Keri Arthur - Full Moon Rising

Jack was still at his computer when I arrived at work. “Any news?” I asked, as I threw my bag behind my chair and plunked down

“Gautier took out the six suckers who were terrorizing the Footscray district.”

Even for a vampire, the man was a freak. “I meant about Rhoan.”

“I know.”

“And?”

“There’s no news.”

“Have you sent anyone out to discover what’s going on?”

“Yes, and he was seen where he was supposedly headed but apparently didn’t stay there.”

“And where was he supposedly headed?”

Jack gave me a crocodile-type smile. “Does that mean you’ve reconsidered taking the guardian test?”

“No.”

“Then that is confidential information.”

“Bastard.”

He raised an eyebrow. “For someone who is so concerned, you’re doing very little actually looking.”

“I intended to look last night, but some moron decided I needed shooting.”

The amusement fled his eyes. “What happened?”

“I’d just gotten off the train. He jumped out of the shadows and shot me.” I shrugged. “These things happen to wolves.”

I wasn’t sure whether I was trying to reassure myself or him. After all, that wolf was the spitting image of Gautier, even if he did have a different smell

“And your attacker?”

“Dead.” I hesitated. “A train hit him.”

“At least it saves on paperwork.” He paused, then added, “So, are you going to look for Rhoan?”

“Straight after lunch.”

“It’ll be interesting to see who tracks him down first—you or Kelly.”

I barely restrained my grin. Little did he know that Kelly intended to do that, anyway. Still, the fact that he’d taken that step meant he was taking Rhoan’s disappearance more seriously than I’d presumed. “So you are sending her out tonight?”

He nodded, and I felt a little easier. With two of us out there, surely we’d find some clue as to what was happening to him. Because something definitely was, even if the sense of wrongness had yet to peak

“Good,” I said, and settled down to do some paperwork. But Jack’s gaze was a weight I could almost feel. He was waiting for something, though what that something was, I had no idea

“You planning to party this afternoon, are you?” he said after a while

I glanced up at him, and he indicated the carryall. “Five days to the full moon,” I said, by way of explanation

He leaned back in his chair, expression bemused. “How come you wolves never get preggers? I mean, you fuck yourself silly for seven days, and nothing ever comes out of it. And you don’t take contraceptives, from what I’ve heard.”

“How can you call a whole lot of satisfaction nothing?” I replied with a grin

He waved the comment away. “Really. I’ve always been curious about it.”

“And you’ve never thought to ask a wolf? Or taken a wander through their thoughts to find out?”

“Never really cared enough to do either.”

“So why ask now?”

“I hate silence.”

“Yeah. Right.” He hated silences as much as I hated the moon dance. Still, I couldn’t see the harm in answering his question—and it wasn’t like I hadn’t been asked it before. “Werewolves don’t take contraceptives, but we are electronically chipped to prevent conception. Don’t ask me how it works, it just does. The chips are inserted under our skins at puberty and until they’re taken out, we can’t get pregnant.”

It had been a pretty pointless exercise with me, because apparently I had some weird hormonal imbalances that meant my eggs never made the journey down to my womb. The good thing about it was the fact I didn’t menstruate. The bad thing, the fact I couldn’t become pregnant without medical assistance. Even then, the doctors weren’t sure if I would ever get pregnant or carry to term. Actually, most of them figured I was the werewolf equivalent of a mule—all the right bits but none of the functionality. But rules were rules, and there was no getting around them even if you couldn’t conceive naturally

“What happens if you do want to become pregnant?”

“You pay the government medicos five hundred bucks to take the chip out, and you can become pregnant within twenty-four hours.”

“And the government forces this?”

“Yep.”

He snorted softly. “Amazing. They have one rule for humans and another for everyone else.”

“I’m figuring they don’t want the world overrun with wolves.”

“It’s overrun with humans, and they cause more damn damage than the rest of us ever could.”

“That’s not a nice way to talk about your food source.”

He shrugged and left it at that. Odd, to say the least. Midday eventually rolled around, and I climbed the stairs to the kitchen on sublevel two to check out the meals—which were mainly blood, and not the synth variety—for the guardians. Once it was all onboard, I escorted the trolley to the elevator then down to the fourth level

The doors swished open and darkness greeted me. I swore under my breath. The bastards were playing games again. And while darkness didn’t worry me, the fact that there were over twenty vampires in that room, all of whom could become shadows in the night, made me wary. I couldn’t watch them all, even with my vampire vision, and the security cams didn’t work too well in darkness

“If you fuckers don’t turn on the lights, you can go hungry.”

The lights came back on and Gautier’s feral form strolled toward me. “Afraid of the dark, are we?”

I snorted and pressed the button on the trolley. With an electronic groan, it rolled forward and made its way toward the dining room. “Why don’t you go have a shower, Gautier? You smell like shit.”

He smiled, revealing bloodstained teeth. He’d fed before coming in, and I wondered who on. Was it an official source, or had he started hunting up his own meals?

“It’s only blood, and the aroma is one I find intoxicating.”

“Believe me, I know blood when I smell it, and what I’m smelling ain’t blood.”

I followed the trolley toward the dining room. Gautier followed me, a forbidding presence I could feel but not hear

“Rhoan hasn’t come back yet,” he stated. “You heard from him?”

The small hairs on the back of my neck rose. He was so close I could feel the wind of his foul breath past my ear. But I didn’t acknowledge him and didn’t alter my pace, because that was what he was waiting for

“He’s on an assignment.”

“The moon heat stirs for you wolves, doesn’t it?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Well, how are you going to cope without your lover?”

I snorted. “I’ll find another. Werewolves generally aren’t monogamous, you know.” Not until they’d found their soul mate and sworn their love to the moon, anyway

“Ever considered trying a vampire as a lover?”

His hand came down on my shoulder, his fingers pressing deep into my barely healed wound. Pain flashed white-hot through my body and I couldn’t stop my knees buckling. Swallowing back bile, I kept going down until my knees hit the floor, then, before he could react, shot a hand to his crotch and grabbed a fistful of balls

He made a gargling sound, and froze. Dead or not, vampires were still men and still very attached to their dangly bits

“Touch me again, and you’ll be finding these”—I squeezed his balls a little harder—“up in the vicinity of your throat.”

His brown eyes were almost molten with fury and pain. I squeezed again and could swear I saw sweat break out across his brow. Impossible, surely, given Gautier’s fierce reputation. Maybe it was just a trick of the lights

“Do you understand me?”