Blood Moon Read Online Free PDF Page A

had gone still too,
frozen on his barstool.
    Zelda turned back to the man, fighting to
maintain her calm. “No one here is whipped, merely employed. It’s
not that kind of bar.”
    The man’s taunting eyes shifted back to
Zelda, narrowing as they fell on her. He lifted a hand and
scratched dirty fingernails over the stubble along his jaw. “You
sure you ain’t seen a girl fittin’ my description? Could save us
all a lot of trouble if you have.”
    “ Sorry.” Zelda picked up
her clipboard and made a show of looking over liquor bottles she
had already assessed. She could feel Logan watching from the edge
of the bar, his body heat so heavy that it almost suffocated
her.
    The door jingled as the man left, and
everyone sighed out the breaths they’d been holding. Violet’s
shoulders trembled and she hunched over the sink, tilting her
forehead down to rest on the cool stainless steel.
    “ That was Hyde, Devin
Raymore’s cousin and second-in-charge.”
    Grant swallowed and grabbed the edge of the
counter with both hands. “Ain’t he the one that Devin ordered to
put you down?”
    Violet dry heaved into the sink. “Yeah.”
    “ Tell me you kicked his
ass,” Grant said.
    Violet closed her eyes and breathed in
deeply through her nose as she stood up straight again. “Not
yet.”
    Before Grant could press for more details,
Kerri came back from the kitchen. The tension was still thick
enough to taste, and the man’s pungent odor lingered in the
air.
    “ It happened again.” Kerri
popped a fist on her hip. “I miss everything.”
    Zelda rubbed a hand over Violet’s back.
“Trust me. You wanted to miss this one.”
    A chorus of motors roared in the distance,
so violently that the glass bottles on the shelves clinked and
rattled as Zelda watched three trucks pull up outside.
    A second later, a flaming beer bottle
smashed through the front window.

Chapter Seven
     
     
    Zelda stood frozen behind the bar, watching
in horror as the fire spread across the dance floor. Even though it
had been two years since she’d used raw magic, her skin itched with
familiar desperation. She reached a shaky hand up to touch her
necklace, fingering the moss agate charm for focus and
self-control.
    The electric hum of her body subsided, and
she was suddenly aware that Kerri was screaming. Grant ran to the
side door, where a fire extinguisher was mounted to the wall. He
grabbed it and rushed to the dance floor, spraying frothy foam in a
wide arc.
    Violet pressed a hand over one ear and
glared at Kerri, who seemed to have bottomless lungs. “Would
someone shut her up?” she growled.
    One look from Zelda, and Kerri bit her
tongue. Her wet, round eyes blinked several times, then diverted to
the floor.
    Logan stood near the front window, squinting
through the haze the fire extinguisher and smoke had spewed into
the air. “They’re not done.” He turned and hurried back to the bar,
rounded the counter, and took Zelda by the arm. “We need to
barricade ourselves in the kitchen and call for help.”
    Zelda dug her heels in and gripped the
counter. “And just let them burn the place down?”
    “ With us in it?” Violet
added.
    Logan bared his teeth. “There are at least a
dozen of them out there. What other options do you see?”
    Another flaming beer bottle crashed to the
dance floor. The fire quickly died in the pool of foam, but this
time, two men followed it through the window.
    Their boots crunched over the broken glass,
and their hands flexed at their sides, fur rippling over their
knuckles. Amber eyes flickered from their mostly human faces, with
only a touch of fur at their temples and throats. They ambled
forward clumsily, occasionally hunching over like cavemen.
    It was a wholly unnatural state, even for a
werewolf, achieved with drugs that were highly addictive and
corrosive. Zelda had seen the aftermath enough times to know the
short-term enhancements were not worth their long-term cost.
    “ Zee,” Logan hissed,
tugging