Page 1 of Blood Moon

Chapter 1

Delilah

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

I whipped my head around at the harsh voice. It was dark, and I couldn't see his face. "I... I was…" I let go of the lock and stood up. The hulking figure stomped toward me, backing me up against the cold steel bars of the cage.

"You were trying to steal from me?" His accent was strange, and I couldn't place it. Thinking was impossible when a six-foot-three hunk of a man was pressed up against me. Now that I could see his face, I struggled to keep from being entranced by his warm brown eyes. The crying that had been coming from the cage behind me stopped as soon as he was near. The room went silent.

"I don't steal. I was trying to free them. They shouldn't be in cages." I hoped that I sounded braver than I was. My heart threatened to jump out of my chest. If my hands hadn't been pinned to the bars at my sides, they would have been shaking. As attractive as this man was, he was terrifying too. Every instinct in me screamed to run.

"They are exactly where they're supposed to be. It is not your place to release them." His breath was warm on my ear. He stepped back momentarily to look me up and down. I tried not to squirm under his scrutiny.

"What do you mean, they're exactly where they're supposed to be? You can't keep people in cages. It's against the law," I tried to sound tougher than I felt. The thumping of my heart was going so fast, I thought I might pass out.

"I can do whatever I want. Your laws can't touch me," he responded. His accent was sexy but definitely out of place. I wondered if he was a dignitary from another country. They seemed to get away with nearly anything. That would explain his attitude about 'my laws' that couldn't touch him. Then he turned and yelled in the direction of my uncle's office before trapping me again, this time with my hands between us. "Vinny! Get in here! I caught someone trying to break into the cages."

A minute or so later, Uncle Vinny appeared. He had a baseball bat on his shoulder and a 'don’t fuck with me’ look on his face. For a moment, I thought I was safe. “What’s all this racket about someone breaking in?” He spoke as he walked. When he saw me, his expression changed. “Delilah, I told you to stay out front. The backroom is off-limits. You know that. Go back to the bar.”

I nodded and breathed a sigh of relief, then I tried to move to obey my uncle’s request, but my captor had other plans. He leaned forward and took a deep breath. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear he was sniffing me. This whole situation kept getting stranger. “Let me go. I need to go back to the bar.” I pushed against his chest, but he didn’t budge.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Maxwell. It won’t happen again. She’s my niece and tends the bar.” Uncle Vinny tried to reason with the gorgeous slab of man, but he growled in response. “Delilah, go.”

“You don’t give the orders here, Vinny. I do. It’s my bar now. She’ll do what I say.” He looked down at me, and I shuddered. “Unless you’d rather be locked up?”

I opened my mouth to object, but nothing came out. I managed to shake my head. Uncle Vinny stepped forward, curling his fists around the bat like he was going to attack the guy physically. Mr. Maxwell turned away from me, and a whimper escaped my lips. My body felt ice-cold from his absence.

“Let her go. My family was not part of the deal. You got the bar and the operation. Delilah isn’t a part of that.” My uncle didn’t back down easily. I covered my face with my hands as I waited for this to come to blows.

Mr. Maxwell leaned down and got in Vinny’s face. “You will not disobey me.”

Uncle Vinny relaxed. “You’re right, she must obey. I’m sorry, sir. What would you like me to do with her?” He sounded so defeated. I’d never seen or heard him like this. My uncle wasn’t a large man anyway, but now he looked even smaller.

“Lock her up until she decides to cooperate.” Feeling confident that Vinny would obey him, Mr. Maxwell looked over his shoulder at me, then walked out of the room.

After he left, I turned back to the cage and started trying to break the lock again. Uncle Vinny grabbed my arm and turned me around. “You have to stop. You heard Mr. Maxwell. I have to lock you up. Come on.” He grabbed my arm and started dragging me toward an empty cage on the other side of the room.

“Wait, Uncle Vinny. What are you doing? You can’t just let this guy boss you around. Midnight is your bar! Kick him out!” I tried to reason with my uncle, but I could tell from his face that it wasn’t working. It was almost like Mr. Maxwell had hypnotized him. That was crazy, right? His eyes were glazed over and he didn’t respond to my pleas. I fought against him until I broke his hold, then crossed the room quickly. Before I could leave, he started coming toward me with the bat on his shoulder again.

“You can’t do this. You’re my uncle. You can’t lock me up like this. It’s illegal!” I tried to plead with him, but he didn’t waver from his mission. It was as if he was being controlled somehow. He shoved me into the cold, metal box and locked the door. “Uncle Vinny, please. I won’t tell anyone about what you’ve been selling back here. Don’t do this,” I begged him, but his stare was vacant, and he turned to leave. I still wasn’t sure what exactly he’d been selling, although it was becoming apparent it was some sort of human trafficking ring. But why?

He stopped at the door and faced me again. “You have to learn to obey, Delilah, if you want to survive. I tried to keep you out of this; I really did. Why didn’t you just listen?” He shook his head and walked out.

Adrenaline was still coursing through me after Uncle Vinny left. I paced the cage, then I turned to the occupant of the cell next to mine. “How long have you been here? Do you know what they want?”

A blank stare was the only response I got. It didn’t matter which person I tried to talk to; none of them would respond. The crying woman had stopped and now wore the same blank stare as the others. If only I could figure out why they were locked up, maybe I could find a way to free us all.

I tried to talk to the woman who had been crying. “Can you tell me why you are here?” It didn’t make sense to me. She’d been crying earlier, yet now she refused to make a sound.

She looked at me blankly, with the same stare that Uncle Vinny had before he’d left. She didn’t even seem to hear me. I turned to another woman in a cage nearby. She had the same look on her face; all of them wore the same vacant expression that my uncle had. What was going on here?

“Please, I just want to understand. What is happening here?” I begged her to answer.

“Do not talk to them,” Uncle Vinny scolded from the doorway.

“Did he send you back to torment me?” I asked with tears in my eyes. He ignored my snarky comment and walked into the room, stopping in front of my cage.

“They are here because they signed a contract. This is a part of the contract they signed. That is all I can tell you. They are not permitted to speak to anyone, not even me. Please don’t make things worse for them by trying to get them to talk to you.”

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