Blood Moon (10 page)

When his hips pressed against hers, she
released his mouth and took a startled breath. Logan dipped his
head down to trail his lips over her jawline, neck, shoulder. He
pushed up the hem of her shirt and moved lower, kissing a circle
around her navel.

Zelda writhed at his touch, making small
noises in the back of her throat. She felt her skin begin to hum,
and the same sensation that marked the coming of her magic coursed
through her body.

Logan sensed it too, and he leaned back,
staring down at her apprehensively. Zelda could see the blue glow
of her eyes reflected in his.

“
It’s okay,” she
whispered. “My magic does so much more than Zeus’s.”

Chapter
Nineteen

Logan was beyond tired. He’d gotten two
hours of sleep—at most—the previous night, and he’d be getting even
less tonight with the weight of the full moon pulling at his wolf.
But he couldn’t bring himself to close his eyes, not lying next to
Zelda.

Her dewy skin sparkled like she’d been cast
in bronze, even in the coarse light that slipped in from the
hallway. He tried to picture what she might look like under the
full moon, or by candlelight, or in the filtered light that slipped
through the trees of the woods he hunted behind the farm. She
hadn’t given herself to him but an hour ago, and here he was,
already planning out their future trysts.

Zelda tossed in her sleep,
but she didn’t call out Theo’s name this time. She hadn’t
mistakenly called out his name while they’d made love either. But
she
had
called
out Logan’s name—and more than once.

Logan grinned and pulled her hand up to his
mouth for a quick kiss, then he pressed it to his chest. A soft
smile lifted at the corner of Zelda’s mouth, and he hoped she was
dreaming about him.

Even though the apartment lacked windows,
Logan could feel the sun sinking lower in the sky. The clock
hanging on Zelda’s bedroom wall seemed to tick louder with each
passing second, and a knot found its way into his gut.

Zelda would be safe at Orpheus House. He was
sure of it. He just didn’t know how long he’d be able to convince
her to stay there. Vampire Phil’s security systems were of the best
quality, but that wasn’t why vandals steered clear of the good
doctor’s fortress. He employed a poltergeist. Unfortunately, Logan
was pretty sure Phil didn’t have any extra poltergeists on
hand.

He was mulling over the idea of camping out
in the pub until the council figured out what to do about the
Raymore Clan, when his cell phone went off in his pants, abandoned
on the floor.

Logan threw the covers back and scrambled to
answer the call before it woke Zelda, but he wasn’t fast enough.
Zelda stirred just as Selena’s razor-sharp voice tore through the
speaker.

“
Marla is gone, but you’d
probably know that by now if you weren’t holed up with that barfly.
Don’t deny it. I saw your truck on the way to Delph’s.”

“
I’m a grown man, Selena.
I don’t need your permission to have a life,” he grumbled under his
breath and glanced over his shoulder to see Zelda sitting up in
bed.

“
What’s wrong?” she asked,
taking in his angry expression.

Selena snorted in his ear.
“The girl didn’t even try to be sneaky about it. She just walked
right out—didn’t say a word. Almost thought she was sleepwalking,
but when I tried to stop her, she fucking
bit
me.”

Zelda waited quietly, looking to Logan for
an answer, but he didn’t have the heart to tell her, at least not
while Selena was barking in his ear.

“
I’ll be at the farm in an
hour,” he said.

“
Sure you wouldn’t rather
run with your girlfriend’s mutts tonight?” Selena
huffed.

Logan grunted and hung up on her, turning
his attention back to Zelda. “You need to pack for Orpheus House.
I’ll be shifting soon, and it’s not safe for you to be here
alone.”

Zelda found her clothes and dressed slowly,
still watching him with a frown. “Why do I get the feeling you’re
not telling me something?”

Logan pulled on his jeans and picked up his
shirt, fingering the hem as he thought over the best way to break
the news to her. “We’re burning daylight. I’ll tell you once we get
to Orpheus House.”

Zelda packed a duffle bag with a single
change of clothes and her toothbrush. Logan wanted to tell her to
pack more, but he kept his mouth shut and tried to be grateful that
she was going to stay somewhere else for at least one night.

When they pulled up outside of Orpheus House
and Logan spotted Selena’s truck in the lot, he swore. Then on the
way up to the front doors, Selena came out to meet them and he
swore again.

Zelda clutched her duffle bag to her chest
as Selena towered over them, holding her arm up and pointing at a
bite mark on her wrist. It was daintier and more human looking than
Zelda’s bite, but it could have been a shark bite for the way she
was carrying on.

“
I hope that bitch had a
rabies shot. Don’t even
think
about dumping any more of your mutts on me. If I
had it my way, the council would have chased you and your band of
rejects out of here a long time ago—”

“
Marla did that?” Zelda
looked horrified. She turned to Logan with her mouth hanging open
in shock.

“
Yeah,” he said slowly. “I
was getting ready to tell you—”

Selena threw her hand down to her side. “Oh
god. You slept with her. I can smell it all over you. Both of you,”
she said, glaring from Zelda to Logan. “Stay away from the farm
tonight. I can’t guarantee that I won’t chew your tail off if I
catch you out in my woods.”

She stalked off toward her truck, leaving
Logan and Zelda gaping after her.

“
Ms. Fulmen?” Dr. Delph
waited at the front doors of Orpheus House.

Logan suddenly wished he hadn’t rushed Zelda
along. The sun was still above the tree line. They could have spent
another hour in bed. They could have avoided the run-in with
Selena.

He turned back to Zelda and pulled her in
for a tight hug. Selena’s reaction was the only one he had been
fretting over, and now that that was out of the way, he didn’t care
what anyone else thought.

Dr. Delph remained quiet through their
goodbye, until a chaste kiss escalated. Then he cleared his throat.
Zelda pulled away and blushed, as if she had forgotten they had an
audience.

“
I’ll see you in the
morning,” Logan said, standing watch until Zelda was safely inside
Orpheus House.

Then he walked back to his truck, trying to
figure out where his wolf was going to spend the night.

Chapter Twenty

Zelda followed Dr. Delph down a long
hallway. The walls were decorated in predictable health center
fashion, with framed photographs and certificates, a calendar of
events, and inspirational posters. It all felt incredibly normal,
but anyone who had spent any length of time in Spero Heights knew
better.

From somewhere deep inside the building, the
faintest echo of a scream drifted up through a grate in the floor,
sending a chill over Zelda.

Dr. Delph gave her an apologetic smile.
“Full moon,” he said, pushing open a door at the end of the
hallway.

Zelda entered the room, taking in the bed
and small dresser that seemed to glow in the golden evening light
slipping through a barred window.

Dr. Delph clicked on the bedside lamp before
walking around the bed and pulling the curtains closed. “Phil tells
me the pub doesn’t have many windows. His bid was quite reasonable,
considering.”

Zelda rubbed at the goosebumps along her
arms. “I really don’t expect you to pay for the security system.
Maybe I can work out a payment plan with Phil.”

“
Nonsense.” Dr. Delph
shook his head. “You’ve always helped when my patients needed more
critical attention. I’m just returning the favor.”

Zelda set her duffle bag on the bed and
pressed a hand to her chest before locking eyes with him. “Selena’s
opinion of me is no secret, but your thoughts aren’t as
transparent. Do you feel the same way she does? Should I be turning
away the wolves at my door?”

Dr. Delph sighed and ran a hand through his
gray hair. “Spero Heights was founded because of a desire to help
others. Selena wanted a safe place to raise her brother. Mayor
Pierce wanted to offer his kind a more normal existence.” He tilted
his head from side to side. “I’m somewhere in the middle, the
balance between their two extremes. I’m more selective about whom I
save, and I can afford to be,” he said, tapping his temple with a
grin.

Zelda nodded slowly. “Unfortunately, I don’t
have your advantage, or your resolve.”

Dr. Delph reached for her shoulder, then
pulled his hand back in retreat just shy of making contact. He gave
her a strained smile. “Times they are a changin’. Fate has a way of
working things out on its own.” He gave her a parting nod and
closed the door behind him as he left.

Zelda crossed the room and peeked through
the curtains. The sky had darkened just enough that the full moon
could be seen creeping up the horizon. She squinted, taking a
closer look. The hint of a shadow touched the moon’s eastern edge,
a prelude to an eclipse. She shivered.

“
Blood moon tonight,” an
ethereal voice whispered through the room.

Zelda jumped and spun around.

A blond girl in a plain white night gown sat
on the edge of the bed, kicking her feet back and forth. Her
translucent skin shone a soft white as she watched Zelda with wide,
curious eyes.

“
I’m not supposed to be in
here,” she whispered. “Dr. Delph says this room is off limits. But
he can’t be everywhere at once.”

Zelda’s pulse pounded against her temples.
She had never met Dr. Delph’s poltergeist—or any poltergeist for
that matter—but she knew right away who the girl was. The only
thing she had learned from her coven about the rare specters was
that they were easily agitated and could become quite
destructive.

Her eyes darted to the phone on the bedside
table, but just as soon as the thought occurred to her, the phone
flew across the room, cords ripping from the wall as the box
shattered out its dying ring and fell to the floor.

The girl stopped kicking her feet. “I’m
sorry,” she said flatly. “Did you need to make a call?”

Zelda shook her head, holding back the
scream trapped in her throat.

The girl snorted and looked away. “Selena
doesn’t like you. Says you’re trouble. But Selena thinks everyone
is trouble.” She glanced at Zelda out of the corner of her eye, as
if she expected some sort of reaction. When she didn’t get one, she
continued. “She was real mad about your friend taking a bite out of
her. I thought she was going to hunt the girl down, but Dr. Delph
talked her out of it.”

“
How’d he do that?” Zelda
asked nervously.

The girl began kicking her feet again and
grinned. “He told her that fate would make things right.” She
looked at Zelda and scrunched up her face. “Doesn’t he just love to
dump everything in fate’s lap? Anyway, he also said that the
pregnant wolf wouldn’t survive the full moon. That seemed to calm
Selena down a lot.”

“
What?” Zelda gasped. “And
they’re just going to let her die?”

The girl shrugged. “We all die
eventually.”

Zelda stormed across the room and threw the
door open, taking off down the hallway for the front lobby. Another
distant scream sounded as she passed the grate in the floor. This
time it was joined by a wolfish whimper that quickly built in to a
howl and sent a spike of panic through her. When she reached the
front doors, she found them locked. She pulled at the handles, and
then yelped when the poltergeist materialized beside her.

“
Selena is going to be mad
if you save the pregnant wolf,” she said in a sing-song voice. “But
I don’t really like Selena anyway.”

The lock on the front doors popped open,
their sudden lack of resistance sending Zelda to the floor. A
flutter of anxiety escaped her. She glanced back to where the
poltergeist had been standing to thank her, but the girl was
gone.

As Zelda ran across the parking lot, the
street lights flickered on behind her. She didn’t know what she
could do to save Marla, but she sure as hell wouldn’t be spending
the night in a safe, warm bed while the girl was busy dying
somewhere. She headed for the Crimson Moon, hoping to find some
small thing the girl might have left behind that she could track
her with.

Town square was deathly quiet as the sun
melted into the horizon. The wolves would be on their way to the
woods by now, and it was still a bit too early for the vampires to
come out and play. Most of the day-walkers had already clocked out
for the evening and retreated to their homes, south of the
square.

Zelda walked through town alone, past empty
parking stalls and darkened storefronts. The quiet sidewalks grew
more ominous by the second. If the Raymores wanted to ambush her,
there was no better time than now, she realized.

Zelda’s heart leapt when she spotted Logan’s
truck in the pub’s parking lot, and her hands shook as she fumbled
with her keys. Before she could unlock the back door, Violet flung
it open.

“
Thank god you’re okay,”
she cried, throwing her arms around Zelda.

“
What’s wrong, Vi?” Zelda
pulled away and frowned at her.

Tears streaked down Violet’s face as she led
Zelda inside and through the swinging doors into the pub. The
bright, last-call lights glared down over them and the room,
illuminating a dark puddle in the middle of the charred dance
floor. It streaked across the sooty hardwood, leading toward the
side exit.