Harlequin Nocturne March 2016 Box Set Read online

  That made him want to run again, but there was no getting away from the past. He’d learned that long ago. No way to run away from himself. The best he could do was learn to control it, the way his parents had taught him. To keep the hunger at bay.

  And still he felt it constantly, always under the surface. Waiting to rise to something as simple as a steak or a beautiful woman or a thousand other things that tempted him to give in to his baser impulses. Not human, Monica had said, but she had no idea.

  No matter what happened to him, Jordan thought grimly, he was always a man. Nothing could take that away from him. He wouldn’t let it.

  For a moment, he leaned against the wall to feel the heat left from the earlier sunshine. It felt good, heat upon heat. It slowed things down. Made him languorous rather than agitated. He let himself press against it, then took a seat in the soft grass DiNero had spent a fortune to grow and maintain. If there was one benefit to his condition, it was that the night bugs left him alone.

  If he stayed here a little longer, maybe she’d be asleep by the time he got back. Her windows would be dark. He wouldn’t be tempted to go in and see her... Jordan’s eyes drifted closed.

  * * *

  “Maybe we’ll be okay,” his mother said to his father when she thought Jordan couldn’t hear. “His birthday was last week. He’s fourteen now. Surely if it was going to happen, we’d know about it by now.”

  Jordan had been sneaking into the kitchen for a late-night snack, his rumbling stomach making it impossible to sleep. Summer, school out, nothing but the possibilities of a whole three months of freedom ahead of him. He had plans with Trent and Delonn tomorrow, video games and a bike ride to the gas station, where they might try to talk to some girls. Maybe. At the sound of his parents’ hushed whispers from the back porch, though, he stopped. He hadn’t turned on the light, so they had no idea he was there.

  “It’s going to be all right, bébé,” his father said.

  Jordan froze. Dad never called Mom that unless they were arguing about something and he was trying to make up to her. Had his parents been fighting? The soft sound of sniffling made his stomach twist. Mom was crying?

  “I just want him to be all right, Marc. I’m so worried...”

  His father made a shushing sound. “I know. Me, too.”

  “We should have been more careful.” Now his mother sounded fierce, angry. “We knew the risks. We were stupid. Arrogant and reckless!”

  “Hush, bébé, don’t. You’re going to make yourself sick.”

  “I am sick,” his mother said. “Sick with worry. Jordan’s the one who will pay the price for us being careless... My sweet boy. Oh God, Marc, what will we do if he has it?”

  “We’ll love him anyway,” his father said. “What else could we do?”

  The sound of his mother’s sobs should’ve chased away any lingering hunger, but Jordan’s stomach only ached more. What were they talking about? If he had what?

  Last year, Penny Devereux had been diagnosed with leukemia. She’d had to miss almost the entire school year, and when she’d finally come back, she’d worn a scarf to cover her bald head. She’d been thin and pale, and she still laughed a lot, but she wasn’t quite the same.

  His parents had gone silent, but Jordan caught a whiff of smoke. That was bad. His mother only lit up when she was superstressed. She’d been trying to quit. Now she was smoking, right there with his dad, who hated it. Something was very wrong.

  It didn’t stop him from going to the fridge, though. It was as though a phantom hand pulled him, actually, an impulse he couldn’t fight. He was so hungry he thought he might faint from it, that and the anxiety from overhearing what he knew they didn’t want him to know.

  He’d come down hoping to snag a piece of leftover birthday cake or some of his mom’s homemade tapioca pudding, but what his hands pulled from the fridge’s bottom shelf was the plastic-wrapped platter of uncooked burgers his mom had put together for tomorrow’s dinner. Without thinking, Jordan tore the plastic off. Handfuls of soft ground beef went in his mouth. He barely chewed, shoving the food past his lips and licking his fingers. He couldn’t get enough.

  The lights came on. His mother cried out. Jordan turned, as guilty and embarrassed as if she’d walked in on him in the shower or doing what he’d just discovered he could do under the tent of his sheets late at night. No, this was somehow worse, because somehow he knew it was related to what his parents had been saying.

  Something was wrong with him.

  “Put that down!” his mother cried, but she wasn’t angry, as she ought to have been. Fear had widened her eyes. He could hear it in her voice.

  He could smell it on her.

  “Jordan, give me that.” Dad was calmer, pushing past Mom, who clung to the doorway and burst into tears.

  No. Mine. The thoughts rose unbidden, and though Jordan would never have dreamed of disobeying his father, he backed up still clutching the platter. His mouth hurt. He tasted blood, and not from the meat but from his own gums. He ran his tongue along his teeth and felt the burn and sting of a wound opening—he’d cut it on something sharp.

  His own teeth.

  Mine.

  The thought rose again, but this time, he tossed the platter to the floor. Raw meat splatted on the linoleum, and he backed up with his hands in front of him. There was more pain. He clenched his fists. More cuts, fingernails long, sharp. There was blood.

  He would carry the scars on his palms for the rest of his life.

  “You’re going to be okay, son. It’s all going to be all right,” his father said, but the look on his face told Jordan that nothing was going to be all right.

  Not ever again.

  * * *

  Jordan woke with a startled gasp, hands in front of him. He’d clenched his fists and winced automatically at the expected sting of his nails pressing his flesh, but the years of self-discipline had worked. He wasn’t going to run off into the night and start making mayhem.

  Still, he got to his feet with the memory of those long-ago burgers coating the inside of his mouth. He spat, then again, but he could still taste them. He still wanted them. He would always want them, the way he’d always want to run and punch and break and devour.

  With a low groan, he closed his eyes and breathed deep. He focused. Not full-on meditation, which he did every day, but still a forced pattern of breaths that was supposed to relax him. A minute passed. He opened his eyes.

  At fourteen, everything had changed for him. His parents, recessive carriers of a set of genes that had combined in him to make him different, had never planned to have children. And if he’d been a girl, he’d never have ended up this way, since only males manifested the condition.

  Monica had said werewolves did not exist, but Jordan could’ve told her otherwise.

  CHAPTER 11

  Monica had just decided to turn back and head for home when the first muttered cackling reached her ears. DiNero kept a bunch of peacocks that were allowed to roam freely over the estate. They weren’t particularly exotic, not compared to the big cats or rare Russian foxes, but they were pretty. And they screamed, Monica discovered when the sound rose.

  She didn’t think twice but ran toward it, changing direction when another scream came. Her boots pounded the bricks, but then she dodged off the path and ran through the grass, past several habitats and into darkness. There was light from the house in the distance but she had to blink rapidly to try to get her night vision working. It didn’t happen fast enough. She tripped over something and went sprawling.

  It was a dead peahen, its throat slashed and long runnels carved into its body. Just beyond it lay another, a carcass rather than a bird, most of it missing. Monica rolled with a small groan and pushed up from her hands and knees, already expecting something to rush at her from the darkness.
r />   Instead, she heard another chattering set of screams from the distance. She didn’t want to run with her knife in her hands—that was a good way to end up stabbing herself. The best she could do was hope that whatever was killing the birds wouldn’t see her before she saw it.

  The menagerie hadn’t been set up in grids or blocks, so she had to circle around one of the habitats, this one with a tall, domed cage. Inside it, small gray monkeys screamed and chattered. None of them appeared hurt and she couldn’t see any breaks in their cage, so she kept going. She was heading for the exterior wall, heart racing, when something hurtled at her out of the darkness.

  Something growling. Something with eyes that flashed red and sharp teeth that snapped at the air in front of her, coming so close she felt the breeze of it on her eyelashes. Claws raked her side, pulling the blow at the last second so she could roll away with her shirt flapping in shreds. Pain stung her, but she was still able to get her hands up to push away the thing on top of her.

  Too dark here to see more than shadows. All she could do was twist and turn, getting an arm up to keep the snapping jaws from getting at her throat. Monica screamed, anticipating the crunch of teeth on her forearm, but it didn’t come. She kicked upward and out, connecting.

  The thing, which smelled of grass and dirt, growled but didn’t retreat. It fell on top of her again, crushing her into the ground. She felt hair and limbs and another press of teeth, but by then she’d fought her knife free of the belt sheath. No hesitation, Monica slashed upward. Her aim was off, but she still connected. Her knife stuck and she pulled it free. This time, the thing howled and backed off.

  She needed light, but back here close to the exterior wall, she was in a giant blind spot. Her head spun from hitting the ground, and bright sparks of pain made everything a blur anyway, but she did see a shape, a head and a half taller than she was. She smelled blood. She slashed again, her grip weaker this time, but the thing smacked her knife from her hand.

  Whatever it was hit her in the face, not claws but a curled...fist? A hand? All she knew was the crisp feeling of hair on her face and the solid thunk of flesh on hers. The blow drove Monica to her knees. She rolled, and the next hit her shoulder hard enough to drive her face forward into the ground again.

  This time, she didn’t get up.

  * * *

  She was in the cave again. Pitch-black. The stink of death. Rattle of bones. Carl was dead; she’d seen him in the last flare of her light before it had been smashed. Her husband was dead, and she would be next, unless she fought.

  She fought.

  Fists and feet and teeth. Her knife. Slashing. Blood, pain, screaming.

  Everything blurred.

  * * *

  She woke up screaming, throat raw. Something held her down and she writhed, fighting it until she realized it was the soft weight of a comforter. She’d been sweating beneath it, wearing only panties and the tank top she’d gone out in earlier. Her hair had come free of the elastic and tangled over her shoulders.

  For the first few seconds, Monica still didn’t know where she was. Then it came to her—the bungalow at DiNero’s menagerie. She’d gone out, then she’d heard something...the peacocks, screaming. She swallowed hard at the thought of the beautiful birds being torn apart.

  She’d gone to find out what had happened. Something had attacked her. She had to get up.

  She winced and cried out softly when she swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Her head pounded, the back of it tender and swollen where she’d hit the ground. A stinging line on her throat had come from the thing’s teeth, she remembered that much. Another set of four slashes on her side hurt, too, but they’d been cleaned and bandaged, so she couldn’t see how bad they were. They didn’t feel deep enough to be terribly serious, she thought and wondered why on earth she hadn’t been torn to ribbons.

  The thing had been big and strong and angry, and yet it had not actually tried to kill her. It couldn’t have. She’d have been dead if it had. She was certain of it.

  As it was, her entire body ached. When she got up and went into the bathroom, her reflection showed a pattern of bruises already gone black. She eased up the tank top to look at the bandages, which had been expertly applied. Gauze and medical tape, not adhesive bandages. The edges glistened with antibiotic ointment. She pulled her shirt back down and turned to go back to the bedroom—and let out a shriek.

  She’d punched Jordan twice, first in the nose and then in the throat, before she could stop herself. He stumbled back with a shout, and Monica muttered a stricken apology.

  He watched her warily, his eyes watering. She hadn’t made him bleed—at least there was that. She might’ve laughed at the look on his face if everything didn’t hurt so bad and if she weren’t so freaked out by what had happened. That and the dream. Always the dream.

  A strangled sob had forced itself out of her throat before she could stop it. She found herself pressed against him, though if she’d reached for him or he’d pulled her close, she didn’t know. What she did know was that his hand stroking her hair felt good, as did his arms around her. Even the pressure of his body on her aching bruises lessened the pain.

  When he picked her up and carried her to the bed, she expected him to lay her down, but instead Jordan sat on the edge of it and held her on his lap. Monica was no small woman and had never been fond of being made to feel delicate, but something in the way he cradled her only made her bury her face against the side of his neck.

  “How did I get back here?” she asked against his skin.

  Jordan hesitated before answering. “I found you. What the hell were you doing out there by yourself?”

  She bristled at his tone, but when she tried to pull away, he held her close. “You’re hurting me.”

  “Sorry.” He loosed his grip, but not enough to let her go. “You’re going to be sore for a while.”

  “No shit,” Monica said. “Something attacked me.”

  “You shouldn’t have been out there alone,” Jordan said.

  “I can take care of myself,” she snapped.

  Jordan slid his hand to the back of her neck and buried his fingers in her hair, tipping her head back hard enough to make her gasp—and yes, it made her body ache, but that wasn’t why. His eyes narrowed.

  “Obviously, you can’t,” he said in a low voice.

  Monica didn’t try to struggle. Part of her knew he was right. Her role here had never been to hunt down the creature on her own, but to determine what it was so the Crew could come in and work together on it. Still, she pushed at his chest, though she couldn’t get away from him.

  “I was out walking, trying to think. Then I heard the peacocks screaming,” Monica said. “What did you expect me to do? Not try to see what it was?”

  His mouth was very close to hers, though how it had happened, exactly, she couldn’t say. He was going to kiss her, and yes, she was going to let him. Because that was what took away the pain and the fear, and because in his arms she could forget that she’d gone up against something that might’ve killed her, and this time, despite how hard she’d fought, she had not killed it. Something had saved her, and it had not been herself.

  She couldn’t think of it. And he wasn’t kissing her, so she pulled his mouth down to hers. She gave him her tongue. At his soft groan, Monica pressed herself against him, writhing and ignoring the pain.

  He pinned her wrists suddenly and held her away from him. “Monica. Don’t. You don’t really want this.”

  “Want? Maybe not,” she said. “Need, Jordan.”

  And she did need it. Needed to fuck away the memories and the pain and the fear, the anxiety. She shifted, twisting, to straddle him. He still held her wrists, keeping her from pushing against his chest, but that didn’t stop her from grinding her crotch down on his.

  “I don’t want to hu
rt you,” Jordan said.

  Monica slowed but didn’t stop the steady rocking of her hips against his hardening cock. “I can handle it.”

  She leaned to flick her tongue along his lower lip. He didn’t release his grip on her wrists, but he did soften. Then he pulled her toward him. He kissed her, hard, until she gasped.

  “I’ll hurt you,” Jordan said into her ear, then slid his teeth along her throat.

  His tongue stung the cut there, and she hissed. He gave a low growl and nipped her. Monica jerked, the pain so mingled with pleasure she couldn’t be sure which she felt more of.

  She shoved him back onto the bed. Still kissing him, she pushed up his shirt, ran her hands up his sides. He jerked when she did, and that was when her fingers encountered the soft padding of gauze bandages.

  Head spinning, confused, Monica sat back. “Jordan? What...?”

  Oh God. Oh my God. She tried to stumble back, to get off him, but he’d again grabbed her tight. Panic flooded her.

  The smell of grass and dirt, the flash of red...the same as she’d seen in his eyes. She’d used her knife against the thing that had attacked her, and now here he was with wounds in the same place... She fought him, but he held her tight. His breath covered her face, and she closed her eyes instinctively, waiting for the press and sting of teeth, this time slashing her throat open instead of nibbling.

  “Monica, look at me.”

  “What the hell are you doing?” she cried. “What are you?”

  He let her go so fast she fell back, but they were still tangled together, so she had to fight her way free of him. Panting, dizzy, she backed up from the bed, trying to think about what she could use to defend herself against him, but all Jordan did was sit there.