Page 43 of Luna Rising

“Apparently you just need a vampire wolf.” Penn gestured to Ewan. “It just took the two of us to get this one.”

“We have no idea what they are or where they came from,” Drake told me.

I didn’t know either of those answers, but I did know how the creatures had traveled to this world. Winter and I had created quite the fucking mess.

“My guys spotted one two nights ago,” Ewan admitted, which was definitely news to me. He turned to Drake. “Is it weird if I ask to take the one outside home with us? I have a few fae who can take a look. They might even know what it is.”

“You want to do a magical autopsy on a giant bat?” I asked, interjecting myself into the conversation.

Drake shrugged, both of them ignoring me. “If you take Frann with you.”

I found this to be a particularly odd request, but Ewan didn’t even blink.

“Deal,” he said.

An hour later, since Frann needed to go home to pack a bag before we could leave, Ewan called Winter and gave her coordinates to open a portal directly to Drake’s house so we didn’t have to lug the dead creature through the mountains to our landing spot. He let her know we’d be returning with an otherworldly beast and an octogenarian, which stunned Winter into an appropriately long silence before she spoke again.

Drake hugged me goodbye, making her the first person not bonded to me who’d dared touch me since my turning. It felt good. A little too good after a moment, and I had to pry myself away before the vein in her slender throat started calling my name.

“I’ll be in touch soon,” she promised Ewan as he hung up with Winter and shimmers appeared in the night air.

Ewan hefted the dead bat-like creature, now wrapped in a tarp, over his shoulder. “I’ll let you know if we find out what this is.”

“Oh, how lovely,” Frann declared, taking my arm for support she didn’t really need. “I haven’t traveled by portal since I was a girl.”

“The fangs don’t bother you?” I glanced pointedly at her fingers curled around my jacket.

She threw her head back and laughed. “Oh, child. You haven’t lived until you’ve felt a pair of pointies skimming your nether regions.” She winked. “Second best night of my life.”

I so wanted to ask what topped her list of unforgettable sexual interludes. Then I did ask and sort of hated myself because it wasn’t an image I wanted burned into my brain.

“Walter Stolly, of course. Now there’s a man who remembers there’s more than one way to make a kitty purr if you know what I mean.”

Set Fire to the Rain

The contingent who’d traveled to the Capricorn pack had returned by the time we arrived back at our house with Frann and the bat-thingie in tow. Thanks to Mrs. Wynn, the Capricorn alpha had promised to stand with us in the fight against the council. Appreciative as he was, it bothered Ewan that his mother had secured the alliance. As a brand-new, very young alpha, it was a bad look to the pack for his mommy to be recruiting allies for him.

I felt bad that we had nothing uplifting to report and sort of like a failure since Drake hadn’t immediately agreed. Would she say yes in the end? Diana would have. I believed that with every ounce of my non-beating heart. Drake, Alpha of the Ophiuchus wolves, I didn’t know that woman.

The creature we’d brought back fascinated Colleen and Walter, as expected. They were confident they’d be able to determine which of the thirteen realms the monster had previously called home with Essie’s help.

Frann’s interest in our dead friend was purely tactical. She needed to understand the creature’s weaknesses, so the next time one showed up in the Snake Mountains, the Ophiuchus wolves could defeat it. The feathered, lizard-like beasts were sniffing around our territory as well, so I was eager to hear what they’d learn from it.

After the call with Walter, Winter opened a portal across the canyon to her temporary home. Birch hefted the creature over his shoulder and carried him through, with Winter and Frann right behind him.

I shrugged out of my jacket, collapsed on the couch, and listened to the magnificent sound of silence, suddenly exhausted. Ewan leaned over the back cushions and rubbed my shoulders, digging his thumbs into the space between my shoulder blades until I moaned.

“Want me to stop?” he whispered, cool breath fanning my cheek.

“Don’t you fucking dare.”

Who knew vampires enjoyed massages as much as humans?

He chuckled and pressed harder. “You did really well tonight with all those wolves in Drake’s living room.”

I gripped the cushions and gritted my teeth, leaning into the glorious pain of him kneading my muscles. “It was easy after the bar.”

His mouth moved to my neck, trailing kisses down the sensitive skin before grinding his fingertips into my muscles again. My eyes rolled back.

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