Free Blood Moon by Heather Kuehl Page B

The bonds that held me snapped and I pulled myself to my feet and staggered into Jared’s arms.
    “What were you thinking?” his mind yelled at me.
    I sighed. “ You are just going to get yourself killed ,” I warned. “ I broke my contract. Let me deal with the consequences.”
    “Over my dead body.”
    The door crashed open, breaking off its hinges from the force. Damian strode in with his plum colored eyes ablaze with fury.
    “I wouldn’t have believed it had Sarah’s mind not shown me,” he hissed as he stalked over to Rose. “What in the hell do you think you are doing?”
    Sharice stood up, standing off to her mother’s right. I blinked, looking from Rose to Damian and back to Rose again. How in the world did they know each other?
    “Trying to save you,” Rose said. “You know what happened last time you fell for a human. I can’t stand for you to go through that again.”
    “So you sent a vampire necromancer to kill me?”
    Rose’s eyes grew wide. “Is that what you think? I sent him to kill her.” Rose pointed at me. “The second he found out that she wasn’t Phaedra she was supposed to die. You were never supposed to get hurt.” Rose turned to Sharice. “Kill her.”
    Damian made a move to stop the vampire, but Rose’s hand closed around his wrist. “You forget that I am stronger than you. Watch as my daughter drains your pet.”
    I narrowed my eyes, careful to keep my mind blank as Sharice stalked over to me. Jared reached for his gun and Sharice smiled.
    “Guns don’t kill me, mutt,” she snarled. “Not even ones like yours with wooden rounds.”
    “Yeah,” I growled as Sharice came within arm’s reach. My eyes had changed from their human blue to wolfish amber. “What about wolves?”
    I changed forms before she could react, my jaws clamped down on her arm. Sharice backpedaled, succeeding only in tripping and falling onto the floor. I heard scuffling as Damian prevented Rose from coming over as my jaws shredded the vampire’s arm before letting go and focusing on her chest. I wasn’t sure if decapitation would work with her kind, but I bet a shredded heart would. Gun fire roared as the scuffling turned frantic. I used my paws to dig through Sharice’s flesh. Sharice screamed as she tried to fight me off, but it was no use. I was a Were with a born vampire’s blood running through my system. Sharice had surprised me before, but now I had the advantage.
    I felt Rose’s magic tear through my body. I faltered as I tried to brace myself, but it was too late. Sharice grabbed the scruff of my neck, wrapping her viselike arms around me as she attempted to wrench my head off my shoulders. I snarled. My jaws snapped as I struggled to get a hold of her. I tried to get into her thoughts like I could do with either Jared or Damian, but she had her mind locked up tight. I had no clue what her next move would be or where her thoughts lay about her mother.
    It made no sense to me that Rose and Damian knew each other. Intimately it seemed. Had they been an item once upon a time ? It sounded like Rose had been there when Damian’s wife, Phaedra died, but that would be impossible. A witch’s lifespan of only 200 years compared to that of a vampire, who lived until someone or something killed them. So either Rose lied about knowing Damian for that long…
    Or she wasn’t a witch like we had thought.
    Sharice hissed as she forced her feet under me and pushed, sending me end over end across the living room. I rolled to my feet with my eyes glancing to Jared and Damian. The woman they held back had long, auburn hair that hung wildly around her face. I glanced around, but didn’t see Rose anywhere. Did she run off, leaving her people to take care of us for her ? The woman tossed Jared and Damian aside like nothing, running to Sharice’s side in an instant. Sharice’s injuries weren’t life threatening, but it made no difference to the auburn-haired woman. She looked up at me and hissed,