Dark Moon Falls: Volume 2

by Bella Roccaforte

  “You’re so stupid.” Nigel smiled and shook his head. “You got the day wrong again. Now, we’ll have to let down our friends, and I’m not taking the blame. You better message everyone and admit you got the day wrong and we can’t make it tonight because I already told you weeks ago that I have a work event and I need you there.”

  She was absolutely convinced his work event had been on a different day. She knew because she’d double checked after they’d already bailed twice in a row.

  “Can’t you miss the work thing? We’ve let them down twice already.” She braced herself, knowing her question wouldn’t go over well.

  “You, darling. You let them down.” He shook his head, smile gone now. “And no, I cannot miss a work event for your silly friends. Give me your phone.” He didn’t wait for her to pass it over, instead, he simply took it, entered the code, and started to text.

  After a moment, he handed it back to her. She read the text to their…her friend with dismay.

  Sorry, but I’ve messed up again. Can’t make tonight. Have a work thing with Nigel I need to go to. Enjoy yourselves. Speak soon. X

  “It’s a bit blunt.” She felt sick as she saw the three dots appear that meant her friend Cassie was typing.

  Whatever, don’t worry about it. Call me sometime.

  Oh, crap, Cassie was pissed; it was obvious.

  “I’ll just call her,” Rebecca said to Nigel. She could soothe it over if she and Cassie talked.

  He took her phone again, put it in his pocket and guided her out of the room by her shoulders, to the bedroom. “No time, call later, you need to get ready.”

  She sighed, but didn’t argue. He would only be awful all night if she did.

  The scene changed and suddenly she was no longer in her own home, but on a beach.

  Nigel was chatting with two young women. He’d gone to get them both an ice cream and was eating his as he talked, while hers melted. He’d stopped by the women on his way past and was doing his usual charming routine. The one he seemed to wow all the ladies with. It was unfair because if she talked to two men in such a way, he’d go crazy. He returned to her a few minutes later and handed her an ice cream with a soggy cone and not much of the ice cream left. She smiled and thanked him.

  They were having sex now and he was holding her down but it had gone from being a bit of a game to being scary. He was hurting her. She told him, twice, but he laughed and pressed her wrists harder into the mattress.

  Then they were there…the place she dreaded. She tried for a moment to wrestle herself out of the trance, to surface for much needed sunlight and air. She couldn’t stay in this dark place. No, no way.

  “It’s okay, Rebecca, stay calm, this isn’t real, and he can’t hurt you now, but you need to remember, for your own healing.” Dr. Rogers’s voice broke through the panic. “Where are you?”

  “In my kitchen.”

  “Where is Nigel?”

  “Standing in front of me, and he’s angry…so angry. He’s got my diary in his hand…been reading it…so embarrassing, it’s personal.”

  He advanced on her menacingly. “Think you’re going to leave me, do you? Well, I have news for you, darling, you don’t get to decide when this ends, I do.”

  Somehow, she dug deep and found her courage. “No, Nigel. You get to control a lot of things, but not this. I most certainly do decide when it ends, and I would like you to leave now, please.”

  “You fucking bitch. You’re a nobody, a nothing. I took you under my wing, and you were finally becoming a someone, and you think you can throw all I’ve done for you in my face.” He screamed the last word and then he pulled his arm back and punched her, straight in the face.

  The pain was astonishing. She hit the ground and couldn’t believe that a man as wiry as Nigel could put so much force into a blow.

  Oh, God, had he broken her jaw?

  She didn’t move, instead she waited for him to storm out so she could call an ambulance…possibly the police too.

  “You don’t get to leave me, you’re mine. I’ll never let you go.”

  And then it began.

  “Okay, Rebecca, breathe, slowly for me, in and out.” Dr. Rogers’s concerned face swam into focus.

  Rebecca was being told to breathe for the second time that day, and she hated that Nigel was right. She hadn’t escaped, had she? He did still control her because he’d scared her so badly, she’d hidden her memories.

  Now, though, she’d found them, and Nigel had shown something to her in the flashback, something that would help her find him.

  She needed to talk to Josh.

  10

  Josh

  He knocked on the door of Jagger’s home and waited impatiently. If Jagger wasn’t here, he’d most likely be at work.

  Storm appeared at the door with a smile on her face. “Oh, hey, Josh.”

  “Hi Storm, is Jagger home?”

  “Yes, he’s just out back, give me a moment and I’ll call him.”

  Josh didn’t know how Jagger would take his request, but he needed to ask.

  He’d spent the morning investigating and he hadn’t liked what he found. It hadn’t been too hard to find out who Rebecca really was…Louisa Varley. When she’d been screaming in her sleep, she’d shouted no Nigel, three or four times. He knew she’d been badly assaulted and that it had taken place in England. So, he’d scoured the news stories on the internet for a serious domestic assault with a perp named Nigel. He’d struck gold after only thirty minutes or so. The newspaper was a local paper and it had run with the story of a horrible attack on a woman, thought to be perpetrated by her boyfriend who was now missing.

  Nigel was a piece of work. He was also wanted for embezzlement and since the attack, the police found more stories about him from women who had come forward. A police officer involved in the case had said that Nigel was a dangerous man, a malignant narcissist who had been accused of stalking behavior in the past. With all he’d learned, coupled with the stranger’s scent and footsteps outside Rebecca’s cabin, Josh was convinced that Nigel was here and watching her.

  “Josh.” Jagger came to the door, his demeanor a whole lot more serious than Storm’s had been. He got it. Josh was still a new entity in town, and he needed to prove himself. He was sure not all of the pack had wanted him here. Josh was a powerful shifter, and if he’d wanted to go in that direction, he could maybe have one day become Alpha of his pack. After they were killed, Josh could have started his own pack, or tried to, but he didn’t want that. He didn’t want the responsibility. He’d fought for his country, and now all he wanted was a quiet life and to protect Kat…or it had been all he’d wanted, until a certain sexy artist crashed into his life.

  “Can we talk?” he asked Jagger.

  “Sure, come on in.” Jagger led him through to the living room and gestured for him to sit.

  “What’s going on?”

  He laughed. “Well, I’m not entirely sure…but I think I might have found my fated mate.”

  Jagger’s eyebrows rose comically. “Not sure?”

  “She’s human, and I know,” he said, holding his hand up, “that so is Storm and that there are wolves here with human mates, but my pack was very different in some of it’s beliefs from the pack here in Dark Moon Falls. We were taught it wasn’t okay to mate a human.”

  “Man, I don’t know what you want me to tell you, but if she’s your fated mate…she’s your fated mate. Wolf, human, witch, or fairy fucking princess.”

  He chuckled. “Yeah, I’m kind of coming around to believing it myself, but that’s not why I’m here.”

  “Okay, good, I mean do I look like Ann Landers to you?”

  He chuckled but Jagger’s face remained hard. Wow, he wasn’t making this easy. Not that Josh could blame him. Storm had reached out to him and Kat a few times and asked them over, but he’d always declined. Maybe he’d hurt her feelings?

  “No, you most certainly do not. The thing is, Rebecca…”

 
; “Whoa, Rebecca, the artist, that’s your fated mate?”

  “Yes…why?”

  “No…nothing, I was going to say I was surprised is all because she’s a real loner…but then so are you, so actually you fit well.”

  “Yeah, thanks, I think. The thing is, Deputy, I believe she’s in danger, and I believe it is danger that could affect the pack.”

  Jagger became more alert at those words. His posture changed as he sat forward, and his eyes hardened. “If you think there could be danger to the pack, you need to tell Elias. You need to inform him anyway because if Rebecca becomes your mate, she’ll be pack.”

  “I know, and I will, but I wanted to talk to you first because you’re the police, and I think this might be a police matter.” He took the printout of the news story out of his pocket and handed it to Jagger.

  He read it and then pursed his lips. “I’m calling Elias. You know, he said there was something that Rebecca was hiding, when she came here. I distinctly remember the conversation, but he also said he sensed she herself didn’t pose a threat to us, and that she was being truthful. With what she told us about her past, it seems she lied.”

  “What did she tell you?”

  “That she was attacked by an ex, but he wasn’t an issue now, and that was about it. She didn’t say how severe it was, or that he was some psycho stalker, or any other pertinent information.”

  “I don’t think she was lying as such. I think she’s blocked a lot of it out. She has night terrors, and that’s how I found this information out. There’s more. The other night there were footprints around her cabin, and a male’s scent, one I didn’t recognize as part of this pack. I think someone is sniffing around her home, and I think that’s why she had the night terror I witnessed.”

  He stopped, realizing he’d given away far more than he meant to about their relationship.

  Jagger’s mouth twitched to one side momentarily before he sobered again. “Leave this with me, and I’ll speak to Elias and get back to you. I’ll also get a patrol to do a regular sweep of the area around Rebecca’s cabin, okay?”

  “Thanks,” Josh said and got up to shake Jagger’s hand.

  He headed back to his house, worry weighing heavily on him. He wanted Kat safe, and she should be, while she was with Sally. The girl’s father was a strong shifter, and he lived so close to Levi, the head of the hunters, that Josh had to assume Kat would be safe with them for a few days while he sorted this out. One thing had been patently clear to him after they’d made love for the third time; he couldn’t leave Rebecca to deal with this alone. She was his now, whether she understood it or not.

  Josh knew he’d have to tread carefully with the whole, me shifter, you my mate, thing because she’d been through hell at the hands of a controlling man and he didn’t want her thinking he’d be the same way. She might be his mate, but he didn’t want to control how she lived her life…he simply wanted to be able to share it with her. Humans though, tended to find the speed and certainty with which shifters found their mates troubling, or so he’d heard.

  When he reached his home, after calling Sally’s father on his way and making sure Kat could stay another night or two, he paused before approaching the door. There was something different, something wrong, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He scented the air, and pondered whether or not to change into his wolf, but there wasn’t any sign of anyone having been near his home. So why the unease?

  Shaking his head at his paranoia, Josh put his key in the lock, stepped inside, and froze.

  A woman with long hair, so long it reached her calves, was standing in his house, perusing the books on the shelves in the hallway. What the hell?

  She turned to him and smiled, and it made his blood run cold.

  “Ah, Josh, finally. The wanderer returns.”

  “Who the hell are you, and how did you get in my house?”

  “I paid her to do it.” A man stepped out of the shadows and Josh recognized him right away. Nigel.

  “You’re fucking stupid coming here to my home,” Josh snarled. The man clearly had a death wish.

  “I would indeed be stupid,” Nigel replied in his plummy accent. “If I hadn’t put in place some…guarantees. However, I have put those guarantees in place. That’s what my pet witch is for.”

  Josh looked at the woman, and it all clicked. She was a witch. It was why he hadn’t sensed Nigel being in his house, and it was also why he knew with sinking clarity he was in deep trouble. Some witches had incredibly powerful magic, and if this one did, he was in an unfair fight from the start.

  He tried to shift, but couldn’t.

  “Oh, no, dear.” The witch chuckled. “We can’t have you in your wolf form, can we now? A little binding magic has stopped you from being able to shift.”

  “You won’t get away with this,” Josh said to Nigel. “I already alerted our police department to your presence.”

  He laughed. “I don’t care if I do or don’t get away with it. I only want to stop you from having her. I saw you last night, you disgusting pigs. You don’t get to touch what is mine.”

  He was there? Last night? At Rebecca’s cabin? Shit, Josh had been so consumed by Rebecca he hadn’t been alert to potential danger. Nigel can’t have come too close, or Darcy would have alerted them, but Josh should still have been aware, alert to the threat. This was on him and him alone.

  “What are you going to do to Rebecca?” he asked.

  Nigel laughed again. “You don’t need to worry about that. You need to worry about what I’m about to do to you.”

  11

  Rebecca

  She walked down the path toward her cabin with so many emotions warring within her. She’d put Josh in danger, but today, she’d been braver than at any other time in her life to try and mitigate that danger.

  She knew now that Nigel would be coming here sooner or later, and she knew how to find him, how to trace him through his new ID and new name. He’d been stupid enough to let her see it when he attacked her. His wallet had obviously fallen out of his pocket, and it had been open, lying on its side when she’d been scrabbling to try and reach a knife to defend herself. Now, she needed to tell someone in Dark Moon Falls to be on the lookout for a William Pemberly. Not sure who to turn to, having had little contact with the folks here, she turned on her heel, and walked back to town, not too surprised when she found herself outside Storm and Jagger’s house.

  Storm had asked her to dinner, and Jagger worked at the police department, and they were the only people she could think of to ask for help. She knocked once and the door swung open quickly. Storm smiled at her and laughed. “My, we are popular today.”

  Rebecca didn’t take the time to ask her what she meant. Instead, she plunged straight into her story.

  “I think I need help,” she said. “There’s a man, he may be after me, and possibly could be a danger to the town. “

  “Yes, we know. Josh came to see Jag earlier today.”

  She looked beyond Storm to see Jagger, and next to him, looking stern and commanding, was Elias.

  “He did? But how does he know the name Nigel is using now?”

  “He doesn’t,” Jagger said. “He simply told me he thought you were in danger and that the threat might go wider than that.”

  “Which, frankly, you should have told us when we gave you sanctuary,” Elias noted.

  “I…I…I didn’t know,” she stammered. “I swear. Yes, I was running from Nigel when I came here, but I honestly had no idea he’d try to come after me, or what he was capable of. I’d somehow blanked most of the attack out.”

  “You could have easily read about it in the papers,” Jagger said.

  “That’s just it, though, don’t you understand?” she beseeched them. “I did try, at first, but I’d only get so far in before I’d start to shake, and vomit, and basically fall to pieces. The media always started with vivid descriptions of what Nigel did to me, so I never got far enough to read the other things.”
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  “But you have now?” Storm was the voice of calm among the three of them.

  “Not as such, no. I had hypnotherapy today and remembered a lot, and then my therapist, with my permission, looked up the reports of the attack, and she told me the main details. I knew Nigel was an awful man, but I had no idea he’d stalked women before, sometimes for years, and that he was considered predatory and extremely dangerous. I swear, I simply assumed he’d lost it with me, and beaten me.”

  Elias seemed more sympathetic when he spoke this time. “This puts a different light on things,” he said. “You can’t be responsible if you didn’t know. I’m sorry if I seemed harsh before, but I have to protect my pack, and if people aren’t truthful with me, it makes it hard to do so.”

  She understood, but she didn’t want these men thinking she’d lied or purposefully put anyone in danger.

  Sharp pain sliced through Rebecca’s head, making her wince, and she fell against the side of the door, clutching her forehead.

  “What is it?” Storm asked as she rushed to her, supporting her by the elbow. “Do you feel faint?”

  Images flashed into her mind. Of Josh…with some woman with long hair and sharp features and then…oh, no. Nigel.

  “It’s Josh,” she whispered. “I think he’s in danger.”

  “What? How do you know?” Jagger asked. “Are you a witch?”

  “No…but my grandmother always said I had the sight.” She wanted to cry in relief that it was finally coming to the fore when she needed it the most…to save Josh.

  “Some witches have the sight,” Jagger said, suspiciously.

  “Never mind that for now,” Elias stated. “Right now, we need to help Josh. Do you know where he is?” he asked Rebecca.

  She shook her head. “No, sorry. I just saw him with some woman with very long hair, and with Nigel. My ex. I think the woman has magic powers. I don’t know how I know but, I think she does.”

  “Jag, you come with me,” Elias ordered. “You’re our best tracker. If anyone can find Josh, you can. Storm, can you keep Rebecca company until you hear from us?”