Beneath a blood lust moon (Rise of the Arkansas Werewolves, #2)
Jodi Vaugn
CHAPTER ONE
“Fan-fucking-tastic.” Braxton Devereaux stopped his motorcycle and swiped the blood off his mouth with the back of his tattooed hand. Leaning over, he spit through clenched teeth. The bloody mucus puddled in the frozen winter’s ground.
Despite being a werewolf, he preferred the coppery taste of his enemy’s blood to his own.
Today had been one of the shittiest days he’d ever had. Considering his lot in life, that was saying something.
His alarm hadn’t gone off and he’d shown up late for his bartending job. Once he arrived at work things had quickly gone from bad to worse when one of the customers at the Beaver Tail Strip Club slapped one of the dancers. Braxton had left his position from behind the bar and beat the fucker senseless. The one thing that made him flip his switch like nothing else was some asshole thinking he had the right to hit a woman.
After four bouncers finally pulled him off the guy, his boss had handed him his last paycheck and told him not to come back.
He didn’t mind losing his job; he knew he could find something else. He didn’t really like bartending that much anyway. He’d only stayed around for the dancers, to keep an eye out for them and make sure no one hurt them. Even tonight, when he was gathering his things, Wendy, the stripper who’d been hit, had wrapped her arms around him and apologized for getting him fired for coming to her defense. She’d said no one had ever done that for her before.
Then she offered him a blow job.
He frowned, now regretting he’d turned down her generous offer. God knows he needed some kind of outlet for his anger before facing his prick of a father.
The frosty January wind ruffled his blue-tipped hair as he set the kickstand on his 1998 Harley Davidson Fat Boy. He dismounted his bike, mentally bracing for walking into his parents’ war zone of a house. At thirty-one, his stomach still clenched every time he drove up. His childhood hadn’t exactly been picture perfect and as soon as he was of legal age, he’d left. He lived a couple of blocks away in a shitty studio apartment, but it was still too close for his taste.
He’d ridden over after getting a call from one of the neighbors concerned about the loud ruckus coming from the house. The neighbors knew his old man, Remy Devereaux, and were too afraid to go over themselves. They all knew the truth. Braxton had no illusions. He knew exactly what his father was capable of when it came to his mother, Lynette. The neighbors were right to not get involved. It would just make things worse on her.
The hair on his neck stiffened as a desperate chill ran down his spine with each step along the crumbling walkway. The wind howled through the barren winter trees as if in warning of what he’d find on the other side of the door. What kind of shape would his mother be in this time? Busted face? Broken ribs? Bruised kidney?
Braxton wished for the millionth time he could convince her to leave, to get out of Shreveport, Louisiana, while she was still alive. He promised to take her anywhere she wanted, so they could start over, but she never even entertained the idea. Every time he found a new bruise on his mother’s gaunt body, she made excuses for his father. The light in her eyes had long gone, leaving behind a shell of a woman who was too afraid to live without a man, even a man that continued to hit her. She’d allowed him to suck out her soul and then crammed in his own convoluted, worthless version of her identity back into her body.
After his last visit, Braxton had discovered fresh bruises on her arms. He’d flipped, wanting nothing more than to wrap his hand around his father’s neck and squeeze. She’d begged him not to kill his father, when it was the only thing Braxton had wanted to do. In the end, he’d caved and promised his mom he wouldn’t murder the bastard. It was a promise he struggled to keep.
He told himself that he wouldn’t keep coming over, wouldn’t keep torturing himself over how he hadn’t managed to keep his father from beating the shit out of his mother. He should have left Shreveport years ago and never looked back.
Yet he’d stayed, hoping his mother would wake up and realize she was ready to leave Remy.
Until then, he couldn’t leave his mother. Deep down, Braxton knew it was his presence that kept Remy from killing her.