Category: Series: Moon Marked (Page 3 of 3)

Did you miss the beginning of the story? If so, please click here to start from chapter 1.

Or, rather, to face the two-legged wolf in human clothing. Gunner raised one eyebrow at the pointy blade just barely indenting the skin beneath his Adam’s apple. Then, ignoring my weapon, he held out a mug of chamomile tea, the sweetness of honey curling off the surface as the leader of the wolf pack I lived amidst greeted me aloud.

“Tough night?”

I shook my head, not so much in denial as in a refusal to rehash my dream landscape verbally. And in response, Gunner’s open face shuttered ever so slightly as if he was more disappointed by my evasion than at being greeted by the sharp tip of a sword.

But just as quickly, Gunner regained his customary smile, jiggling the mug between us so the ceramic clanked against my magically-created weapon. “We should do something fun before Kira’s custody hearing,” the ever-patient werewolf suggested. “Go for a run somewhere wild before we’re due in court. Or…shopping? Does Kira like shopping?”

“My sister loves nothing better than spending other people’s money,” I admitted, allowing my sword to diffuse back into a magical blob that slid along my skin to form a bracelet, a belt, a sheathed knife at my left ankle. In front of me, Gunner didn’t even twitch at this evidence of my kitsune nature. “But we shouldn’t spoil her,” I added. “And, anyway, I’ve got other plans.”

“Plans?”

This time I accepted the mug my companion brandished in my direction, pretending that I needed all of my attention to prevent a spill. Taking a sip, I noted that Gunner had steeped the tea just the way I liked it, not so long it turned bitter but not so short that it was simply sweetened water with a hint of aroma to turn hot liquid into soothing tea water.

The flavor was perfect…but my gut clenched anyway. Because it was time for our inevitable weekly ritual. No one managed to slip away from the pack without extensive explanation, but I couldn’t afford to let any of the werewolves I lived with know where I went on Tuesday afternoons. In lieu of the truth, I always ended up stuttering through an entirely unbelievable explanation, and the wolves around me always smiled grimly and allowed me to lie.

As usual, my body language broadcast my mistruth before I even opened my mouth to speak it. “Girl stuff,” I said stiffly, turning away from the piercing eyes of the far too astute werewolf who was providing food, housing, protection, and now the likelihood of ripping Kira out of the foster system permanently.

Gunner had done everything he could think of to enfold me into his pack…and yet I remained at heart a solitary kitsune.

“It might take a while,” I continued. “So I’ll meet you and Kira at the courthouse. If you don’t mind bringing her there for me….”

“Of course, I’ll take care of Kira,” Gunner agreed quietly. “She’s part of our pack.”

The unspoken addendum—that I lacked that distinction due to actions just like this one—separated us more effectively than my now-absent weapon.

But there was nothing I could do about the sad sag to my companion’s shoulders. Nothing except the impossible—turn myself into a wolf.

So, stepping backwards, I nodded once. “Thank you,” I murmured, eyes downcast in wordless apology, “for the tea.”

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Did you miss the beginning of the story? If so, please click here to start from chapter 1.

It was half past four in the morning, but I couldn’t close my eyes, let alone return to slumber. Not even after examining now-clean fingers and toes to reassure myself that the strange confrontation had only been a figment of my dreaming mind’s imagination.

Instead, I lay between soft sheets, listening to the silence of Gunner’s mansion. During the day, the halls filled with chatter and laughter. But in the wee hours of night, the place became positively peaceful with everyone sleeping.

Well, everyone except for me.

It wasn’t the first time I’d risen before dawn, unable to accept a wolf pack’s confining safety. So I pushed out of bed, pulled on clothes, and headed downstairs to the empty courtyard. There I drew upon my star ball and dueled against nobody, stretching muscles well toned from previously insomniacal bouts.

Fighting, at least, tired me enough so the questions and worries circling through my mind lowered their volume. Was I doing the right thing choosing momentary safety for Kira while going against every instinct toward self-preservation that our parents had taught? Slash, lunge. Would I come to regret accepting a so-called “job” that involved doing whatever I wanted while being paid more than I’d previously made as a teacher and cage-fighter combined? Riposte, retreat.

There were no more answers this morning than there had been last Tuesday or two weeks ago Wednesday or any other time I’d come out here to fight shadows rather than snuggle up in my bed like a good little wolf. Still, I couldn’t help smiling despite the sweat burning my eyeballs when the inevitable morning bickering rose with the sun, proving that my sister was now wide awake and much perkier than she’d been the day before.

“So you think it’s funny to let me fall into the toilet first thing in the morning?” Kira snarked from the east end of the first floor—the massive kitchen where everyone except me tended to congregate as soon as they got up.

“Come on, pipsqueak. Today’s the big day. Give me a break.”

Looked like my kid sister was back on task as self-appointed toilet monitor. And one of our house mates—Tank this time—had relieved himself in the night without remembering to re-lower that all-important white seat.

Kira grows more wolf-like and less fox-like every day, I noted, not sure how I felt about the matter. Foxes were reserved and elusive. But wolves, I’d found, expressed their affections best in the physical realm.

Sure enough, the crack of a snapping towel evoked a squeak from my sister even as another house mate, Crow this time, stated the obvious: “That’s our bathroom, puppy. You and Mai have your own on the third floor. So if you fell in, it’s your own da…ahem…darn fault.”

Logic, apparently, had no impact upon my sister. “I live in this entire house, not locked in the attic like a crazy auntie. For example, I spend a lot of time in the kitchen cooking. So if you want any of my bacon, you’ll start putting down the toilet seat everywhere.”

“Ooh, burn,” Allen murmured, far too quietly for the neighbors to hear him. My fox senses, on the other hand, caught the comment quite ably…along with a salty sweet scent that had me slowing my morning exercise into a cool down. Perhaps being part of a wolf pack wasn’t so terrible if it came with bacon at the exact moment my stomach started growling….

Except even as I started imagining breakfast, the hairs on the back of my neck prickled. My nostrils flared, my muscles tightened. There was something nearing, something watching….

Bacon abruptly forgotten, I whirled in reaction, raising my sword as I turned to face the stalking wolf.

Keep reading the next scene on my blog. Or dive straight into the full book on the retailer of your choice.

I realized I hadn’t posted here in nearly two months — oops! In my defense, I’ve had my head down following Mai through the winding path of book two in the Moon Marked series. And now Shadow Wolf is finally ready for your eyes. If you missed book one, I highly recommend you start with Wolf’s Bane instead. Otherwise…enjoy!

***

Dried blood coated my cuticles and I blinked, unable to make sense of the unexpected sight. Safely sheltered by werewolves, I’d gone on frequent fur-form expeditions in recent weeks. So maybe that explained the dark circles beneath my fingernails…but since when did I pounce upon unwary rabbits and rip open their throats while I was sleeping?

Seeking clues, I tipped my head upwards to take in the crescent moon then stamped bare feet against bent and splintered grass blades. The strands caught against my toes, clinging as if coated with glue…or with some other halfway-dried and considerably less savory substance.

Blood?

I leapt sideways, the harsh tang of copper following me away from the trampled circle of earth. From the amount of bodily fluids I’d brought along with me, I could only assume I’d waded through the same carcass that had sullied the grass and soil…or had been the one to spill those bodily fluids myself.

There has to be a rational explanation for all of this. Closing my gaping mouth and forcing air to flow more naturally through flaring nostrils, I peered out at the darkened landscape in which I found myself. I was perched atop a rounded knoll, encircled on four sides by tree silhouettes while the moon shone down through a gap in the canopy to illuminate the spot where I now stood…

…Where I stood beside a cloaked figure all too familiar despite the three months since I’d seen him or her last. The being had bought Mama’s star ball and absconded with it last spring despite all of my efforts to reclaim the magic….

So I was dreaming. I exhaled in relief, pinching my forearm. Unfortunately, the sharp burst of pain failed to wake me back up.

Well, if I had to repeat a three-month-old battle against the owner of my mother’s star ball, perhaps this time I’d win the fight. Change the rules, change the game….

To that end, I yanked at the source of my magic, the glow of a sword arcing through the air between me and my enemy. And in instant response, lightning bugs rose in a wave of green-hued reaction, their sheer numbers proving that this was not memory but rather dream. I’d never known so many of the bioluminescent fliers to exist in one location…had rarely even seen a smattering of their neon lights at the wooded edge of the city park where I sometimes went to be alone.

But I wasn’t located in my home city any longer. Instead, forest stretched out around me, lacking streetlights, porch lights, even the barest hint of asphalt and diesel fumes to pinpoint a nearby road.

Where was I? And why had I moved this frequently remembered battle from the abandoned theater in which it had actually occurred to an idyllic spot lifted from a fairy tale?

All of these thoughts flooded my neurons in the time it took for the lightning bugs to wink out and return the scene to near darkness. Meanwhile, as if my enemy had been waiting for the return of my attention, cloaked arms rose in a flicker of black on black. Then a shining orb levitated out of the being’s right sleeve.

Now I could see my opponent easily as he—she?—beckoned me forward with one curving finger. Come, the gesture demanded as Mama’s star ball winked at me from around the being’s gloved hand. I cocked my head in response to the magic’s odd behavior. Then the glowing star ball shifted, stretched…and turned into a whip that lashed out faster than a cobra to encircle my arms and chest.

The magic burned. Cut through my silk kimono and almost—but not quite—prevented me from noticing how dramatically this nightmare had gone off the rails of its usual script.

Since when was there a lasso involved in our battle? Since when did I wear kimonos? Since when did the anonymous being I fought against wield magic I had yet to understand?

“Who are you?” I demanded, not even trying to bring up my magical sword to sever the imprisoning connection that pulled me one step closer to my nemesis, then another. Because I could feel my mother’s essence within the glowing rope restraining me—who knew what would happen if I cut that soul-bound magic in half to free myself?

The words had been a parry, meant only to win me another moment in which to think. But, to my surprise, my opponent didn’t ignore them. Instead, lasso pressure on my stomach eased as a hooded head cocked to one side in mimicry of my own earlier gesture. I could almost smell the being’s confusion as he or she paused rather than continuing to reel me in.

Scent. Yes, of course I should use every weapon at my disposal if this really was a face-to-face meeting with my nemesis rather than a rehashed memory-turned-nightmare.

But the breeze was flowing from behind me, the air too dry to be redolent with identifying scents. And as the wind whipped unbound hair against my cheekbones, I flinched, realizing what I should have gathered from the start.

The body I inhabited wasn’t my own—how could I have missed that? Instead, I stood in the skin of my dead mother. More slender than my real body, a trifle shorter, and enfolded in the subtle haze of jasmine that always preceded my mother whenever she entered a room.

Then my lips opened and Mama’s voice spoke through me. “Master…” she started, chilling me to my core. So the cloaked being had figured out how to use Mama’s star ball since I’d last been in his or her presence. Had figured out how to use her magic…and her as well.

But before Mama could bow to the Master further, before I could beg forgiveness for letting her fall into such a trap, my earlier wish was granted. I slipped out of my mother’s body and woke in my own bed with a start.

Keep reading chapter two on my blog. Or dive straight into the full book on the retailer of your choice.

If you’re just tuning in, you’ll want to start at the beginning….

“You’re late.”

Ma Scrubbs glowered at me across a table littered with dollar bills and scraps of hastily scrawled wagers. To the uninitiated, the mess looked like, well, a mess. But my second-shift supervisor memorized each offering, constantly recalculated the odds, and ensured the finances fell forever in her favor.

Not so difficult when she had a fighter like me in her back pocket.

Which, tonight, she most definitely did not. “I’m not doing it, Ma,” I responded, slamming the door of my employer’s office to block out the crowd so I could transition from Disney princess into hardened warrior and feel like myself once again. Only after stuffing both arms into the leather jacket waiting for me on the back of the door then buttoning the armor up to my chin did my heart calm sufficiently for me to fall into the empty seat waiting on the other side of Ma’s desk.

“Cool it with the tantrums, girlie. And I’m not your mother. So don’t call me ‘Ma.’” As she spoke, the older woman’s brows scrunched together into a glower that I was far too familiar with. Because, no, Ma Scrubbs wasn’t my mother. But she’d let me play in her office dozens of times while my father fought, had offered me his vacated spot when I struggled to keep my tiny family afloat after being orphaned at age eighteen, and was the closest thing to a parental figure I had left.

So I obeyed her command and elaborated as best I could without mentioning supernatural elements that Ma Scrubbs may or may not have picked up on by now. “I can’t win against those two,” I explained. “It’s just not possible. Pick someone else for the first fight then I’ll go in for round two.”

Ma Scrubbs considered me from the far side of the desktop, her head barely visible above the cluttered surface. If I was small, she was wizened, face so wrinkled it was impossible to guess what the seventy-year-old might have looked like when she was young. After a moment of consideration, she shrugged, pulling a battered notebook out of one pocket. “Go home then,” she told me. “I’ll call the Raven sisters in to fight.”

“No!” The word burst from my lips before I could soften the rejection. “They’re children! They’ll be slaughtered!”

“Not against those two. Gunner and Ransom are boy scouts. First blood will be a nick on the cheek. Won’t even scar. And next week, ticket sales will skyrocket out of sight.”

So she was aware of the existence of werewolves. No human would refer to a four-legged shifter in the same breath as his two-legged companion unless she fully understood the former’s ability to change forms.

Still, I had no time to further analyze that fact because Ma Scrubbs wasn’t even looking at me any longer. Instead, she pulled out her cell phone and began thumbing through her address book, stopping only when the faces of Jessie and Charlie Raven popped into view. The twins were sweet young things who I’d mentored for a couple of summers. Despite my best efforts, though, the duo still thought fencing was a sport in which you didn’t hit below the belt or above the neck. They had no concept werewolves existed and they were barely older than my kid sister. If I didn’t allow Kira to sit in the Arena’s audience, I certainly wasn’t going to be responsible for Jessie and Charlie ending up within the Arena’s cage.

So even though I knew I was being played, I reached out and blocked the phone’s surface with my hand. “Okay, you win,” I answered. Took a deep breath, considered the angles. I couldn’t use my supernatural speed to its full advantage against a pair of werewolves, but there had to be a way to turn my opponents’ cockiness against them.

If there was, Ma Scrubbs surely would have thought of it. “And you clearly have a plan,” I continued. “So let’s hear it.”

“It’s simple,” my boss answered, her eyes twinkling with old-lady mirth. “You’ve been winning, winning, always winning. Nobody’s gonna bet against you. So tonight, you’ll reset the clock. Tonight…you’ll lose.”

I’m afraid that’s all the excerpt I have for you today. But you can keep reading by downloading the full book on the retailer of your choice. Enjoy!

If you’re just tuning in, you’ll want to start at the beginning….

I wouldn’t dream of heading into battle without my black leather jacket and knee-high boots, but there was more to this gig than fighting. So I showed up at the Arena an hour later in a baby-pink blouse, ruffled neckline drooping low enough to show off my nearly nonexistent boobs. I tied up my hair in two above-the-ear pigtails. And I splashed enough smoky blue and silver eye shadow on either side of my nose to accentuate the slant of my half-Japanese eyes.

The effect wasn’t me…but I’d do a lot to put food on the table for my sister. In this case, unfortunately, a lot wasn’t quite enough.

“…did you hear about the hooker they found dead down by the river last week…”

“…new bar with two-for-one appetizers…”

“…wouldn’t bet against Mai if you paid me to…”

The news of the day swirled around me in a cloud of horrors, excitement, and—unfortunately—overwhelming appreciation for my prowess. As if to prove the last point, a meaty hand came down on my shoulder as a random audience member congratulated me on my most recent win. “Nice job against those bozos,” he boomed.

The male in question was a head and shoulders taller than my five-feet-zero frame, and he likely could have lifted me off the ground with one arm tied behind his back. Still, his posture radiated respect for more than the length of my rapier…which should have filled me with much-deserved pride.

Unfortunately, my boss had been using the unlikely disconnect between my appearance and my skill level to her financial advantage for nearly a decade. It was a lucrative proposition—toss the tiny street girl out against a gang of heavy hitters, bet on the underdog, and watch the cash roll in. Since my ten percent of the take paid the rent, having members of the audience betting for me rather than against me could very well turn into a financial disaster for both Ma and myself.

Drat and blast! What did it take to be underestimated in this town?

Before I could decide which evasive action to take, though, I glanced toward the other side of the stadium where my opponents usually held court. Best to see what kind of warrior Ma Scrubbs had dug up before I decided between the damsel-in-distress routine and the fake-wound walk….

New fighters were always easy to pick out due to the contestants’ banners slung across their chests. And I was ready for any number of them. After all, I’d faced down five opponents just last month, forgetting myself and knocking the quintet down like dominoes with a few short swipes of my sword.

But during that ill-matched contest, I hadn’t been forced to hide my abilities. Had been facing humans only, without a single werewolf in sight.

Now, as I eyed one tall male and one erect-ruffed four-legger, I not only recognized the abilities of the shifters before me, I also knew immediately who they were. The man standing on two legs possessed uncannily familiar features for all that I’d never set eyes on his face before. And no wonder when he smelled identical to the wolf panting by his side, both boasting the same deep musk that lingered on my tongue despite every effort to wash their granite and ozone signature out of my brain.

No, these opponents weren’t strangers. Or at least the wolf wasn’t. Instead, this was the self-same shifter who had accosted my sister on the cemetery wall earlier in the afternoon.

Meanwhile, the two-legged shifter’s words were just barely audible with the help of my own supernaturally assisted hearing. “Of course this is a good idea,” the male murmured on the other side of the chattering crowd. His voice was gritty with rebellion, which struck me as strange since I could smell his dominance from fifty feet distant. “You know the evidence leads here.”

Evidence? Were these werewolves hunting something? Could they possibly be seeking me?

Whether that conclusion was grounded in reality or in pure paranoia, I’d risk too much by fighting fellow shifters unaware of my closely held secret. So I turned on my heel and stalked off in the opposite direction.

It was time to hold a serious conversation with my boss.

Click here to keep reading Wolf’s Bane….

If you’re just tuning in, you’ll want to start at the beginning….

For half a second, they wobbled there together atop tilting chunks of concrete. One girl who hid a secret punishable by death. And one predator who was willing and able to perform said execution.

Beneath them, I clenched my fist around the strobing ball of light shielded by the fabric of my pants pocket while at the same time assessing possible approaches. The trouble was, while I could jump directly onto the wall from my current location, doing so would be royally stupid within view of an alpha werewolf. But ascending in a human manner would mean running halfway down the block to the gateway Kira had so agilely leapt across…while leaving my sister unprotected in the interim.

So I stood for one endless second mimicking a stranded fish, mouth gaping and metaphorical fins flapping while I tried to decide which approach was least likely to get my sister killed. Meanwhile, beneath my clothes, the incorporeal light that held half my soul oozed out of my pocket, slid around my hip, and slowed at last in the empty scabbard strapped to my back. There the ice-cold tendrils of my star ball lengthened and solidified into my favorite weapon—a rapier-thin sword, just waiting to be drawn and wielded against the unwary.

The entire magical manipulation—plus associated brain freeze—had taken only a second, one blink of the eye during which my sister’s assailant didn’t appear to notice he had any audience other than one twelve-year-old child. His slender fingers had neither loosened nor tightened, and he spoke now in a voice so deep it was dangerous. “Someone’s hunting innocents in this city. You shouldn’t be out here alone.”

Half of my brain occupied itself assessing that assertion. Was this werewolf—the most hazardous being we could possibly run up against—honestly warning my kid sister to steer clear of other predators? Or was that a threat half hidden beneath the throaty timbre of his overtly protective words?

But most of my attention remained focused on planning out my subsequent actions. I couldn’t toss the sword to Kira and risk her being cut on an edged weapon, not when the twelve-year-old still used training blades in the school gymnasium where I taught. And was it even a good idea to provide a weapon in the first place when anything I threw upwards could just as easily end up in the lightning-quick hands of an overpowering alpha?

While other possibilities flicked through my brain with the force of strobe lights, Kira answered back as airily as if she and this werewolf were chance-met friends chatting during a stroll through the park. “Oh, I’m not alone,” she said blithely. “I’ve got Mai.”

“Your what?”

“No, not ‘my.’ Mai.”

Which is when I decided that running up the three-inch-wide staircase created by the cracking wall was almost easy enough to appear human. After all, the werewolf’s fingers remained poised inches away from my sister’s jugular. Didn’t Kira realize that a being so powerful inevitably thought anything he could hold onto was his to keep?

So, relinquishing all concern about appearing human, I took the first two steps up the side of the wall in one lunging leap. Then I froze as the male’s chin tilted down toward me.

His eyes were windows I was unprepared to gaze into. Piercing and assessing and, at the same time, as deep and full of mystery as the bottom of a well. He quirked arching eyebrows, the faintest hints of crows’ feet appearing at his temples…only to fade as he took in the rapier I’d unconsciously extended to prod against his jeans-clad calf.

“Ah, I see,” the male answered. “You are quite admirably protected. My mistake.”

Then, without so much as nudging the sharpened steel away from his flesh, the werewolf released my sister’s shoulders and offered me a perfunctory half-bow. He was as lithe as a swordsman, his body as perfectly proportioned as a statue hailing from ancient Greece.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mai.” And to my sister—“Mind your balance, child.” With that parting shot, the werewolf slid back out of my sight line, disappearing into the cemetery as quickly as he’d materialized in the first place.

And me? I was left with a hint of sweetness on my lips that reminded me of near-forgotten teenage kisses. Swiping one hand across my mouth to remove the tell-tale flavor, I jerked my chin at my sister. “We need to get you home.”

After all, my second job was calling. Cage fights wait for no woman.

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Ready to dive into a new adventure? I hope you enjoy the beginning of Wolf’s Bane...

The first time my mother spoke to me from beyond the grave, my little sister was defying gravity.

“The nail that sticks out gets hammered down,” the disembodied voice of my dead mother noted inside my head just as a very real Kira called out: “Look, Mai! I’m flying!”

Jolting at Mama’s unexpected intrusion, I swiveled to take in my sister’s long legs scampering atop the six-foot high-wall at the edge of the cemetery. I usually didn’t pay much attention to Kira’s affinity for gymnastics in high places. But it wasn’t every day a long-dead Japanese woman tapped on the inside of my skull and demanded that I take notice.

So—“Careful!” I called just as Kira’s right foot touched down on a section of wall where the weight of the hillside had pushed the cinder blocks out at an angle, ivy and dirt promising to send the unwary tumbling off her stride.

“I know what I’m doing!” my sister replied, tossing her head and rolling her eyes just like she’d done yesterday and the day before and the day before that while walking home from school. All the while human feet pranced through the debris with the agility of a fox, proving that she was right and I was wrong. My concern—and the warning from our dead mother—had been for nothing.

Or so it seemed until my sister raised her chin toward the surprisingly bright March sunshine, closed her eyes to better soak up the warmth…and ran smack dab into the largest male body I’d seen in my life.

A moment earlier, I could have sworn that the cemetery—or at least what I could see of it from the recessed sidewalk—was entirely devoid of life. But now my little sister’s shoulders were caught in the grip of hands that could oh-so-easily slide upward to settle around her unprotected neck. Veins stood out from the assailant’s rippling muscles. And I didn’t need to lift my nose to the breeze to understand what had taken place.

Kira had been waylaid by our worst possible enemy—an alpha male werewolf.

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