Accepting the Moon: Prequel (Moonrising Book 1) (6 page)

“She does not need you now, nor will she need you in the future. She is the queen of a werewolf pack, Jaxon—”

“You can make her hybrid and rule over—”

“Do not interrupt me again!” Phoenix thundered, and Jaxon fell to one knee and bowed his head.

“My apologies, Master, but I think—”

“You think,” Phoenix spat. “Your thinking is going to get you killed! I will share my throne with no one,” he finished quietly.

Jaxon waited a moment to make sure he wouldn‘t make the mistake of disrupting Phoenix again. “Why would you have to share your throne with anyone? You will own her and rule over the werewolves as well as the vampires.”

Phoenix nodded. “That may be true, but there is one tiny detail you are forgetting.”

Jaxon‘s eyes closed as he exhaled. “The bond.”

“Yes. The bond. I refuse to make myself vulnerable—”

Jaxon‘s head shot up. “I can do it. Surely I‘ve lived long enough—” His words were suddenly cut off as Phoenix‘s fist connected with his jaw. The punch knocked him back ten yards into the wall. A few shards of stone fell as Jaxon‘s body crumpled to the floor.

“Even if you were strong enough to make her hybrid, do you think I would actually let you live and become my equal as pack leader over werewolves? She is a werewolf. You are a vampire. Enemies, Jaxon. Immortal enemies. The two are not meant to bond. She‘s better off dead, but, if she cooperates, I will let her own pack do it and save me the trouble. Like you said: it‘s entirely your fault she was bitten, right? We‘ll just let them fight over who will be their next leader.”

Jaxon swallowed hard, and Phoenix could tell he was still trying to figure out a way the two of them could be together.

“You will not be with her. I forbid it. Now, leave my quarters while I talk with her. I don‘t want your interference if she disagrees with me.”

Jaxon got to his feet and wiped the stone dust from his clothing. “And if she disagrees with you, what will you do?”

Phoenix contemplated his options, but quickly came to only one. “Kill her.”

Like Phoenix‘s living chambers, his bathroom was exquisite. Everything was top notch fixtures and furnishings that had to have been shipped to him from overseas. The style was unique to say the least. I wondered if he had decorated everything himself or if his wife had done it.

I couldn‘t imagine what a man like him would do for a living, and then it occurred to me that he might actually be a model. I hadn‘t ever seen him before, but that wasn‘t saying much; I rarely had time to look at magazines or keep up with
Runway
. I gasped and then giggled as the thought of him being a porn star came to mind. I shook my head at the ridiculous thought; he seemed to have more respect for that beautiful body of his than to do something like that. I honestly couldn‘t imagine him working for anyone but himself. The whole taking orders from anyone didn‘t suit him. What if he was a hit man? I wondered. But what would a hit man know about werewolves? And Jaxon was so strong and fast, but nobody would be able to tell it by simply looking at him. Were they even human?

Besides the strength and speed, Jaxon looked like a fairly normal guy, but Phoenix… A sigh escaped my lips as I remembered the image of him standing in front of me with those ice cold eyes. Phoenix was anything but normal, I concluded.

I quickly towel-dried my hair, then unzipped the duffle bag Lea had packed for me. My jaw dropped. No! I gasped in horror. This had to be a mistake. I reached in and pulled out the black leather pants, holding them at arm‘s length so I could get a good mental picture of what a disaster the rest of my night was going to be. I groaned and tossed them on the vanity, dreading what shirt Lea thought would complete the outfit. After reaching in, I pulled out a new matching set of lacy underwear in nude, a white tank top, socks, a black fitted leather jacket and a pair of black boots with a low heel—everything was exactly my size. Lea had looked smaller than me, so I didn‘t have a clue whose clothes I was borrowing. She had even brought a small bag of hygiene items, including: a toothbrush, brush, face moisturizer and deodorant. I made a mental note to thank her later for
those
items.

After dressing and cleaning up after myself, I looked in the mirror and huffed. “That‘s enough stalling, Biker Chick. You aren‘t going to find the answers to your problems in the john.”

I turned the handle and opened the bathroom door to hear Phoenix shouting, but the instant I walked into the room, all fell silent.

My eyes met Jaxon‘s. He looked nervous as he glanced back to Phoenix.

“I‘m begging you…” Jaxon said, and let the rest of his sentence go unsaid.

“Get out,” Phoenix said, his tone gruff.

Jaxon‘s sad eyes shifted back to me for only a moment, before he turned and walked from the room, slamming the door in his wake.

Phoenix stood with his back to me, anger radiating from his rigid posture.

“What was that all about?” I said quietly.

Instead of answering me, he crossed the room and filled a crystal glass with a dark liquid.

I lay the bag with my soiled clothing in it on the floor, not wanting to get any mud from last night‘s adventure on the furniture.

“You know, usually Twenty Questions is played with one person asking the questions and the other person answering them. I overheard you talking with Jaxon earlier about how I would go through my first change tonight, so I‘m guessing we don‘t have a lot of time to strategize a plan to keep that from happening.”

Phoenix raised the glass to his lips and took a sip, but before he set it back down he opened his mouth to speak and then turned those bright, light blue eyes on me. No words came out. He just looked at me, with absolutely no expression on that beautiful face to let me know what was going through that mysterious mind of his.

“There is no way to keep it from happening,” he finally said, and then downed the remains of what was in the glass in one huge gulp. “There is no reversing lycanthropy,” he finished, and placed the glass back on the bar.

I had figured as much, which was why I probably hadn‘t freaked out yet. Either that or I was still in shock. Being this calm about everything I‘d been through in the last twelve hours or so was beginning to scare me a little.

I didn‘t flinch away as he continued to stare, not even when he let his eyes roam down, then back up my body for the second time. I told myself he was just making sure Lea had followed through on his orders and brought me everything I needed, and that it had nothing to do with how silly I looked in tight leather pants. I had caught Jaxon looking at me in a similar way, but him staring at me didn‘t make all the heat in my body rush to my face the way that Phoenix‘s eyes on me did.

Answers, Mena. You need answers.
“What about you? What are you?”

Phoenix smiled then, and I immediately locked my knees to keep them from buckling under my weight.

“I‘m your enemy, Mena.”

My voice was shaky as he slowly walked toward me. Actually, stalked would be a more appropriate way of explaining how he closed the distance between us. “Y—you don‘t have to be my enemy. I—I am pretty easy to get along with.”

Running from him had already been proven to be a mistake, so I remained where I stood.

He shook his head slowly. “That‘s not the way it is between your kind and mine,” he said, his voice floating through those sultry lips in a seductive whisper.

I swallowed as he made his way around behind me, but I could feel him, and he was so close. “Why?” I said, my voice cracking under the intensity of his presence.

His breath tickled my neck as the words left his mouth. “Because I am a vampire.”

Faster than I had ever moved before, I turned in a flash and fell into a fighting stance, a low growl erupting from my chest as our eyes locked together.

“See,” he said calmly, as if he had expected what I would do before it even happened. “Your instincts are taking over. You were made to hate me, just as I was made to hate you.”

I didn‘t hate him. My body and mind were going through changes I didn‘t understand, but I knew I didn‘t hate him.

Phoenix still hadn‘t moved, so I relaxed a little.

His eyebrows raised in interest. “You do not wish to fight me anymore?” he said, his tone implying his surprise.

“I never wanted to fight you. I was simply going to defend myself if you decided to attack me. And—and I don‘t hate you. That‘s just absurd. Whatever I‘ve become won‘t change who I am. I don‘t go around hating people just because I can, so until you give me a better reason other than that you are a vampire,” I shrugged, “I guess we can get matching BFF bracelets.”

He blinked at me a few times, and I grinned, extremely pleased with myself for throwing a kink in his plan to intimidate me.

“BFF?” he said, and one of his eyebrows popped up.

My smile grew. “You know, best friends forever?”

He rubbed his hands over his face, but snickered lightly as he did so. “You want to be my friend, do you? That‘s definitely a first.”

I shrugged. “Well, I don‘t want to be enemies.”

A sudden heat flashed in his eyes as a low growl vibrated from his chest, and I realized he had taken my statement to mean I wanted to be his lover. I blushed again. I hadn‘t really meant it to come out like it did.

Phoenix startled me when he started toward the door. “Come with me,” he ordered.

“What? Why? Where are we going?” I was almost jogging to keep up with his long, quick strides.

“You have to leave.”

“What? Why?”

“Stop asking questions,” he said shortly.

“But I need to know what to do!”

“Stop talking, woman,” he growled.

“Won‘t they look for me—and try to kill me? What does Jaxon think I should—”

Phoenix stopped suddenly and threw me against a wall, his hard body pinning mine to the cool stone. One of his hands gripped my wrist and trapped it above my head as the fingers of his other hand shot into my hair and grabbed the back of my head before it could slam against the rock.

It all happened so fast. His breathing was labored, as was mine, but I didn‘t feel threatened. The fight was gone out of him and the anger had quickly been replaced with a hunger that was foreign to me. I couldn‘t tell if it was sex or my blood that he wanted.

He leaned closer, breathing in the scent of his soap on my skin.

“You… have… to leave here.”

I could feel his warm breath on my face as he moved his head back to look down at me, and I could see in his eyes that he wanted to close the gap between our lips as much as I wanted him to.

“Why?” I whispered again.

“Because, if you stay, I will make you mine. You will belong to me. I will do as Jaxon suggests and sire you, making me ruler over the werewolves as well as the vampires. You and I would be bonded together for an eternity, Mena, but I share my throne with no one.” His gaze fell from my eyes to my lips. “You are dangerous to me,” he said softly, “because for you, I almost would.”

He released me then turned and walked into a room full of weapons.

I stumbled a little as the weight of him left my body.

Well, that answered my unspoken question of whether he was married or not.

As Phoenix stormed away from Mena, he found the simple task of putting one foot in front of the other the greatest challenge he had ever encountered.

She was just a woman, a woman that should, by everything he had ever believed, be his enemy, so why did he want to, all of a sudden, give it all up for—for what? It wasn‘t like they could have some sort of relationship. Her pack—if they didn‘t kill her—wouldn‘t allow that to happen, and Phoenix refused to think what his clan would say or do.

It was foolish of him to even contemplate what could happen, because it never would. It didn‘t mean he didn‘t want it to, though, because he did; with every ounce of his damned soul, he wanted to rush back to where he had left her and make her his.

Forcing himself into focus, Phoenix grabbed at silver throwing blades and daggers on the wall in front of him, placing them on the stainless table in the center of the room, before going to the other side to retrieve guns and ammo.