Blood and Moonlight

By Marla Shin

When new werewolf Rio Pace wakes up in the Albuquerque instead of the Sandia Mountains, she finds herself face to face with Ilya Morelasky, who has been a vampire for hundreds of years and has wearied of his eternal darkness. When he finds she was turned against her will by a psychopath named Krieger, his anger gives him a new lease on undeath, for he was also turned against his will. Ilya knows of a last chance to be human, a legendary book that may or may not exist. Though Ilya and Rio are two different species, their attraction for each other grows as they search for the book and elude Krieger.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Marla Shin
• Release date: Feb 15, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466149755

Marla Shin

I've been a librarian for over twenty years, and a bookworm from the age of 3. Wichita, Kansas is my hometown, but I've lived in the Southwest for about the same time I've been a librarian. I'm currently living in Albuquerque with my husband and five cats.Friend me on Facebook.

Book preview

Blood and Moonlight

A paranormal romance

by

Marla Shin

Published by Marla Shin at Smashwords

Copyright 2012 Marla Shin

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold

or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person,

please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did

not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to

Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work

of this author.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Some locales are real but fictionalized, others are completely fictional. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

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This work is dedicated to my mother, who waited a long time for this.

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Blood and Moonlight

by

Marla Shin

Chapter One

Gasping, Rio Pace shuddered through the last effects of the change. The dim first rays of sunlight kissed her naked skin and her eyes began to focus sharply, colors coming back to her perception as the almost painful intensity of scents faded back to nearly normal. She lay on concrete, cold and clammy against her bare skin. The air smelled odd, like garbage and traffic, not the forest scents she expected. Unable to move, she could focus her eyes only enough to watch her paws absorb the black fur and become human hands, watch the sharp hooked claws become her own short bare nails.

Human again, she thought. And she had another four weeks to try to find a way out of this nightmare. Her lips thinned in determination as she heaved herself to her knees, standing up to see where she was.

Rio’s jaw dropped, and her blood went cold. Brick walls, a dumpster, and beyond, a street. Oh geez, she moaned, I’m in the city. How did I double back? How did I manage to roam all the way here from the east side of the Sandia Mountains? Her mind shied away from the most important question before she gritted her teeth and forced herself to think it: Have I killed anyone?

You’re in Albuquerque all right, said a dryly amused male voice. Right in the middle of downtown. Rio squealed and ducked behind some trash cans as she tracked the sound. She hadn’t seen him in his black clothing, deep in the shadows of the recessed doorway, leaning against the frame, his arms crossed. Now his pale face with its moon-blond hair and pale, long-fingered hands seemed to float in the darkness like disembodied bits of ghost. He didn’t step into the light. A shiver went up her spine even as her eyes riveted on his face. Chisled and arresting, but something in it that made the hair rise on the nape of her neck. His scent came to her heightened sense of smell. He smelled like a predator. And something more, something she couldn’t put a name to. Something that made her nostrils flare and her abdomen tighten.

Perhaps you should come in here before anyone else sees you? he suggested mildly. You’re quite without clothes, you know.

How long had he been standing there? she wondered, her eyes darting around for a nonexistent route of escape. Long enough to see me change from wolf to human? No, couldn’t have, or he wouldn’t be so calm. I don’t know you, she protested, even as she realized she had precious little choice. There was no way she could get to either her car or her home, stark naked in broad daylight.

Don’t worry, he said, his voice silky and soothing, with a faint trace of an accent she couldn’t place. I won’t bite. His lips twitched in a suppressed smile.

Rio forced down an urge to laugh hysterically. An hour ago, I would have, she thought. I guess a pervert is the least of my worries right now. At least he’s a gorgeous one. Her eyes roamed over the sharp bones in the stranger’s clean-lined, very male face. Part of her mind considered camera angles and lighting, what she could do with that face in her studio. With an effort she yanked her mind back to her current predicament. Geez, what am I going to do?

The arrival of a garbage truck settled the question. Rio shrieked and ran for the stranger’s door before the garbage men could get a good look. One of them had already frozen at the cab window with his mouth open. Pushing past the stranger, she ran onto concrete, and into the midst of an array of cars that filled the ground floor of what she realized had once been some sort of factory or warehouse. The ground floor was one huge open room that smelled of metal and machine oil. Neon tubes lit the huge windowless room with stark white light that made her feel even more naked. Rio jumped as the metal door boomed shut behind her. The sound of the stranger’s footsteps made her dodge behind one of the cars, though she knew he’d already seen everything.

The name Bugatti on the back of the old-fashioned car caught her eye. Wait a minute, wasn’t that the car that Isadora Duncan broke her neck in? This thing’s from the thirties or something. What is this? A car museum?

The blond man smiled slightly, revealing a slight overbite behind the full lower lip. Just my auto collection. I live upstairs. If you’ll come with me, I believe I can find something for you to wear. It’ll make you feel less… vulnerable. His eyes, pale, pure blue like the underside of the North Pole’s ice sheet, glittered as his velvety voice caressed the last word.

Rio felt a shudder go over her skin, as if his voice had caressed her very flesh. You got a name? she demanded. I’m not about to trust you, gorgeous face or not. I trust you about as far as I could throw this car. Although I guess I should say as far as a normal woman could throw it. She repressed the sudden welling of despair fiercely.

Ilya Morelaski. He gave her a half bow. Would you rather I tossed a robe down the stairs?

Yeah, I think I would, she admitted. Even though I’m pretty sure you already had an eyeful.

She couldn’t read his face. As you wish. Near the steel door she saw an elevator. He punched a button and the doors slid open. The stairs are in that corner. I won’t be long. He stepped in as Rio cowered behind the Bugatti. The doors slid closed.

Rio pressed her forehead against the cool metal, her mind whirling. He couldn’t have seen me change, she reassured herself. He’d never just let me in and offer me clothes. I can tell him I drank too much and don’t remember what happened. That’s a logical, real-world explanation, even if it makes me look like a complete alcoholic. Who cares what he thinks, anyway. Okay, this Ilya guy. Russian, I guess, or from one of the League of Unpronounceable Nations. He’s either a good Samaritan, or he’s a perv and figures I’m an easy victim. Little does he know.

She stood up and looked around, finding the stairs just as a batlike flutter of black silk floated down and puddled on the floor. Padding over, she picked it up and put it on, wrapping it tightly around herself and hugging her elbows. It had a generous enough cut to cover her curves in spite of being owned by a very slender man, and reached to her knees. She peered up the stairs, gave a mental shrug, and slowly climbed them.

At the top, an impressively heavy metal door stood open. Inside Rio could see a richly furnished room, and her host, holding a cup. She smelled coffee. It smelled like the promised land.

Enter freely and of your own will. His mocking tone made her hackles rise, even as the caress of his voice made heat uncurl deep inside her.

Rio raised an eyebrow. Wasn’t that line from some old horror movie or something? Said the spider to the fly? she asked in a sarcastic voice, hoping to sound tougher than she felt.

Laughing, he held out the cup. I may be a spider, but you’re hardly a fly.

Rio caught her breath, but took the cup and gulped the steaming liquid. Instant. Oh, well, at least it wasn’t decaf. What’s that supposed to mean? she demanded. He can’t have seen me change, he just can’t. Her heart began to pound.

Ilya stepped past her and slid the massive metal door closed. It clanged like the gate to a dungeon, and she jumped, hearing the click of locks. Uh oh.

I think you know, Ilya said softly. "You’re vurdalak – a werewolf."

The cup slipped in Rio’s fingers, but she caught it before it fell. Who says? she snapped, knowing if he’d seen her, no bravado would help.

I saw your transformation in the alley. His face kept its polite blandness, but his eyes held a knowing expression.

Rio swore. Okay, what are you? The worst possibilities? Reporter? Cop? She slung back her hair and glared at him.

Ilya smiled fully for the first time. Vampire.

Yeah, right, popped out of her, and she began to laugh with an edge of hysteria. A vampire.

Suddenly his glacier blue eyes gleamed red, and the bones in his chiseled face shifted malevolently. He no longer looked quite human. Yes, a vampire, he spat, his lips curling back to reveal fangs. Soundlessly he glided toward her.

Rio stopped laughing so suddenly she hiccupped. Her mug of coffee crashed to the floor.

Ilya laughed, and this time his voice made the mockery sound wintry cold. Now why would a werewolf find it hard to believe in vampires?

Rio gulped, frozen in place, her hand curved as if it still held the cup. Her mouth opened and shut a few times before brain and vocal cords kicked in. I… I’m still new to this, she squeaked. I lived twenty-six years thinking werewolves and vampires were fiction. I’ve only been a werewolf the last six months. I haven’t had much time to accept it. A tear leaked from her eye before she could stop it. Angrily she slapped it off her face.

His red eyes gleamed, then shifted back to glacier blue. His face lost its alien cast, but he frowned. Someone turned you without your consent? Hard anger sounded plain in his voice.

Rio gaped at him. I thought anyone bitten would catch it. That’s how it is in all the stories and legends. Werewolves can’t plan anything, can’t do anything on purpose! They’re mindless.

As all such, the storytellers get some things right, but others wrong. It does take a bite from a werewolf or a vampire to turn a human, but the human must also taste the blood of the other. If not, the world would be quite full of us.

But werewolves are mindless, Rio repeated. God knows I am. I can’t even remember what I do as a wolf.

They’re only mindless when they’re newly made, Ilya told her. I don’t know at what stage the werewolf gains consciousness, but they do. Whoever turned you did it deliberately. He looked furious.

Rio shuddered, she couldn’t help it. But why? She looked down, and saw the broken cup and the puddle of coffee on the tile floor. I’ve broken your cup, she murmured, her mind fixing on one irrefutable and completely normal fact. A broken cup and spilled coffee. Real world. Vampires and werewolves. That way lay madness, swirling darkly through her brain and threatening to drown her. She fought it down.

Never mind, I have more. Let me fix you another. Please, sit. His natural courtliness had a sympathetic feel, though this man gave new meaning to the term inscrutable.

Rio dropped into a chair and put her face in her hands. Oh, geez, she thought, her mind wailing though she made no sound. How much more is there to this nightmare? First a werewolf bites me, now I’m sitting on a vampire’s couch? What next? If Frankenstein’s monster walks out of the bedroom, I’m checking myself into the nearest funny farm.

* * *

Ilya went into the kitchen, glancing back once to see the lovely dark woman sink into a chair. He had yet to ask her name, but that could wait. He strode into his beautifully appointed but barely touched kitchen. The hot water still boiled, so he added crystals into a new cup and poured. He kept a jar of instant coffee because it didn’t go stale fast, and he could at least offer his rare human guests that small gesture of hospitality.

When he went back into the living room, she had her face in her hands, black hair sheeting forward, quietly sobbing. His heart twisted. He wanted to take her in his arms and tear the throat from whoever had hurt her. The feeling shocked him, but he hid his emotion without having to think about it. Here, now. He set the coffee cup on the end table. "What’s all this? It was only a cup, krasivaya."

I might have killed someone, she wailed. Every month for the three nights of the full moon I get as far away from settled areas as I can, out into the desert or the mountains, and kind of aim myself away from the city as I start changing. Three mornings a month when I turn back into me, I can taste blood in my mouth, and my stomach feels full. I’ve always been able to convince myself it had to be an animal, because I’d wake up in the middle of nowhere. She sniffed, her dark eyes full of guilt, and shoved heavy black hair off her face. It spilled in a satin wave halfway to her shoulders. His fingers ached to stroke it.

Shakespeare’s Dark Lady reborn, Ilya thought, mentally quoting ‘my lover’s eyes are nothing like the sun.’ No, hers hold the entire night sky. Well, then, if that’s what worries you, I can easily answer your question. If there’s anything a vampire knows, it’s the many flavors of the varieties of blood. After over five hundred years, I’m quite a connoisseur. He felt his lips curl into a half-smile. Give me your mouth, he commanded, and knew in that moment he wanted far more from her.

She stood, her eyes gone a bit glazed. His eyebrow arched. Would command over wolves extend to werewolves? That could prove interesting.

Rio shook her head and demanded, Do what? Her dark eyes pierced him like a stake through the heart.

So much for control over werewolves. That glazed look had another reason, not important just then, though he would think on it later. Let me kiss you, he translated. Ah, but modern languages have lost all their poetry.

That’s what I thought you meant, Rio snapped. Her hands fisted on her hips. Is this some vampire come-on or do you have a reason?

I can taste the remains of blood in your mouth, even after your drink of coffee, and tell you precisely what you ate. I will not lie to you. If you have killed a human, I will tell you.

She eyed him suspiciously, then said, Okay. Just watch it, bub.

Some emotion he couldn’t name gave a surge, but he kept his face neutral. His eyes locked onto her ripe full mouth. Ilya lowered his face to hers and covered her lips with his own.

Her human-seeming breath felt warm on his face, and smelled of coffee and blood. He kissed her until he felt her jaw go slack, and opened her mouth with his tongue. She tasted wild, savage, not like a human. His excitement rose. The coffee overlay didn’t matter. He could taste her night’s prey plainly in the juices of her mouth in the first instant, but the taste of her made his eyes burn and his fangs tingle. Her body began to soften against his, and he wanted her as he had not wanted a woman in decades. His hands reached up to pull her tightly against him, wanting the taste of her blood, and with an effort he stopped himself.

This is not the time, Ilya told himself. Regretfully he released her mouth.

You ate a deer. He licked his lips, savoring the last taste of her. Nothing else. His fang teeth burned with the need for her blood.

Rio sagged with relief, though her pupils were dilated with the desire he could hear in the rhythm of her heartbeat, and her lips were still slightly parted. Thank goodness, she whispered. I couldn’t live with myself if I killed someone. She laughed shortly. Want to hear a joke? Before this happened, I had been a vegetarian for four years. Now, even when I’m human, all I want is meat. My brothers think it’s hilarious. They can’t get over the ‘I told you so’ routine. She sniffed. If they knew why… but I can’t even tell them. They’d think I was crazy. Her eyes gleamed with tears she wouldn’t set free. We don’t hide things from each other, my brothers and me. Now I have to. One tear slipped loose. She slapped it off her face and pressed her fingers to her eyelids.

You’re not human anymore, Ilya said firmly. Not even when you look like one, no more than I am. If the werewolf transformation works in a similar manner to vampires, your metabolism has changed completely.

She nodded. I was afraid of that. I’m stronger than before. And I can’t wear my silver jewelry anymore. It burns, badly enough to raise blisters in moments.

Ilya barely stopped himself from saying, then I shall give you gold to wear. What had gotten into him?

Could you loan me some street clothes? She ducked her head and shot him a sideways look. And I have to figure out how to get back to my car from here.

If you’ll wait until tonight, I can drive you. As for clothes, you may look through my wardrobe as you will, and borrow anything you find that you want. Privately he doubted that anything he owned would fit her curves. I must sleep. He gave her a slight bow. "I don’t have to sleep in a coffin, but I become comatose for most of the day in a state we call torpor, and I will be unwakeable. You don’t have to be