Children of the Moon: Book Three Read online

  “Don’t move or I will shoot you, Kandis. Put the car in drive and slowly pull out of here. If you make one false move your little human friend in the bookstore won’t live to see another daybreak.”

  She tamped down her natural reaction to lash out and take her chances, but she didn’t know if he would seriously hurt Sophia and she wouldn’t risk her safety. Did he have someone in the store watching Sophia? She couldn’t take the chance and put the car into drive just as the girl came out of the store and ran toward them.

  She knew something was wrong and yanked open the passenger side door, grabbing at the man’s head to try and pull him out, but he was huge and didn’t budge an inch. He pushed her effortlessly away and she landed on the sidewalk with a thump as the car pulled away and she was left sitting there on her rear.

  “Are you alright, dear,” an older, grey-haired woman came out of the store and helped her to her feet. She picked up her belongings that had scattered around her.

  “Yes,” she forced a smile and resisted rubbing her sore butt, “Just my brother being an idiot, I will just have to walk home now but I live nearby.

  The old woman didn’t look convinced, but Sophia dusted herself off and walked away before she could say anything else and turned the corner before breaking into a run. She ducked into an empty shop doorway and pulled out her cellphone. She had Liam’s number and her hands were shaking and she wanted to cry as she waited on him answering.

  “Liam, someone took Kandis, they are in her car and she’s driving, but he had a gun, I saw his gun,” she blurted out.

  “Where are you?” he barked.

  “I was in the bookstore and I saw him get in the car with her, she lashed out but he caught her hand and made her drive him away.”

  “Go back inside and wait, someone will come and get you.” he hung up and she did as he asked and turned back toward the store.

  She ran all the way without looking back and went inside. She picked up the newspaper Kandis had been reading and gripped it tightly to stop her hands from shaking. She desperately wanted to cry but refused to give in to it as she waited for someone to collect her.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Liam

  Seann was driving furiously as they sped toward town and his racing driver techniques didn’t do much to calm Liam’s ragged nerves. He held the door handle so tightly his fingers were white and he forced himself to relax his grip before it shattered under the force. Who was this fucker who had taken Kandis, A dead man, that’s who he fucking was!

  “We’ll get her back, Liam” Garrett tried to reassure him, but he already was too far gone with rage to listen to anything his friend had to say.

  They screeched to a halt in front of the bookstore and Sophia came out quickly and got in the back seat beside Garrett. She was shaken and her face was drained of all color and Liam felt a pang of guilt that he hadn’t considered how this must have been for her, she was still just a kid.

  “Tell me what happened, Sophia?” Garrett coaxed her and she told him step by step as Seann drove around looking for any sign of Kandis or her car, but they were long gone. He turned back onto the road to the compound as she finished telling her story and Garrett squeezed her hand.

  “You were very brave, Sophia and smart to tell the woman he was your brother. The last thing any of us need is the police sniffing around the compound.”

  “It’s a shame Sophia doesn’t have a wolf’s senses to sniff him out.” Seann sighed, “It would have given us somewhere to start.

  “I’m sorry.” she started to cry, “If I hadn’t wanted to go into town he wouldn’t have taken her.”

  “No, Sophia.” Garrett soothed her, “This is not your fault.”

  “Call India and ask her to meet us at the Den, Garrett,” Seann said, “Her and Bree can come back into town with us and see if we can pick up a strange wolf scent.”

  “How do you know he was a wolf?” Sophia asked.

  “Because if he was a human, he would never have overpowered her and she would have killed him on the spot,” Liam said, his jaw clenched and his rage palpable.

  “I think he was a wolf, when he pushed me to the ground, he barely touched me and I went flying,” she added.

  “We need somewhere to start, even for India’s enhanced senses, we need a starting point. We can bring them back to the bookstore, hopefully, she will be able to pick up a clue from there.

  “Would this help?” Sophia pulled the black knit hat from her bag, “I grabbed it from his head when he pushed me away.”

  She handed it to Garrett who took a deep breath and grinned.

  “It’s faint, but definitely a wolf. It’s not unfamiliar either, no-one I know well but it’s not a new smell to me. He passed it around and the other two agreed with him.

  “That was very brave and quick thinking, Sophia, we will make a wolf of you yet.” Seann smiled, but it did nothing to reassure her. Kandis had been nothing but super kind to her and now she had been taken by some deranged wolf because she wanted to buy some unimportant crap that could have waited until another time.

  The Den was buzzing when they got back and Roisin was there to take charge of Kali and baby Everly so that Imogen and India could go back to town to begin the search. India and Bree between them were unbeatable for tracking and Imogen was praying she would have a vision of where Kandis was being held.

  Anjelica made hot chocolate for the kids and insisted that Sophia have some too while they waited for her sister to come to the Den to collect her. There was always a healthy supply of cookies and cakes in the pantry since Imogen came to live here, but Sophia refused them.

  Seann turned to his uncle who was chief of police for many years in the town he used to live.

  “Jay, gather up as many security guards as you can and double the patrols until we know what we are dealing with. I want everyone back in the compound and no-one is to leave until further notice. I also want more experienced people on the gates, the teenagers can run the perimeter in groups looking for breaches in the fence. This wolf has been here before, I can smell him all over the place but no-one seems to recognize his scent. This has been planned for a while and he has been on pack lands many times. I suspect any one of us could be in danger.

  Liam insisted on driving one of the trucks and Seann nodded to Garrett and India to go with him while he took Imogen and Bree in the other. They could cover more ground if they split up but first, they had to find a starting point and the bookstore was the best angle they had.

  India could track much better in wolf form but that wasn’t possible in the middle of the town. They parked right in front of the store and it looked like the owner was packing up for the day. He watched them from the window and Liam wondered if he had seen anything. He figured it was worth risking his curiosity.

  “I am going to ask some questions,” he said, opening the door and going inside.

  “I wonder if you saw a man and a woman a little earlier in a red Ford Escape parked outside your shop.” he smiled to soften his hard features and the man visibly relaxed.

  “Yeah, I did, they were parked right out front. The guy pushed the girl away when she opened the car door and they drove off leaving her sitting on the sidewalk. One of my regulars asked if she was okay and she said it was her brother. Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah, everyone’s fine,” Liam said, “She was late home and my father wondered if she was telling the truth, that’s all.”

  He glanced out the window at the others and raised an eyebrow.

  “A lot of fuss to find out if a teenager is lying or not.”

  He didn’t believe a word and Liam had to rectify the situation, the last thing the pack needed was unnecessary gossip about missing people.

  “To tell the truth, I suspect the woman he was with is my girlfriend and I am trying to find out what’s going on.”

  This time the man smiled and nodded in understanding.

  “I thought there was more to it, sorry I can’t he
lp buddy unless you want the feed from my security camera, get a closer look at them.”

  Liam hadn’t realized he was holding his breath.

  “That would be really helpful, thank you.”

  He waited patiently while he pulled up the camera feed on his laptop and took some still photos. He printed them off and handed them to Liam who offered to pay for them, but he shook his head.

  “Glad to help, my wife ran off with my best friend five years ago man, so I understand.”

  He hurried outside and showed the others the photos, but no-one knew who this guy was.

  “I picked up a faint scent of him and Kandis but it’s almost impossible to follow if they are in a car,” India said feeling useless.

  “Drive around for a little while, we’ll take the east, you take west and see if her car has been abandoned anywhere and then meet us back at the Den in an hour. We need to think about this logically,” Seann said and jumped back into the truck.

  Liam handed the printouts to India and got back behind the wheel and drove up and down every street on the west side of town, but he knew in his heart he wasn’t going to find anything. Deflated he headed back toward the compound hoping someone else had some better ideas.

  Lachlan was in the Den waiting for them and Liam felt terrible that he hadn’t let Kandis’s father know before now that his daughter was missing. The older man was shaken and Liam knew they had been through so much with her already.

  “Any sign of her?” he asked hopefully and Liam shook his head.

  “I’m so sorry, Lachlan, we have nothing but these photos to go on yet.”

  He scanned through them, but he had never seen the guy before either.

  “I haven’t told her mother yet, I guess I better do that before someone else does.”

  “Bring her here,” Imogen offered, “She shouldn’t be alone.”

  He nodded and left to give her the bad news and had to force the tears back, she had already been through hell, why her again.

  Jay’s cell phone rang and he spoke into it for a moment and then swung around to face them, raising a hand for quiet in the mounting chaos.

  “I called in some favors, the police found her car in the next town and they have witnesses who saw a woman matching her description getting into a black SUV. She was with a tall man with shoulder-length dark hair. They are pulling all the information they can from local cameras and will get the information to me as fast as they can. We traced her cellphone, it was discarded near to where we found her car.”

  Seann clapped his uncle on the back, having a chief of police on their team was certainly useful in times like these.

  “Garrett, Liam and I will go there now, Jay, keep in contact by phone and let me know the minute you know anything. Will we be able to bring her car back?”

  “Yes, nothing about this investigation is official and we need to keep it that way,” Jay said.

  “India, Imogen and Bree, come with us and bring Kandis’s car back to the compound. India can stay with us to track her if we pick up her scent.”

  Lachlan and Faye were met at the door by Roisin and Liam promised them he would do everything in his power to find their daughter.

  They ran out the door and piled into the truck. India had to sit on Garrett’s lap and headed out to where her car had last been seen.

  Liam closed his eyes and said a silent prayer that they would find her unharmed. His gut was clenching uncontrollably at the alternative.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Kandis

  She gripped the steering wheel so tightly she thought she might snap it in two and when he relaxed his stance and removed the gun from her side to hold it loosely in his hand she considered running the car off the road and making a run for it. She would have the element of surprise and she was certain that he didn’t know just how strong she actually was. She was sure she could take him in a fair fight but nothing this bastard did would ever be fair. She knew that the minute she saw his face and realized who he was.

  He hadn’t changed in the ten years since she was last face to face with him, when he held her down and took his turn raping her after Dan Kellas was finished with her. She would never forget his face or the awful things he did to her and he would pay for that, one way or another before she was done with him.

  She didn’t even know his name.

  Despite the nauseous feeling in her gut at her proximity to her rapist, she schooled her features into a neutral expression and did as he asked for now but when they stopped at the side of the road and she saw the other car parked she knew she had to do something, leave a clue for the pack who would almost certainly be looking for her by now. Sophia would have raised the alarm and Liam would be frantic. She felt awful for her parents, she had put them through enough crap with her awful behavior and they didn’t deserve this too.

  She got out of the car, leaving the keys in the ignition and her cellphone on the dash but he reached for it and turned it off before tossing it into the trees. She had nothing else to leave them and he pulled her toward the car and told her to get in behind the wheel. She was hoping she would be a passenger and she could launch herself out of the car and shift before he had a chance to catch her again, but that wasn’t going to happen, not this time.

  “You can’t imagine how many times over the years I have dreamed about being with you again Kandis. I stayed away because I knew Kellas had ordered a hit on me, he killed Bryan and I knew I was next, so I went into hiding. When I heard a couple of months ago that he was dead I visited my parents and began to plan our reunion. Baby, it’s been way too long, I missed you.”

  He reached out a hand and stroked the side of her face and she clenched her jaw and forced herself not to react. He was delusional, he honestly believed that they had a relationship which made him much more dangerous and unpredictable than she had thought.

  “Where are we going,” she ventured and was surprised when he answered her.

  “We’re going up north to Canada. We need to get as far away as possible until they stop looking for us. I have money and have rented us a nice house far away from anyone else. We will be comfortable and happy there and have plenty of room to run.”

  ‘Fuck’ he truly was delusional and Kandis knew she would have to kill him too. She had killed Dan Kellas for the things he had done and was planning to do again, not just to her but to Imogen too. She would do the same to this one too with no regrets, was this nightmare going to follow her around for the rest of her life?

  She had a part to play, she needed to be smarter than him and wait until he let his guard down and preferably didn’t have a gun in his hand. She could be patient, but she wouldn't let him touch her, ever again.

  “I don’t even know your name,” she said and forced a smile.

  “It’s Joseph but everyone calls me Joe.”

  He reached over and squeezed her hand like a mate would do and she had a terrible realization that he was going to bite her, claim her as his mate and she could not let that happen. She wished she had tried a little harder with Liam, not pushed him away so much and maybe now she would be his mate instead.

  They stopped to eat but he told her to go through the drive through and they ordered burgers and ate them in the car. She wasn’t the least bit hungry, but she needed to keep up her strength and that of her wolf and she forced the last French fry into her mouth before scrunching up the wrappers to go in the bin.

  She needed to go to the bathroom so they pulled off the road into the woods and he told her to go behind a tree. She knew if she shifted quickly she would get a little start on him but she suspected he would shoot her first and although it may not kill her, it would slow her down enough for him to capture her again. She was debating internally whether it was worth the risk.

  “Don’t think about it, Kandis,” I will shoot you and if by some miracle you managed to get away from me, I will come back and take the little human you seem to be so fond of. She reminds me of you in a way, untouched, innoc
ent and wholesome, yeah I could definitely get off on a sweet young thing like her.”

  Kandis leaned back against the tree and closed her eyes. She wanted to rip out his fucking throat, but he still held the gun and she couldn’t put Sophia at risk of a man like him. Escaping him wasn’t enough, she needed to kill him.

  “I’m done.” she emerged from behind the tree and walked back to the car parked on the grass verge, her face expressionless.

  He came up behind her and turned her to face him, trapping her between him and the car. He pressed his lips to hers and she stood stock still as his tongue probed her mouth and his hands cupped her butt and held her against him.

  He released her and grabbed her chin forcing her to look up at him.

  “You screamed for me once before and you will again. It’s your choice whether you are screaming in pain or in ecstasy, I really don’t care which, but scream you will.”

  “I screamed because you were raping me!” she burst out in anger and he grinned maliciously.

  “You enjoyed every second of it, walking around in those tiny shorts, showing off your body to every horny wolf in the pack, like a little slut. You were begging for it, fluttering your eyelashes and giving every guy the come on and I wanted to kill Kellas when I saw him between your legs, Bryan too. They are gone now though and it’s just us, as it should have been. You will scream my name Kandis, every single day, but there will be no-one around for miles to hear it. It will be your choice whether you enjoy it or endure it.

  He released her and she scrambled into the car and started the engine quickly wanting to spit to wipe the taste of him from her lips but she knew that would enrage him and she needed to play along a little for now.

  She pulled out onto the deserted road as the sun went down and she hoped that Liam and the others were hot on her trail. She had left them virtually no clues and needed to get creative if she was to help them and help herself.