Moonlight Menage by Stephanie Julian Page B

Heavy drums, wailing guitars, Corey Taylor’s raspy screaming vocals.
    She played it loud enough to drown out her own thoughts and the dark night around her forced her to concentrate on driving.
    But she still had no destination in mind. It was close to two in the morning. The eteri bars would be closed—
    Howling Moon.
    Howling Moon never shut its doors.
    And maybe the Lady of the Silver Light would have some advice. At least Lusna, the Etruscan Moon Goddess, would have oblivion by the name of mojitos.
    Only miles from Tira’s village of New Tarquin, Lusna’s home sat in a small valley in Oley Township, surrounded by old-growth woods, not farmland like most of the rest of the township.
    Since she’d never actually driven to Howling Moon, Tira made a couple of wrong turns before she found the unmarked lane that led to Lusna’s. She’d always walked the few times she’d visited. She knew she was on the right lane when she drove past a cluster of small, one-story stone and plaster structures with gabled roofs.
    Any eteri wandering by would think them quaint. Of course, if they knew they were inhabited by lucani , they wouldn’t stop to ooh and aah. Then again, no eteri would find their way back here. Tira was only able to discern the lane because the magic that kept it hidden from eteri made it visible to her Etruscan eyes.
    Past the tiny village of eight homes, she turned a bend and caught sight of the two-hundred-year-old stone farmhouse, built in a time when the second and third floors had housed the humans and the first floor had held the animals.
    Today, the ground floor was a bar. The sign at the door showed a cartoon wolf sitting on a stool holding a mug. Lusna had a somewhat twisted sense of humor.
    When Tira parked in the small gravel parking lot a few hundred yards from the building, she didn’t give herself time to second-guess. She got out of the car and headed straight for the door.
    This late, she didn’t think there would be too many people in the bar. There was only one other car in the lot. Of course, most of the patrons didn’t drive here. They ran. On four paws. All of the lucani she knew kept a change of clothes in the back room.
    A cold wind smelling of snow whipped around her just as she got to the door. She looked up at the sky. No stars or moon tonight. Billowy clouds blocked them from sight.
    Yeah, there’d be snow soon enough.
    Yanking open the heavy wooden door, wide enough and tall enough to accommodate a horse, she stepped into the warm, fragrant comfort of Howling Wolf.
    Like a weight had lifted off her shoulders, Tira took a deep breath, scented with fir and wood smoke. No cigarette smoke. But beneath everything, the glaze of magic.
    This was the home of a goddess, after all.
    The mellow sound of an acoustic guitar caught her attention first. Looking around, she found Caeles, an Etruscan elemental fauni who never strayed far from Lusna’s side, picking at the strings, the tune an old Etruscan ritual song, ancient and full of power. Tira figured that’s what was fueling the calming spell.
    Three lucani , two in wolf form, sat around him. They barely glanced at Tira as she made her way to the wide plank bar on the far side of the room from the front door.
    No one tended bar but Tira knew it wouldn’t be long before Lusna walked out to take her order.
    Which had always struck Tira as strange. The Etruscan Goddess of the Moon serving her subjects instead of the other way around.
    But Lusna loved it.
    As if on cue, the door to the kitchen swung open and the Lady of the Silver Light stepped out with a smile on her beautiful face, her midnight-black hair loose around her shoulders and her gray eyes bright.
    Lusna had the kind of soft beauty that made men want her and women not want to rip her hair out for being so beautiful. A fine line, but she walked it gracefully.
    “Tira, sweetheart. It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen you here. Come sit down and I’ll get you a drink. You