Tales of the Golden Judge: 3-Book Bundle - Books 4-6

by Hart, Melissa F.

  Tales of the Golden Judge: 3-Book Bundle (Books 4-6)

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright © 2015 by Melissa F. Hart. All rights reserved worldwide.

  No part of this book may be replicated, redistributed, or given away in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without the prior written consent of the author/publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  http://www.melissafhart.com/

  Books in the series

  In Darker Shadows- Volume 1

  A Place in the Dark - Volume 2

  To See the Dawn - Volume 3

  By Moonlight Bound - Volume 4

  Only Your Touch - Volume 5

  Broken Bird - Volume 6

  Flying High – Volume 7

  Deep Waters – Volume 8

  An Eternal Love – Volume 9

  Innocent Days – Volume 10

  Dangerous Quests – Volume 11

  Judges Ascendant – Volume 12

  Woman of the Storm – Volume 13

  Wandering the Wilds – Volume 14

  Across a Thousand Years – Volume 15

  ***

  Table of Contents

  By Moonlight Bound

  Only Your Touch

  Broken Bird

  ***

  By Moonlight Bound

  ***

  Synopsis

  Yvonne, a beautiful wereswan, has nothing on her mind besides a moonlit flight and a swim in Lake Sangee. She never expected to catch the eye of the new judge in town, the sardonic and sly Morgan Durrant. The weretiger who controls the power of flame is hunting down a murderer, and soon Yvonne is dragged into a web of murder and battle.

  ***

  The moon had set a few hours ago, but the stars littered the sky like bright gems on a velvet cape. This far from the city limits, they were bright and gorgeous, and when Yvonne looked up at them, she felt a freedom she never felt when she was among humans and their dwellings. She sighed happily, setting her bag down on the rocky shore of the lake.

  Harrispont was a large city, but it was ringed with deep forests on two sides. You could drive twenty minutes from the city center and find yourself on dirt roads, and if you did that and then left your car behind at one of the many small lots, you could start walking until there was nothing man-made to be seen. Lake Sangee was one of several small lakes scattered throughout the forest, and at this time of night, it was alive with the cries of bullfrogs, the buzz of insects and the occasional screech of a hunting owl.

  Yvonne kicked off her sandals, digging her toes into the sand happily.

  “It's been far too long,” she murmured to herself, pulling her shirt over her head.

  She was a tall woman, and the pale, nearly colorless hair that fell to the small of her back glowed in the starlight. Yvonne was wide through the hips with small, pert breasts, and as she stripped to her fair skin, she felt a delight in her body's strength and suppleness.

  In a matter of moments, she was naked on the shore, stuffing her clothes into her bag and then securing the bag between two rocks.

  She paused for a moment, simply enjoying the summer breeze on her bare body, and then she heard something rustle in the woods behind her.

  Uncaring of her nakedness, she spun around, glaring into the dark. “Who's there?” she called out challengingly. “Come out, if you want a look so badly.”

  There was a tense moment and from the shadows of the tree line, a figure pulled away from the darkness and leaped lightly onto the sand.

  He was tall and broad, bigger than she was. He would top her by half a head if not more, and she could see the muscular weight of his shoulders clearly in the tight white T-shirt he wore. He crossed his arms over his wide chest and gave her a long look up and down.

  “Thank you for the invitation,” he said, his voice soft and filled with honey. “I don't suppose I'd be invited to touch?”

  “You suppose correctly,” she said with a half-smile. “Though perhaps if you found me at a moot, the answer would be different.”

  He nodded, and she was struck by the way his eyes, golden as the sunset, seemed to gleam at her in the darkness. There was something distinctly predatory about eyes like that, and they sent a shiver of pleasurable fear up Yvonne's spine. By all rights, she should be worried or at least skittish about meeting a man so far out, but she knew her own strength, and her own power. There was a spark of recognition there, something that told her that this man was like her in a deep and essential way, and she tilted her head to the side, aware that she was being more than a little flirtatious.

  “I had business here,” she said pointedly. “Do you?”

  He sighed, sensing her dismissal for what it was. There was something regretful about the way he did it, but from the way those golden eyes gleamed, she thought that she would see him again. After all, the next moot was only in a few days.

  “I do have business here,” he admitted, “but it's nothing as pleasurable as joining you would be. Still, I should get back to it, and put beautiful women like you out of my mind until it is over and done with.”

  She laughed, a throaty sounded that blended in with the cries of the nighttime woodland creatures around them. “Well then be off,” she said, pointing imperiously into the forest. “Duty calls, does it not?”

  “It does,” he said, bowing slightly in her direction before turning.

  “Your name,” Yvonne called after him. “What is it? I might want to ask about you.”

  His laugh was as deep as a roll of thunder, and it sent a shiver of pure pleasure up her back.

  “Morgan Durrant,” he responded, and then he was lost to the trees, leaving Yvonne with a grin of anticipation. It had been a little while since she had met a man as well-formed as Morgan Durrant. There was something about the name that stuck with her, but she shrugged it off. She was sure that her sisters or her friends could jog her memory. Their community was not that large, and a man like that did not go unremarked for very long.

  Once she was relatively certain he was gone, she turned her eyes back to the lake. It occurred to Yvonne that she likely looked quite striking in the starlight and against the gentle waves of the water, and it delighted her to think of the man watching her from the shadows. She played with the thought for a moment, and then shook it off. She had come a long way into the woods for this pleasure, and she was hungry for it.

  Yvonne closed her eyes, letting the sensations of the night time forest fill her mind and her body. She could feel the soft breeze and the grittiness of the sand beneath her feet and smell the lush scents of pine, water and summer flowers all around her. As much as she loved the city, and she did, there was something incomplete there. She could never truly be herself closed inside walls made by men, and she took a deep breath, holding a smile on her face.

  The transformation went quickly. Shocks of white feathers spread over her skin, and her body shrank and lightened. Her muscles changed shape and her bones grew thin and hollow, and soon she could feel the night in an entirely different way.

  Where there had once stood a tall and beautiful woman, there now rested a proud swan. Her feathers were pure white in the dark, and she stretched her powerful wings wide, reveling in their power. Swans were shockingly strong birds, and she could use those wings to carry her for miles against the wind or to break a grown man's arm. They were as broad and white and strong as the wings of an angel, a
nd with a few swift pumps, they lofted her in the air.

  If she were a human, she would have laughed with pure glee at the sensation of being in the air. There was nothing about being human that could compare with it, and the pleasure that she felt in the cool night winds coursed through her body. She was powerful and free in a way that she never could be as a human, and she circled the lake several times. Far below her, it glinted like a silver coin, and all around it was the black forest, where she knew the man she had met lurked. The thought of him far below and unable to see her gave her a swift rush of power and glee, and she couldn't resist calling it across the sky.

  The sky was her birthright, that of her and her sisters, and she wished that they could be with her. Unfortunately, Julianna was busy studying for an exam, and Belle was nursing an ill child. Neither of them had been exactly happy with their eldest sister venturing deep into the forest on her own, but she had been adamant.

  “I can't really feel like me when I am in the city,” she had told them before she headed off. “I need to be myself for a little while.”

  As much as she was a creature of the sky, she was also a creature of the water, and before long, she glided down to the smooth surface of the lake. After a long summer day, there was still a hint of warmth to the water, and she folded her wings close to her body and paddled her neat black feet through the waves.

  Swans were typically active during the day, but she was so much more than her swan blood, just like she was so much more than her human blood. She was a shapechanger, one of the many who made the Harrispont area their home, and they lived among humans but apart from them.

  As she coasted the gentle waves of the lake, she thought again about the man who had stopped her. He was handsome in a way that she loved, broad and tall, and it occurred to her that it had been a while since she had taken a lover, and even longer since she had taken one from among their own people. She had not seen him change, but from the thick muscles of his body and the predatory glint in his eyes, she was willing to bet he was no deer or snake.

  Wolf, she thought idly, or perhaps bear.

  Still, there was something that did not quite sit right for her with either guess. The men she had known who shifted into wolves were usually a bit slimmer, and the men who changed into bears were more serious and less playful by far.

  She shrugged the thought off, flickering drops of water away from her wing tips. She would find out soon enough at the next moot, which was to be held sometime in the next few days. The moots were hidden deep in the forest, far away from where most people could go with cars and hiking backpacks. However, when you had wings and legs that never seemed to tire, there was no problem at all with gaining access to the deeper part of the wilder areas.

  It was a time for the shapechangers of Harrispont to gather, eat, dance, trade information and flirt. If she had had a human mouth, she would have smiled, thinking again of Morgan Durrant.

  She paddled drowsily and dreamily in the water, observing the play of wind over water and the turn of the stars. There was something totally peaceful about being in the world in this way, and a part of her regretted ever having to go back. She knew that she could no more stay a swan than she could have remained a human all the time, and even now, at peace in the water, she could feel a longing for her loft in the industrial district of Harrispont. There must be balance in all things; it was the way of her people, and she understood that split inside her, the two spirits must be balanced.

  The water was still warm from summer sun, and slowly, she found herself drifting from her swan form back to her human form. In a moment, she was drifting on the water, naked and as easy as she would be in her own bed. She rolled over on her back, looking up at the dazzling sky. Her thoughts drifted back to the man she had met, and she ran through the possibilities of what kind of shapechanger he might be.

  The grace of his tread and his sly eyes made her think instinctively of cats, though surely a man like that could be no barnyard mouser. She had known a lynx or two, but the bigger cats were rarer. There was perhaps a puma shapechanger living up close to Canada, and her sister Chantal swore she had known a jaguar in Florida.

  With a smile, Yvonne swam to the edge of the lake, her strokes clean and sure. When she got out of the lake, she was close to where her clothes were, but she looked out over the water again, reluctant to put them on. Tomorrow would be another long day at the cafe where she worked, and she would already be short on sleep, but there was something about her that was always loathe to leave the forest and the freedom of the water and the sky.

  Just as she was reaching for her clothing, however, she heard a deep growl from the woods in front of her. Frowning, she turned her head, but all she saw was a black shape rushing at her before she was bowled right off of her feet.

  The scream was instinctive, as was the way she lashed her foot out at the shape. She connected solidly, but the thing didn't even grunt. In the dark, it was an enormous form, and she could feel it lean over her. There was something sickeningly dangerous about it, as if there was a miasma of ill-will and fury hanging off it.

  Yvonne could feel herself start to freeze up, but she forced herself to scream again. The loud sound broke the lock of paralysis on her body, and it allowed her to start struggling again. The world was a haze of shadow and fear, and her heart beat like a heavy drum, shaking her to her toes.

  The thing was trying to pin her to the ground, she realized frantically, and she dug her feet underneath her, trying to gain purchase. For a long, terrible moment, it felt as if the beast on top of her was going to crush her, force her to the sand and she would never rise again.

  The thought sent another burst of terror through her, and miraculously, she managed to get a foot underneath her and use it to force herself out and away from the beast. When she stood free of the thing, whatever it was, she did not turn and she did not stop to look at it. Instead, she sprinted for the tree line where she could lose it. She did not know the woods as well as some of the other shapechangers that she knew, but she was familiar enough, and she wove her way through the enormous trees.

  It only took her another moment to realize that the beast was following her, and now she could hear its hefty, panting breaths.

  It's going to kill me, she thought with brutal calm. No, it's going to eat me...

  The horror of it threatened to overwhelm her, and she knew that she could not get the time or the space to turn into her swan form. It would slow her down, and if that thing got on top of her again, she would not be able to escape the same way.

  There was a stitch in her side, and her naked arms and legs were getting slashed by the whippy tree branches and bushes that were all around. The thing was catching up and she was just beginning to wonder if she should turn and fight, damn the consequences, when she heard a great and terrible roar.

  The sound shook the earth, and it brought with it a sense of immense heat. Yvonne shrieked as a muscular form brushed past her as if she were a reed, and when she slewed around to see what it was doing, it struck the beast in the dark low and hard.

  It was a tiger, enormous and wreathed in shreds of flame. It locked down on the beast that was chasing her, its jaws seeking a purchase. Despite the fact that she could see the tiger clearly, there was something about the pursuing beast's form that was hazy and cloaked even in the dark. She could not lock her eyes on it, not even when the tiger's flames were right where it should be, and the tiger seemed to be having the same issue.

  The tiger roared, and just when it looked like its teeth might have locked on something, it jerked its head back, a fine spray of blood spilling from a torn ear.

  He needs help, she realized, and she began her own transformation.

  In a matter of seconds, she was a swan again, and with a furious hiss, she flew straight for where the beast's head was. She could tell that its bulk was between her and the tiger, and so she beat her powerful wings against its head with enough force to stun or even kill something less pow
erful.

  Perhaps it could have defeated the tiger, but with her entrance to the fight, the beast gave up. With a final deep bellow, it sprang free of both of them, and in a moment, it was gone. Yvonne was unsure if it had disappeared or if it had simply flew up into the air, but she was suddenly too spent to care.

  With the end of the fight, the manic energy that had kept her alive simply flowed out of her body, and she sank to the ground.

  She was aware of the world spinning around her, of golden eyes that stared at her through the dark, and the cool embrace of the earth beneath her.

  ***

  Yvonne's eyes drifted open slowly, and as she became more aware of the world around her, she realized that she had no idea where she was. She knew she was human again, she was wrapped in a warm wool blanket, and after a moment, she knew that she was naked underneath the blanket.

  She sat up straight, and winced, realizing that there were a dozen aches and pains throughout her body. After a moment, though, she gained enough calm to look around, and what she found shocked her.

  She was lying on a luxurious couch in what looked like an enormous cabin. Though the walls and floor were all of wood, even the single living room that she was in would have held her apartment and another one like it. There was a roaring fire, and one entire wall was made of glass, overlooking a forested slope.

  Wrapping the blanket around her shoulders, Yvonne climbed slowly and carefully to her feet. She was battered and a little sore, but there was no real hurt to her, and she approached the window.

  There were still stars in the sky, but there was also a pearly hint of dawn in the east. She had been unconscious for at least a few hours, but she knew that there was no permanent damage to her.