Page 19 of Bad Moon Rising
“I didn’t tell you it was safe to be over here.” He shook Cooper gently by the arm, confirming that he slept. “Let’s get on the plane.”
Moments later, once they were on board, a car drove into the hangar. Flynn jogged up the loading stairs, pulling them closed behind them. He had the wavy blonde hair of a movie star, but up close an angular, antihero mug.
Flynn tossed a backpack with his laptop into a seat, rotated his ball cap to his favorite backward position, and pulled a lollipop out of his mouth. He could never be their face man, which was why Roman got stuck interfacing with humans or non-human entities on most of their missions. Sure, Flynn was pretty enough, even with his few facial piercings and obsession with arm tattoos. But he made questionable fashion choices. And his generallaissez faireattitude might get him a lot of action from women, but it didn’t work in most situations dealing with dangerous, dark, otherworldly creatures.
He held out his hand to Nova. “I’m Flynn. And you’d be…?”
She stared at his offered hand but didn’t shake or reply. “Youare his brother?”
“I’m the fun one.” Flynn retracted his hand but looked undaunted. “Why’d you interfere? The fact that you waltzed into the middle of our mission today and mucked it up seems colossally weird.”
“Interfere with what, specifically?” She frowned at Roman.
Roman resisted an eye roll. “She doesn’t know any more about us than we know about her. She has no clue we saved the world from Strumous Malum by getting this vial.” He removed the vial from his inside coat pocket and held it up.
Flynn lowered his voice to speak conspiratorially to her. “I would’ve given a million Euros to be a fly on the wall to see how you got Roman to take you with him. Did you kiss him? Slip him some tongue? Him bringing anyone onto his sacred plane is way out of character. Him kissing you or even interested in you as a woman for more than two minutes…” He did a mind-blown mime with his hands.
“How’s the gunshot wound?” Roman asked.
“I’m good.” There was vulnerability in her stare and a shaky edge to her tone. She lifted her arm to show a small entry point at the back that was almost sealed. “Went all the way through. And my side?” She pushed the bustier aside to expose a tapered waist above the waistband of…
Not looking.
Oh, he looked. And couldn’t look away.
Holy shit. The barest hint of lace underwear at the top of her waistband.
Her skin was marred by a jagged, mostly healed laceration. In human terms, it would mean over a week of healing. By the morning, it’d be no more than a small scar.
She palpated the edges of the wound. “So, I’m like you…werewolf—no, lycan? Am I some sort of science experiment?”
He became utterly still, giving her a chance to see he wasn’t lying when he said this. “You’re not human. You have to remember this. I don’t know how one of us could ever believe otherwise, even if we lost our memory. Maybe if someone hypnotized you into believing yourself human, I could buy you not remembering. Knowing what you are is as basic as knowing how to walk.Weare lycanthropes. Lycans.”
No one said anything for several long moments of silence. Even Flynn seemed to have stopped breathing from wherever he stood behind them. Flynn was probably looking at her again. Why did that make him want to punch his brother, whom he trusted with his life?
Skepticism laced her tone. “Can I change into a dog or something?”
“No. That’s a human urban myth. We do change to become stronger when necessary, like I did in the hangar. In our feral form, we can do many superhuman things, but it’s not an ugly creature covered in hair like in the movies. You almost did the shift at the club. You started the change again in the hangar. It’s why I distracted you both times. You can’t do that in public.”
“You’re lycan, too, Flynn?” she asked. “Does that mean you both got bitten at the same time?”
“What?” Flynn shot a shocked glance at Roman. “Bitten? What the actual fuck?”
“Chill. She’s got no clue,” Roman said in a calm tone.
“Of course I’m lycan.” At her skeptical eyebrow raise, Flynn groaned theatrically and rolled his eyes. “It’s genetic, not something like in the movies where a bite will turn you. I was born this way. My parents were 100 percent lycan, as were theirs. And yours. It’s a different species than humans.”
She asked, “Why do I believe so strongly I’m a person, that I’m human?”
Roman shrugged
“Superspeed healing?” She touched her side.
“The older we get, the more rapidly we heal. That speed means you must be at least fifty, maybe older.”
“How old are you?”
“A lot older.”
