Lukas: Moonlight Wolves Book 1

by Stone, Sarah J.

  Lukas was deep in the forest surrounding the town by this point. He stopped immediately and sniffed the air, preparing himself for trouble. If one of the pack members stumbled upon him in human form, it would all be over for him.

  Lukas tentatively began to walk, nose in the air, trying to locate where the wolf was, so he would know not to go in that direction. Instead, he swore he sensed Annie.

  That couldn’t be right . . . could it? Was she out here, in wolf form? Lukas felt his wolf’s desire for her, the need to howl back and join her was almost consuming him. He felt the possessive instinct he had towards her flare up, and he knew the wolf in him wanted to run to her side.

  Before he could do anything stupid, Lukas shifted out of his wolf form and back to his human self. He couldn’t risk doing anything like that. He’d be killed instantly for even laying a hand on Annie, let alone having sex with her. Hell, she wouldn’t even let him near her and would probably kill him if he even said he thought she was pretty.

  Lukas shook his head as he began to walk back to where he had thrown his clothes before he shifted. He needed to get his head straight. There were much bigger issues at hand. For one, Kaiser was probably somewhat close to Maine by now, killing and pillaging every pack town he passed. He needed to stay focused and forget about Annie. Forget about the way she made him feel. Forget about the sexual desire he had for her every time he saw her.

  Before he could get any further, Annie stepped through the forest into the clearing where Lukas was pulling on his clothes.

  “I thought it would be you,” was all she said as she walked towards him. She crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at him. She was fully clothed, having had enough time to go change before she ran back to yell at Lukas for shifting in an area where any pack member could kill him.

  “I thought you had shifted,” Lukas managed to say, his wolf still in his chest and begging for him to walk closer to where Annie stood. He roughly put his shirt on, wanting to be away from her before he did anything.

  “I was, but when I sensed you, I shifted back,” she told him. “My house is only a few blocks from here, so I went and changed, so I could yell at you without you getting turned on by my amazing body.”

  Lukas only laughed when he realized the slight smirk and sparkle in her eyes meant she was joking. She was right, though, if he saw her naked after just shifting from her wolf, he would definitely lose it. Hell, he was about to lose it right now, and she was ten feet away from him and fully clothed. He needed to get his shit together or else he was going to get himself killed by either her or her father. Or really anyone else in the pack.

  “You know, you can come closer,” he told her. “I don’t bite.” He immediately regretted his words, yet he couldn’t help himself. He wanted her closer to him, even if that did mean his wolf would howl for her.

  “I’m fine here,” was all she said, though he could swear she glanced at his body, his lower half, his everything, before her eyes quickly shifted back up to meet his. He raised an eyebrow questioningly at her, taking a step forward, his wolf loving every second of it. She took a step back and laughed shortly. “Just don’t shift again unless you tell me so that I can make sure none of the pack are around.”

  And then she turned around and left, leaving Lukas staring longingly as the forest engulfed her.

  Chapter 12

  Annie didn’t know what the hell had gotten into her. She found herself walking straight to Milo’s apartment after she got off of work. Work was a slow torment in hell, as she found herself consistently thinking about Lukas and what it would be like to kiss him, to feel his body, to beg him to have sex with her.

  She regretted her choice to confront him about shifting, but she was happy that she put some clothes on before she did it. God knows what would’ve happened. Just the glimpse of his abs that she saw before he put on his shirt was enough to turn her on.

  And now, to try to get him out of her system again, Annie was briskly walking up the stairs to Milo’s place. Pounding on the door, she tried to steady her breathing even though her mind was racing with new ways she could throw herself at Lukas the next time she saw him. She shook her head, as if to shake the ideas out of her mind.

  “Annie?” Milo smiled, opening the door as he saw her standing there. She rushed in, throwing her bag on the couch and pulling off her jacket. It wasn’t until she threw her shirt off and was about to grab Milo when she turned around and saw a naked girl standing in the kitchen.

  “Oh,” was all Annie could say. It wasn’t as if they were dating or anything. Milo and Annie had made it clear that they were strictly friends that occasionally hooked up. Annie wanted it that way, and so did Milo.

  But for some reason, seeing a gorgeous, petite blonde with curves standing naked in his kitchen made Annie want to cry. She smiled and looked back to Milo, who shrugged as if it was no biggie.

  “I didn’t know you were coming over, babe,” he said, smiling and not at all embarrassed by the situation. Annie glanced back at the goddess, who was leaning against the kitchen counter smiling as if this was really no big deal.

  “You can join us, if you’d like,” the girl put in. Annie laughed and put her clothes back on, grabbed her bag and walked to the door.

  “Don’t be mad,” Milo grabbed her arm, stopping her from leaving.

  “I’m not mad, Milo,” Annie insisted. “I just . . . I just should leave. Have fun, though.”

  Annie walked through the door, slamming it shut. She knew she had absolutely no reason to be mad at Milo. Milo always told Annie that what they had was just a fun thing with absolutely no strings attached. But she was horny, angry, and a little sad that Milo had another girl in his apartment.

  Maybe Annie was just being a stereotypical woman in her mid-twenties that longed for a real relationship, not one that was just sex. She got in her car and sighed, knowing she needed to pull herself together. It’s not like she hadn’t used Milo either, she’d used him for sex since the day she met Lukas. And now that she wasn’t getting that sexual relief that she needed, her thoughts immediately went back to Lukas.

  She sighed, wondering how her life had managed to flip upside down in a matter of days. When she wasn’t thinking about Lukas, she was worried about her father being killed by Kaiser. Her father still hadn’t talked to her about who Kaiser was, or who Kaiser’s father was, and it was getting on Annie’s nerves. Why wouldn’t her father inform her about these things? She thought they were closer than this.

  With a new determination in her sight, Annie decided to forget her sexual frustration, get a coffee, and then confront her father about Kaiser and his plan for protecting the pack. It was time she got off her ass and started doing something. Who knew where Kaiser was at this point? Maybe he was only a few miles away, prancing his way to kill them all and bathe in their blood. Annie didn’t know because neither her father nor Lukas would tell her anything.

  Annie got to her father’s house, walking in without knocking and making her way to his garden where he probably was. When he wasn’t at the bar or meeting with the pack, her dad was tending to his garden or reading a new book among his flowers and plants. She became a librarian solely because her father raised her on fairy tales and stories about dragons. They both had their own enormous libraries that they praised.

  Sure enough, Annie walked out to the garden in his backyard and saw him sitting on a bench, his feet up on a huge rock, attentively reading a huge book. Annie smiled when she saw him, his gray hair all messed up and his glasses on so he could read.

  “Hello, darling,” Hann called to her without even looking up from his book. Annie wished she had his sense of everything. It seemed like his senses were so much stronger than any shifter or human she knew. Maybe she had dull shifter senses, and her human side was to blame.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting,” Annie said, sitting down beside him as he closed his book and put it aside, setting his attention on her.

  “Of course not,” h
e waved her off. “This is my third time reading that book. I already know what happens. So, what brings you by, other than to spend quality time with your favorite person in the whole world?”

  Annie chuckled and put her feet up on the stone as well, both of them relaxing among the greenery and the sun’s descent. The moon would be out soon, and Annie wanted to run again since her own run earlier was interrupted.

  “I thought that maybe now would be a good time for you to tell me more about Kaiser,” she told him tentatively. “And maybe more about his father as well.”

  Hann sighed, stroking the beard that he found himself growing. “I warn you, Anastasia. You won’t like this story.”

  “I love you, Dad,” Annie said, shoving him slightly to lighten the mood. “I’ll always have your back. Always.”

  “I met Pavel when I was traveling through Europe when I was younger,” he started after a pause, his gaze going fuzzy as he remembered decades ago. “We were friends and got along greatly. I was able to stay with his pack while traveling, his father was the alpha. As you know, your grandfather was known throughout the shifter world, even in that small town in the Czech Republic, something that always amazed me. I always wanted to be as strong and known as my father.

  “Anyway, that’s where we met. A few years later, I was back here in Maine, and my father was ill from old age. I became the alpha of this pack younger than anticipated, but I took on this role with my heart, and every strength in my body, prepared. I wanted to lead our members in the right way. Of course, there were many who thought that I wouldn’t be as great as my father, since I had yet to pick a mate. They thought that I was childish and young, sleeping around with every shifter I wanted to . . . .”

  “And then you fell in love with a human, and I suppose they regretted shitting on you?” Annie asked, laughing.

  “Yes, I met your mother,” Hann said, sadness filling his eyes. He clasped his hands and then unclasped them, making Annie’s heart break. Her father truly loved her mother, and he had never gotten over her untimely death from complications after delivering Annie. Annie always thought it was her fault, even though her father assured her it wasn’t.

  “How does Kaiser and his father fit into this?” Annie gently asked, bringing her father out of his misery for a moment.

  “Pavel came around to visit with a wife and son about the time your mother and I were married. He, like everyone else, couldn’t believe that I, an alpha, could ever fall in love with a human, let alone mate with her. Of course, I tried to explain to everyone that we shifters just know when they find their mate. It’s no different if it’s a human or another shifter, the signs are all the same. Maybe I’m wrong or messed up in the head because I never found another shifter that I fell for, but I knew from the moment I met your mother that I was to mate and marry her, regardless of who or what she was.

  “Pavel tried to talk me out of it. He said that no good would come of it. I told him that if he was so offended by what I was doing, he could get the hell out of my territory. And so he left. Time flew and then, before I knew it, your mother was pregnant . . . and, well, you know the story.”

  “Yeah,” Annie sighed, her father going silent for a moment.

  “Before I continue, I need to apologize for what I’m about to say, darling,” Hann told her, clutching her hand.

  “What do you mean?” Annie was beyond confused. What could her father have to apologize for? What happened with Pavel, Kaiser’s father?

  “Your mother gave birth to you, a healthy, baby girl. It was the happiest moment of my life. And your mother recovered phenomenally well, surviving the whole procedure. No one saw it coming, but I felt that I had someone on my side. I thought that this was the universe saying . . . well, I don’t know, saying something.”

  “Wait, Mom survived? I thought she . . . I thought she died during delivery,” Annie felt like she couldn’t breathe.

  “I know. That’s what I told everyone. We were in her house, the house you live in now, for a week after birth, not letting anyone from the pack in, except Ross. We wanted to keep everything calm. But then Pavel showed up out of nowhere, visiting again. I didn’t want him anywhere near you or your mother after everything he said last time. I went outside to meet him, and he looked mad, completely insane. He heard that I had a child that was half human, half shifter, and was ranting and raving about how it wasn’t right.

  “I don’t know what happened in the years from when we met as teens to that night in front of the house. I don’t know if it’s because his father chose someone else to be the alpha of his pack, if he’d always been crazy, or if something happened that made his views change. But he became one of those shifters that thought anything less than pure was an abomination. So, he decided to take matters into his own hands.”

  “What do you mean?” Annie mumbled, lost, confused, and scared at what her father was about to tell her.

  “I don’t know how he got in the house. I don’t know how anything happened, but he managed to get to where you and your mother were sleeping . . . and I had to kill him. I had to stop him from hurting you. Or from hurting your mother,” his voice trembled, and Annie’s tears finally fell, her heart breaking from her father reliving the memory.

  “So, Mom . . . she died from Pavel? He killed her?” Annie asked, clutching her father’s hand. Her mother was murdered all those years ago?

  “Not quite,” her father said. Annie stared at him, beyond confused. If her mother didn’t die from childbirth, or from Pavel, then how did she die?

  “What do you mean?”

  “No, your mother didn’t die from Pavel, darling,” he mumbled. “This is where I apologize again to you, I’m afraid.”

  “Tell me,” was all Annie could say.

  “Your mother isn’t dead, my darling,” her father told her, his eyes shining and unblinking. “However, the Elders got to her.”

  Chapter 13

  Annie felt like she couldn’t breathe. Her whole life felt like it was falling down into a deep pit of black nothingness. Her entire past was based on this lie that her mother had died, and yet, that wasn’t true at all. She was alive. But the Elders got to her.

  And maybe death would’ve been sweeter for her dear mother.

  “What . . . what happened?” Annie asked, her whole body seeming to shake.

  “I called them, telling them what happened with Pavel,” he told her, looking off into the distance. “They said that there had been rumblings about his antics, about what he was saying. It was harmful to every shifter out there, and the Elders didn’t want humans to get suspicious from his activity. He was making noise, and they didn’t like that. They came to the house and took his body away, saying that I did what was right. But then . . . but then they came back and started asking questions about your mother.”

  “But why? They knew about her before, right?”

  “I told them long before I ever even told her I was a shifter, in fear that they would hear and take her away from me. We came to an agreement that it would be okay for me to take her as my mate. I think they knew that I wouldn’t take no for an answer. But then, years later, they had an issue with it. I don’t know what happened or why they changed their mind, but they saw that she had successfully delivered a child, and they grew worried. Started thinking that she was going to start telling humans in town.”

  “She would never, though . . . would she?” Annie was quick to defend her mother, but she didn’t have any memories or even know what she was like. Hell, Annie had thought she had a dead mother. Knowing that she was potentially alive was throwing her whole universe off balance.

  “She would never, especially because she knew that it could put you in danger, possibly,” Hann smiled, memories completely overtaking his mind. “From the first day she found out she was pregnant with you, she was beyond happy. So excited to see her little baby grow up.” Hann sighed as if the weight of holding in the story was still exhausting him.

  “Father . . .�
� Annie trailed off, not knowing how to ask what happened to her mother. “What . . . what happened to Mother?”

  “The Elders . . . they asked to question her. They wanted to make sure that she wasn’t going to say anything . . . that she was still of stable mind, I guess. So, they asked to see her alone. I had to comply, even though I desperately wanted to just run away from them with her and you. I was intent on becoming a rogue, keeping you both away from them and everyone. I would’ve sacrificed everything for you two.”

  Hearing her father admit that he was going to become a rogue shocked Annie to her core. Being a rogue wasn’t just some little thing to admit, it was almost blasphemy in the shifter world.

  “But you didn’t?” Annie asked, keeping him going.

  “Charlotte wouldn’t let me,” Hann said, referencing her mother. “She told me that she was going to answer all their questions honestly, and that everything would be okay. When the Elders questioned her, they left after, saying that they would be back again after talking with the others for more questions. I knew that they wouldn’t leave us alone, have you ever heard of Elders just letting things be? It’s not in their nature, it wasn’t then, and it isn’t now.

  “So, Charlotte and I, we hashed everything out. Went through every version that this thing could play out, every alternative that we had. I wanted to run, I wanted to run so desperately, but your mother wouldn’t let me. She said that I had a job as the alpha, and that she wouldn’t put the curse of raising her little girl with a target on her back.”

  “What happened then? You guys didn’t run . . . so the Elders came back and took her away?” Annie asked, feeling like she was going to throw up.

  “No, darling,” her father said, twisting the wedding ring he wore to this day around his finger. “No, your mother decided to sacrifice herself instead of all of us making that sacrifice. So, in the middle of the night, she ran. Took a bag of things, a little bit of money, and ran. She left a note, saying that it was the only thing she could think of. I haven’t seen her since.