Read Online Blue Moon by Laurell K. Hamilton - Free Book Online

overwhelmingly alien.
    I’d turned my body in silhouette, my left hand with the knife behind my back, the back of my hand resting lightly on the top of my butt. I’d fallen into the stance I used at the shooting range when I was shooting targets. The gun was pointed at his head now, because he’d lowered his body mass until it was the biggest target. I’d saved Jamil’s life once. He was a good man to have at Richard’s back, even if he didn’t always like me. I didn’t always like him, so we were even. But I respected him, and until now, I thought he respected me. His little show in the van said he still thought of me as a girl.
    Once upon a time, it had bothered me more to kill people. Maybe it was years of killing vampires. They looked human. But somewhere along the way, it just didn’t bother me to pull the trigger. I stared at Jamil’s face, looked him right in the eyes, and felt that stillness fill me. It was like standing in the middle of a buzzing field of white noise. I could still hear and see, butit all fell away so there was nothing but the gun and Jamil and the emptiness. My body felt light and ready. In my saner moments, I worried that I was becoming a sociopath. But right now, there was nothing but a very calm knowledge that I’d do it. I’d pull the trigger and watch him die at my feet. And feel nothing.
    Jamil watched my face, and I saw the tension begin to leak out of him. He stayed very still until that vibrating energy died down and that awful looming presence of his beast slid below the surface once more. Then he very, very slowly sat back on his knees, still watching my face.
    I kept the gun pointed on him. I knew how fast they could move, fast as a wolf, maybe faster. Like nothing this side of hell.
    â€œYou really would do it,” he said. “You’d kill me.”
    â€œYou bet.”
    He took a deep breath, and it shuddered down his body, reminding me strangely of a bird settling its feathers. “It’s over,” he said. “You’re lupa. You outrank me.”
    I lowered the gun carefully, still looking at him, still trying to keep a feel for where everyone else was standing. “Please tell me that this wasn’t some sort of dominance crap?”
    Jamil gave a smile that was almost embarrassed. “I thought I was trying to make a point, but I wasn’t. I’ve spent the last month down here having to explain to the local pack how we ended up with a human lupa. How I’m outranked by a human woman.”
    I shook my head and pointed the gun at the ground. “You stupid son of a bitch. Your pride is wounded that I’m higher in the pack than you are.”
    He nodded. “Yeah.”
    â€œYou guys just drive me crazy,” I said. I was almost yelling. “We do not have time for macho bullshit.”
    Zane leaned against the van near Cherry. He was very careful to keep his hands down and move slowly, no sudden moves. “You couldn’t have taken Jamil without the knife and the gun. You won’t always have them with you.”
    â€œIs that a threat?” I asked.
    He raised his hands upward. “Just an observation.”
    â€œHey, folks.” A man stepped out of one of the cabins. He was tall, thin, with shoulder-length grey hair and a darker mustache. The hair and the lines in his face said he was over fifty.The body that showed from the T-shirt and jeans looked lean and younger.
    He’d frozen in the doorway, hands on the wooden edges of the doorjamb. “Easy there, little lady.”
    I pointed the gun at him, because under that calm exterior there was enough power to raise goose bumps on my skin, and he wasn’t even trying.
    â€œThis is Verne,” Jamil said. “He owns the cabins.”
    I lowered the gun to the ground. “He the local Ulfric, or do they have something scarier hiding in the woods?”
    Verne laughed and started walking towards us. He moved