Page 3 of Under a Wicked Moon
His heart rate skyrocketed to the point his chest hurt. He’d faced off with phantoms, witches, angels, demons, and supernatural things without names that surpassed evil. But this…
Lycans had one weakness that transcended all, anditsat across from him.
He might not shift into an animal on demand, but some legends about lycans and the full moon were true. When the moon rose while in its most gibbous state, the urge to mate became unbearable, especially if a lycan neglected his dose of moon-madness suppression serum. Which he hadn’t. But the drive kicked up to maximum if one of his kind whom he found attractive was nearby.
Long legs crossed when a female lycan shifted to face him, dressed in skintight athletic pants and a sports bra that kept few secrets. Her intoxicating “in heat” pheromones called to him on an elemental level, activating the most fundamental of drives for sex.
Thiswas a new kind of torture to him, one he’d never confronted before.No touching. Swear on my soul and that ofmy dead father. Will. Not. Touch. Her.
He breathed through his mouth to avoid inhaling more of her scent. Because the aroma was luscious. Decadent.
It was so potent, the scent of her dulled the migraine pain. How was that even possible?
One small cheat…an inhale… It was heaven and everything he’d never imagined could be his.
How did she end up here? Female lycans weren’t allowed out of their homes without an army of protection. There were so few of them that lycan society protected them with a vigilant obsession. Their species had lost many of their women during an interspecies war against witches early last century. Witches targeted women by cursing his species to have few female live births in hopes of diminishing lycan numbers. It worked.
How did these humans capture her?
Fascination with her turned his brain to mush. He’d never been this close to one who was non-mated. Or in heat. As in never ever. Which only amplified his absorption in everything about her. As the middle brother, he hadn’t been old enough to be invited to society parties a half century ago when he’d been part of the lycan world, when his kind still knew the Lanzo brothers existed. Families brought out their available daughters at those functions with the sole purpose of finding them an acceptable mate. Of course, it wasn’t about chemistry or love. It was about power and money.
You don’t know she’s unmated.
Dark, wavy hair fell on either side of her pale face. In the dim shine of light from the bulb on the wall, her eyes were intelligent and serious without a hint of insecurity, but he couldn’t make out their color. She scanned him back, her perusal moving over his naked arms with their many tattoos, coming to rest on the most important ink—the blue mark around his left wrist, the one that represented the curse that held him in thrall to the Crown ofEngland. Her pausing on the mark was probably all in his head.
“Who’re you?” he asked. It came out in English with the British accent he’d perfected as a servant to the Crown, who often forced him to pretend to be an MI6 agent. He was so much more dangerous than that.
The draw to stare at the swells of her breasts in the too-small sports bra was hard to ignore, but he did his best to keep his eyes north of her neck.
“The moon is blue?” Her forehead scrunched before she glanced skyward toward the rain hitting the skylights above them. Her accent was British with a faint Scottish burr to it. “I don’t know its color yet, but given it’ll be full, it’s going to be a problem for us in about an hour or so.”
He hadn’t thought he slurred. Was he that out of it? He tried again, speaking louder, this time careful to enunciate. “Who. Are. You?”
“There are two?” She glanced around. “There are two of us in here. You’re right. I’m thinking they’re going to leave it that way until we do what they want. Or until I kill you and then only one of us will remain.”
He scowled. “Are you hard of hearing?”
“You sounded garbled. It’s the drug. Or maybe they hit you one too many times with the collar?” She tapped the metal band around her own neck. Wrinkles creased the corners of her eyes, and she compressed her lips as if trying not to smile. She’d been messing with him?
The lady had a sense of humor and wasn’t afraid of him. He gave most women the jitters, even if unintentionally. Roman, his oldest brother, said it was because he rarely smiled and looked like an ex-con about to do something illegal. The fact she’d been placed in front of him for the specific purpose of driving him nuts and yet she didn’t fear him suggested she had defensive skills.
“What’s the purpose of this place?” he asked.
She tapped her chin and then said sarcastically, “I’m thinking it’s not a day spa.”
A smart-ass. He liked that.
He bit back a chuckle. “Lacks a bit in customer service.”
Her lips tilted upward for a fraction of a second. “It’s a place where they imprison us in rooms with cheap toilet paper and shitty food that’s not even real food.”
“Got the imprisonment part. Not yet sure on the why they’re locking us up. Are you with them?” She could be a plant, somehow meant to use him. Maybe a willing player? Or it was simple torture, even though they hadn’t said what they wanted from him? Put a beautiful, in-heat lycan female in his path as an exquisite torment, and he might break. Might. He’d handled much worse.
“You think I’m with who? The humans? Are you daft? They must’ve whacked you in the head.”
“Maybe so.” He glanced upward when the rain picked up, now battering the skylights.
“If I were on their side, I’d lie to you and say I wasn’t. So it’s a ridiculous question.”
