Thorn in Moonscape #9

by Rice, Rachel E.

  “I’m confident not because I’m a man, but because I’m much more than a man. I’m a werewolf,” Thorn said with his voice and thoughts coming freely back to him.

  The voice in Thorn’s darkness began laughing and the laughter continued, he said, “A werewolf. I’ve heard everything now. A fucking werewolf.” And the voice laughed louder until the sound of shoes hit the wooden stairs, and stopped only when Thorn heard the creaking sound of an old door opening and closing, and the disappearance of light.

  Then he heard in the darkness Zoey scream. Thorn grabbed the arms of the frame of the metal chair, but he couldn’t do anything because before the voice in the darkness left, he shot him up with something that made him weak and limp and Thorn passed out once more.

  ***

  Steven Romero had gone to the best schools in California and had flunked out of all of them. “He had been a fuck-up from the day he was born,” his father had said. Steven wanted to be a doctor and tried to convince his family that he deserved the money they heaped on him and finally when his father discovered he hadn’t completed but a few semesters and even less credits after going to school for six years, he decided to cut the money off.

  In high school he had been a fuck-up. He had a promising career as an athlete and his father thought he could go on to the Olympics and win a medal or two after graduating from school. But he ran over a man while he was drunk and instead of telling someone he drove away from the scene and hid the body. It took a lot of money to clean that up.

  After the hit and run incidence, his father thought he had learned his lesson, but he was a fuck-up there too with college and all. It had been his father’s dream that Steven would return home to become a small town doctor in Flagstaff, a city of seventy thousand people. But after living in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and tasting the good life of women and men, he didn’t want to do anything but pretend to be a doctor. He stole doctor’s prescription pads and wrote his own prescriptions for drugs and sold them to his friends. He was too smart to take them he told himself.

  When his fellow athletes and one time class mates, called him down to San Diego to find out what he had been up to lately, he threw his clothes in his leased BMW and drove down from Flagstaff in it to give them the impression that he was doing well.

  He checked into an expensive suite above Thorn and Zoey. He charged everything to his father because by that time he had thoughts of killing his father and mother and he would have all the money he would ever need.

  His weeklong stay at the hotel, was filled with drinking tequila shots, and watching at Zoey swimming. He wasn’t interested in the girls that his friends brought to the hotel room, so he came up with the notion that he could have her for himself.

  After concocting a scheme and feeding it to his drunken friends, he got them involved in the abduction of Thorn and Zoey. He said that Zoey was his girlfriend and that she left him for some dude. He didn’t know the guy and the fella didn’t know him, but he would teach them both a lesson not to fuck with him.

  In a drunken stupor his rich friends helped Steven carry Thorn and Zoey to his car and load Thorn into the trunk. When his friends woke the next day, they forgot about the incident, or they tried to pretend it never happened. But nonetheless Steven had checked out and they were free of him and the thought about what they had done.

  When Zoey woke in her suite and saw four men standing in front of her, her first thoughts were she was back with Beau, but when her vision adjusted she knew this was not Beau or his friends and Thorn wasn’t there. Fearing for her life she jumped out of bed, sprang to her feet, and rushed to the hotel restroom.

  “Come out of there. If you don’t, I’m coming in there and get you, and you know what will happen when I do.” She didn’t say a word but tried locking the door. She had success. She leaned on it taking a large breath of relief. But what she didn’t realize because she was too afraid was that the door in front of her led to the rest room, too.

  She sat down in a ball with her hands cupping her knees and her head down rocking back and forth with fear. Her back lay against the door behind her, and she sat facing the opposite door. Realizing she hadn’t locked that door, she stood and rushed for the door, but it was too late.

  Steven stood taunting her and laughing, knowing that the door was open, and he and his friends could get to her anytime. He heard her breathing hard. He heard her hands shake and he heard her scream, when he burst through the door, she saw him standing there with his pants unzipped.

  Chapter 5

  When Tracker woke from a week of partying, he looked around and saw two female legs emerge from under the covers. He pushed away the covers and one was lying on his right and the other on his left. It was hot outside and the sun stood straight up in the sky, it had to be noon, he thought. He could tell by looking out at the sky. There were waves of heat and the air appeared blanketed by a hot fog.

  He must be in Mexico, but he couldn’t remember how he got there.

  Looking around he saw his sparse cottage. One bed, one dresser without a mirror, and he stepped across the women and out of the bed to check on his motorcycle, and for some reason it was parked in the front room. Maybe to keep someone from stealing it he guessed. The living room had nothing in it but one torn brown leather couch and some religious pictures. He stood a few minutes gazing at the pictures. One he remembered because of his mother showed it to him.

  When he returned to the bed, he pushed one body aside who had been sleeping soundly, and she gave a small grunt and turned over. He just wanted to know if he recognized the face.

  Tracker needed to eat to keep up his strength because by now he felt like shit. His dick limp. He looked down, and thought, that had never happened before.

  “There is always the first time if you try to fuck every female in sight,” his father Lycell had warned. Tracker wandered into the kitchen and opened the fridge and there was an ample supply of fresh meat. He wondered how it got there because he couldn’t remember a thing. He pulled a piece out and smelled it.

  “Goat,” he said. “I hate goats.” But he placed a piece in his mouth. He walked around naked and raked his hands through his thick dark hair. “Where the fuck am I, and who the fuck are those women in my bed?” It wasn’t the one from the bar.

  He couldn’t remember them but he knew if he had a hot shower he could remember something. He didn’t know what day of the week it was or the month. Lumbering around naked and sluggish he found the shower. He turned on the hot water and stood under it for as long as he could stand it, and then he turned on the cold water. After doing that a few times he walked out of the shower and sat at the bar which was separating the kitchen from the dining area.

  He looked around at the furnishings. He didn’t remember renting this place. It was clean except for the empty bottles lined up like trophies. Even now he had to question. “What the fuck am I doing?” He took a quick breath and all he smelled was alcohol. It appeared to be coming out of his skin. He had been warned about drinking too much. It didn’t mix with being a werewolf and shifter. He remembered Wilder or his father saying that it would slow down his abilities to shift from human to werewolf.

  Tracker didn’t need to shift now. There wasn’t any perceived dangers around him. So he said fuck it and reached for an unopen bottle of liquor and put it to his mouth and drank. He glanced around and saw his belongings on the bar.

  Laid out on the counter was his smartphone, and pouch containing his money, and Hunter’s credit card. Over to the side of the bar he counted ten empty bottles of Tequila. He turned to go back to the restroom and get a towel to cover himself. Still everything was foggy.

  But he remembered he had tried to call Thorn and didn’t get an answer. He casually thought that it could be because Thorn and Zoey were making the best of their time together. After leaving the restroom, he entered the kitchen to get a bottle of water, he picked up his smart phone to check if there were any calls and discovered that Damon had been tryin
g to get in touch with him.

  Damon left a text message: Where is Thorn? He said he would be back home by now. Father wants to talk to him.

  Tracker closed his eyes and sighed. Calling home would certainly put a damper on his plans. “Where are you, Tracker?” Damon said after leaving a voice message. Tracker thought about not returning his call because he thought Damon was being his usual meddlesome self. Because Tracker didn’t know the day of the week or the month of the year he made a call to Damon.

  “I’m in Tijuana,” Tracker said after Damon picked up after one ring.

  “I’m leaving for father’s cabin,” Damon said. “Where’s Thorn?”

  “I left him in San Diego.”

  “What were you doing in San Diego and where is that Zoey creature?”

  “She’s with Thorn. And don’t call her that. She’s Thorn’s mate now and give her respect.”

  “What the hell. I didn’t believe him when he said she was his mate. You know what father will say when he finds this out.”

  “Don’t tell him,” Tracker said with a dry hoarse voice. “What day is it?”

  But then Damon was known to say anything and say it often. Sooner or later Tracker knew it would get back to his father and like always, he would have to shoulder the blame for leading his brothers off their path.

  To werewolves their paths were clear and only one way, and that was for the good of the pack, and females were to nurture their mates and have pups and comfort the werewolves during their time of need during the full moon.

  “It’s Friday.”

  “What month is it?” Tracker asked his voice masked by huskiness from drinking.

  “It’s the middle of October,” Damon said. “When I hadn’t heard from either of you, father is sending me to bring Thorn back.”

  “Well you have your job ahead of you. He’s not going back without Zoey.”

  “Can’t we just drop her off somewhere and give her some money.”

  “She’s not that kind of woman,” Tracker said annoyed at Damon. “When the fuck are you going to get off your high horse,” Tracker questioned. He would quote his mother. She didn’t use the F bomb in front of them. But Lycell sure did.

  “They’re all that kind.”

  “That just shows how much experience you’ve had with women, and you sound like a cynical hard werewolf. I pity the female you attract.” Damon didn’t like to argue with Tracker. He never won anyway.

  “All I know is you and Thorn left the pack because of her.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m going back and try to locate Thorn. He should have been here by now or called. I have to go. When you get to the cabin stay there until I return, and do some hunting. I need some fresh meat.”

  “You do mean to eat and not to fuck,” Damon said getting in the last word before Tracker pushed the red button on his smartphone.

  Their conversation came to an abrupt end. Although he loved his brother, it was something about Damon questioning Tracker’s actions that pissed Tracker off.

  In high school he called Tracker out for ditching Saadia for the new girl in school. A girl that came to visit her mother and father, who were doctors, and she stayed for the summer. It was Tracker’s last year of high school, and he thought he had fallen in love with her, but she left without saying goodbye, and without him getting into her panties, and that broke Tracker’s heart.

  He vowed never to love again.

  Tracker had partied and slept and fucked through almost two weeks and now he needed to replenish his body. Not knowing his way around Tijuana, and drinking all day and night, he had weakened himself in more ways than one and he needed a long rest.

  But he wasn’t finished abusing his body or abusing the two women who slept soundly with a werewolf ready to ride them hard until the next full moon.

  Chapter 6

  Damon was half way to the cabin when he called home and spoke to Lycell explaining that he would need a few more days before they could bring Thorn back. But Lycell insisted that he return. They all couldn’t be away especially since there were threats abound.

  Because Lycell was eager to disrupt the lives of Wilder and Adrienne, and he figured they had been away long enough, he decided to head out for the cave.

  The cave had been Wilder’s idea and because it is set on a remote part of the Samsa’s land, it was a great place for the three Samsas to meet when they were mere pups. It was like a home away from home, and they could disappear and their father and mother couldn’t find them. When they became adults Wilder turned it into what he thought a cave for werewolves ought to be. Vowing never to take a mate until he found a suitable one, he would revert back to the old ways of hunting and living if he couldn’t find that perfect mate.

  He found her and they mated there, and she had her pups right there in that cave.

  When winter came that year before he met Adrienne, he had gone there to think and hunt. To try to figure out how to bring the few werewolf packs back together. He never brought any females there, although he had many werefemales looking to catch him because of him being the Alpha of all alphas. But his disposition and his desire to be alone all the time wasn’t conducive to mating with anyone. Until that faithful day he came across Adrienne after she had hit him with her car.

  He hadn’t thought about a human because he knew he would have to disclose to them what he was and he didn’t think a human would stay with him with his temperament and because he had responsibilities as the leader of the werewolves in the Americas. When he met Adrienne, and fell in love with her, he didn’t want to lose her, and he convinced her that she would be occupied with their pups and with his brothers until he returned to her.

  Wilder made himself satisfied by hunting and curing meat in the cave when he was there. It gave him great pleasure to be outside in the fresh air, but he missed that one person who had made his life worth living—Adrienne.

  Now he felt he had lost that connection to her since his sons had become grown and was ready to start their own packs. He busied himself with working around the ranch, and trying to bring order to the Alaskan werewolves. Maybe it was his fault that Adrienne had become remote. But he thought it was more Lycell’s fault. He had occupied her time and had gotten close to her because of all his sons clambering for her attention.

  Wilder made a fire and sat down to think. The sun was setting and the light bounced through the water fall and when he looked up he saw a shadow.

  He would know that form anywhere. It was Adrienne standing there gazing at him. He dropped the poker from his hand near the fireplace. He just stood there looking at her in awe.

  “How long have you been standing there?” His voice husky his tone velvet passion.

  “Long enough to see you are the most handsome werewolf alive.” Adrienne smiled at him. His heart awaken his body and he felt unbridle passion he thought he had lost. A hot tide of raw emotion coursed through both of them. A feeling of satisfaction overcame Wilder.

  Attraction and desire brought them together where they moved close to each other.

  When they met the heat of their emotions took over and they kissed. Passion radiated down to the soft core of her body, and she felt Wilder. He was hard and she surrendered to him. Surrendered in his arms. Surrendered her body and emotions. He felt electricity move from her to him and she became weak in his arms, and yield the burning sweetness she felt for him.

  It had to be the remoteness of the cave and knowing this was where they first made love out of sight of prying ears and prying eyes.

  Wilder stood in silence after their kiss. Adrienne looked up into his blue eyes following her from her head to toe. He reached and brought a hand full of her hair to his face. He smelled it, and smiled. It wasn’t a wide smile because Wilder didn’t do wide smiles. It was small, erotic, his eyes lit up, and said all that Adrienne wanted to hear—that he wanted her and needed her with him.

  “Are you hungry? Oh I forgot, I didn’t expect you.
How did you get here anyway?” He was full of questions but he didn’t want answers. He took her hand and led her into the den. Her eyes scanned the room. It was like she had remembered it. Cozy and warm. Bear rugs lying around, homemade furniture made from trees, and a large hearth to warm, and cook if needed.

  “Drayton brought me,” she said looking up at Wilder. “He and the baby. And no I’m not hungry for food.” She placed her hand on his shirt and unbuttoned it until each button was freed and the shirt opened and she placed her warm hand over his chest. Her hands moved over the firm muscular outline of his body and slid over his shoulders.

  She leaned in and kissed his chest. Her kiss warm and thoughtful moving from one muscle to another. The caress of her kiss caused Wilder’s body to shiver and burn with need.

  He glanced down at her. She had been persuasive. Now he wanted her more than he had ever wanted anyone in his life. Moments before she arrived, he had sworn off Adrienne, and was ready to carry on as the lone wolf. Finding his pleasures where he could. It had been a hard choice to make and even harder now that she was here with him.

  “It must have been a sacrifice,” he said breathless.

  “It’s not a sacrifice being with you.” Her voice soft. “I needed to be with you alone. Alone with my love, my life.” She looked into his eyes. Their eyes locked blue on green; passion on hunger.

  “I remembered what you had asked me for, and I came to bring it to you,” she said her head tilted to the side watching up at him.

  Reflected light glimmered on her face. Wilder raised his hand and traced his finger down to her lips. How he loved her lips. No more than at this time.

  “I don’t remember asking for anything except you,” Wilder said leaning to bury his face into the warmth of her bosom. She raked her hands through his long dark curly hair.

  “Don’t you remember asking for more sons?” Adrienne whispered.

  “I was just being unreasonable,” he said his lips searching for her nipple.