by Afton Locke
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Hidden Moon
Copyright 2016 by Afton Locke
ISBN: 978-1-68361-001-4
Cover art by Mina Carter
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
Published by Decadent Publishing Company, LLC
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www.decadentpublishing.com
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Epilogue
Wolf Moon by Desiree Holt
~ A Note from the Author~
Dear Reader:
When Desiree Holt invited me to be part of her Hot Moon Rising series, I was honored and excited. I’ve been to Florida several times, and Moonlight is the perfect setting for a wolf pack. Learning about her admiration of wolves has helped me understand them and love them more, too. Writing in a shared world is challenging and exciting, and it’s fun to belong to a “pack” of authors.
Like Alan, the hero in my story, I don’t always fit into the everyday world. I know how difficult and painful that can be, especially when one has escaped the problem for a while, only to be dragged back into it when least expected. Love heals all differences—economic, racial, political, health-related, or even a wolf-shifter mutation.
I love hearing from readers, so please contact me at: [email protected]
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The Hot Moon Rising Series
Wolf Moon by Desiree Holt
Venus Moon by Desiree Holt
Blood Moon by Desiree Holt
Hidden Moon by Afton Locke
Coming Soon
Moonlight Danger by Tina Donahue
Silver Moon by Merryn Dexter
Hunger Moon by Merryn Dexter
Also by Afton Locke
Alpha in Disguise
Rebel’s Claw
Hidden Moon
Alan Shifflett left his old pack due to an inherited mutation that makes him a violent freak. He lives a dull life farther north, suppressing his shifts. But when his father can no longer run Moonlight Diner due to failing health, Alan is compelled to rejoin what’s left of his pack in Florida and face his weakness.
Shelley Fields, once a spoiled high school beauty queen, has dedicated her life to helping her pack. In public, she ridiculed Alan because of peer pressure, but secretly, she longed for her mate. When he returns, she confesses her true feelings, but Alan has no intention of staying where he doesn’t belong.
Meanwhile, Curtis—his rival—has a score to settle, and threats from a rival pack are standing everyone’s fur on end. Terrified of the beast inside, Alan is desperate to return to his safe life, but is leaving his mate, kin, and pack in danger worth the price?
Hidden Moon
Hot Moon Rising Book 4
By
Afton Locke
Moonlight Wolf Pack
Charlie Aquino (human) - Detective for the sheriff’s gang task force for Palmetto County Sheriff’s Department. His partner is Jesse Farrell.
- Mate: Liana Cosa
Liana Cosa Aquino – Refugee from a different pack. She works part-time as a waitress at Moonlight Diner.
- Mate: Charlie Aquino
Alexa Martin Farrell – Left her pack over a disagreement with her alpha. She moved to Florida and helped the pack find a small community of cottages in Moonlight, Florida. She works as an Internet researcher and gets jobs through her online website. She also does research for The Defenders.
- Mate: Jesse Farrell
Jesse Farrell (human) – Detective for the sheriff’s gang task force for Palmetto County Sheriff’s Department. His partner is Charlie Aquino.
- Mate: Alexa Martin (who saved him when on assignment he was attacked by a gang)
Riesa Marlowe (human) – A psychic who helped locate Hannah Raines.
- Mate: Derek Sawyer
Hannah Raines Molina – She was kidnapped and saved by Jesse and Charlie with the help of Riesa Marlowe, a psychic. Works as Alexa Martin’s research assistant.
- Mate: Rand Molina
Rand Molina - Derek’s second-in-command in the Moonlight pack. Partners with Derek Sawyer at The Defenders, a private security agency.
- Mate: Hannah Raines
Derek Sawyer – Alpha of a small pack, most of their original clan was destroyed when developers took the land they were living on and many of their pack were killed by hunters. They hid in an abandoned orange grove until Alexa offered them the bungalows in exchange for their help. He and the others have embraced Jesse & Alexa and Charlie & Liana and given the female shifters a new sense of belonging.
- Partners with Rand Molina at The Defenders Agency, a private security and bodyguard agency.
- Mate: Riesa Marlowe
The Defenders Agency - A private security and bodyguard agency formed by Rand and Derek once they were established in the little enclave of cottages. It provides good income for the pack. A majority of the pack is involved in the cases they take.
Jesse and Charlie are their contacts with the sheriff’s department and also refer many cases to them.
Chapter One
Reston, VA
“I see you skipped lunch again. Would you like an orange?”
Alan Shifflett looked up from his computer monitor and the zillion lines of code he’d wrestled with all day. His fingers, stiff and cold on the keyboard, needed a break. These damn northern winters never seemed to end.
His co-worker looked easier on the eyes than logic statements, but her long, dark hair and form-fitting blouse—unbuttoned a little too low—did nothing to warm him up.
“No thanks, Pam. I hate oranges.”
The expectant glow in her eyes snuffed out like a candle. How long would it take her to realize he didn’t date? Not even blondes like…. No, he wouldn’t go there. Shelley was a schoolboy fantasy. A dream-turned-nightmare.
Seeing couples in the street got to him sometimes, reminding him what he missed out on. On nights of the half-moon, he wrestled the sheets, desperate to shove his aching cock into a hot body. Hers. He dreamed of closing his teeth around a soft neck in the mating bond. Marking his stamp on a woman. Making her his.
Luckily, those moons only happened once a month.
Most of
his co-workers suspected he was gay, but he didn’t care. At least they were smart enough to leave him alone. He came here to get a paycheck, not hang out at the water cooler and eat sickening-sweet donuts.
In his high-rise apartment down the street, a huge porterhouse steak waited for him in the fridge. He looked forward to cooking it medium-rare and gulping it down with a glass of Merlot. He had a simple life, all right, but most of the people here, hunched over their keyboards in their cubes, thrived on the same thing.
How do they stand it? he’d wondered when he’d first arrived five years ago from Homeland. The small town in southern Georgia—spitting distance from the Okefenokee Swamp—was the complete opposite of this place. Suppressing the urge to shift had driven him crazy, but working out at the gym, freezing his ass off, and being away from his old pack had washed the urge right out of him. As long as he stayed alone in his apartment on nights of the half-moon, nothing happened.
Luckily, he resembled a regular guy in human form. To blend into the corporate world better, he’d shaved off his shaggy, rust-brown hair and tamed his beard into a neat goatee. Because he didn’t shift anymore, the scabby patches on his face from his sharp teeth had cleared up.
No one would ever suspect he was a shifter with an inherited mutation that made him ugly and violent. If anybody saw his snaggly ass in wolf form roaming the streets, he’d probably never even make it to the pound. He’d be shot on sight.
Eventually, he’d figured out if he stayed here, away from his old pack and his homeland, he was normal. Living the life of a boring human was a small price to pay for it.
Stretching, he focused on the computer code again. Only two hours until quitting time. He lived by the clock here. It dictated when he ate and slept. No more running wild through the swamp with sandy dirt under his paws. Not in this place. His car sat in a parking garage, and he had to take an elevator down seven floors to get to it.
When a new email arrived, he hoped the testers hadn’t found another software bug. The subject line, Your Father, gripped his heart with an icy fist. He didn’t recognize the email address of the sender, but he didn’t exactly keep in touch with the pack. Or his father, either, for that matter.
The ornery cuss called him a coward, and good riddance, for leaving. A month later, he’d called Alan once, in the wee hours of the morning.
“Dad? Do you know what time it is?”
“I did not call to find out what time it is. I called to talk some sense into you and get you back home where you belong. But it’s probably no use.”
Then he’d hung up.
The email message came from Shelley Fields, the only woman he’d ever seen as a potential mate. That alone sent the blood draining from his head. She must not have married, either.
Alan, a lot has happened since you left the pack. About three years ago, we were attacked by a rival pack led by a vicious alpha. Many were killed, but some of us fled from Georgia to Central Florida to live off the land. Six months ago, we finally moved into homes and named our little town Moonlight.
Your father fixed up an abandoned building and turned it into a restaurant like the one he ran in Georgia. Last month, he found out he’s suffering from heart failure and is now too weak to run Moonlight Diner. Please come as soon as you can.
The rest of the email provided addresses and travel directions. Oh my God. So much had happened since he’d been away, and he hadn’t had a clue. The words heart failure, though, really made him swoon in his seat. Dad was an old wolf, nearing the end of his lifespan.
He had to go to Moonlight, straighten things out, and see Dad before…the end. After exhaling a shaky sigh, he dug his fingers into his scalp. Vacation time wasn’t an issue. He’d never taken one, so he had plenty of hours saved up.
His breath caught in his throat, competing with a wave of nausea. A cold sweat broke out across his shoulder blades, dampening his business shirt.
No. I can’t go back to them. I can’t!
Even though the pack lived somewhere new, Florida was still the south. Being around those wolves again would stir him up, regardless. He glanced at the calendar. Shit! The half-moon was tomorrow. How could he revert to being a freak when he thought he’d finally escaped that misery for good? The normal life he’d built so carefully over the last five years crashed around his head, harder than a tidal wave.
Before he could stop himself, he pounded his fist on the desk. Cold coffee jumped in his cup, and nearby conversations halted. He hadn’t meant to hit it so hard. The mere idea of confronting his old pack again must have released the beast in him an inch or two. If he didn’t get himself under control, he’d blow his cover, his job, and his life here.
Pacing inside the confining area of his cube, he took several deep breaths until his hammering heartbeat calmed down. He hoped to hell he could control the beast when he arrived in Florida, or they’d be sorry they summoned him.
***
Moonlight, FL
Shelley Fields rushed from Moonlight Diner’s kitchen, balancing a heavy tray on her shoulder. After setting down replacement fried chicken platters in front of a family of four—because they complained to the waitress the originals were too greasy—she muttered the meal would be on the house and trotted toward the kitchen again.
Curtis King gripped her elbow. “Hey, slow down before you drop.”
The warmth in his blue eyes eased her pace a notch or two. His face, lean and wolfish even in human form, felt as familiar to her as her most comfortable pair of shoes.
“I wish I could.” She brushed back a hank of hair that had slid out of its rubber band. “But I’ve got hungry tourists to satisfy.”
From what she could tell so far, Winter seemed to be the diner’s busiest season. Don Shifflett picked a fine time to have heart problems. She caught the rubber band as it fell on her shoulder. In high school, she’d practically worshipped her curling iron, not setting foot in public until every hair lay perfectly. Now, she worked so hard she never gave her hair a second thought unless it got in her way.
“I swept and emptied the trash,” Curtis said. “What else can I do to help?”
“Nothing.”
The scar peeping out from his dark fringe of bangs twisted her belly with guilt. If it hadn’t been for her, he never would have gotten into a near-fatal fight during senior prom. Until then, he’d been considered the best looking male in the pack. Most handsome wolf, too, with his perfect black coat and blue eyes.
“I insist,” he argued, following her into the kitchen.
“But you work hard all day at your distribution business,” she protested. He sold her highest quality oranges to specialty shops that made orange liqueur, marmalade, and the like.
“So do you,” he argued. “As if growing most of our food isn’t enough, now you’re prepping it, ordering it, and God knows what else.”
“My helping out is temporary.” She handed him a potato peeler. “All right. Care to peel some potatoes?”
“No problem.” He winked at her. “When you come up for air, we need to talk.”
“Sure.” She grabbed a tray of subs and salads and escaped to the dining room.
She wished she could escape their conversation as easily. He’d been hinting at marriage for a while. The distribution business he’d managed to keep alive after the attack and through the pack’s rebuilding efforts used to occupy most of his time. Since he’d expanded it in the last couple of months, hiring someone to share his traveling responsibilities, the hints had grown stronger.
After a couple of hours, the dinner rush finally died down. Most of the tourists cleared out, leaving the pack members to linger until closing time. Derek Sawyer, the pack’s Alpha, sipped a glass of iced tea at the breakfast counter while chatting with Rand Molina. The official pack meetings were held here, but tonight the shifters ate and socialized.
At least being busy didn’t give her much chance to think, especially about the email she’d sent
yesterday. She plopped into a wooden chair at a corner table where Curtis worked on a piece of key lime pie. Her feet throbbed and her back ached, but she did her best to hide her weariness from him.
“I spoke to Derek about getting you some help.”
Irritation prickled her neck. “I didn’t ask you to.”
“Well, somebody had to.” He tossed his fork onto the empty plate. “Shelley, it’s about time you became my wife and mate.”
“But—”
He seized her wrist so suddenly she gasped. “No more excuses. We’ve slept together. We’ve dated off and on since high school back in Georgia. Hell, we were voted prom king and queen. We’re part of the pack’s history. What’s left of it.”
“I know.” Is that tired voice mine?
“Then why can’t we seal it with the mating bond and a wedding?” His mouth curved into a grin. “I’d be satisfied with the bond, but I thought women loved weddings.”
A wave of bone-draining fatigue, which had nothing to do with the long hours, washed over her. Why couldn’t she say yes and be done with it? Would accepting Curtis as her mate be so bad? He knew her better than anyone, and they cared about each other. She’d known him so long she couldn’t imagine him not being in her life.
But she couldn’t stop picturing Alan’s face. If Curtis could make her feel even half of what she did for her old classmate, she’d marry him in a heartbeat.
When he let go, she toyed with his fork, anxious to clear the table instead of answer him. Everything happens for a reason, Mom often said. When Don’s illness brought Alan back to her, Shelley hoped she’d realize he meant nothing to her. Only then could she finally give Curtis the commitment he deserved.
