BloodMoon

by Drew VanDyke

  BloodMoon

  Knightsbridge Canyon Series Book #3

  by

  Drew VanDyke

  and

  David VanDyke

  © 2015 by the authors. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form, or by any means whatsoever (electronic, mechanical or otherwise) without prior written permission and consent from the authors. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, businesses and incidents are either products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  BOOKS BY DREW AND DAVID VANDYKE

  KNIGHTSBRIDGE CANYON SERIES

  SwitchBack - Book 1

  MoonFall - Book 2

  BloodMoon - Book 3

  Book 4 coming soon!

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  www.davidvandykeauthor.com

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  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Prologue

  Growing up, our older brother Adam used to call us twins “a walking sideshow on four legs.” Now I walk on four legs all by myself. – Ashlee Scott

  Dear Diary:

  Yes, it’s true.

  Will is a werewolf.

  At least he will be once the full moon hits for the first time.

  We’ve been trying to prepare him. Well, Jackson and Sully have. I found out early in life that friends and family are sometimes the last people I want to teach – or learn from, for that matter. So, I let the guys do their thing.

  They’ve taken him out with Luken and Elka and he’s been studying up on wolf facial expressions. I guess it’s like learning sign language. It’s one thing to learn how to sign, but it’s a whole ’nother ball game learning how to read signs coming at you from the other direction. Anyway, I’m hoping that once he turns, it will all fall into place, because frankly his anxiety right now is working my edges.

  Since he took the bite, he’s been super moody. Eats more voraciously than before and growls at other guys who even look in my direction. I think Jackson and Sully are pulling his chain in the comport-yourself-like-a-werewolf department, but he is getting awfully interested in smelling everything, including my underwear…but maybe all guys do that. Do they?

  Anyway, I guess he’s all in. But I’m not sure if he knows what he’s all in for. I mean, what if after a few years of my kind of crazy he decides he isn’t into putting up with all of my shit? Am I up for a round of heartache if he decides to walk away? Not to put the kibosh on anything, but I’ve seen friends split up and it looks incredibly painful.

  Anyway…Ghost Mom just told me to hang on to my hat, because my life is only going to get weirder, before it, er, well…doesn’t.

  Yippee-ki-yay…never mind.

  Now for this next bit I’m sure you’ll wonder why I’m telling you all this stuff about Con Shelby. Heck, I’m a writer. It’s what I do, taking notes and interviews and recollections and trying to fit them into a coherent whole for your enjoyment…because real life never makes as much sense as a good story.

  And what’s life without a good story, anyway?

  ***

  Constantine Andronicus Shelby hovered above his Knightsbridge Canyon, California territory and surveyed the demesne he’d been assigned. It wasn’t easy bringing a new location under the jurisdiction of Council authority. With the lycanthropes interested in repopulating the area with wolves and the witches demanding more representation, they needed his steady presence to maintain the magical status quo.

  Con shifted from owl to coyote form and meandered along the back trails of the canyon, re-enchanting the marker stones that both warned and warded the area against unwanted supernatural intrusion. He lifted his leg on each to remind the mated pair of natural wolves Jackson and his pack had brought into the area that these stones defined the limits of his influence.

  The Montana Grade Wolves had arrived on schedule, and aside from a few minor issues with some local wild talent, had settled in nicely. Well, perhaps the issues weren’t so minor, but Con was determined to make them so. During his last century of wandering, he’d come to believe that an important part of ruling effectively was knowing what was beneath his notice, what to pay attention to and what to ignore.

  Stirring the pot often ruined the stew, as his sire had once told him, and a peaceful demesne was a happy demesne.

  And Con appreciated his own happiness as much as any immortal.

  A vampire was like a landholder, he mused. The supernatural denizens were his vassals, whether they knew it or not. The animals of the night – the bat, the owl, the rat, the cat – were his eyes and ears, and the wolves, being pack animals and by temperament more amenable to leadership, were his enforcers. It had always been this way – vampire and wolf in alliance, protecting a territory and a secret, policing themselves and with deadly efficiency dealing with those who broke the conventions.

  Finished with his chore, Con shifted into a thick charcoal vapor that whirled and swirled, a splash of paisley against a painted fabric sky. The dark slipstream of the vampire’s passing slashed toward the lights of the twinkling city below.

  The town of Knightsbridge had lain blanketed in a supernatural muffling for decades. Churches on every corner and the piety of the faithful meant that incarnations of the Goddess in the town were usually limited to manifestations of the Blessed Mother. Other practitioners, such as the Street Witches and those who met regularly at the White Rabbit for lunch had struggled, inhibited by the disapproving atmosphere.

  This lack of an embodied imagination regarding the Divine Feminine meant that Knightsbridge had been uninviting to most supernatural types until recently, when a new generation of its children, raised on social media, told stories of the town’s idyllic allure, putting the Knightsbridge Canyon area on the popular map once more.

  Too quickly, the nearly forgotten Coventry of Knightsbridge became inundated with wealthy transplants from the chilly Bay Area or congested Los Angeles, seeking the perfect California combination of climate, natural beauty and upscale cuisine. With them came jobs and the people to fill them, and naturally, not everyone was mundane.

  For the vampire community, all of this meant the place was finally worth appointing a master, and Con was the first since the bust of the Gold Rush of 1849 made it all but a ghost town.

  Survey complete, his misty foot touched down at the base of the canyon and he strode onto the safety of his own estate, his form solidifying into an alabaster idol of chiseled flesh, his lean musculature ashen, drawn and tight with the absence of fat.

  Must feed. His innards growled at him, the result of the exertions of repeated shifting and the enchantments he’d performed.

  The more sated a vampire was, the more color he retained and the better he could pass for a mundane human. When his well of blood ran dry, he took on a chalky appearance and might be mistaken for a marble statue.

  He disappeared into the Victorian gothic structure of the old wood-and-stone rectory, his abode nestled in the velvet woods past Knightsbridge Commons, and left a parted group of fireflies bobbing to light the remnants of his
presence as he prepared for the day.

  Con opened his double-wide stainless steel refrigerator door, grabbed a plastic blood bag and sucked it down, wrinkling his nose against the unpleasant cold. He put up with it for the sake of his thirst as a mundane might have drunk yesterday’s stale coffee to clear his head. It didn’t take long for his reflection to take on the pink glow of humanity.

  Next stop was his expansive, well-equipped bathroom, and he reveled in the modern convenience of indoor plumbing as the hot water of the steaming shower washed the remains of his nocturnal prowling down the drain.

  Once finished, he called for those intimates on duty – even thralls needed days off, after all – and took and gave pleasure, feeding on their warm vitae as a gourmand might sup at a fine table.

  Later, at his dressing table, he glanced in the mirror at himself and chuckled at the old superstition about vampires. There was magic in the world, but it was practical, sensible, and it conformed, more or less, to the constraints of physics. When it didn’t, the cost to the user was quite high.

  Clothing himself in the conservatively tailored garments of a successful businessman, he ran his hands across the soft-as-butter fabric of his white silk shirt, brushed navy trousers and mustard-colored waistcoat, smoothing away the wrinkles and adding a bronze pocket watch and chain to tie up the look.

  He wasn’t a tall man, but he had a presence about him borne of confidence in his power and authority. Clear spectacles and a coat of silver at his temples and brow made him appear to be in his mid-forties, with salt and pepper hair, a cross between Doctor Strange and Doctor Who.

  Once he’d brushed his teeth – one couldn’t be too careful with them, after all – they shone with a whiteness even greater than his fair skin, and he practiced his smile in the mirror, making sure to call up an internal emotional reality that reached his eyes. It was an actor’s trick, an illusion that served him as he looked forward to bringing this land to heel.

  It also served his continued dalliance with the lady Margaret Stenfield, a widow and mother of two, grandmother of one. He stopped by his bedroom where she lay, still asleep, and kissed her forehead. She stirred, but didn’t wake. His code, his sense of noblesse oblige and responsibility for his vassals – what substituted for morality in his unbeating heart – was fulfilled by the good he was doing for her.

  It didn’t hurt that his paramour was mother to the lupine girl’s lycanthrope lover, which allowed him to keep an eye on those two through the relationship. As with everything Con did, pragmatism figured prominently.

  Thus far, his accomplishments this first year had made him content, if not entirely happy. Resolving to continue his improvements until everything fell into place, he made his way to the garage and the sleek silver Mercedes with tinted windows.

  The people of Knightsbridge demanded he look the part, and unknowingly became sheep to his shepherd, the wolves serving as his sheepdogs to watch the flock.

  Flocking sheep. He smiled at the image and drove across town to his place of business, the Grand Illusion Magic and Curio Emporium, arriving before the sun crested the horizon.

  Inside, he greeted Edward, his day manager, and allowed the man to fill him in on the significant events of yesterday: who came in, what they bought, what they might be interested in acquiring. The shop provided Con a cover for his evident wealth and status, and its uniqueness and selection of antiques ensured that most of the upper crust of Knightsbridge – the people who mattered, anyway – visited from time to time. This was one way he kept his finger on the pulse of the mundanes and picked up tidbits about more important matters.

  As he had been a competent stage magician in his former life, the shop also allowed him to keep in touch with that part of himself. He’d been performing shows at the university each semester, open to the public, to stay in practice and to provide a further entry into society.

  Flipping the door sign to OPEN, Constantine Shelby took a deep, unnecessary but contented breath, and prepared for his usual short morning’s presence before returning to his abode to sleep away the greater part of the day.

  Chapter 1

  “So, when are you going to give up the condo in the city?” Amber asked as we sat dipping scones in honey-butter and sipping what I called “froufrou” coffee on the patio, and watching an abnormal summer rain and fog sweep through the canyon one Saturday morning when the rest of the family was still asleep.

  Amber was bundled up in a grey and pink bebe number on the outdoor sofa while I looked more like Old Navy crossed with Girls Fight Club in green plaid boxers and a black wife-beater on the chaise lounge.

  Hey, I was at home. Who was I supposed to impress? Besides, it felt really good to hang out with my twin sister, no more than the usual tension between us, like a return to old times. I guess it was because the biggest secret between us, about me being a lupine, was no longer hidden.

  “How did you know I was thinking about…?” My voice trailed off. “Never mind.”

  We were doing that thing we often do when we’re alone together, talking but not looking at each other. Because frankly, watching the emotions that played across my sister’s face during a conversation, the downside of being an identical twin and knowing each other so well, made me pick up and subconsciously assume her state of being. I had enough of my own crazy to deal with without adding Amber’s to the mix.

  “Ashlee, it makes no sense to keep paying rent on a place you haven’t been to in how many months?”

  “I have a friend staying there,” I said. True, my friend Xiana was only paying half the rent, but I was so not going to tell Amber that or I’d get a lecture on money management and how not to get taken advantage of. “And it’s only till my lease is up and then I can walk away free and clear.”

  “I still think you could have gotten out of there sooner.”

  I quoted Dad at her. “Yeah, well hindsight is better than foresight.”

  She growled, but said nothing. I was seriously starting to wonder who was the werewolf around here. Before you know it the whole family was going to be barking at each other. Hell, we were already barking mad.

  “And, how’s Peg doing?” Amber asked. “Last time I saw her she was looking fairly fragile. You said it was what, stage four cancer? That poor family.”

  “Oh, I guess I didn’t tell you.” I began, but she interrupted.

  “So, is she? Like, dying?”

  “No, she’s in remission.”

  “How’d that happen?” My sister turned to gaze directly at me.

  I watched what I call her “mind-reading frown lines” appear. I wanted to tell her to please stop making me look like that, but she wouldn’t find it funny, so I gave her the short version on Con and Peg.

  “Wow, you have been keeping secrets,” my twin said and pursed her lips in disapproval. “So is she going all vamp on us, or what?”

  “Not as far as I know. As long as she continues to take Con’s blood, regular ingestion keeps her suspended in a sort of half-life, but without a bunch of mumbo jumbo she doesn’t turn into a vampire either. I don’t know. I couldn’t do it.”

  “You’re not a mother.”

  Amber bit her lip as I flared up at her. “You know, I’m getting really sick of you throwing that in my face, considering…”

  “Upside, at least now you don’t have to cheat on Will with a gay guy to make your super-pups and save the planet,” she interrupted, throwing me off my game.

  “I’m not saving the planet,” I growled at her and finished to myself, just this little part of it.

  “So, how’s Will holding up?”

  “Besides a lot of anxiety, at least when I’m around, I think he’s enjoying his bromance with Jackson and Sully. Maybe too much. If he’s not growling at the straight guys he’s woofing at the gay ones. I know it’s something that even canines do, but I am so going to beat Jackson down for teaching him that one.”

  “Yeah, make sure he chills out before the holidays arrive. Elle and
I do have straight friends you know, with husbands.”

  “Believe me, if he doesn’t, I’m going alpha on his ass and he’d better bare his throat to me.”

  “Next MoonFall’s what? A week away?”

  “Yeah. I was thinking about heading up to Harbin or maybe the city, I don’t know. Darla and Twyla are doing Laguna Del Sol.”

  Amber made a face and I smelled her displeasure. She was so not into nudist resorts like the rest of us. But when you’re a werewolf, do as werewolves do.

  “We all thought it would be better if there were no bitches around during Will’s first turn,” I continued. “Hopefully he’ll get whatever he needs to out of his system because the following MoonFall we’re installing Jackson as Alpha of the Knightsbridge Canyon territory. Doggie dignitaries, yea.”

  “How’s that going to work anyway? Since Will’s going to father the wolf pups, you would think he would take over as Alpha, but I can’t see that happening.”

  “Oh, well, Jackson is going to forego his right for the night of the Blood Moon and when the cubs are born we’ll be turning them over to the ulv to raise.”

  “How do you feel about that?”

  “You so do not get to shrink me on this one.”

  “Well, if it’s not me, I hope you’re talking to someone.”

  I was. But I was talking to Ghost Mom and I didn’t want to rub in the fact that Amber couldn’t see her and I could. We still hadn’t resolved our last debacle of an argument over mom’s presence in our lives, but I think Amber caught it anyway, because she got this pained look on her face. “You would think with your kind of crazy you would be trying to simplify your life, not complicate it. So, when do you think you’re going to have them? The pups, I mean.”

  “I was thinking about sticking to a normal schedule. Wolves generally breed during the winter so they can give birth in the early spring.”