Blue Moon Read Online Free PDF Page A

temper.”
    â€œIt would have come down to an ultimatum in the end, Jean-Claude. I know vampires. You would have argued and bargained for a day or two, but in the end, it would have come down to this.”
    â€œAre you so sure?” he asked.
    â€œYeah,” I said. “I heard the fear in Colin’s voice. He’s scared shitless of you. He’d have never agreed to us coming down.”
    â€œIt is not just me he fears, ma petite. You are the Executioner. Young vampires are told if they are foolish, you will come and slay them in their coffins.”
    â€œYou’re making that up,” I said.
    He shook his head. “No, ma petite, you are the bogeyman of vampirekind.”
    â€œIf I see Colin, I’ll try not to scare him more than I already have.”
    â€œYou will see him, ma petite, one way or the other. He will either arrange a meeting when he sees you mean him no harm, or he will be there when they attack.”
    â€œWe have to get Richard out before the full moon. We’ve only got five days. We didn’t have time to do this slowly.”
    â€œWho are you trying to convince, ma petite, me or yourself?”
    I had lost my temper. It had been stupid. Inexcusable. I had a temper, but I was usually better at controlling it than that. “I’m sorry,” I said.
    Jean-Claude gave a very inelegant snort. “Now she’s sorry.” He dialed the phone. “I will have Asher and the others pack.”
    â€œAsher?” I said. “He’s not going with me.”
    â€œYes, he is.”
    I opened my mouth to protest. He pointed one long, pale finger at me. “I know Colin and his people. You need an entourage that is impressive without being too frightening, and yet if the worst happens, they must be able to defend you and themselves. I will pick who goes and who stays.”
    â€œThat’s not fair.”
    â€œThere is no time for fairness, ma petite. Your precious Richard sits behind bars and the full moon is approaching.” He let his hand fall to his lap. “If you wish to take some of your wereleopards with you, that would be welcome. Asher and Damian will need food while they are away. They cannot hunt within Colin’s territory. That would be taken as an act of hostility.”
    â€œYou want me to volunteer some of the wereleopards as walking provisions?”
    â€œI am going to supply some werewolves as well,” he said.
    â€œI’m lupa for the pack as well as Nimir-ra for the leopards. You need to run the wolves by me, too.” Richard had made me lupa of the werewolves when we were dating. Lupa is often just another word for the head wolf’s girlfriend, though usually it’s another werewolf, not a human. The wereleopards came to me by default. I killed their last leader and found out that everyone else was pretty much beating the hell out of them. Weak shapeshifters without a dominant to protect them end up as anyone’s meat. It was my fault, sort of, that they were being hurt, so I extended my protection over them. My protection, since I wasn’t a wereleopard, consisted of my threat. My threat was that I’d kill anyone who messed with them. The monsters in town must have believed it, because they left the leopards alone. Use enough silver bullets on enough monsters, and you get a reputation.
    Jean-Claude put the receiver up to his ear. “It is getting so that a person cannot insult a monster in Saint Louis without answering to you, ma petite.” If I hadn’t known better, I’d say Jean-Claude was angry with me.
    I guess, this once, I couldn’t blame him.

3
    T HE PRIVATE JET was like a long white egg with fins. Okay, it was longer than an egg and more pointy at the ends, but it seemed just as fragile. Have I mentioned I have this little phobia about flying? I sat in my comfy, fully swivel, fully reclinable chair very upright, seat-belted in, fingernails digging into the