Blue Moon

I drew away from him, eyes closed. I opened my eyes and looked at the man. Jason moved to my stomach, licking along the top of my jeans. They were soaked in blood, and wouldn't really dry while I was still wearing them. Zane curved around to my back, licking along my spine. There was no blood there, and he had to stop at the spine sheath, but it looked good for our captive audience.

"Talk to me, Terry. Once I start fucking one of them, I really don't want to be interrupted." I leaned towards him just a little, and he flinched. I drew away from Jason and Zane and crawled towards Terry. I made the movement everything it was supposed to be: fluid, dangerous, sexual. Even now, his eyes kept flicking to my breasts so white against the blackness of the lingerie. Even now, he was still a man. I felt Raina's utter disdain of men. All that sex, and it was mostly hate. How terribly odd.

She was enjoying terrorizing the man. His wide eyes, the quick breath, the pounding of his heart. I could hear it. Hell, I could almost taste his skin on my tongue. Food, he smelled like food.

"Who sent you, Terry?" I made it a whisper, intimate, for his ears only. I reached out to him, and when I trailed my finger down his cheek, he whimpered. I leaned forward and licked a quick line the length of his face. "You taste like food, Terry."

I could feel the others at our back. Verne's pack responding to Raina's call. To my call. Through Richard, I was more lupa than I wanted to be. But now, tonight, it had possibilities. They came from every side, moving like shadows. Creeping closer, nearer, drawn by my desire and the man's terror.

He stared at them, watched them coming closer with wide eyes. He turned his head to watch them moving in. I kissed his cheek while he wasn't looking, and he screamed.

"Oh, God, please don't."

Raina's laugh fell from my lips. "Names, Terry, names."

"Niley, Franklin Niley. He paid us to run you off, said the cops wouldn't be a problem. Then he said kill you. You especially. He said kill that bitch before she queers my deal."

"What deal?" I whispered. Frank Niley was the employer of the muscleman Milo Hart. I hadn't seen him since. He was here for land speculation. Was he the buyer for Greene's land?

Terry's eyes flicked around to the waiting werewolves. "I don't know, honest to God. I don't know. He paid us five hundred apiece to hurt you. He made it five thousand for Chuck and me to kill you."

"Five thousand apiece?" I asked.

He nodded.

"It wasn't enough," I said.

"We didn't know you was a werewolf. We didn't know what you were." One of the shadowy throng was sniffing his leg. Terry's voice rose a little higher with every word. His next "I didn't know" was almost a scream.

Raina's munin was like a warm pulse behind my eyes. I leaned into the man, as if I'd kiss him. He backed away but bumped into the good doctor. My mouth hovered over the man's, but it wasn't a kiss I wanted. I stayed there, hovering over his mouth, frozen, fighting not to lower my mouth to his neck. Fighting not to sink teeth into his throat and tear. Fighting not to draw first blood and let the pack feed.

I started crawling back from him, as if I were the one that was afraid. "Take him to the hospital."

"You can't let him live," Zane said.

"I promised him if he talked, we'd take him." I caressed Zane's face. We stayed kneeling in the leaves, close enough to embrace when I didn't remember moving that close. "Take him, take the arm. And Terry," I said.

The man wasn't looking at me. He was staring at the waiting wolves.

"Terry," I said again. I was still caressing Zane, one hand buried in his short, white hair.

The man looked at me, eyes flicking back and forth madly as if he were trying to keep all of us in sight at once. "What? What do you want? You said I could go to the hospital."

"If you tell Niley about tonight, about what I am and what happened, I'll kill you." I lowered Zane's face until I planted a gentle kiss on his forehead.

"I won't tell. I won't tell anyone. Niley'd kill me if he knew I gave him up. He'd fucking kill me."

"Good," I said. I cradled Zane against me. He began to lick down my neck. He passed over my shoulder, licking a small line down my collarbone. He went lower, and I pushed him away, rough enough that he fell on his wounded shoulder. The world was narrowing down. I was losing the fight with Raina.

"Get him out of here -- now!" I felt like I was going blind. I could see, but it was all different. I was fighting her and she didn't like it. She'd asked for violence, and I'd refused. She'd asked for sex, and I'd refused. Even dead, she was a hard lady to say no to.

I covered my eyes with my hands. I heard someone moving towards me. "Don't touch me."

"It's Maria

I lowered my hands until I could see Maria

"No, child."

I reached for her hand, and it was just a hand. There was no memory attached to it. No horror that the munin could share. "Help me."

She gripped my hand with both of hers. "It's too late to force the munin out. It must be made to want to leave."

I shook my head. "She won't leave."

"She's left you before."

I shook my head harder until my hair slapped my face. "You don't know what she wants. You don't understand what she wants. I can't. I won't."

Richard was there. He started to touch my shoulder, and I fell back into the leaves. One hand raised as if to ward off a blow. I did not want to know what Raina had done with him or to him. That was one image I did not need.

"What's wrong?"

"The munin will not leave until Anita does something it wants."

"You knew Raina," I said. "Tell her the kind of thing Raina enjoyed." It was rising inside me. I couldn't stop it. It rose higher and higher until the power spilled out of my mouth in a shriek.

He started to touch me and I crawled away from him. "No, no, no, no."

Maria

She smoothed my hair, rocking me like I was a child. "Anita, you must give in to the munin in part. You've done it before. Richard has discussed past events with me. When the munin leaves you this time, we will work together to make sure this does not happen again."

I raised up enough to see her face. "Can you really stop this?"

"I can teach you how to stop it."

I stared into her pale eyes for a space of heartbeats. I could hear the strange click of her artificial heart valve. The munin was hinting that food would do as well as sex. Not as well, but it would do.

I pushed gently away from Maria

Maria

I stood, my breath coming in ragged gasps. I could taste my heart in my throat like a ball that I could have touched and played with. I looked around the clearing, desperate for a way out. Something that Raina would be content with and I could live with.

Zane was staring at me. Raina wanted him. But what she wanted had very little to do with sex. I went to him. He knelt in the leaves, staring up at me with large eyes gone silver with moonlight.

I fell to my knees in front of him and ripped the sling off his shoulder. He made a small grunt of pain, and Raina liked it. The problem with doing something to get the munin out was that the munin had to be in control enough for me to be willing to do what it wanted. Giving her more control seemed like a bad idea. But what she wanted was to plant our mouth over the wound in his shoulder, and I couldn't do it sober. There wasn't enough Raina in me yet to put my tongue in an open wound.