Moon Glamour
Samhain Shifters, Volume 1
Aimee Easterling
Published by Wetknee Books, 2020.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
MOON GLAMOUR
First edition. November 17, 2020.
Copyright © 2020 Aimee Easterling.
ISBN: 978-1393030768
Written by Aimee Easterling.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Epilogue
Charmed Wolf
Chapter 1
I showed up at the job interview with salt packets in my pocket and a grease stain on my right knee. Scanning the museum steps for a woman with a rose pinned to her blouse, I came up empty. Good. I was early enough to nip inside and wash up.
Unfortunately, I didn’t quite make it to the ladies’ room before words a human wouldn’t have been able to decipher percolated into my lupine-enhanced ears.
“I’d hit that.”
“Mm mm, me too!”
I turned just a little so the glass case I was walking past reflected the faces of the girls behind me. They were around my sister’s age. Sixteen, fueled by raging hormones, and currently proving that men weren’t the only ones who objectified members of the opposite sex.
“I mean look at that butt.”
“Can’t. Too busy with his biceps.”
They sounded like they wanted to lick the object of their admiration. And even though I was on a deadline, I swiveled all the way around so I could follow their gaze.
No wonder the girls were excited. The man leaning forward to peer at the brush strokes of a Renoir measured over six feet of rope-thick muscles. His shoulders were so wide I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had to turn sideways to fit through doorways.
He also moved with the grace of a werewolf. I flared my nostrils then coughed as my throat flooded with the wildness that only another shifter could exude.
My fists clenched. Coming face to face with a male werewolf was bad news, even if both of us were currently playing human. If I was lucky, this stranger would acknowledge my right to pass through a territory I didn’t rightfully belong in after he saw the rectangle of paper in my pocket. But my get-out-of-jail-free card wasn’t likely to hold up to many testings. Better to fly under the radar....
Leave. Now, my inner wolf whispered. Our heart rate sped up. Human feet were pointing toward the exit with wolf speed hurrying their motion when the girls hissed out disappointment.
“Ew. What a face.”
“I’d still do him...if he tied a bag over his head.”
Their words descended into giggles and curiosity stole my momentum. This time, I turned all the way around to see what grotesqueness had squashed their juvenile infatuation.
I was too late to catch more than a glimpse before the man angled his body away from us. I’d seen enough, however, to note the relevant facts.
Skin a middling brown that I suspected spoke to a Latin American heritage. Bushy eyebrows. A nose that had been broken and reset without medical attention. Scars, multiple scars.
But that wasn’t the reason the girls had reacted so negatively. The charisma of an alpha—and he was an alpha; I could smell that on him—should have attracted human women as thoroughly as it intrigued female werewolves. Only, something was off about this particular specimen. Something related to the scars streaking through what might otherwise have been appealing features.
I cocked my head, trying to understand the girls’ repulsion. This was an unexpected twist in the well-worn path of werewolf charisma. The strength of an alpha, apparently, could either attract or repel.
And as I squinted, I could almost see what had turned the teenagers off about Mr. Broad Shoulders. More than the scars. Something deeper....
Then I blinked and my face blindness kicked back in.
Well, my face blindness plus his evasive action. Instead of responding with the rage I would have expected, the alpha turned even further so we couldn’t catch even a glimpse of his supposed ugliness. Maybe that’s why I broke my cardinal rule—never draw attention to yourself.
“The perfect male body,” I mused aloud. “A rare art form. I believe I saw two specimens on the fourth floor, third gallery over from the stairs.”
I had, too. Last Sunday when I wandered through the Roman marbles. The men in question, let me be clear, were statues. Naked, though. Muscular. Perfectly featured. The girls would appreciate their chiseled physiques.
I was tempted to add a zinger. Something about the cold harshness that often went hand in hand with perfect masculine beauty. The warmth of spirit that was far more important outside museums.
But these girls were kids. Too young to know better.
So I let their giggling recede without dousing them in the cold water of adult wisdom. Then I turned my own feet toward the exit, already thinking ahead to my upcoming meeting...
...and ran into a wall of hot, living werewolf chest.
“THAT WAS SWEET, CHICA.” His voice was deep, gravelly. Before I could retreat, he took a single step sideways. Now he was toeing the line of appropriate personal space while also opening my path to the exit in case I needed to make a run for it.
And I did need to make a run for it. I’d wasted my hand-washing minute educating teenagers. If I didn’t leave now, I’d be late to the job interview. Which, in turn, was likely to cascade into making me late visiting my sister. Late preventing family drama from a stepfather who reveled in inserting monkey wrenches into my well-laid plans.
But my feet merely swiveled so I could stare upward into the face of the stranger. He was taller than I’d thought from a distance. Maybe because he’d been striving at the time not to scare gawking teenagers? Had his shoulders been hunched earlier? His spine bent?
Whatever the reason, I was the scared one now. Or maybe scared wasn’t the proper word. Some heavy emotion I couldn’t quite fathom struck me in the chest area. It was abruptly hard to breathe.
“But unnecessary,” the man continued, and for a moment I forgot what he was talking about. “I know what I look like.”
Oh, right. Human standards of external beauty.
“We have such a strange obsession with facial symmetry,” I observed, forgetting for a moment that I was talking to a male werewolf who could likely freeze me in my steps and force me to do his bidding. “Presumably based on the evolutionary advantage of choosing the healthiest mate. Infections during childhood....”
“These scars didn’t come from childhood infection.” His head cocked and he smiled, a slow display of sharp teeth that
—I’ll admit—sent a tremor down my spine. I flinched and his mouth snapped shut, lips going instantly flat.
“I apologize.” His eyes struck the floor, as if he was afraid of me.
I wanted to stay and tell him he had nothing to apologize for. Because even as the tremor flew through me, I understood it for what it was—instinct no more rational than that which had disgusted the teenagers.
But I was late. My sister needed the cash this job would offer.
And this man was a werewolf. Dangerous to me in ways I couldn’t afford to handle. A threat to my tenuous understanding with another alpha, one that allowed me to see my sister while she lived far too close to the heart of his territory.
“Keep your chin up,” I told the stranger as I spun toward the open door. And why, when distance eased the tightness in my chest, was I left feeling heavy rather than light?
Chapter 2
I recognized my employer-to-be by the rose on her blouse, just like she’d promised. Unfortunately, my handshake wasn’t up to her standards.
“What have you been handling, Athena?” Marina offered in lieu of a greeting. Pulling a dainty, lace-edged handkerchief out of her handbag, she dabbed at her fingers as if we were attending a tea party rather than hovering at the edge of a roiling crowd.
Oops. I’d lost track of the grease from my sister’s fries in the midst of my werewolf sighting. Still, I wasn’t the only one who’d overshot societal cues.
“I replied to your message telling you this was a bad time,” I countered, “but your account had been closed.”
As I spoke, my gaze dropped to my cell phone. Harper’s weekly visiting window started in two hours. And while I’d been willing to be late to this job interview, if I didn’t show up in a timely manner at my sister’s boarding school afterwards, her dad would sneak in and “visit” instead....
“Do you have somewhere more important to be?” Marina’s voice was steely as she interrupted my contemplation of time and sisterhood.
I was losing whatever chance at this job I’d once had. Still, I answered honestly: “Yes.”
The word hovered between us for several seconds before Marina shrugged. “Then we might as well get on with it.”
As she spoke, she gestured up at the pseudo-Grecian facade of the museum behind us. Surely she didn’t mean...? I’d assumed this was a neutral public meeting place, not....
“I don’t steal from museums.” That clinched it. Marina was too much trouble and....
The check materialized out of nowhere. One moment my right hand was empty. The next moment, my fingers clasped a crisp rectangle of paper sporting more zeroes than I’d ever seen in my life.
I blinked. Magic? Or just my tired eyes playing tricks on me?
Either way, my free hand slipped into my pocket, feeling for the salt packet that went with my sister’s weekly fast-food treat. Harper liked her fries double-salted. She’d be sad if I lost her favorite seasoning.
Still, I found myself worrying one corner until it frayed open. Then I let a few grains dribble out onto the pavement. Better safe than sorry, right?
And...Marina took a single step backwards. Coincidence, I was sure of it. After all, magic didn’t exist. Well, I mean, magic other than werewolves.
Shaking off my uncertainty, I stuck to the tangible. “What’s this?” I asked, waving the check between us.
“The first half of your payment.” Marina leaned in closer than was really appropriate by human personal-space standards. She didn’t, however, step over the line of salt.
Still, she was close enough now for me to count her pores...or would have been if she’d had any. Instead, her skin was so smooth she might as well have been airbrushed. My nose, though, didn’t report any metallic hint of makeup.
Instead, Marina reeked of rose petals. Not from the flower at her lapel, which appeared to be a simple, unscented supermarket offering. But if the rose aroma emanated from a perfume, why couldn’t I distinguish an oil or alcohol base?
Curious. Still, it was the zeroes that prevented me from taking my own step backward, that prevented me from hightailing it away to my more important engagement. “What do you want in exchange for another check like this one?” I asked finally.
Marina’s lips didn’t turn upward, but I scented her smugness. I’d been the first to cave. She’d won that round.
“Follow me,” she promised, “and you’ll find out.”
SHE TURNED AWAY, HEADING up the stairs without waiting to see if I’d follow. I flared my nostrils...and something furry and wild impinged.
Wolf. Not from Marina. Not from the ugly-fascinating man I’d met inside either. Instead, the scent rose from behind me, the variety of sub-odors suggesting multiple shifters were present amid the chattering humans entering and exiting the museum.
I itched to swivel and hunt for trouble. Instead, I kept my eyes on Marina. After all, she was the more immediate danger and I’d run out of salt.
“The museum doesn’t own the object in question,” she called back, heels clicking as she strode up the marble steps away from my stationary figure. “It’s on loan from a rich, white dude. And isn’t your sister’s tuition due soon?”
Her knowledge of my preferred thieving target—complete with slang that sounded awkward on her lips—plus my familial weakness was chilling. More dangerous than shifters because it was more focused. I dismissed the wolf scent and jogged to catch up with my maybe-boss.
“I chose you for this job because of your special abilities,” Marina continued as we wended our way past the recommended donation box. She ignored it while I dropped in a ten-dollar bill.
“Special abilities?”
“Furry abilities.”
My feet froze on the stairs I’d been following her up. My nostrils flared again.
But there was no wolf scent about Marina. No fur. No wildness. She shouldn’t have known what I was capable of.
Still, I disabused her of that notion. “I don’t use any furry abilities on the job.”
Not since making a deal with the local alpha, that is. Not since Harper had begun attending boarding school so close to the heart of Rowan McCallister’s pack.
“What, never? Well, no matter.” Marina’s voice was perfectly museum appropriate as she dismissed my refusal to use my wolf and returned to the object of her fixation. “Before the current owner took possession, the item had been in my family for generations.” She paused long enough to spear me with eyes bluer than the sky. “I’m not asking you to steal, Athena. I’m asking you to return what’s already been stolen.”
Again, she turned away, this time leading me into a well-lit gallery. We didn’t speak as she made a beeline for a glass case housing a metal bracer.
It was a decorative arm cuff, meant to be worn at the wrist. Three inches wide, made of pounded gold and silver.
The pattern portrayed a running wolf.
I shivered. A wolf...like me? Like the scent outside? Like the world I did my best to steer clear of?
Ignoring what felt like more than a coincidence, I focused on the sign beside the artifact. What I saw there made me shake my head in disappointment.
Of course Marina had lied. All of my employers lied sooner or later.
“This is over a thousand years old,” I noted, raising my eyebrows. “It was dug up last month somewhere in England. You couldn’t even bother dreaming up a story that matches the obvious facts?”
“It was stolen from a cemetery,” Marina countered. “A cemetery in which my ancestors were buried. Do your research. Then cash the check if you want the job.”
The sweetness of rose petals wafted past my nose as Marina turned away. She was leaving. Walking out on me.
Which was good. Safe. And yet....
All those zeroes prompted me to call after her. “What’s to prevent me from cashing the check then disappearing?”
At first, I thought she wasn’t going to answer. But Marina spun in a cloud of flowing fabric when she reached the ar
ch separating the gallery from the hallway. Her hair looked more blue than black there. Her teeth appeared werewolf sharp.
“I wouldn’t recommend it. Harper would regret anything that prevented me from receiving my prize.”
Her use of my sister’s name chilled me down to my marrow. My breathing didn’t slow until the scent of rose petals had faded to nothing on my tongue.
Chapter 3
I hadn’t decided whether to take the job, but I did my due diligence anyway. Wasted precious minutes pretending I was interested in other items in the gallery beyond the bracer so the security footage wouldn’t look so suspicious if this turned into a crime scene.
In fact, I was snapping photos of a Viking’s helmet when the scent of wolf once again surrounded me. This time it was closer. Stronger.
I whirled...then relaxed as I took in the same ugly shifter I’d met downstairs.
“You’re very recognizable,” I greeted him.
I’d intended my words as a compliment, my face blindness meaning that I often couldn’t pick out people I’d met only once or twice or, let’s be honest, seven times before. The stranger didn’t take it that way.
Instead, he sidestepped as if once again opening up my escape routes. His face tilted away from me so I could only see the unscarred left side, and his voice was apologetic as he rumbled, “I didn’t intend to startle you.”
“I wasn’t startled,” I began. But my nostrils flared and proved me wrong.
Because I didn’t smell wolf now. I smelled wolves, plural. More than this single gentleman in a shifter’s malleable skin.
I spun, not quite comfortable with having the wolf I knew at my back but even less comfortable with being unable to see the wolves I didn’t know. There were two of them. Both just as tall as the one behind me but totally different in every other way.
The one on the left was white, tattooed, and decked out in studded leather. A biker or biker wannabe. Definitely someone I’d cross the street to avoid passing alone at night.
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