Moon Rapture Book 7

by Rice, Rachel E.

  “I want to know how our grandfather killed the lion shifter,” Hunter said looking to Wilder and Lycell.

  “He cheated. He used a bow and arrow,” Wilder said.

  “All’s fair in love and war and this was love and war,” Lycell said looking at his sons Tracker, Thorn, and Damon hoping they understood his meaning.

  Chapter 10

  When Haley and Katie woke. Haley jumped off the bed and on to the floor. “Where are we? How did we get here?” She looked down on Katie who was waking up in a daze.

  “I don’t know. All I remember is that Devin had kissed me goodnight and said he had to go on patrol with Hunter.” Katie sat up not without problems. She was pregnant and carrying four pups. Now they were hungry and she held her stomach because they were moving around and it felt as though they were going to eat her from the inside out. She comforted them by rubbing her stomach.

  “What is wrong?” Haley asked.

  “You’re not pregnant and you won’t understand.” Katie’s voice had the sound of her usual snarky arrogance and biting sarcasm.

  “Now isn’t the time for you to act like a bitch or a pre-Madonna. You aren’t the first pregnant woman that ever lived. So get off your high horse because we’re both in this together. And if you want to make it out of this place you had better act civil to me.” Katie sucked her teeth.

  “I’m hungry, and my babies are hungry too,” she complained looking at Haley and lowering her eyes wanting to apologize but not quite doing so.

  Haley wore Adrienne’s pajamas, Katie wore a silk short gown when they went to sleep and they were still wearing that. “What did they give us to knock us out like this? I didn’t feel anything,” Haley said.

  Their eyes followed around the room. It was a beautiful room with twin beds. It was a large room in a secluded redwood house in the woods with a vaulted ceiling. Over the large fireplace were stuffed animals. The kind you shoot or hunt. The head of a male deer, a buck with large antlers and who was probably two to three years old—a yearling.

  “What do they want from us?” Katie asked.

  Walking to the door, Haley tested it. She turned the knob and tried to open it but it had a lock on the outside. She walked to open the door facing her to the right and it was a large bathroom with a tub, a shower, and two toilets.

  “This is a rather fancy place they have here,” Haley said checking everything and looking for a window. There was only a large reinforced frosted glass over the tub. She could barely see out and she knew it was hidden by tall pine trees from the reflection and shadow.

  She sauntered back to see Katie leaning to the side holding her stomach trying to get comfortable. Not in pain, but from what she noticed, the pups were moving around and causing her discomfort.

  Sitting at the edge of the bed for few minutes gazing at Katie trying to decide what to do next, Haley bounded up. She rushed to the door and began banging on it and screaming.

  “Let me out of here. I’m hungry. I need food.” She banged on it for fifteen minutes, then she heard the lock click before the door swung open. There stood in front of her a tall statuesque young man. Not as handsome as Hunter or Devin, but then who was?

  This man was at first glance a teenager. He didn’t look any-more than sixteen and he had already reached the height of six three. Haley’s eyes moved up his elegant body until she reached his face. His eyes were a golden color and his mouth wide. There wasn’t a display of fat anywhere on his body. Every part of him was solid including his chiseled face with dimples on both sides.

  If he hadn’t kidnapped her, and he wasn’t so young, and she didn’t love Hunter, she would have fallen in love with him at first sight, she thought. But like all first sight relationships, they sometimes end badly. But hers hadn’t ended yet with Hunter, and she wasn’t going to let that happen not as long as she had breath in her body.

  “We need food. Then you can tell me why we’re here, and why you brought us to this place.” Then teen appeared surprised the female questioned him.

  “I will bring you food, but I can’t tell you anything and do any more until my father comes.”

  “Your father? Who is your father?” Katie asked taking time off from fretting and holding her stomach.

  “I’ll let him tell you that.” He turned to leave and Haley touched him. He turned and his brows met.

  “You shouldn’t touch me. For your own good.”

  “What? You will turn into some kind of animal.”

  “No. But your scent will be on me because this is the time of moon rapture and I will be forced...” He didn’t continue. “My father...” He cut that off and turned back around and walked out locking the door behind him.

  Then it hit Haley like a sledgehammer. “Oh shit. We’ve been kidnapped by a lion shifter.”

  “What is that and why?”

  “You know. Shifters. I know Devin must have told you about them. You must know something about shifters since you are married to one.”

  “We don’t talk about things like that,” Katie said clutching her hands together, extending her arms and raising her chin upward as if she’s on a beach catching sun.

  “What the fuck do you talk about? No don’t tell me. You look like the type that talk about your house, the kind of car you want to drive, and how many kids you’re going to have. They aren’t kids. They’re shifters and pups. You need to talk to someone about that and especially your husband. Or is he too...” she glanced at Katie and thought better of mentioning how much Devin fucked around all over Samsaville, while he kept Katie in a large gated home with no friends, and no connection to her brother Robert and sister-in-law Mena.

  Had Katie spent the time talking to Mena and visiting her nieces, she would have learned about shifters.

  “Lion shifters are the strongest and most feared of shifters,” Haley said pacing back and forth. “That’s all you need to know now.”

  “What do they want with us?”

  “It’s not what do they want? It’s what does he want?” Haley paused and gazed at Katie. “His name is Brian and he wants me.” Katie was about to laugh.

  “I don’t think so. It must be someone who wants to extort money from the Samsas.”

  “If it is who I think it is, then he doesn’t need any money. And it’s me he’s after. That was his son. If your husband had bothered to tell you and you had bothered to ask him a question, you would know why we were all holed up in the Samsa’s compound.”

  “Then I’m here because of you. Well then I’ll just tell them to take me back because I’m pregnant and if there’s money they need, Devin will pay it.”

  “Can’t you get it into your stupid arrogant head that they want both of us for some reason? Not just me. If they wanted just me they would have taken only me.”

  The door made a clicking sound and it opened. This time it was servant or cook. Haley could tell he wasn’t a shifter by the look in his eyes. He had a colder look of a human. A human who would take money and who would sell his services for a buck. She had known these kind of men. They were the same kind who had turned her father in for being a shifter and probably killed him.

  He dropped the tray on the table then took a quick glance at the women. His beady eyes moving between the two.

  “Hay, didn’t I see you at the Samsas’ ranch?” Haley said recognizing the squirrel of a man. A short man with dry unkempt hair and beady eyes. He glared at her with his dark eyes and rushed out of the room. She heard the snap of locks. This was getting old. Ever since she came into contact with this lion shifter she has been stalked, kidnapped, and on the run from him.

  When Haley turned she saw Katie eating hurriedly trying to stave off hunger, and pacify her soon to be born pups. She stuffed a large slice of ham into her mouth as if the pups were sitting in front of her waiting like little birds for their mother to regurgitate the food, and feed them.

  Sitting at a small table across from Katie, Haley said, “Now I know why we didn’t hear anything when
they came for us last night.” Katie glanced up unconcerned. “That man was serving food to us at the ranch. You and I were the only humans there and when our food was prepared, he must have placed something in our food to cause us sleep and not wake up until this morning.”

  Katie didn’t say anything. She still thought that any moment Devin and the others would come to rescue her. She looked up at Haley and stuffed a large piece of fresh cooked bread in her mouth.

  “I don’t know why you are so concerned. We aren’t going to be here long. Hunter will discover that I’m gone and he will come for me.”

  “You mean Devin will come for you. And if I were you, I wouldn’t count on it. If Hunter comes for anyone it won’t be you. Get it into your head that he loves me now.”

  Katie glared at Haley with a mouth full of food. “I don’t have to prove anything to you. You are just a stopover. Soon I will convince Hunter to share me with Devin and I will have two husbands and you will have no one. Now leave me alone. I’m sleepy.”

  “You have convinced yourself that Hunter will be satisfied sharing you with Devin? Well you are indeed a stupid bitch. I thought you were smart, but then you can’t be because you took Devin over Hunter. A man whore over a man.”

  “Suit yourself. I know my charm, and I know the hold I have over Hunter. I sucked his dick. Did you ever?” She gave out a wicket smile and looked over at Haley. Haley didn’t know that Hunter had wanted that. She didn’t know how to do it. But she promised herself that if she got out of this trouble she would certainly try to give him what he desired sexually.

  “I was his first woman or female. I know his body and I know what it takes to turn him on. Do you?” And Katie stood and walked to the bed still wearing her stupid I-know-how-to satisfy-a man-and-you-don’t smile.

  Haley had to take a few minutes to compose herself. After calming herself she had to concentrate on the task at hand and that was escaping. She didn’t have time to banter with Katie over stupid nonsense. Soon the conversation with Katie would deteriorate to who had the biggest dick. Devin or Hunter. They had to get out of there and soon. She had escaped from the Lion shifter before, but this time it might be difficult especially since she had Katie to worry about.

  She couldn’t just leave her although she wanted to for more than one reason, but she had to think about the pups.

  It was the pups who Haley thought of when she wrapped the ham stake in a towel along with bread and fruit after taking a generous bite. It was the pups she thought about when she decided to break out of the compound. She didn’t think about herself or Katie.

  Knowing she wouldn’t have a chance with the young shifter, she had to make a move now. “Get up Katie. We’re getting out of here.”

  “How can we? Can’t we just wait for Hunter to rescue us?”

  “They don’t know where we are. We don’t know where we are. If we stay here any longer and you have your pups too soon, don’t you know they will kill them and then some shifter will fuck you, and you will have probably that teenager’s pups, and there will be no reason Devin will ever want you.”

  “But Hunter will want me even if I have another shifter’s pups.”

  “Don’t count on it.” Haley stared her down and Katie understood. She rose slowly, then bending to get a peek at the floor, and her feet.

  “We don’t have any shoes,” Katie said.

  “Tear pieces of sheet and wrap around your feet. When we get far enough away, then I’ll make you some shoes out of leaves, and this tape I found in the bathroom. They were going to use it on us to keep us quiet. ”

  “Can you do use that to make shoes?” Haley didn’t know but she had to convince Katie that she knew what she was doing for Katie to follow her. She walked into the restroom to check the window. She felt around for a weakness in the glass and she found it. Walking back she picked up a knife and started working on that spot.

  The young shifter left the knife there because he wasn’t afraid of what we would do with it, or he was too inexperienced to care.

  Katie stood behind her and watched at Haley as she hit over and over at one spot on the glass. She muffled the sound with a pillow she grabbed. She stabbed and prodded at that one spot on the glass window, and sure enough it began to crack. Haley looked up at Katie.

  “Be ready to jump and for god’s sake don’t get cut.”

  “You go first,” Katie whispered with a nervous rattle to her voice. “Do you even know if we are on the first floor?”

  “We’ll soon find out,” Haley said trying to give the assurance that she knew what she was doing. When she jumped into the Pacific Ocean escaping from Brian the first time she didn’t know what she was doing. All she knew was that she didn’t want to be his captive and she wasn’t going to be part of a pack. She had too much of an independent spirt to ever be controlled by a shifter who had too many wives and was too dominant.

  It was that same independent spirit that gave the glass one more hit when it began to crack into large and tiny pieces and fall to the ground. Haley took a hard breath and looked around at Katie. “Let’s go. Are you ready?”

  Katie shook her head, breathed hard, but Haley knew she wasn’t ready. Who would be ready and prepared to run and jump in her condition? She had been sitting on her ass too long and in bad shape. All she wanted to do was sleep and eat.

  Katie had the look of someone who wasn’t used to the woods and what lie in them. Haley walked a few paces back and took her hand. “I have you. Just follow my lead.”

  Chapter 11

  “Who’s going after the girls?” Lycell questioned looking to Wilder.

  “It will have to be Hunter. Devin will have to stay here.” Devin paced the length of the room visibly upset before questioning his father.

  “It’s my wife and pups. Not Hunter’s.” His tone is defiant and hard.

  “That has nothing to do with anything. He is the one most skillful in a fight, Devin, and he has as much at stake as you do,” Wilder said furrowing his brow with both eyebrows raised with his blue eyes deepening. You don’t know how to fight the Lion shifters.” Devin stood huffing and resting his arms on the fireplace mantel looking at Hunter.

  “One of my sons has to stay here, and I choose Devin. One of your son’s will have to remain behind as well, Wilder said to Lycell. You make your choice. You have one minute.”

  “I’m going with them,” Lycell said. “Thorn and Tracker, he said glancing at them, “meet me outside. Lycell looked at Damon. “You have to be here. Listen to Wilder and follow his directions.” Damon nodded and when he glanced around to tell his brothers good hunting, they had already gone.

  Lycell hit Hunter on his back and they strode out with Devin sulking in the back of the room not wanting to speak to Wilder. “When you have enough experience, then you can take the lead. You don’t have the taste for blood. You’ve sat at a desk all your life and played with figures and video games. This isn’t a game.”

  “When will I get a chance to prove myself, father?” Devin questioned Wilder. “No one has as much time in the field as Hunter except you, Lycell, and Drayton. How will I get a chance to prove that I am ever bit a hunter and tracker as Hunter.”

  “Then you had better spend your time learning to hunt and go to our council meetings than trying to fuck every shifter female that wiggles her ass at you.” Devin lowered his head because everything his father said had been true. But he declared himself a changed man. That is until the next opportunity presented itself.

  The group of werewolves led by Lycell met up at the horse stall where the grooms had their horses waiting for them. “We’re taking an old Indian trail. Tracker has the directions pinpointed and we will travel north,” Lycell said.

  “North? Into the Sierra Nevada?” Hunter asked. Not because it bothered him but because he needed to know what he was dealing with.

  “Yes,” Tracker said to Hunter.

  “We can’t use the horses but for a few miles. Then we will have to swim across the
lake and go through a few national parks. With bears and mountain lions,” Thorn added, his voice breaking. Because he was afraid, and because he was smart enough to be afraid.

  “If it’s snowing then it’s up to you, Hunter. You’ll take the lead,” Tracker said.

  “Did I hear you say bears?” Lycell questioned walking from a stall leading his favorite stallion.

  “Yes, father. I did say bears,” Thorn said.

  “You were too young to know about this but...”

  “I know,” Tracker said jumping on his horse. “Hunter told me all about you and that bear.”

  Lycell looked at Hunter, Hunter glanced at the ground with a closed smile while taking the reins to his horse. After everyone mounted, Lycell looked to Tracker and Hunter. “Why are you bringing a bow and arrows? You are after all werewolves. We don’t need that.”

  “I might see a bear, father, and I don’t want to wait until it’s on me. You’ve proven that it’s difficult to handle a bear at close range,” Tracker said. Lycell nodded his head in agreement and the others snickered so Lycell couldn’t hear. But then he hears everything.

  With the horses it took little time to get to the lake. They would have to cross it. If they took another route, they would have a hard time finding the place on the map that Tracker had located. “We need a map, uncle,” Hunter said to Lycell. “Not any map. We need a Google map of the area,” he said jumping from his horse.

  “I have one on my smartphone. As soon as we get a signal then we can find out how many structures are due north,” Tracker said. But I have an idea of where the house is located. I’m never wrong.” Thorn rolled his eyes. He remembered the first time Tracker was lost.

  “But how will we know which one it is?” Thorn asked.

  Lycell and Hunter began answering him at the same time. Then Lycell stopped and he deferred to Hunter with a wave of his hand.

  “It will be the largest and most expensive home in the area. And it will be in an isolated area.” Everyone dismounted and began walking closer to the lake. Tracker circled around the area looking for a signal.