Blood Moon (A Louisiana Demontale): Book 1 of the Crescent Crown Saga

by Schuyler Windham

  “Please,” she groaned. “Please.”

  “Please, what?” A devilish grin flashed across his face.

  “I need your cock,” she begged.

  He teased her for a few more swirls of her tongue, her back arching up. Craving. Would they make it out alive? Was this the last time he would hold her in his arms? The dark thoughts only made him more determined, more passionate. He pulled himself forward, but she was faster. She tugged his shirt over his head and then traced her fingers across his sculpted abdomen.

  “Mmm.” She stared at his pants, bulging and hard with anticipation. In a blur, she had unfastened his jeans and he was naked in the blink of an eye, suddenly flipped over and underneath her. His cock was in her soft hand, and she delicately traced her fingers along the shaft to the tip.

  “Ah,” he gasped in pleasure as she began to stroke up and down.

  “Like I said,” she breathed. “I need your cock.” She straddled him, and his erect cock penetrated her as she lowered herself onto him. She was so tight and wet around him. His lips parted as a sigh escaped his lips.

  His waist met hers in rhythm as she moved up and down, up and down. The motion was perfection, a steady beat. Then she swirled her hips, teasingly slow, causing him to lay still, panting. His cock throbbed with pleasure inside her, reacting to her teasing with want.

  “You like being teased, too.” She winked, the palms of her hands on his chest. His eyes darkened as he gazed at her full breasts and aroused nipples, her rose gold hair spilling over her shoulders. He snaked an arm around her waist and hoisted himself up so she fell back, still maintaining their connection. She hung partially off the bed, him holding her secure with one arm and propping himself up from the floor with the other. Now her hair spilled toward the floor and her legs wrapped around him.

  “Fuck me,” she whispered in his ear. “Hard.”

  He held her in his arms, bracing himself. Then he moved his hips with force so she could feel him with each pounding thrust.

  “Ah, Leo!” she groaned in his ear. He fucked her until she gripped his shoulders tight and her pleasure enveloped his throbbing cock. This sent him reeling with waves of pleasure as he came into her.

  Then they tumbled from the bed onto the floor, gasping for breath.

  Chapter 27

  Arachne sent Marceline and Eshe to track down Keres. Arachne and Saint-Germain led the demons and vampires down as far south as they could go before they met the rising sea. Leo and Monette shut the doors of his Honda Civic along the beach. He noticed Saint-Germain, who hid behind a black Jeep, waving tentatively back at them. Leo assumed he wouldn’t be joining the fight.

  The wind pulled on their hair and lashed their faces. Dark clouds churned overhead as sheets of rain hammered the ocean many miles away.

  Bael and Chio stood close to Arachne. The other vampires spread out along the beach, carefully scanning the horizon. The witches joined them shortly, led by Madame Serafine, pulling up in their SUVs. Leo noticed Phoebe and her younger sister trailing behind their mom, alongside their uncle and cousins, including Weiland. They flanked the vampire forces and eyed the demons and vampires suspiciously.

  “We are ready!” Arachne called. “When Leviathan approaches, take your positions, and follow the plan. Until then, we have a beacon for the soul-suckers. They will come here rather than walk the streets for anyone still in the city.” She held up the bewitched lamp. Serafine lit the wick with a snap of her fingers. The flame glowed an ominous green color which matched the churning, sickening color of the ocean. Arachne paced across the beach, checking in with everyone.

  “How are you feeling?” Arachne asked as she stopped off next to Leo and Monette.

  Leo shrugged, unable to speak too many words. “You?”

  “I’ve been better,” she murmured. “Kind of sick. Dizzy.”

  “Please, take it easy.” Leo placed his hand on her shoulder. She stood on her tiptoes and brushed her lips against his cheek.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  Leo watched her pace back up the beach to stand with the other demons. Chio grasped the hilt of her katana. Bael rested his mace on the beach next to him. They watched with apprehension as a fog rolled over the beach. Wispy white humanoid creatures stalked over the sandy hillside toward the lamp. Monette cocked an arrow in her crossbow. Leo gripped the sword in his hand tightly. Their weapons glowed faintly green, enchanted by the witches to pierce the wispy flesh of the otherwise gaseous creatures. Don’t let them touch you, Leo repeated to himself. Don’t let them shroud you . . . A bead of sweat dripped from his temple. The creatures ambled forward, flooding the beach with a thick fog.

  The vampires were quick to dispatch the creatures, tearing off their wispy heads, which dissipated into smoke and drifted away. Josephine, Odette, and Magdaleine were particularly aggressive, tag-teaming as they slashed through each soul-sucker with vicious, manicured nails. One crawled toward Leo, tilting its vague head toward him, a black hole for a mouth gaping up at him, hungry. Before Leo could swing his sword down on the creature, Monette struck it through its stomach with an arrow. The creature howled in pain and then melted into the dense fog.

  “Shit! Bad shot.”

  “You got ‘em,” Leo grinned wryly at her. “That’s the important part.”

  Another creature stalked toward them. Leo raised his sword and swung across the creature. It dissipated with a shriek.

  For an hour, they made slow progress until the fog began to thin and fewer creatures ambled forward toward the slaughter. The storm had grown fiercer, the sea viciously threatening the beach like jaws of a wolf around its prey. Another dark figure sped toward them with the blare of a motorcycle over the sandy knolls.

  “It’s a human.” Bea stepped toward Leo and Monette, curiously tilting her head as the man parked his motorcycle and jumped off.

  He wore black jeans and a flannel shirt. He pulled his black helmet off, revealing peppered hair, a chiseled jaw, and steely gray eyes. Leo sighed in irritation. Clifford Kingsley.

  “I noticed the soul-suckers wandering out of town,” he called toward Leo and Monette, winking.

  “You know him?” Bea questioned.

  “Unfortunately,” Leo muttered under his breath.

  Arachne strutted toward Cliff fiercely, the wind tearing at her strawberry blond curls, rain pouring down in gray sheets. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

  “Protecting the city from monsters!” he yelled back over the wind.

  She scowled at him. “That’s why we’re here.”

  Cliff unstrapped a harpoon-looking gun from across his back. “That foul beast must die here and now. Only a warrior can slay a beast . . .”

  The gusting winds grew fiercer and the sea sprayed their faces. Before Arachne could rebut, lightning crashed along the rising tidal waves in the distance. The air suddenly stilled, and the sun peeked through a towering wall of clouds above them, sending a halo of light down onto the shore. Everyone turned toward the shoreline, trepidation and anticipation hovering on the briny air. Stillness.

  The earth shook. A heaping tide burst forth from the choppy sea. Two eyes pierced through the mist. Golden. Burning.

  Leviathan towered over them, displacing the thick water around its armored breast, its dark slithering tentacles sweeping across the swirling waves. It craned its serpentine neck toward them, fringed with spikes. Baring its wicked, fanged jaw, it released a deafening, thunderous roar.

  Leo gagged as a putrid odor of rotting fish hit his nose. He took a few steps back, placing his body between Monette and the beast rising from the waves.

  This was it. The moment of reckoning. The beginning of the end. Leo gripped the hilt of his sword tight in his hands.

  Leviathan lashed its tentacles and then lunged forward.

  Madame Serafine’s coven formed a circle formation around the giant sigil they had traced in the sand and began to chant. Several vampires leaped forward as Leviathan thrashed its tentacles down
on the beach, grasping and clinging to the Leviathan. It eyed the vampires as lions do flies, with annoyance. Odette fell back to the beach as Leviathan wailed its tentacles through the air, but Magdaleine and Josephine hung tight, attempting to distract Leviathan’s attention.

  “Keep the witches safe!” Arachne commanded, dismissing Cliff. She forged toward the shoreline, Chio and Bael following at her heels. Leviathan thrashed a tentacle toward the demons. Chio dashed ahead. Deftly striking her katana, she sliced several feet of the tentacle off. Leviathan roared, crackling flames flickering from between its jaws.

  Arachne’s eyes widened, and the demons and vampires scattered as white-hot flames spewed onto the beach.

  “Cheeky bastard!” Bael called, a smirk on his wide lips. He grasped his mace and hurtled toward another sweeping tentacle.

  “Leo!” Monette shouted from behind him. As he was watching Arachne, he hadn’t noticed a dark tentacle curling their way. It grabbed Monette around her midriff and lifted her into the air.

  “Mona!” Leo’s heart nearly leapt from his chest.

  He ran toward her and jumped into the air with all his might, sword overhead. He struck the sword against the scaly tentacle, hacking into the muscle and sinew. Wounded, Leviathan dropped Monette and retreated. She fell several feet to the sand below.

  Leo skidded to her side.

  “Thanks.” She smiled weakly up at him. He grasped her arm and helped her up.

  Suddenly, the encircled witches began to glow. Serafine stepped to the center and raised her hands above her head. A distant strike of lightning suddenly veered in direction, right toward Serafine. The lightning halted in midair above her. Nervous, erratic energy blazed the sky.

  The vampires clinging to Leviathan hurled themselves off and landed a safe distance away on the beach. With one motion, Serafine aimed the lightning toward Leviathan and the lightning bolt struck its target.

  Leviathan writhed, electricity zapping through its armored plates, muscles twitching beyond its control. It fell back into the sea, its serpentine spiked tail lashing. Waves struck the shore as the sea dragon submerged beneath them.

  “Is it . . . dead?” Bael panted, staring at the churning sea. Chio eyed the waves suspiciously, a frown on her painted lips.

  “Wait . . .” Arachne held up her hand.

  The waves exploded with fire and froth. Boiling seawater rained down over the beach as the seething Leviathan twisted its neck back and forth until it found its target. Glaring with its smoldering eyes, it opened its jaws toward Serafine and the witches, emitting white-hot sparks of electricity and fire.

  “Run!” Arachne commanded. The witches didn’t hesitate to scatter, vampires dashing forth to carry the slower ones away. Crackling flames flooded the beach, leaving steaming glass shards in its wake.

  Arachne retreated back with Leo and Monette.

  “Fuck,” she sighed with exasperation.

  “What’s the plan?” Cliff called from twenty yards away. “I can help!”

  “We don’t need your help,” she growled. Then she turned back to the crew looking to her for direction. “It’s time for the next phase. Blind it. Aim for the eyes!”

  With caution, the crew took new positions, monitoring any openings. Monette cocked an arrow in her crossbow and took aim. Leo’s palms became sweaty as he watched her. Then her finger pressed the trigger, and an arrow loosed toward the Leviathan. The arrow struck its eyelid. Leviathan shook it off like a mosquito.

  “Damn.” Monette bit her lip. She set the crossbow aside and grasped the hunting rifle from behind her back. Quickly, she loaded the cartridge, set it on a tripod, and sprawled her body on the beach, eyeing Leviathan through the scope. Leo held his breath as she released the safety and lined up her shot.

  Two deafening roars, one after another. First as Monette hit the trigger, the rifle recoiling into her shoulder. Second, the dragon, bleeding from its eye, blinked away the bullet and set its fierce gaze toward her.

  “Shit.” Monette gaped as she grasped the handle of the gun and Arachne scooped her up. Chio grabbed Leo, and they fled further back toward their vehicles as more white-hot flames swept where they had just stood. Leviathan conjured the sea to rise with it as it slinked forward along the shore and the waters flooded further up the beach.

  “Good shot,” Cliff tipped his head toward her. “But this calls for more firepower.”

  “Have you just been standing here, watching us the whole time?” Arachne snapped.

  “You said you didn’t want my help,” he said as he shrugged. But he pulled his peculiar bazooka harpoon gun from his back and aimed a shot.

  “What is that?” Monette asked.

  “My own invention,” Cliff smirked. Two heartbeats later, he released the shot right where Monette had struck Leviathan in its right eye. On impact, the harpoon lodged itself deep into Leviathan’s eye and exploded, black smoke billowing from the wound.

  The dragon shook the earth with a thunderous roar, its head rolling back. Blinded in one eye, it threw its tentacles up overhead and thrust them down like fists onto the beach. Several tentacles struck sand, others, vampires and a witch, who were crushed beneath. Leviathan raised its tentacles again and again, thrashing them down on the beach in desperation, their comrades screaming with anger and grief. One tentacle crashed behind Leo and Monette, crunching metal.

  Leo gaped in horror at the carnage and then turned to see his vehicle—twisted green metal in ruins on the beach. Before he could lament his car, that tentacle swept forward. Monette and Leo ducked, but the tentacle smacked hard into Cliff, sending him flying fifty yards down the beach.

  “Cliff!” Monette yelled. But they couldn’t run forward for fear of getting smashed by the tentacles. Another tentacle crashed down hard into his body. Arachne dashed toward the injured and dead, desperately pulling them from the battlefield. She noticed Cliff, but before she could reach him, a tentacle wrapped around her, pulling her up into the air. She struggled in Leviathan's grip, and it eyed her with its left eye, its jaws open wide to reveal piercing, jagged fangs.

  “You dare to defy my divine decree for your sacrilege,” Leviathan growled, its bass voice rumbling through the air. Primordial. Deadly. “I will eat you and your weak friends up whole. Then I will sink this city into the depths of the sea.”

  Leo felt his blood run cold and his heart stop in his chest. He couldn’t defend the city. He couldn’t protect Arachne. How could he be so weak and the darkness so powerful?

  He gripped his sword with sweaty palms. No. He would fight until the end. Even if he was too weak, he would fight. He had to fight. Even if he died, he would die fighting.

  Leo felt warmth tingling into his palms, and without a second thought, he charged forward.

  Chapter 28

  Leo didn’t know how, but his heart pounded in his chest like a drum. And like a key unlocking a padlock, the chains fell away. A gate opened to swirling, dark energy at his fingertips. Warmth tingled through his hands, up his arms, and pulsed throughout his muscles. His amber eyes fierce, he saw a black light searing around Leviathan. Demonic. Powerful.

  Suddenly, dazzling flames of crimson and gold burst forth from the blade of his sword. The swirling flames danced skyward and flared out, threatening to consume the dragon like a tidal wave.

  Leviathan’s remaining eye widened at the sight of the fire. Reverent. Fearful. It dropped Arachne into the ocean, and with a lash of its tail, descended into the churning sea. The swirling wall of clouds overhead began to dissipate, sunlight refracting off the cloud cover like angels in the heavens.

  Leo threw the sword into the sand and dashed forward, leaping into the waves. He swam a few paces out and grabbed Arachne, bringing her to the shoreline.

  “Leo . . .” she mumbled, coughing up seawater.

  He brushed the wet hair from her face, staring intently. “Are you okay?”

  “I am . . . but Cliff . . .” She sat straight up, and then with some effort, scrambled direc
tly toward Cliff. Leo followed her and kneeled next to them.

  “Hey . . . hey.” She tenderly propped Cliff up and then bit down on her wrist to offer it to his lips. He stared through watery eyes at the heavens above, distant. “Drink my blood. Please. Cliff . . .”

  But he twisted his face away.

  “Cliff,” she urged. “Please. My blood will heal you.”

  “I’m dying,” he gasped, grasping his abdomen. Sweat beaded on his brow.

  Tears sprang to her eyes and her lips trembled. “You don’t have to die.”

  His gaze moved from the sky to her face, resolute, with steely eyes. “I would rather die than become a monster.”

  Arachne held him in her arms as he closed his eyes and slipped away. Her whole body shook as she lay him delicately back down to the beach. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Leo tentatively placed a hand on her shoulder.

  “You did what you could.”

  She glared with piercing eyes on Cliff’s body. “No more. We find Keres and end this. Now.”

  Leo followed Arachne to the edge of the battlefield, where Saint-Germain hid behind the vehicles. A faint moon rose in the pale blue sky as the clouds began to clear.

  “Help the injured. Prepare a funeral for the fallen.”

  He nodded curtly and rushed forward to the beach. A dark figure bounded toward them over the sandy crags—a black wolf with Eshe riding on its back.

  “We located Keres!” Eshe said as she hopped off Marceline’s back. Marceline stepped behind her flatbed truck to transform and quickly threw on her clothes. Ulric sprinted toward Marceline and wrapped her in his arms.

  “Marcy!” He kissed her cheek.