Children of the Moon: Book Six

  CHILDREN OF THE MOON

  Book Six

  Copyright © 2020

  Any unauthorized reprint or use of the material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the express written permission of the author. All rights reserved.

  This is an original work of fiction and the contents are a product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Contains language and adult themes, suitable for 16 years+

  In loving memory of my sister-in-law Janet

  who was taken far too soon.

  May she rest in everlasting peace.

  CHILDREN OF THE MOON

  Book Six

  PROLOGUE

  He had memorized the nurse’s routine over and over again until he could time every minute of their day with absolute accuracy. Saturdays were a little more relaxed and a small number of family members were allowed into the facility.

  Not that he ever had any visitors, his brother and sister had disowned him and his half-brother hated the sight of him, but that was okay because he was going to kill Liam McGuire, him and his mate. Donovan and Adair would be next, but he wouldn’t harm Imogen or Annalise, he needed them.

  But the first thing on his agenda would be Serena, he had to get her back. She belonged to him and this time he would let no-one stand in his way. He realized his mistake keeping her caged like an animal. She should have been living in luxury and this time he would see to it that none of them would ever want for anything. He would vow to leave their families alone if they stayed with him and he knew Imogen wouldn’t risk her kid’s life. She wouldn’t need to know that her mate would already be dead.

  The weekdays were a bust though as far as him getting out of here. The male nurse, O’Brian, was a wolf shifter and built like a linebacker. His amber eyes watched him constantly and the hard-faced nurse who was also a wolf took over for the night shift. He knew that the extra security guards were solely for him too, but they were human. He also had a secret weapon at his disposal and he would use her in any way he could to break free.

  Talk of the devil!

  He bowed his head and clasped his hands as he watched her walking toward him through semi-closed eyes and he arranged his face into the saintly expression he had perfected purely for her benefit.

  “Here you are. I checked your room but the nurse said you were up super early this morning. Is there something on your mind, Rob?” she pulled out a chair and sat beside him and he could smell her attraction to him a mile off. They may have medicated him well enough that he was unable to shift but he still had his senses intact and his therapist was going to be his one-way ticket out of this hellhole.

  “Just the usual, Julia. I wake up wracked with guilt at the awful way I treated my family and I would give anything to be able to apologize to them face to face but I understand why they don’t want anything to do with me. I stole from them, I used them and I kept my ex-girlfriend against her will because I was desperately trying to hold on to her. Who could blame them for hating me?” he turned his anguished face toward her and saw the compassion in her eyes.

  He knew that his official records wouldn’t have everything in them. Who in their right minds would believe that he was a wolf shifter or that the women he kept captive were both witches? His official story of fraud, theft and kidnapping and his subsequent plea of insanity was going to work in his favor this time. He was able to steal his file when Julia’s back was turned and put it back again before she missed it, she was way too trusting.

  Jay Donovan thought he was very clever but the police chief had a little surprise coming his way, he only wished he was going to be able to see his face when his world was turned upside down. That should keep him busy and out of his hair while he put the rest of his plans in motion.

  “Pray with me?” he asked her and she smiled as she took his hand and closed her eyes. He recited the words from the prayer book she had brought him a few weeks ago and he felt her heightened emotions as he finished the prayer and squeezed her hand.

  “I think you have come a long way, Rob. I want to help you in any way I can.

  “I just want to be the man my father was. I lost my way when he died and I know I can be just like him. I want to do the great things he did and be respected and loved like he was.” he lied knowing full well that his father’s public face was a far cry from the real Senator Hamilton-Danvers. “I have a lot to atone for and the best way I know how is to help other people. I need your help and guidance, Julia,”

  “You know you have it, Rob.” she leaned a little closer, unknowingly drawn in by his scent.

  He smoothed his hand over her face and gently kissed her on the cheek.

  “I don’t know what I would do without you, you’re an angel.” he smiled and she flushed pink and straightened up as Goliath, as he had named him, came around the corner.

  “I think I would like to go back to my room now, Ms. Decker,” he said and she walked with him to his door, the nurse a few paces behind them.

  “I will see you for your session after dinner tonight in my office.” she smiled and walked to the locked doors and waited for the guard to let her go through.

  He went into his room and Nurse Goliath followed him. He held out a small cup with his medication inside and added two pills from his inside pocket, obviously not hospital issue medicine and designed to keep his wolf subdued.

  Goliath watched him swallow them and take a drink of water before he turned toward the door and looked over his shoulder.

  “We are watching every single move you make, Danvers. If there is even a sniffle that you are planning something, I won’t hesitate to cut out your fucking heart. You may have fooled Julia Decker but you don’t fool me. I would have cut your throat and left you to rot after the things you did to those women, but it seems that Jay Donovan has a more forgiving nature than me.

  “I know you don’t believe me and I really don’t care but I am trying to be a better man. Julia is helping me realize how wrong the things I did were.” He tried to keep calm and not let him see how much he wanted to choke him until he turned purple and his eyes bulged in his face. Slitting his neck would certainly be quicker but much less satisfying.

  “Don’t forget I know the entire sordid tale, not the watered-down version that’s in your file.” he took a step back inside the room and lowered his voice. “If you harm one single hair on Julia Decker’s head I will dismember you slowly and methodically you worthless piece of shit.”

  Danvers felt a frisson of fear. He didn’t have his minders protecting him now, he didn’t even know if they were alive or dead and quite honestly he didn’t care. There was always more muscle for hire if you had the money and he had plenty of that.

  Goliath closed the door behind him and he knew he had to make his move very soon. He stuck his fingers down his throat and wretched until he threw up and was happy that the two white tablets he was forced to ingest were still intact. Another couple of days of puking up and he should be able to shift. He would need to turn up the charm tonight with Julia, she was his key to unlocking this nightmare and his freedom.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Summer

  The garden was always so pretty in springtime and now that the last of the frost had dissipated, green shoots were popping up everywhere. Summer always took great pleasure in nature’s new life, whether it was her plants, the buds on the trees, or the new baby goats out at the farm. Well technically the goats were at her brother’s new facility on the outskirts of the farm but the name seemed to have stuck and the farmhouse where Seann and Imogen had made their new home was
now ‘The Den’. Still in her pajamas, she sat down on the old wooden swing with her coffee and took a few minutes to just relax and let the sounds of spring wash over her.

  The entire pack had been on the mountain for a month now, a month of planning, packing, painting, remodeling and all the while ushering the last of the human population out of town with over-generous offers for their cabins and houses.

  There were only two stalwarts left. One, a thirty-something man who lived out on the edge of town, farthest away from the Den and old Mrs. Carroll who owned the small craft store over on Meadow Lane, right next door to Summer’s herbalist store.

  Summer actually loved browsing in the shop and always bought something just to see the smile on the old woman’s face. She had a basket full of yarn and needlework projects that she never seemed to get around to starting but maybe now that Lukas was going to be a father she could crochet something cute for the baby. She was looking forward to seeing Hope again too when they all went to The Den for dinner tonight.

  The craft store probably hadn’t turned a profit in the last decade, but it was Eleanor Carroll’s only contact with the outside world. She lived in a tiny one-bedroom apartment at the back of the store, didn’t own a car and had a standing order to have her groceries delivered.

  She wasn’t a threat to the pack as she never left her home and Summer had never heard her mention any family either, even her customers these days were few and far between and she relied solely on the summer trade from tourists. She seemed spritely enough on her feet and Summer wondered why she was reluctant to venture farther than her small garden.

  She just didn’t feel right about trying to force the old woman to live somewhere else and she was thankful that Seann Donovan seemed to feel the same way. He was as hard as nails on the outside but he had a good heart and she was certain that was at least partly Imogen’s influence.

  Her own business was also reliant on tourists to a degree but she wasn’t looking to get rich either. She had her inheritance and the online part of her business was thriving, she really kept the physical store mainly to keep herself occupied and had recently started studying and practicing her craft again. Since being held prisoner by Danvers she had thought about giving it up altogether, but she knew deep down it was who she was and she could no more turn her back on her gifts than she could on her family.

  She loved the herbal side of her craft, she was a healer like her mother and grandmother before her. Unlike some of the older members of her mother’s coven, Summer was also an advocate of traditional medicine and believed that traditional and alternative medicines could complement each other. Thankfully, the pack doctor, Rafe Gallagher, agreed with her and in the short time she had been part of the pack, she had proved her usefulness.

  She loved belonging, it had always been her, Lukas and her parents and now it was just the two of them. She had made real friends here and she loved her brother’s mate like a sister. The icing on the cake was her new niece or nephew that would be born fairly soon and she suspected their get together tonight was about revealing the gender of their baby. They had been keeping it very close to their hearts and she knew Hope didn’t want to upstage her sister. Bree and Nate’s twins would arrive in a couple of weeks and she suspected Hope and Lukas would want to clear the decks with their announcement before then.

  There would be too many people there tonight for Hope to host dinner as Finn Danvers had arrived on the mountain and Garrett and India also had family in town. The renovations on Hope and Lukas’s cabin were coming along nicely but not quite finished yet. Imogen had offered to make dinner and as she was such a fabulous cook, no one minded in the least.

  She finished her coffee and went back inside to finish packing up the last of the orders, filling herbal teas into small drawstring bags and added a smudge stick to one of the boxes. She sealed and labeled them and stacked them ready to ship. She normally prepared her online orders in the shop but she was running out of space and could use a little more room there so that she could get back the use of her guest room and maybe turn it into something cute for her new niece or nephew when they came to visit.

  The last thing on her to-do list was a tea blend of cinnamon, coriander and mint that she had wanted to gift to Kandis. She was a devoted mother to baby Addison and loved her fiercely but Summer could sense her underlying sadness that she was unable to have a child of her own too. Rafe had been unable to find any physical reason why she couldn’t conceive, despite her horrific attack at the hands of three rogue wolves A little fertility help couldn’t hurt, could it?

  She packed a dozen small bags into a pretty box and tied it with ribbon. She would tell her it was just a tea to relax and repair after her vigorous workouts. Kandis was tougher than most of the male wolves in the pack and mostly through sheer hard work and determination. Her best defense when dealing with a stranger was her sweet, angelic looks, but no one in the pack was fooled by that, they all knew her too well.

  Summer had joined her self-defense classes with the rest of the women and in just a few short weeks she felt a little more capable of defending herself against an attack. After what Danvers put her through, she never wanted to be that vulnerable ever again. Young Cassie had been in training every day for the last couple of months and she would eventually help Kandis by training the teenagers in the pack. Liam and Garrett were training the men and older boys and one of Garrett’s brothers, who was skilled in martial arts was coming to stay with the pack for a while and was going to give a few classes for anyone who wanted them.

  Summer had signed up to take his class with some of the other women this afternoon and was looking forward to seeing Kandis kick his ass. This wolf didn’t know what was coming to him and she didn’t feel the slightest bit guilty about setting him up. No one ever suspected Kandis of being able to handle herself, she looked so sweet and innocent. According to Hope, he had a bit of a reputation as a tough guy so it could be an interesting afternoon.

  She showered and dressed in leggings and a t-shirt and scraped her long hair up into a ponytail and carried the boxes out to her car to transport back to the shop. She stopped at the cake shop, now owned by one of the pack moms and bought cream buns and coffee to take to Eleanor’s.

  She unlocked the shop and put the boxes just inside the door and filled up some of the gaps in her inventory while she waited on the carrier coming to collect the boxes for shipping. If Eleanor ever decided to sell up she would love to buy her little shop next door and knock through into the store. She could use the space for packing and shipping and to keep a larger stock on hand, meaning fewer trips into the city to buy supplies. She would never put pressure on her though, she had lived here most of her life and this little shop was her home.

  The carrier was right on time and she locked the shop behind him again and carried the coffee and sweet treats next door. The bell above the door chimed and she heard her neighbor coming through from her little apartment. She took one of the two high backed chairs in the corner as she waited for the older woman to appear and put the coffee and cakes on the small table between them.

  “Summer, you are spoiling me again.” she chuckled as she came into the room and took the other chair. “Let me guess, cream buns this time.”

  “You know me so well.” Summer opened the box and handed one of the buns in a white napkin to her friend. She took the other one and bit into it, savoring the fresh cream with just a hint of vanilla. “These are delicious.” she licked her lips. “It’s a good job I have a class today to work it off.” she took another bite before putting it back on the table and sipping at her hot coffee.

  “Nonsense girl, there’s nothing of you.” Eleanor broke off a piece of her bun and popped it in her mouth. “All that running you do keeps you slim and healthy.”

  She had only run the five-kilometer short route this morning knowing she had this class with Garrett’s brother coming up but she would normally run for at least ten kilometers three or four days a week. She ran
because she loved the feel of the wind on her face and her tired muscles at the end when she stopped back at her cabin. The health benefits and her slim figure were just a bonus.

  “Are you going to try and persuade me to sell the shop?” Eleanor jumped right in and Summer was taken aback by her abruptness.

  “No, Eleanor, absolutely not. The offer is on the table if you ever wanted to, but there will be no pressure from anyone for you to do so. I promise.”

  “I trust you Summer, but I don’t know all of these people that have moved here,” she said.

  “I do. They are good people, Eleanor, I promise you.”

  “So many have sold up and gone and that young attorney came to the shop a while back and offered me more than this place is worth, but I don’t want to sell. I just want to live out the rest of my life here in peace and quiet.”

  Summer covered the old woman’s hand with hers.

  “Then you won’t have to sell.” she smiled.

  Eleanor got up and walked slowly around her small shop, straightening items as she went. She turned back to face Summer with a little smile.

  “You’re a good girl, Summer. Maybe one day you will tell me all about yourself and not that cock and bull story you told me a few years ago when you first moved in. I’m patient, you will tell me when you are good and ready and maybe I will tell you my story too. A story I haven’t told another living soul.”

  Summer opened her mouth to deny it but the look in the old woman's eyes told her everything she needed to know, no wonder she had felt drawn to her when they first met. Eleanor kept everyone at arm’s length but took Summer under her wing and coddled her when she first arrived in town, broken and miserable. Her cover story of escaping from a bad breakup had seemed to satisfy her at the time but watching her now, she knew that wasn't really the case.

  “You know what I am, don’t you?” Summer said softly.