Page 14 of Bad Moon Rising
“Are you frightened?”
“I’m terrified,” she said sarcastically without a hint of fear. “You lumped us together earlier when you said ‘our kind,’ so I assume I also do bad things.”
“You killed that guy in the club.”
“You mean the one who planned to shoot you in the heart?”
“I’m not saying I feel bad for him. Just pointing out murder’s not exactly a heroine move.”
“So I’m a bad girl? You like that, don’t you?” She stared out the window, her lips compressed against a smile. “I like it.”
Holy shit, she was incredible.
He dealt with the deadliest of preternatural creatures on a daily basis. His curse to the Crown required he hunt down and destroy paranormal threats bent on power, greed, or world domination.
But he’d never encountered someone like her.
He wasn’t allowed personal attachments—at least his handler didn’t permit them. Gerard, their human liaison to the monarch, wanted him and his brothers to remain cursed, single, and focused. But one or two nights with a woman? No problem. The guy wasn’t all bad. Their sixty-one-year-old human handler had managed them since the inception of the curse forty-six years ago, supervising the logistics and the minutiae of their missions to handle paranormal terrorists. Beyond the job, Gerard shared the monarch’s view of them as monsters that deserved to suffer simply for being born lycanthrope.
If Gerard or the newly crowned king, Francis, found out about Nova, they’d find some twisted reason to force Roman to kill her. Because she wasn’t human and because she knew who he was, she would be seen as an unacceptable distraction. Honestly, he was distracted. And would remain sidetracked for however long she was in his life. Because on the surface, at least, she was everything he hadn’t known he admired in a woman, and he felt compelled to help her, protect her…and damn it, he wanted her. He had no wish to take part in the whole lycan mating with one of their kind for the long-term bullshit, but dabbling for a while might work.
Why was he even doing these mental gyrations? He’d known her for what? An hour? Damn the upcoming full moon and its sexual pull on their kind. Not all myths about werewolves or lycans were untrue. They all experienced the drive to mate when the moon was full. However, lycans technically were incapable of shifting into a dog or wolf, as ridiculous lore might suggest. They could transform into dangerous superhuman predators six times faster and stronger than any person.
“There’s something worse than a spy?” she asked. “Am I an assassin for hire? Or a mercenary? I’ve got these skills. I instantly know other people’s weaknesses and strengths.”
He pulled a rough hand through his hair and cast his gaze upward as if an angel of God would swoop down to solve her identity crisis.
He should get on the road again to avoid noticing how well she wore leather with her “wedgie from hell”—kill him now, but that was hilarious. Her wearing leather didn’t advertise for dirty sex in a corner like it would in many in techno clubs. The kind of sex his brother, Flynn, couldn’t resist, which is one of the reasons they kept Roman as the front man when in public with humans, and Flynn in the background managing logistics and tech.
“Why is your name on me?” She rubbed the stylized tattoo as if doing so might erase it. No such luck. “Why is this happening to me?”
He massaged his wrist. Odd coincidence that he had his own wrist tattoo. His intricate, bracelet-like sigil symbolized his curse.
“I don’t know why you have that tattoo,” he said. “Coincidence?” An asteroid hitting them in this car carried a higher probability.He brushed his thumb across his eyebrow.
“Your deductive reasoning skills are simply breathtaking.”
She was a fucking smart-ass.
Another thing he liked about her.
He also liked her authoritative, take-no-bullshit attitude. Nova had fine, angled features, and dark, curly auburn hair, and lean, long limbs which he now knew from being up close and touching were toned. Her lips were pink, not because she applied gloss but because they came that way.
Remember…Someone used her to try to get him out of the subbasement before the shitshow started. Had they wanted him present for the showdown? Or maybe have her there to distract him enough he’d forget about getting the vial? That same someone had known his deceased brother’s bizarre habit of flicking the lighter two clicks by two clicks when stressed. That person knew him seeing the lighter would stop him in his tracks—and stop him from hurting her.
Not that he would’ve actually hurt her. Threaten, sure, in order to drive her away. Because she incited in him something instant and stupid, something mindless that he wouldn’t allow. Couldn’t allow. Hell, he’d almost kissed her, of all idiocies. He had to protect her, even from himself.
No one should’ve known why he was there—to get the vial. No one should have known him at all. To the rest of the world, he was a ghost. None gave him credit when he saved their lives. No accolades, no thank you’s. Which brought him back around to who knew enough about him to put that tattoo on her and send those texts? This whole thing with Nova could be an honest, though disturbing, attempt to get him out of harm’s way. He bet it heralded something far less altruistic.
The dated pager in his jacket buzzed. He whipped it out. And stared at the message.
Meet at home in 24.
He thought,Now? You’ve got to be kidding.
He didn’t have a personal smartphone or any sort of electronics that could be monitored or tracked. Occasionally, he used burner phones. Pagers were old-school enough that ones like this couldn’t be tracked. It was his one connection to the people who pulled his strings.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
