Dragon Moon Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  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

  Teaser chapter

  PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF RUTH GLICK WRITING AS REBECCA YORK

  “Rebecca York delivers page-turning suspense.”

  —Nora Roberts

  “[A] quick pace and dangerous overtones ensure that readers won’t be disappointed!”

  —Romantic Times

  “Action packed . . . and filled with sexual tension . . . A gripping thriller.”

  —The Best Reviews

  “A steamy paranormal. Brava.”

  —Huntress Book Reviews

  “A compulsive read.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “York delivers an exciting and suspenseful romance with paranormal themes that she gets just right. This is a howling good read.”

  —Booklist

  “Mesmerizing action and passions that leap from the pages with the power of a wolf’s coiled spring.”

  —BookPage

  “Delightful . . . [with] two charming lead characters.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “[Her] prose is smooth, literate, and fast-moving; her love scenes are tender yet erotic; and there’s always a happy ending.”

  —The Washington Post Book World

  “She writes a fast-paced, satisfying thriller.”—UPI

  “Clever and a great read. I can’t wait to read the final book in this wonderful series.”

  —ParaNormal Romance Reviews

  Don’t miss these other werewolf romantic suspense novels from Rebecca York

  KILLING MOON

  A PI with a preternatural talent for tracking finds his prey: a beautiful genetic researcher who may be his only hope for a future . . .

  EDGE OF THE MOON

  A police detective and a woman who files a missing persons report become the pawns of an unholy serial killer in a game of deadly attraction . . .

  WITCHING MOON

  A werewolf and a sexy botanist investigate a swamp steeped in superstition, legend, and death . . .

  CRIMSON MOON

  A young werewolf bent on protecting the environment ends up protecting a lumber baron’s daughter—a woman who arouses his hunger like no other . . .

  SHADOW OF THE MOON

  A journalist investigates a sinister world of power and pleasure—alongside a woman who knows how to bring out the animal in him . . .

  NEW MOON

  Unable to resist his desire for a female werewolf, a landscape architect will have to travel through two dimensions to save her—and Earth—from the wrath of her enemy . . .

  GHOST MOON

  A freed slave from a parallel universe finds herself seduced by the spirit of a werewolf who was supposedly murdered by the ancestors of her dearest friends . . .

  ETERNAL MOON

  A PI is rescued by a lone werewolf who is her destiny, but something is stalking them—waiting for the right moment to strike . . .

  Books by Rebecca York

  KILLING MOON

  EDGE OF THE MOON

  WITCHING MOON

  CRIMSON MOON

  SHADOW OF THE MOON

  NEW MOON

  GHOST MOON

  ETERNAL MOON

  DRAGON MOON

  BEYOND CONTROL

  BEYOND FEARLESS

  Anthologies

  CRAVINGS

  (with Laurell K. Hamilton, MaryJanice Davidson, Eileen Wilks)

  ELEMENTAL MAGIC

  (with Sharon Shinn, Carol Berg, and Jean Johnson)

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  DRAGON MOON

  A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley Sensation mass-market edition / October 2009

  Copyright © 2009 by Ruth Glick.

  Excerpt from Skin Game by Ava Gray copyright © by Ann Aguirre.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-14523-4

  BERKLEY® SENSATION

  Berkley Sensation Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  BERKLEY® SENSATION and the “B” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.com [http://us.penguingroup.com]

  CHAPTER ONE

  HIS NAME WAS Vandar, and he was a creature from an ancient nightmare. A creature who had lived for centuries relying on his psychic powers, his cunning.

  Now he lifted his massive head and roared for the pleasure of feeling his slaves cringe.

  In his present incarnation, he was a huge, scaled being with glittering red eyes, a reptilian body, and wings shaped like those of a bat—only enormously larger. But he was just as likely to take human form.

  Leaping into the air, he circled his lair, looking down with a feeling of satisfaction as he churned up the
chemicals in his belly, then spewed out a blast of fire that singed the already blackened landscape.

  His huge mouth stretched into a parody of a smile as he viewed the circle of destruction. It was a warning to any enemies who dared approach this blighted place. And a warning to the slaves who lived in the huge cave he had blasted out of a mountainside. If any tried to escape, he could turn them to ash as easily as he had charred the land.

  Now he was widening his circle of influence, not just here but into a world parallel to this one. A world where the people would be helpless to fight him.

  But he hadn’t lived for more than a thousand years by leaping unprepared into the unknown.

  As he flew over his territory, he thought of the tasks that must be accomplished before the big invasion. He had already started his preparations for the assault by sending spies to the other universe. They were all men who had stayed for a few days and come back to give him a sense of the place. In the next phase, his agent would remain longer and provide a more detailed report.

  And this time he would send an attractive woman because she would seem weak and vulnerable, yet her pretty face, sexy figure, and psychic powers would give her an advantage over the men she met.

  Satisfied with the plan, he circled back and landed in the ceremonial site fifty yards from the mouth of his cave. Lifting his head to the skies, he roared out four notes. Two long and two short. A signal to the people who did his bidding.

  Three hundred slaves instantly dropped what they were doing and hurried to answer his call.

  One by one and in groups, they stepped outside the cave, blinking in the morning sunshine.

  He watched their stiff postures, their wary eyes as they stood in their color-coded tunics. White for adepts. Gray for house servants. Brown for those who did the dirtiest jobs like washing the floors and mucking out the toilets. And burgundy for his troops.

  They knew what was coming, and they cringed, even as they came toward him with hesitant steps.

  Standing before them, he began to change form. His wings folded inward. His claws and his great tail retracted back into his body. The shape of his torso shrunk and transmuted into the incarnation he used when he walked among his minions.

  He was vulnerable when he changed, but they didn’t know that, and they trembled as he transformed from silver-scaled monster to a tall, dark-haired man. He stood before them naked for several moments, letting them take in his well-muscled body with its impressive male equipment.

  Satisfied that they had had enough time to contemplate his magnificence, he snapped his fingers. Two blond-haired women clad in white came forward and walked to the carved wooden chest where he kept a set of clothing. From its depths, one of them removed a long black tunic of fine linen, edged with gold braid. As he held out his arms, one of them slipped the garment over his head and the other knelt and strapped a pair of supple leather sandals onto his feet.

  When he was dressed and they’d stepped back into the crowd, he turned and smiled at the waiting throng, feeling the waves of tension rolling toward him.

  They knew he would feed now. On one of them. He could have done that in his dragon form, of course. But this was so much more intimate, and it impressed upon them that, even when he looked like a man, he was as far above them as an eagle was above an ant.

  Long moments passed as he let them sweat. Let them wonder which of them he would select. And why.

  A man or a woman?

  They didn’t know he had already made that decision. In his mind, he kept a running assessment of his slaves’ deeds—of the times they pleased him and of their transgressions. One man above all the others had earned the privilege of participating in this ceremony.

  Finally, he raised his voice. “Bendel, come forward.”

  The man gasped. Everyone else breathed out a sigh of relief.

  For a long moment, nothing happened. Then Bendel broke and ran.

  Vandar was ready for the slave’s futile bid for freedom. His tongue flicked out, lengthening like a whip, catching the man and pulling him back.

  Bendel’s face turned white. His eyes were wide and pleading.

  “Were you foolish enough to think you could outrun me?” Vandar murmured, his voice silky. “And foolish enough to steal food from the larder?”

  The slave’s jaw worked, but no words came out of his mouth.

  Vandar spread his lips, baring his teeth as he sent out his fangs, his gaze never leaving the man’s terrified eyes. Grabbing his victim’s hair, he arched his neck before sinking his fangs into the pale flesh.

  The first draft of blood sent a burst of warmth through him. He felt the life-giving liquid flow into his mouth, down his throat, and into his stomach.

  The nourishment brought him a satisfying glow of energy. In his childhood, he hadn’t known what kind of creature he really was, and he had subsisted on a human diet. He could still eat small amounts of food and drink if he wanted. He had tried wine made from grapes and other fruit, and to his taste buds, the wine had a tang that was similar to blood.

  He could have spared his victim’s life. Draining the life-blood from any one individual wasn’t necessary to quench his thirst. He didn’t even need to drink human blood. An animal would do. But an animal could not fear him with the intellect of a man, and that was part of the pleasure for him. He loved feeling a victim’s terror swell, then the inevitable acceptance as his life force slipped away.

  When he had drained the last drop of sweet-tasting nectar, he cast the husk of the body onto the ground and wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his tunic before raising his head to stare at the other slaves.

  As he searched their faces, he let the moment stretch, prolonging the little ceremony and impressing the gravity of the occasion on the group of terrified watchers. Then he snapped his fingers, calling on the two men who would take out the garbage.

  FEELING an unaccustomed restlessness, Talon Marshall exited the former hunting lodge where he lived in the woods of rural Pennsylvania and walked to a stand of pines that he’d planted years ago. In maturity, they formed a tight circle, shielding him from view. But there was one place where he had trimmed some lower branches so it was easy to push through.

  Once inside, he pulled off his clothes and stowed them in the wooden storage box he’d built. Standing naked among the pines, he enjoyed the feel of the humid air on his well-muscled body.

  Did normal men chafe at the confinement of clothing? Did they long for the freedom that he had claimed for himself?

  In a clear voice, he began to say the ancient words that had turned the men of the Marshall family into werewolves since Druid times.

  “Taranis, Epona, Cerridwen,” he chanted, repeating the phrase and going on to another.

  “Ga. Feart. Cleas. Duais. Aithriocht. Go gcumhdai is dtreorai na deithe thu.”

  The human part of his mind screamed in protest as bones crunched, muscles jerked, and cells transformed from one shape to another.

  No matter how many times he changed form, it was never easy to feel his jaw elongate, his teeth sharpen, his body contort as muscles and limbs transformed themselves.

  The first time, he’d been terrified that the pain would kill him—the way it had killed his older brother.

  But he’d willed himself to steadiness, and once he’d understood what to expect, he’d learned to rise above the terrifying physical sensations.

  Thick gray hair formed along his flanks, covering his body in a silver-tipped pelt. The color—the very structure—of his eyes changed as he dropped to all fours. A magnificent beast of the forest. Unrecognizable as a member of the human race.

  With the transformation completed, everything changed. In animal awareness, he lifted his head and dragged in the familiar smells of the forest: leafy vegetation, rotting leaves, and the creatures that made their homes here.

  Racing past a stand of oaks, he caught the scent of a fox and automatically corrected his course to follow the trail. The animal gave a good chase, t
aking him to a patch of wilderness that he hadn’t visited in months.

  As he stopped for a moment, breathing hard, a scent came to him. Not a familiar odor. Something that didn’t belong in this wilderness environment.

  A threat?

  Slowly, he walked around the area, sniffing, until he came to a place where the forest floor had been disturbed. As he pawed the earth, he found it was soft, with leaves brushed over the top to hide freshly disturbed dirt.

  The wolf dug down several inches, sure there was something buried here that didn’t belong in the woods. A body? Or something that might leach into the soil, spreading poison?

  He dragged in more of the scent and decided it wasn’t anything that had been alive. But that was as far as he could go as a wolf. He needed hands to get to the bottom of this mystery.