Page 1 of Under a Wicked Moon
Chapter One
One lousy decision landed Ky Lanzo in his current state of Suckville.
Hands bound behind him, he snarled as someone pushed him down an austere, sterile hallway into the depths of a concrete industrial building. The hangover from whatever tranquilizer his captors had darted him with hours ago sent pain shooting behind his right eye. Over the last minute, it had spread. His entire skull felt like someone pressed down on it. He squinted to dim the light of the dangling overheads and slammed his teeth together to suppress his gut instinct to lash out and fight for freedom.
Remember the mission.
This facility’s purpose remained unclear. His goal was to find out what it was. Could be a prison, research facility, or something else. The last possibility was the one that concerned him. Most people lived in blissful ignorance that his kind existed. These men seemed well aware that he was a lycanthrope. The fact they’d captured him instead of outright killing him, like certain paranormal hunter groups would have, conjured up imagined scenarios involving experiments such as DNA extraction, cloning, or human-enhanced hybrids.
Clearly, he’d seen one too many sci-fi movies. Although, some fiction wasn’t too far from reality, which was as terrifying as it was humbling. Their greed pushed humans to break ethical boundaries in a heartbeat. He was here to find out whatboundaries they’d charged past and why they wanted him alive.
He smelled other lycans in this place, and even picked up a faint hint of witch. Despite all the pervasive technology humans had designed, paranormal creatures of the world thrived mostly undetected among them. Lycans had many superhuman abilities beyond strength, such as the power to mesmerize through voice coercion, super speed healing, and a glamour used to mask their inner predator from humans. They might not be able to transform into an animal like werewolves of silly fictional lore, but they did change into something powerful; although still humanoid, their lycan form was more muscular and infinitely stronger than humans, with sharper claws and teeth.
He should’ve argued harder to do this mission a different way. His wrist tingled where the tattooed curse band flashed a warning bite intended to keep him in line. It made sure he remembered to obey orders. Cursed to serve the Crown of England along with his three brothers—as in a genuine curse invoked by a witch using an ancient talismanic scroll—his sole purpose lay in stopping paranormal terrorists. As lycans, he and his brothers represented a unique weapon, three apex predators stronger than other paranormal species. On most missions, they aimed to thwart threats before they endangered anyone.
Ordering him to surrender to these humans on purpose, however, had been pure idiocy. But he’d been told by his handler:“Get yourself caught. Do what they say, so you can get information on the purpose of the place.”He had to follow the directive, even if getting “caught” was a terrible plan. That or deal with pain signals from the curse band that would increase in intensity until they incapacitated or even killed him—and then it’d transfer the orders on to his brothers.
A burly human in generic black tactical clothes pushed him. The unnecessary force reflected a pervasive revulsion for him, maybe for all lycans. He spat long blond hair out of hiseyeline and glowered. Despite a buttload of vertigo from the waning tranquilizer, he flexed his shoulders and shoved his body backward, sending the guy pinballing against the wall. Not hard enough to kill him, but a calculated warning shot. Fire pierced his thigh. Ky grunted when his knees crumpled, and he collapsed to the ground. He eyed the cattle prod headed in his direction again.
“You think I can’t kill you with my hands behind my back?” Ky threatened. “Go ahead. Hit me again and find out for yourself.” The human should fear him. Ky had dropped his glamour from the moment he’d been captured. Humans’ innate sense of self-preservation usually sent them into flight mode when he wasn’t masked. He hadn’t transformed into his “feral” form where he became more muscular—okay, not Hulk-huge, certainly not green, but he liked to envision himself similar. Without his glamour, he remained human-looking while exuding serious threat.
The man paused but didn’t seem as impressed as Ky wished.
“I can walk on my own.” Ky tested his leg to see if it could support weight, then stood. Fake submission was part of being undercover, but his tolerance for abuse had limits. He should be able to overpower these two despite the shackles around his wrists and his weakened state. Uncertainty rolled around liked a toxic beast inside his head. Their attitude bordered on cocky. Maybe they planned to dart him with the drug again or something worse.
Starting to think he didn’t wantsomething worse,he figured he needed to ditch the fake submission. He’d rather tolerate the pain of the curse until he could persuade his handler to rescind the order.
He lowered his tone to give voice coercion a try, a gift all of his species possessed over humans toencouragethey go along with whatever was suggested. “Release me.”
The guard with the cattle prod chuckled and tapped his ear. “You can’t mesmerize us. I heard you already tried this during transport. These special earpieces keep us safe.”
Chills licked across his shoulders. Cue a mega “Oh shit.”
He didn’t remember a previous attempt at coercing them. What else had the drug made him forget?
The guy with the cattle prod nudged him in silent threat to move faster.
He wished for a gun. Eyes closed, he could level every human in this room. None carried one. Shame.
Ky calculated fifty yards to the door behind him, the exit. Screw orders. Pain flashed up his arm from the curse punishing him as he disobeyed. It weakened him. Slowed him.
He shoved the guy with the cattle prod, which sent him backward onto his ass and knocked his head against the wall with enough force to render him unconscious. Shoulders lowered, Ky plowed into the human behind him.
Within twenty yards of his goal, a solid slap struck his shoulders as two taser darts plowed into his skin through his shirt. He dropped like a pole-axed mule. Muscles clenched as the worst full-body Charlie horse of his life detonated.Can’t move.
His headache morphed into a splitting sensation that extended toward the back of his head. Vision flickered in and out in his right eye until it settled into something blurry. Was this a stroke?
They dragged his tremoring body to a large room with drains on the floor.
“Legt ihm das Halsband an!”Collar him, a man yelled in German, dangling something from a finger. “Es ist eines der neuen Designs.”It’s one of the new designs.
Metal clicked into place around his neck.
Collared like a dog?
This went way over the line.
One human propped him upright while another unlatched his thick handcuffs and moved his hands around front. This was his moment.Attack.His muscles didn’t cooperate. Regular tasers couldn’t cause his muscles to be useless for this long. He sat like a saggy bag of useless goo. He still couldn’t see well out of his right eye, and the pain in his head pulsated with each heartbeat. The cuffs were hooked into the wall. A mechanical whirring started as something pulled him upright to a stand. He hung there, limp, from his wrists.
