Hunter Moon (Lupine Moon Series)

by Lavender, Cait

  Too late, I tried scrambling to my feet with my renewed strength but the man was on me, punching me in my ribs and pushing my face into the ground before I could go a few steps. I knew the lupines must have sensed my pain. I felt their rage deepen into something murderous. My captor rolled me over and slammed his fist into my face and pain bloomed red in my vision.

  “That was very stupid, línda,” He growled into my ear.

  I tasted the salty tang of blood in my mouth and it sent me into a fury. I head-butted him in the face, without much force, but enough to cause him pain. He roared and pulled his fist back, bringing it back down on my ribs in exactly the same place as before. I swore as I heard the pop of one of them breaking.

  A wave of pain and nausea hit me and I knew, since it had become a habit of mine lately, I only had a split second before the pain overwhelmed me and I would pass out. In that final moment I sent Cash all of my love through our bond and let myself slip into unconsciousness.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “I gotcha now, girlie,” Hank said with satisfaction. He had been driving around only a few miles away from where the girl had disappeared, hoping for something, anything that would tip him off to her location. When he lost the connection with her the night before a fear he hadn’t felt for twenty-five years came slamming back. It was the first time in all those years he felt like he had something to lose.

  He pulled the vehicle around, pushed his old truck faster than it had gone in quite some time, and drove north toward her location, hoping whoever masked her bond didn’t realize what she was and moved her. He knew deep down that he would only get one shot to save her and he wouldn’t let himself fail this time.

  “I have got to quit doing this,” I muttered fiercely as I squinted against the light from the stupid shed window. It must be late afternoon now because the sun was low on the western horizon sitting perfectly framed in the small rectangle of glass and shone straight into my face. Rough wood scratched my cheek and, by the way my back, shoulders, wrists and ankles were protesting, I was hogtied and lying on the floor.

  Out of the frying pan into the fire, great job. I mentally kicked myself because although I had succeeded in getting the ever-living crap beat out of me it wasn’t enough to: A) get free from the drug dealer/gang member/psycho pimp or B) get myself killed. And now I was on my stomach with my hands and feet bound behind my back and my swollen cheek pressed roughly against particle boards. So things are looking up, said that snarky voice.

  How had my life gotten to this point? Several cracked ribs and a possible cheek fracture. A month ago I wondered how I could spice up some Top Ramen noodles enough to get me through to my next paycheck. I worried about getting stupid Matt Albert off my back and getting my best friend to back off from my loveless love life.

  Now I faced both my own mortality and the absolute terror of what would happen if I continued living as a captive to this terrible man. The only man who made me want to live, though I had that brief flash of his presence, was no longer there, and I had never felt more alone. Most people would go ape if they felt someone in their head, but I miss them when they’re gone...bizarre.

  I laughed bitterly and wiggled my nose from the tickle of tears trickling down my face. I was not afraid of dying, but terrified of leaving Cash alone. Our bond made it certain that he’d never find another person to share his life with if I was gone. That thought alone, more than anything else, broke my heart. Although, the idea of him being with another woman made me furious and want to throw up in my mouth a bit too. So maybe I’m not that noble...

  Why hadn’t I seen the drug dealer as more of a threat? Wrapped up in all the lupine drama, fearing for Cash’s life, and fighting with the relatives, I had underestimated the danger of a human. Now I paid for that mistake. They say hindsight is twenty-twenty, but since I could only see out of one eye, just twenty.

  More tears threaded down the side of my cheek and I allowed myself a few moments for a nice pity party. My pretty, boring, neat little world had been turned upside down in the span of a month and filled with bad guys and werewolves. I didn’t ask for any of this, trouble had literally sniffed me out. Didn’t you, though? A small voice asked. Didn’t you dream about having a little excitement and meeting the man of your dreams?

  So what if I did? I thought back fiercely. I didn’t ask to get kidnapped and sold into prostitution! Even in my head, I sounded petulant and whiny. I wasn’t sure who did ask to be sold into prostitution—But still...

  Oh, quit moping and get moving, we don’t have all day! Grandpa’s voice echoed in my mind. The memories of his gruff way of motivation resounded like a gong in the quiet desperation of my thoughts. Get it in gear, Shells! I smiled weakly at Grandpa’s favorite saying and sniffed back the remaining tears.

  Nothing in my life had taught me to give up this easily. I had to be tough as a kid, since my mom was never home and when my grandpa took me in, he taught me how to fight my own battles. Granted, the battles mainly consisted of a stupid Brahma cow jumping the fence, but the analogy still stood. Crazy thing jumped like a deer!

  I thumped my forehead against the floor a couple times, using the pain to help clear my head. Why was I crying? It seemed like I had shed more tears this last month than I had my entire life. My grandpa called them “women’s weapons” and told me cowgirls didn’t cry. Even when I fell off the demon-possessed little pony he had bought me and broke my wrist, I fought through the pain and not a single tear fell.

  What was I doing, just laying here? I hated those simpering, helpless women who relied on everyone else to save them. Made womankind look bad. I needed to be like Laura Croft or Mercy Thompson and get crap done on my own. I couldn’t afford to let defeatist thoughts take over, I still had way too much to fight for.

  I grit my teeth against the pain and rolled onto my side that was broken rib free, sighing in relief when my shoulders relaxed by degrees. My hands and feet were bound with some sort of smooth nylon rope this time, and although it didn’t have any more give, it slipped and slid a whole lot easier and less painfully than the rough crap the vato had used before.

  I twisted my hands and feet around until they bled, tightening the loops around one hand and both feet while making the last loop a fraction less tight. I continued working the cords until one of my hands could slip out, only taking a little skin off as it got free of the restraints. My kidnapper must have done a big figure eight loop because I felt the ties loosen on the remaining limbs as soon as my hand pulled free.

  My arms and legs flopped down and I lay there for several moments, breathing hard. My pulse thundered in my ears. “Apparently my kidnapper was never a boy scout, because his knots suck,” I muttered to myself. I chuckled in relief and was rewarded with an electric jolt of agony from my side.

  I rolled over on my back and gently flexed and stretched until I had worked the feeling back into my hands and feet. It still hurt to breathe, and the left side of my face was so swollen it was difficult to see. I sat up gradually, cursing under my breath at the bouts of searing pain from my ribs and fought to stand.

  When I finally got to my feet I had to brace my hand against the wall of the shed, my head spinning worse than if I had downed a fifth of Jack. I’d prefer the Jack! It took me a few minutes to get my breath back because while I was desperate for oxygen, taking large breaths of air was excruciating. I had to settle for short, quick pants and it only served to make me more lightheaded.

  I rested my head against the shed and heard a car pull up the gravel driveway belonging to a rundown single-wide and my shed. I peeked through the window, keeping as much of myself out of sight as I could, and watched the black Chrysler sedan park and a swarthy man in a cheap suit step out of the back, followed by two large men who had been sitting in the front seats. Mr. Brujo walked out of the trailer to meet the newcomers, smiling at suit-guy and shaking his hand, doing the manly one-armed hug, sort of bumping chests while slapping the other on the back with the free hand.
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  Crap! I thought in panic. The ‘friend’ is here. I jerked my head away from the window. Unfortunately, I had noticed when the newcomer’s arm rose that he had a pistol concealed underneath his suit jacket. His two goons had similar bulges under their blazers. I hadn’t seen if my kidnapper was packing heat as well, but it probably was a safe bet, considering he’d shot Cash. And he was a good shot too. Damn.

  “Alright, Shelby. You can do this!” I muttered.

  I got back on my tiptoes and looked out the window again and saw the two men walk into the trailer, probably to discuss my impending slavery and whoring. Bastards. This was my chance to sneak away, the best I’d probably ever get. I slipped over to the shed door and tried to open it, but it seemed that although my captor hadn’t gotten better at tying knots, he had gotten better at installing locks.

  He had installed two deadlocks on top of repairing the one I had broken when I kicked the door open, successfully trapping me in the crappy, cold little Tuff shed. I stepped back and tried a repeat performance, putting all my weight behind it as I kicked at the door. It didn’t budge. The only result I got was now I had a hurt foot to add to the menagerie that was my injuries.

  “Shit!” I yelled at the door, not bothering to lower my voice. “I can’t be here! This can’t happen, not now!”

  I clutched the door knob with both my hands, pushing with all my strength, not wanting to acknowledge the futility. My knees gave out from under me from the effort and I sank to the floor, still gripping the door knob.

  Finally accepting my fate, grief washed over me and I wept. I never really understood weeping. Up until that moment I had always thought it was a weak, melodramatic way to garner attention. Now, I discovered it’s what you did when you witnessed your universe crash down around your head and your last hope vanish into thin air.

  I’d never see Cash again. The man who held me captive could block our bond, and who knew what his ‘friend’ could do. If Cash did find me eventually, I doubt he’d still want me in the state I’d be in. Used and broken. My relatives would get my land and probably split it up or turn it into a mobile home park. Jack and Jesse would cry and mourn me, but I doubted my own mother would even notice I was missing.

  Three people. Three people would mourn me, but to everyone else I would be just a girl who was there one day and gone the next. Maybe Matt Albert would be sad that he never got his shot to get into my panties. So four people would cry...

  Sobs wracked my chest and tears of grief mixed with tears of pain as the motion felt like the air had turned into shards of glass in my lungs. I curled into a sad little ball on the floor and kept crying for what felt like days, but was probably closer to ten minutes. The soft sound of footsteps shuffling past the walls of my wooden prison shook me from my despair.

  I flinched, bracing myself to face my old captor and my soon-to-be one. They had guns. Maybe if I could get my butt off the floor I could do something crazy and get shot. This was probably my last chance, considering I didn’t know where bad-suit-guy would take me. If he took me to Mexico I’d be SOL without any kind of documentation proving I was a US citizen.

  I frowned when more footsteps passed the shed instead of opening the door. I could have been hearing things, maybe a side effect of the drugs he’d plied on me, but I heard more pairs of footsteps than could be possible, considering I was only aware of four men, not twice that.

  I watched at least twenty men in black tactical outfits with the word SWAT emblazoned on their backs in white lettering stalk past the shed to encircle the trailer. My heart leapt in my throat when I recognized one particular man’s gait as he crept stealthily past the window. Cash...

  He was the only one wearing camo not black and I was floored to see him here. Like a mirage of an oasis to a man dying of thirst, I couldn’t believe he was really there. He held an AR-15 to his shoulder and his expression was hard and focused. I still couldn’t feel his presence in my head. The bond must have still been affected by whatever witchcraft the kidnapper had done.

  Cash motioned to another man in black with a dangerous looking rifle, using those mysterious hand signals that everyone in the military knows, but to the layman looked like he signaled to the other to steal second base.

  The SWAT guy motioned for Cash to bunt and then snuck up the steps. When several other men stood on either side of the door, the first man kicked it open and they all rushed in.

  I held my breath as shouting broke out, in both English and Spanish. The words were muffled, but I could tell that the men inside were surprised and angry. Cash ran in a few moments later, probably after some signal I couldn’t see, and I could hear his voice roaring over the din.

  “Where is she?” Silence. I knew, only because I had felt his rage through the bond for that fleeting moment when I broke free, that he must have been dangerously close to letting the wolf loose. “Where the hell is she?”

  I opened my mouth to shout my presence when a rough hand snaked around my face and closed over it. What the hell! I thought in extreme exasperation. I tried to kick out from the stranger’s hold, but whoever he was, had already wrapped another arm around my waist and simply lifted me off the ground.

  A gruff but warm voice whispered in my ear. “I think now would be a good time to go, don’t you agree?”

  Chapter Thirty

  I started to argue, considering that my love, mate and fiancé was quite possibly going to rip someone limb from limb in the next building and I should probably stop that from happening. Gunshots cracked through the air and broke through whatever I had planned to say.

  My first instinct was to drop to the ground, but my new captor swept me up into a fireman’s hold and sprinted through the open door and random detritus of junk toward an old Chevy truck. I pushed down the urge to vomit and lifted my head so it wasn’t banging against the stranger’s jean-clad rear.

  If I wasn’t being taken for the second time, I’d be vaguely impressed. I wasn’t exactly dainty, so the fact he could throw me around like a rag doll and run a hundred yards like a track star couldn’t have been an easy feat. He wore a plaid flannel shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots and for some reason that didn’t strike me as the correct uniform for a kidnapper.

  He reached the passenger side door and wrenched it open, chucking me on my head on the beige vinyl seat and slamming it shut again. I briefly entertained the notion of opening the door and making a break for it but he had already made it to the driver’s side and pressed down the locks before I could so much as twitch my fingers.

  “Don’t worry, sweetheart. You’re safe with me.”

  After painfully righting myself in the seat I looked over my shoulder at the trailer. The sun had set and in the waning light I could see muzzle flashes through the windows and heard the echo of gunshots as we drove away.

  “Who the hell are you and why are you kidnapping me?” Whoa...déjà vu. “I’m getting really sick of asking that, by the way,” I grumbled.

  “I bet you are.” The man said wryly.

  His dishwater blonde hair was buzzed short and flecked with grey at the temples. Twinkling golden eyes were framed by tanned and lightly wrinkled skin. Something about his face tickled something in the back of my mind but I couldn’t pin down what it was.

  “Again, I ask,” frustration and sarcasm dripping from each word. “Who are you?”

  He smiled and we pulled onto the street and I received my answer. Once more the bonds slammed home in my mind. This time it was different, though. Instead of feeling the twenty or so people I had grown used to, several were missing. One in particular.

  “Oh!” I gasped. “You’re a lupine?”

  His smirk confirmed my suspicions.

  “Yes, among other things. But that’s all you need to know for now. The name’s Hank.”

  He held out a hand and I took it hesitantly. Confusion whirled in my mind. If he was lupine, he couldn’t want to hurt me, could he? I poked his bond gently, but all I felt was amusement and relief.
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  “Where are the others?” Hank never pulled his eyes from the road, but a small frown creased his face.

  “What others?”

  “Cash and James.”

  Shock flashed across his face but he still didn’t favor me with a glance. “I can’t speak for the others, but as soon as you got away from the witchcraft I could feel you loud and clear.” Finally, his eyes flitted over to my face. Pain flickered in their butterscotch depths before returning to the road. “Damn, you look like her,” hank muttered.

  “Like who?” I waited for his reply until I realized he was pulling onto Highway 99 north instead of going east toward my ranch. “Where are you taking me?”

  “Home,” he said without a second’s hesitation.

  “Um—my home isn’t this direction. You need to get off the freeway.”

  “I know where you think your home is, but you belong with us.”

  Ooookay...cultish much?

  “I don’t care what you say, I’m not drinking any freaking Kool-Aid!”

  Hank’s mouth twisted, trying not to smile. I wasn’t sure why, but I did feel safe with him, even though I had never met him before. The desire to curl up and sleep at his feet was as bizarre as it was overwhelming.

  “It’s perfectly natural,” he said kindly but I still flinched. “It’s a common feeling among pack when they’re with their alpha.”

  I scrunched up my nose in displeasure, not wanting to grovel for anyone, regardless of who they were. “So is that why you feel so familiar to me? You’re my alpha? I’m pretty new to all of this and I don’t even know how I’m related to all of you.”

  I waived my hand northwards at the rest of the dozen lupine I felt in my mind. Although I hadn’t noticed earlier, they all seemed to be more calm than they’d felt since the first time I’d noticed them.