kissed-by-moonlight by Rakhibul hasan (ebook reader for pc .TXT) 📕

KISSED BY MOONLIGHT

 

KISSED BY MOONLIGHT

 

 

Wild Hunt, Book 1

 

By: Adrianne Brooks

 

~~~

 

Smashwords Edition

 

Copyright © 2014 Rascal Hearts

 

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

 

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

 

For questions and comments about this book, please contact us at [email protected]

 

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to http://clippingpathserviceindia.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

 

 

Table of Contents

 

Chapter One

 

Chapter Two

 

Chapter Three

 

Chapter Four

 

Chapter Five

 

Chapter Six

 

Chapter Seven

 

Chapter Eight

 

Chapter Nine

 

Chapter Ten

 

Chapter Eleven

 

Chapter Twelve

 

Chapter Thirteen

 

Chapter Fourteen

 

Chapter Fifteen

 

Chapter Sixteen

 

Chapter Seventeen

 

Chapter Eighteen

 

Chapter Nineteen

 

Chapter Twenty

 

Chapter Twenty One

 

 

 

Restless dreamer, Restless dreamer, If you’ve missed me, come and kiss me.

 

I’m the nightmare you wished away, you lost me on a summer’s day.

 

I’ve been haunting shadows, eating wishes, stealing smiles, I feel you when you’re not around. I’ve followed you both high and low, watched you fall into the snow, crouched on your chest to hear you scream…

 

If only because it calmed the need, to come and claim my tithe.

 

 

 

-Ballad of the Hunt

 

 

 

“Pack is family. We keep each other safe. Keep each other human. Pack is all.”

 

—Gina Parkons

 

 

 

Chapter One

 

 

 

 

 

c

 

Most people don’t know this, but road rage doesn’t actually go away. It gets sucked into your lungs through the rising heat of the pavement and stays there just beneath the surface of your skin. Waiting. Watching for the perfect opportunity to strike and fuck up everybody’s day.

 

My road rage found the perfect opportunity to rear its bitchy little head when I looked through my windshield to see what had become of my parking space. I glared at the series of numbers that made up the license plate and felt the warning bells begin to chime away in my head. My

 

particular brand of rage was so strong that by the time I realized what I was doing, I had already scrambled out of my Ford Explorer and stalked over to the offending hunk of metal.

 

Then I busted the driver’s side window in with my low-heeled pump.

 

The parking garage for the Examiner is close enough to the main building that it takes no more than five minutes to walk from there to the lobby. The paper had bought the small garage when it was apparent that not only did they need it for all the new employees, but that they could also afford it now that the money was rolling in in a steady stream.

 

My parking space sat up on the roof. By far the nicest, roomiest, and closest space to the main building. My parking space was a god among parking spaces. It kicked ass.

 

At the risk of sounding like a thirteen-year-old, it ruled.

 

So, when I busted in that window and shimmied my boobs past the glass still sticking up, so that I could set the car in neutral, I did so with a very clear idea of what it was that I was fighting for.

 

Because honestly, with my attention span, my rage could only drive me to do so much. After the glass smashed I was still seething, but no longer blinded by anger. So, telling the cops I was gripped with momentary insanity when they came for me wouldn’t work because when I set my shoulder against the frame of the door and started to push forward, my thinking was as clear as it had ever been.

 

I was going to push this bitch of a car (because, according to my last boyfriend, cars were females and with its sleek black leather interior this particular vehicle just screamed “vagina”) off the parking garage roof.

 

What about the innocent people below? you may ask.

 

You could kill pedestrians!

 

Fuck the pedestrians. The pedestrians wouldn’t cover the cost of my insurance if my car got scratched or stolen simply because I’d relegated it to a poor man’s parking space.

 

So I pushed and I shoved and my feet (one still in its pump and the other scrambling along the ground encased in my pantyhose) dug into the hot pavement and gave me the leverage I needed to put the guilty car in question where I wanted it.

 

Then the bumper hit the metal railing that extended around the perimeter of the roof and my vision went red. So I pulled back, then pushed forward. Again and again until the car was rocking like a boat tossed by waves. When it reached its backward zenith, I pushed it forward as hard as I could and was rewarded when the bumper broke through the cheap barrier.

 

The front two tires quickly followed and in an instant that seemed to stretch out endlessly the car teetered, lost its balance, and took a nosedive off the side of the building.

 

On a related note, I use Google a lot.

 

According to Google, there are very specific requirements that have to be met before a car will blow up. It’s actually not as simple as the movies make it out to be. For instance, being shoved off the roof of a ten story parking garage should only be enough to crush the car like a bug. To blow up I would have needed to rupture the gas tank and, even then, there would have been a spark required to get things going.

 

So when the car, which shouldn’t have exploded, did in fact, explode, I figured I was in more trouble than I had originally prepared myself for.

 

So I spoke accordingly.

 

“Oh shit.”

 

* * * *

 

“Phaedra Conners?”

 

I glanced up at the sound of my name to the woman standing before me, clipboard in hand. When no one responded right away, she glanced over the room’s occupants in rising annoyance and called for me again.

 

“Phaedra Conners?”

 

Her voice wasn’t nearly as pleasant this second time around. I froze for one more heartbeat and then cleared my throat as I came to my feet. My hands felt clammy, so I wiped them on my hips, the material of my gray slacks soft beneath my palms. The woman looked me up and down. Though there was no expression on her face to imply as much, I could tell that she found me unimpressive.

 

“Ms. Dawson is ready to see you now,” she said neutrally. “If you could follow me.” As she turned and started away I grabbed my purse from the floor beside my seat and hurried after her. It was hard to keep up with her long legged stride and I found myself wondering testily how she was even able to move so fast in five inch heels, when I could barely shuffle along in three.

 

The Oracle wasn’t nearly as large as the Examiner had been and I found myself feeling more than a little claustrophobic as I followed Miss Attitude past the desks and cubicles that marked the personal spaces of individual reporters. As with any newspaper, the few people who were there were bundles of activity. I played follow the leader until we both came to a closed door that read:

 

Lynette Dawson, Editor in-Chief

 

 

 

The woman knocked twice on the door, waited until we heard a muffled “come in” from beyond the confines, and then walked away from me without a word. I made a face at her retreating backside before opening the door and stepping cautiously inside.

 

Ms. Dawson had her back to me, so I allowed myself a moment or two to study her in unabashed curiosity. She was an older woman, if the gray in her brown hair was any indication. When I came into the room, I found her staring down a pin board that was completely covered with newspaper clippings and photographs. Her stocking feet were bare against the worn hardwood, and I watched as she lifted her foot to scratch the calf of her opposite leg. Her hair was done up in a messy bun, and the skirt suit she wore had obviously seen better days.

 

I had to clear my throat twice before she would turn to look at me, but when she did I was both surprised and pleased to see the sharp intelligence in her eyes. Grinning, Lynette Dawson came towards me, hand outstretched.

 

“Miss Conners.” Her voice was warm and her grip was firm as we shook hands. “It’s such a pleasure to finally meet you. Please, have a seat.”

 

I followed her suggestion willingly enough and watched as she plopped down in the creaking chair behind her desk. Her sudden weight in the chair made it roll a bit, but she swung back up to the desk with enthusiasm, elbows resting on the surface and her fingers entwining so that she could rest her chin upon them.

 

“So,” her brows waggled mischievously, “what brings Fiery Phaedra to our humble abode?”

 

I made a rude sound in the back of my throat, but tried to play it off with a strained half smile. “Please don’t call me that.”

 

“Why not? You should enjoy the moniker while it lasts, Miss Conners. It’s not every day that people hail you as a revolutionary.” She tapped her chin and there was laughter in her eyes. “How did the Examiner put it? ‘A perfect example of what happens when freedom of speech is no longer a right, but a weapon to be wielded against the majority.’” She sighed and wiped a tear of mirth from one corner of her eye. “That line was a particular favorite of mine. They were always going on about how you were trying to make a statement with your little explosion, but they never explained exactly what that statement was.”

 

The smile I’d been maintaining became just a tad more forced, so I finally gave it up as a lost cause.

 

“I’m no revolutionary, Ms. Dawson.”

 

“Then what, pray tell, are you?”

 

I sighed. Some people called me a hero, but that percentage was small. The rest of the city thought I was either a dumb schmuck who’d been at the wrong place at the wrong time, or a co-conspirator.

 

“That really depends on who you ask.”

 

“I’m asking you.” There was no amusement in Lynette Dawson’s voice. No room for fancy maneuverings. Yet again, I was reminded that it was the woman’s no-nonsense reputation that had attracted me to this place, despite the fact that many viewed it as nothing more than tacky gossip rag.

 

I’d spent most of my adult life handling drama. I was a fan of the sensational, the chaotic, and the strange. I spotlighted the unique, the heartbreaking, the unbelievable; I gave a voice to the masses, and, for the most part, I even enjoyed myself. It didn’t hurt that as long as the paper was doing well and I stayed on my game, I was able to make a decent living.

 

The problem wasn’t my work. It was my temperament. The court-appointed psychologist that I’d been seeing after the bomb incident had claimed that I lacked impulse control or something.

 

I hadn’t really been listening.

 

Jeez, you’re instrumental in the explosion of a shitty reproduction of the Mystery Machine and suddenly you’re being detained by authorities and charged with destroying public property and reckless endangerment. It didn’t matter that said van had an arsenal’s worth of weaponry and high tech surveillance equipment. It didn’t matter that the piece of junk had been carrying enough explosives to level