Excerpt of When Pleasure Rules by J. K. Beck

Chapter One

The shadowed moon hung low in the Parisian sky, thin
fingers of dark clouds obscuring its feeble glow.

Only 72 percent waxing gibbous. Not enough to wrench the
wolf within free, but more than sufficient to wake it.

A dozen years ago, Rand wouldn’t have known a lunar phase
from a lunatic fringe. Now those phases burned in his
blood, his power and strength growing with the moon.

Within, the animal writhed, ready to hunt. Ready to end
this thing.

He made no noise as he followed the Avenue des Peupliers
toward the Avenue Neigre in the Cimetière du Père Lachaise.
On either side of him, the houses of the dead rose in the
moonlight, their smooth stone surfaces gleaming.

He slid into the shadows and closed his eyes, letting the
sounds of the night surround him, the scents find him. He’d
been a soldier before the change, first on the streets of
Los Angeles, later in Saudi, in Bosnia, in the Middle East.
A kid who’d protected his turf. A soldier who’d targeted
enemies of the state.

He remained a hunter now. A wolf stalking its prey.

The change had intensified his senses and augmented his
strength. He could see now regardless of the level of
illum, with his own eyes instead of the night optics he’d
trained with so many years ago. But this enemy could do the
same, so the darkness gave him no advantage. But the moon
remained his ally, and even at only 72 percent, he could
hear the softest whisper, could catch the faintest scent.
The brush of wind over wood. The scurrying of insects. The
scent of rotting corpses.

There.

He opened his eyes, twisting his head as he caught the para-
daemon’s earthen scent, like decaying leaves mixed with
shit. He followed it, the excitement of the hunt burning in
his gut as he stole down the cobbled street and then onto
the narrow gravel lane that was the Champs Bertolie.

His muscles were tight and ready to pound the bastard, but
he’d brought weapons with him, too. The Ka-Bar sheathed at
his thigh. The switchblade in his hand. The length of wire
he’d habitually kept in his pocket since the week before
his ninth birthday. They were as much a part of him as the
wolf that writhed within.

He’d dressed in black, his dark skin smeared with camo
paint and his shaved scalp covered by black knit, rendering
him nothing more than a shadow in the darkness. He heard
the sharp snap of a grate creaking open and realized his
target had entered one of the tombs. Rand sniffed the air—
he’d lost Zor’s scent. In its place, he smelled only fear.

Fear?

A hint of foreboding twisted in his gut. Even if the para-
daemon knew he was being tracked, he was too arrogant to
fear Rand. Yet the scent was unmistakable. He tensed,
realizing with sickening surety the source of the fear.

A female.

The fucker had abducted another female.

He hadn’t heard that any more Parisian therians had gone
missing, but that was the only explanation. Zor had taken
another, and now the female werewolf was trapped and
terrified and possibly dying.

A cold rage sliced through him, so intense it threatened to
overcome reason. He pushed it back, calling up his training
to use the fury rather than be used by it. The scent led
him north, and he moved silently, curving around the
monument until he stood, back pressed to the stone, near a
wrought-iron gate that acted as a door to where the dead
rested within.

Another step, along with a slight tilt of his head as he
peered around the corner, and he could see inside, his
hyped-up vision making it easy to see the kenneled woman.
Her eyes were rimmed in red, her lips pressed tight
together as if she refused to give Zor the satisfaction of
seeing her cry.

Alicia.

He shook his head, pushing away the memories and
concentrating only on the moment. On Zor. And on the woman
cowering in a cage.

The female was naked, and even from a distance, Rand could
see the red welts on her back from where the daemon had
removed long strips of skin. Zor would pull off every inch,
feeding on her pain until the flesh was gone and it was
time to kill the woman and find a new one.

Five females. Six counting this one.

A muscle in his jaw twitched. There would be no more.

He checked his perimeter, finding no sign of Zor, then
approached the cage.

“Non.” The woman scrambled backward, eyes as wide as
quarters.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Rand said in the woman’s
language. He studied her face, but didn’t recognize
her. “Je suis un ami.”

She remained in the corner, as far away as possible.

He crouched down and inspected the cage. Straw littered the
floor, along with a tattered blanket and a dish filled with
kibble next to a bowl of stale water. One lone water bug
moved across the surface, disturbing a thin layer of grime.

After a moment of searching, he found the hidden hinges as
well as the lock that kept the cage sealed. He tugged at
the door, but it didn’t give.

Apparently he should have brought C-4 and a det cord, and
left the Ka-Bar behind. He peered at the woman. “La clef?”

A hint of hope fluttered across her shell-shocked
features. “Je ne sais pas.”

Fuck. Most likely Zor kept the key on his person. Still, he
scanned the small room, just in case.

Nothing.

Two ancient swords hung on the wall, forming a cross above
a stone coffin. As Rand considered the blades’ usefulness
for freeing the woman, a new sound caught his attention.
The rough scrape of stone against stone.

The woman’s cry of “Monsieur!” filled the chamber as Rand
spun toward his attacker, the switchblade extended and
tight in his hand, as comfortable as an extension of his
own body.

He sliced through the para-daemon’s shirt and knocked the
bastard backward, but not before the para-daemon grabbed
the hilt of the Ka-Bar sheathed at Rand’s thigh, taking the
knife with him as he tumbled away. Zor’s reflexes were
sharp, honed from his recent feeding, and the monster
sprang back to action almost immediately. Greasy strands of
pure white hair hid his face as he crouched near the
opening to the tunnel he’d come through.

“Running, Zor? Go ahead. You won’t last long.”

“Against you? I’ll barely have to strain myself.”

“I wouldn’t bet the bank.” He was being arrogant, and he
knew it. Unlike most weren, Rand couldn’t intentionally
summon the change that merged wolf and man, elongating his
features, stretching his muscles, and turning him into a
wolf-man that resembled the creatures from childhood horror
flicks.

He changed only with the full moon, and when he did, he
lost himself entirely, his body shifting into the form of a
preternaturally strong gray wolf, his human mind lost
inside the mind of the animal.

But even though he couldn’t change at will, the wolf lived
within him always, drawing power from the pull of the moon,
and tonight 72 percent would do just fine.

Arrogant or not, Rand knew he wouldn’t lose. The beast
within wouldn’t allow it.

Zor would die tonight, and Rand would savor the killing
blow.

The para-daemon seemed to hesitate, and for a second, Rand
thought that Zor would bolt. He didn’t. Instead, he
attacked, leading with Rand’s own knife.

Rand cut to the side as the beast lunged, the blade slicing
through the back of Rand’s shirt and the flesh of his
shoulder blade. The wound was hot and deep and stung like a
mother, but Rand ignored it. Not the time; not the problem.
Instead, he rolled over, taking his weight on the wound as
he kicked up and out, his heel intersecting Zor’s wrist,
forcing the son of a bitch to drop the knife, which skidded
across the stone floor until it was lost in the shadows.

His own blood stained the blade now, and Rand could smell
it—covering the steel, seeping into the floor, soaking his
shirt.

He breathed in deeply, the scent and the pain rousing him,
thrusting him into the warm, familiar black where nothing
mattered but the kill.

He sprang up, determined to kill the para-daemon right
then. The daemon might be older and stronger, but Rand was
certain Zor underestimated him. In the ancient daemon’s
mind, a werewolf barely twelve years into the change hardly
posed a threat.

Sure enough, the creature leaped forward, wiry muscles
propelling him high into the air. He lashed out on descent,
his kick soundly intersecting Rand’s chin. The blow sent
Rand’s neck snapping back, but he didn’t falter, managing
to snag the beast around the ankle and sending him to the
ground.

Rand pressed the advantage. He lunged forward and slammed
his knife through the para-daemon’s gut, releasing a gush
of snot-yellow liquid through which ran thin strands of
crimson blood, together but separated, like oil and water.

The scent of blood rose, and the wolf within Rand snapped
and growled. But it wasn’t the wolf who would take Zor. It
was the man—and the animal inside him.