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Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
512 Forest Lake Drive
Warner Robins, Georgia 31093
Sweet Moon Dreams
Copyright © 2007 by Rose Marie Wolf
Cover by Anne Cain
ISBN: 1-59998-446-6
www.samhainpublishing.com
All Rights Are 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 embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: March 2007
Sweet Moon Dreams
Rose Marie Wolf
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my mother, for believing in me, supporting me and for first introducing me to the world of books. Though you are no longer here in body, your spirit is always with me. I know you'd be proud.
I wish to thank the Samhain Publishing staff for all the hard work you do each and every day to make dreams come true. I give a huge thank you to the "real" Jason for your endless support and encouragement and another to Mari Lynne for all your help in the earliest stages of the Moon Series.
Most of all, I thank you, the reader, for giving this book a chance. Here's hoping you enjoy it and all the books to come.
Without any of you, I would still be a struggling writer, trying to make it in the literary world.
Chapter One
The house was dark, save for a very soft light in the front room window, and the harsher glow of security lights outside. Slowly, she pulled the car beyond the drive and around to the back of the house. She had to drive through the grass and mud. Hidden between the shed and the house, her Mustang couldn’t be spotted from the road. Extra precautions were not going to be ignored.
Rose Sullivan stepped out of the car and shivered as the cool night air seeped into her skin. This was not where she wanted to be in the dead of night. She would much rather be with her mate, Jason, but circumstances being as they were, it didn't look like it was going to happen any time soon.
She was being hunted.
Being a werewolf had its advantages, like the extra sensitive hearing, super strength and advanced healing. But there was a darker side to it all. There was always the fear of being discovered, of being persecuted, of being hunted.
Something happened, something that destroyed what little security she had. A detective by the name of Marcus Brown was now after her. He had come to her one day, out of the clear blue, accusing her of homicide. Sure, she knew the two people who had been found mauled in a local park and sure, she had fits of sleepwalking and moments where she blacked out and couldn't remember the night before, but that didn't mean she had killed them. Marcus didn't seem to believe her though. He knew more than he would admit and that unsettled Rose.
What unsettled her even more was that she might, in fact, be behind the murders.
Rose didn't want to think of it. She shivered, looking up at Tiffany Clark's back porch. She had only come here on a desperate note. Rose needed to get away from Marcus and gain some piece of mind with her friend's advice. Tiffany was the first person she could think of. She would know what to do.
At least Rose hoped.
Her breath came out in gasps of fog as she reached the back porch and climbed up the steps. She tried not to shiver again as she knocked on the aluminum screen door.
Tiffany was most likely in bed and Rose felt sorry she would have to wake her friend in the dead of night, but it was of the utmost importance. When she received no response, she waited an interval of a few minutes, before trying again.
“Tiffany! Open the door, it’s me, it’s Rose!” she called. She pounded her palm against the metal door hard enough it stung. She caught the glimpse of a shadow passing by the window. The porch light turned on above her head.
Rose turned her head quickly and looked behind her. She saw nothing but an unsettling darkness. Even though she was sure there was nothing there, she felt eyes upon her. She didn’t like it.
“Goddamn it, open the door!” Rose’s voice rang very loud in the silence of the night. She turned back to the door to face a very sleepy, very bewildered-looking Tiffany.
“Thank God,” Rose breathed. “Let me in.” Tiffany rubbed her eyes.
“What?” she asked. Rose could hear the sleep in her voice as she pushed by her. Tiffany watched as she shut the door behind her and immediately flipped off the porch light.
“Rose, what are you doing here at…?” She paused as she tied her robe around her. “What are you doing here in the middle of the night?” Concern washed over her face as she continued. “I didn’t hear your car.”
“I parked behind the house,” Rose told her in a hushed voice. “I was being followed.”
“Followed? What?”
Rose glanced out the window. She couldn’t shake the feeling that any second Marcus would show up. She didn’t say anything and Tiffany was finally awake enough to understand. She reached for her arm.
“Who was following you?” she asked. Her dark eyes looked into her friend’s apprehensively.
Rose’s legs felt suddenly weak and she sank into a nearby armchair. Tiffany ran a hand through her tousled hair and crouched down beside her.
“Who is it?” she whispered
“A man. He says he’s a detective. Marcus Brown. Have you heard of him?”
Tiffany gave a vague shake of her head. She blinked a few times.
“He’s after me, Tiffany. I know he is. I know he’s not a detective. He’s a hunter,” Rose said. There was an edge in her voice.
“Rose, what are you talking about?”
Tiffany stood, took a glass from the cabinet and poured water from the tap into it. She handed it to Rose. It was cold against Rose’s hand, yet she couldn’t bring herself to lift it to her lips to drink from it. Her hands were visibly shaking. The glass was too full and some of the water sloshed onto her thumb.
She paid no attention to it as she spoke. “He said he was on the case. Jason doesn’t think he’s a detective, and neither do I.”
“You need to explain yourself more, Rose. I’m very confused,” Tiffany said. Rose let out a sigh and turned an annoyed glance to Tiffany.
“He knows I’m a werewolf!” Rose hissed. Tiffany shook her head.
“I don’t understand.”
Rose took a deep breath and exhaled it sharply. “He came to the magazine office a few weeks ago. He said he was a detective, investigating the murders of Lisa and Todd.”
Tiffany nodded. Tiffany, Rose and Lisa Marks had all worked together at the Paranormal Research and Development Institute. They had all been good friends. Todd Nahmad was Rose’s former work colleague.
“He was asking suspicious questions. He said the murders looked like the work of wild animals, and then told me it was werewolves.”
“He flat out told you that?” Tiffany asked incredulously.
“Yes, he did, actually. He told me he wanted to discuss werewolves, since I knew so much.”
“From writing the books?”
“Yeah, that and my involvement in the PRDI.”
“He knew about that?” Tiffany asked.
Rose nodded. It wasn't a surprise that Marcus may have known of her books. She was an author and a magazine columnist, all pretty public…but her involvemen
t in the PRDI was something she kept to herself.
“He seemed suspicious of me. He wanted to know how I knew so much. Seemed to think it was because I was one.”
“You didn’t say anything about that, did you? You didn’t tell him?”
“No. I’m not stupid, Tiffany. I tried to act like I had no idea what he was talking about, but he scared me.” She let out a breath and lifted her glass of water to her lips. She took a small sip and then lowered her shaking hand. “He didn’t seem like a cop. He flashed a badge. It looked real and all, but I didn’t inspect it closely. I don’t think it was real…and then, he interrogates me, accusing me—”
“Accusing you of being the killer?” Tiffany interrupted.
Rose gave a slight nod and she heard Tiffany sigh deeply. There was a long moment of silence before Rose lifted the glass to her lips and moistened them again.
Tiffany studied her. Her eyebrows came together a moment in deep thought. She was silent, an indication for Rose to continue. There were a few more moments of silence before Rose could compose her thoughts. She changed topics from Marcus to something equally important, something she had wanted to discuss for some time.
“I had the dream again last night.”
Tiffany’s stare was blank for a moment, as if it had somehow been a shock to her.
“Oh…” She said, “Again?” She composed herself and settled into the chair Rose had just occupied.
“Yeah.” Rose’s hands still shook, but only slightly now. Her voice was soft and low. “Just like before. It was so…so,” she struggled to find the right word but her hand faltered with a formless gesture, “so real.”
Tiffany’s green eyes never left her face.
Rose continued, in a whisper. “So real, I’m not even sure it was a dream…” She brought her hands to rest on the table in front of her and folded them one over the other. “You know my problem, Tiff, and I’m afraid it’s getting worse, not better. I still black out. I still sleepwalk.” Her voice faded into silence.
She stared at her hands for a long moment as she waited for Tiffany to say anything to break the uncomfortable silence. Tiffany left her armchair to sit across from Rose.
“Rose, never think that, ever.” Her expression was a perfect match to the sternness of her voice. “These are only dreams. Even if you’re sleepwalking and blacking out, you can’t do that. You can’t kill anyone like that, I mean…” She paused a moment. “I know you’re a werewolf, and I am bound by the PRDI to not tell anyone about you, but I know you, Rose. I know you didn’t do it. You aren’t like the old legends. You aren’t a mindless killer.”
Rose only felt a little comforted by her words.
“I know, Tiff.” She gave a bit of a smile, but it faded. “It’s just…blacking out like that. It makes me feel vulnerable. I mean, what am I capable of? When will it happen next? It always happens during the worst times.”
Tiffany tried to change the subject.
“Don’t worry about it. That jackass though… He’s serious news. You should be worrying about him.”
Rose said nothing and Tiffany stood and turned to the faucet to pour her own glass of water. She took a long and deep drink from it. Rose watched her as a hundred thoughts ran through her mind. She knew what she had to do. She couldn’t stay any longer. If they were right about Marcus, and he was still out there…
“I need to get to Jason’s. He’s probably worried about me.” Rose stood to her feet. “I can’t stay here any longer.”
“What are you going to do?” Tiffany asked.
“I don’t know, but Tiffany, I can’t stay. I have to go. He could still be out there. I need to get to Jason’s. I was supposed to meet him at the bar.”
Tiffany followed close behind her. Rose turned her head back to give a warning look to her friend, but it was lost upon Tiffany. She stared beyond her, behind her.
And that’s when she caught that scent of cheap cologne. Rose felt all color drain from her face and felt her heart drop to the very pit of her stomach, where it pounded audibly.
Rose slowly inclined her head to look from the corner of her eye and saw the familiar male shadow near the back door. She fully turned and stared down the barrel of a handgun.
Marcus’ lips twisted sadistically, and a mad gleam shone in his eyes. Rose stood frozen in the doorway. As she stared past the cold metal of the gun and into those harsh glinting eyes, she knew death was only a second away.
And Rose found she couldn’t move.
“I was right. You are a little wolf bitch.” Marcus’ sneered in his rough voice. There was a slight laughter in his words. Rose shuddered at it, forcing herself to focus on the shaking gun in his unsteady hand.
Tiffany made a little sound in her throat as if she wished to interrupt, and Marcus turned his intense gaze upon her.
“Is she one?” Marcus didn’t pause for either of the women to answer. He gave a shake of his head. His usually neatly combed grey hair was now disheveled. His eyes were bloodshot. Rose could’ve sworn he was drunk and delirious, but she could smell no alcohol.
“I know she is. Your kind always sticks together. Like a pack,” he said.
Rose heard Tiffany take a few steps back. She stank of fear. It permeated the air surrounding Rose. She felt sick.
But she did not allow her gaze to stray from him. A hundred million thoughts blazed in her mind, but there was no way out. There were no options.
She was dead.
It happened before Rose could even think to blink an eye. She wasn’t sure who took the first step, but the distance between she and Marcus had greatly diminished.
Rose heard a voice coming from her own mouth, but it didn’t sound like her. It betrayed a calm she did not feel. “Don’t do this, Marcus. You're wrong.”
It happened in less than a second. The gun went off, the blast sending a sharp acrid smoke into the air. The sound was loud. Rose braced herself for the shot, instinctively. Her heart jumped up back to her chest, and then to her throat, where it pounded loudly. She anticipated a screaming pain, but felt nothing. Something wet and warm splashed across her bare arms.
But the bullet had missed.
With that realization came a brief and very short-lived moment of relief. Then Rose turned.
Tiffany slumped to the floor beside her. Blood trickled down her forehead from the entrance wound at the side of her head. Her lifeless eyes stared up at Rose, the shock still evident in the wide gaze. Her blonde hair was stained red.
Rose could smell the blood, and saw it red and thick as it pooled from the wound in Tiffany's head. Blood was splattered on the doorframe, and the warm wet substance Rose had felt only a second or so earlier was blood that had sprayed on her shirt and her arm.
Her throat closed up. For a moment, she found herself unable to speak, unable to even comprehend what had just taken place. She couldn’t move. Tiffany was dead. Her head leaned against the doorframe, and those empty eyes staring at the source of her demise.
A demented chuckle issued from Marcus' throat. When Rose heard the sound of a gun cocking back, she forced her attention toward her attacker. Through tear blurred eyes, she beheld the shadowy form of Marcus as he took slow and deliberate steps closer.
She was aware of her breath exiting from her nose and mouth in fast, hard gasps. Rage rose within her, and the growl she had so been longing to express now sounded from her throat. It was an angry warning growl, meant to threaten him.
It was the wolf that responded. It was the primal essence Rose longed to keep locked within the human shell. It was the animal. It was the beast. It was the wolf.
And like a wolf, her thoughts focused on survival, fueled by instinct. She had been threatened. It was kill or be killed.
The gun locked onto its new target, and he fired once more to deliver the bullet that would send the werewolf back into oblivion. But the bullet zinged through empty air where the target had been only moments before. She charged at him and Rose felt the weight of hi
s body thrown back by her immense and sudden strength.
Her entire body tensed. A pulling began in her muscles. Her tendons stretched. It popped bones out of place, bones that would soon grow much stronger, and more powerful. The sensation could’ve been described as painful, but to Rose, it felt delicious.
The shift began.
The werewolf took a defensive stance several feet away from the man. Any resemblance to a human was lost. She was becoming a wolf. She had succumbed to a rage shift. She knew what was happening.
Her normally dainty and soft fingers extended with sharpened claws and her height increased with powerful sinewy legs. The sound of cloth ripping to conform to her new form was drowned out as she let out a louder, more menacing growl. Her face elongated into a muzzle. Newer and deadly teeth formed from her jaws. Tatters of ruined cloth fell to the floor. A silver-colored pelt spread across her otherwise naked flesh.
Standing before Marcus now was not a normal wolf. At any moment Rose could undergo the rest of her transformation and stand before him as a wild wolf, upon four legs with gleaming yellow eyes. She wasn’t going to do that.
The half shift, the rage shift was better suited for what she wanted to do. She wanted to tear him limb from limb, to face him as he wanted to be faced, by a werewolf. And what was the typical werewolf image? One that stood upon two legs, the hideous monster depicted in Hollywood film.
Well, she would give him his delusions before ending his miserable life. He seemed to want it so much.
Never before had Rose felt anger such as this. Never before had she felt this strong desire for revenge and death. Things like that were lost on the young woman.
But not with the wolf. The wolf knew.
She used her anger and she used her rage to fight and to defend. She knew what she was doing.
The smell of fear flooded the air and combined with the much harsher and disgusting scent of cologne. Rose snorted at the smell.
That noisy piece of metal in his hand lifted once more to fire at her, but with one swipe of her claws, she knocked it loose from his hand. Marcus cried out in pain as her clawed hand encircled his wrist in a tight grip.
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