Dark Moon Falls: Volume 2

by Bella Roccaforte

Today was a good day though. Today, she’d walked into town, chatted to Storm like a normal person, and bought groceries, so today she’d take as a win.

  She approached her cabin, and stopped when she saw the figure sitting on the steps leading to the front door. Her heart went into overdrive before she realized it was Josh.

  Then it beat fast for a different reason. Her fear receded and something different, warmer, hotter, took its place.

  She couldn’t act on this strange attraction. After all, her taste in men was terrible. The worst. Rebecca didn’t trust herself to accurately judge people anymore.

  Cautiously, she approached her cabin. Darcy wasn’t barking, which was odd. Normally, he’d go crazy if someone strange had approached their home and camped out on the steps. Oh, God, she hoped he was okay. She couldn’t cope if anything happened to her dog.

  “Hey,” Josh said casually as she neared.

  “Hi.”

  “Hope you don’t mind me popping over? I wanted to have a quick chat with you about Kat. I think you might be seeing more of her. It seems she’s taken a real shine to you, and to Darcy.”

  “Did he bark when you approached?” she asked, nervous as hell for the answer because if he hadn’t barked it meant there might be something wrong with her beloved boy.

  “Yes, but I talked to him through the door and he quieted down.”

  She almost made a quip about him being a dog whisperer, but didn’t. Maybe as a wolf shifter he’d think she was insulting him?

  “Okay, erm, come on in.” She reached for her keys, and unlocked the door, pushing it open and heading inside to be almost knocked flying by one very overexcited golden retriever.

  “Darcy, hey, settle down boy, Mummy’s home.” She said the words without thinking, then realized Josh was behind her, and wanted to take them back. She’d sounded silly, she supposed, talking to her dog in such a way.

  Placing her bag on the kitchen table, she turned to Josh. “Would you like a drink?”

  “Just a glass of water, please.”

  She busied herself at the sink, filling two glasses, grateful for the chance to catch her breath and calm down.

  Handing Josh one of them, she studied him. “You want to talk about Kat?”

  “Yeah. She told me today she likes you and that Sally’s your friend, and Darcy’s, and she wants to be your friend…and Darcy’s too. I told her I needed to talk to you first, make sure you’re okay with it if she wants to come over and say hi sometimes?”

  “Oh…erm…well, of course. I mean, Sally comes over a couple of times a week. Although to be honest, I think it’s Darcy she really comes to see.” She smiled at him and Josh smiled back.

  Rebecca’s heart gave a little flutter at the way his mouth curved, and the gorgeous dimples on either side of his delectable lips. She had an almost overwhelming urge to lean into him and…sniff him? Wow, that didn’t sound right, or normal. She needed to get a grip.

  “So…Mr. Steele,” she said. God, even his name was sexy. “Shall we sit, and we can have a talk?”

  “It’s Josh, please, although I do have to say, I love the way Mr. Steele sounds in your British accent.”

  Was he flirting? Probably not. A lot of folks had commented on her accent.

  “Josh it is then. Shall we sit? Are you sure I can’t tempt you with something better to drink? Coffee perhaps, or tea?”

  “A cup of coffee would be great.”

  She set to making their drinks. “Do you like cream and sugar?”

  “No, just black, thanks.”

  She poured out his coffee, made one for herself which she did add cream to, and carried them into the living room. Josh followed her and Darcy followed Josh, sniffing at him the way Rebecca herself wanted to.

  They sat on the couch, and she tried not to freak out at his closeness. He was big…tall and broad, and she could tell he had nice muscles under those clothes. When she passed him his coffee, she did get a chance to surreptitiously smell him, and his scent was divine. He was wearing that same aftershave again, and she had to say it was the sexiest scent she’d ever come across.

  He sipped at his coffee then turned to face her. “So…Kat,” he began. “I want her to have the freedom to make friends, and get outside, but I also worry about her. She’s been through a great deal of trauma.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes.” His jaw tightened, and those lush lips went from full and firm to a thin, angry line. “My pack…my previous pack, was attacked. Badly. Most of the adult shifters were killed, torn limb from limb, and the young were taken. I wasn’t aware of what had happened as I was finishing up a tour overseas.”

  “You served?” she asked.

  “Yes Ma’am. Marines,” he said, and his face relaxed a little as his lips curled into a small smile.

  He was proud of his service, as he should be.

  “I hadn’t heard from home for a while, but I tried not to worry too much, it can happen. Letters go missing, and we were out in the desert for a long period. When I got Stateside and couldn’t get an answer from my parents or any of my friends, that’s when I began to worry. Our pack didn’t live like the shifters do here in Dark Moon Falls.”

  He paused, took a sip of his drink, then placed the cup carefully on the table in front of him. “My pack lived in very basic accommodation, within private land onto which no humans were allowed.”

  Oh, wow. She’d heard some shifter groups preferred to keep themselves isolated, but hadn’t met anyone who’d lived in such a way.

  “I didn’t like the way they lived, to be honest. It’s one of the reasons I joined the military. I wanted to contribute to my country, and see something of the world. However, I may not have liked everything about the way we lived, but I loved my pack, and my family, deeply. When I got to our land, the fence was torn in one section, and I panicked because I knew something bad had happened.”

  He broke off and scrubbed long, tan fingers over his short beard. “I found the buildings destroyed, and everyone gone except for an elderly mated couple who for some unknown reason had been spared. They told me a rival pack, rogues, basically, had attacked our land, killed all the adult shifters and taken the children. I found out they planned to make the male children work their land, and the female children they would force to mate with their wolves when they were old enough. I managed to rescue my sister, and two other kids, and got them the hell out of there.”

  Her eyes were wide as she listened to him.

  “How did you rescue them?”

  He rubbed once more at his jaw, and she decided she liked the gesture. “I snuck in and took them in the dark of night when the pack members were all drunk or high. These aren’t good people, and they have a habit of getting inebriated to the point of not being able to function. I took the two young I had rescued to a sister pack of ours, and gave them all the details of where I believed the other children were being held. Two days later they raided the pack again, and rescued the rest of the young ones, who now live with the Navaran pack.”

  “You didn’t want to stay with your sister pack?” she asked.

  “No, I wasn’t sure it was safe. I told the Navaran’s leader that he should come with me, move far away, but he refused, and said they’d stay and fight. Thing is, I could have stayed with them and helped, but I had to think of Kat. If it had only been me, I’d still be there now, fighting those bastards who attacked my people. But I made a promise to the Goddess to always put Kat first, once I found out she was alive. She was deeply traumatized, and she’d lost everyone she held dear, except for me. I didn’t want her to face months or possibly years of raids and counter raids. Instead of staying, I decided to leave and get as far away as I could. We crossed from Kentucky over here to the West Coast and found the Dark Moon Falls community. I applied for asylum here with Elias, and was granted it for myself and for Kat.”

  “I’m so sorry for your loss,” Rebecca said, her heart breaking for him.

  She’d been through bad times
, but she couldn’t imagine returning home from war to find your home decimated and your family murdered.

  She blinked back the pesky tears threatening.

  “I’m only telling you this so you know that I don’t just let Kat hang around with anyone, and I don’t like her to be too far out of my sight. If she comes with Sally to see Darcy sometimes will you keep an eye on her for me? Make sure they don’t go too far?”

  “Of course,” she said. “I always tell Sally to stay within sight of the cabin if she’s playing with Darcy out there. I’ll make sure the girls don’t go far if they come over here.”

  “Good,” he answered. “Because that little girl is now my number one priority.”

  His protective words had her heart picking up speed. How she’d like to have someone make her their number one priority and look out for her the way Josh did his sister. Maybe someone like Josh…she immediately pushed the thought away.

  Rebecca didn’t do relationships anymore, with damn good reason, and she needed to remember that.

  4

  Josh

  Josh watched Rebecca as she sipped daintily at her drink. There was something measured and economical in her movements that he liked. She didn’t wave her arms around, or fling herself about. No, Rebecca had a quietness about her, which he found soothing.

  At some point during this second encounter, he became utterly convinced she was his mate. He needed to talk to someone because he was sure it shouldn’t be the case. He knew it happened, he wasn’t stupid. Look at Storm and Jagger. But it was rare, wasn’t it? And his pack hadn’t practiced human/wolf matings, so he found it odd the Goddess would have thought he ought to have a human mate.

  Then there was the strange painting of two wolves who looked exactly like his parents. Josh wondered if there was more to Rebecca than met the eye.

  “Hey,” he said casually, as if the idea had only just occurred to him. “I said I might like to come look at some more of your wolf paintings. I don’t suppose I could take a look before I head back?”

  “Yes, of course.” She smiled, and he noted once more how brittle it was.

  Someone had hurt her, and badly. He picked up her fear, but also loneliness, and sadness. He could almost taste her sorrow it was so strong, but he had no clue why she felt these things. If they were mated would he know for sure?

  The thought of mating her made his mouth water and his canines itch in his gums. He wanted to bite her, to give her his mating mark, but he needed to hold off on such fantasies until he knew much more.

  His wolf wanted Rebecca no matter what. It whined and paced inside him, clearly unhappy that for the first time in their years on this earth, they were at odds with one another. Josh wanted her too if he were honest, but he would put a break on those feelings until he knew more about her. Particularly more about where her wolf paintings came from, and more about what made her so mixed up inside. He had to put Kat first, even above his own desire for this woman.

  He’d made a solemn promise to both the Goddess and his ancestors the night he rescued Kat. He promised to always protect her, no matter what. He wouldn’t break that promise. Not even for Rebecca…for his mate.

  Rebecca stood, and gestured for him to follow her. She headed down a dark hallway, walked to the end, and opened a door to her right. He followed her inside the room and his mouth fell open.

  There were paintings everywhere. Hanging, stacked up on the floor, leaning against the walls. So many. She must paint like a fiend to have so many completed works.

  Most of the paintings were either of wolves, or of nighttime scenery, mostly forests, but some beaches too.

  “The wolf series are what you’re interest in, correct?” she asked him in that formal British way of hers.

  “Yes, please,” he answered.

  She went to the far corner and gestured for him to follow.

  “All along this wall are my wolf paintings. Have a look through, see if there’s any you like more than the one you saw the other day.”

  Josh hunkered down and began to look through all the paintings. By the time he’d got halfway through he felt more confused than ever. There weren’t anymore of wolves from his pack. There also weren’t any of him or Kat, but there was another oil on canvas of the two wolves who looked so much like his parents.

  Maybe it was coincidence. He’d never been one to believe in coincidence though, so why start now?

  Instead of lying to Rebecca any longer, he decided to go with the truth, she how she reacted. “This painting, it’s the same two wolves as the one you’re working on right now isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is. I sometimes paint the same wolves more than once. In fact, I often do. I don’t seem to get that many that come to me in my sleep.” She laughed.

  “So, you don’t know these wolves at all?”

  “No,” she said with a small frown. “I told you that the other day. Why?”

  “Because… I can’t be sure, but I think these two wolves are my parents.”

  She stared at him for a long moment. “They can’t be. I mean…how?”

  “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “But you said yourself, the wolves you paint often come to you at night, in your dreams. Right?”

  She nodded.

  “Maybe, somehow, you dreamed about my parents?” It made no sense to him. So far as he could tell, Rebecca wasn’t a witch and had no magic. Still, he ought to at least ask. “Do you have any powers? Magic? Anything at all?”

  She shrugged. “Well, my Gran used to tell me I had the sight. She said it ran in our family, and often skipped a generation, which is why my mother didn’t have it. She was wrong though. I can’t have had the sight because if I had I wouldn’t have made the mess of my life that I did.”

  Josh pondered her words. He was sure he recalled someone, one of the elders perhaps, in his birth pack, stating that some who had the sight could only see certain things, and many couldn’t see things related to themselves. He thought it was worth asking someone who might know. Perhaps the coven members? He’d think about it. The mystery of her painting two wolves he was convinced were his parents was niggling away at him.

  They returned to the living room after he’d looked through the rest of the paintings, and Rebecca was somber. He didn’t want her to be that way around him, closed off and locked down, but she was.

  He watched her as she bustled about her kitchen, clearing away things that didn’t need moving, and he found himself needing to stop her. Comfort her somehow.

  He crossed the room and tapped her on her arm. She turned to him and pressed her hand to her chest. “You made me jump. How did you get so close without making a sound?”

  Crap, he hadn’t meant to scare her. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s a shifter thing. Rebecca, what happened to you?”

  She laughed, but it was hollow. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Yes, you do. I told you about my past, about what happened to my pack, and you’re scared…of me? Or of something…someone else?”

  “I’m not scared of you, Josh, not particularly. It’s true, people in general make me nervous, I guess I’m shy…introverted. They say most artists are.”

  He looked deep into her eyes, and both he and his wolf sensed this wasn’t the truth, not by a long shot, but he didn’t want to push. Not when doing so might make her shutdown completely.

  “Have dinner with me?” he asked. The question surprised him as much as it clearly did Rebecca. Until the words were out of his mouth, he’d had no idea he was going to ask her.

  Her eyes widened and her head began to move, a subtle side-to-side shake. She was going to turn him down.

  “It’s just dinner, Rebecca. At the diner? Get out of here for an hour or two. What do you say?”

  She nibbled her lip and he saw the second he’d won, and she decided to say yes. “Okay, but only an early dinner. I don’t like being out late.”

  “That suits me. Shall we meet there at say, six? Tomorrow?”


  “Okay.” Her tone was uncertain, but her eyes were bright, and she flushed slightly. “See you tomorrow.”

  “Until then.” He resisted the urge to kiss her, knowing she’d freak out and refuse to meet him if he did so. Tomorrow maybe? After a glass of wine and some delicious food, maybe then he’d get a taste of his mate.

  5

  Rebecca

  Nerves ate away at Rebecca as she got herself ready. What was she doing? Why had she agreed to meet Josh? Was this a date?

  Oh, she wouldn’t be able to eat a thing, the way her stomach churned. She ought to call him and cancel, but deep down, beyond her fear and her nerves, she didn’t want to. She wanted to see more of the handsome man. While she was nervous because of the attraction she felt toward him, she also found Josh’s presence soothing somehow.

  When he’d touched her arm in the kitchen, she’d had the strangest sensation for a moment, as if she could tune into him, and his slower, calmer heartbeat. It was a crazy, fanciful thought and not true, of course, but it’s how she’d felt for a moment in time…and she’d liked it.

  What she wouldn’t give to find someone who could quiet her racing mind and pounding heart when her anxiety began to ramp up. She couldn’t let herself see Josh that way though. Rebecca had to remember that when it came to men, she had a terrible track record, and no woman who had believed Nigel to be a nice man had any right to date ever again.

  It’s why she’d kept herself so secluded, wasn’t it? So that she would never make such a terrible mistake again. After all, she had no family left to tell her if she was once more making a mistake. She’d lost her father many years ago, and had no siblings. Her mother had passed not long after the attack on Rebecca, and she was convinced that some of what caused her mother’s heart to deteriorate was the stress of witnessing what her daughter went through. In all senses, Rebecca truly was an orphan now.

  When she’d let Nigel into her life, Rebecca hadn’t only let herself down, but her mother too. She supposed in some ways, she and Josh were alike, but he at least had Kat.