Total eclipse of the moo.., p.1
Total Eclipse of the Moon, page 1
Total Eclipse of the Moon
The Crown’s Wolves
Zoe Forward
Copyright © 2023 by Zoe Forward. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means.
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Cover design by Mayhem Cover Creations
Edited by Tera Cuskaden and Jordan Bailey
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ISBN 978-1-7332429-8-1
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No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, photocopying, recording or otherwise without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews. To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the author at zoe@zoeforward.com
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All characters in this book are fiction and figments of the author’s imagination.
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We want our readers to be well-informed. If you would like to know if this book contains any elements that might be of concern for you, please check the book’s webpage for details.
http://www.zoeforward.com/total-eclipse-of-the-mon/
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Zoe Forward
Chapter One
"Did you cop a feel of my boob?"
Shane Lanzo pried his fingers off his temples where they'd been nursing his headache. He searched the bar for the target of the bartender's accusation.
A Puerto Rican local leered at the bartender's curvy chest without apology.
The smile curling the petite brunette bartender's lips might seem flirty to her groping patron, but to Shane it warned of white-hot violence. Something on the darker side of magic was about to happen.
The bartender added ice to a cocktail shaker and shook. She poured a green-tinged beverage into two martini glasses and slid one the way of her leering customer. "We should have drinks together before getting friendly. On the house."
You foolish soul. Don't drink it.
She toasted her glass at the man but didn't sip.
The man raised his glass, leered at her chest, and drank.
Like an imminent train crash, Shane couldn't look away from the disaster.
The guy jumped up to cup his groin. "Bruja." You witch.
Everyone in the sparsely packed restaurant turned to stare at the spectacle of him moaning. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he fell to his knees. His high-pitched yowl hitched up an octave, which irritated Shane's sensitive ears.
"La bruja me envenenó." The witch poisoned me. He pointed at her.
Her eyes widened as if the effect of her potion stunned her.
She stood on tiptoe to lean over the counter and look down at him on the floor. "¿Quieres ayuda?" Would you like help?
"Ni a putas!" Oh, hell, no! He pulled himself upright using the barstool and hobbled out the exit like a man with glass balls between his legs.
The background din resumed now that the show was over. As usual, humans dismissed the possibility of magic. They rationalized the inexplicable into normalcy.
"You going to stop wasting payer space and order something?"
Shane spun his swivel-top stool back toward the bar counter to face the bartender's glittering hazel eyes. She tucked a strand of loose hair behind her ear. A black tourmaline crystal had fallen out of her shirt where it hung on a long silver chain around her neck. The protective stone was meant to absorb threatening energy and transmute it into something harmless.
"What'll you have?" Her accented English was a combination of several European languages.
"I don't want what he had." He nodded toward the exit but couldn't help admiring her hutzpah. To whip out magic in public was ballsy, although dangerous. If she did it too often, humans might stop ignoring it, which could incite witch-hunting behavior. The century mattered not. When faced with inexplicable magic, humans freaked out.
"You weren't planning to cop a feel of me too, were you?" Her gaze sparkled with amusement. "We don’t see many blue-eyed blonds who look like hungover movie stars down here in Cabo Rojo. So, I'm not sure what to expect from you."
"No, ma'am. Whiskey. Neat."
His mind clouded when the demon inside his brain surged. Like a T-rex flailing against a giant electric fence it tested for weakness. It wanted complete control of him in the classic sense of demon possession. Even though it'd failed its attempts for almost a year, it never gave up. The demon receded, but exerted influence on other parts of his body, fanning the fire of Shane’s fascination with the bartender until the urge to mate threatened to push Shane to transform into his feral lycanthrope form.
He thought to the demon, "I won't scare the humans here by growing nails and busting clothing like the Hulk. For the record, I don't want her."
Not that him thinking this in a screaming voice inside his head discouraged the demon. Most demon possessions resulted in chaos and violence, as in classic horror film portrayals, when the demon chose a human host. Shane wasn't aware of any other case where a demon screwed up and chose a non-human to possess. Perhaps that's why it hadn't been able to completely take over his mind and body.
"Your interest in her makes no sense. She’s your enemy, right?" The demon’s words came out in a harsh, guttural sound that echoed between his ears. "Kill her. Make it brutal."
"No killing today, Baku. Definitely not her. Didn't you just see what she did to that guy? She's dangerous."
"Not as dangerous as me. I hate witches."
The demon pressed hard for dominance. Shane pushed back. Smoldering pain blurred his vision. He scratched at his arms where the long sleeves of his button-down shirt scraped his blistered skin. This bizarre side effect of fighting the demon's attempt to dominate him sucked. His accelerated healing ability resolved the burns within minutes, but it still hurt.
Shane surged to his feet, intent on leaving before he lost control. He might’ve come here with the goal of confronting the witchy bartender, but this wasn’t the right night for him to face her. Dizziness forced him to grip the counter for balance to avoid a faceplant onto the floor. He wiped his nose, shocked to see blood on his finger.
The bartender shoved a paper bag in his face. He pushed it out of the way and frowned. "I’m not going to puke."
"Could’ve fooled me. You turned green." She frowned. "Oh…your nose." She handed him a wad of paper napkins.
"I'll take that whiskey." He resumed his seat on the barstool with the napkins pressed against his nose. A few eyeblinks didn’t clear the blur from his vision.
"I’m in charge," Shane thought to the demon.
"Your scruples make you weak."
"You sure you can handle a drink?" She held the whiskey in her hand.
He nodded.
She slid it his way before tucking the crystal back beneath her shirt.
He reached for his own neck talismans, coming up empty handed. He’d left them on the bathroom counter when he’d bathed. Son of a sugar tit. He never took them off. But an hour ago the pain of anything touching his skin had been too much.
Without them as a safeguard against her magic he needed to leave. Since his nose had stopped bleeding, he stuffed the napkins into his pocket. No way he would leave something with his blood near her.
A tall, blonde woman slid onto the barstool next to him. In an American accent she said, "Hey there. Heard you speaking English. It was all sexy Britishy English, but still my language. I'm here on vacay from New Jersey." Her gaze slid down his body. She leaned in close. "I've never met anyone who looks as amazing as you."
Ugh.
His brothers loved to rib him over his effect on women. Often, his siblings would use Shane's ability to attract humans for their advantage to get what they needed when on a mission.
"It's because I'm a lycan," he replied.
"A what?" Her face scrunched up. "Like a mushroom?"
Technically, a lichen wasn't a mushroom, but algae and fungi living together. Many didn't understand the science. Not that it had anything to do with what he was.
"No. A lycanthrope. A werewolf." Internally, he eye-rolled. He despised the label, werewolf, which implied turning into an animal. It also implied biting would turn her. Despite fake legends, a human couldn’t become a lycan or vampire or witch. You were either born into it or you weren’t.
"Cool. Do you turn into a dog when it's a full moon?" She didn't believe his explanation but grinned to play along as if this was part of a foreplay game.
"I can turn a nytime I want, but not into a dog." Lycans didn't turn into a wolf as dictated by pop culture legend. They were biologically immortal, and they did morph into a wolf-like creature with elongated snouts, claws, and more hair. Underworld got it close. He'd always been suspicious they had an inside source as a consultant. It wasn't a particularly attractive transitional creature, but it was a powerful and deadly form.
The blonde leaned toward him. "Do you howl at the full moon and lose your mind to become a homicidal maniac?"
"No." The full moon did make his drive to mate go through the roof if he missed his suppression serum dose, which he had to take every two months. A brilliant scientist came up with the concoction to dull the sex cravings long ago.
Shane smoothed out his voice to use coercion on the woman. He liked to think of the power as a Jedi mind trick. "Forget everything about me. I am not the one you want."
He bit back a smile when she mimed back to him. "You're not the one I want."
"Go," Shane whispered. "Enjoy your vacation."
The bartender doubled over, laughing. She wiped tears from her eyes. "Like a mushroom. That was priceless." She sobered. "You're supposed to be dead. What are you doing here, Shane?"
"Looking for you, Madeline." He'd come to Puerto Rico to find her. "It’s time you stop running and fix your mistake."
"Who says I made a mistake?" She washed glass tumblers, outwardly unhurried and composed. But he detected the fast rhythm of her heart with his kicked-up hearing.
Decades ago, Madeline cast an ancient Sumerian blood curse on Shane and his three brothers: By this blood you are bound to the monarch of England to support and defend the nation and its people against preternatural enemies, to protect the innocent, and to serve for all the days you live.
When they were accidentally captured a half century ago, the queen used her witchy niece, Madeline, to force them to serve the monarchy exclusively and forever. Bound into eternal service as the Crown’s personal assassin squad they hunted paranormal terrorists. Sounded like a righteous, respectable purpose that needed doing.
With no say over their lives, their keeper treated them like abominations. They weren’t allowed anything meaningful—no children, no long-term lovers, and no attachments. Forced to run ragged from one hunt to the next, they’d spent decades eradicating deadly, power-hungry, or psychotic inhuman creatures. Never did they get a thank you or a vacation or even a smidge of freedom to have a life outside their "purpose."
"Bitter a bit, huh?" Baku chuckled. "Let me take over. I'm not cursed. I'll kill this witch and the newly crowned king."
"Shut up." Shane massaged the tattooed curse band around his wrist, which burned. Anytime someone threatened the monarch it forced him to protect the ruler against the threat. Ironically, how was he supposed to protect the monarch from the demon within him? "Killing the monarch won't stop the curse. It means I get a new boss in whomever gets crowned next."
Facing off with so many crazy evil nonhumans had consequences. His three brothers were broken on the inside. Shane had faked his own death months ago when the accidental demon possession made him a danger to his brothers, their missions, and himself since he couldn't always control when the demon exerted its influence. His brothers and the monarch still didn’t know he lived, which he regretted. It shamed him not to join in their fights as a part of the team, but he couldn’t control the demon enough to trust that he could function in situations when one wrong choice would kill them all. Since the monarch thought him dead, he discovered he didn't have to report in when called. He did feel its pull, though.
Shane drank the entire tumbler of whiskey in three swallows. He met Madeline's unwavering gaze and wondered if the most powerful witch he’d ever met could make the demon leave. He’d tried everything. He’d consulted every magical and religious guru he could find without results. Instead of asking her, he said, "I need you to reverse the curse."
She cocked her head. "Of course, you do. But you’re here for something else, too, aren’t you? This heat between us…it was there when you found me two years ago in Monaco." She wiggled her eyebrows.
"There was no heat. Is no heat." At the Monte-Carlo Opera House she'd been decked out in a daring black gown. He'd wanted her so much that desire stole his sanity, and he assumed she had cast some sort of attraction spell. He'd grumbled a few terse words at her before she slipped away.
"Deny it all you want, mushroom, but you want me." With a sigh, she rested her elbows on the counter. "This isn’t the place to discuss a deal. Let’s go back to your place."
He blinked at her. Was she suggesting sex in exchange for a curse reversal? He’d do almost anything to be free of the curse, but this raised a few red flags. Witches were inherently sensual beings that didn’t resist indulging in pleasure. They could also be sneaky about using pleasure for their own gain or hurting those who crossed the line without permission.
"For clarification, we’re going somewhere quiet to discuss the curse," he stated.
"Of course." She whispered to the other bartender before she pushed out from around the counter.
He threw money on the counter and followed her outside.
In a daze, he let her lead, surprised she knew where he stayed. At least the demon chose this moment to remain quiet. She paused in front of his hotel when a barely clothed boy with a runny nose begged money from her. With a paper towel that appeared as if out of thin air, she wiped his nose. Then she handed over a wad of crumpled bills, which looked like all her tips. She encouraged the child to spend the money on new shoes, but he wasn’t listening when he ran off.
"What was that?" Shane asked.
"He needs shoes, but he'll probably give it all to his alcoholic father." She shrugged. "At least he might avoid getting smacked around tonight. Poor kid."
What madness was this to have a witch who cared about someone other than herself?
She looked like she was the one who needed the money. Her gaunt appearance suggested she wasn’t eating regularly or might be stressed. Her clothes and shoes had an overly worn look.
"How did you know all that about the kid?" he asked.
"Stuff like that comes to me. Witchy skills, I guess."
He unlocked the door to the room he’d rented in the tiny hotel. Inside reeked of stale cigarette smoke and a fruity deodorizer, not that he smoked. If he could make it to his talismans, then he could negotiate safely with her.
She placed her hand on his chest, halting his drive to search for his neck amulets. As if under a power beyond his control, he couldn’t move. Was she using magic?
Something in his body shifted, something that had nothing to do with the demon. A rushing instinct thickened his blood…thickening somewhere else on him, too. When he realized he was aroused he recoiled. Sweat bloomed on his chest.
He refused to acknowledge any sort of attraction to her as real. Time to get his head straight. Get her to reverse the curse.
"Then kill her for the half century of suffering," the demon chimed in.
"Quiet. This isn't your business."
"Shane?"
He jumped, which broke his connection with both her and the demon.
"What are you doing?" His heart beat with panic. He swallowed through a tightness in his throat and eyed the bathroom where he'd find the talismans.
"You feel this between us? It’s magnetic." Her eyes shone with eagerness in the dim light from the single overhead lightbulb.
"I don’t feel anything." Desire hot and thick made his hands shake. "If you’re weaving a spell on me, stop." The one defining goal of the past few decades had been to hate this woman for what she’d done to him and his brothers, and to make her pay.
