Not Until Moonrise by Heather Hellinger Read Free Book Online Page B

rippled along the handle of her blade. She wouldn’t reach him with the knife before he could fire. But the nine millimeter, strapped once more to her ankle…
       Jackson’s voice slid from the night like silk. “Leave him, Kate. He’s mine.”
       Howard jerked, revolver muzzle swiveling between them. A fresh sheen of sweat broke out across his forehead as he seemed to realized for the first time how close Jackson had come. He couldn’t shoot them both; one of them would reach him first.
       “Fuck you,” he spit, but he was backing away now, trying to get out from between them. “Fuck you both. I don’t want to see you in my town again, I don’t want to hear your names. Either one of you ever tries to blackmail me again, I’ll put a bullet in both your heads, you got that?”
       The bag lay at Jackson’s feet.  He glanced down at it.  “So we should just take the money and go?”
       “It’s what you came for, isn’t it?”
       “You still don’t get it, do you, Howie?” Jackson’s voice was changing, even as the angles of his face began to shift. He kicked the bag aside. “It was never about the money.”
       “Yeah? That’s too bad for you.” Howard’s finger hovered over the trigger. For a split second Kate could see the indecision on his face—he didn’t want to kill anyone, he was afraid, he was desperate—and then he fired.
       The bullet gutted the air. Too fast to track, but when it punched into Jackson’s chest, it made a tiny, perfect hole in his shirt.
       Kate screamed his name in an instant of pure panic—but she should have known better.
       Blood trickled from the wound.  Just a trickle, and then nothing at all. When Jackson smiled at Howard, his jaws were too long, full of teeth that curved down sharply.
       “Jesus Christ!” Howard’s voice choked; his hands shook as he fired again. “What the fuck—?”
       “ Too bad for you ,” Jackson said in a voice that had gone to a growl.
       And then everything that he was changed.
       Kate staggered back, groaned and sealed her hand over her mouth. She had seen it happen before, a dozen times, a hundred times. But never to someone she knew. Never to someone who had been making love to her not twenty minutes ago.
       There was the wet flesh sound of skin ripping, like a bad suit torn away. What stepped out of Jackson’s skin was nothing created by a natural world. Glowing eyes, and pointed ears swept back against a broad skull. Slatted ribs, thick legs bunched with muscle, claws like the talons of some prehistoric beast. Its hide was pitch black, and it was huge as the night.
       It looked at her. Looked at her with glittering eyes cold as starlight. Open jaws lined with rows of glistening white fangs. It did not move.  The revolver fired again, missing entirely this time, and still the monster watched her and waited.
       Howard cursed.  As if from a distance, Kate heard him tearing through the grass as he fled. 
       An eerie calm filled her. She knew what the wolf wanted.
       Permission.
       Holding the pale gaze, she lifted the hand that held the knife. She uncurled her fingers and let the blade drop to the dark grass at her feet.
       The beast’s jaws widened in what almost seemed a smile. It turned, and the massive body launched after its prey.
       “ Katie, help me !”
       Kate shut her eyes.
       A snarl. Howard screamed. Screamed twice, before his cry choked off.
       A howl rent the air, soared into the night sky. It was a sound full of fury and anguish and need, the cry of a wolf and a man combined into one monstrous wail that made Kate want to cover her ears, that made her want to cry.
       When the lament ended, there was only an instant before the sounds of destruction began. The snap and crunch of bone, the tearing of flesh.
       Kate swallowed her tears and sickness, until something heavy smacked down in the grass near her. Then her eyes flew open, and