Moon Dance (Blood Bound Book One)

Chapter 2

Malachi twitched as blood gushed from his chest. He opened his mouth and growled one word toward the little girl.

“Run!” his voice ended with the ear-piecing scream of a jaguar.

Tabatha didn’t think twice about obeying. She turned on her heels and ran from the clearing without daring to look back. She didn’t care where she was going; only that she got away from the scary men covered in blood.

*****

“Thank you and this is the local news. Tonight a local family has reason to celebrate. Their daughter, Tabatha, was finally found wandering aimlessly within Angeles National Forest after going missing three days ago from a campsite near Crystal Lake to find the family dog. Apparently the dog had freed itself from its leash and run into the forest. The seven year old courageously chased after the dog and wasn’t found until this morning. Unfortunately, the dog wasn’t found with her. According to officials, she is at the Community Hospital recovering from shock, as it appears she has survived a cougar attack. Little Tabatha kept telling the forest rangers about two injured men in the forest but after a thorough search of an area of five thousand square miles, nothing has been found. We’ll fill you in more later in the hour.”

Chapter 1

10 years later…

Loud music pumped rhythmically from the club, its large purple neon sign shifting colors in synch with the beat. The light cast an eerie glow onto the building across the street. On the roof of that building, a man with short, light blonde hair stood with one foot resting on the edge. He leaned forward, an elbow braced on his bent knee, while he smoked a cigarette.

Kane Tripp bent his head slightly and ran a hand through the short spiky hair. He’d hated cutting it, missed the length it had been. He could still remember the feel of its silkiness caressing his lower back. Lifting the cigarette to his lips, he inhaled deeply knowing he missed a lot of things, like the cigarettes he used to smoke before he was buried alive and left for dead.

Forty long years ago he’d been caught off guard by Malachi, the leader of a small jaguar clan, and accused of murdering the shifter’s mate. Prior to that night, Kane had been in good standing with the jaguars, and their leader had been one of his closest friends. Kane’s lips thinned at the memory. Malachi had tried, judged, and sentenced him in a fit of rage.

Using a spell from the very book Kane had thought he’d hidden so carefully, Malachi had bound him with a curse, unable to move or talk… unable to even defend himself. Then he'd removed Kane’s bloodstone earring that allowed him the freedom of walking in the daylight. The bloodstones had once belonged to the first vampire, Syn.

Kane had once asked how there could have been a first and the answer had startled him.

Syn had come to this world alone, injured and starving. A young man had found him and in his starvation, Syn had taken his blood. The vampire quickly learned that the humans of this world were fragile creatures, whose soul would leave them if he shared his blood, in hopes of creating a family on this planet. But once their souls were gone, they were useless to him and little more than monsters.

During his endless life, Syn had only found three such humans who retained their souls… becoming his children. The only difference was that once they’d been turned, the sun would burn… leaving them and their monster siblings to hide from the daylight. This had never been a problem on Syn’s planet because of the bloodstone.

The thick armbands Syn had been wearing came from his own world and were made out of the Bloodstone. Chipping off a piece of one of the armbands, he fashioned them into a ring, a necklace, and a single earring. Kane once again reached up and touched the earring he was wearing.

Where the bloodstone had given him a semi-normal life… it had been Syn’s book of spells that had been Kane’s downfall. Kane had left it for his chosen to use wisely while he slept. Within it was the damning spell, a way to put down the soulless children if they became too big of a risk to the humans.

As the damning spell was used on him, Kane could only watch with dark, unblinking eyes as his former friend shoveled the black soil on top of him. The last thing he remembered seeing was the star filled sky above a forest of trees.

The darkness had been all consuming and so silent. The spell kept him bound but he could feel things in the earth slithering over him. Tiny, mortal creatures that avoided eating his undead flesh but unknowingly gnawed at his soul.

As time passed, he thought for sure he had gone mad, and then he started hearing sounds every so often… voices. They’d been welcome to him in his prison and he yearned to hear more. Sometimes he heard whole families, and other times he heard only adults.

At times he would try fighting the spell, to call for help or even be some kind of company for himself. The magic held him fast, rendering him completely powerless. He knew this spell… had used it on monsters. It was a complex bit of magic that required the blood of a loved one to release him. A spell of love so strong that only the victim’s soul mate could break.

It had always worked with the soulless vampires because you had to have a soul to call to a soul mate. He had used the spell more than once to rid the world of his demonic murdering siblings who knew nothing but bloodlust.

Kane laughed spitefully at the haunting memory of knowing he was doomed… because he didn’t have a soul mate. At least, he had never met such an enigma. And if he did have one, then it was unlikely she would just stumble over his grave while bleeding. Malachi had been so heartbroken… he’d loved his wife so much that he wanted Kane to know the depth of such love and yearn for it.

Yearn for it he did. Many times he would shed tears, begging for whatever god would listen, to bring his soul mate to him so he could be free. Had he truly killed his friend’s wife, then it would have been a just punishment. But he had been innocent of such a crime.

One night, long after he’d given up all hope… he heard it. The distinct sound of Malachi’s roar broke through his insane inner monologue, accompanied by another animalistic scream of fury. Then to his shock, he heard the voice of a little girl directly above him screaming at them not to hurt her puppy.

The sound of her small, frightened voice broke something inside him, making him crave to be free, so he could protect her from the beast in the night.

‘Malachi won’t hurt your puppy little one,’ Kane whispered mentally.

It was true. Malachi wouldn’t hurt anyone unless they’d severely wronged him in some way… especially a child. Knowing his friend was somewhere above him, Kane felt a spark of life return to him. He grew angry when the girl screamed again and he heard something land hard on the ground. Blood… he smelled freshly spilled blood seeping through the soft earth toward him.

It was the most welcome thing he’d ever encountered. The scent invaded his mind and nearly drove him to even greater heights of insanity, knowing he was unable to reach for it. He was so weak from spending so much time without a single drink… thirsting to death yet never dying. That was when he felt one of his fingers twitching.

Kane concentrated on this and set what was left of his mind to trying to move. He felt the days pass, basing them on the heat he felt from the ground above him. The scent of the blood surrounded him now, driving him onward. Finally, he was able to slowly work his arms and started the slow process of trying to dig himself out of his own grave.

More days passed and when his hand finally broke the surface, he literally cried tears of joy. Pulling himself out of the dirt, Kane opened his eyes and stared upward, laughing almost maniacally when he saw a black sky and stars overhead. Looking back down at the ground, he noticed a piece of cloth that had small droplets of blood dried on it. Picking it up, he held it to his nose inhaling the scent of the blood that had freed him.

Keeping the reminder of his savior clenched tight in his fist, he heaved the rest of his body from the ground. Malachi and the shifter that had really killed the jaguar’s wife lay dead only a few feet from his grave.

Looking past them toward the forest, he knew the girl was long gone but Kane was convinced the child was his soul mate. Who else could have broken the spell Malachi placed on him?

Too weak to go in search of the girl, Kane crawled over to Malachi, seeming to tenderly touch the man’s cheek. Turning his face toward him, Kane’s breath left him in confusion. Malachi was wearing the bloodstone earring. His earring!

Within an instant of rage and a movement too fast to detect, Kane stood up with the earring held in his fist. Looking over at Nathaniel, the man that had framed him, Kane gathered the darkness around him like a cloak and vanished into the darkness.

Kane exhaled and watched the smoke drift through the air, curling in front of him before blowing away on the breeze. He’d spent the last ten years roaming from country to country, continent to continent, learning everything he’d missed during his thirty-year prison sentence.

He’d slowly built his strength back up, starting with a white Yorkie puppy he’d found cowering inside a hallowed out tree in that forest. It had been someone’s pet and he’d felt remorse for doing such a thing, but the need to feed was stronger than his guilt at the time.

Only after he’d fed had he realized the pup belonged to the child that had freed him. Feeling a slight spark of life still within the little fur ball, he did the damnedest thing. Biting his own wrist, Kane forced a couple of drops to land on its pink tongue then laid the pup on the ground wondering what the hell he was doing. It would never work… would it?

She’d saved him twice and not even known it. The memory of her frightened voice still had the power to jerk him from his deepest sleep. He wished he’d seen her… just a glimpse to go with the voice that haunted him.

Reaching into his pocket, he took out the small collar and stared down at the bone shaped tag on it. He knew the family name but the address on it was no longer valid… hadn’t been for years. When he finally learned how to work a computer, he’d done a search but the girl’s parents were dead and the house had been sold. The daughter, whom he was sure was the one who freed him, had vanished without a trace.

Kane tossed his cigarette by his left foot and stomped it out. Upon returning to Los Angeles, he’d immediately returned to the club Malachi had once lived in and ran, only to find it had been sold and his children had moved to a new address. The new place had once been nothing but an abandoned warehouse, but the jaguars had recently renovated it and turned it into a nightclub to fit the times. Malachi’s children now ran the establishment.