Red Moon Secrets (Deadly Beauties #3) Read online

  "Lust," I murmur in a nearly muted tone, getting sicker.

  "Exactly. So when you feel the extreme feelings of lust, your succubus rises to the surface. The closer you get to your change, the more it leaks. You don't feel any differently, but you secrete the scent, making everyone around you feel the heat, so to speak."

  "But who—"

  "Gage. Your lust is targeted toward him. The spell probably started while the two of you were dating, from what I've gathered from the books I've been reading today. It died down when you and Kane got back together—well, it died down for you. For him—it's starting to drive him crazy. The spell can't work at all if one of the two people isn't already in love. The problem is—if the other person finds love in another, then the caster is the only one to suffer. He's been suffering alone. With Kane out of the picture, he's not suffering by himself anymore because the spell is dragging you back down. It's probably why your creature goddess freaked out when you were alone with him that day at the widows."

  I swallow hard, trying to digest everything. Gage wouldn't do this. He couldn't.

  "If I'm meant to be with Gage, and he did cast this spell, why would my creature goddess half of me freak out then but not this time?"

  He purses his lips for a second. "Freya wasn't like you," he says randomly, or at least I think it's random. "She held back. She buried her powers, but no one knows how. She never accepted who or what she was. Maybe you're starting to do that. Your creature goddess doesn't like being controlled, though. Hers never did, and in the end, she wasn't stronger because she held back; she was weaker."

  How am I holding back? I basically begged the devil inside me to come out last night when Kane needed me. I was pointless without it. My darkness didn't stir, but—

  "How did I do that? Last night. The scream. How did I know to do that? That was the only bit of stir my dark side would offer. I'm usually fighting to restrain it, not to release it."

  He shakes his head. "I don't know. But—you don't have your phone, do you?"

  My eyes widen and I start rifling through my bag, desperate to find it before Gage finds me. As soon as I do, I toss it out the window. I'm not scared of Gage, but until I know what's really going on, I can't be around him.

  Chaz breathes out in relief, and he kicks the car into a higher speed to propel us far away from the dark user. I hope he's wrong. I hope Gage didn't do this.

  "Where are we?" I ask as I climb out of the car in front of an old home.

  "Mom's safe house," Chaz says as he joins me, grabbing our bags from the car. "We'll strategize about how to get Kane out of prison while we're here. I'll call Mom and see if she can meet us and help out. Then I'll call Drackus and Calypso."

  I nod while letting out a ragged breath of exhaustion and disbelief. There's always chaos. Always. If anything happens to Kane, I don't know if I'll care what my crazy half does to the ones who hurt him.

  Chapter 15

  Kane

  "Night stalker," a girl sings, waking me up from some pain in the ass sleeper spell cast by a fucking chanter instead of a witch. They knew I was immune to witch powers. They know a lot about me.

  The little girl giggles and smiles as she ducks behind the wall of her cell, just barely staying out of sight. She can't be more than seven. What's she doing in here?

  I don't have to ask where I am. I know the council wouldn't take us anywhere but their conjoined prison where the worst offenders go. Fucking politics.

  I climb to my feet, desperately searching for the others, and I sigh in relief when I see them all still collapsed—asleep but alive. That spell will bind them for longer than it did me. I have to figure out a way to get us out of here.

  Sierra's side is healing, slowly. Dray is unconscious, bloody and battered. They really worked him over. Fuck. How did they find him? How the hell did they find us? If I find out Gage had anything to do with this—surely he didn't. It would have put Alyssa in harm's way. I know why Chaz played along. His deception saved my girl.

  Thank fuck they didn't take Alyssa. I'd already be going crazy.

  "Hey," I whisper to the little girl who is still hiding. "Can you tell me how long I've been down here?"

  She just barely peeks out, letting only one eye become visible beside the cylinder-block wall next to her bars.

  "Two days, night stalker," she giggles out, disappearing back beside the wall again.

  How does she know what I am? And two fucking days? Shit. That's one hell of a sleeper spell.

  "How long have you been down here?" I ask, keeping my voice low.

  Her eye peers out once more, and I get a better glimpse of her oily hair that is too dirty to show its true color. It almost makes me sick at my stomach to see something so tragic as a child in this shape.

  "Always," she whispers, not giggling this time, saying it as though her heart is breaking around the words.

  A deeper pang of sickness strikes me. Always? She was born here? She's been here for as long as she can remember? Fuck.

  "How many guards?" I ask her, and she creeps out just a little more, showing me half of her tattered dress that stops just above her dirty knees. Her bare feet are almost blackened with the floor's filth, and her lips are cracked and dry.

  "None inside. They only guard the outside to keep others from breaking in. No one can break out. Only the keepers come. They feed us. That is all. That is all."

  I plan on proving that theory wrong. They know most of my secrets, but do they know them all?

  "Even if you did," she adds, her voice light and cheery, despite the horrible circumstances, "you wouldn't get past the valkyries or banshees. They guard the outside."

  I swallow hard. I've only ever come into contact with a valkyrie once. Fortunately it wasn't my soul she stole and sent to the spirit planes. I had to watch her do it to another though. Alyssa will come for me, and they'll—I have to get out of here before she comes and gives her life in a foolish attempt to rescue me.

  "Can you keep a secret?" I ask her as I ready myself to start attempting to break free, preparing to use the powers I was never meant to have.

  "You mean the fact you're more than a night stalker?" she whispers, smiling.

  My eyes grow wide, and I kneel down, studying her.

  "How do you know?"

  She studies me hard, coming into full view. "I know more about you than you do."

  Chapter 16

  Gage

  "Where the hell are you?" I growl over the phone to Gallon, pissed that he's late. I left Alyssa two days ago to meet his sorry ass here.

  "What are you talking about?"

  "I'm here. I've been here. And I'm still waiting on you to show up. I've been calling for two fucking days!"

  "Dude, I haven't had my phone on for five days. We were in the middle of tracking a rogue Were that has drawn human eyes to its existence. What are you talking about?"

  I glance down in confusion, and wave my hand over my phone to pull up the call Chaz answered for me two days ago. There it is—the call from Gallon—with a three-minute time announcement.

  I start to argue, when my whole body is suddenly cloaked with hot and cold chills of realization. That mother-fucking duster!

  I hang up on Gallon, knowing damn well I'm about to be sick, and I dial Alyssa. Voicemail. Straight to voicemail. I dial her again and again, until I finally see red and destroy my phone in my hand when my anger leaks out.

  Pacing back and forth, I start to panic, and I summon my power to see if I can still peg her phone. Nothing. Not one fucking thing. She hasn't made a call in two days. I knew I hadn't been able to reach her, but I thought she was freaking out because of her feelings that are starting to reform and grow for me. I needed to wait until I was there - in person - and she couldn't run from me.

  What has he fucking done with her? Dice. Why the hell didn't I think of him sooner?

  I wave my hand over the shattered phone to reassemble it, quickly dialing the incubus who better fucking answer. />
  "It's about fucking time someone called me," the irritable incubus growls. "Where the hell is everyone?"

  That's not promising. "How long have that stupid fucking duster and Alyssa been gone?"

  "Since right after you left. They were going out for air, and I haven't been able to reach them since."

  "Fuck!" I yell, almost crushing my phone again. "Which way did they go?"

  "Hell, I don't know. I was busy. I didn't realize they were running off."

  "Did you see her? Was he fucking forcing her out?"

  Dice sits quietly for a minute, so I yell at him again, repeating my question with more urgency.

  "Shit! I don't know. My back was turned."

  He knew. He plotted this. He somehow managed to figure out about the spell, and he got rid of me so he could turn her against me. She'll never forgive me if I can't explain.

  I hang up, scream some more into the woods, and then I jump back in my car, ready to find that fucker and destroy him. No one, and I mean no one, is allowed to fuck with me or my girl.

  Chapter 17

  Alyssa

  After spending a whole day with Shay, I feel terrible for what Mom did to her over a guy—a guy she didn't even like all that much. Sheesh.

  "So—are you okay?" she asks, smiling tightly. "No urges?"

  She's talking about blood. Apparently my creature goddess craves blood. Gross. As if I don't have enough problems. Fortunately, that part of my fate hasn't come to haunt me. Yet—I don't think.

  "No urges. I'm fine. I'm curious as to why I haven't flipped out in a while. I almost wish I would. I could save Kane if I totally lost it."

  Well, I could have the power to save Kane. I doubt I could make my bitch half go there and handle business, considering I never have any recollection of what happens after I reach a certain point.

  "I don't know. I've called a friend to come over. She's a hexer. She's old and wise—

  been around since the days of Freya. She'll have some answers—hopefully."

  "Hexer?" I squeak. I'm not too keen on that.

  "She's one of the good guys, Alyssa. She learned a long time ago to use her curses as gifts in disguise. She's a sponge, and she's had many centuries to absorb information. Information we'll need."

  A smoky haze, different from that of a dark angel's, fills the room, announcing a new presence. The Hexer is here.

  With a clichéd gypsy scarf wrapped around her head, a long-layered skirt full of vibrant colors, and a flowing white blouse that is draping off her deceptively-young shoulders, she makes her way toward us with the face of a twenty-year-old and the jaded eyes of the ancient.

  "Shay," she purrs, making me shiver. Hexers always freak me out.

  Inwardly, I roll my eyes at myself. I'm some crazy bitch beast and I'm freaked out by a hexer.

  She finally lets her emerald greens fall on me, and they widen in surprise as she pales. Do I have on a scary face right now or something?

  "It's her," she croaks, stumbling backwards. "You found her."

  Shay rolls her eyes at the dramatic hexer, and Chaz comes to stand a little closer to me. Thankfully, hexers have no power if a duster interferes.

  "I've known where she was for years, but I couldn't tell anyone. Stop acting terrified and help us figure out what the hell is going on," Shay mutters, seeming annoyed.

  The hexer dressed as a gypsy slowly tries to steel herself, seeming either awestruck or horrified—I'm not sure which. She clears her throat, moves her hands down her dress as though she's smoothing wrinkles, and then sits down when her legs refuse to offer her support.

  "The night stalker? Is he here?" she asks, piquing my interest. How does she know about Kane if she didn't know about me until right now.

  "You know about Kane? How?" I prompt, leaning forward.

  "Dark ones run with dark ones, and you have the darkness and the light burning in your soul—two sides of the same coin. And the dark user? Is he with you?"

  How does she know so much and so little about me at the same time? And she didn't answer my question.

  "Neither are with me. Kane was sent to prison, and I'm—well, Gage and I need to stay away from each other. How do you know about them?"

  She takes a weary breath, seeming uncertain for a moment, but then she finally exhales, releasing enough anxiety to almost be tangible.

  "Because long ago, I hexed your night stalker."

  I'm stunned, really. This bitch is the one?

  My chair scrapes across the floor as I jump up, but Chaz's strong arms wrap around me, restraining me. Bastard!

  "I'm only giving you one warning, Chaz. Let me the fuck go!"

  "I had a reason," the hexer bitch says quickly. "I didn't curse him—I saved him."

  My struggling slows as her words float to me, barely sinking in past my blanket of fury. Finally, I stop fighting and sit back down, allowing her a small window to explain.

  "Elaborate," I hiss.

  "If Castine had known what he really was, what he would have become, then he would have never gotten away from her. She would have tethered him to her until she suffocated him. I saved his life by cursing his gifts, keeping him from exposing his true being."

  If she thinks she's explaining, she's sadly mistaken. She's only confusing me more with each rambled line of nonsense.

  Shay and Chaz look just as perplexed as I am. Thank God. Sometimes, I feel stupid for not understanding the shit in our world.

  "What do you mean? What's his true being? Bitten fey can only be what they are. Mortals destined for immortality cannot become bitten fey," Chaz says, and I nod, because I have nothing better to add.

  A breath expels from her with a hazy fog, and settling in is an image of Kane from long ago. I gasp at the beauty he was even then.

  "This is your night stalker. Yes?" she asks.

  Words evade me, so I nod in response—again.

  "You're right. Mortals destined for immortality cannot be changed into bitten fey—most of the time."

  My head snaps up, just as Shay's and Chaz's does. "What do you mean?" Shay asks, urging this procrastinating hexer to quit drawing out the suspense that seems to be materializing and strangling me.

  "A creature like she is—they can be bitten. Changed. And when their time is ripe, their true being will emerge."

  It takes me longer than the others to understand, because what she's saying makes no sense—until it makes perfect sense.

  "Kane's like me?" I almost whisper, but the color has already drained from Shay and Chaz who are forced to stagger to a seat.

  "He can't be like me. He would have had some powers before he was ever bitten."

  "He's as powerful as you, but he is like you. You are Freya's descendent. You are the most powerful of us all—a goddess by descent, by right, and by birth.

  "Castine has spent centuries trying to recreate the specimen Kane is. She assumed her amulet gave him the same powers it gave her. It had nothing to do with it. But had she not bitten him, he would have died when he turned.

  "The mind is our strongest tool and our weakest handicap. Your night stalker was raised as a human. Therefore, he thought like a human. Humans rationalize the irrational. So every time he did something, such as use the witch powers most creatures like you have in the beginning, he wrote it off as something perfectly explainable. He wouldn't have been ready for the change, since he never practiced his gifts. The same bite that condemned him, saved him.

  "He wasn't ready to control the shifting side of his powers, and they would have revealed his true identity to the oblivious vampiress. So I cursed him, kept him from showing her the hidden secrets he didn't know he kept. Only some of his abilities crept out, but his eyes kept his secret, his body never shifted, and his full powers never came—but they will. They will very soon.

  "Once she's dead, my curse will be broken. He'll embody the creatures better than you because he has journeyed through our world for longer, and he has learned to deal with the demons that
haunt his mind. You—you still need help, and you will for a while."

  I swallow hard, still trying to soak it all in. It's not possible. Does he—

  "So there's no way he knew this? Even now?" Chaz asks, voicing the question I was only brave enough to ask in my mind.

  "No. He never knew. His real family was slaughtered centuries ago when our world hunted the creatures. He was born from a warlock and witch, but his father came from a creature goddess. Someone learned of his origins, and the hunt began because people believed he'd turn into one as well. Fools.

  "Kane wasn't supposed to exist. His mother saved him by abandoning him as an infant. His mortal parents never told him about how he came to be their son. But he knows now. By now he's met the child."

  "Stop speaking in riddles," Chaz scolds.

  Her eyes change into glowing orbs of dark gray, and I shiver as it takes me off guard. It's not like the others. Her irises aren't the only things to change; everything in her eye socket is the same gray.

  "I saw it. Years and years ago. Centuries in fact. I can't summon a vision, but I can see one already seen. She's the gate keeper and a visionary. They have her. That's what they've been waiting on all these years—one who is connected to all the planes. She sees us for who we are without any guiding auras or eyes. She sees us to our soul. She can open any plane, no matter how locked the gate is. She's with him. Now. I've seen it before. Two lost souls seeking rescue from the prison that holds them."

  She sucks in a sharp breath as her eyes fade down to normal. My whole body is shivering right now.

  "Who is trying to open the planes? What planes are they trying to open?" Chaz asks quickly, rushing the words out into almost a ranted ramble.

  "I wish I knew. The visions only hold so much information before they shut down. I haven't had one in over a century."