Daughter of the Tides, Servants of the Moon Book 2

Unnaturally slit eyes watched Zane and Nyall leave. Alpha Lazarus of the Lost Mine Pack stepped up to the window, pulling the blinds between her and the sunrise.

“Would you stop trying to hurt yourself?” He growled.

“I’m a sun-walker.”

“But sunrise still hurts your flesh, makes it harden, and then you need more blood. My wolf gets angry with me if you are in pain.” He steered her to a chair and pushed her to sit. “Have you found another thrall to feed you, I am tired of asking the pack.”

“They are so afraid of me,” Anjael sounded grieved.

“Isn’t that what your kind wants? For all the others to be afraid of you. To believe you are demons.” Lazarus spat at her hatefully. “My own pack lives in terror because I owe you for saving us. They think someday you’re going to eat them and their pups.”

“You know we would never… Abel, please tell them… “

Interrupting, he snapped at her, “Abel is dead. You brought me back from the dead, my name is Lazarus now. Don’t mistake my wolf’s misguided loyalty and affection for mine.” His wolf snarled at him and he choked trying to swallow the sound. He grated out through gritted teeth, “The Servants are going to report back to the Temples that you and Ouroborus are here. That you, and not I, control this pack. They will know I am not a real Alpha.” His resentment seethed below the surface. He had done what he had to do to protect his pack, traded himself for their lives and freedom. He couldn’t change the past and he couldn’t change his future.

“You are a real Alpha; your beast knows it even if you ignore it because of your damned pride.” Her sideways slit eyes glared at him.

He snorted derisively, “I’m just your cow and concubine.”

“Stop it, Abel.” She hissed.

He slammed his hand on his desk and spat his response through gritted teeth. “My name is Lazarus!” He stomped over to the door. “If you don’t need a refill, I am going to make sure your private jet is ready to move the Lake Mead Coven to Patmos and the crew clearing the club is finished.”

Anjael rubbed her forehead. She needed to do something to prove to Lazarus that he was still the Alpha. His bruised ego was making her miserable.

“You had a long night, my angel.” An athletic human said from behind her. He knelt in front of her. “The vampire boy is okay. I fed him and now I need to feed you.”

“I’m fine, Jake.” She sighed. “I never realized that my uncle’s stories to scare others into leaving us alone would become my reality. That I would have to be a monster…”

Jake hugged her, his Australian accent teased, “You’re not a monster. You’re a Mum-ster.”

He grinned cheekily at the dry look she gave him, then cleared his throat and continued. “Anu, you saved me from my abusive stepfather, and loved me more than my own junkie mother; they were monsters. You healed me, raised me, and even made sure I had the best education. How many thirty year-olds hold four doctorate degrees and no student debt? When the whistle came, you traveled half way around the world. You saved this pack when no one else could be bothered. Not even the packs less than one hundred kilometers away, came to help them.”

“Then why does Abel still hate me?”

Revealing, Jake shook his head. “From my study of the werewolf culture, Alphas are the leaders and protectors of a pack. If bad things happen to a pack, it is the personal responsibility of the alpha to make it right or die trying. La-zar-us…” Jake emphasized the Alpha’s name change. “Watched his father, then mother and mate murdered and was silvered after being wounded. Then he was forced to kill his own packmates to survive. It goes against everything he was raised to be. It isn’t you he hates, it’s himself.”

“No, I pretty sure he hates me too,” she stated. “And I know a lot about werewolves. One doesn’t live almost a thousand years without learning a few things about other cultures.”

Giving her a mock frown, Jake pursed his lips. “You know you could have helped me write that thesis for Uncle Ouro.”

“If I had done it for you, you wouldn’t have learned nothing,” she teased.

“Yeah, mum… whatever,” Jake said as he chuckled. “So, do you need a refill? You haven’t had a transfusion in a while. And your demoness hasn’t spent time with his beast more than once in the last month.”

“I don’t think he would appreciate having to sate her needs. He resents us enough,” Anjael complained.

“So, tell me about this Delphi of the Moon that is saving the vampires? None of the wolves here have mentioned her,” Jake pried. “When I asked, they only said there is a temple at Crater Lake, Oregon.”

“The Delphi… Jake, sweetie, you’re a genius. I need to talk to the Delphi,” Anjael praised him before she rushed out.

Helios woke in a dumpster with Charlemagne on top of him. Both were naked. Still asleep, Charlemagne was aroused and humping his hip.

“Get off me, brother!” snarled Helios, shoving him hard.

Charlemagne rolled onto a swollen trash bag that burst open. Rotted, fermented fruit and bar trash exploded all over them. Charlemagne gagged as he scrambled out, falling onto the ground. Helios climbed out with more dignity and gracefulness. His eyes flashed with unnatural fire as he stomped toward the back entrance of the club. Ripping the door off its hinges, he stormed in then stopped in shock as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. The club was completely empty; everything was gone. All the tables and chairs, the bars and furniture, even the stages and lighting had been removed, and only a bare warehouse space remained.

“How in the name of fire?” In Nahuatl, Helios muttered as he turned in the empty space.

“It’s like the club was never here,” Charlemagne gasped loudly from just inside the door. “Do you think that thing with the witch did this?”

Helios turned toward him quickly. “What thing? What witch?”

Charlemagne rubbed his bruised neck. “There was a monster, like a demon or gargoyle from Skyrim and a female that looked like one of your mother’s witches, all pale and beautiful. She was mad that we were trashing the club, and the thing knocked you and whoever you were fighting out with one punch, then choked me and that dark-skinned servant.” Charlemagne shrugged. “I bit and clawed it and couldn’t even break the skin.”

“What happened to the Servant?” Helios demanded. He smelled his mate and knew she had to be there with one of the lovers she had taken among the Servants. It was part of the reason his wolf wanted to kill every Servant of the Moon. It was certain its mate was screwing all of them to spite him.

“He just hung there with his arms crossed,” Charlemagne revealed as they walked toward the front to see if their car was still in the parking lot.

“Crossed how?” Helios demanded, his memory was nagging him about something, a memory from very long ago.

Charlemagne held up his arms, his outward facing wrist created an X over his heart. “Kind of like this.”

Helios’ jaw ticked as an ancient memory tugged at him. He needed to talk to his mother.

After Essie rented a car, she drove straight through to the Eye of the Goddess. Zane texted her the report to give her grandfather and said to say nothing to anyone about their suspicions that Helios Des Rues was the Sunwolf until they had concrete proof. But Essie had no doubt. She also had no doubt that if she told Eliazar or Delilah that they would lock her up at the Moon’s Gate or send her to live, aka imprison her, in the hidden city of the Augur Vampyr. Her Wanderer days would end the moment the true identity of her mate was revealed. Zane would protect her, in all her visions of horror she had never seen his death. Her lips made a thin line. All she knew was that there was a point when Zane wasn’t with her anymore and Ketsu was. But she had vowed Ketsu could not be with her ever. Helios would kill him. Essie rolled over in bed, thinking about her return and how Ketsu was waiting with a boat to take only her across to the Temple.

The wind blew her faux-coppery hair across her face. Ketsu reached up and tucked it behind her ear. “Don’t worry, Essie. You’re safe now. We will protect you.”

She looked up at him. “What do you…”

He kissed her, cutting off her question. The vibration of their potential for a bond melted away the fear and anxiety she had carried since fleeing Vegas last night.

When he lifted his lips from hers, he breathed out soft words, “You never have to choose and you never have to worry about being alone. Both of us will always love you, always protect you.”

Then he drove the boat across the water.

Her grandfather was shocked at the revelation that one of the mythological Stone Skins survived into the modern age, let alone two of them. The knowledge that the pair had a pack beholding to them was disturbing as was the information that rogues took over the Lone Mine Pack for weeks before the rarest of the non-human species rescued it. The Ky’awe Yachunne Pack and the Crested Mesa Pack were just gone. Another hundred or more wolves taken from their homes and the only clues where a spot left behind by a fearful pup, and an appointment planner with a missing page.

After the meeting, Ketsu escorted her back to her room and brought her a meal. While she ate, he looked at her the way he always did, and she found herself needing his gentleness to buffer her against the horror of her discovery. Her true mate was the son of the wolf who killed her mother and pack.

Now, she laid in bed and stared at the ceiling of her room, thinking how selfish she was as Ketsu snored softly beside her because she also wanted Zane to hold her at that moment too. She shuddered, remembering how Helios threatened Ketsu through his proxy when they meant to murder Del and poisoned her instead. Essie couldn’t help thinking that if her mate knew about Zane, he would die too. A tear leaked from her eyes and Ketsu’s arm tightened around her waist.

“I can smell the salt of your tears.”

She turned to face him. The only light was the crescent moon coming in the window. His features looked stronger, more defined in the dim glow.

“I want you to leave the Servants. He knows who you are, he knows what you are to me. Please, Ketsu.”

His fingertips traced her cheek as his thumb pulled her lip from between her teeth. “He will never get the chance to kill me. Helios Des Rues is a hunted wolf now. Zane and I are going to kill him. Until then one of us will always be with you, protecting you.”

“I don’t want you to die,” she whispered breathlessly, “I don’t want the Sunwolf to burn your heart.”

“And what about Zane?” His heart hated that he asked, but he knew he and Zane had the same feelings and the same goal when it came to Essie, and Ketsu, like Zane, also wanted her for himself.

“I haven’t seen his death, only that he leaves, maybe he finds a mate. Maybe… maybe I talk some sense into him.” Her sapphire eyes held his darkest brown ones. “Sense I can’t talk into you.”

Chuckling, Ketsu kissed her forehead. “You always said I wasn’t the brightest moon in the sky.”

“She’s not wrong,” Zane smirked from the bedroom door.

Essie rose and rushed to hug him. Zane did the same thing Ketsu always did, he inhaled her scent of frost on the leaves of autumn. “And you won’t talk me into leaving.”

Essie pushed away from him; her scowl visible as she pulled on her robe. The rage in her eyes glowed when she lit her cigarette. “You’re both fools! You’re fools and you’re going to die.”

“I’m not going to die,” Zane said smugly. “You didn’t see it, so it won’t happen.”

“That’s not funny, Zane!” Essie snapped. “I’m not an oracle anymore. Just because I haven’t seen it, doesn’t mean it won’t happen. Please Ketsu… Zane… Please, don’t be stubborn. I know my fate. I don’t want you… either of you, to be tied to it.” She blew a ring of smoke. It hung in the moonlight like a ghostly halo. “Del isn’t the only one chained to her destiny by smoke and moonlight.”

“Essie, we won’t let him take you.” Ketsu put his hands on her shoulders from behind.

“We won’t let him do the things to you that you’ve seen,” Zane added, taking her free hand.

“You can’t stop him.” Essie declared. “I’ve seen him here. In this temple, by the Hidden Eye Pool. He will come here, and he will kill everyone he finds except me.”

“He won’t get the chance. We know who he is now,” Ketsu said over her shoulder. “I have the skills, and Zane has an alpha wolf. With Kaiyou and Nyall training the protectors together, Zane or I will be able to beat him.”

“If he comes here, we will be ready for him. None of his voodoo will save him,” Zane assured her. “But he isn’t going to get the chance to come here. When Ketsu says I am ready, I will hunt him down and end him.”

“You will be safe. You are safe,” Ketsu added.

Essie pulled them both against her, sandwiching herself between them. She didn’t know how to choose between these two males who truly loved her. She felt the pull of the Tides, and the whisper of a warning before she bowed her head and wept into Zane’s shoulder. Neither of the wolves who loved her would survive this war, it was only a matter of time.

Nyall was grateful to lay in his own bed after a month in the desert, but something nagged him the entire twelve-hour-drive back to the Eye of the Goddess. His wolf was both terrified and curious about Lady Anjael, but it was more upset about how easy it had been for him to be intimate with Heather. It was strangely silent while it was happening. Physically, it had been extremely satisfying and suddenly he understood Essie more. The difference was she hated her mate and he had loved his more than his life. Finally, he gave up on sleep and went for a run in the cool night air.

Running the perimeter of the island, he wondered about all Heather had revealed about what happened to the wolves of her pack. On his third circuit around the tiny island, he decided he also wouldn’t mind seeing Heather again. She had shown him many things he and Moire had not had the chance to do. He puzzled as to why such a beautiful she-wolf allowed herself to be harmed for money. He would never allow a she-wolf in his pack to self-harm in that manner or any manner, and he wondered why they let her do it.

Alpha Abel, who went by Lazarus now, had fought alongside his father, watched his mother and mate die in the most vile of ways, then Laz was forced to fight his own pack mates to survive. He and Nyall bonded over sharing the horror of losing their pack while Nyall trained him and his wolf. Laz thought Nyall’s story was the worst, but Nyall decided he had it much easier than Laz. Nyall did not think he would have been able to bear watching or even knowing the fate that had befallen Barley and Luna Eden, if it happened to Moire, Luna Meredith, or any one he loved. And yet, Laz described feeling what was happening for weeks and being helpless to stop it.

Alpha Laz trained hard to learn many skills of the Shogunate wolves from Zane, and of the Wemyss wolves from Nyall. The stoic young wolf was only a handful of years older than Nyall was now when it happened, and he was determined it would never happen again. They parted on good terms and Nyall hoped he could go back and finish Alpha Lazarus and Beta Eldridge’s training someday. He also wouldn’t mind Heather’s company but as much as the sex appealed, there was something more about Lost Mine that drew him, like kindred spirits.

Laz never mentioned Lady Anjael or the Bibre Cruor. The night the Servants were at the club was the first Nyall had seen or heard of such creatures. He had always believed demons were myths; that the males and females of many species did enough evil that something bigger or scarier was just a story to scare children, like Grendel and his brothers. Now, he wondered how many more creatures existed that weren’t myth.

He wanted to know more about the Cruor and more specifically, if Laz knew how to kill one, because Heather and Ridge seemed to think it was impossible. Nyall realized on the drive back, after meeting Lady Anjael at the club, that part of the scent of that pack, the scent Laz’s wolf and beast often carried was actually the scent of Anjael. The scent of stone dust and rockmoss flowers. He wondered what else the Alpha of Lost Mine did with the beautiful and terrifying Lady Anjael, and why he let his wolf choose a Bibre Cruor.