Moonlight Heart: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 4)

by K. R. Alexander

  The Witch and the Wolf Pack

  Book Four

  Moonlight Heart

  by

  K.R. Alexander

  Copyright © 2018 K.R. Alexander

  kralexander.com

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Note from the Author

  Chapter 1

  I paid the driver before climbing from the cab in darkness. My feet were soaked the instant I stepped out—right into a pothole of rainwater.

  “Sure I can’t take you farther along, love?” the driver, a middle-aged woman with tight curls, called to me through rain pelting my hoodie and backpack.

  “This is fine. There’s a gate anyway,” I lied. “Thanks so much.”

  “Careful now. You have a good night.”

  I wished her the same before slamming my door. She’d been a breath of fresh air on the ride here from Brighton Station in the dark. Not who I thought of when I imagined a taxi driver, but a grounding and welcoming presence that I’d needed.

  The cab started back down the rough road south, the headlights blazing a trail away through the downpour. I walked north with red taillights fading behind.

  I’d set out on this trip to England weeks ago with a small flashlight and an extra keychain light—useful for things like making your way down an unfamiliar hall in the night for the bathroom. Both these had been lost in a castle in Germany a few nights ago. Now I had only my phone, the flashlight of which did not work, and a few distant outside lights of the mobile home park that I approached.

  These were not much to go on through the rain, also difficult to see at the uphill slope and around a curve in the road. This turned to the left with a hedge becoming a fence, then followed the road with an apple orchard to the right, field to the left. At the end of the orchard was the start of the park. The field ran on past it with the dead end road between field and homes.

  I knew this from visits during daylight. So I’d thought it would be simple to walk up with no light, backpack on, and unannounced.

  Instead, I kept hitting potholes and ridges in the road, tripping, nearly walking into the hedge at one point. If I’d even had moonlight to see—but no. The nearest outside house lights helped with direction but not at all with actual light for the road.

  I’d felt sorry for the wolf pack living here, right in the midst of humans and near town: nowhere to roam. Yet … not that close to others after all.

  My new walking shoes, socks, and most of my jeans, hoodie, and backpack were soaked through and wetter by the minute as I reached the top of the orchard. I hadn’t been fool enough to visit England, even in summer, with no rain jacket. But I’d been fool enough to pack the rain jacket in my checked bag. Which bag I had indeed checked that morning. It was only myself who hadn’t been on my flight.

  Finally able to clearly see the outside lights of the nearest row of double-wides, I opened my cautious stride. The instant I did, something large flashed into my path. Nothing but a shadow in a dark world.

  Through rain beating in my ears and my own quickened breaths came a growl that made me shiver even more. The wolf was five feet away, facing me squarely, head low. More than that, I could not see.

  It had seemed prudent to stop the taxi at a distance and walk up. First of all, I didn’t want to alarm them. Everyone in the pack would hear a cab at night and be on alert. Second, I didn’t want to make an entrance. I was heading for the home of Rebecca and her parents, hoping for a couch to sleep on. And a towel.

  I could talk to Rebecca, then deal with everything else about being back here tomorrow.

  Only now did this seem like a terrible idea.

  I’d forgotten about their having started setting a round-the-clock guard. A summer downpour wasn’t keeping anyone indoors who was on duty tonight. And driving up would have looked less suspicious than skulking in after 11:00 p.m. on foot.

  “Good evening,” I said and swallowed. My cotton hood was never meant to be used as shelter. Rain ran into my eyes, along my nose, and into my mouth as I spoke.

  Still the growls rumbled like distant thunder—smell and sound of me not enough. This was someone I didn’t know.

  “Moon bless,” I went on. “You know who I am. Cassia. The witch. I’ve been helping your pack search for murderers—who you’re on watch against, right?”

  Growling eased. The figure remained blocking my path.

  I offered both open palms.

  The wolf did not move.

  “I wasn’t supposed to be back, but it’s me. I’d like to see Rebecca, if that’s okay? She knows who I am.”

  The head lifted at sound of this name. The ears pricked so I saw them rimmed in front lights on the double-wides.

  The wolf took a couple of stiff steps, gave me a suspicious sniff, then turned for the homes.

  I followed, trying to hurry, but tripping and having to be careful. Why didn’t someone do something about this road?

  We were almost to the place I wanted, finally able to see a bit of my own footing with the close lights, when the door of a silver Jeep opened beside me.

  I jumped back with an, “Ahh!” Almost falling.

  “Cassia?” Jason climbed from the passenger seat. “What are you doing here?”

  “Me? What were you doing in there?” My voice was higher than usual, sharp and accusatory with my own fright.

  “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. I thought you were in Portland by now.”

  “Change of plans. Why are you out here?”

  Jason, quickly drenched in T-shirt and no hood or hat, slammed the Jeep door. “Just getting out of the rain. Looks like that’s what you need.”

  “I’m going to talk to Rebecca.” I looked around to see my escort at porch steps.

  In the light here, the wolf was a classic gray, tawny, and cream with black-tipped guard hairs. The coat was plastered to the body with rain and mud and the whole form was smaller than the wolves I’d been growing used to. All legs and paws.

  Jason laughed at the sight. “You’re the catch of the day, Darius. I hope you were polite to our guest. She’s been trying to save our hides.”

  “He was just escorting me in to find Rebecca.”

  “I bet he was.” Jason still chuckled. “Sod off, mop-pelt. Go do your job.”

  Darius pinned back his ears, staring at Jason with narrowed eyes.

  “I’m doing you a favor, pup,” Jason answered him. “Really w
ant Becca to see you like that? You look like a drowned ostrich.”

  Darius’s head sagged even more, farther exaggerating the long lines of his limbs, as if on stilts. He stalked away.

  “Thank you, Darius,” I said. “You were gracious to bring me up here.”

  He glanced over his shoulder at my voice, then padded on out of sight into rain and darkness.

  I looked around to Jason. “That wasn’t very nice.”

  “Don’t worry about him. He’ll be back in the morning to tell her of his valiant deed. He fancies Rebecca but he has no call to be up here when he’s supposed to be on watch. Just a yearling and chuffed for the chance to show off to her by guarding at all. Why are you looking for her? Want a place to stay tonight? Get out of the rain?”

  “Yes. Here, I hope. They have a couch. I didn’t mean to show up un—”

  “Come with me. We’ll be glad to put you up.”

  “That’s not a good—”

  “Kage will leave you alone. I promise. You’re more than welcome.”

  I opened and shut my mouth.

  Dammit.

  I’d been through all of this. At least to myself. And now I’d just happened to walk into Jason and get an invite like that? Typical.

  If I’d been going to do something rash and selfish—like charge back here to spend the night with Jason and Kage—I might as well have made my way to Isaac’s door instead of asking for Rebecca. At least I knew where Isaac lived.

  But I didn’t want that either. This choice hadn’t been about returning to my pack to hop in bed with them. It had been about coming back to save their lives from an unknown serial killer.

  Of course, my personal feelings had played into it. I couldn’t help that. But I couldn’t allow those feelings to become the focus of why I was here. The fact that I loved them—all in their own ways, it was true, but still had given my heart to Isaac, Zar, Kage, Jason, Andrew, and even Jed—had to be secondary to keeping them alive.

  Going home with Jason did not make that aspect seem secondary.

  On the other hand, knocking on a near-stranger’s door in the middle of the night to ask for a place to sleep, totally out of the blue, when a friend of mine was right here, already eagerly offering me space…? Not just rude. Borderline criminal.

  So I glanced to the porch once more, feeling my own resolve melt in the rain, then back to Jason, who wore a tentative smile—concerned, hopeful, offering his hand. I nodded and took it.

  Chapter 2

  Jason led me through rain to the far side of the mobile home park, beyond the workshop and covered shelter of the pack’s dozens of motorcycles.

  It was a tiny home, in a row of other small ones. Perhaps a wing for couples without pups? Almost no wolves seemed to live alone by choice.

  Jason, beaming, having hugged me and said how glad he was that I was here, hopped the two steps to the door and shoved it open.

  There was a lamp on beyond the living space, in a single bedroom at the back, but the place was mostly dark. I was just stepping up to the threshold when someone was already shouting.

  “What the hell are you doing here? I told you to go home!” Kage—angry and out of sight in the bedroom.

  “I brought someone with me,” Jason said, cheerful, beckoning me as I hesitated in the doorway.

  “What?”

  “Someone I thought you’d be pleased to see. But … if you want us to go…”

  Scrambling and creaking. It sounded as if Kage was in bed, rapidly leaving it. He appeared in the doorway beyond the tiny kitchen and living space that we stood in.

  Kage wore black boxer shorts and nothing else. He stared.

  Jason—in unsettling contrast—appeared delighted. Dripping from his T-shirt, skin, and hair, he held his hand out as if presenting me as a trophy to Kage.

  I had a flash Carol Merrill image that was even more disturbing than his smile.

  “I just found her coming in,” Jason said. “Are there clean towels in—?”

  “I’ve come at a bad time,” I said. “Jason, really, I’ll stay with—”

  “You don’t have to do that. We’ll look after you.” Jason was quick to turn all his attention back to me. “Hot tea? A shower? You’re shivering.” He shut the door, herding me gently in. “It’ll warm you up. And you’re soaked through anyway.”

  He reached to switch on the kettle with one hand, taking my backpack from me with the other.

  He was right. My teeth chattered. And their home wasn’t exactly warm. They probably didn’t spend a lot of time running the heat in August, storm or no.

  Jason set my bag on a little square table with a mustard yellow top right out of the 1950s, then passed me hand towels. I couldn’t actually see much of this table. Aside from the bad light, it was piled in junk that my dripping backpack settled upon.

  “Set anything out to dry that you need to.” Jason pulled out a chair and shoved a heap of laundry, books, metal bits like ball bearings and nails, and a bicycle chain off the table and into the chair so I had space to rescue the contents of my backpack. There were no dirty dishes on the table to get in the way, all those being piled on the two square feet of counter space and in the sink.

  I couldn’t argue. Looking after the few worldly goods currently left to me and making sure things like my phone and notebook were dry was what I needed to attend to before moving on to myself.

  While I started to dry and empty the bag, thanking him, Jason added water to the kettle with a drinking glass—it wouldn’t have fit under the faucet due to the piled dishes. He then washed a mug and set this out with a box of herbal teabags.

  Kage stood in the bedroom doorway, watching us.

  “Kage?” I glanced around while Jason set this up for me. “I’m sorry to burst in uninvited. I was trying to stay with your sister for the night.”

  “What are you doing here?” Kage asked at last, tone suspicious. Like he thought we were playing a trick on him. “Didn’t your flight leave at noon?”

  “It did. But I didn’t.”

  Kage waited.

  Shivering worse and worse, biting my tongue while my teeth rattled, I dumped out the rest of the bag, finding things mostly okay.

  Jason turned to Kage. “I told her we’d be happy for her to stay.” He struggled out of the wet shirt clinging to him as he walked into the living room—needing only three steps—between Kage and myself. “Will you let her alone, though? Please? She’s had a long day. And what about towels?” He kicked off his shoes and peeled off wet socks, standing on one foot at a time.

  “Of course she can stay.” Addressing Jason, Kage’s tone hardened again. “But what’s she doing here? I thought you were done with us?” Snapping at me.

  I looked around to him. “Done with you?”

  He dropped his gaze. “I mean … you know. Not like you wanted to be. But you were going home. If you had to go, how’d you come back?” Glaring at me again. “And if you were going to come back, why’d it take you this bloody long?”

  “I’ll be happy to tell you about that later. Right now, I’d better go to—”

  “Towels,” Jason said. “And a shower, Cassia. Your fingers are blue.”

  “I don’t have anything to put on. I checked my bag for the flight and it went to Iceland without me. Anyway, I shouldn’t be here. If you can just—”

  “Please stay.” Jason’s smile vanished as he watched me anxiously. “You’ll catch cold. Rebecca would be happy to have you, but so are we. Have a shower and we’ll get you a shirt you can sleep in. In the morning, we have proper clothes dryers in the laundry room.” He gestured out the dark window.

  Once more, I opened my mouth but didn’t speak.

  Kage had retreated, rummaging for something in the bedroom.

  “For now we’ll hang your clothes,” Jason continued. “No worries.”

  “I … all right.” I lifted the hot mug in both shaking hands. “Thank you, Jason.”

  Smile back, he turned a heater on in th
e bathroom and shoved stuff out of the way to make more clear paths to doors for bedroom and bathroom.

  The small living space had a couple of chairs and shelves. Mostly it was a heap of clutter on the floor. Tool boxes and belts, loose tools, various leather straps, buckles, chains, a leather flail, scattered laundry, gnawed knuckle bones, motorcycle helmets, cans of spray paint, various shoes and boots. The place smelled like a guys’ dorm room. A sort of sweat, sex, sour milk smell that took me back to a few college moments.

  I was more scared to set foot in that bathroom than I had been breaking into a castle in the dead of night. But they did turn up two clean towels for me, and Jason even brought coat hangers to hang my things on the shower rod once I was out.

  The best I could say about that bathroom was that it had hot water. I tried to ignore the mildew spots—and everything else.

  I am not a neat freak. Just clearing the air about that. I can be a slob and let my space get cluttered, laundry pile up, etc.

  My roommate, Preeda, is the neat one—bordering on OCD at times the way she’ll flip out and pull on a hazmat suit if she finds a food particle between the tines of a clean fork. But I like that about Preeda. She keeps me on track. I’m sure she helped to make me a more responsible, more real “adult” as I went through the final two years for the master’s degree and Preeda was there to sterilize food surfaces and sigh loudly if I threw mail on the table instead of sorting it out when I first brought it in.

  All that being said, I suppose I’m still one of those people with certain standards about living spaces. Not showroom standards. Just not in violation of any major health codes or fire department safety sort of standards.

  Still, not what I was thinking about as I finally started to warm up under the effects of hot water. I was thinking about a rule I had with my sister, Melanie. Never get serious with a guy before you’ve seen where he lives.

  “Oh, Mel,” I said aloud as I turned off the shower. “This is why.”

  And there went many happy, comfortable stereotypes about gay guys also.

  Once I pulled my underwear back on—mostly dry from hanging on the wall heater—and a fresh T-shirt from Jason, I reminded myself to embrace the travel experience. I was the guest, the observer and student of not only the country, but the species and these two personally. I wasn’t here to judge how they lived. I was here to keep them living.