Harlequin Nocturne March 2016 Box Set Read online

  That made him want to run again, but there was no getting away from the past. He’d learned that long ago. No way to run away from himself. The best he could do was learn to control it, the way his parents had taught him. To keep the hunger at bay.

  And still he felt it constantly, always under the surface. Waiting to rise to something as simple as a steak or a beautiful woman or a thousand other things that tempted him to give in to his baser impulses. Not human, Monica had said, but she had no idea.

  No matter what happened to him, Jordan thought grimly, he was always a man. Nothing could take that away from him. He wouldn’t let it.

  For a moment, he leaned against the wall to feel the heat left from the earlier sunshine. It felt good, heat upon heat. It slowed things down. Made him languorous rather than agitated. He let himself press against it, then took a seat in the soft grass DiNero had spent a fortune to grow and maintain. If there was one benefit to his condition, it was that the night bugs left him alone.

  If he stayed here a little longer, maybe she’d be asleep by the time he got back. Her windows would be dark. He wouldn’t be tempted to go in and see her... Jordan’s eyes drifted closed.

  * * *

  “Maybe we’ll be okay,” his mother said to his father when she thought Jordan couldn’t hear. “His birthday was last week. He’s fourteen now. Surely if it was going to happen, we’d know about it by now.”

  Jordan had been sneaking into the kitchen for a late-night snack, his rumbling stomach making it impossible to sleep. Summer, school out, nothing but the possibilities of a whole three months of freedom ahead of him. He had plans with Trent and Delonn tomorrow, video games and a bike ride to the gas station, where they might try to talk to some girls. Maybe. At the sound of his parents’ hushed whispers from the back porch, though, he stopped. He hadn’t turned on the light, so they had no idea he was there.

  “It’s going to be all right, bébé,” his father said.

  Jordan froze. Dad never called Mom that unless they were arguing about something and he was trying to make up to her. Had his parents been fighting? The soft sound of sniffling made his stomach twist. Mom was crying?

  “I just want him to be all right, Marc. I’m so worried...”

  His father made a shushing sound. “I know. Me, too.”

  “We should have been more careful.” Now his mother sounded fierce, angry. “We knew the risks. We were stupid. Arrogant and reckless!”

  “Hush, bébé, don’t. You’re going to make yourself sick.”

  “I am sick,” his mother said. “Sick with worry. Jordan’s the one who will pay the price for us being careless... My sweet boy. Oh God, Marc, what will we do if he has it?”

  “We’ll love him anyway,” his father said. “What else could we do?”

  The sound of his mother’s sobs should’ve chased away any lingering hunger, but Jordan’s stomach only ached more. What were they talking about? If he had what?

  Last year, Penny Devereux had been diagnosed with leukemia. She’d had to miss almost the entire school year, and when she’d finally come back, she’d worn a scarf to cover her bald head. She’d been thin and pale, and she still laughed a lot, but she wasn’t quite the same.

  His parents had gone silent, but Jordan caught a whiff of smoke. That was bad. His mother only lit up when she was superstressed. She’d been trying to quit. Now she was smoking, right there with his dad, who hated it. Something was very wrong.

  It didn’t stop him from going to the fridge, though. It was as though a phantom hand pulled him, actually, an impulse he couldn’t fight. He was so hungry he thought he might faint from it, that and the anxiety from overhearing what he knew they didn’t want him to know.

  He’d come down hoping to snag a piece of leftover birthday cake or some of his mom’s homemade tapioca pudding, but what his hands pulled from the fridge’s bottom shelf was the plastic-wrapped platter of uncooked burgers his mom had put together for tomorrow’s dinner. Without thinking, Jordan tore the plastic off. Handfuls of soft ground beef went in his mouth. He barely chewed, shoving the food past his lips and licking his fingers. He couldn’t get enough.

  The lights came on. His mother cried out. Jordan turned, as guilty and embarrassed as if she’d walked in on him in the shower or doing what he’d just discovered he could do under the tent of his sheets late at night. No, this was somehow worse, because somehow he knew it was related to what his parents had been saying.

  Something was wrong with him.

  “Put that down!” his mother cried, but she wasn’t angry, as she ought to have been. Fear had widened her eyes. He could hear it in her voice.

  He could smell it on her.

  “Jordan, give me that.” Dad was calmer, pushing past Mom, who clung to the doorway and burst into tears.

  No. Mine. The thoughts rose unbidden, and though Jordan would never have dreamed of disobeying his father, he backed up still clutching the platter. His mouth hurt. He tasted blood, and not from the meat but from his own gums. He ran his tongue along his teeth and felt the burn and sting of a wound opening—he’d cut it on something sharp.

  His own teeth.

  Mine.

  The thought rose again, but this time, he tossed the platter to the floor. Raw meat splatted on the linoleum, and he backed up with his hands in front of him. There was more pain. He clenched his fists. More cuts, fingernails long, sharp. There was blood.

  He would carry the scars on his palms for the rest of his life.

  “You’re going to be okay, son. It’s all going to be all right,” his father said, but the look on his face told Jordan that nothing was going to be all right.

  Not ever again.

  * * *

  Jordan woke with a startled gasp, hands in front of him. He’d clenched his fists and winced automatically at the expected sting of his nails pressing his flesh, but the years of self-discipline had worked. He wasn’t going to run off into the night and start making mayhem.

  Still, he got to his feet with the memory of those long-ago burgers coating the inside of his mouth. He spat, then again, but he could still taste them. He still wanted them. He would always want them, the way he’d always want to run and punch and break and devour.

  With a low groan, he closed his eyes and breathed deep. He focused. Not full-on meditation, which he did every day, but still a forced pattern of breaths that was supposed to relax him. A minute passed. He opened his eyes.

  At fourteen, everything had changed for him. His parents, recessive carriers of a set of genes that had combined in him to make him different, had never planned to have children. And if he’d been a girl, he’d never have ended up this way, since only males manifested the condition.

  Monica had said werewolves did not exist, but Jordan could’ve told her otherwise.

  CHAPTER 11

  Monica had just decided to turn back and head for home when the first muttered cackling reached her ears. DiNero kept a bunch of peacocks that were allowed to roam freely over the estate. They weren’t particularly exotic, not compared to the big cats or rare Russian foxes, but they were pretty. And they screamed, Monica discovered when the sound rose.

  She didn’t think twice but ran toward it, changing direction when another scream came. Her boots pounded the bricks, but then she dodged off the path and ran through the grass, past several habitats and into darkness. There was light from the house in the distance but she had to blink rapidly to try to get her night vision working. It didn’t happen fast enough. She tripped over something and went sprawling.

  It was a dead peahen, its throat slashed and long runnels carved into its body. Just beyond it lay another, a carcass rather than a bird, most of it missing. Monica rolled with a small groan and pushed up from her hands and knees, already expecting something to rush at her from the darkness.