Phases of Passion II (Trilogy Bundle)
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2014 by Melissa F. Hart. All rights reserved worldwide.
No part of this book may be replicated, redistributed, or given away in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without the prior written consent of the author/publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
http://www.melissafhart.com/
Books in the series
New Beginning - Volume 4
Birth Right - Volume 5
Let's Make a Pack - Volume 6
***
Synopsis
Book Four: New Beginning
A heavily pregnant Erin tries to keep a grip on her sanity as the world around her ceases to make sense. Sean, the father of her unborn baby, is gone. He left amid utterances that he was a werewolf and cursed. Erin dismissed his words as madness but now as her due date approaches, she finds her home under siege. At night, she listens in terror to the sounds of shrill howls that circle her property.
Erin is all alone and something or someone is lurking outside in the darkness. Is she in danger or has she been driven to the brink of madness? What if there was some truth to Sean’s curse?
Book Five: Birth Right
Back home with her newborn baby, Jack, Erin struggles to put the terror from the night of his birth out of her mind. She’d been attacked by a wolf, she was certain of that, but she still refused to believe in Sean’s talk of werewolves and curses.
But now Sean insists that neither she nor baby Jack are safe. A rival wolf pack is out to kill them as Jack is Sean’s heir. Whether or not Erin believes in Sean’s curse, she can’t deny that she is in very real danger.
As the howling returns, Erin has to consider just how far she is willing to go to protect both herself and her newborn son.
Book Six: Let's Make a Pack
Erin finally believes in Sean’s curse, knowing that somehow, his dark secret is tied in with her own past.
But with the rival wolf pack still a very real threat, Erin must make a choice; should she join Sean’s own wolf pack or risk existing on her own and endangering both her and Jack’s lives?
Soon Erin’s fate will be sealed and the shroud of mystery surrounding her own lineage will be lifted. It’s time for Erin to finally face the darkness that has haunted her life for so many years. She won’t let it defeat her, not matter the cost.
***
Table of Contents
New Beginning
Birth Right
Let's Make a Pack
***
New Beginning
***
Erin looked down forlornly, hoping to catch a glimpse of her toes, but her spherical stomach impaired her vision. Sighing, she carefully maneuvered herself over to her sofa and sat down.
She was two days into her maternity leave and just a week away from her due date and she was restless. Being alone in the house made her fitful and anxious. Each time she tried to sleep, a noise or feeling of unease would wake her. Exhausted in her final stages of pregnancy, Erin felt as though she were constantly sleepwalking, losing her connection with reality.
The sound of her phone ringing startled her, the harsh shrill causing Erin to get a grasp of her senses and focus. Pushing through the fog of fatigue, she answered the call.
“Hello?” Her voice was hoarse and questioning when she spoke.
“Erin?” came her mother’s familiar voice.
“Hi, Mom.” Erin audibly sighed. As much as she appreciated the daily calls from her mother to check in on her, what she needed was her physical presence. Someone to help her move around now that she had almost doubled in size.
“How are you today?” her mother asked anxiously.
“Tired,” Erin replied bluntly. “The same as every day.”
“It will soon pass.”
“And then I will have a baby to keep me up at night. A baby screaming and crying in the night with only me to take care of it.” Erin held back tears as she shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. Her tiredness combined with her elevated hormone levels were making her exceedingly emotional. Sometimes she’d sit and sob over the most trivial of issues. The fact that she was alone was really starting to worry her.
Sean had said that he’d return. Erin had pushed him away, she knew that, but he’d vowed to come back and he’d seemed resolute in his promise, but that was almost nine long months ago. She’d heard nothing from him, and it wasn’t as if she could call him up. Sean existed in the shadows, without a cell phone, without an address.
In her weaker moments, Erin regretted sending him away, regretted judging him so harshly when he had told her his delusions about being a werewolf. Sean was clearly crazy, but at this stage she’d take crazy over nothing at all. She needed help, needed a second pair of hands, but the father of her unborn child was long gone and likely not coming back.
“You need to stay strong,” Erin’s mother instructed through the phone. “You need to stay strong for your baby.”
Anguished tears were streaming down Erin’s cheeks. She felt so unbearably alone, even though another life was growing within her. It had been two short days since she’d left the comfort and familiarity of the office, yet she felt like she was sinking. Sleep continued to elude her.
Erin didn’t feel safe alone. She’d taken to leaving lights on at night, to bolting her front door shut and checking it repeatedly before she slowly heaved herself up the staircase, the staircase where it was likely her child had been conceived.
Everything felt so long ago, as if it had occurred in another life. Erin struggled to remember how it felt to be in Sean’s arms, to feel the power of him inside her. Now all she knew was discomfort and exhaustion.
“I’m so tired,” Erin admitted desperately to her mother.
“You still can’t sleep?”
“No,” Erin sighed deeply.
“Why not?”
Erin didn’t want to admit the real reason she was being kept awake at night, as she feared it would make her as crazy as Sean if she was to say the words out loud.
“The baby keeps kicking,” Erin lied.
“It will all get easier, I promise.”
“Can’t you just come and stay with me, until the baby comes?” Erin pleaded as she entered into her daily dance with her mother, when she begged her for assistance and the older woman refused to come over, always offering the same pitiful excuses.
“I’m in no state to travel,” Erin’s mother answered softly.
There was some truth in this. Erin’s mother had been extremely fragile when she had last seen her, her skin thin and stretched too tightly over brittle bones. Her hair had grayed and thinned away, becoming wispy and ethereal around her head, making her dark eyes appear even darker, like bottomless pools surrounded by a glacial pallor.
“But I need you.”
Erin sensed that while her mother was fragile, she could be more than capable of traveling if she decided to. The older woman was weak and feeble but not completely incapacitated. Erin knew that there was another reason for her absence, something she wouldn’t discuss with her. Erin had an uneasy sense that it was all connected to Sean and his werewolf fantasies.
As Erin became increasingly tired and her body ached unbearably, she found herself wondering if
perhaps there was some truth to his claims. The sounds she heard at night certainly made her to believe so. But she knew it was all impossible. There was no darkness, and it was impossible for a man to become a wolf. She just needed sleep to help her gain some clarity, that was all.
“I’m sorry I just…I can’t be there.” Erin’s mother always sounded pained when she relayed this.
“I could come and stay with you?” Erin suggested, hope rising in her voice as she did so.
“No, no,” her mother replied a little too quickly. “You wouldn’t be safe here.”
“Why not?”
The elephant in the room dared to step forward, trying to jostle its way in to the conversation. Sean. The werewolves. Her mother. Somehow it was all connected. But for some reason, Erin was only being fed half of a story.
“Mom, why can’t I come and stay with you? Why won’t it be safe?” Erin demanded, wincing as, within her stomach, her unborn baby kicked out at her.
“Has the father returned yet?” Her mother tactfully changed the subject.
“No.” Erin cast her eyes down sadly at the floor. For months she had expected Sean’s return, but he never came. She found herself wasting countless hours wondering what had become of him. Wherever he was, whatever he was doing, she had no way of knowing. Dwelling on it all was pointless.
“I’m sure he will soon.”
“I doubt it!” Erin declared coldly. “He’s been absent for the better part of nine months now. I’ve not seen or heard a word from him! If he thinks he can be a part of his child’s life after not being around for the pregnancy, he’s mistaken!”
Her baby kicked, as if in protest to the words, and Erin leaned forward in pain, rubbing a hand over her stomach.
“Are you so sure you’ve heard nothing?” Erin’s mother asked. The question caught Erin by surprise.
She’d definitely not heard anything from Sean in the conventional sense. There had been no letters, no calls, no emails or texts sent by him. A shiver ran down Erin’s spine as she thought about the noises that kept her up at night. How could her mother even know about them? And more worryingly, how could she possibly attribute them to Sean? Once more, Erin felt like she was being shut out, denied all the facts, making it impossible for her to piece together the puzzle of her life.
“I’ve heard nothing,” Erin replied, her voice level and menacing. “The father has not been in touch, not at all.”
“I’m sure he will return.”
“How can you say that?” Erin almost screamed in to the phone. “You don’t know him; you don’t know what sort of person he is! He’s a vagrant, a drifter with grave mental delusions. My child would be better off never knowing their father, just like I was!”
“Sweetheart, I’m just trying to make you feel better,” her mother replied simply, and Erin felt her anger immediately thaw at the logical basis of the comment.
“Sorry, Mom, I’m just on edge.”
“I know.”
“All these thoughts about darkness that you used to talk about, it worries me. I can’t sleep…” Erin’s voice trailed off as she noticed that outside the sun had set while they had been talking and the street beyond her window was now covered with shadows.
“Try not to worry, it doesn’t help the baby.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Erin cleared her throat and straightened up as best she could. “But all those things you used to say to me, about my being drawn to darkness?”
Erin couldn’t help but inquire some more. The sounds that haunted her nights and kept her awake made her fearful that there had been some truth to her mother’s laments and that something dark and sinister now stalked both her home and her unborn baby.
“You cannot think of those things now,” her mother said, her tone becoming overly stern. “You must be strong for your baby. You need to be positive.”
“You’re right.” Erin ran a hand over her stomach and smiled sleepily to herself. Her baby had ceased kicking, probably falling in to a perfect, restful sleep. Sometimes, she imagined how safe babies must feel, locked away from the outside world without any knowledge of darkness or evil. To her baby, the world must seem a pure and perfect place. How cruel life can be to steal that from the youth.
“Are you going to bed soon?” her mother asked. “You need to rest. The baby will soon be here.”
“I guess so.” Erin warily eyed the street beyond. She didn’t trust the darkness. With some effort, she stood up and waddled over to her window, pulling the curtains closed. Flicking on a light, the living room was immediately bathed in an artificial glow that offered her some comfort.
“Is it weird that I sleep with the lights on now?” Erin asked absently.
“Not at all, it’s whatever makes you feel safe.”
“I’d feel a whole lot safer if you were here,” Erin admitted sadly.
“But you wouldn’t be,” her mother replied ambiguously.
Erin was too tired to pick up on the comment. Her body was aching, sending deep throbs down her back. Her eyelids had grown heavy and she suddenly longed for the release of sleep, even though she knew it wouldn’t come. It never did.
“I’m so tired,” Erin declared, feeling that the statement had become her catchphrase of late.
“Then go rest,” her mother urged from her home miles away, the phone line the only connection between them.
Erin shuffled out of her chair and, keeping the phone to her ear, began to climb up her staircase with slow, methodical steps.
“I’m heading up to bed,” Erin explained as her breathing deepened.
“Good.”
“I just…don’t feel safe here.” Erin reached the top of the stairs and took a moment to catch her breath.
“You can’t think like that, everything will be fine.”
“How can you be so sure?” Erin asked skeptically.
“I just can be. Now go get in bed. I’ll stay on the line until you fall asleep if that will help?”
“Thanks.” Erin smiled slightly at the kind gesture. During her pregnancy, she’d become closer to her mother than she ever thought was possible. Finally they had a joint purpose; the baby who would soon be born. It unified them in a way neither thought would ever happen.
Before she climbed into bed, Erin peered out at the street from behind her curtains. Everything appeared normal. Cars were neatly lined up on driveways; the street was dotted with various pools of light dropped down from the streetlights above. The world seemed quiet and at peace.
Satisfied, Erin turned away from the window and climbed into bed, leaving her bedside light on as she did so.
“I appreciate you calling me,” she said sleepily into the phone, which she placed on the pillow beside her.
“I just want to be there for you,” her mother answered.
Rolling over, Erin dared to close her eyes, her body begging for the release of sleep. She hoped that this night she could be left to rest and dream.
“Goodnight,” she called out dreamily to her mother as the world fell away.
***
Erin jolted awake, as she did every night. Her eyes squinted painfully into the room, which was illuminated by her bedside lamp. Erin could no longer sleep in complete darkness. Within her chest, her heart raced madly. Something had woken her abruptly, and she already sensed that she knew what it was.
Reaching across the bed, Erin retrieved the handset on which she had been speaking to her mother. Raising it to her ear, she could hear that the line was now disconnected. Her mother had listened until her daughter was sleeping soundly and then ended the call. But that was a couple of hours ago. Erin was now awake and alone and fearful that her home was once more under siege.
Sitting up in bed, Erin ran a hand through her bedraggled hair before rubbing her protruding stomach in a gesture to sooth both herself and her baby. Since waking, she’d not yet heard the sound that she was convinced was responsible for breaking her rest.
Barely daring to breathe, Erin s
at and strained to hear the now familiar bloodcurdling sound. Around her, the house seemed teasingly stoic, almost mocking her. Nothing moved, nothing stirred. Had she dreamed the terrible sound?
No, Erin was certain that she must have heard it to have woken up. Tensely, she sat on her bed and waited.
After a few moments, her patience was rewarded. Sounding as if it came from directly beneath her window, there was a low, plaintive howl, which immediately chilled Erin to her core.
Night after night, the howling awoke her. Sometimes it sounded like there was just one animal howling into the night, other times there seemed to be many voices, stringing together in one long desperate cry.
Biting her lip, Erin wrapped her arms protectively around herself and burrowed beneath her bed sheets.
The howl pierced the dark night air once more, carrying up to her.
Erin pictured some wolf or dog, beneath her window, crying out to her. The image troubled her deeply though she didn’t understand why. Dogs howling was hardly a new phenomenon, yet since she became pregnant, the howling had intensified.
Initially there would be a single howling cry every other night, then it became a nightly occurrence before ultimately there were numerous voices crying out. At times, it sounded as though her home were entirely surrounded by canine creatures.
In her more logical moments, Erin told herself that it was all nothing more than coincidence. She blamed Sean and his crazy theories for getting inside her head and making her question her own reality.
But there was a menacing undertone to the howls that Erin couldn’t ignore. To anyone else, it would perhaps sound mournful; a wolf crying out for its lost pack, but to Erin it sounded sinister. A creature was calling out, not for others, but for her. Each time she heard the howl, she was certain that it was a warning. It was the reason she could not sleep through its terrible moaning.
Phases of Passions II (Trilogy Bundle) (Werewolf Romance - Paranormal Romance) Page 1