Blood Moon Rising Box Set (Books 1-6)

by Lola Taylor

  They lay there, coated in sweat, the sweetness of their lovemaking clinging to their pores and making Alara lightheaded with joy. Then again, maybe that was her afterglow following that earth-shattering orgasm.

  Nik gently played with her hair, twining it around his finger and letting it loose before starting again. The breeze shifted, bringing with it the crispness of the water. You wouldn’t think water would have a smell, but Alara could always tell where a stream, brook, or lake was. Water had a mineral tang to it, like how a wet cave smelled.

  “What are you thinking about?” Nik murmured.

  Stretching, she nestled closer to him and smiled as she gazed up into his face. “About how water smells.”

  “Water has a smell?”

  She nodded.

  “I’ll take your word for it. Half the time, I can’t smell shit, thanks to all this pollen and dust.”

  “Perhaps we should take a vacation once this is all over. Give your sinuses a break.”

  “Eh. I’d probably find something to be allergic to wherever we went.”

  True. Nik was allergic to everything: dust, hay, cats. He was even mildly allergic to dog dander, including that of werewolves, ironically enough. She wasn’t sure if her nose was just keener because her sense of smell really was sharper than the average werewolf’s or if her sense of smell was sharper simply because Nik’s sucked so much.

  “I was also thinking about what a fantastic lover you are,” Alara said, petting his chest hair. He was about right for her tastes; not furry enough to qualify as a Chia Pet, but having just enough hair to be masculine.

  Nik’s grin returned. “Don’t you forget it.”

  She smacked his chest lightly. “You’re supposed to say, ‘My skills are nothing compared to yours, Alara.’”

  “I won’t dispute that.” The low rumble in his voice, combined with the flash of gold in his eyes, made her inner wolf whine to rut again.

  The desire in her mate’s expression flickered, interrupted by that same doubt and troubled gaze she’d seen earlier at the bonfire. “What is it?” she asked softly.

  He knew better than to try to hide something from her. For one, it was nearly impossible with the mate-bond. Even if you were perfectly poker faced, your emotions would ultimately betray you.

  Swallowing heavily, Nik spilled what Gage had told him in the office about Malachite and his quest for revenge against the Moonstruck Pack.

  Alara grew still, not even daring to breathe as he finished. Heavy silence hung in the air.

  She blinked, swallowed, then blinked again, trying to make sense of it. While the wolves under her rule weren’t exactly saints, they’d never struck her as cold-hearted killers. Then again, what did she know about them? She’d only been here a few weeks.

  “What do you think?” he asked at last.

  She took in a deep breath and sighed, shaking her head in disbelief. “It’s…”

  “Hard to believe?”

  “Yeah. For starters. What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know yet.” He leaned his head back, staring up at the stars with a hard expression. “If it’s all true, I honestly can’t say I blame Malachite. Speaking from experience, I can relate to how angry he was. I couldn’t guarantee I wouldn’t do the same thing. It’s natural to want to make someone suffer for hurting those you love.”

  A sentiment Alara also found relatable.

  “I would want justice,” Nick went on. “I do want justice. But I’m going to have to do some investigating to see what really happened. Malachite was also an impulsive liar. He could have been bullshitting us just to stir up trouble.”

  Judging from what she’d heard of the legendary Alpha, she didn’t think it sounded unreasonable.

  “We’ll figure it out.” She hugged her mate, pressing her cheek against his strong chest. “Whatever comes, we’ll face it together. I’ll support you, no matter what you decide to do. But, for what it’s worth, I believe we should find out whether we share our house with cutthroats and child murderers. And if so, punish them according to the Laws of the Underworld and banish them.”

  “Agreed.” He took the hand she had rested on his chest, bringing it to his mouth to press a kiss along her knuckles.

  Tension still radiated through their bond. “Anything else on your mind?” she asked.

  Nik’s lips pressed together. “I’m scared.” He chuckled bitterly. “I’m actually fucking scared to move forward.”

  She didn’t need to ask why. She already knew.

  “The pack is in danger of falling apart as it is,” Nik said. “If I start sniffing around in the past and digging up their skeletons, I may start a mutiny. Gage couldn’t have picked a worse fucking time to deliver this news.”

  “Would you rather he’d kept quiet?”

  “No,” he answered honestly. “Still doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck.”

  Alara rubbed his arm reassuringly. “You’re strong. And smart and clever and a lot of other things that make up a good Alpha. We’ll be fine. The pack will be fine, and once this is all over, we’ll all be stronger for it.”

  In the moment of reflective silence that followed, a question jumped to her mind that she couldn’t resist asking. “What do you think will happen to the doppelgänger?”

  He returned her hand to his chest and soothingly rubbed it with his thumb. “Not sure,” he admitted. “But I promise you, we won’t stop looking for Mistress Black. We’ll get justice for your family.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I want her dead. I want to kill her myself.”

  His thumb paused. A moment later, he sat up, propping his head up on one elbow to look at her. “I urge you to reconsider. Let me finish,” he said, holding up a hand as she was about to interrupt. “Killing changes you. It blackens your soul, and once you cross that line, you can never turn back. You’re too pure, Alara. I don’t want your soul stained, like mine is. I’ve killed before. I’ve watched the life drain from my enemies’ eyes. And I always wondered later… who were they? Did they have families? Children? A lover who will never see them again?”

  “I don’t care,” Alara said darkly, her anger taking over. “I want her dead.”

  “I know.” Nik cupped her face, the roughness of his palms prickling against her skin. “And I promise you, you’ll have your revenge. But don’t sacrifice who you are as a person to get it.”

  What other way was there? Wait around for someone else to kill Mistress Black? Or worse, wait for the DPI to take her into custody to give her “a fair trial,” sentence her to life in prison, dump her in a private cell, and forget about her for the next however many years while she painted her toenails in prison?

  There was also the chilling possibility of a politician getting hold of her. A powerful and rare Black Witch, with a network of willing followers, could come in handy. There were elections to be won, profits to be made by any means necessary…

  Alara knew the aristocracy of the Underworld, and what she did know made her shudder. She could think of several bitches and pricks who wouldn’t bat a lash to kiss Mistress Black’s ass if it meant getting ahead—regardless of her atrocities.

  On the verge of arguing, Alara opened her mouth—and all the air rushed right back out of her.

  Nik’s eyes were so earnest, the hope that he was somehow saving her soul shining through.

  Her heart cracked.

  She couldn’t do it. No way could she bear to tell him that he was wasting his breath.

  That her soul had been damned the moment she’d laid eyes on her sister’s bleeding corpse.

  Forcing her lips together into a tight smile, she nodded once and looked away. He cupped her chin and gently turned her head back to face him.

  “Promise me you won’t do anything reckless or crazy?” he said.

  The thought of her doing something reckless or crazy would have been laughable a few weeks ago. Now… now it seemed more likely with each passing day.

  “I can’t make a promise
I don’t know I’ll be able to keep,” she said carefully. She pressed her lips to his palm. “But I shall try.”

  “That’s all I can ask for.” He kissed her forehead and pulled her in close, wrapping his strong arms around her and holding her tight. “I don’t want to lose you.”

  She hugged him, pressing her ear against his chest so she could listen to the beating of his heart. “You won’t. Not in this lifetime or the next. Not if I can ever help it.”

  He rested his head against hers, sighing contentedly. “I love you.”

  She startled. She’d felt his love, sure. She was positive she had. But until now, he’d never actually said the words that meant the world to her.

  Lifting her head, she looked up into his eyes, searching them. No joke there.

  She couldn’t recall hearing those words from her parents’ mouths. From her sister, Izzy’s, yes, but never from theirs. Not that she could remember, anyway.

  Warm tears stung her eyes, and she looked down at his chest. “I love you too,” she whispered, as if saying it too loudly meant placing a target on his back for the bad guys. It seemed whenever she loved something—her sister, college classes, you name it—it got taken away. As if her love was cursed. Which was silly. Life just happened—that she knew. But the bad stuff always seemed to happen to her, and that kind of run-of-the-mill, continuous bad luck made you wary as hell.

  A growl of desire rumbled in Nik’s chest, and his eyes glistened with golden light. He was growing hard again, which only served to fuel her own mounting fire.

  “We should either finish our tracking or get back,” she said roughly, her throat dry.

  “We have plenty of time to track. And they won’t miss us for five more minutes.” His head leaned in as he angled his mouth for hers.

  The wind shifted directions again, this time bringing with it the charred scent Alara had detected—and dismissed—earlier. Nik’s spine straightened, and in response, she went tense in his arms. “What is that?”

  “Don’t know,” he said grimly. “But I think it may be human.”

  Getting up and Changing again to follow the scent was harder than Alara had anticipated. Lying there alone with her mate, hidden away in the forest from the outside world and its troubles, was like dying and going to Heaven. It didn’t get much better than that.

  She envied Danica and Gage their honeymoon. Werewolves didn’t believe in traditional weddings, but Alara could certainly appreciate the romantic side of it. While the mating ceremony was enough for her, a lovers’ getaway sounded fantastic right about now.

  No witches.

  No bitterness, no grief.

  Okay, well, those last two things would probably still be there. Wounds from death took a while to heal, possibly years. She was just so ready to stop hurting all the time that she would almost pay any price to escape the agony.

  This time Nik took the lead, tearing through the underbrush with scarcely a sound. A living, breathing shadow of death.

  Alara charged after him, her own footfalls light and graceful. It had taken a while to trust this other form, but now she surrendered to it completely. It had never steered her wrong, these senses that were so much more attuned to the world, these muscles, teeth, and claws that made her feel invincible.

  The charred scent took them up the river and into a small hollow where the ground had sunk beneath a tree. Exposed roots tangled along the ground, some thick, some small.

  Something white stuck out of the soil just below the embankment. Nik leapt, seizing the white object in his mouth before pulling. Whatever it was didn’t want to come loose easily. It took a few tugs, along with Alara pawing at the earth to thin it, before the object dislodged itself and tumbled to the ground.

  Alara’s eyes focused on it—and terror jolted her out of wolf form so abruptly that she had to clap a hand over her mouth to keep from screaming.

  Holy fuck, this thing stank. Smelling it was the equivalent to being slapped in the face, kicked in the balls, and then run over by a bus.

  For the first time ever, Nik was actually eager to change back into a human. Maybe his “inferior” senses would be enough to subdue the smell.

  No such luck.

  There was no escaping it—it was that bad, even as a human. Or maybe his olfactory organs had shriveled up and locked the noxious gases inside his nose. “Damn,” he rasped. Too late, he realized he’d used his breath up and would have to inhale the rotten stench. If he were a kid, he might have even thrown a temper tantrum, complete with unholy wailing and a kicking fit.

  The smell of putrid flesh singed his throat, making him gag.

  About that time, a memory popped into his head. The pack kept several community refrigerators in the two kitchens within the manor. Now, a pack of unruly werewolves who weren’t exactly well known for great personal hygiene weren’t the best at keeping things neat and tidy. Food often got banished to the recesses of the fridges, forgotten about until some poor soul stumbled upon it while trying to find their sandwich meat. Nik had been one such soul. In an irritating attempt at locating the pepper jack cheese he’d recently bought, he’d nearly torn the fridge apart and had stumbled upon a seemingly innocent plastic container.

  No name scribbled on the lid in Sharpie. No clue as to what it contained.

  Nik should have known better. He really should have. Opening up the lid before he could think otherwise, he’d been assaulted by the most rank-ass piece of rotting steak he’d ever smelled. He’d never forgotten that smell, the sickly sweet-yet-sourness of it.

  This corpse reminded him of that. Including its ability to coat his tongue every time he took a breath, giving him a taste of it.

  Alara looked green. Her cheeks kept puffing out, as if she were trying to keep from throwing up.

  They both needed to get the fuck out of there before the damned thing caused them to pass out. And wouldn’t that just look cute when the DPI showed up? The two of them, buck naked, out cold beside a dead body.

  No, that wouldn’t be suspicious at aaaalllllll.

  The soil must have been masking the stench, Nik said through their bond, opting for it so he didn’t taste that thing’s odor any more than he had to. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to hide this. Not well enough, apparently. Judging by the chewed-up skin around the elbow that was poking out of the earth, he knew that the animals had found it and begun to do their thing.

  God, can we bury it again?

  His sentiments exactly. We’ll get out of here soon. I promise. Nik knelt, his knees barely touching the soft earth.

  It was a woman. At least, he thought those shriveled lumps on top of the person’s chest had once been breasts. The entire body was sunk in on itself, as if someone—or something—had literally sucked all the juices from it.

  Ew.

  Alara knelt beside him, her eyes showing confusion as they swept across the corpse. What happened to it?

  Don’t know, Nik said grimly, standing. But I’d wager our doppelgänger friend is involved.

  He didn’t know if they were capable of this, but it seemed likely. He couldn’t think of anything else that would do this to a victim.

  The skin wasn’t rotted, either. Pale and cracked as shit but not falling off the bone. Meaning it hadn’t been there long, maybe a day or two.

  Just how long had that damned creepy-ass monster been lurking in the woods? And more importantly, why the hell hadn’t he sensed it?

  God, you suck as an Alpha went through his mind before he firmly shut that thought down. Yes, he’d been distracted. Wondering if his pack was going to go all Caesar on him made him that way. With the impending uprising, Gage’s arrival, and worrying about his grieving mate, his brain hadn’t had much room for thinking about anything else.

  Still, he should have known something was up. The doppelgänger’s smell was like a glowing neon sign, it was that strong.

  So why hadn’t any of his border patrols picked up on it?

  Hey, look.

&n
bsp; Nik walked around to the other side of the corpse, where Alara knelt. She pointed to the dirt about a foot away.

  Nik frowned, inching closer. It looked as if someone, most likely the victim here, had scribbled something into the dirt. The crude image was smudged, as if the body had been dragged partially through it. It looked as if the victim had tried to spell something out before she’d met her demise.

  The heat from Alara’s body warmed the chill at his back as she crouched beside him and drew her finger in the air over the letters. E-Y-E-S.

  Eyes? Nik said. What the hell does that have to do with anything?

  I’m not sure. There must be a clear reason why she wrote it. Otherwise, why bother?

  True. That was a puzzle they’d have to solve later. By now, they had so many pieces Nik wasn’t sure how to fit them all together.

  We should be getting back, Nik said, rising. I can hear sirens about three miles out.

  I hear them too. Together, they both Shifted, running as fast and far away from the corpse as their paws would take them.

  Nik greedily gulped down large mouthfuls of air, eager to purge his body of the nasty smell clinging to his nostrils. That was some epic stink. I don’t think I’ll ever get that smell out of my system.

  Me either. I feel like it’s clinging to my pores.

  That made two of them. It was like a slimy sheen of sweat.

  Are we going to tell the DPI about the corpse? Alara asked.

  We’ll have to. They’ll smell us out there. I’ll tell them we did a perimeter check. They won’t be too happy about it, but I’ll push the fact that it’s my land, I’m the Alpha, and thus, in charge of my pack’s well-being, including guests. I’m not taking any chances, especially not with the High King and Queen here.

  Nik hated working with the DPI bastards. Yeah, sure, there were a few good cops, but there were far too many corrupt and incompetent ones in the region’s department for his liking.

  Verika would have whipped them into shape.

  That thought jarred him. It used to feel natural to associate Verika’s name with the DPI. Used to hurt like hell too when Nik and Verika had split. Now… now it was just an extra thought, without any kind of emotion, good or bad, tied to it. That realization lifted an enormous amount of weight from Nik’s wolf shoulders.