Moon Rapture Book 7

by Rice, Rachel E.

  As they sat crouched down near the lake, two men came walking out of the forest and they had their guns at their side. They were smiling as they approached the Samsa group.

  Hunter and Lycell knew instinctively when men have a plastered smile it’s because they intend you harm or they are friendly. In either case no one wanted to take a chance especially since they held guns and they were pointed at them.

  “Had any luck,” the tall skinny one said to Lycell.

  “With what?” Lycell asked.

  “Fishing of course. You are here to fish? It isn’t hunting season yet and you don’t have guns.” The werewolves came to the same conclusion. Why are they carrying guns if it isn’t hunting season? The Samsas thought.

  The werewolves broke with a smile at the same time. They had to change the conversation. They knew instinctively that they had to get the humans talking. Humans enjoyed boasting and talking about themselves, and they talked too much. What were they doing with guns?

  “Have you two been out fishing?” Tracker asked the two men.

  “Yes. Caught two today. Two big ones.” They smiled nervous smiles.

  “Did you use your guns?” Tracker asked. They both looked down and before they could look up, Hunter and Thorn had them by the juggler. “What do you want us to do with them, father?” Thorn said his hands on one of the men’s shoulder lifting him off the ground seconds later.

  Lycell pulled ropes out of his saddle bags hanging across his black stallion and threw it to Tracker followed by a roll of masking tape. “Now tie them to the tree and let’s get out of here. Someone will find them tomorrow. Throw their guns in the river.”

  After Thorn and Tracker had done that, they sent their horses home and prepared to swim across the lake.

  “Couldn’t you find and easier route?” Thorn said to Tracker before they jumped into the lake.

  “Yeah, but I know how you and father have a dislike for bears. Not too many on this side of the lake,” Tracker said.

  Chapter 12

  Haley jumped first and surprisingly it was a low window on high ground. She stood waiting for Katie. “Hurry up what are you waiting for? If it’s for Hunter to save you, you will have been likely raped by that good looking young shifter before he gets here. And I don’t want to say what he will do to your babies. Now come on.” She held out her hands to soften Katie’s fall. “You’re putting everyone in danger. Let’s go,” Haley whispered loud.

  “I could reason with them.”

  “Do you think you’re talking to a Samsa? They don’t give a rat’s ass about reasoning. They live to control everything around them especially women like us—humans. And he’s the son of Brian and his mother is a panther shifter, so you know you’re in trouble. Do you want to be fucked in the ass? That’s what you’re looking at.”

  It appeared what Haley said about Katie’s ass didn’t sit well with her, and she climbed out of the window, and stood up straight, took a hard breath, and gazed at the ground discovering that it was nothing to do. However, if it wasn’t for Haley’s insistence and motivational speech, she would still be in that room.

  Haley released Katie’s arms, and Katie rubbed her stomach to quiet it, took a deep breath and said, “Where to?” Katie looked around and said, “All I see is trees and mountains covered with snow. I hope you have a plan.”

  “You won’t see that if you stand here any longer, let’s go.” She grabbed Katie’s hand and they climbed up a hill. “If we can get up to the top before they discover we’re gone, then we will be alright. We can use the sheet you’re wrapped in to slide down the other side.”

  Haley didn’t know if they were going to be alright. It was just something she heard her father say when he took her on camping trips. But they had a tent, compass, and shoes then. Here there were no tents and the night with its cold was coming quickly on them.

  Without shelter they were like sitting ducks. How she wished it were true that Hunter could find them in this large pine forest. Haley had to walk and walk and her feet were bruised and hurting. If her feet were bad, Katie’s had to be worse with her legs swelling, yet she didn’t complain. But she would stop every so often to scratch her legs. She had red welts on both legs and arms.

  “I wish I had known we were being kidnapped and we had to trek through a forest, I would have brought some bug spray and I would have asked for my shoes.” Haley glared at her and continued stumbling along among the high grass, pine cones, and pine needles blanketing the ground.

  Haley knew what Katie was doing, by her snarky remarks, she was trying to make a terrible situation better with what she considered amusing.

  They were both scratching from the bug bites, their arms and legs and back. Then they spotted a cabin. It was small, but nevertheless it was shelter, and maybe someone was there who could help them.

  “What do you think?” Katie asked looking at Haley.

  “We have to take our chances. Not unless you can walk further.” Haley was surprised that Katie could keep up with her considering she had to be carrying four or five pups, maybe more.

  “We don’t know where we’re going. We have to go south and you keep leading us north to the mountains,” Katie said.

  “The compound is south and we have to get as far away from there as possible. So if you have a better idea then let’s hear it.” Haley kept walking and Katie stumbled slowly behind her.

  “I’m beginning to believe that if I had to choose from dying in this forest, I would take my chances with the shifter. Maybe they would have mercy on us,” Katie said.

  “On me. Not you. The shifter wants me and not a pregnant woman with wolf pups,” Haley whispered. They hiked closer to the small cabin. Haley tried the door. It opened without problems. Because they were tired, cold, and the bites itched, they were glad to be inside and didn’t question why it wasn’t locked.

  Haley walked around cautiously inside inspecting the place looking for a light. She found the lights and then turned them on. Katie had already found a small frig. She opened it and it had an assortment of milk and fruit. “Look in the cupboard for canned goods,” she shouted.

  “You look for it,” Haley shouted back. Haley walked into the next room. There were women clothes in the closet. She opened another door and found a shower. “We have clean clothes, and shoes too,” Haley said trying the shoes on for size.

  It never occurred to them why there were women clothes and shoes and they fit them. They were too exhausted and too hungry.

  “I’m famished. I could eat a horse,” Katie said stuffing some bread in her mouth she found on top of the counter.

  “You may eat one before we get out of this.” Katie glanced up at Haley. The food was fresh. Deli meat and bread. They made a sandwich and because they were tired. They took a shower afterwards and fell asleep on the small twin beds after a brief discussion about how they were going to get home tomorrow when the sun rose.

  Katie had it all planned. Wait for the people to return to their cabin and then tell them they were kidnapped, and they would get a reward if they brought them home. It was all a fallacy because Haley knew it wasn’t that simple, and she knew that it was something terribly wrong. It was a feeling she had coupled with the convenience of clothes and food laid out before them. It was as if it was one of those fairy tale books about two children lost in a forest and they come across a cabin in the woods, and there is a gentle old woman. Hansel and Gretel she recalls. That was the fairy tale. But it wasn’t a fairy tale after all but a horror story, Haley remembers.

  She just didn’t want to alarm Katie and have her start screaming perhaps abort the babies. She had been through enough. So Haley kept quiet and let Katie have her fanciful ideas and dream of getting back to her beautiful home, and having Hunter rescue them.

  Haley finally closed her eyes knowing she was too tired to do anything because night was on them.

  She and Katie didn’t hear the footsteps of a lion shifter. No one hears them stalking their prey. They
didn’t hear when he stood over them looking and surveying Haley. They didn’t hear when Brian lean down and breathe over Haley, smelling her hair taking in her seductive scent.

  All Brian could think about is taking her as she slept. He watched at her lying in a fetal position covered by a sheet. Watching at her he fist his cock and it was hard. It hadn’t been that way for a long time. Too much squabbling among his many wives. Too many different species of shifter females he had to contend with and control. He just gave up and would leave them, go to the city or to his home in the forest to get peace.

  Now he had a taste for a human and he could feel the excitement course inside of him as he thought about how he would feel inside of her. He would take her and take her from behind, but first he had to force her give into him. In case she was defiant, he knew how to soften her up and make her more susceptible to his desires. And he desired much from this female.

  As he watched Haley he could imagine her sucking his long cock. He wanted it in her mouth, down her throat before he would fuck her and impregnate her.

  He embraced that wild lion spirit and that human need for sex. He had to dominate this human and bend her to his will and then he could enjoy her the way he wanted and needed to.

  It had been months since he had sex. The female shifters had gotten together and refused to obey his wishes. They didn’t want him to bring more shifters into his pride. There were too many cubs being born at the same time, and they couldn’t manage all of them. But most of all they didn’t want a human female.

  He knew if too many of his shifters were born, maybe there was a chance that the humans would take notice one day and realize that he wasn’t one of them.

  But Brian needed one more litter unlike them. He wanted one more litter of cubs with a human and he would be satisfied. He was thirty and he had plans and he needed a human to travel in the world of humans. No one knew he was a shifter and no one would find out if he could help it.

  Brian leaned down once more over Haley, but when Katie woke to go to the restroom, she glanced over at him and started screaming. He stared at her with his golden eyes and she froze. At the same time Haley opened her eyes wide. “What do you want with me,” she said calm and unafraid.

  “You know what I want. I want you to come back with me and I’ll let the pregnant one go.” Brian’s eyes were hard and soft at the same time. Terrifying and peaceful.

  Haley glanced over at Katie who was sitting up and holding her stomach. “I need to go to the restroom. I need to pee,” she murmured. Brian nodded and she jumped to the floor and scurried into the restroom and shut the door.

  “Do I have your word that you will let her go?”

  “Yes. I’ll do anything for you,” Brian said. “But you have to come with me willingly and you have to give in to me when I mate with you. I don’t like to force myself on any female. She has to want me freely and readily.” It was too much to take in, but Haley had to promise him, and give in to his desires, otherwise Katie couldn’t make it one more day.

  “I’ll do everything you ask. But you will have to give me time, I can’t accept you now the way things are. I was taken against my will. You will know if I don’t want you to touch me.” She looked up at Brian. “I need to be alone with you. Get to know you first.”

  This was exactly what Brian wanted. He couldn’t hope for more, being alone with a female in the peace of the woods. Having the time to get to know each other. This was the human part of him he embraced and knew all his life. The shifter part of him was new, and he discovered it by accident.

  Haley hoped the lion shifter wasn’t on to her. But she saw in his eyes a sense of arrogance. She saw how he couldn’t imagine a female turning him down. After all he was beyond handsome and he was rich. He thought he was offering her something she could never have in a life time. But she had all she ever wanted, and it was with Hunter.

  They both saw what they knew to be the truth in each other’s eyes. However, nothing was what it appeared to be. They were both wrong.

  “I’ll send my son with us to take the female to the highway and leave her at a hotel where she can call someone. Then I’ll send my son back to San Francisco. It will be just me and you at my lake home.” His golden eyes sparkled and he passed his hands through his thick hair. He had all the delicate mannerism of a human, and none of a shifter.

  Brian extended his hand to her and gave her a wide smile that could light up a room. He could be charming when he smiled. He had sex appeal. More than most humans or shifters, and Haley thought of him that way. She smiled back and took his hand and stood.

  Haley glanced at him. He wasn’t bad to look at, as a matter of fact, he was a delicious good looking man, but she wasn’t in love with him and she could never love him. She was stalling for time and she hoped Hunter would find her before it was too late.

  Katie walked slowly out of the restroom and stood gaping at Haley. “Are you going with him?” she asked whispering in her ear after pulling her to the side.

  “I have to. The Lion shifter agreed to take you to the nearest hotel so you can call home.” Haley’s voice hid disappointment and fear. Fear of what would happen to her and Hunter when he found her.

  Katie held Haley tight and mouthed thank you. “I won’t forget you.”

  Haley thought Katie said I won’t forget you as if Haley was going to her death. Haley grabbed Katie, “Tell Hunter I’m waiting for him to come for me. I’ll never stop waiting.” Haley bit her lip and tears welled up in her eyes.

  “Come, Haley.” Brian took her hand and like a wooden mannequin she followed after him. He held her hand until they reached his car. Brian opened the car door on the passenger side after his son exited and stood near the rear door to help Katie in. Haley clambered in and sat close to the door as Brian took the wheel and started the car.

  It was sunlight now and Haley could see where they are. The cabin was well hidden and surrounded by tall pines. It couldn’t be seen by air. But there was a path that led to it. Only by foot if a driver didn’t know where it was located, but with the right kind of car or truck it would be an easy find. Or a werewolf would be able to find the place even with difficulty.

  Katie sat in the backseat with Brian’s teenage son. His head turning to Katie and then to Haley. “We’re going to drop her off at the nearest hotel. I have a room ready for her. Looks like she needs rest and food,” Brian said to his son.

  Haley glanced at Brian as she sat next to him in the front seat. He had already decided that he couldn’t take a pregnant female back with him especially if she was pregnant with wolf pups. They were natural enemies of all the shifter cubs Brian had fathered. He would have to destroy Katie’s pups. The female shifters would ask for their removal. Naturally it was out of his hands. But for some reason he didn’t want their deaths on his hands.

  Brian didn’t appear as heartless to Haley now, so she relaxed.

  Maybe because it didn’t serve him to look like a killer which he was. He hadn’t killed anything or anyone yet, but it was in his nature and sooner or later his nature would come into play and he would obey it.

  Brian backed the car down the narrow one lane gravel road and came to a highway. He turned left and headed south. Haley wished she had known about the hotel nearby. But how could she know. They weren’t familiar with the area and who knows how long it would take to find the place on foot if they ever could. Haley realized that Brian had led them to the little cabin. Giving them false hope of escaping.

  Was he doing the same with her?

  Katie looked out the window in silence, not trying to remember where they are so she could tell Hunter and Devin how to find Haley, but she looked at the scenery as if she had gone on vacation and taken a long scenic drive down an unfamiliar road, relishing the beautiful mountain range and the trees and animals creeping by.

  The drive took two hours for Brian to pull up to the hotel. His son climbed out without a word and walked around to the other side and opened the car door, a
nd extended his hand helping Katie out. It appeared Katie would give birth at any moment the way she waddled up to the hotel entrance. Brian knew that. He wasn’t a shifter who was cruel, but he could be with his same sex, and he didn’t uphold to the hunter’s creed like the Samsas. Thou shall not kill females and children. He is king of all animals and he lives by different laws. But then Brian was no ordinary lion shifter.

  There was one law he believed in, and that is to take whatever female he desired, mate with her, and let no one stop him. He was after all a man too, and he did believe that all was fair in love and war. And it was love he had for this human.

  Chapter 13

  The werewolves made camp on the north side of the lake. They would not be there long. It was then Tracker got a signal on his IPhone. Hunter and Thorn sat crouched in a circle looking at each other, wondering if Tracker had picked up the trail and whether they could reach the girls in time.

  Tracker had taken the lead on this. He had been the best at finding animals than any of the Samsa werewolves. He could track an animal for miles when the animal ran at full speed. He knew by smell and instinct where each animal would retreat. It didn’t matter if it was a bear, mountain lion, or man he could find it.

  Lycell named his first born much to Adrienne’s dismay. She had said, “What kind of name is Tracker? He will have to carry that all his life. When he goes to school, the children will laugh at him.”

  Next to his name written in the werewolves’ ancestral books, she wrote a name she wanted and that was Christian. To her he was Christian Samsa her bad boy of all bad boys. She knew why she named him Christian but Lycell never knew. And when Lycell wasn’t around she called him Christian especially because he was bad and good at the same time.

  Lycell wouldn’t hear of any other names and was completely against naming his sons human names. He said to her when she proposed a human name instead of Tracker, “They will laugh at him if you give him a silly name like Beau or Chip. He will have to fight all through school. Now those names will get him a few good chuckles, especially from the girls.”