Children of the Moon: Book Six

by Yvonne Robertson

  “I’m so sorry Bree, I know that hurt but it’s a temporary spell and everything will go back to normal in an hour or two at the most. Summer leaned over and kissed the new mother but she looked dead on her feet.

  “You have nothing to be sorry for, Summer. You and Hope saved my babies and I suspect me too. I will be forever in your debt.” Bree was crying and Connor had to leave the room before he started to bawl too. He would wait for Summer outside.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Summer

  An energy transfer always left her feeling drained, especially when she was so out of practice, but she would be fine in an hour or so if she could replenish her calories to boost her energy again.

  Bree and the babies were all doing good and Rafe had just arrived so she left them and made her way down to the kitchen to find something to eat and drink.

  “Could I have something to eat and a drink? I need it to replace the energy I expended giving Bree a boost,” she asked Imogen as she walked into the kitchen.

  “Here, sit down.” Imogen poured her some coffee. “How about a ham and cheese sandwich?” She sliced some bread and added cold cuts and cheddar from the refrigerator. She slid the plate across the table to her and Summer took a bite and washed it down with sweet coffee. She finished it quickly and refilled her coffee cup, feeling stronger already.

  “Summer, that was amazing what you did,” India said from across the table.

  “It was nothing really, but it did show me how out of practice I am and I can’t let my gifts go to waste. I am going to ask my aunt if she will spend some time with me, help me brush up on the things I have neglected.”

  “Mom has been learning her craft again too. She abandoned it when she met Dad and left her coven behind her and I am glad she is embracing who she was supposed to be,” Imogen said. “Dad is encouraging her all the way. She thinks she may have an aptitude for telekinesis but so far she has only been able to move very small objects.”

  “Makes me wonder if we have any other abilities we haven’t discovered yet, having our mother’s witch genes,” India mused.

  “Daria may be able to help with that too but you should explore it, both of you. I won’t make the mistake of hiding who or what I am, ever again. We have been blessed with extraordinary gifts and we should use them. India can you imagine if you worked for the FBI or some other agency. You would know every time a suspect told a lie. Imogen we can talk to each other using only our minds, the benefits of that could be incredible and there is so much more untapped potential, just in the pack alone.”

  “We should invite Daria here, with some of the other coven members. It’s about time we started learning to trust each other,” India said with a smile.

  “I agree,” Imogen stated. “Mom left her pack when she married Dad and your mother did the same thing, Summer because they were ostracized. We are all supernatural beings and should be allies, not enemies.”

  “I will invite her if it’s okay with Seann and you should have your Mom come too so that they can meet. A larger community of witches would be beneficial to all of us.” Summer added.

  “Seann will be fine with it if Imogen asks him,” India smiled. “He will never say no to her for anything she asks.”

  “Just a perk of being the alpha's mate,” Imogen joked but Summer knew it was more.

  Seann would lay down his life for his mate and Connor proved already that he would do the same for her. So why was he still being so weird about everything? She thought they had gotten over his fear of commitment, but he was still holding back from her and there was so much she didn’t know about him still.

  She stood up and said her goodbyes, promising to be back for dinner and to help babysit the kids to allow the adults to go on tonight's run. She needed to find Connor before she left too, she had a bad feeling creeping up on her since he told her he was going on a mission with his team. She wasn’t usually given to feelings of foreboding but this one felt particularly ominous and she was witch enough not to ignore her unease.

  She found him sitting on the porch steps watching some of the pack kids playing with a ball and sometimes she wished she could read his mind. He and Garrett were so alike in terms of physical appearance and personality, but Garrett was wide open where Connor was a closed book and a little more serious.

  “Hey,” she said and he turned as if she had started him.

  He looked so sad she wanted to sit beside him and put her arms around his neck but the shutters came back down over his emotions and she held back knowing he was trying to shield from her again.

  “Hey yourself. How are Bree and the babies doing?”

  “Rafe said they will be fine and Bree will be back on her feet in the next day or two. It shows the need for another pack doctor though. Rafe can’t be expected to be here all the time and Hope is a great nurse but today could have turned out very differently,” she shook her head.

  “If not for you.” Connor squeezed her hand.

  “No, it was a team effort. Hope was the one who delivered the babies safely in the end. In an ideal world, we would have several doctors, nurses and people with my abilities in the pack but that’s not realistic to expect witches and shifters to live in perfect harmony. There are many more babies born in the packs that out there in the human world and they have a plethora of medical professionals on hand. I wish it were the same for mothers here.”

  Connor took her hand and they walked away from the house and took the path through the gardens to the orchard where someone had thoughtfully put a wooden bench beneath one of the top-heavy apple trees. They sat down and Connor put his arm around her waist and she leaned in enjoying the sensation of his touch.

  “I was going to talk to you when I came back from my trip but I think I have to say something to you now. Please let me finish before you speak, Summer, or I may never have the courage to get it all out.

  She turned on the bench to face him and held his hand in her lap. Her heart squeezed painfully at the seriousness of his tone.

  “When I first met you, I wasn’t really afraid of commitment as such, I was terrified of the depth of my feelings for you and was in deep denial. Then when Danvers took you I nearly went out of my mind not knowing what had happened to you and when I watched you and the others bring him down and how incredible you were, I was in awe. I told myself then that I would never want to change a single thing about you, that it didn’t matter how different our life spans were, we would work it out and live the best life we could together.”

  “But something changed?” she asked softly.

  “I despise myself for it, but I found myself wishing you were lycan, a shifter like me because you would live so much longer and I wouldn’t have to watch you die far too soon, our children wouldn’t have to watch you die too young. I never knew how selfish I was until those thoughts were filling my mind, every minute of every day. Then I watched you use your power to save Bree and her babies and I hate myself even more for ever wanting you to be different. I love you Summer, just as you are and we don’t know what the future holds anyway.

  “I considered it when I was eighteen and my father asked me if I wanted to transition but I was afraid I would lose my gifts and decided that I wanted to be a witch. I know the two are not mutually exclusive, but for me it was a big risk to take when I was happy as I was. My mother never changed and she and my father both died too young anyway.” she shrugged sadly.

  “I can’t promise never to wish you a longer life to be with me, but I promise not to ever try and persuade you to change for me. We have much more to talk about but it will keep until I come home, darlin’. I have nothing to hide from you and you deserve to know me, all of me.”

  Summer shivered as she thought about him leaving and the feeling of unease crept up her spine again. Why was Connor’s leaving giving her such a horrible feeling, she didn’t have the gift of precognition, but she knew someone who did. She got up and turned her back to him, wandering to pick a ripe apple from o
ne of the trees and polished it on the front of her cotton dress. She bit into it and took the opportunity to reach out to Imogen with her mind asking her to search for any sign that Connor may be in danger. She took another bite of the crisp, sharp fruit and turned back to face him.

  “Please be careful, Connor. I mean it, don’t take any chances out there.”

  “I promise, darlin’. I have every intention of coming back to you in one piece and one of the reasons I am going is to discuss selling my business interest to Linc. The other is because they are short of an investigator and I haven’t been around much lately so I owe it to them to make up the numbers. I should be home in a few days.”

  She pushed back on the feeling of dread and forced a smile on her face.

  “We can talk more when you get home, let’s enjoy the rest of the day before we have to be back here for dinner and the run.”

  “What did you have in mind?” he pulled her against him and his eyes began to glow as he leaned down and kissed her.

  She snaked her arms around his neck and her heart took off like a runaway train as he explored her with his tongue. She dropped the rest of the apple on the soft mulch and closed her eyes to savor the delicious sensations running through her. Lord, she was a fool for this wolf and he could melt her with just a single kiss or the lightest touch.

  “We should go home before someone wanders out here and catches us in flagrante. Connor groaned as he cupped her ass and pulled her tightly against him so that she could feel the extent of his arousal.”

  “Yes,” she moaned. “Or we could just hide out up here.” She pulled him quickly by the hand to the farthest corner of the orchard where they were sheltered by hedges on two sides and the breadth and canopy of a huge oak on another. “And I can cast a repulse spell to stop anyone from wandering up here and finding us. A shield should repel them for long enough.”

  “Long enough for what?” he teased her.

  She pulled his t-shirt over his head and when she reached for his jeans he groaned and stripped them off while she chanted an incantation to shield them for a short time.

  They were both naked in moments and on the soft grass and Summer had never been so turned on in her life. She always considered herself a little conservative in her sex life but not since she met Connor. They each fought for top position, but she had no chance of overpowering him and when he rolled her onto her back again she welcomed him as he thrust inside her.

  Summer felt that there was no feeling on earth like this as she rolled with the rising sensations, they fit together perfectly and she matched him equally in energy. Foreplay was sometimes unnecessary and she had a burning desire to feel him inside her. She groaned and bit down on his collar bone, knowing how much he loved it and his wolf growled as his thrusts came harder and harder. Summer climaxed instantly and cried out and he held her to him tightly as he shuddered and spilled his seed inside her. Connor bit down on her mark sending her spiraling into another earth-shattering orgasm and for just a moment she thought she might pass out with the intensity of emotions surging through her.

  They collapsed on the grass, sated and exhilarated and still locked together when Summer suddenly started to snicker.

  “When I shielded us from anyone’s vision, I forgot to add a sound barrier too. We may just have given the pack the shifter equivalent of an obscene phone call.

  Connor started to laugh too, from deep in his belly and the warm rich timbre was usually soothing to her ragged nerves but she was still trying to quash the feelings of foreboding in her gut that just wouldn’t quit. Even Imogen’s telepathic assurance that she had searched for any sign of danger for Connor and come up with absolutely nothing, didn’t help. Maybe she was just being a little paranoid, her life just seemed to be too good to be true after all the crap that she had been dealt the last few years.

  She got up reluctantly and put on her clothes as Connor watched her with a lazy smile. He didn’t mind baring everything for the world to see but now that she had come back down to earth she was conscious of where they were and that her spell would dissipate and anyone could wander out here.

  “Come on, Romeo,” she said as she held out her hand and he reluctantly got up and pulled on his shorts and jeans.

  She swallowed as he stretched the t-shirt over his perfectly toned abs and wondered if they had time for round two when they reached their cabin. She loved the quick frantic coupling they often indulged in, but she also loved to take her time and explore Connor’s body in the privacy of the cabin with no time constraints on them.

  They hurried back to his truck unnoticed which was a blessing as Connor had clumps of grass and dirt stuck to his hair. He reached over and took her hand as they pulled out of the courtyard and his pale green eyes were still glowing. Summers’s breath caught in her throat and she prayed to the goddess he would always have this effect on her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Connor

  Connor knew if anyone had heard them out there in the orchard, his brother wouldn’t be able to resist having a pop at him, just as he would have done in his place. He didn’t really care one way or the other, he was a shifter and had very few inhibitions, but Summer might feel a little differently. She wasn’t raised in a pack of wolves who were comfortable being naked in front of each other.

  They were acting like a couple of horny teenagers and he couldn’t stop the grin that split his face. He was still aroused, hell he got aroused just by a single look or a whiff of her scent.

  She was amazing in every way and he was suddenly glad he had told her what was on his mind. He never expected her to understand where he was coming from, but she did and that fact alone made him love her just a little bit more.

  He also knew she was nervous about him going away on this trip and he wasn’t fool enough to be too complacent. Every mission carried a risk, even the innocuous ones. Linc had been shot just a few months ago by a man he was following whose wife suspected he was cheating on her with her sister. It had just been a graze but only because the cheater was a poor shot and the sister had gotten spooked and dumped him. His wife was divorcing him and his few weeks with his dirty little secret was costing him his home, his children and even his custom car collection.

  This was a little more serious and involved a few shady characters, the unwilling daughter of the state prosecutor and a whole lot of illegal narcotics. Linc had been working on the case for close to five months and this was the culmination of all his hard work. Linc would take the lead and Connor would be there purely for backup and a member of the extraction team to bring the woman home safely to her family. Summer didn’t need to know the details of the case, it would only worry her more.

  He wanted to carry her to bed but it would need to wait until after the run. He didn’t want another quickie, he wanted to take his time and savor every inch of her to sustain him in his time away, so maybe a cold shower would be an idea to dampen his raging hormones. He had an ache in his gut and a feeling of melancholy at the thought of not seeing her for the next few days.

  By the time he showered and changed, packed a bag for his trip and checked up on his work emails, Summer was ready and waiting for him on the porch swing. The front of her hair was braided like a crown and the length hung down her back, smooth as silk. She smelled of strawberries and had changed her cotton sundress for soft jean leggings and a sleeveless collared shirt in pastel blue. She was going to help with the kids tonight and keep Bree and Hope company while the rest of the pack went on the run.

  Connor thought about pulling out of the run but Summer wouldn’t hear of it and he did want to be with the pack tonight if nothing else just to cement his joining them as a fully-fledged member.

  “You look gorgeous, good enough to eat,” he said as he joined her on the swing and she grinned, showing her dimple.

  “Remember you said that Connor,” she smoothed her hand over his chest and down over the taut fabric of his jeans, stopping at his thigh.

  “Oh god, Summe
r, you drive me insane. I am in a permanent state of arousal around you.”

  “Hold that thought until we get back home tonight.” she was grinning as she stood up and held out her hand to him. “We need to get going.”

  She was enjoying his discomfort way too much.

  He took her hand and they walked down the porch steps to the truck.

  “You really are a little witch, Summer Blackwood,” he complained as he got in behind the wheel and they headed back to The Den for dinner before the run.

  Normally he wasn’t much into crowds of people but these huge pack gatherings were something else. Garrett introduced him to a few people he hadn’t met before and he was surprised to find that he could see a clear future with these people out here on Donovan’s mountain.

  “Let’s get something to eat before the wolves clean up,” his brother put his hand on his back and they walked back to the courtyard where Jay and Roisin were organizing burgers and hotdogs.

  The long trestle tables were groaning under the weight of the food piled on them and there were wolves everywhere already eating. He took a plate and helped himself to two cheeseburgers, a hotdog and some corn for starters. Seann and Liam were already eating and they joined them at their table. There was no sign of Summer coming back to join them yet and he guessed she was inside with the other women fussing over Bree and Nate’s new babies

  “Can you tell us about the mission you are going on or is it top secret?” Seann asked as he bit into a burger.

  Connor filled them in on the bare bones of the case, leaving out all the personal details of the woman involved and her prominent family members who were paying him a lot of money to bring her home. Seann wasn’t just being polite, he wasn’t really a ‘polite’ sort of person and he could see genuine interest on the alpha’s face.

  “I hope to wrap it up in a few days but I could be away for a week, there are so many moving parts in this case.”

  “I would tell you it gets easier leaving them, but it never does.” Liam smiled as Kandis came toward them with her plate.