To Crave a Blood Moon (14 page)

“When were you turned?” Lily asked.

“What day is it?”

The female blinked. “You haven't fed yet, then?”

“No.” Ruby stared back and forth between them. “Why should that matter to you?”

“Of course it matters to us. If you haven't fed, then you're… you're—” She looked to her husband before turning back to Ruby with unmistakably kind eyes and announcing with great emphasis, “I've never fed either.”

Hope swelled over. She took a jerky step away from the wall. “You haven't? Why? How?”

“Because I don't want to,” she answered simply, as if there were a choice in the matter. As if stopping herself from shifting and killing every moonrise posed no difficulty. As if sheer will alone could prevent that from happening.

“Every moonrise, I sedate my wife,” the dovenatu answered, apparently reading her mind.

She stared at the arm he wrapped so securely around her waist and felt a flash of envy that Lily had such love and devotion from another soul that she could rely on him to see her through every moonrise. She felt the lack in her own life all the more keenly. She didn't have anyone. Perhaps Adele could be counted upon, but Ruby hated to put her at risk. And how could she rely on Adele forever? Adele was mortal… would age and die. Then who would safeguard mankind from her? Unbidden, an image of
Sebastian rose in her mind. She shook her head. He was gone. She would never see him again.

“Propofol,” Lily volunteered.

“Propofol?”

“It's a sedative. Takes effect almost immediately.”

Her knees went weak. So there was a way. She didn't have to live the life of a ravaging beast, cursed, damned, lacking a soul. She didn't need to hope Sebastian would help her find Gunter and put an end to him… an end to her curse.

There was a way.
I can go home. I can take back my life
. She must have whispered the words aloud.

Lily smiled. “Well, maybe. But you could help us first before you do.”

“How can I help you?” And did she want to? She was over the whole putting herself in jeopardy thing. Maybe that made her selfish, but she didn't care. She had tried to help Amy and Emily, and look where it got her. Sex for the first time with someone who wasn't even human. A scratch that turned her into a lycan. Oh, and gutted from stomach to chest. She was tired. Tired of hurting. Tired of feeling the wretched, black emotions of the monsters around her. She was through, finished. She wanted to go home and lick her wounds.

So she would be this… creature. She could handle it. She was used to being different. A freak.

“We don't mean you any harm,” the dovenatu murmured.

She focused on him, but she could not pick up any ill feelings, none of the darkness, no beast prowling beneath the surface. Most of his emotions centered on his wife… and all those sentiments were tender. Warm.

“We promise to help you. Get you safely wherever you want to go after you do us this favor.”
Favor
. She made it sound minor. Small. “Come on.” Lily stepped aside, motioning her through the door. “You must be famished. We have brunch laid out. We can eat while we talk.

Her stomach rumbled. “I would like that.” She took a deep breath, feeling safe for the first time in days. Safe. And free. Free of that damned cell and those lycans. She could help them. A small thing to do for their help. After she helped them with whatever they needed, she'd be on a plane home.

Minutes later, sitting outside at a wrought-iron table overlooking a heavenly rose garden, taking her first bite of jam-slathered toast and imagining herself back home, she learned what they wanted from her.

“We want you to lead us to the lycans who infected you.”

The toast turned to dust on her tongue.

*   *   *

Ivo lounged in the great bed that had once belonged to the alpha of the pack he had just deposed. He listened as Jonah gave an accounting of the day's events. A total of eleven lycans dead: eight of Gunter's pack, three of Ivo's force. Not bad. Not that he cared about the loss of his three, anyway. Lycans were expendable, mere soldiers to him. To be used for his purpose. And his purpose was simple. Amass an army great enough to take on the world, to wipe out EFLA, NODEAL and all humans who dared resist.

“Twenty-one recruited, including Gunter. I don't expect any resistance. I've sent Gunter to the smaller lycan nests outside the city to apprise them that he's been routed and you've taken charge. He should be back in the morning with the necessary tribute from each pack. Not bad work for an afternoon,” Jonah reported, his blue gaze flat, his voice its usual clipped monotone.

Ivo studied him, roving small circles with his fingers on his mate's tender flesh. He wished he could read him better. After thirty years, he thought he would have figured the young hybrid out. He'd found him starving in a London slum and instantly known what he was. Taking him under his wing, he trained the dovenatu to be his second-in-command, pleased
he'd found another dovenatu to one day breed with his daughters and help toward his goal of creating a master race.

Jonah stared at him, cocking an eyebrow. “Aren't you pleased?”

“Very much,” he murmured. “The pack reputed to be the toughest in Istanbul has fallen into my lap with relative ease.” There had been far harder conquests. Barcelona had nearly defeated him. He'd wiped that entire pack out for refusing to bend to his authority.

His hand drifted to Danae's belly, the slight bulge there deeply satisfying. Their fifth child. He hoped for another son. Three daughters were well and good, but with Jonah the only male dovenatu around with whom he might breed them, they weren't entirely useful. Too bad his cousin Luc had disappeared years ago, stricken with an overly active conscience. Ivo would have forgotten about the close familiar relation and bred his daughters with his first cousin so that he might create the dynasty of which he dreamed. For now, Jonah would have to be enough.

“You mentioned two escaped?”

“They were prisoners.” Jonah shrugged one broad shoulder. He was strong, well-trained from years of fighting and subduing lycans. “I questioned Gunter and learned something you may find interesting, though.”

“And that is?”

“One of them was a dovenatu.”

Ivo sat up in bed, the silk sheet sliding to his hips. “One of them? The male or female?” His blood burned at the thought of a female dovenatu, one whom he might use to further strengthen and multiple his progeny on the earth. He loved Danae. But love had nothing to do with fidelity. If other female dovenatus existed, he would gladly use them for his purposes.

“The male. The female was a lycan, newly turned.”

“Oh.” He sat back, only slightly disappointed. A male could serve him just as well, he supposed. As Jonah served him. “Find him. Bring him back at once. Alive. He's no use to me dead. Take a few dogs with you to be of assistance. And don't cause him too much harm bringing him to heel either. Explain our purpose. You might find him obliging.” A male dovenatu. He nodded, a smile curving his lips. He would be quite useful. Now he would own two studs for his daughters.

“Of course.” Jonah turned.

“And Jonah.”

His second-in-command stopped and faced him again, those eyes cool and unreadable as ever. “Yes?”

“When you return, we'll discuss you taking Sorcha.”

A faint flicker of emotion passed over his face, and
even then Ivo could not tell exactly what Jonah felt at his declaration.

He continued, “No more talk of her youth. Fifteen is more than ready.” At Jonah's stoic expression, he added. “Otherwise, I'm sure this other dovenatu will make a fine stud and have her breeding within the year.”

Jonah nodded curtly. “Very well.”

Ivo slid his hand back along his wife's thigh. “Now leave us.”

The door shut, the sound resounding in the cavernous room. Facing his mate, he shook his head. “I just don't know about that boy.”

“Such a prig. Reminds me of your cousin Luc at times. He has that scared look about him.”

Ivo shrugged, not too bothered about that. “He's my second-in-command. Wouldn't want him
too
brave and bold. He might think to oppose me.”

He smiled then, thinking of his cousin, likely cowering and living the life of a hermit monk somewhere… too frightened of himself—of Ivo—of the dark powers that simmered inside them. Luc had not even tried to oppose him. Not even when he claimed Danae. He just ran. “You once liked Luc. You even preferred him to me for a time.”

“Never,” she purred, wrapping a satiny thigh around his waist. “You're the one I was always after.
The big fish. Luc was weak, not even close to the man you are.”

“Not a man, my dear.
A god
.”

Danae stripped her nightgown over her head then and straddled him. His eyes feasted on her as she came down on him. He caressed the large breasts swaying above the belly that carried his seed, one of many offspring that he would breed to serve at his side as he reigned supreme over the world.

Dovenatus. The perfect race. All the strength and prowess of lycans. The ability to shift at will, to
think
. They killed when they willed it. The moon did not rule them. Nothing did.

Soon his sixth child would be born. Soon his daughters would breed. And once EFLA was at his mercy, he would find the location of every Marshan female, drag the information from the EFLA archivists through whatever means necessary and release his lycan soldiers on them. He would have his population of dovenatus. A new world was on the rise.

When he met this other dovenatu, he intended to teach him that particular lesson first thing.

Sorcha whirled around at her younger sisters who crept up behind her with all the stealth of a herd of horses. “Go back to your rooms!”

“You're supposed to be in bed.” Rochel, only eighteen months her junior but already bigger in the chest, taunted. “What are you doing? Following Jonah around like a little puppy again? Must sting to know he doesn't want you… no matter how many times Father offers you to him. Face it. You're too ugly. Too fat—”

“Shut up, brat,” Sorcha hissed, knotting a fist at her side and taking a threatening step in Rochel's direction.

The girl flung her dark hair over one shoulder. “He's probably waiting for me.” She puffed out her melon-sized breasts against her nightgown. “He's probably trying to think of a way to not hurt your feelings by taking me to mate. I've seen the way he looks at me.” She shivered with delight. “It's like he's picturing me naked!”

“Shut up,” she hissed again, wondering how wrong it was to hate your own sister. Or, for that matter, your own father. She grimaced at the thought of him. She had just overheard what he said to Jonah and her fury couldn't burn hotter.

If Jonah didn't want her, Father would give her to some stranger? Her stomach knotted and she feared she would lose her dinner. She couldn't let him do that. Couldn't let him use her as some sort of broodmare in his mad game to dominate the world.
If Jonah didn't want her, she would run away. Some place far, where her father could never find her. She was smart, always with her nose in a book. She spoke five languages—one of the benefits of always moving, never settling anywhere, never having roots, a home. Jonah was the only boy—
man
—to ever spike her interest. He did things to her heart no other man could do.

If he didn't want her, she would have no one.

“Sorcha.”

She whirled around at the voice. A voice she knew instantly.

“What are you doing out here?” He looked over her shoulder at her two simpering sisters. Both of them, age ten and fourteen, batted their lashes. It was as though they had been born with active libidos. And she supposed that was the nature of what they were: dovenatus raised at the foot of a man who taught them that their greatest worth would be that of breeding heirs to their race.

“Get to bed,” he ordered, his voice biting, leaving no room for argument.

Her sisters scurried off at his command. Sorcha faced Jonah. He stared at her for a moment, and she felt her face heat as she recalled the conversation she had overheard.

“Are your rooms satisfactory?”

“It doesn't matter. In a month, we'll be somewhere else, another city, another nest of lycans for my father to add to his collection. The madness will never stop.”

His gaze fixed on her, ever unreadable. “You shouldn't speak that way—”

“Why?”

“Your father wouldn't like it and I would hate to see you punished.”

A lump filled her throat. Only he gave a damn. Only ever him.

“You care so much about what he thinks?” She cocked her head to the side. “Then why don't you do what he asks of you?” She couldn't have been more direct.

The light at the center of his blue eyes ignited and she knew he understood her meaning. He inhaled deeply. “Sorcha…”

It was the tired way he said her name that did it, convinced her he would never love her. No matter that her father commanded they mate, no matter that they were two of a rare species, ideally suited for each other. No matter how much she cared for him. She was nothing more than the doting puppy her sisters accused her of being. Rochel was probably right. She repulsed him. He thought her too ugly. Too fat.

She held up a hand, stopping him from saying any
more, stopping him from delivering her more humiliation. “I understand. Say no more.”

With pity in his gaze, he watched her. Unable to stand it, Sorcha turned, walking quickly, just shy of a run. There was nothing left to keep her here anymore. Hope for a future with Jonah fell dead in her chest.

He would continue to serve her father, and maybe someday he would take one of her sisters to mate. She would never know. Because she wouldn't be here.