Blood Moon (4 page)

The only other doctor in
Spero Heights was Christian Delph, but he specialized in
psychology. His
condition
made it difficult to work with patients beyond a
mental capacity.

Dr. Delph was also a member of the city
council, and he had been the one to approach Zelda when she first
arrived. He’d seemed reluctant to welcome her to their quaint town,
but when Zelda shook his hand, something in him eased. Their
conversation soon divulged her medical background—something she had
planned on leaving to rot in her past.

Zelda agreed to be on retainer for Orpheus
House, and Dr. Delph agreed to vouch for her on the council and
expedite her lease and renovation permits for the abandoned
theater.

Things worked differently in Spero Heights.
People didn’t just move into town without the council’s approval.
Not that they were lining up in droves to do so. For one, the tiny
community was tucked away in the Ozark Mountains, up several
treacherous roads that were all but impassable in the winter
months. A wet spring even made for questionable travel.

Besides the access issue, Spero Heights was
a good distance from most of the amenities that drew people to the
Ozarks. The town featured just enough businesses to keep the
residents employed and sated. The Cheese Festival, the only time
outsiders were seen or welcome, happened the first weekend in June,
and it brought in enough extra revenue to keep the town alive and
well.

It was a monumental change from the big city
living Zelda was used to, but it was exactly what she needed. The
theater had seemed like a good investment, an easy way to make a
new life for herself. Though it didn’t take long for her to realize
that Spero Heights couldn’t support a movie theater. Most of the
residents here required something a little stronger. For that, she
dusted off her old cocktail books from her college bartending
days.

A year later, here she
was. Setting up the strange inhabitants of Spero Heights with booze
and bandaids.
It’s not so bad,
she thought, watching Logan’s lips wrap around
the rim of his glass. He caught her watching, but quickly looked
away.

Zelda frowned and glanced down at her
clipboard with the list of liquors the bar was short on. It was
early May, a month from the Cheese Festival, so she made a note to
triple her next order for the tourists. She was just about to head
back to the kitchen when the bell at the front door jingled.

A beefy man in a leather vest stepped
inside. He smelled like wet dog and diesel. The door slammed behind
him as he took in the pub with a slow sweep of his head. His
nostrils flared, and a light sneer lifted the corners of his
mouth.

As he approached the bar, Violet’s shoulders
squared and her hand quickly darted out to squeeze Zelda’s.

Zelda stepped forward, putting herself
between Violet and the newcomer. “What can I get you?” she asked,
giving the man a strained, polite smile.

“
I’m looking for a girl,”
he said, lifting a hand up to the middle of his chest. “She’s about
yay tall, brown hair, knocked up. Can’t miss her.”

Zelda made eye contact with him, willing her
body language to shut the hell up. “We don’t get many pregnant
women in here—being a bar and all.”

The man sniffed and glanced over Zelda’s
shoulder, where Violet cowered. “Never thought I’d see you playin’
whipped pup to some human, Vi. You’ve gone soft, ain’t ya?”

A growl hummed in Violet’s throat. Her
bloodshot eyes lifted to meet his, but she stayed where she stood,
her fists clenched tightly at her sides. Grant had gone still too,
frozen on his barstool.

Zelda turned back to the man, fighting to
maintain her calm. “No one here is whipped, merely employed. It’s
not that kind of bar.”

The man’s taunting eyes shifted back to
Zelda, narrowing as they fell on her. He lifted a hand and
scratched dirty fingernails over the stubble along his jaw. “You
sure you ain’t seen a girl fittin’ my description? Could save us
all a lot of trouble if you have.”

“
Sorry.” Zelda picked up
her clipboard and made a show of looking over liquor bottles she
had already assessed. She could feel Logan watching from the edge
of the bar, his body heat so heavy that it almost suffocated
her.

The door jingled as the man left, and
everyone sighed out the breaths they’d been holding. Violet’s
shoulders trembled and she hunched over the sink, tilting her
forehead down to rest on the cool stainless steel.

“
That was Hyde, Devin
Raymore’s cousin and second-in-charge.”

Grant swallowed and grabbed the edge of the
counter with both hands. “Ain’t he the one that Devin ordered to
put you down?”

Violet dry heaved into the sink. “Yeah.”

“
Tell me you kicked his
ass,” Grant said.

Violet closed her eyes and breathed in
deeply through her nose as she stood up straight again. “Not
yet.”

Before Grant could press for more details,
Kerri came back from the kitchen. The tension was still thick
enough to taste, and the man’s pungent odor lingered in the
air.

“
It happened again.” Kerri
popped a fist on her hip. “I miss everything.”

Zelda rubbed a hand over Violet’s back.
“Trust me. You wanted to miss this one.”

A chorus of motors roared in the distance,
so violently that the glass bottles on the shelves clinked and
rattled as Zelda watched three trucks pull up outside.

A second later, a flaming beer bottle
smashed through the front window.

Chapter Seven

Zelda stood frozen behind the bar, watching
in horror as the fire spread across the dance floor. Even though it
had been two years since she’d used raw magic, her skin itched with
familiar desperation. She reached a shaky hand up to touch her
necklace, fingering the moss agate charm for focus and
self-control.

The electric hum of her body subsided, and
she was suddenly aware that Kerri was screaming. Grant ran to the
side door, where a fire extinguisher was mounted to the wall. He
grabbed it and rushed to the dance floor, spraying frothy foam in a
wide arc.

Violet pressed a hand over one ear and
glared at Kerri, who seemed to have bottomless lungs. “Would
someone shut her up?” she growled.

One look from Zelda, and Kerri bit her
tongue. Her wet, round eyes blinked several times, then diverted to
the floor.

Logan stood near the front window, squinting
through the haze the fire extinguisher and smoke had spewed into
the air. “They’re not done.” He turned and hurried back to the bar,
rounded the counter, and took Zelda by the arm. “We need to
barricade ourselves in the kitchen and call for help.”

Zelda dug her heels in and gripped the
counter. “And just let them burn the place down?”

“
With us in it?” Violet
added.

Logan bared his teeth. “There are at least a
dozen of them out there. What other options do you see?”

Another flaming beer bottle crashed to the
dance floor. The fire quickly died in the pool of foam, but this
time, two men followed it through the window.

Their boots crunched over the broken glass,
and their hands flexed at their sides, fur rippling over their
knuckles. Amber eyes flickered from their mostly human faces, with
only a touch of fur at their temples and throats. They ambled
forward clumsily, occasionally hunching over like cavemen.

It was a wholly unnatural state, even for a
werewolf, achieved with drugs that were highly addictive and
corrosive. Zelda had seen the aftermath enough times to know the
short-term enhancements were not worth their long-term cost.

“
Zee,” Logan hissed,
tugging at her arm again.

Four more mutated wolves climbed over the
short window ledge, and Zelda felt a stab of adrenaline in her
chest. She moved to follow Logan, but before they could reach the
kitchen doors, one of the men darted forward and snatched Kerri by
her ponytail. He twisted her around and pulled her back against his
chest, slamming his other hand over her open mouth to muffle her
scream.

Violet stepped out from behind the bar, as
if she was ready to launch herself on the man, but then she sucked
in a pained breath as Hyde stepped through the broken window.

The corner of his mouth curled up into a
greasy smirk as he leisurely made his way toward the bar. “Save the
dyke for me,” he purred.

Kerri’s captor pressed his face into the
side of her neck. She sobbed against his palm, her breath rasping
from her nose in a panicked rhythm.

Grant inched back toward Violet at the edge
of the counter. Fear tainted both of their expressions. The wounds
Zelda had tended suddenly had a face to go with them. Her wolves
knew these people, and they had suffered at their hands once
before.

Logan jerked Zelda’s arm again, silently
begging her to abandon them. But she couldn’t. The electric hum was
back, and her hand burned with longing.

She twisted her arm out of Logan’s grasp and
pointed a finger at the man holding Kerri hostage. A calm settled
in her core, a grounding point for the storm slowly building around
her.

“
Release her,” she
commanded.

The man opened his mouth, as if to laugh,
but the drugs had affected his throat as well. A mangled sound
escaped him, like a garbage disposal with a fork caught in it.

Hyde’s laughter was more genuine. “They
don’t take orders from no one but me, lady. If you’d just answered
my question honestly, we could have avoided this. I wouldn’t be of
the mind to have Cliff here take a bite outta your help.” He nodded
at the mongrel sniffing Kerri’s throat.

Zelda felt the familiar surge of power lick
down her arm. It burned in her veins, and the hairs along her skin
stood at attention. This was going to hurt. A lot.

“
Release her,” she said
again, almost pleading. A sour taste filled her mouth as she felt
her most personal vow crumble.

Hyde shook his head with a sigh. He grabbed
the folds of his leather vest and gave them a cocky tug. “I already
told you. Ain’t no one giving orders ’round here but me. And I
already promised Cliff a snack.”

He nodded to Cliff, who grinned with a mouth
too full of teeth, before sinking them into the bend of Kerri’s
shoulder and neck. Her screams leaked through his meaty fingers as
she convulsed against his chest.

Zelda closed her eyes, begging forgiveness
from whomever was listening, and then let go. Blue lightning
crackled down the length of her arm and leapt from her pointed
finger. It penetrated the center of Cliff’s forehead and rocked him
back. His mouth ripped free of Kerri’s flesh, and she fell in a
heap to the floor.

Zelda’s blue lightning spread to encompass
Cliff’s head, lifting him a few feet off the ground, before hurling
him out the broken front window. Smoke drifted from her
outstretched finger as it slowly migrated to Hyde.

“
Move out!” he called to
the others, back-stepping across the dance floor and through the
window, his eyes never leaving Zelda. “This ain’t over,” he shouted
as he ducked behind the brick wall.

The mutant wolves scurried away, casting
confused glances and nervous whimpers over their shoulders as they
fled. One yelped as a shard of glass scraped him on his way through
the broken window.

Grant ran to Kerri. He dropped to the floor
and pulled her into his lap, while Violet grabbed a handful of
towels from the waitress station. She rushed to Kerri’s side and
pressed the towels to her neck in an attempt to stop the
bleeding.

Zelda couldn’t feel her hand, but the rest
of her was on fire. She slipped behind the bar and sank her arm
down into the ice cooler, all the way to her shoulder. Her legs
shook violently, and she had to lean against the counter for
support. She closed her eyes and took several deep, heaving
breaths. When she looked up, she found Logan staring wide-eyed at
her from across the bar.

“
Doc?” Violet pleaded.
Kerri’s blood coated her arms and tears tinted her eyes. “Can you
help her?”

Zelda pulled her hand out of the ice and
flexed it. Blisters had already begun to form along her forearm and
palm, but at least she could feel her fingers again. They hurt like
hell.

“
Get her on the
table.”

Chapter Eight

Logan’s throat refused to work. He tried to
swallow, but bile kept bubbling up to sting the roof of his mouth.
He wanted to scream.

His anger felt unruly and misguided,
stemming from too many places at once. The Raymore Clan, for
obvious reasons. Zelda, for her damn secrets and oversized heart.
And most of all, himself, for being a clueless shmuck who had been
more interested in courting his mark than evaluating her.

Selena’s going to kill
me
, he thought with a grimace.

Zelda stood at the bar sink, gently patting
a towel over her arm. Logan’s initial instinct to protect her had
shifted after the lightning incident. Now, he was afraid to touch
her. Even her merry tribe of rejects seemed to watch their boss
with wary eyes.

Violet and Grant picked Kerri up off the
floor and dragged her through the kitchen doors, leaving Logan and
Zelda in the pub alone.

Zelda blinked at him, her eyes filling with
guilt and sorrow. “I could really use your help,” she said, lifting
her damaged hand.

Logan tried again, but he still couldn’t
find his voice. He broke eye contact with her and pushed through
the kitchen doors, letting his actions speak for themselves. As
much as he detested the rejects, he couldn’t watch one of them die.
He’d deal with Zelda later.