Moonlit Seduction
Page 1
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Epilogue
MOONLIT SEDUCTION
A HUNTER’S MOON CURSE BOOK ONE
Megan J. Parker & Nathan Squiers
Moonlit Seduction © 2017 Megan J. Parker & Nathan Squiers
All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
MOONLIT SEDUCTION
The curse of the father has become the curse of the sons…
For Broden MacAlasdair, however, not being able to transform is a distant concern when weighed against the harsh demands of the Scottish highlands and protecting his family. The only hope to ending the curse is finding true love for all of the brothers—starting with him—Broden has all but given up hope. But when a chance encounter has him saving a feisty blonde who catches his fancy, even he can’t deny a renewed hope and the feelings he has towards the girl.
A woman searching for the truth…
Abigail Simone has always been intrigued over her village’s “beast” problem. However, while the villagers believe the beasts to be a threat, she can’t hold back the feeling that there’s more to the truth than what the tavern gossip offers. Eager to learn more, her curiosity lands her in the arms of the dark-but-alluring Broden, and Abby discovers that the truth behind the legends is more than anybody could have imagined.
And maybe she’ll get the chance to tell them… if that same truth doesn’t get them all killed first.
The only thing more deadly than the curse is the path to lifting it.
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Epilogue
Prologue
A winter chill kissed Bowen’s cheek as his vacant gaze wavered on the woman in the red cloak. Her eyes were dark, almost black, and shimmered like ocean waters in the dead of night. Seeing them, Bowen found himself imagining the eyes of a shark in those inky depths; a shark that stared right back at him, clad in a cloud of blood. The woman blinked as her cloak snapped behind her in a frigid gust, and she turned away from him—a shark circling for its prey—and turned her attentions to Nelle. A growl crashed from Bowen’s broad chest, a sound like a landslide of rocks and bones and promises of death rolling down the jagged edges of a cliff.
The woman ignored the inhuman warning and took a long, eager step towards Nelle, a bare alabaster thigh slipping free of the hem of her dress and defying the cold.
“THE LASS IS OF NO CONCERN FOR YE!” his growl carried the words as he shouted after her, feeling the beginning of his transformation turning the last half of his warning into something that barely sounded like words.
“No!” she hissed, whirling on her heels and jabbing an accusatory finger in his direction. “Ye will no’ transform!” Her words already had an unnatural weight to them; an unspoken inflection that stilled the air around the three of them. Her index finger unwavering, she leered back in Nelle’s direction. “Ye’ll no’ transform,” she repeated, “No’ now; no’ ever,” she grinned, sacrificing her extended finger to open her hand and reveal a palm that was covered in black tribal ink.
The air grew almost too thin to breathe.
“…doona mess with me, witch!” he threatened, surprised to find the words coming out easier than they should.
The transformation always seized his kind’s ability to speak, and though he continued to will his body through the process it was taking longer than it ever had before; was demanding more focus and effort than he’d ever had to invest. The pain was there—aye, the familiar blissful agony of it—and this he accepted, even welcomed, with a sense of pride and honor. But it was taking too long! And it was taking too much of him; exhausting him well before the act had even been completed!
What is she doing to me? the words roared on the outskirts of his mind, threatening the process with an unacceptable new emotion:
Doubt.
“Ye’re right to feel afraid,” the witch’s voice was neither heard nor felt, but somehow experienced as both while, at the same time, not at all.
Bowen found himself instantly doubting she’d said anything at all.
“NO’ NOW,” the words echoed and screamed around him, sounding as though they were within a deep cavern and not standing upon the vast rolling hills. “NO’ EVER!”
His lungs halted, refusing to draw breath, and the familiar blissful agony became something unfamiliar and unrewarding. But still Bowen fought. Clenching his fists, he watched as a plume of blue smoke began to emerge from the witch’s hand. His temples throbbed and his vision blurred. Shaking his head, he resisted the encroaching darkness. More smoke swirled free from the marked palm, forcing him to double his efforts. And still more and more smoke surrounded them, saturating and perverting the air. Finally, when the entire world seemed to have been stained by the witch’s smoke, Bowen felt its weight surround him. Beyond the veil of sickly blue mist, he saw, as though the air itself had come to life, it wrap around Nelle, shining brightest around her pregnant belly.
“NO!”
His eyes widened in terror and he forfeited his struggle to transform and fight so that he might join his lover at her side. The sacrifice came too easy, but the effort to join Nelle proved just as futile. The witch! She’d robbed from him the choice to fight and now… now she was stealing from him the ability to stand by his love while they were assaulted by her unholy spell. The rage he felt at that moment should have been enough to spur the change on its own—so many of his kind before him had gone feral from this breed of hate and scorn—but nothing came of it.
Nothing…
Nay, no magic should be able to do this.
He snarled, willing his mind and body to do whatever it could—however monstrous he might become as a result—to transform; to fight. All that came of it was pain. A new, terrible sort of pain. Not the pain of his body breaking and twisting and reshaping; not the pain of strength and freedom. Nay, it was an all new sort of suffering. It was the pain of an animal confined to a cage; the pain of a wolf robbed of his fangs; the pain of weakness. Then… then he felt the greatest pain of all:
Fear.
“D-doona do this…” he pleaded.
The witch’s smile at that was unforgiving. “And how did ye respond when I asked the same of ye?” she demanded.
He had no answer to give, none that could make things right. He’d believed that whatever magic she could attempt to wield against him he’d be able to fight.
He was nature after all; a wolf in sheep’s clothing. But the witch… she possessed a power he could not fight, no matter how hard he tried.
“What did ye do?” Bowen’s words were breathy and raspy, suffering from his starved lungs. He turned, seeing Nelle holding her belly and whimpering. “WHAT DID YE DO T’US?”
“Nothing ye didn’t deserve,” her voice echoed.
“Why couldn’t ye just let go? I didna love ye!” he sobbed, beginning to crawl across the frost-licked grass to join Nelle.
“That was yer first mistake, Bowen. And now ye will see exactly what yer decision has brought ye and yer family,” she said, her voice wavering somewhere between pride and sorrow. Though he could hear regret in her words, when he looked upon her he saw her painted lips curl into an expression he would never forget. “But I am no’ without mercy, Bowen—my sweet, sweet Bowen—and I am no’ heartless, and so I’ll leave ye with hope and the faith that ye might come to reverse what’s been done tonight.”
“Hope?” he growled. “Why help us? Why help when ye could just undo this?”
“A LESSON MUST BE LEARNED!” her face blanched and her hair and cloak whipped about as her own magic stirred up an uncomfortably warm current. Then, as sudden as her fury had revealed itself, it was gone, and she knelt over him, hand outstretched as though she might caress his cheek. She did not. “Your child are unharmed,” she informed him, “and they will remain unharmed until such time that the truest harm can befall them—the sort of harm ye’ve brought upon me.”
“I…” Bowen stammered, trying to make sense of her words, “I doona understa—”
“Hush, darling. Hush now and listen:” her outstretched hand wavered, as though the act of simply reaching for him pained her. “The solution rests with yer sons…”
Bowen trembled, repeating the word “sons” with all the confusion of a child. He and Nelle were expecting their first, still unaware of whether they’d be welcoming a son or a daughter to the world, and here the witch was already telling him there’d be more than just the one… and all boys?
The witch ignored him. “With yer sons,” she repeated. “With them and them finding what ye robbed from me: love.” She stood then and turned away, disappearing into the oncoming haze of an incoming storm that she’d no doubt conjured for that effect.
“But until they do—until they all do—” her voice lingered around him, “they will suffer just as ye suffer now.”
“DAMMIT! WE ARE NO’ DONE HERE, WITCH!” Bowen roared, fighting to put his feet beneath him and pursue her.
But his body wouldn’t cooperate.
And he knew then that it never would again; not how he’d want it to most.
He thought he’d have the strength to fight any magic the witch wielded against him. He was nature after all; a wolf in sheep’s clothing. But the witch… she possessed a power he could not fight, no matter how hard he tried.
The power to trap the wolf within the wool.
“BOWE!” Nelle cried, reaching for him with one hand while the other clutched her belly.
“Sweet… what troubles ye?” he turned, rushing to his wife’s side. “Is it… is it the spell? Did that witch harm ye?”
“N-nay…” she panted around the word, looking up at him, “It… it’s time!”
“Time? O-oh! At a time like this? Och!” Bowen willed his body to stand, relieved to find the crippling effects of the witch’s spell lifted with her absence, and scooped up his wife, moving to rush her back to their cave.
Though he said nothing then, not wanting to worry her any more than she already had been, he realized with grim horror that he could not call upon his bestial speed.
And just like that, he fought to keep the new pain from showing on his face, the wolf has become a sheep.
And if the witch’s words held any promise, the child Nelle was about to birth and every child she’d birth from then on was doomed to the same fate.
None of them would be able to transform, to enjoy the freedom that was the gift of their kind, and all because Bowen had dared to defy the witch. For that, she’d cursed them all to live out their lives as half of what they were meant to be. At that moment, however, looking down at the love of his life and the swollen, waiting belly that held his child—the first of many sons, he reminded himself—he wondered if such a life would truly be so terrible.
Chapter One
Twenty-Five years later…
“It’s terrible! Absolutely terrible!”
“Och! Are ye serious? Another sighting?”
“Aye! At Reed’s Grocery, I hear. They apparently raided the place; tore it asunder!”
“Bloody hell! This is the second sighting in—what?—three… no, two weeks!”
Abigail couldn’t help but to listen in as she finished ringing out her last customers at the pub. The regarded with just enough attention to be certain their money wouldn’t drop on the floor, but otherwise ignored her as they talked amongst themselves. Though she’d tried her best not to eavesdrop, the sheer volume and energy behind the gossip proved too great and she found herself drawn more and more into the subject. A part of her ached to ask them what they were talking about, even though deep down she knew exactly what they were talking about, but a little voice in her head reminded her over and over that that would be crossing the line. The only gossip that the villagers went on about with this much detail were the exact thing that Abigail had obsessed over for years. She had just started the job, and though waitressing was already proving just as tiresome and tedious as she’d expected she wasn’t about to risk it out of a wandering curiosity. Besides, she was already sick of the clientele, and if anything could prove worse than insulting them by barging into their conversation it would be enticing them to include her and risk having them stay longer. Not that they wouldn’t be back, of course. They were among the most regular of the pub’s regulars—she often wondered why they bothered leaving at all when it was likely they’d be back in only a few short hours—and, even in the short time she’d been there, they’d established themselves as painfully familiar faces, always sitting in the same places within the same booth and reciting whatever different-yet-always-the-same gossip each new day delivered. The repetition of it all was dizzying, making it hard to tell one day from the next, and Abigail often panicked at the idea that one or more of the elderly women might choose something different one of these days and catch on that she’d stopped listening to them when they placed their orders. Every meal was the same, though, and just as predictable was the nature of their conversations: complaints about the latest fashion trends, the arrogance of this generation, affairs that they’d caught wind of… yadda yadda yadda. Always—ALWAYS!—the same! Except for now, Abigail found (and didn’t that just figure?).
“Do ye think they’ll ever be able to catch one?”
“I certainly hope so!”
“I doona! It would be most dreadful! I mean, they’d probably tear apart anyone who even tried!”
“Mercy me! That’s too dark for my liking!”
As eager as she was to ring out and close up, the break in habit and their words tempted Abigail in a way that challenged even her desperation to be done with work. By some strange miracle, though, she kept her curiosity to herself and watched as the most regular regulars left with the most irregular sense of conflicted interest. Moments later, though, freed by the curiosity’s spell with their absence, Abigail moved on, locking the door and beginning the process of closing up.
“Another sighting?”
“… raided the place; tore it asunder!”
“Bloody hell! This is the second sighting…”
“Do ye think they’ll ever be able to catch one?”
“… they’d probably tear apart anyone who even tried!”
Abigail replayed the most interesting parts of the conversation in her mind, trying to hold back an outburst, hold back the obsession she had kept stowed away for so long.
Keep it together, Abby…
This is no’ a time to be obsessing over the bea—
“Abby!” her boss’s voice yanked her from her thoughts. “What are ye still doin’ here? Yer shift was over ten minutes ago!”
She turned her eyes to the clock on the wall and flinched. More than anything else Ross hated paying overtime, and in his eyes any shift that ran late was an attempt at extra money. Any other time she might have tried to argue that the demands of the job had kept her late, but he’d caught her scrubbing the same circle on the table she was cleaning for… how long had it been? “Ah!” She hurried to tuck the rag into her apron pocket and appear in a hurry to leave (an easy show since she was) and carried the last of the dishes towards the back. “S-sorry, Ross! I didn’t see the time!”
“‘Sorry’? Well, sorry t’say ye won’t be gettin’ paid for those ten minutes! Ye doona expect me to be payin’ ye to sit around dreamy-eyed and dumb, do ye?” he demanded, glaring down at her and grabbing the dishes before turning away. “I’ll be finishin’ these m’self, but doona go thinkin’ I’m happy about it, y’hear? Now, ye best be gitten’ out o’ here! It’ll be dark soon!”
“R-right. Of course. Thank ye,” she did her best to give him a smile while wondering if his warnings about it getting dark had anything to do with the most regular regulars conversation. “I… uh, yea—have a good night, Ross!” she called back, ignoring the ongoing irritated mumblings, as she slipped out through the back entrance.
As she made her way out into the village streets, she thought back to the rumors of the beasts. Though the stories varied a great deal depending on who was telling them—no one had ever truly seen them, after all—there were certain details that always seemed to remain the same. The exact size could never be agreed on, but they were undeniably larger than any man. Most accounts sized them at about three or four meters in height, and as wide across as the tallest of their village. Like a fisherman’s tale, however, the numbers became evermore unbelievable as they acquired more attention and got more drink in them. But sobriety, it seemed, was not enough to stave off the beasts, though it did seem to narrow the details of the accounts. In those instances, the beasts’ size and ferocity seemed more reasonable, often leading the conversation towards the subject of bears or wolves. Such reasonable claims were, however, taken as insults to those who’d seen things differently (or those who believed strongly enough to argue without having seen them themselves), and the ensuing fights would soon swallow any notion of realistic creatures roaming the landscape.