded it neatly and placed it in my cubby. Yes, Aden had made us all little square cubbies to place our stuff before the shift. I had laughed when I had first seen them, but it turned out to be pre
tty awesome.

  “What do you mean, I stink? I actually showered before coming up here, which I’m not sure why I bothered.”

  He shook his head as she toed off his boots and then began unbuttoning his jeans. “No, not like BO. Like your whole self, your very being.” He folded his pants, and now standing in nothing but his boxers said, “You stink like vampire. You need to stop hanging out with that quee—“

  “Shut the fuck up, Aden,” I warned. “Do not tell me who I can and cannot hang out with. Beckett is no danger to me. He’s my friend. And thanks for telling him”—I jabbed my thumb at Aden—“by the way.”

  Ryder, now standing totally naked, ignored my comment about how he’d told Aden about Beckett. “Well, I don’t like it at all.”

  I lifted my chin and looked at my boyfriend of three years. “I don’t care what you think.”

  Turning away, I stripped off the rest of my clothes and ran outside. I found a huge rock to sit on, and curled myself into a ball, waiting for the rest of the pack to come out. I lifted my face to the sky, letting the fat, round moon bathe my face in its light.

  “We have time for a quickie,” I heard a voice say.

  I looked up to see Sam, the creepy perv of the pack, standing five feet from me, naked and proud with a lascivious look on his face.

  “Ugh, piss off, Sam,” I said, looking back up at the sky.

  “You wish you could fuck this,” he said, gesturing to his genitals.

  I made a dramatic gagging noise and ignored him and continued to look at the sky. I hated that cursed moon. I hated it so much. I should be in Lo-Do looking for a couple of criminal vampires. Not here turning into the monster I loathed.

  The first scream drew me out of my musings and I looked up to see Sam now on all fours, his head down, his bones beginning to break as he shifted. It happened fast. I stood up and walked over to Aden and Ryder, who were now falling onto the ground in agony. I closed my eyes and waited for the pain to hit me.

  And I waited some more.

  Aden and Ryder were now already full-blown wolves. All I felt was hot. Feverish, really. Burning up and now panting and wanting water. I heard the first bone crack, but it was in my face, not my back or a limb like usual.