Children of the Moon: Book Six Read online

  Her phone rang twice but she ignored it as well as the message notifications and in her panic to get away from Connor she didn’t notice the dark gray truck parked a little further up from her cabin until she pulled in. She couldn’t see anyone through the tinted glass at this distance but it could be anyone. She jumped out and darted inside to lock the doors before Connor appeared. If he shifted he could be here almost as quickly as she could in the truck and she wasn’t leaving anything to chance.

  She ran to her bedroom to grab a bag from the closet and stuffed it with some clothes and her laptop, knowing she only had a few minutes at the most before he came looking for her. She felt guilty that he had bitten her and yet she had no control over what Connor did, so why did she feel that way, she didn’t even understand her own feelings anymore and she was foolish to think she could control the situation between them, she was in way over her head.

  She grabbed her purse and phone and realized that her car was still parked out at The Den. She would need to drive his truck out there and hope that he wouldn’t be too pissed at her for leaving him to go on foot. For a wolf, the distance wouldn’t be an issue.

  She opened the door of the truck to climb in again and heard him growl as he came barreling through the trees. His wolf was an impressive sight and any other day she would have loved to watch him come racing toward her, but not today. She needed to put as much distance between them as possible until she figured out what she was going to do.

  She saw him stumble and her heart missed a beat as the huge brown wolf yelped in pain before rolling over and over and coming to a dead stop only twenty feet in front of her.

  Her brain registered a second later that the sound she had heard as he stumbled was a gunshot, Connor had been shot. She dropped the bag with a cry and started to run to him, but an arm went around her waist from behind and she was lifted in the air, her feet still moving trying to close the distance between them.

  She noticed the familiar cloying scent first before she turned her head to get a good look at the man holding her. She closed her eyes and sent a healing spell toward where Connor lay, praying it would be enough as she opened her mouth to scream. The butt of his gun hit her so hard on the side of the head and she murmured as her world began to spin.

  Oh Connor, what have I done!

  Her eyes closed as darkness enveloped her.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Connor

  “Connor, can you hear me, come on bro?” it was Garrett’s voice.

  He forced his eyes open and tried to speak but his mouth and throat were so dry he barely croaked out the words.

  “Summer, where is Summer?”

  “We were hoping you could tell us,” Lukas came into view and he looked like hell. His clothes were rumpled and he looked like he hadn’t slept in several days.

  “How long have I been out,” he demanded.

  “Only a couple of hours, relax.” Garrett came toward him.

  Connor tried to sit up but Garrett had to help him, he felt as weak as a newborn pup. He had a pain in his right butt cheek and leaned harder on the left side to take the pressure off.

  “What do you remember?” Garrett asked him and he closed his eyes and tried to damp down the woozy feeling while he sorted through his thoughts.

  Suddenly like a hammer to the chest, he saw her, standing in front of the truck when the shot rang out and he went down. She was trying to get to him, but a man had his arms around her and then he hit her and carried her to his truck. He didn’t remember anything after that.

  “He took her, Garrett, he has Summer and I couldn’t fucking stop him. I don’t know who he is, I have never seen him before.” he tried to stand up, he needed to find her.

  “Could it have been this person you saw?” Liam came forward with a picture in his hand and Connor looked at him and nodded.

  “I think it was him, even from a distance I am pretty sure that’s him. Who is he?”

  “I will kill the bastard with my bare hands,” Lukas said. “We should have finished him off when we had the chance.”

  “I’ll explain everything,” Rafe said as he helped him to his feet and onto a chair by the fire. “You were shot but it didn’t do any lasting damage, thanks to a little witchcraft to stem the bleeding, you will be sore for a few days though.”

  “Liam, call Lexi and tell her she needs to get back here immediately.” Seann barked.

  “Finn is already on his way to get her and will leave behind a couple of men to guard their mother at the hospital, but I doubt very much if she is a target.”

  “Imogen and the kids are safe for now, Jonathan is taking Annalise to a safe house and they have plenty of guards to make sure they are secure,” Seann added. “I want all of you in The Den as soon as you can walk, Connor.

  “Will someone tell me what the fuck is going on and where is Summer?”

  Rafe sat down opposite him as everyone else left the room to try and figure out where she could be and mount a rescue mission. India brought him some coffee and he waited until she too sat down before Rafe filled him in.

  “The man who took her is called Rob Danvers. He is Liam’s brother and Lexi and Finn’s, but they detest each other. Rob is dangerous and evil and he kept Summer prisoner for two long years while Lukas searched for her all over the country. She escaped his clutches and came here to the mountain to hide out and start over again with a new identity. Her real name is Serena Alexander and she is an extremely powerful witch.”

  “Serena,” the name sounded strange on his lips. Summer suited her disposition and her zest for life, he couldn’t think of her as anyone else.

  “He found her here and took her and Garrett’s sister, Rylee. With Lukas and Finn’s help, we were able to find him and rescue her again. He has been locked up in a secure facility ever since then. A few days ago, he escaped after killing two staff members and injuring several others. Jay is dealing with the cleanup as we speak and we only found out this morning, one of the dead was Jay’s man on the inside.”

  “He kept my mother prisoner too, she is also a witch but no one was looking for her as we thought she was already dead. He also tried to take my sister's baby to use her in blood magic rituals, he is evil to the core and Lukas is right, this time we need to finish him for good.” India was beyond angry as she relayed the things that Danvers had done before.

  “He robbed and hurt his own mother and sister, there is nothing redeemable in this wolf, nothing.” Liam came back into the room and Connor now saw the family resemblance to the man who had taken Summer. “I will kill him myself, he is no brother of mine.”

  Garrett followed him and went straight to India’s side.

  “The kids are already with Imogen and Roisin packed some things for them, let’s get everyone else across the road to the Den and secure the place. Jay seems to think Danvers won’t come back here anytime soon, but we can’t take that risk.

  Connor stood up and limped toward the door, wincing at the pain radiating down his leg.

  “I need to find her, it’s my fault that she is missing,” he said.

  “Danvers would have come for her again even if you weren’t here, Connor. This is no one's fault but his,” Garrett replied.

  “She was running away from me, if she wasn’t I would have been with her when we got home and he wouldn’t have taken her.” he insisted.

  “Then he would have shot you at point-blank range and you would be dead instead of injured.” Garrett opened the door to let him pass through.

  “Why was she running from you?” India asked him in her blunt manner. “This morning she seemed to have made up her mind that she wanted to explore this relationship with you.”

  Connor kept walking and looked as if he wasn’t going to answer.

  “Yes, why was she running from you, brother.” Garrett insisted.

  He stopped and turned before they reached the door to The Den. His face was flushed with embarrassment and he lowered his voice to a whisper.

>   “Because I bit her,” he said unhappily.

  “Summer’s not a wolf, Connor, I don’t think witches are into biting as much as we are.” India teased him.

  “No, I mean I bit her, marked her.” he hissed.

  “Why the hell would you do that if you are sure you don’t want any commitment!” India said. “No wonder she ran away from you.”

  “It was my damn wolf,” Connor growled.

  Garrett chuckled and India raised her eyebrows.

  “Keep telling yourself that, buddy. You have complete control, not the other way round. That’s nothing but a huge fat cop-out, Connor Adair.” India chastised him. “I can smell a lie at a thousand feet and you just told a whopper.”

  “Let’s get inside, we can talk about this later.” Garrett reached for the door. “I suggest you keep the fact that you claimed her to yourself for now or Lukas may just kill you.”

  “I fucked up royally and now Summer is in danger. We need to find her, Garrett.”

  India put a hand on his arm.

  “We will find her, this pack is amazing and Summer is one of us, we will find her.”

  “The kids are upstairs with Anjelica. Go on through to the kitchen and get some breakfast while I take this upstairs to them.” Roisin held a tray filled with drinks, fruit and snacks for the younger kids.

  The huge table was piled high with pastries, eggs, bacon and sausage and several shifters were already tucking in.

  Despite his anxiety, his stomach grumbled and he took a seat next to Liam and loaded his plate with food. They needed to be at their best when they had a crisis and shifters needed lots of food. Kandis put a coffee in front of him with a smile and he looked around the table at the others, all talking at once.

  Imogen looked calm as she kept piling food on the table but he could see the rage simmering in her startling blue eyes and Seann was in full alpha mode as he barked orders to the others around the table. Liam and Garrett were his right-hand men and they spent their time at the breakfast table on the phone between bites of food. Kandis had organized the pack into security details and Liam and Jay had arranged for extra help from other packs to come and join them.

  Lukas was pacing the kitchen and Connor felt his pain as if it were his own, his guilt was eating him from the inside out. This was his sister and he loved her and despite what Liam said, Connor knew this was his fault and he may have been able to stop him from taking her if he had been right there with her. For one he would have smelled a strange wolf a mile off and been wary, he only needed to smell a scent once and it was committed to his memory. He remembered every scent he had ever encountered, no matter how long ago.

  Seann’s sister Bree came in through the back door with her mate to join them for breakfast and Hope came downstairs. They were both comically pregnant. Tiny women with huge bellies and Seann had insisted that they both stay at The Den until Danvers was caught.

  According to Liam, they didn’t have any special powers that Danvers would be interested in but Bree was an awesome tracker and Hope was an empath. Both were useful but not in the league that Danvers was looking for. He wanted Imogen because of her precognition and because she was the white wolf. Connor had heard tales of the power of a white wolf but he suspected that they were just that, old wives tales.

  “Tell me about your lie detecting gift, India,” he asked as he paced the floor.

  She shrugged.

  “I just realized a while back that I could tell whenever someone wasn’t being truthful, it’s no big deal.”

  “She is also a great tracker, even better than me,” Bree said proudly as she bit into a second pastry and rolled her eyes as she savored the taste.

  “Jay sent a team to the house where Annalise and Summer were kept prisoner before but there is no sign that anyone has been there recently. We need to think like him and come up with any possible places he could have taken her,” Seann said as he clicked off his phone.

  “How did he get out of the facility?” Connor asked getting up and hobbling around the room to ease the ache in his hip.

  “He befriended his therapist and convinced her that he was in love with her. She let down her guard and he strangled her and left her for dead. He stole her keys to get out of the unit and took her truck. We don’t know yet if she will recover.” Liam told them.

  “Has anyone checked her house?”

  “Yes, it’s a small apartment and Jay has someone watching it, so far no sign of Danvers.

  “There is an all-points bulletin out on the truck too but again, nothing yet. He may have already ditched it for another one. We are following every angle possible but I am open to any suggestions on where we go from here. I want to get out there and look for her but we need a starting point.” Seann added.

  Imogen stood up from the table and left the room and Connor could sense her burning rage. No one else seemed to notice except her mate whose eyes followed her around and Connor knew she was ready to explode. Danvers had threatened her family once already and he doubted if he would get the chance to do it again. When they caught him, it would be the end for him this time and he wanted to be the one to carry out the sentence.

  “Imogen has visions but she doesn’t really have much control over them, they appear to her randomly. She is feeling angry at herself for not being able to utilize her gift but she is mostly angry at Danvers for the havoc he has wreaked on the pack and her family especially.” Hope Donovan smiled grimly as she took the vacant seat at the table.

  “How do you know all of this?”

  “I can sense it and I can tell that you do too. I can also sense a tremendous amount of guilt coming from you but you need to know this is not your fault, Connor. He would have come here for her even if you had never been here. Lukas doesn’t blame you for any of this either, he just wants his sister back before Danvers can hurt her again.”

  “What did he do to her before?”

  “Summer can tell you that when she comes home, it’s not my story to tell.”

  Connor had to hold on to the back of the chair as red-hot burning fury ripped through him. He was sensing Hope’s feelings as she relived in her mind the things that Summer had gone through and he was overwhelmed with her pain and despair. Summer needed him and he had no fucking idea where she was. He hadn’t felt this completely helpless since he was a child.

  He closed his eyes and prayed to the fates he had long ago forsaken to help him find his mate before he went insane.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Summer

  She was struggling to open her eyes, they hurt too much so she closed them tightly and waited until her headache subsided a little before she tried again. Her memory was a little sketchy but she remembered Danvers was at her cabin and he grabbed her from behind, the sharp pain on the side of her head and then she couldn’t remember anything else.

  Connor, where was Connor?

  She conjured up a memory spell and tried to stay calm as she let the words wash over her. She was a little out of practice and hoped she was reciting it properly.

  Her eyes flew open and she winced, pushing away the pain as she remembered him lying on the ground. Danvers had shot Connor, was he already dead!

  Feelings of grief overwhelmed her and she wanted to cry but she had to remember Danvers. She couldn’t give in to her feelings now or she would be doomed, he would use anything and anyone against her to get her to do his bidding.

  She looked around the room, a little confused. When she had been held prisoner before it had been in a dank basement room, no better than a prison cell. This room was beautiful and she was laying on a king-size bed with the finest linens and matching furniture. There were three doors and she was hoping one of them led to a bathroom.

  She sat up and slid her feet to the floor, noting thankfully that she was still fully dressed. Rob Danvers gave her the creeps and she knew when he held her prisoner before that it was only a matter of time before he would try and get into her bed. She had cast spell after spel
l repelling his advances and making herself as unattractive as possible to him but she knew, in the end, he wouldn’t wait for her consent if he wanted to have sex with her. There wasn’t a shred of honor in him.

  Her bag was on the chair and she unzipped it to find her laptop and cellphone were gone but her clothes were still there. She looked around the room for a landline but if there had been one it was gone now. She went to the window and lifted a slat to peer out. She wasn’t sure if she was on the second or third floor but either way it was too far down to jump, even if the windows hadn’t been sealed shut.

  She hobbled to the first door and opened it to find a huge closet filled with women’s clothes and shoes, none of which belonged to her. The door next to it opened up into a palatial marble bathroom and she was guessing that the third was the door out which she knew would be securely locked. She went into the bathroom and locked the door behind her, she needed to get the hell out of here but a hot shower would help clear her head.

  She turned on the spray to let the water warm up and found some scented soap and a stack of clean towels. She didn’t linger as she soaped, rinsed and then rubbed her body all over with a towel. Her assailant could come back at any minute and she didn’t need to be naked and give him any ideas. She quickly pulled on a bra and panties as well as a pair of jeans and a soft cable sweater from her bag. She brushed her hair and tied it back in a braid and laced up her sneakers.

  The first chance she got she was out of here. She would not put her brother through that pain and misery again and if it meant she had to kill Danvers herself to escape, then so be it. No one would mourn for him.

  She went to the door and put her ear against it. Despite having no shifting ability, she still had enhanced senses. She could hear nothing at all and guessed that she was alone for now. She tried the handle but as she suspected it was locked, he wouldn’t take the chance that she would run from him at the first chance. She tried to conjure up a spell strong enough to break the lock but it still didn’t budge. She was so out of practice and didn’t have as much as a candle to help her. She knew with the right equipment she could break out of here in seconds but Danvers was too familiar with her now to give her any free reign.