Shannon Lee Perrine
P.O. BOX 1043
Middleburgh, NY 12122
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Second Edition
© S.L. Perrine – Author 2019
© S.L. Perrine with Mayhem Publications 2019
© Mayhem Designs/ Shannon Perrine – Cover & Editing 2019
The Ravana Moon Series
*The Darker Side of Me
Hide and Seek
Dirty Little Secrets
Truth or Dare
More from S.L. Perrine
Fast and Loud Series
(MM/Gay Romance)
Connor’s Achilles
Ryan’s Hubris
Blood Rites Trilogy
Blood Rites
Turning the Stone
The Fate’s Seal
For Sandy,
we may not have been friends for long,
but we will remain friends forever.
My name is Ravana. Ravana Moon. I was not born with that name. I changed it the day I died. So much about me changed that day. I wanted to shed myself completely, of my old life. I wouldn’t be going back there anymore. First the name, then my light brown locks turned crimson. My favorite color has always been blood.
When I died, my superhuman genes mixed with vampire DNA, and something else. I’d spent a century looking for what it could be, but all my efforts had gotten me nothing more than a vague name. They called him the Ancient One. Nobody knew what he looked like, or where to find him. They just knew the stories. That he was a hunter, turned Vampire. He’d done a bunch of experiments to try and cure his blood but failed. Instead, he developed a way to make a hunter with all the advantages of a vampire, but none of the disadvantages. Once he’d found the precise formula, he used it on himself, and again on me.
The night was when I worked. I was still, a hunter. That part about my old self was the only thing that hadn’t changed. Having vampire DNA didn’t mean I hated them any less. It just meant the playing field had been leveled. Of course, there were much worse things that went bump in the night…much worse. If humans only knew what traveled the streets at night, they’d never leave their house after sunset. Oh, well. Such is life. Or death.
Don’t mistake me for a protector of humans. I was no such thing. Those first twenty mortal years, maybe. Even in the first twenty immortal years, I may have jumped between every demon and nightwalker to save an innocent. Now, however, I found it bored me. I hunted those that wished to see me dead. I searched for the Ancient One to find out why he created me, and I had a little fun while I was at it.
Currently, my fun included a tall, dark-haired human. When I saw him in the club, I made sure to turn in front of him, placing a foot on the booth in front of me to adjust my shiny black boots, making sure the zipper was still secure at my knee. Now, it remained zipped even though it’s flung up over his shoulder. The smell of sweat permeates my senses as we make do with the men’s bathroom. A sink pushed into my backside, and the cool air surrounds me like a noose. The back of the club is semi-quiet. The bass of the music still thumps in my chest and covers the sounds of groans as Mr. Dark and Handsome thrusts into me. His hand rubs, digs, and then smacks my rear. My skirt is lifted around my waist, and my white blouse hangs open showing off my alabaster skin.
“Ahh, the heck with this.” I push my hands flat against his chest and push him away from me. I adjust my thong and lower my skirt. “You're just not doing the job. Sorry, hun.” I lick my thumb and draw a line across his face with it and exit the bathroom. Leaving him there with a look of confusion on his face and his pants around his ankles. I can hear someone laughing as they entered the room.
He was a distraction. They all are. Nothing can compare to the one man I want absolutely nothing to do with. And, as luck would have it, he’s the only one staring at me as I exit the men’s room and head for the front door without a glance.
“Ravana.” Of course, he would follow me into the night. “Having a bit of fun before you start slaughtering the nightwalkers?”
“Massimo, you are a nightwalker. I could just as easily slaughter you,” I say with my back to him, not bothering to slow my steps. I know he’ll catch up regardless, so why should I make it easy on him?
“Oh, love, now is that any way to speak to the man of your dreams?” With stealth, he sidles up next to me.
“Maybe your dreams, love, but not mine.” I stop, one delicate hand deliberately placed on my hip, so he’s forced to look, while the other punches him in the throat. “What do you want?”
Massimo coughs and sputters. His windpipe cracked behind the pressure of my fist. I watch as his dark hair flips down in the front, covering his forehead. His dark eyes turn amber as he begins the process of healing himself. I can feel my heart racing as my body reacts to his proximity. He believes we were made for each other. He too was a hunter, but he was one of the lesser experiments. He doesn’t kill humans for food. He gets his blood from blood banks and if he needs to feed, he makes sure to leave his victims alive, without the memory of ever seeing him.
During our first encounter, neither of us could tell what the other was. He was another distraction. Just another notch in my bedpost, so to speak. Until he became the thing I needed to be distracted from. I couldn’t have a relationship with a vampire. Ultimately, even with the hunter genes, he was still just an amped up vamp. He had to stay out of the sun, though it just made him a bit uncomfortable. Silver was harmful, he could only withstand it for so long. It wouldn’t kill him on impact but left alone to fester in his body long enough, and he would decay just like the rest. Iron too.
I was able to live as a human being. Sunlight made me tired, but the only thing I needed was a decent pair of sunglasses to walk around during the day. I survive on food and drink as I had as a human. I never need to ingest blood. An occasional infusion is all I require. Also, I don’t have an allergy, so to speak, to silver or iron. Both of which are deadly to vampires. Slice against their skin, and they start to decompose. A silver or iron stake through the heart and they die. Decapitate them and they die. I’ve been staked. Wasn’t a comfortable feeling, but when I pulled it out, my flesh healed. I’m guessing if my head were severed, I probably couldn’t heal that.
“I don’t want anything.” He coughed a few more times as his throat snapped back into place.
“That’s a lie.” I flipped my hair over my shoulder letting it fall well past my waist.
“You missed a button or all of them.” He blushed as the realization of what I was doing caught up to him. Though he couldn’t take his eyes off my naked torso, or the black bra under my white blouse.
“I guess I did.” I turned, ignored the shirt and headed for the nearest ally.
“Why, Ravana?”
“Why, what, Massimo?” My red-bottom heels clicked the pavement and I knew he was staring at them. The same knee-high boots
he’d once had laying on his shoulders, hugging his neck. I could have snapped it right then and there, but now I found it difficult to imagine the task.
“Why are you fighting this? It’s clear, either as hunters or as what we are now, we would be so good together.” He trolled a finger down my arm.
A quick grab of his wrist and speed which my abilities afforded me and I had him pinned against the closest brick building. I licked my blood red lips and made a good show to toss my hair over my shoulder, pushing my chest closer to his. If he looked down, he would have gotten quite the show.
“Remember what it felt like when you held onto me? When you slid inside?”
“Yes,” his answer was barely audible.
I raised my eyebrows and leaned in nipping the lobe of his ear. “Remember what it felt like…”
“Yes.” He shuddered at my touch and I hissed in his ear.
“…when I sliced through your flesh? Cause that’s all I’ve thought of. Slicing you clean open.” A hard shove caught him off balance and gave me enough of a head start to get away from him.
I could feel the thumping of his blood within his veins. The reason why I couldn’t kill him. Couldn’t get him from my mind. His touch from my skin. His breath from my neck. I still felt the heat of him on me. The parts of him that told me he was a hunter. My equal. Regardless if he’d been turned. We had both been created by the same man, for a purpose only he could tell us. So, if I repelled from him, why did I feel so strongly connected? I needed answers. Answers only one demon could give me. If he felt like it.
I moved through the night with hardly a glance my way. The sight of me was an unusual thing to be sure. With my six-inch stilettos, I was probably over six feet tall, blood red hair, eyes the color of emeralds, and a lust for death. However, my abilities allowed me to become no more than a shadow of a person. The ability of a vampire to glamour and the ability of a hunter to be unremarkable. Humans saw what their feeble minds could handle; an elderly woman with a limp in her step; a drunk teen trying to get home, or nothing at all. A mere shadow in the night.
The man I was looking for was never one to stay in one place for too long. Seattle was crawling with creatures that wanted his information but were always at odds with the coveted information and gutting him. I wouldn’t want to be the one who opened his flesh. Atomic gases were nothing compared to his stench. An odor that pungent was bound to attach itself to whoever did the deed.
I wandered around Lincoln Park, waiting for him to show himself. His unusual appearance met with copious stares. When the familiar silhouette of a top hat met my eyes from shore of Tight Bluff, I swallowed my last clean breath and met him on the sandy beach. His men tried keeping out of sight but failed miserably. I spotted ten or so amongst the trees and four more out in the water.
“Red.” He bowed his head as I approached. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” He laughed, and I recoiled at the smell of him.
“If there were ever pleasure in these little meetings, there would be more of them.”
He waved a hand dismissively. “You wound me.”
“No, I don’t. You’re too mean to be wounded.”
“So, you here to kill me, or to make a bargain?”
“I thought it was obvious. I wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole.”
He laughed, and I again turned my head. “A bargain it is.” He held out his hand. His nails were as long as talons, thick as tree branches and curled around the tips of his fingers.
“Ten…foot…pole.” I turned and walked away.
“Fine, fine. Ravana, you win. What is it you’re looking for this time?”
I looked at his moth-eaten suit. It looked as if it had once been a very nice purple but acquired so many stains over the years it was almost black. He held a black cane with a silver head in one hand and checked his rusty pocket watch with the other.
“Have you found out anything more?”
“The Ancient One. Ah, yes well, you see.”
“You have nothing. Figures.” I adjusted my weight to one foot and sashayed, so the hem of my skirt moved with my hips. It was even with the length of my hair. Not my usual look, but necessary for the night’s activities at the club. Thigh high and just the right look for just the right attention.
“Ravana. Come now. There must be another reason you hunted for me. Tell me you don’t have another bit of information you’re looking for.”
“Massimo,” a whispered breath escaped me.
“Massimo. I should have guessed.” He picked at his pointed teeth with an elongated nail.
I turned my back to him again, looking to the night for the vampires that surrounded us, and fingered the dagger I wore as a ring on my middle finger. Just because the demon and I had an understanding didn’t always mean his men followed the rules. They moved through the trees shrinking the distance between us. I didn’t hear movement, but as I was about to turn, I felt a hand slide against my hip. I jerked away and pivoted on my heel.
“I said I didn’t want to touch you. Now I have to burn my skirt.” I elbowed him in the chest and his hand moved up at the contact. He feigned injury and I laughed. “Kyron, either you have new information, or I’m leaving, and our deal is off.”
“Red, you wouldn’t kill me after all the help I’ve given you. All the information,” he crooned.
“It means little. I already have it. Nothing new to add, means you’re soon to be a pile of rotting flesh.”
“Massimo,” he started with a quick breath. “You were right. He is more vampire than hunter. Though his hunter genes are strong. I do believe the Ancient One deemed him useful, and that is why he didn’t dispose of him.”
“Dispose of him?”
“Yes. Rumor has it, the Ancient One had many test subjects. He left a few to live and killed the rest. Hundreds. When he got the formula right, he used it on himself. Then, as you know, on you.”
“Why me? I don’t understand why he would give me …”
“The ultimate gift? Maybe he needs a mate.” The old demon chuckled and licked his lips. I saw the green of his pointed teeth, the layer of saliva that hung thick in his mouth and cringed.
“I think I’m going to be sick.” I moved away from him, heading back the way I came.
“Massimo can be like you. More hunter than vampire.”
I spun around in the sand. My heels dug deep and I stomped my way back over to him so he could speak so only I could hear him. “How?”
“For that, I may need something more than the promise you won’t make me dust on the beach. A kiss, maybe?”
“You want a kiss?” I moved in close, careful to hold my breath. As his eyes settled on my cleavage and then my lips, I moved my hand up my thigh, pulled an eight-inch silver stake from my holster and plunged it into the thickness of his coat above his heart. Stopping before I hit the flesh beneath, “or do you just want to live?”
He shook his head and sucked his teeth. “Oh, Ravana. I could show you much pleasure, but if you insist,” he pulled away. “Find the Ancient One and ask him to change him. Make him a hunter once more. You will be equals. The same. Though, if the stories are true, the man wants you for himself.”
“So, then we find the formula he used. Can’t be that hard.”
“He was born a Hunter but raised a Keeper. He has all the knowledge of both and has lived for hundreds of years. How will you replicate his knowledge?”
“That’s not how this deal works. You answer my questions, you get to live. Ask me questions, and one of your goons die.” Without turning I threw the stake to my right, hitting a vampire in the throat, stopping him mid-stride. His hands went to the metal to pull it free and started to smoke and rot at the contact. Like acid, the silver melted his flesh from his bones. “They never learn.” I sauntered over and pulled the silver free, smearing it on the dying creature’s shirt, and placed it back in my thigh holster, making sure to lift my skirt enough to give Kyron a peek at my bottom.
“Hmm. You�
��ve been working out, Red.”
“Thanks for noticing,” I said with a wink.
I left the demon standing at the water’s edge. None of his men followed me from the park, and there were none waiting as usual when I reached the adjoining street. I kept my glamour intact as I found my way home. The streets were thinning of the night’s occupants. The clubs were closing, and all the street corners went dark when the neon signs clicked off in the international district. I managed to make it across town and near Smith Tower before I ran into further trouble. I could have slipped into the building. I found the observatory on the 35th floor gave me a sense of calm, but I needed to work off a lot of pent up sexual tension. Only two ways of doing that and the first way hadn’t been successful.
Why did she have to be so bitter? The better question was why couldn’t I get her out of my head? She was fabulous, up until the heel of her boot sliced through me. She was right. I definitely remember what that felt like. The silver lining of her stiletto heels burned against my skin as it sliced clean through me like I was nothing more than a slab of butter. Oh, but I remember other things, more pleasant things. Like the way her skin tasted of strawberries. How her hair smelt of peppermint, and the silky-smooth caress of her skin against mine.
If I were to be truthful with myself, I’d say the first thing I thought of when I saw her red tresses out of the corner of my eye, was how her eyes glowed the night she was turned. I didn’t doubt she’d hate me just for being there when she found out, but I’d take my chances. The Ancient One put me in that predicament. It wasn’t as if I had known what game he was playing. I was his prisoner just as much as she. As far as I was concerned, she got the better end of the deal.
Sure, she’d changed her hair, and her looks. She was a small thing when the Ancient One grabbed her off the street. She wore an outfit of a beggar boy. Her hair was in a messy brown mass on top of her head, dirt smudges on her face, and the most amusing look was in her eye after she’d come to. I’d hardly recognized her in the bar six months ago.
The Darker Side of Me (Ravana Moon Book 1) Page 1
