Full Moon Rising (Riley Jenson Guardian 1)

"Yeah. Right." He hated silences as much as I hated the moon dance. Still, I couldn't see the harm in answering his question - and it wasn't like I hadn't been asked it before. "Werewolves don't take contraceptives, but we are electronically chipped to prevent conception. Don't ask me how it works, it just does. The chips are inserted under our skins at puberty and until they're taken out, we can't get pregnant."

It had been a pretty pointless exercise with me, because apparently I had some weird hormonal imbalances that meant my eggs never made the journey down to my womb. The good thing about it was the fact I didn't menstruate. The bad thing, the fact I couldn't become pregnant without medical assistance. Even then, the doctors weren't sure if I would ever get pregnant or carry to term. Actually, most of them figured I was the werewolf equivalent of a mule - all the right bits but none of the functionality. But rules were rules, and there was no getting around them even if you couldn't conceive naturally

"What happens if you do want to become pregnant?"

"You pay the government medicos five hundred bucks to take the chip out, and you can become pregnant within twenty-four hours."

"And the government forces this?"

"Yep."

He snorted softly. "Amazing. They have one rule for humans and another for everyone else."

"I'm figuring they don't want the world overrun with wolves."

"It's overrun with humans, and they cause more damn damage than the rest of us ever could."

"That's not a nice way to talk about your food source."

He shrugged and left it at that. Odd, to say the least. Midday eventually rolled around, and I climbed the stairs to the kitchen on sublevel two to check out the meals - which were mainly blood, and not the synth variety - for the guardians. Once it was all onboard, I escorted the trolley to the elevator then down to the fourth level

The doors swished open and darkness greeted me. I swore under my breath. The bastards were playing games again. And while darkness didn't worry me, the fact that there were over twenty vampires in that room, all of whom could become shadows in the night, made me wary. I couldn't watch them all, even with my vampire vision, and the security cams didn't work too well in darkness

"If you fuckers don't turn on the lights, you can go hungry."

The lights came back on and Gautier's feral form strolled toward me. "Afraid of the dark, are we?"

I snorted and pressed the button on the trolley. With an electronic groan, it rolled forward and made its way toward the dining room. "Why don't you go have a shower, Gautier? You smell like shit."

He smiled, revealing bloodstained teeth. He'd fed before coming in, and I wondered who on. Was it an official source, or had he started hunting up his own meals?

"It's only blood, and the aroma is one I find intoxicating."

"Believe me, I know blood when I smell it, and what I'm smelling ain't blood."

I followed the trolley toward the dining room. Gautier followed me, a forbidding presence I could feel but not hear

"Rhoan hasn't come back yet," he stated. "You heard from him?"

The small hairs on the back of my neck rose. He was so close I could feel the wind of his foul breath past my ear. But I didn't acknowledge him and didn't alter my pace, because that was what he was waiting for

"He's on an assignment."

"The moon heat stirs for you wolves, doesn't it?"

"What's it to you?"

"Well, how are you going to cope without your lover?"

I snorted. "I'll find another. Werewolves generally aren't monogamous, you know." Not until they'd found their soul mate and sworn their love to the moon, anyway

"Ever considered trying a vampire as a lover?"

His hand came down on my shoulder, his fingers pressing deep into my barely healed wound. Pain flashed white-hot through my body and I couldn't stop my knees buckling. Swallowing back bile, I kept going down until my knees hit the floor, then, before he could react, shot a hand to his crotch and grabbed a fistful of balls

He made a gargling sound, and froze. Dead or not, vampires were still men and still very attached to their dangly bits

"Touch me again, and you'll be finding these" - I squeezed his balls a little harder - "up in the vicinity of your throat."