Moonlight Kin: A Wolf's Tale Read online

  His hazel eyes assessed the room slowly, before coming to rest upon her. First contact felt like a visceral punch to the gut. Madie stared unblinking—captured by his gaze as he studied her with a curious intensity.

  Voices faded. The room seemed to shrink around her, closing in until only the two of them existed. Madie fell into those deep gold-flecked pools, trapped by the liquid honey promises she saw there.

  The heat of attraction crackled in the air, sending shivering sparks over her skin. Her heart thundered. Torn between the need to flee and the urge to jump into his arms, Madie clutched her easel.

  His unwavering gaze continued to bore holes through her, probing, searching, and studying. But that wasn’t what freaked Madie out. It was the hunger she saw, lurking just below the surface. She’d never seen anything like it, nor had that kind of hunger ever been directed toward her.

  She attempted to steady herself, her mind a mixture of fear and desire. . .yet still he held her, refusing to let go.

  Dr. Montgomery cleared her throat.

  Blinking, the model broke eye contact. Madie felt her energy drain and she dropped back onto her stool, unaware until that moment that she’d even risen. Her nerves tingled like a thousand tiny needles prickling her skin. She took a shuddering breath and slowly released the easel, pretending to smooth the blank paper.

  What in the world just happened, she wondered. Her body ached from the loss of contact.

  Yet he hadn’t physically touched her.

  “Are you okay?” Sarah’s question penetrated her dizzying thoughts.

  Madie’s lids shot open. “I-I’m fine, why?” She swallowed hard and squared her shoulders, forcing herself to sit up straight.

  “It seemed like you were about to run across the room and jump his bones. Not that I blame you, but that’s more my style, not yours.” Sarah’s green eyes narrowed as she searched Madie’s face. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”

  She took a deep breath and slowly released it. “Y-Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” Madie gave Sarah a reassuring smile, even though she was shaken from the incident. “I had a head rush, probably from not eating.”

  “Head rush?” Sarah laughed. “Is that what they’re calling lust these days?”

  “Sarah!” Madie gasped.

  “Oh please, you know it’s true. He’s yummy.” Sarah glanced at the man once more. “Do you know him?”

  “No!” Madie said with a little too much force, as she gazed at the model. It took effort, but she finally drew her eyes away from his perfect form. “No,” she repeated calmly, sure beyond a doubt that she’d never met him before. Madie ignored the little voice in the back of her mind that said she’d like to. “Why do you ask?”

  Sarah snorted. “Because he sure looks like he knows you. Or wants to.”

  “Don’t be silly.” Madie’s voice cracked, coming out in a high-pitched squeak. “He was probably looking at something out the window.”

  “I doubt he finds the parking lot fascinating.” Sarah grinned. “I’m telling you, Madie, he looked at you like a starving man looks at a turkey sandwich with a side of gravy fries.”

  Madie glanced back at the model. “Well, he’s not looking at me now,” she said, unable to hide her disappointment. She’d spent her whole life dreaming of storybook moments and not once had they happened…until now.

  The model spoke softly to their professor in a deep rumbling baritone. His bronzed shoulders blocked much of the conversation from the class. Whatever he was saying must’ve been good because Dr. Montgomery practically purred in response. She’d obviously forgotten she was married.

  Madie curled her fingers in to fists. The Professor’s not so innocent reaction tore at her insides and it only got worse when the woman leaned into the man’s bulk, lightly placing her fingertips on his thick bicep. He flexed under her touch, and then flashed the instructor a devilish smile that showcased his dimples.

  Could he get any hotter?

  Madie wanted to scream at her professor to get away from him. She wanted that smile for herself. Strike that—she needed it. The possessive feelings frightened her because they were so utterly foreign. The truth hit Madie a second later—she was jealous.

  No way!

  She couldn’t be jealous. It must be the stress of graduation and Papa coming to get her. That had to be it. What else could it be? She didn’t even know the guy. Disgusted by her uncharacteristic behavior, Madie looked away. It only took a moment for her traitorous gaze to seek him out once more. Pathetic.

  The model turned from the class for a moment. His back rippled as he adjusted the towel, then he faced the group again.

  Madie’s mouth practically watered in anticipation. Butterflies wreaked havoc in her stomach. She knew that she’d never met him before, but still. . .

  There was something familiar about him.

  The Professor held up her hands to quiet the room.

  “I’d like to introduce our model. This is Damon Laroche. Our scheduled model cancelled at the last minute. Damon was kind enough to volunteer to fill in and pose for us today. Please give him a warm welcome.”

  The class exploded in applause, especially the women, many of whom let out inappropriate catcalls.

  Once again, those gold-flecked eyes captured Madie’s gaze. With an arch of his brow, he issued a subtle invitation. Tightly leashed desire burned from within him, along with some other emotion Madie didn’t recognize or understand.

  Everything about the man looked feral…and hungry.

  Unable to break his pointed gaze, Madie flushed with a sudden rush of heat. Something untamed from deep inside her longed to answer his unspoken invitation.

  She imagined their sweat-covered bodies writhing on soft sheets as they came together in a fierce coupling. Her body shuddered and perspiration dotted her brow. His eyes shifted subtly and her nipples tightened painfully beneath the lace cups of her bra.

  His knowing gaze roamed from her face to her sensible shoes, taking in her obscured figure. He paused once more on her aching breasts, as if he could see right through her sweater. Need tortured Madie with its invisible hands, plucking at her engorged nipples. Damon’s firm lips twitched ever so slightly as if he knew exactly what he was doing to her.

  Madie sat breathless, her body quivering with untapped desire.

  Unmistakable hunger clouded Damon’s eyes turning them nearly molten gold. His body practically hummed with leashed power. The energy emanating from him could have illuminated the entire town of New Salford, Massachusetts for a month. He licked his lips, the movement casual, as if remembering the taste of something decadent.

  Madie melted inside. She imagined that tongue tasting her skin and almost spontaneously combusted on her stool. Moisture pooled between her thighs. She squeezed her legs together to stave off the growing need.

  A confident slash of a smile teased the corners of his sensuous mouth, and then spread across his handsome face. If it were possible, that wicked grin made him even more devastating.

  Entranced, Madie waited in anticipation. Like an expert artisan, her gaze caressed his high cheekbones, playing at his lips, then moved down to his firm chin. She lingered there, cataloguing subtle details that would eventually go into her sketch, before admiring the corded muscles of his neck and wide expanse of his shoulders. Methodically, she retraced her path, returning to his face. She refused to look any lower for fear of what she’d find.

  Without preamble, Damon winked and dropped his towel. Several students gasped. Those mesmerizing eyes dared Madie to look. She did, and all remaining logical thought slipped from her mind.

  Chapter Four

  Gaston Valois sat at his kitchen table nursing his morning whiskey. He swirled the amber liquid around the tumbler, while he stared at his daughter’s picture. She was so like her mother, beautiful…and weak. Nothing at all like him. That fact burrowed into his flesh like a tick, slowly sucking away his sanity. He should never have allowed her to go to art school. The two
years of freedom had gone to her head.

  Not that she’d been totally alone. For the first year, Gaston had hired a bodyguard to watch over her. The man had made sure to keep the young men at her school from sniffing around her. She was born for greatness. The only way to achieve that was by maintaining her purity.

  Gaston wasn’t about to let her destroy her future by getting herself knocked up by some idiot, who didn’t know the first thing about the real world. It was only in the last year that he’d allowed her some space by pulling back the protection detail. And look where that got him.

  Madeleine was now full of crazy ideas. She was so desperate to open an art gallery that she was willing to shirk off her responsibilities to the family. He balked. It wasn’t going to happen. Hunters didn’t own galleries. Hunters were put on this earth for one thing and one thing only—to kill rogue werewolves.

  If a few other wolves were killed by accident in the process, then that was acceptable collateral damage. He wouldn’t lose sleep over it.

  Her weakness and selfishness was why he’d had to resort to threats and drastic measures. Gaston didn’t like the idea of forcing Madie’s compliance, but she’d given him little choice in the matter. Without the ritual binding her to the position of Hunter, she’d never fully come into her powers. And she’d need all the help she could get, if she was going to hunt the most dangerous animal on the planet.

  A knock sounded on the door, interrupting his thoughts. Gaston glanced at the clock across the room. His guest was right on time.

  “Enter.” Gaston knew who it would be before the door opened. He’d summoned the man, who he’d one day call son-in-law, to flesh out the next steps in winning his daughter’s hand in marriage.

  Like any good father, Gaston had done his homework. The man had come from Minnesota after losing his family and his legacy to a feral werewolf pack. Gaston had found the obituaries online and read the headlines in the papers. The deaths had been attributed to animal attacks. He knew better.

  The young man’s need for revenge resonated with Gaston for he, too had lost loved ones to the werewolves over the years. He had no intention of losing his only daughter, the last of his line, before she had a chance to bear the next generation of Hunter. If that meant coercing her into marriage, then so be it. Fortunately for him, she needed her inheritance enough to agree to just about anything.

  Jack Hanson stepped through the doorway and stopped. He was a handsome man with dark hair and gray stormy eyes. Tall and well built, he reminded Gaston of himself in his younger years, except he’d never had dark hair.

  “You wanted to speak with me, sir?” Jack asked.

  “Yes.” Gaston tossed back the contents of his glass. The warm burn of the whiskey shot fire down his throat. “Shut the door behind you and take a seat.”

  Jack complied.

  “Did you bring the proof that I asked for?” Gaston asked.

  He nodded and pulled a folder out of his jacket, then dropped it onto the table. “It’s all there,” Jack said.

  Gaston reached for the folder and flipped it open. Inside, the photos of four different people who’d been ripped apart were displayed in gruesome detail. He studied each photo carefully, before closing the file. “And you’re sure they’re all human?”

  Jack nodded. “I checked each one myself. We have to do something. We cannot let the Moonlight Kin pack get away with these murders.”

  “We won’t.” Gaston indicated to the seat across from him, then grabbed another glass and filled it. He pushed the tumbler across the table. Jack picked it up as he sat, but didn’t take a drink. Gaston refilled his glass, then set the bottle aside.

  “What are we drinking to this morning?” Jack’s brow furrowed.

  “Your future. My daughter’s future. Your future together. Take your pick.” Gaston clinked glasses with the young man, then tossed the shot back.

  Jack straightened in his chair. “And what if she’s not interested?” He set his glass down onto the table without drinking to the toast.

  Gaston’s eyes narrowed. “I’m sure you can figure out some way to make her interested. You’re a handsome guy. I doubt that you have any problems with the ladies. My daughter is naïve. I’ve made sure of it. That makes her gullible and ripe for the picking so to speak.”

  Jack ran a hand through his hair. “What if I’m not her type?”

  “Her type? What does being her type have to do with it? I’ll make sure that she agrees to go out with you,” Gaston said. “All you have to do is close the deal. Since I won’t be around forever, I don’t really care how you do it. You know what we’re up against.” He indicated to the folder. “I need someone strong to run this territory. Someone willing to do what it takes to keep these beasts in their place. And she ain’t it. I haven’t worked this hard and this long to lose the eastern territory to the local Lycan pack now.”

  A tic emerged in Jack’s shadowed jaw. “I won’t let that happen,” he said.

  “That’s what I’m counting on,” Gaston said.

  “What about the other territories?” Jack finally took a sip of his drink. His nose wrinkled and he set the glass down.

  Gaston poured himself another glass of whiskey. “My brother’s sons will take care of those. They’re lucky. Their wives bore them many children—all boys. None of my brothers were cursed with a daughter. Their spouses weren’t weak like mine.” Or unfaithful.

  “Some people consider a daughter a blessing,” Jack said carefully, as he stared at his drink.

  “Only fools who don’t hunt werewolves.” Gaston slammed his tumbler onto the table.

  Jack didn’t even flinch.

  It was one of the many things about the man that Gaston admired. Nothing seemed to scare him or rattle him. He may not have started his life out as a hunter, but he was a natural.

  Calm, cold and calculated, Jack considered every move before making it. His sense of self was unprecedented in a man of twenty-eight. It had taken Gaston years to achieve that level of detached ruthlessness.

  “So what’s the plan?” Jack asked.

  “My daughter graduates from art school in a week. Her twenty-fifth birthday falls on the following Saturday and coincides with the full moon. While her defenses are down, I want you to get to know her. Use the charm you hide so well to sweep her off her feet. Once you plant your seed inside her, I’ll demand that you marry. Madie is a traditionalist. She won’t want to bring a baby into the world without it having a father. Trust me. I raised her right.” Gaston’s head became fuzzy as the whiskey worked its way through his system.

  “I’ll do my best, sir.” Jack rose from the table.

  “You’d better do more than that,” Gaston said. “The future of mankind is depending on you.”

  Jack paused at the door. “What about the Moonlight Kin pack?”

  “Once Madeleine has completed the initiation ceremony, we’ll hunt them down and kill them all. We’ll sort out who the guilty party is after we skin em’.”

  ***

  Jack waited until he’d left the room to smile. His plan was working better than he’d ever imagined it would. He’d expected it to take a while to garner Gaston’s trust, but it had only taken a couple of months.

  Initially Jack had been shocked that Gaston didn’t keep records of current pack members, other than the dead ones, but his oversight had worked in his favor. The old man had listened to his sob story, then done a cursory look at his history. Afterwards, he’d welcomed him with open arms.

  The move spoke volumes about his deteriorating health and his desperation.

  It was that same desperation that Jack had easily exploited. It’s how he found himself in his current position. The folder with the photos of the corpses helped him put the finishing touches on his story.

  No one, including the old man, suspected that he was behind the deaths and that all the bodies had been wolves. By the time they found out, it would be too late. They’d have already made a fatal blow against the
ir mutual enemy, the Lycans. Damon and the others wouldn’t know what hit them.

  Until then, Jack would bide his time and go along with Gaston’s plan. He didn’t think seducing Madeleine would be as easy as the old man envisioned, but Jack had no doubt he was up for the job. He’d seen her photo. She wasn’t unattractive. Though she wasn’t his type. He’d never been into wallflowers. He preferred his women to have a little fire in their blood.

  The fact that Gaston wanted Jack to impregnate his daughter had been a surprise, especially since the old man didn’t seem to care how he went about it. Despite his claims otherwise, there was no love loss between father and daughter. She was a vessel, nothing more, nothing less.

  Any other time, Jack might actually feel sorry for her, but Madeleine was his means to an end. Jack knew if he somehow succeeded in knocking her up, which was unlikely, he would gain the ultimate coup against the werewolf pack…and Gaston Valois.

  How did that proverb go? The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

  It was true—at least for now.

  He grinned wider.

  Gaston Valois had just given him the opportunity of a lifetime. No way would he pass up the chance to take them both down.

  Chapter Five

  Madie stood behind the counter at Berta’s 50’s-style diner, staring at the old-fashioned cash register as if it were a foreign object. She’d worked part-time at Berta’s for the past two years. The diner was steady employment for a full-time student.

  She gazed unfocused at the cash in her hand. The recollection of Damon’s perfect anatomy flashed before her. Madie decided he was anything but average, at least according to her Life Drawing classes.

  Damon was unblemished perfection—smooth, powerful, and erotically male. His shaft was long and thick with an intimidating plum-sized head. Instead of being a pale pink, like she’d expected, his sex was tan like the rest of him. The man obviously spent a lot of time naked.

  Madie gulped, as the ache that began the second he’d dropped the towel in class returned with a vengeance.