Moans in the Night

by Miranda Bailey

  Moans in the Night

  Shifter Menage Romance

  Miranda Bailey

  Copyright © Lovy Books Ltd, 2016

  * * *

  Miranda Bailey has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  * * *

  This book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  * * *

  In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.

  * * *

  Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher.

  * * *

  Lovy Books Ltd

  20-22 Wenlock Road

  London N1 7GU

  Part I

  To S, you know why… and thanks are given to CW Smith and K Warren for some very creative thinking!

  * * *

  Part II

  To a certain Lady I, whose love of things that begin with “p” continually makes me smile, offers encouragement, and support that allows me to carry on, doing something I really love…

  Contents

  About the Book

  I. The Beginning

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  II. Zyana

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  About the Author

  About the Book

  Two incredibly hot men. One is her husband, the other their best friend. She wants them both. She can have them both, if they can stay alive, at the end of the world.

  Isadora has a problem. No, it's not really the zombies outside; it's the two men she's sheltered with. One is her husband, the other their best friend. The tension builds over the weeks until it finally breaks one night and a moment of stolen passion could lead to either heartbreak or a completely new life for them all. Is she brave enough to take that chance? Have the whispers of her husband only been the fantasies he unleashes only in the dark or a reality unlike any she could ever dream of? As the world falls apart outside and the trio do, their best to survive Isadora knows the time is coming when she’ll have to answer these questions. Isadora knows that if she’s brave enough she could have it all, and then the zombies won’t be the only ones moaning in the night.

  * * *

  This is not your typical romance

  Part I

  The Beginning

  1

  “Samuel, get Isadora inside. Make sure to lock yourselves in but stand by the door so that you can let me in once I get through this pile of them. I’m going to distract them so you two can get by without the whole lot of them following you.” Jacob, my husband, stared out at the herd of about twenty-five of our former neighbours, now mere shadows of their former selves.

  The three of us were hiding behind a pile of railroad ties that seemed to have become part of the scenery three years ago but now acted as a screen for us. We’d gone out searching for supplies only to find that some of the undead had wandered up the tracks to our house. It happened occasionally as the creatures’ urge to spread the parasite inside them continued despite a lack of fresh victims.

  The fast growing parasite, the only known cause of the death and almost resurrection of countless people across the globe, was of unknown and of non-terrestrial origin. When we still had time to speculate we’d wondered if the parasite was an alien life-form but I’d also wondered if the parasite had come from melted polar ice-caps or an underground cavern deep under the ocean that had opened up due to the increase in earthquakes felt around the globe lately. But surely the pressure difference would have killed the parasite as it rose?

  My thoughts quickly crashed back to the present as I heard one of the creatures let out a strangled moan, this one a preacher I’d met once in town and quickly walked away from. I only recognized him now by the green wooden cross he still wore around his neck. His face was now peeling away from his skull, his jaw hanging only by a tendon on one side of his face, the other half looked as though it had been split with a machete. A machete similar to the one on my hip I’d guess.

  “Jacob, you can’t handle them on your own, let Samuel and I help you. I’ve been practicing with the machete when I’m down in the basement washing clothes.” I didn’t want my husband out here on his own but I was talking to a man whose main concern was my safety. Even now he’d positioned himself so that I was in the middle between his body and Samuel’s. It wasn’t chauvinism, it was love that made Jacob seek to protect me and I knew it but I wanted the opportunity to at least prove to myself that I didn’t always need defending. I needed to know I could defend myself. In this world not being able to defend yourself meant you weren’t going to live long. My somewhat dead but not quite there yet neighbours proved that. I could see rough and rowdy coal miners that could usually haul twice their own weight in that pack today.

  It’s a good thing their muscles deteriorated or the coming fight would be even harder on all of us. I sent Jacob a pleading look and he finally broke my gaze, looking over at Samuel. Samuel shrugged and gave Jacob one of those looks that screamed, “I don’t want her machete in my head, buddy, for agreeing with you, fight your own battle.”

  “Look babe, it’s going to be easier and quicker if we just do it my way. We’ll all be inside eating those eggs we found as scrambled eggs before we know it if you’d just do it my way for now.” Jacob’s tone was pleading, his hand going up to my shoulder to add emphasis to his plea.

  I looked down at his hand, at his worried face, and out at the group that could end all of our lives with a simple scratch or bite. Taking a deep but quiet breath I nodded my head, agreeing with him silently. Today wasn’t my day to volunteer to be put on the proving grounds.

  “Right, thank you. I’m going to head over to that other pile of ties then I’ll signal to you two before I do anything.” Jacob pointed over at another pile of ties about ten feet to the left of our position. The house was to our right, a ten foot tall fence and gate between us and the door about fifty feet away. “Once they’re moving, run quietly but quickly and get in the house. Leave the gate open, I’ll shut it. The door to the house is unlocked so just get the door open quietly and get inside.”

  Jacob took my shoulder once more, kissed me quietly on the forehead, and whispered in my ear that he loved me before he quietly crawled over to the other pile of ties. The almost dead neighbours, some missing limbs, all suffering from wounds that should have proven fatal, didn’t even twitch as Jacob made it to the ties. Their attention had been caught by a noise at the other end of the small herd. I looked and saw that one had a piece of barbed wire wrapped around his ankle, the end trailing through dormant blackberry vines. It was enough to distract them, braindead creatures that they were.

  Suddenly Jacob was standing, shouting just loud enough to draw the attention of our not so neighbourly neighbours while Samuel and I slowly crept from behind our own pile of ties. The last thing I saw was Jacob standing there, waving his arms, before I looked straight ahead of me while staring a hole through the strong steel gate that was hung at the midway point of the fence. I was so focused on that gate that I didn’t notice the zombie with the barbed wire caught in its pant leg break off and head straight for me.
>
  We didn’t think the critters could see, their eyes were white and cloudy a sure sign of blindness, but this one seemed to be looking right at me, its arms coming up to grab at me as it made the strangled noise that passed for a scream. Samuel made a strange garbled noise and I looked back just as Barbwire Bill grabbed me. You don’t scream in the world of today, it only draws more attention. We learned early on to control even that release of emotion because it could get us killed. I pulled my machete out of the loop it was hanging from and buried it right in the thing’s head, not worrying about pulling it back out. Samuel was behind me then, rushing me to the fence and through the gate, I looked back long enough to see Jacob stabbing one of the rotten things in the head with a cast iron fire poker. Laugh all you want but it was effective.

  One of the worst things you can do is draw their attention, or make enough noise that you’re heard throughout the town. You can fire off all of the shots you want to but all you’ll do is draw more of them in your direction. As I said, we’d learned early on to make as little noise as possible. I wasn’t exactly sure how Jacob was going to lose them but I knew he had a plan. My last sight of him before Samuel shut the heavy door was of Jacob waving his arms, making slight whistling noises to keep them following him up the trail beside the railroad tracks. My chest clenched up as the door shut and I lost my view of Jacob.

  “You stay at the door, I’m going to get the rifle and keep an eye on him from upstairs as long as I can.”

  I watched up until Jacob went around the bend in the road, weeds, trees, and shrubbery now grown up along the path blocking my sight. Jacob would have to go through that to the bridge we had to cross over to get across the river that ran along the back edge of the house. My sight would be blocked until he was on the bridge. I ran up the stairs to watch him from the other side of the house, I had to know what was happening.

  Ah, I could see what he was doing now; he was going to run down the road that stretched in front of the bridge and come back over another bridge not far up the road. The other bridge was hidden by weeds now, as long as Jacob could get over that bridge without making any noise or being seen the putrid critters would keep marching down the road. Not that this meant we were any safer from zombies, more always seemed to show up, following the path of least resistance up the tracks, perhaps.

  For now my husband was safe, our best friend was safe, and I was safe. When Jacob finally made it back to our front yard I ran down the stairs to the door, impatiently waiting as he locked the gate before coming in. Our home was slowly turning into an impenetrable fort as this disaster went on. We’d find something on our infrequent trips out and bring it back with us, working as quietly as possible. The fence and gate had been put up before the outbreak though, zombies of the drug-fuelled kind making our lives miserable with theft and stolen telephone lines long before a parasite changed our entire worlds. Since then we’d added to the fence as and when we could and made a few other alterations.

  Jacob finally made it to the door and I flung myself into his arms while Samuel shook his hand. I kissed every square inch of his face that I could before I let him go.

  “Whose turn is it to cook?” He asked as he stumbled in, a pack on his back full of supplies we would add to our stock. Fresh food was the hardest thing to get our hands on and I really hoped those eggs we’d found on a farm not far from here were fresh and not old. Or broken in the pack now. We were going back for any chickens we could find in a few days but for now it was time for showers, food, and settling in for the night.

  “I do believe that honour is yours Jacob.” Samuel said with a smug grin. “You hit the jackpot of tasks today! But you’re a better cook than me so more power to you buddy. Have at it!”

  Jacob shot Samuel a rude gesture with his finger and turned to walk away.

  “By the way, Isadora, I saw you take that zombie down, babe. Good job. We’ll get your machete back in the morning.” Jacob said as he walked back to the kitchen.

  I was pleased that he noticed, and that he acknowledged my effort. I knew I loved that man.

  I went into the bathroom, showering quickly before falling on the bed for a nap. It had been a long day of quietly stalking through tall weeds, pulling bugs off of me as I went, searching houses, and hauling goods home. My pack was still outside, hidden in some shrubs. It would have to be retrieved tomorrow.

  We’d come up the path to spot the small herd and we’d hidden Samuel’s pack and mine, Jacob’s the only one with anything delicate in it. We hadn’t retrieved them before heading to the pile of ties so that we wouldn’t have to carry their weight with us when we ran for the fence. I’m glad now I didn’t have it on me when Barbwire Bill came at me, my balance would have been off by a mile. I just needed a little nap now to get me through the rest of the day. Just a little one.

  Twenty minutes later Jacob woke me up to eat fresh scrambled eggs with dried onions. It was divine to have something fresh and not out of metal can. And miles better than the dried eggs we’d been putting off eating.

  Real eggs, the world wasn’t totally going to hell then!

  I kept checking the windows but the undead were stubborn and not leaving. Three hours later one last glance before full darkness fell revealed that we were still stuck in the house. The zombies had come back while we were eating and they were now milling around on the railroad tracks, pushing each other around. It had been over two months since the dead came back to life, in my home-state of Virginia and around the world. Well, a form of life anyway, and we had mostly learned to pick our battles. We’d do without wood for the night. I spotted one of them pushing a partially skinned finger at the gate and I could imagine I heard the bare bone scraping against the metal.

  They were not able to get in but we could not get out either. They’d stopped being my former neighbours months ago and the wear and tear of their lives mixed with the harsh elements of a Virginia winter were starting to take their toll. Still, I am sure that one at the gate with the scuzzy blonde hair is that crazy guy that always wandered the road, walking back and forth all day long. Perhaps I should say it used to be him but isn’t anymore?

  The small herd gathered outside meant there was no firewood for the woodstoves this evening because we couldn’t get out to chop it now. January had faded into February, the coldest part of the year in the western part of the state, and we were feeling it without the stoves to keep us warm. We had kept warm most of the day by trekking around looking for supplies but now we were trying to stay warm with coats and blankets covering us. I knew it would be another night of sleeping between the other two occupants of the house, my husband and our best friend. It’d be warm but cramped. Again. I sighed and stood up, taking the bottle of water and bowl of molten ravioli Jacob handed me as a bedtime snack. I was thinking how we needed more wood and if there was anything left in the house to burn as I walked over to the bed.

  Getting under the covers, I watched as Jacob turned to me. He must have been thinking the same as me because he said:

  “We never seem to get enough wood, we gather it every time they aren’t out there, but still we never have enough. It doesn’t matter how much we get chopped and stacking within the fence, there’s just never enough. We’re going to have to rethink how we do this part. I can’t have my babe going to bed cold anymore.”

  I snickered and replied, “You seem to have no problems with wood, oh wonderful husband of mine.” Giving him a cheeky grin, I asked, “Where’s Samuel?”

  Waltzing over to the bed my husband grinned back while he stood over me. “He’s downstairs in the bathroom again. The guy either has bad guts or his dick is about to fall off from all the tugging he’s giving it.”

  “We’re freezing cold, there are zombies outside, we’ve been living on a diet of canned food for a month, and the internet is down so there’s no porn, what could he be so horny about? He’s always in the bathroom, it must be his guts!” I replied.

  “I think all this living with you has got h
im hot. He’s 25, dear, he’s always horny anyway. Then add in the fact that you’re a beautiful woman, even bundled up like you are. You’ve got all this lovely black hair, a stunning face, and this gorgeous set of breasts with these lovely dark nipples. It is very hard not to notice you even when it’s this fucking cold! Oh, and those brown eyes of yours. A body would have to be blind not to notice those eyes! I think he has plenty of mental porn to work out.” Laughing Jacob pulled me underneath him and kissed me. Hard. I might be a little fluffy but apparently that fluff didn’t detract from driving my husband wild, still.

  I felt his tongue moving over mine and tried to slide my hand under his shirts. He had on three t-shirts and a sweatshirt so there was quite a bit to get through. They were all tucked into his waistband so I had to pull them out. When the shirts came free, my hands glided over the silky smooth skin of his back, enjoying the heat radiating off of him. I stopped kissing him and grinned.

  “I told you you didn’t have a problem with wood, dearest” and kissed him again. My hands moved over his nipples and he moaned into my mouth.

  “Don’t tease” he said, “Samuel will be up soon and we can’t have him shocked and running back down to the bathroom. It’s going to be a cold night and we need some sleep.” Saying that he pressed his hips harder into the cradle of my legs completely negating the words he’d just spoken. Perhaps we could slip off later, once Samuel fell asleep? It was warm in the bathroom after all.