Blood On The Moon Cover
My third novel was finished and published in time for Halloween and I had a launch at Waterstone's at Sheffield.
The full book cover, done by the wonderful, talented, brilliant Paul Mudie
Other Images from Pixabay or Google (Free Usage)
Ch1 Jessica (Rabbit) has entered the Lion’s Den – Wolf’s Den – of her own accord and is neck-deep in her greatest desire (Be careful what you wish for).
Ch2 Red is speaking to a Wolf she knew from long ago and has been astonished once by his revelation.
Red was silent and shocked and she allowed him to continue.
“I shall not put the blame at his door; it is as much my own fault as it is his. He spoke to me and told me that he knew of a way of regaining my youth. I joked and asked where the Fountain of Youth was. He did not laugh with me. I should have suspected him from the moment he offered this, because if you have the secret of eternal youth, wouldn’t you use it on yourself?”
“This Wolf, he was an Ancient then?”
“Yes and I suppose that is another reason that I trusted him.”
“And you went for the treatment?”
“No, he came to me. Oh if I look back, all sorts of alarm bells ring but I was deafened and blinded by my vanity. I can make all sorts of excuses I suppose. My wife had been killed a few years before...”
“Melaine is dead? I didn’t know, I’m sorry.”
“Yes and in the following years I searched desperately for another mate. I suppose that I had not given myself time to grieve properly and I was too predatory and too choosy if I am honest – and I suppose that if I cannot be honest with myself now, then I never shall and this, my destruction, will serve no purpose.”
He sighed then, his head dropped and he looked down at the floor.
She remained silent but she had a good idea of where this sorry tale was heading.
Ryan continued with his story.
“You see, because I could not find a suitable and worthy replacement for Melaine, I blamed it on my appearance. My youth had gone, mainly because I fasted for so very long after her death and even when I did take a Hume to feed, I neglected the glands more often than not. Again, I have only come to realise these facts long after the event. Still, the upshot is that I wanted to be young again, but what I really wanted was to go backwards in time to when Melaine and I first met. When the chance of that was offered to me, I snatched at it with both hands. I accepted the injections readily and the effect was almost instantaneous! I was amazed, but also, he was amazed and I wondered why. He explained away his shock by claiming that mine was the most immediate and most pronounced improvement and it was probably due to the fact that I had fasted so much. It is more than clear to me now that he had never seen the effects before because I was the experiment.”
A deep sigh reverberated through the youngster’s body and ended with another suppressed sob.
“To begin with, the effects were welcomed, I looked younger, and I even felt younger. On the first Full Moon, I was exuberant! My strength never waned, my lust could not be slaked and I rutted as I had not done in years. I wore out all of my lovers, and there were many, both day and night. I enjoyed those three nights as much – almost – as any Full Moon that I had shared with Melaine. After, there seemed to be no ill-effects. I did not begin to age drastically – as I had feared that I would. It was only upon the next Full Moon that I began to notice the ill-effects. The first Full Moon had been given over to my sexual lust you see, I had not fed but when I took a victim and slaked my blood lust, the glands which I took reacted with the injection and thus began the rejuvenation process which you see in me now.”
Red gasped as she recognised the symptoms. Red had never seen such a dejected looking creature as Ryan, not since Sebastian and the memory and coincidence flooded back.
“Throwback,” she whispered.
Ryan looked at her in curiosity. When she did not explain her comment, he continued his sad tale.
“The next month showed just a little change in me, it was such a subtle alteration that I barely noticed. My sex drive and blood lust were at a peak at Full Moon – as is normal – and I was overjoyed at that, to the extent that I ignored the side effects, which, after all, were not so very bad, but the regression did not take any predictable course. One month I could see almost no change at all and the next, I seemed to have regressed a decade in a few hours.”
Ryan sighed and paused for another moment but Red didn’t interrupt with questions, they would come later.
Most intriguing... Waiting for the next instalment as usual.
You're not the only one
Throwback, was that not also what Jessica was said to be? or did I remember wrong, Hmm, may have to reread previous one or two. Too many stories, I may be getting them mixed up. Oh well, re reads are good sometimes. Thanks for the wonderful stories.
I was already caught up in reading this part before I thought to myself, "Wait, I have to read it from scratch"... lol... it's a really intriguing plot