The Billionaire Werewolf
Abigail Raines
Werewolves of St. Neuri
The Billionaire Werewolf
Abigail Raines
Copyright © 2018 by Abigail Raines
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Epilogue
About the Author
Prologue
Janelle closed her eyes, rubbing them for a moment. Staring at the computer screen all day made them ache. She had been writing two articles as well as trying to work on the layout of Friday’s paper for twelve hours now and desperately needed a break. It was well past midnight; St. Neuri was quiet, even the downtown area the office of the paper was.
But Janelle had just gotten over the flu and the work piling up meant she couldn’t just leave right at five and be done with it. After working at the paper for almost seven years, putting work first was simply engrained in her.
She also enjoyed the peace and quiet in the office, far away from any people. Being alone meant silence. Silence gave her a break from the constant headaches from shielding people away.
In the distance, Janelle heard a car drive by before St. Neuri settled back into its regular silence. Winter had swept in a few weeks ago, leaving the town feel hollow and brittle. People emptied out, heading on vacation to a warmer climate or opting to stay indoors. It was her favorite time of the year.
With a headache beginning to brew, Janelle decided to call it a night. Shutting off her computer, she grabbed her purse, trying to ignore her stomach grumbling. Norbert’s Diner would still be open. She could go for a cheeseburger right about now.
The temperature had fallen drastically since the last time Janelle was outside. She shivered, making a mental note to bundle up more tomorrow as she headed towards her car. The sky was filled with clouds, blocking the moon, making St. Neuri almost pitch black.
At least there isn’t any fog, Janelle thought as she started the car. The fog of St. Neuri had been gone for five years but it still lingered in long term residents’ minds. There had yet to be anything like it since but whenever she was out late at night, it always seemed to come to mind.
The drive to Norbert’s Diner didn’t take long since the streets were empty. At one point, she thought she saw some sort of a large animal in the woods but didn’t think much of it. There was a ton of wildlife here, living so close to the woods and mountains. Janelle was used to it.
Pulling up into the parking lot, she was relieved to see the diner was basically empty. Janelle got out of the car, seeing a woman come out of the diner. Her eyes were downcast, her fingers clutching the brown bag of takeaway food. She was heading towards her car. Janelle blinked and suddenly –
The woman comes home, opens the door, drops the bag of food in shock. Her ex-husband is there, waiting for her. He is furious, holding a gun. The woman pleads, takes a step back, can’t reach him. He raises the gun.
“Martha, you give me no choice.” He said as the gun -
As soon as the vision came, it left. Janelle felt herself thrown back into her body. She gasped, momentarily thrown, before scurrying off towards the woman before she got in the car. The woman’s hand was on the door handle when Janelle reached her.
“Martha?” She blurted out and the woman stopped, looking over her shoulder curiously at Janelle.
“Do I know you?” Martha asked warily.
“No. It’s about your ex-husband.”
Martha stiffened, opening the car door. It was just how Janelle thought: this woman was afraid of her ex, of what he could do, of whatever happened between them shattering her life. No wonder she looked so terrified.
“Don’t go home tonight. Call the police. Tell them your ex is in your house. Go to a friend’s place or a hotel.” Janelle said urgently, the cold nipping at her skin.
Martha frowned, staring at her. “Excuse me? What are you talking about?”
She reached for the woman, grabbing her arm, trying to make her understand. “I know this is crazy but trust me, okay? Just do what I said.”
“Do you know him? I just changed the locks on my place. I…”
“Whatever you did, it doesn’t matter. He’s waiting for you at home.” Her voice pleaded. “I can’t explain. I know I’m a stranger. Just trust me. Your life depends on this.”
Martha stared at her for a long beat. In the distance, a car honked. Just a few meters away was the diner, offering safety, food, a place to unwind. It might as well be a thousand miles away for all Janelle cared.
Normally, the visions would be of people tripping and falling, of break-ups down the line, of accidents that left injures, or even smaller things like a phone ringing, a storm rolling in, a date going well. Janelle let those visions pass without inferring. She kept her contact with people to a minimum. The more time she spent around people, she came to realize the more prone she was to have visions about them. In crowds, it could be overwhelming, leaving Janelle with headaches that resulted in her having to hide out for a few days to recover.
But if a vision was life threatening, there was no way she could let it pass her by without doing something. Even if she looked crazy, there was no way she would let Martha go home tonight.
“Listen, I’ll call the cops myself if you don’t.”
“You don’t know where I live.” Martha challenged, narrowing her eyes.
She had a point there. The vision offered no details of where exactly she lived. Janelle kept pressing. “Please. Please, trust me on this. You know – some part of you knows, doesn’t it? That your ex could do something like this.”
Martha lowered her eyes. Janelle knew she was right. If she could just feed into that a little bit more…
“Whatever happened recently, it set him off. He’s in your house. He’s armed. Please, Martha. Don’t go home. Call the police.”
She pulled away from Janelle then, opening the car door, tossing the food inside. “Fine. I won’t go home. My mom lives closer anyway.”
“And call the police.” Janelle added hastily as the woman got in the car, turning it on.
“Yeah, sure.” The woman said before shutting the door in her face.
She hovered there, watching as the car pulled out of the parking lot and onto the main street. She had no clue if Martha was going to take her advice, if she would listen to a crazy woman outside a diner, warning her about something terrible. All Janelle could do is check her sources in the morning and try to figure out what happened.
Taking a deep breath, she walked back to her car. Her appetite was gone.
Chapter One
“You hungover?” Cheryl asked as Janelle sat down at her desk.
“No, I just have a migraine.” She mumbled, knowing she looked ridiculous in her sunglasses on an overcast day.
“From drinking?”
“I wish.”
Cheryl leaned against the wall, studying her. Janelle knew she was deciding whether or not to press the subject. Janelle hoped that she wouldn’t. Last night, she had gone to the movies with a guy, Cameron, only to be overwhelmed with visions trying to make their way int
o her head. Focusing on the film quickly faded to the background. Instead, it had been an exercise in blocking out as much as she could.
The headache, coupled with focusing on stopping the visions, had made her distant and boring to talk to. She could feel Cameron’s interest in her slowly tapering off as the night went on, the movie ended, and the conversation stalled on the walk back to the car. Originally, they had plans to go get food afterwards but he seemed relieved when Janelle said she wanted to get home.
“Well, I’m going to be finishing up my article about Jake Masters today. I think it’ll be in tomorrow’s issue.”
Janelle leaned back in the chair. “How do you think that will go over?”
“I don’t think anyone will care.” She replied with a tinge of annoyance. “I think I will get maybe one semi-interested reader in their eighties.” Cheryl looked behind her to make sure no one else was around. “It isn’t as though our readership is exactly flourishing.”
Ah, yes, Janelle’s other headache. Even though the local newspaper switched to online editions, their readership had been struggling for quite some time now. Everyone on the team knew it but no one knew what to do about it. Some jumped ship but Janelle couldn’t quite bring herself to leave. The paper was too important to her. She wanted to see it through to the bitter end. It offered respite from the onslaught of visions other jobs would give her and she enjoyed the work, her co-workers.
Their editor in chief, Eliza, was in her office, typing away on something. She was an older woman, focused on keeping the paper running. She very rarely spoke of the trouble that the paper had in keeping afloat. Sometimes, Janelle thought the paper shutting down would hurt Eliza even more than her.
“But an article about the mysterious man who swept in a few years back, built up a mansion overlooking the town, and constantly gets into fights at bars, might interest people,” Janelle pointed out. “He’s been quietly buying up tons of property in St. Neuri but not really doing anything with it. He comes down from his mansion, gets into fights, gets arrested, and retreats up the mountain once he pays his fine. People should know more about the man buying up land in St. Neuri.”
“Sure, they should. Will they care enough?” Cheryl gave a small shrug, “Whatever. It’ll go to print this week.”
Janelle’s head throbbed and she winced. Cheryl noticed and sighed. She knew that her co-worker and friend was about to lecture her to see a doctor. How could Janelle ever explain that a doctor couldn’t help? It wasn’t as if she could stroll into a doctor’s office, announce she suffered from visions since she was just a kid and they gave her headaches. It would be a one-way ticket to a mental hospital.
“Save it, please. I appreciate the concern but the doctors have never been able to help.” She lied, holding up her hand.
“Fine. I’ll send you my article so you can tell me what you think.” Cheryl said before giving her a small wave and walking off to her desk.
Janelle watched her go, wondering how long she could leave her sunglasses on before Eliza told her it looked unprofessional. They were down to a skeleton crew now of about fifteen people, with two having already given their two week notice recently. She didn’t think anyone would care if she looked a bit unprofessional. But Eliza would; she cared very much about the reputation of the paper.
Eliza, rounding them up, telling them something had to change. The article they published was more trouble than it was worth and now they needed to figure out how to handle it. Eliza, checking her messages, hearing the debt collectors call –
Janelle felt that sickening drop in her stomach as she was tossed back into her body. She squeezed her eyes shut tightly and groaned. Enough, she thought, no more, please. I need a break.
She doubted her head would listen. It was her fault for going out on that date, allowing herself to be around so many people and triggering an onslaught of visions. Now her head was struggling to shield itself and block them. A rookie mistake.
But Janelle couldn’t stop feeling lonely. Dating, with these stupid visions, made it almost impossible. Even if the dates weren’t plagued with visions, she would end up seeing the guy cheating on her or doing something else equally shitty, making it impossible to continue.
Janelle wasn’t sure how much she was able to stop or interfere with visions. She tried but they always had different outcomes. Sometimes, the event would happen anyway, just delayed. Other times, it appeared to be stopped completely. In all her years of having them, she had yet to crack the code behind them.
On that note, she turned her attention to her computer, checking the daily police reports for any news about the woman she had seen in the parking lot diner two weeks ago. There had been no mention of anyone by the name of Martha being killed but no reports of a man with a gun either. Janelle assumed Martha had gone to her mother’s for the night but didn’t call the cops.
Janelle stopped the event – for now. She wasn’t confident that time wouldn’t fix itself and have it play out anyway. What good was it being able to see portions of the future if you weren’t sure that you could even do anything about it?
Her head throbbed. In the office, Eliza was on the phone. Cheryl was hunched over her desk, typing away, finishing up her article about the mysterious billionaire who moved to St. Neuri a couple years back.
Janelle popped a couple of migraine pills, knowing they wouldn’t do much for her, and got to work.
At lunch, Janelle put her tablet down and looked at Cheryl, who was taking a bite of her sandwich. The coffee shop was quiet today, luckily for her, and it was easy to focus on reading Cheryl’s article about Jake Masters.
“This article isn’t very nice.” She pointed out.
“Why should it be? This man comes to St. Neuri, causes nothing but trouble, starts buying up land and does nothing with it. That is on top of that mega mansion on the mountains. You read the article and saw my research. He inherited an amazing company from his family but has done nothing with it. He’s a billionaire. Instead, he comes here of all places, hides out in his house, comes down once in a while and just causes trouble. What is he getting at?” Cheryl rattled all her points off quickly.
“Eliza might have issues with the tone. It doesn’t seem very neutral.”
She waved her hand. “Then run it under opinion.”
“True.” She looked back down at her tablet. “I’ve never given much thought to Jake Masters before.”
And why would she? Sure, he was an odd, semi-reclusive billionaire. But she had plenty of her own problems to work through. The workings of a man far removed from her world never really got her attention. It was clear it had with Cheryl, however, and Janelle didn’t want to upset her friend’s passion for the project.
“I’m giving it to Eliza when we get back. I think this is an important article. I did my research. I’ve studied the properties he bought up, how he has done nothing with them. Someone like that, someone who should be an important member of the St. Neuri community, deserves to be researched. We have this CEO of a mega company living here but he does nothing besides get into fights.”
“So, he’s a bad boy with money. Some rich elite jerk who, for whatever reason, decided to settle down in St. Neuri. Is it that important?”
Cheryl leaned back in her chair. “I know what you’re doing. Getting me ready for Eliza.”
That was exactly what she was doing. Janelle knew Eliza liked to have the team argue for when they wanted to include an important article on the paper and that she would have reservations about posting something about one single person in a light that wasn’t exactly flattering.
“That’s just the thing. Why would such an important person, with billions of dollars, settle down here? Of all places? It should be looked into.”
“And you’re the one looking into it. So, it’ll be fine, truly. With you at the helm, I’m not worried.”
Cheryl narrowed her eyes. “Are you making fun of me?”
Janelle sighed. “A little. Look, I’m sor
ry. My head is just absolutely killing me today.”
“It’s fine. I know how bad your head can get. Plus, all those late nights you worked recently from when you had the flu. Don’t you think perhaps you’re working a bit too hard? Maybe ease back some. The paper doesn’t have to encompass your life. It’s dying. We both know it.”
Janelle mumbled something non-committal. She didn’t want to think about the dying paper right now.
“I’ve been looking for other work.” Cheryl announced.
Janelle looked up from her coffee. “Really? Like what?”
“Not sure. Maybe something in the city. My parents live there and might let me crash at their place until I get set up.”
“You’ll be moving?” She said, shocked.
“Maybe.”
A lump formed in Janelle’s chest that she tried to ignore. Cheryl was the closest thing she had to a best friend in St. Neuri. If she left, it would suck.
“You can’t go.” She blurted out and her friend’s eyes widened slightly in surprise. “I mean, I would miss you. Feels like everyone is running off to the city lately.”
“Because this place is boring. Besides Artemis Blossom there isn’t a lot going on.” Cheryl said, referencing the booming fashion line that took up residence in the downtown district. “I think people were hoping that the fashion line being here would bring in new businesses. But no other lines wanted to deal with the drive to the city. And Jake Masters hasn’t exactly done anything with his billions to help us out.” She paused for a moment. “Ever since the summer of the fog, St. Neuri hasn’t been the same.”
At the mention of the fog, Janelle nodded, thinking back to five years ago. Everyone lived in fear then. It coated St. Neuri. People went missing, turned up dead. Wolf sightings seemed to roll in nightly. The visions lessened that summer, for reasons Janelle never fully understood. It had felt as though her mind was in a fog as well. The visions that came to her during that time period were sluggish, hazy, and disconnected.
The Billionaire Werewolf (Werewolves of St. Neuri Book 3) Page 1
