I, Samantha Moon

by H. T. Night

  I, SAMANTHA MOON

  by

  H.T. Night

  Moonlighting Series #1

  Acclaim for H.T. Night:

  “Vampire Love Story is one fast moving story, with action and romance, that held my attention throughout.”

  —Piers Anthony, author of Split Infinity and Virtual Mode

  “Bad Blood is fast, hilarious and sexy...the coolest vampire since Kiefer Sutherland. The Mount Shasta setting is dreamy. The cult is deliciously creepy. And Spider is as sexy as they come. I was pressing the ereader’s ‘forward’ button so fast that I broke it. Let’s hope we hear more from Spider.”

  —H.P. Mallory, author of Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble and To Kill A Warlock

  “Vampire Love Story is a hip and timely vampire novel filled with real characters and some of the coolest vampires since The Lost Boys! You’re going to love Night’s completely original take on the supernatural.”

  —J.R. Rain, author of Moon Dance and The Body Departed

  “Vampire Reign is a thrilling, high-tech vampire adventure! Riveting and fun. Snappy dialogue. The adventures of Josiah Reign, superhero, rock! Five stars!”

  —Eve Paludan, author of Witchy Business and Burning

  “H.T. Night is a riveting storyteller, capturing the essence of the vampire genre.”

  —April M. Reign, author of The Turning and Dividing Destiny

  “Vampire Love Story is a passionate story that is told from a refreshing perspective. This book was a blast. Night invents a brand new world for the Vampire genre. Great Job!”

  —Summer Lee, author of Kindred Spirits and The Sword of Peter

  “Hero Rising is more fun than a Carnival Cruise. Or a carnival, for that matter.”

  —P.J. Day, author of King’s Blood and The Sunset Prophecy

  “Night is a true storyteller. Cody Greer is thoughtful and inspirational! I enjoyed the ride.”

  —Elaine Babich, author of You Never Called Me Princess and Relatively Normal

  I, Samantha Moon

  Published by Rain Press

  Copyright © 2018 by Rain Press

  All rights reserved.

  Ebook Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  (I, Samantha Moon is based on the characters created by J.R. Rain; the use of story situations and supporting characters from the “Vampire for Hire” universe is authorized by J.R Rain.)

  Dedication

  To Lee.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Other Books by H.T. Night

  About the Author

  I, Samantha Moon

  Chapter One

  (2001—Three Years before Sam’s attack.)

  I never thought this would be the way I’d die.

  I gasped, trying to catch my breath. A scream lodged in my throat. Pain coursed through every ounce of my body. The world around me spun like a merry-go-round. Dizzy, I lay on my back trying to fill my lungs with air, my gasps like a dragging plea to live.

  I’d been thrown—no, hurled—through the air by something unknown, unheard and unseen—something powerfully strong and determined—something hell-bent on stopping me.

  Blood oozed from my head where the side of my skull had crashed into a large oak tree. Drips slid down my cheek, leaving a trail of warmth in their wake. And as much as I wanted to move, to scream, to run, to make anyone in the park aware of what had just happened to me, I couldn’t do a damn thing except battle with my own will to keep from fainting—keep from losing consciousness, sprawled out alone in the park.

  It was dark—too dark. The moon faded in and out behind grayish clouds that threatened to spill rain. The deafening silence surrounded me while my fingers dug into the moist grass and dirt. It was dusk, but as the sun slipped beneath the horizon, night took shape fast. And now, the reality of my situation was hitting me hard. No one would find me slumped on the ground between two trees. My body spasmed as I lay in the dirt still gasping for air. I did my best to keep from drifting into the lonely darkness of my mind, which, I suspected, meant certain death.

  Little did I know...

  And that was when I tasted it—the metallic flavor of my own blood coating my tongue like a blanket of warmth as the dripping trail glided from my head, down my cheek and into the corner of my mouth. But there was nothing warm about dying. Nothing satisfying about my life ending so soon. For the first time ever, I truly feared each second that would come and go—each single second that would lead me into the next. Because with each passing second, I knew that my life was that much closer to the end. Truly, I was already on borrowed time.

  At least, that was what I convinced myself in those dark moments.

  I closed my eyes. The memory of being hurled through the air and slamming into an oak tree was the last thing I wanted to play in my mind before I lost consciousness. I wanted to think about Tammy. My baby. So young and innocent. Her smile and excitement of living filled my heart with joy. Inquisitive eyes, love without judgment and squeals of delight were the only things I wanted to remember at this moment, as the world around me grew fainter, darker, further away.

  But the powerful thing that threw me across the park—threw me into the air and flung me against a massive tree was close—too close. I could hear him nearby, shuffling. As I tried to reach for my gun in my fanny pack, a heavy weight fell upon my chest. The weight of a man. A beast. Maybe something in between. His body covered mine. His heaviness suffocated me, making my struggle to breathe that much harder.

  My fingers laced into the grass as my arms were pinned at my sides by his legs. The world around me grew darker with each passing second and there was nothing left for me to do. My body was broken. My head was spinning in circles.

  A cloud shifted again and the moon reflected down on us like a spotlight from heaven. His body lowered onto mine, and even in the teeter-totter of my world, I saw a gold-and-ruby medallion hanging from his neck. A mesmerizing ornament that glowed beneath the iridescent rays of the moon.

  Then it was gone. It just disappeared as his body blanketed mine and his face rested near my ear—near the blood dripping from my head. I heard him inhale through his nose, smelling the liquid where my skull had hit the tree—

  And then, pain.

  More pain than I’d ever felt, as the beast, the animal, ripped into my neck with tooth and claw, greedily eating my flesh, drinking my blood, making sounds no person should ever have to hear.

  The sounds of being consumed alive were overtaken by a new horror. I realized that I had to get home to my daughter—that a terrible fire was all around her—

  From far, far away, I heard Danny’s voice asking me, “Where’s Tammy?”

  I jerked and bucked under the thing attacking me, my maternal instinct to protect my child greater than my survival instinct to protect myself. The searing flames were about to reach Tammy and I had to get away from this monster and save her.

  I fought the thing as hard as I could and screamed my daughter’s name…

  My eyes fluttered open and I sucked in a gulp of air—gasping for it, actually, as my heart raced uncontrollably. My vision adjusted to the dark room whi
le my husband, Danny, stood next to me. His hand rested on my arm, shaking me. I tried to focus, but he was more of a blur than an actual living, breathing being in front of me.

  “Sam, honey. Wake up.” His voice was soft and quiet—a comforting whisper in a darkened room. “It’s just a bad dream.”

  My equilibrium was off. Moving from the dream world to reality sometimes did that to a person—it left me hanging in the balance between two worlds for a brief second, long enough to feel out of sorts.

  I sat up, realizing I was in a rocking chair. “Where am I?”

  My husband’s face came into clear view now and his handsome features and loving eyes stared into mine. Danny placed his finger to his closed lips to hush me at the same time he glanced over into the toddler bed straight ahead.

  “Shhh! You’re in Tammy’s room. You fell asleep watching over her.”

  Those words—the ones that told me that Tammy was in bed and fine and I had not lost her or misplaced her—or let that fire in my dream take her—eased the pace of my fast heartbeat. I exhaled and whispered back, “I had another bad dream.”

  “I know, baby. Your heart is racing. Are you okay?”

  I nodded. Now, I was okay. A few minutes ago, not so much. In the dream, I was frantic and scared and crying, and needed to save myself in order to save my daughter. I had been engulfed in a nightmare that made no sense now. As I stared into Danny’s yes, I had a hard time making sense of what I had just seen in my dream. No, two dreams that had meshed together into one horrific nightmare. While some beast ripped my life away in a park, a fire had surged toward my little daughter in her room. He had been keeping me from saving her. And sucking away my lifeblood at the same time.

  Danny held me in his arms for a moment and then let go when I stopped shaking. It seemed something was also bothering him, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was.

  I glanced toward our two-year-old daughter, my sick little girl. “How’s her fever?” I asked.

  “Gone. I just took her temperature and it was normal, Sam.” Danny took my hand and pulled me toward him. “Let’s go to bed. No sense in you sleeping in a rocking chair all night. In your line of work, I suspect you need to be sharp and alert. At least, that’s what you always tell me.”

  I shook my head at his good-natured ribbing, even as my smile faltered. Tammy’s fever had reached 103 degrees. Hard to smile for long when our little girl was so sick. We had been close to taking her to the hospital. “But what if she wakes up again?” I whispered. “Shouldn’t one of us be here?”

  Danny escorted me out of Tammy’s room. “Then we’ll hear her on the child monitor. How do you think I woke up and realized you never came to bed? You must have been having a whopper of a nightmare to be making those noises.”

  “I was being attacked by a beast... or a person. I wasn’t sure. The pain was excruciating.”

  “You’re okay now, sweetie. It was just a dream. A very bad dream.”

  We slid back into bed and I cuddled up to Danny, resting my head on his chest. The moonlight streamed through our sheer drapes and I could just make out the side view of his face as I pulled back a little and stared at him.

  Such a handsome devil. Dark hair, short on the sides, and slightly longer on top. I loved the way his square jaw framed his handsome face and how his pointed nose was perfectly shaped. He was a bit on the thin side and I preferred a beefier man.

  It wasn’t lost on me that Danny would never have a problem scooping up another woman should something ever happen to me. But I didn’t let myself dwell on that since we were together and in love.

  “It was rather disturbing,” I said suddenly.

  “Still with the nightmare?” he asked, picking up on my thoughts the way only a husband could.

  I nodded. “While the beast was attacking me in the park, I could see into Tammy’s room and there was a fire surrounding her—”

  “Fire?” he asked, his voice now with an alarmed edge to it, one that was curious as well as wanting me to stop this line of discussion in the middle of the night.

  I nodded. “And you kept asking me where was Tammy—”

  “That was you screaming her name aloud, not me.”

  I let out a long shuddering breath that ended in a single sob.

  Danny kissed my forehead. “You’re an excellent mother, Sam. Tammy is lucky to have you and I’m lucky to have you, too,” he said, still rubbing my side. “It sounds like the nightmare was mirroring your worry over her fever, that’s all. She was hot and you feared that the fever might overtake her.”

  I thought about that analogy for a moment. Taking a breath of relief, I said, “Yeah, you’re probably right. Sorry to worry you.” I said that because Danny seemed a tad freaked out by my dream and he didn’t even know the part about the monster drinking my blood and tearing my throat apart. I wasn’t sure where my apology was coming from. I was the one who’d had the bad dream. And I had ended up reassuring Danny. “I’m okay now,” I said, even though I was still shocked by the dream.

  He kissed my forehead and before I knew it, there was a familiar, comforting silence between us as we held each other in bed. I never remembered a time in my life when I felt so complete and perfectly at peace. Danny had that way of making me exhale all the worry and pain and sadness—and whatever else I might have bottled up inside of me—out of my system. He knew how to turn my worst nightmare into something not so bad. I loved him for that. Lately, however, his patience was being tested. He was still a great guy, but I saw something different behind Danny’s eyes, something on the edge of worrisome that I couldn’t quite explain.

  He lifted my chin. “Want me to go buy us some Ding Dongs?”

  “I wish!” Now, that was the Danny I loved. The food pusher. “Nothing’s open at this hour.”

  He laughed, pulling me in closer to his warmth. Of course, I remembered the years before we had a child, back when almost every night we’d make love, then go to the kitchen and eat a bunch of junk food. Then make love again.

  I said as much to him.

  Danny nodded and added, “I love our memories, Sam. The good. The bad. All of them.”

  “I wouldn’t want to make them with anyone else.” And it was the truth.

  And then, I made love with my husband.

  In the wee hours of the night, Danny was often forgetful about using a condom. Of course, I used the pill, too, but it wasn’t a hundred percent effective. Danny had forgotten to use protection quite a few times in the past two years and we had been fine, or maybe just lucky because I took my pill every day.

  I knew Danny did not want another child, not right now. He was building his law career and it was a financial struggle right now, especially with me taking some time off after Tammy’s birth. We’d done some home repairs, too, and even though I was back to work, we hadn’t yet gotten caught up with replenishing our depleted savings. But Speedy Gonzalez never thought about condoms in the heat of the moment. I would have said something, but far be it from me to be the mood killer when it came to spontaneous and joyful coupling.

  Tonight’s lovemaking had been both comforting and healing after my horrific nightmare. I just mentally crossed my fingers that nothing would come of it.

  Chapter Two

  The next morning, I slipped out of bed at 5 a.m., threw on my sweats and took a quick jog around the block to help me wake up. The cool air did its job and by the time I showered, ate and jumped in the car, I felt pretty good, despite my earlier worries about Tammy.

  Later, a tap on my cubicle wall pulled my attention from the mounds of paperwork spread out on my desk before me. I knew that tap. Sharp staccato. Impatient as hell. It was, of course, my partner, Chad Helling.

  “Delivery,” he said, pushing the door open.

  “Coffee?” I said hopefully.

  “Better, I think.”

  I glanced up to see what the hell he was talking about—and was met with Chad’s face mostly hidden behind two dozen red roses. Big, rou
nd, beautifully arranged roses—genetically engineered and insanely bold, all in a stunning crystal vase.

  I stood, laughing. “For me?”

  “Well, I’m not carrying them around to make me look pretty.”

  “You’ll need something much more than roses to help you in that department,” I said, grinning. I reached out to take them off his hands. “I always knew you had a secret crush on me.”

  “Sorry, Moon Shine. You’re not my type.”

  I ignored him and shoved my nose into the center of the closest rose and inhaled the intoxicating scent.

  “And what’s your type?” I finally said, realizing that his statement had actually kind of bugged me. Hey, I’m human.

  “Less mom and more single.”

  “Such an ass.”

  “A loveable ass,” he said, and dropped down in one of my guest chairs that sat before my desk.

  I ignored him some more, which wasn’t that hard to do, really, and removed the card from the envelope. It read: To my wonderful wife. Thank you for being all things to me and Tammy. Hope this brightens your day.

  I knew I was smiling like a fool.

  “I’m guessing hubby is out of the doghouse?”

  “He was never in the doghouse.”

  “Wait. You’re telling me he just... sent them?”

  “Yup.”

  “And he did nothing wrong?”

  “Nothing that I’m aware of.”

  “If I were you, I would find out why hubby feels the need to be romantic. I’m only romantic with that many flowers when I have done something wrong.”

  If Chad was right on any level, then what Danny must have done was a doozy to send a dozen roses. Only twice in my life had he given me a single rose.

  “Two dozen red roses,” I said to Chad. “What does the investigator in you tell you about this situation?” I asked Chad, halfway teasing.