by L Ann
Contents
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
EPILOGUE
THE MIDNIGHT PACK
FROM THE AUTHOR
ALSO BY L. ANN
MIDNIGHT TEMPTATION
Copyright © 2019 by L. Ann.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations em- bodied in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by RebecaCovers
First Edition: December 2018
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To the real Gemma - for letting me borrow your name.
One Week Ago
At Cormac’s nod, Deacon split off from the rest of the pack and padded toward the door set back against the left wall of the hallway. While finding his twin brother and getting him home and back to safety was at the forefront of Deacon’s mind, he was also conscious of the fact they hadn’t been able to find any trace of Scarlet, their missing Pack female. And that worried Deacon more than he would admit. Her scent was non-existent, which meant she had never reached the mill.
Information they had collected over the past two days suggested their cousin, Damien, was keeping Shaun down in the cellar beneath the abandoned mill. Shaun’s scent was strong along the corridor they traversed, which confirmed their Intel had been correct. A female scent was also there, but it wasn’t as strong as Shaun’s nor did it follow one path. Hers weaved across the entire mill–from up inside the mill itself to the cellars beneath it. And that was the task Cormac had charged him with. It was Deacon’s job to find her … the human girl … Gemma.
A few long strides brought him to the closed door and Deacon stopped to listen. He could hear soft breathing, short hitched breaths–clear signs of fear. That, combined with the faint irregular heartbeat of someone on the verge of panic, told him it wasn’t Damien beyond the door. But, even with that confirmation, Deacon still took his time easing the door open.
The stench was the first thing to hit him. A mixture of blood, fear, urine and sex which made his eyes sting. Deacon lifted a hand to pinch his nostrils closed briefly while he scanned the room. An empty bed dominated the centre, the sheets rumpled and filthy. Along one wall was an old pitted desk and an empty bookcase.Papers and glass covered the desk and Deacon padded silently over to see if there was anything useful. An empty vial lying propped against the stained papers caught his eye, remnants of a faint coloured liquid pooled at the bottom. Lifting it to his nose he sniffed, and his lip curled up in disgust.
Belladonna.
Movement to his left made him drop the vial back to the desk and he spun, ready to defend himself, only to stop short at the sight which greeted him. A cage, the kind humans used for their large dogs, stood in the corner. He’d missed it when he entered the room because the bed had kept it hidden from view. A figure was hunched in the centre- the source of the heartbeat he’d heard from outside the room - and the vial of belladonna was forgotten, as his angry gaze met dark blue eyes .
Deacon’s lips peeled back from his teeth with a snarl, the sound reverberating around the room, and his eyes shifted from brown to gold as he strode across the room.
She was naked, kneeling with her hands wrapped around her stomach, shoulders curved inwards in a posture of submission. Her hair was a tangled, matted, sticky mess, but her eyes… they held his for a second before her lids dropped, and he had a quick glimpse of anger vying with disgust and horror within their depths.
Deacon crouched down, unwilling to think about what his senses were trying to tell him, and lowered his gaze to examine the padlock on the barred door.
“Do you know where the key is?” His voice held a low growl, and her heartbeat sped up at the sound. He checked himself, forced his wolf down and repeated the question. When he didn’t receive an immediate response, Deacon raised his head. “Gemma!” he barked. “The key?”
At her name, Gemma stirred, lifting her eyes to look at him, and shook her head slowly.
“It’s not in here.” Her reply was stilted, her voice raspier than he remembered. “He keeps it in his pocket.”
Deacon grunted. Something wasn’t right with the girl in front of him, his nose suggesting that there was something missing. But how could that be? Humans didn’t lose parts of their personality, he was sure of that. It had to be a survival response to being locked in a cage and dealing with everything Damien had done to her over the past two days. His fingers clenched on the padlock and he redirected his thoughts.
Gemma was watching him, he could smell her fear and anxiety, her desperate desire to get out, but she didn’t utter a single word. His wolf shifted restlessly inside his head, roused by the scent of terror, of prey, and of a female he had once had a short-lived delicious taste of. Ruthlessly squashing down his wolf’s attempt to redirect his attention and demand to hunt, he grasped the padlock tighter and twisted. Gemma stayed silent. She didn’t urge him to hurry, or beg him to release her, and he found her lack of reaction unnerving.
“Almost got it,” he ground out, needing to break the heavy silence, as the padlock began to bend and twist under his grip. “Cover your eyes in case anything breaks off.”
Her saw her hand rise on the peripheral of his vision and chanced a quick glance to be certain she was shielding her face before giving the lock a sharp twist. The padlock snapped free and the cage door swung open.
“Come on,” he urged, and reached in to draw her out.
Gemma shrank back from his touch and shook her head. “I can’t.”
Deacon frowned. “Why not?” The scent of shame was pungent as it rolled over him and his eyes narrowed. “Gemma, why can’t you?” he repeated.
Her hand lifted again, her movements slow and jerky, and she plucked at the thin silver collar around her throat. Deacon had been so intent on opening the cage, controlling his own anger, and avoiding looking at her too closely, other than to ensure she was in one piece, so he hadn’t seen it.
The collar was a type he recognised. Some bright spark had designed it a long time ago to stop a Shifter from being able to change from their human form to animal. It fit snugly around the human throat and if a shifter changed forms while wearing it, the metal would tighten and slice through the throat of the animal form, slitting the jugular and ending the life of the wearer.
Someone had attached the collar to a heavy chain and that was hanging from a hook on the wall just outside the cage – carefully positioned out of reach of her hand. Deacon rose to his feet and stalked around the ca
ge. He detached the chain from the hook and dropped it to the ground.
The second the chain slackened, Gemma sagged forward with a relieved gasp, and Deacon realised it had been the tension on the leash which had kept her in an upright position. Moving swiftly back to the cage’s open gate, he bent again and held out a hand.
“Let’s get out of here.”
Gemma looked at his waiting hand and, for the third time, shook her head. She waited until he withdrew before crawling out of the cage and carefully rising to her feet. Her arms returned to their position around her stomach and she swayed. When he reached out to steady her, she stepped back, avoiding his touch.
“If Damien discovers I’m gone, he’ll kill Shaun,” she whispered.
In the process of pulling off his jacket to wrap around her, Deacon paused and gave her a sharp look. “How do you know his name?”
“I know him.”
The acrid scent of fear assailed his nostrils. “Did he…” he paused, amended his question before he uttered it, unsure he would be able to control his wolf, who was already eager for bloodshed, if she confirmed his suspicions. “Did he hurt you?” he demanded, instead.
Gemma’s laugh was bitter. “Define hurt?”
“Gemma…”
“Don’t!” she cut in abruptly as she snatched the jacket out of his hand and slid her arms into its sleeves. “I don’t want to talk about it. Can we please leave?”
Deacon studied the woman standing in front of him. He didn’t interact much with humans, preferring to spend time with his own kind, but he knew females, and he had specifically made time to know this one. He wasn’t stupid, he knew what had happened to her, the marks on her body and the smells assaulting his nose confirmed at least part of it. Yet she stood before him with eyes flashing defiance, and he realised that, no matter what Damien had done to hurt her body, somehow he hadn’t been able to break her spirit.
“Stop staring at me.” He knew she’d meant to snap the words, but they came out as little more than a whisper.
“You are going to tell me what he did,” he told her, reaching out to tug the jacket around her and button it closed.
“It’s none of your business.” Gemma pushed him away, and walked around him toward the door.
“Wait. We need to remove the collar.”
Gemma stopped, her back to him and her spine tense. “Can you get it off me?” she asked, eventually.
“Yes. We managed to get our hands on some a few years ago and figured out the trick to them. Tip your head forward,” he instructed. He waited until Gemma bowed her head, and carefully pushed her hair over one shoulder, revealing the silver band. His hand hovered over the bruises around her throat. “There’s a notch,” he explained, his voice giving no hint of the anger he felt coursing through his body, and slipped his fingers beneath the metal. “It’s angled so that the wearer can’t comfortably reach it, but all it takes is….” He put pressure to the indent and gave a satisfied nod when it parted and fell. “There. Now we can leave.”
No sooner had the words left his lips, Gemma started forward. Deacon followed close on her heels, skirting around her to slip through the doorway first and check no one was waiting in the corridor.
Twice she stumbled on the walk back through the cellar, and twice she rebuffed his attempts to steady her. When it happened a third time, he couldn’t stop a growl of exasperation. He grabbed the back of his jacket to stop her forward progress and swung her up into his arms.
“I can walk.” Deacon felt her stiffen before pushing against his shoulders. “Let me down.”
“Your feet are bare, there’s glass on the ground and I can walk faster.” He ignored her struggles, tightened his hold and quickened his pace. Gemma continued to fight against him, twisting in his arms and Deacon knew he needed to find a way to make her comply so he could focus on their surroundings instead of whether or not he was going drop her.
“You know,” he drawled, opting to act like he hadn’t found her naked in a cage, “if I drop you, you’ll land on your ass in the dirt. You should probably be aware that I will laugh.” Gemma froze at his softly-spoken warning and he risked a glance down at her. “That’s better.”
“What about your brother? Shouldn’t you be looking for him?”
“Mac has it in hand.” He kept his concern for his twin out of his voice, and hoped his words were true. “Did you see anyone else, aside from Damien?” he asked, as he padded up the steps and paused just inside the doorway to scan the area.
At his cousin’s name, she trembled against him, the fingers of one hand clenching the collar of the jacket. “No.”
Deacon grunted, and set out across the empty field, conscious of the moving target they made. He hurried to where the Pack had parked their two SUV’s and, as he rounded the corner, the driver-side door of one of the cars opened. Asher stepped out.
Without being asked, his Pack-Brother opened the back door and moved to one side so Deacon could climb inside with Gemma. He settled her onto the seat, then twisted to face her.
“I need to know what he did to you.”
Gemma turned to look out of the window, visibly dismissing him. “No, Deacon, you don’t. Why don’t you just go and help your brother find Shaun. We both know that’s where you’d rather be. Where you would be if someone hadn’t told you to find me instead.”
“If I rushed out there now, it could disrupt whatever Mac is doing. I’m right where I’m supposed to be.” He reached out a hand, let it hover near her shoulder and then dropped it without making contact. “Talk to me.”
“We’re here.” Deacons voice woke Gemma with a start.
When had she fallen asleep?
She blinked, raised a hand to rub her eyes and stopped.
Was she lying down?
Awareness of a hard thigh beneath her cheek, a warm hand resting on the curve of her hip, trapped the breath in her throat.
“Let me up.”
“I’m not stopping you.”
“Your hand -”
“Is making sure you don’t fall off the seat,” Deacon finished. “I had to unhook your seatbelt when you fell asleep so you could lie down.” He lifted his hand away, watched while she pushed herself back into a seated position, then turned to open the door.
Climbing out, he turned and reached in to take her hand and helped her out. Gemma released his hand the second she stood beside him, her eyes on the ground.
“Cassie is on the porch,” he murmured and she lifted her head, seeking out her sister.
Smile or she’ll know something is wrong.
She forced her lips into a smile and took a step forward. Deacon caught her arm before she took a second step.
“Let me just make sure Shaun is stable and I’ll take you inside.”
“No,” Gemma frowned. “Shaun is going to need you.”
He scowled at her, brows pulling together. “You’re almost dead on your feet. I don’t want you collapsing where no one can see you.” He reached out to close the top two buttons on the jacket she was wearing.
Gemma jerked back, pushed his hands away. “Stop it. You’ve done your duty and brought me here.”
“It’s not duty, Starshine,” he said, roughly. “I would have come for you anyway.”
“Don’t.” She didn’t want his kindness, not now, not while everyone was watching. “Go to your brother.”
“Gemma -”
“Go!” she snapped, and he fell back, hands raised in an expression of defeat. Gemma spun and crossed the ground to where Cassie stood.
Her sister’s arms wrapped around her, and Gemma forced herself not to pull away.
“Are you okay?” Cassie asked.
Gemma nodded. “I’m fine. Shook up, but nothing I won’t get over.” She pulled back, wanting to warn Cassie about what she was going to see. “I saw what he did to Shaun. Cassie, you need to be ready.”
Her sister’s breath stuttered, and her gaze moved past her to the second car where the men gather
ed.
“How bad is it?” Cassie asked, quietly.
Gemma hesitated, her arms tightening involuntary around her sister. She saw Deacon’s head turn slowly and their eyes met.
“It’s bad,” she told Cassie softly. “From the talk I overheard, they think he’ll make it. But … he looks so bad, Cassie.” Gemma dropped her arms and caught Cassie’s hand in hers, entwining their fingers. “Look, they’re bringing him out now.”
They stood together, watching as Cormac and Deacon worked with the rest of the Pack to lift Shaun out of the car. Once they had him in place on the stretcher, they moved toward the house and Cassie fell into line behind them as they carried him inside. Deacon shot an unreadable look in her direction as he passed them.
Gemma followed the small group indoors, turning toward the TV room where she could see Isabella and Roxie - neither of whom noticed her standing there.
As the hallway cleared of Pack members, leaving her alone, she let out a shuddering breath. Part of her wanted to chase after them, to hang on to the warmth and security being close to Deacon offered her, tell him she’d changed her mind and did want his company, while another part dismissed her need as weak and ridiculous.
Deacon may have expressed an interest in bedding her at one point in the few weeks she’d known him, but he had made it clear it was nothing more than an itch he wanted to scratch. Fixating on him as a security blanket now, after what had happened, was crazy. He was being kind to her now because his Alpha had instructed him to watch over her.
While something had attracted him to her once, that was before…
She felt her heart rate increase as memories from the past three days threatened to overwhelm her, and she swayed, squeezing her eyes closed.
Don’t think about it!
Gemma dipped her head to bury her face into the collar of the jacket Deacon had given her, and his scent still clinging to the material calmed her pounding pulse.
“Gemma?”
The soft voice startled her, and Gemma jumped, her eyes snapping open and she pressed her lips closed on a scream before it escaped. Isabella glided into view, her expression sad.
