Beneath a Blood Moon

  Contents

  Copyright Notice

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Titles by RJ Blain

  Beneath a Blood Moon

  A Standalone Novel Set in the Witch & Wolf World

  by RJ Blain

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher or author

  excluding the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  © 2015 Pen & Page Publishing

  For more information or to contact the author, please visit rjblain.com.

  Chapter One

  A funerary urn filled with black roses waited for me on my doorstep.

  Black lacquer gleamed in the early morning light; it was covered with gold and silver etchings depicting the heavens and its angels in triumphant exaltation as they welcomed the dead home. The cap rested beside the urn. If I wanted to enter my apartment, I had to either move it or step over it.

  The roses unsettled me even more than the urn; they still had their thorns, and they were stained with crimson.

  The paint—if it was paint—glistened in the early morning light.

  Shivering, I spun around. The street outside my apartment building was quiet. Few people ventured out in my neighborhood so close to dawn; while the area wasn’t particularly violent, it was filled with people just like me who could barely afford living in Las Vegas.

  We were in need of money, but we weren’t desperate enough to kill for it, not yet at least.

  A girl living alone in the poor side of town, however, could never be too careful. Judging from my doorstep, I was right to worry. Swallowing, I pulled my keys out of my purse. My hands shook so hard it took me several tries to unlock the deadbolt. I pocketed my keys, taking a long look inside.

  My living room was as I left it, a mess of dirty laundry and text books. Staring down at the urn, I drew a deep breath to steady my nerves and stooped down to pick up the unwanted delivery.

  The last thing I needed was a nosy neighbor discovering such a thing outside of my apartment. They’d either tell me I deserved it for being a stripper or report it to the police, who would come asking questions I couldn’t answer honestly.

  At least I had kept my first name the same when I had run away from home; when I introduced myself as Sara, I didn’t feel like I was living a lie. It was bad enough my colleagues all called me Jasmine, both as a mockery of my prudish, conservative behavior and a nod to my looks, which kept me employed at several different clubs and casinos.

  When they thought I couldn’t hear them, they liked muttering about how I was a pampered princess who didn’t belong among them.

  I sighed, set the urn on my coffee table, and stared at the phone, wondering if my fake ID would withstand the scrutiny of the police. I barely looked eighteen let alone the twenty-four my license proclaimed me to be. Did they arrest strippers who lied about their age?

  I contemplated the urn and its roses. Was prison a better alternative to having the attention of someone willing to leave such a macabre gift in front of my door? I stared at my phone, once again considering whether or not to call the cops.

  Anyone disturbed enough to leave such a thing on someone’s doorstep was someone to worry about.

  The roses unsettled me most of all. How could something so beautiful unsettle me so much? A splash of cream among the green leaves and thorny stems drew my eye. Biting my lip, I gingerly pushed aside the roses, careful to avoid pricking myself on them.

  My first name was written on the envelope in gold ink and flowing calligraphy. Taking hold of the corner, I pulled it free of the thorns. Splatters of red marked the creamy paper. In a few places, the stains had darkened to the brown-red of dried blood.

  A blob of red wax held the envelope closed. I contemplated throwing the whole thing away without reading it, but my morbid curiosity got the better of me.

  Who had sent the urn and the roses, and how did they know my name?

  I broke the seal and opened the envelope. Within was a card. The edges were decorated with black roses tangled in silver and gold ribbons. The two lines of text neatly printed in the center chilled me to the bone.

  These roses aren’t red, unshed blood’s blue,

  This urn for the dead, I made just for you.

  The card slipped from my numb hands to flutter to the coffee table. A single drop of blood splashed down from the roses to splash onto the paper as though warning me of what would come.

  I forced myself to go to class, trekking across Las Vegas to one of the few community colleges accepting part-time students ineligible for financial aid or unwilling to apply for it. The entire way, I kept my eyes fixed to the ground, pretending nothing was wrong so I wouldn’t glance over my shoulder every other minute.

  I wanted to.

  Class went by in a blur, and while I tried to take notes, I remembered little of the professor’s lecture. It had something to do with cornering new segments of the market for small businesses. I’d regret my inability to concentrate later, of that I was certain. I left wondering why I had gone at all. Frustrated over how frazzled the note, the urn, and the roses left me, I headed home.

  My doorstep was devoid of unwanted gifts, and breathing a relieved sigh, I let myself in. Everything was as I left it, including the urn. In a way, I wished it were gone, vanished into thin air as though it had never existed in the first place. It would have been easier to live with the worry of suffering hallucinations than the reality of a stalker—or worse.

  Once again, I considered calling the police. If I did, I’d have to show them my license. When they found out I was a stripper, they’d blame me. After all, I made a living teasing men.

  The police would make assumptions—likely accurate ones—about who might target me. How long would it take them to stop caring about who had sent the flowers and focus on my behavior instead? I clenched my teeth.

  It happened all too often to the other girls working the clubs. When they were raped, it was considered a risk of the business. When a girl was stalked, raped, or worse, too many believed she was at fault for putting her body on sale in the first place.

  I would be no different.

  Sighing my resignation, I abandoned the idea as a lost cause. Even if I went to the police, what could they do? They’d probably tell me to stay home and avoid going anywhere alone. It would be good advice, but advice I couldn’t follow even if I wanted to.

  I had no one, not really.

  Three years living in Las Vegas hadn’t c
hanged my solitary tendencies. I knew people, and some of them I even knew by their real names. Isabella came to mind; at the clubs, she went by the name of Slink, which perfectly described her relationship with the pole. She had rubber for bones, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t match her when I danced. I took comfort in the fact there were few who could, which made losing tips to her a little easier to swallow.

  Sighing, I checked my calendar for my work schedule, wrinkling my nose at the back-to-back shift. In the early evening, I’d work my primary club. Afterwards, I’d hike down Las Vegas Boulevard to dance a gig as a showgirl. With luck, I’d pick up a few extra bucks on the way from tourists wanting to have their picture taken with me.

  Tourists liked my blonde and blue hair; it made me stand out in a city full of women wearing bikinis decorated with sequins and feathers.

  Once I finished dancing as a showgirl, I’d return to the club and strip until the boss kicked me out or I lacked the strength to stand. With my luck, it’d be the former. If I lucked out and the latter happened, I’d have enough money to pay my bills plus fit in a trip to the grocery store. Determined to have more than nickels and dimes in my bank account, I packed my best costumes and braved the streets.

  After an hour of carrying a costume bag on the bus, I wished I could afford to live closer to the strip. I stared up at the neon lights of the club, sighed, and headed for the back employee entrance. In a way, I was relieved I was the only regular on shift; the new girls either ignored me or scorned me as competition, and I wasn’t beholden to any of them to teach them how to stoke a man or woman’s interest.

  It gave me time to think, which was as much of a blessing as it was a curse. Who would send me a funeral urn? Why? I had been careful about avoiding any situation that forced me to reject men. The few times I had worked nights as a prostitute, I had done so out of desperation.

  Even then, I had been cautious about who I slept with, careful to choose men who wouldn’t linger in the city. They considered me a conquest and nothing more. I hated it almost as much as I hated the daily grind of stripping, using my love of dance and perverting it for the pleasure of men and women alike.

  I browsed through the racks of extra costumes, sighing my resignation.

  Who would send me an urn? Why?

  Had a Vegas local done it? I shivered, and despite knowing I shouldn’t, I again considered whether or not to call the police. If they checked my license, the lie of my life would be exposed.

  I, Sara Madison, hadn’t existed until three years ago when I had chosen to become another statistic, a good girl turned bad, nothing more than a runaway lost to the night. Who I had been was as dead as any corpse, suiting the urn waiting for me on my coffee table.

  Shivering, I pulled down a gauzy gown from the rack. It shimmered under the light, leaving skin and lingerie a mystery while revealing enough to entice most. I could dance without doing more than letting it fall open to swirl around my legs and accomplish as much for my audience as stripping entirely. Over the course of my shift, I would reveal more and more. When I finished my dance, I’d deny them that last glimpse of skin they so desired.

  It’d likely leave my boss angry if he was watching from the second story balcony suite, but I didn’t care. If he fired me, my night’s earnings would get me a bus ticket somewhere—maybe. I sighed, changed into my best lingerie, and slipped into the gown.

  A tentative touch at my elbow drew me from my thoughts. One of the new girls stared at me. She had a pretty enough face with the pasty complexion and dull-eyed gaze of someone who had taken a few too many shots of some needle. Swallowing, she glanced over her shoulder and whispered, “Does it ever stop?”

  I took in all of the girls, most of them subdued and quiet, leaving me to wonder what had happened before I had arrived. It was one of the smartest questions I had heard from a new girl.

  There were so many things that could have happened at the club. Had the boss sent one of the new girls home with a client? Had another drunk causing trouble and assaulting one of the girls? A hundred and one different things could have happened before my arrival. So long as we stayed our course, nothing would stop and nothing would change. I would remain a ghost living off the table scraps of the wealthy club owners of Vegas. With luck, so would the other girls.

  The alternative was far worse—and far more likely to happen. The girl would probably be sold to someone looking to drown their misery in sex and drugs.

  “No,” I answered, surprising myself with my honesty. “It never stops.”

  Even if my ashes one day filled the urn on my coffee table, someone else would take my place at the club. The neon lights would keep on shining, with or without me. I headed for the stage to lose myself in the dance.

  For a weeknight, the club was busy, which gave me some hope of having a better than normal month. Determined to forget about the trouble waiting for me at home, I asked the DJ to play something with beat and spice so I could dance flamenco with the pole.

  For a little while, I’d forget. I’d forget I put myself on display most nights as a sexual commodity for the chance to go to school and make a real future for myself. If I wanted to be able to afford any classes at all next semester, I needed to dance so well I turned every head in the club.

  To do that, I needed someone to dance for.

  A sensual woman didn’t sigh or sulk on stage, so I lifted my chin, dredged up the remnants of my pride, and searched the crowds for a man worth watching, one who made my blood burn in my veins and tempted me into reconsidering my stance against love or lust at first sight.

  Maybe there were a lot of men gambling on the floor, but as always, they were all too something for my liking; some were too tall, some were too dark, some were too light, some were bodybuilders and their too apparent strength worried me. Some of the men simply gave me a bad feeling, and I turned my attention away from them before they noticed my gaze on them.

  A flash of yellow from the front row gambling tables drew my eye. At first I thought it was the glimmer of gold from a tie clip or a watch. When I couldn’t find the source of the color, I made the mistake of meeting the stare of one of the men.

  His amber eyes bore into me, and the only thing that kept me dancing was momentum. My body remembered what to do while my mind went blank. There was something about him, something that was right in all of the ways the other men were wrong; he was tall enough, I could tell by the way he slouched at the gambling table so he wouldn’t tower over the man seated beside him. He was dark, but not in the beach boy way; a little bit of olive and a little bit of bronze spoke of some European descent—Italian, if my guess was right.

  There was something nice about his mouth; he didn’t smile, but I had the feeling if he did, I’d be in real trouble. If he smiled for me, would his eyes brighten and burn even hotter?

  I wanted to find out, and I didn’t even know why.

  There were better looking men on the floor, including the man seated beside him. I forced my eyes away as I swirled around my pole, sending the hem of the gauzy, shimmering gown flaring out around me. I stole another glance.

  The man with the bright amber eyes listened to his companion, who frowned ever so slightly. There was something odd about both of them, as though they both smoldered and were on the edge of bursting into flame. The other clients gave them both a wide berth, perhaps afraid of being burned.

  When I caught the man with the amber eyes watching me, I smiled and danced for him.

  The amber-eyed man and his companion gambled the night away, but through it all, neither smiled. Something bothered them, something their tumblers of whiskey couldn’t make them forget. They brooded, and my recognition of it both bothered and delighted me.

  I didn’t care so much about his brown-eyed friend; I wanted to make the man I had chosen to dance for smile. He was like a stone, and if only I could crack through his sullen exterior, I’d find something interesting beneath. Would he be some shining gemstone, or would he be a
precious metal, strong yet beautiful?

  I wanted to know.

  He didn’t smile for me by my last dance, and flustered, frustrated, and disappointed, I retreated to the dressing room to prepare for my next gig down the strip. The new girls stared at me as I changed into my sequins and feathers for my showgirl gig.

  “Are you supposed to do that?” one of them demanded, scowling at me.

  Startled from my thoughts, I stared at her in confusion, wondering what she was talking about. Then I realized she meant my clothes and not my fixation on the amber-eyed man from the crowd. I flushed.

  “If you don’t like it, take it up with the boss, sweetheart,” I replied, and because I’d seen what jealousy caused time and time again, I locked my things in the locker I shared with Danny. When the other woman came on shift, she’d see my things and take the hint to protect her things. I shook my head. The new girls had no idea what they were getting themselves into working for the club’s boss—and no idea why it was a bad idea to alienate the regulars.

  They’d learn soon enough.

  At least I had some guarantee I wouldn’t be going home with a man of the boss’s choosing. I had made it clear when I had been hired; if I didn’t approve of the man, I wouldn’t leave the club with him.

  In a way, it surprised me the boss had agreed—and had kept his word so far.

  I think it helped, in the rare times I did need the money, I wasn’t above discreetly telling the boss between acts who I’d consider going home with. If the amber-eyed man had been alone, I would’ve left the boss a note. If I didn’t have a gig preventing me from heading home—to his, preferably—I might’ve made the effort to catch him.

  Muttering curses at myself, I finished putting on my makeup for my next gig, double-checked I had locked all of my things away, and left. It was fully dark, but the lights of the hotels and casinos on Las Vegas Boulevard illuminated my path. The evening was cool for Vegas, bringing the tourists out in droves. With the surge of the transient population came the locals dressed in costumes hunting a quick buck from those easily manipulated.