Unleash The Moon (The Preternaturals Book 6) (6 page)

Stories had filtered out from the
human cities. The human mates at the compound had all been
criminals
who’d been thrown out into the
wilderness—to the monsters—for their disobedience. But they had
never seemed particularly criminal to Sydney. Just scared. They’d
expected the monsters to rip them apart or torture them. It was the
kind of story talked about in hushed whispers in the cities. It was
why they never tried to escape their prison even though the only
barriers keeping them in was the fear of being thrown out. The real
barriers were to keep the preternaturals from coming in and getting
to the easy food and resources.

Vampires had been lying in wait for all of them as
soon as they’d been tossed out. They’d never stopped to consider
that, given how hard food was to come by, that they would be
protected and cherished, not abused.

But Jacob’s story was different. He’d been taken
from his family before things had gotten terrible. He hadn’t been
tossed out as a criminal. He must have been so scared of the
vampires.

She’d gotten Jacob to entertain the notion that the
human cities might not follow through on their side of the deal. It
was a few brief minutes in which her hope had overcome her fear,
but then his face had hardened and he was back to his mission, his
foot pressed more firmly against the gas than before. He’d been
determined to deliver her to her fate.

The trade had been fast. Her, for a folded up piece
of paper with an address. As two men in white coats had escorted
her toward a steel tunnel, Jacob had said. “Syd, I’m sorry.”

She hadn’t looked back. She wouldn’t acknowledge him
or give him the barest hint that there would ever be a point in
time in which she could forgive him for this.

“
5857B?” The woman said, snapping
a finger in front of Sydney’s face. “We’re here.”

The room looked like a hospital room Sydney had seen
once on an old movie her parents had in their collection. She
panicked as the woman pulled her into the room.

“
Relax. It’s nothing to be afraid
of. We just need to run some tests. We know who you are and what
you are. We’d like to know if you’ve stopped aging.”

Sydney calmed and allowed herself to be led into the
room. She’d like to know that, too. The big question had always
been whether or not she would age and die, or if she could
potentially be immortal. She knew, of course, that she could never
be immortal. She wasn’t strong like her father or other regular
vampires. She was far too fragile and easy to kill, too weak to
defend herself against anything. So no, she wouldn’t be immortal.
Something would take her out eventually and free those who loved
her from their constant vigilance.

But she wanted to know if she’d
stopped aging, or if her aging process had slowed somehow. She
didn’t think she looked twenty-seven, but then, some women aged
better than others, and she’d never know how her mother might have
aged. Charlee had been frozen at twenty-six when she’d been claimed
by Anthony.

The woman in the coat guided Sydney to a medical
examining table.

“
Sit here and roll back your
sleeve. We’re just going to take some blood and a tissue
sample.”

“
T-tissue sample?” Sydney’s mind
went straight to terrible things involving scalpels.

“
Just a swab inside your cheek.”
The woman patted her on the arm and smiled kindly. Aside from
insisting on calling Sydney by a number and a letter instead of her
real name, she seemed non-threatening, nice even. But Sydney shook
the thought from her head. They were only being nice to try to gain
her trust. Just as Jacob had. There was no reason to think people
who would lock you in a cell and run experiments on you were “nice
people”.

Sydney’s eyes went to the vein pulsing in the
woman’s throat. At least she couldn’t hear the blood rushing
through like a real vampire would have, or the heartbeat. It might
have driven her to do something stupid. Thankfully she could only
see the twitch of the vein.

“
You’re hungry,” the woman said,
conversationally.

Maybe if Sydney were a real vampire, that thought
would have struck some fear in the technician, but instead she went
for a cotton swab.

“
Open.”

Sydney opened her mouth and the woman took a sample
and put it into a plastic bag.

“
I’ll tell you what,” she said,
“I’ll take your blood, then I’ll give you some blood in
return.”

Sydney felt the glow come to her eyes, and she
nodded. Now that she was an adult, she preferred to drink from men.
It wasn’t like that for all vampires. Some women preferred other
women, and some men other men. It seemed tied directly into who
they were attracted to, but she was too hungry right now to care
much about that distinction.

She winced and bit her lip as the needle went into
her arm and the woman drew a couple of vials of blood and put
labels on them.

“
There. That wasn’t so bad was it?
It’s time to go back now.”

“
But…” Were they lying to her
already?

“
Your food will be waiting for you
when you return to your cell. You know the way. Don’t go exploring.
We’ll know.” The woman pressed a button and the door to the room
they were in opened. She went back to her clipboard jotting down
notes.

Sydney wanted to run, but how? To where? And she was
so very tired suddenly. She could sleep for a million years and
yet, they’d just reached the night’s peak. Glowing arrows
illuminating the glass guided her back to her cell.

When she reached the glass cube, the door opened and
a perky robotic voice said: “Welcome home, 5857B.”

She winced. Home? Yeah right. This would never be
home. It would end up being her coffin, if anything.

Inside the cube was a table with a few clear medical
bags filled with red fluid. What the hell was this? Bagged blood?
She couldn’t live on bagged blood. It was so weak, she’d probably
die of malnourishment if she drank it—if such a thing was possible
for a vampire.

She circled the bag a couple of times, a grimace on
her face. This would be disgusting, like her mother’s stories of
old ladies eating canned cat food.

She looked up to find the scary growly guy in the
cube next to hers watching her intently. She wished he would stop
that. It freaked her out.

She picked up one of the bags and turned away from
him. There were glass cubes containing a preternatural on all four
sides of her—if you didn’t count the hallway outside the door—as
well as above and below her. It wasn’t as if she would get any
feeding privacy here, but the way he watched her was too intense.
The cubes were lined up and stacked on top of each other. She was
on one of the higher floors as there seemed to be far more cubes
below than above. It created an odd sense of vertigo, like somehow
the glass would stop holding her and she’d just fall. But maybe
that was the hunger talking.

She allowed the glow to come to her eyes and her
fangs to descend, then she took a deep breath and bit into the bag.
She was right. It was disgusting. It was cold and dead. There
wasn’t even the smallest trace of an emotion in it. This would keep
her going about as well as weeds in the backyard would keep a human
going.

But she persisted and drank down the other two bags
in quick succession, trying not to taste the terrible swill.

She turned to find a giant platter
of raw meat had been placed inside the other guy’s cell. Then the
mystery of what kind of therian he was, was solved. A reddish-brown
and white wolf rolled and tumbled out of the plain white clothing
they wore in the cubes, then he devoured the meat. He seemed to be
enjoying his food much more than Sydney had enjoyed hers. Maybe it
would divert his attention away from her.

After he’d cleaned the plate, he went to a corner
and curled up and promptly fell asleep. Minutes later, some lab
coats came in. One drew some of his blood into a vial much like had
been done earlier with her, though she suspected this was for a
different purpose.

If this place was run by magic users, the therians
were having their blood stolen for use in magic. The second
technician snipped some fur and put it into a plastic bag. Yes,
they were using it for magic. Unless he was new, too, and they were
running tests on his genetic makeup. But somehow Sydney thought
they weren’t as interested in a run-of-the-mill werewolf as they
were in her freakish self.

A couple of hours passed. Every now and then the
wolf twitched like he was having a dream. During this time, another
lab coat came in and took his old clothes away, replacing them with
fresh folded clothes.

Sydney watched the preternaturals in the cubes below
her. A lot of them paced. Some slept while lab techs took blood.
Some were agitated. Others seemed resigned to their fates. How long
had they all been in here? How long would she be in here?

When the wolf woke, he prowled the cube, pacing back
and forth, watching her in wolf form for several minutes. Hadn’t
the raw meat been enough to take the predatory edge off? She stayed
in the far corner of her cube, trying to remain as far from him as
possible, but somehow she knew he could smell her through the
glass. And if she were any kind of proper vampire, she would have
been able to smell him, too.

She should be more distressed by the general
situation, but the anxiety over the wolf had been successfully
distracting her over all the possible threats to her safety here.
The magical humans were the real enemy. She knew that. But it was
hard to keep that thought in the forefront of her mind when the
wolf kept growling and watching her like she was a bone he wanted
to gnaw on.

Finally, the tension eased and he shifted back to
his far-too-gorgeous human form. This guy had to be working out
somehow because nature didn’t just give somebody muscles like that.
Jacob had spent hours in the compound’s gym every week, and yet
even he hadn’t been this delicious-looking.

Sydney’s hand flew to her mouth when she realized
her fangs had popped out. Did she want to sleep with him or have
him for dinner?

Yes.

He wasn’t the only predator here. Too bad nature
hadn’t given her anything to back that up with.

The werewolf noticed her gawking
and came to the edge of his cube, the closest he could get to her.
He stood in all his naked glory staring her down until she averted
her eyes.
God, Syd, what is wrong with you?

If the attraction were mutual,
maybe he wouldn’t try to break through the glass and maul her, but
the hard look in his eyes gave her little hope of that. She glanced
surreptitiously through the veil of her blonde hair to watch him
turn and move to his clothes in the center of his cube. She tried
unsuccessfully not to ogle his back and his ass and the back of his
thighs.
Stop, Syd!

She was stopped from further angering the wolf or
embarrassing herself beyond repair by the too-happy robotic
voice.

“
Number 5857B,
please prepare to exit your cell for daily
exercise.”

The glass door on her cube slid
open. But then, so did the door to the right of her… 5856. The
wolf. His eyes glowed as he glanced over.
Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit.
There
was no longer any barrier stopping him from coming into her cube.
Was that how the previous occupant had gone out? It hadn’t been
lost on her that the wolf was just 5856 and she was
5857
B
.
They weren’t exactly subtle around here.

But then warm air that smelled like raspberries hit
her in the face, and suddenly for some reason she felt very calm
and peaceful.

The robotic voice spoke again: “Please follow the
glowing arrows to the exercise yard, and remember to play nice with
your friends.”

The word
friends
, snapped her out of the
calm enough to think
yeah,
right
. She wasn’t sure why she’d had
that mental break for a second where everything was roses and
chocolate hearts, but she was mostly back to normal. The tension of
moving in a single file line with the rest of the preternaturals
who were far stronger than her was more than enough to shake any
sense of peace she’d felt.

She followed the glowing arrows and the werewolf in
front of her. His white T-shirt practically glowed against his
olive skin. Just underneath where the fabric ended on his arm was a
black tattoo with the number 5856. Sydney guessed it hadn’t been a
voluntary tattoo and was thankful she didn’t have one. Yet.

As they walked down the hallway, she couldn’t help
being mesmerized by the way his muscles moved under the shirt as he
walked. She wanted to lick… no bite… no stroke…

The wolf in front of her growled, startling her, and
her face flamed. His back was to her. How in he hell could he know
she was thinking inappropriate things about him?

Sense of smell. Oh yeah. Wow, this was mortifying.
Sydney blushed even harder and was thankful when they reached the
open air of the exercise yard. The moon was waxing. It would be
full in just a couple of days. She wondered if she’d have to come
out here with therians when that happened.

They’d all have to shift under the moon; they
wouldn’t be able to control or stop it. What if the wolf came after
her then? Maybe if she talked to him. Maybe she could diffuse the
situation somehow. Maybe when he was in wolf form he’d remember she
was a friend and not food.

She followed him to the edge of the yard and tapped
him on the shoulder. “Excuse me.”