Broken Moon by Laken Cane

Chapter Three

My “kill kit” contained the tools of my trade. It was a demon-killing, vampire-staking, supernatural-hunting satchel that I loved more than anything else I owned. For years I’d added pieces to it until it was nearly bursting with the necessary—and perfect—items I needed to not only make a good living, but to satisfy the craving in my soul to…well, to hunt. To catch. To investigate.

But first, I’d had to go through some shit. To become an adult and move away from my mother.

After we’d been kicked out of the pack, life had been good, really. With the money my mother had and the payment the wolves had given her to help us start over in a human world, she’d put us up in a hotel.

Two months later I’d come home from school and found her busily packing, smiling for the first time since my dad had died. “I found home,” she told me.

Home was a big, crumbling old house on a five-acre property outside the city, part of a little town called Huntersburg. Making the place livable and working her gardens were what got my mother through those first extremely difficult years.

“Hard work is the best medicine, Kaity.”

“I thought laughter was.”

“Well, we don’t have a lot of that right now, but we have an abundance of hard work ahead of us.”

And did we ever. So much work. We fell into bed at night exhausted. Even wolves got tired. She didn’t let me rest except long enough to do my homework, and one morning I woke up and realized the months had flown by and I was feeling better. At least mentally.

When the full moon came, she did what she could to help me, but our alpha had not hobbled her, and she was forced to leave me so her wolf could run. Only extremely powerful wolves or hobbled wolves could resist the pull of a full moon, and she was neither.

She never apologized for my childhood. It wouldn’t have occurred to her. Wolves did not have soft lives. Strong wolves helped strengthen the community, and there was no place for weaklings—at least not in the Stone Moon Pack. We were often challenged by rivals attempting to kill our alpha and absorb our wolves. We were attacked by our natural enemy, the vampire, at least a couple of times a year. We had to fight other shifters to defend our territory. Not just the wolves, but bears, coyotes, and foxes, to name a few.

It was a constant fight to defend ones territory against invaders and to keep safe a pack that other alphas wanted to rule. Wolves needed numbers, and one way to get them was to kill an alpha and take them.

It was a hard world.

But nothing was as hard as being cast out of your pack and tossed into an unfriendly world where you had to not only defend against humans, but other nonhumans—while keeping the fact that you were a wolf secret from the human world. Actually, that part wasn’t as hard as one might think.

I’d left my mother’s house when I was twenty-two. It wasn’t like I was leaving her alone. Her neighbors all looked out for one another, and she’d met two women—both of them just a little on the eccentric side, like her—and they’d moved in with her before I left. They’d needed her, but she’d needed them as well. Maybe she’d known I wanted to leave for the city. By the time I was ready to go, she was well ensconced in her country life with her part time job at the local diner, her housemates, and her social activity, and I was free to strike out on my own. I visited her every week.

She wouldn’t admit it, but I knew the constant pressure of my pain wore on her. There was nothing she could do about it, and that fact was hard on her. No mother wanted to see her child in agony.

It didn’t help that she thought my hobbled wolf had driven me mad. When I was a very small kid, I’d begun seeing the spirits of people who’d passed. Died. Yeah. I was one of those “I see dead people” people. Only my mother hadn’t known that. Not long after we moved to Huntersburg, she’d caught me pointing my finger at someone she couldn’t see and yelling at them to leave me alone.

I was a kid then. A kid full of anger and pain. The only dead person I wanted to see was my father, only he never showed up.

I could see them, but I could rarely hear them. Half the time, they didn’t even know I could see them, and I’d learned early on to pretend like I couldn’t. People didn’t like it when they found out I could see dead people. My former alpha, for instance.

Fuck him.

I drove as far into the woods as I could get, which wasn’t all that far. I grabbed my kill kit and then jogged back to where I’d left the humans and the demon pile, hoping a cop wouldn’t drive by, see my car, and decide to investigate. Not that I didn’t have my connections in the JPD, but only one of them actually believed I had supernatural abilities.

The three humans were standing exactly as I’d left them, frozen and silent, their eyes wide and empty in the bright moonlight. I crouched beside the demon pile and opened my case.

Everything inside the beautiful wooden box was blessed or touched with power. Some of the items were hundreds of years old, and all of them would hurt a nonhuman. Including me, if I wasn’t careful. Usually, I would have opened the case in the car, selected a few items, then left the kit in the car where it’d be safe. But I didn’t think I’d be facing any vampires or fighting any other demons tonight, so I took the entire kit.

I selected a tiny vial of holy water, removed the stopper, and sprinkled it over the pile of demon ash, sticks, and dry leaves.

“Shit,” I yelled, scrambling away when the entire pile forcefully ignited. My face felt scorched, and I lifted my fingers to my eyebrows to make sure they hadn’t been burned off in the explosion. Thankfully, they were still intact. The scent of sulfur lingered in the air.

I stood and faced the trio, watching as they broke from their invisible chains. One of the men gave me and the still burning fire an almost blank look, then began running in the opposite direction. His gait was odd and lopsided as his mind attempted to catch up with his body.

“I’ll give you a ride,” I called, but he ran on. I didn’t think he even heard me.

The remaining two clutched at each other, shock in their eyes. Neither said a word, but they shrank away from me after I collected my hunting kit and approached them. I held up my free hand, palm toward them, like I’d just cornered a frightened dog.

“My car isn’t far,” I said, keeping my voice calm. “I’ll give you both a ride home.”

The woman looked around, finally, her gaze landing on the now empty log they’d used for an altar. “Where’s the girl?”

“The girl?” I asked, unable to keep the derision from my tone. “You don’t even know the name of the person you were about to hand over to a fucking demon?”

“She wanted to do it,” the young man murmured, but he didn’t look at me when he spoke.

“Yeah,” I said. I shook my head, then turned to stride away. “Let’s go. And don’t for a minute think I’m not going to lecture you idiots all the way home.”

I didn’t look back, but I could almost feel them staring at each other, debating on whether to follow me or take off as their friend had done. Finally, I heard them creeping along after me, and when I got to my car, they were not far behind.

I ushered them into the back seat, placed my kit in the front passenger floorboard—simply because I didn’t trust them not to reach over the seat and touch it—then climbed under the steering wheel and started the car.

“Okay,” I said as I backed onto the road. “Let’s get a couple of things straight…”

I kept my word and lectured them all the way home. Neither made a peep except to answer when I asked a question. But in the end, when I dropped them both at an apartment building, the man hesitated.

“You don’t have to worry.” His eyes were serious, and I could see the truth in his face. “We’re done messing with the supernatural. We did it for Jessie.” He gestured at the woman, who stood shivering with her head down. “Her ex is—”

“I know why you did it,” I interrupted. “But that kid was very nearly left without a mother tonight. If you’re so worried about your baby ending up with a monster, why would you risk dying and making sure of it?”

She looked at me, finally. “I was desperate.”

“Where’s the kid now?”

“With my parents.”

I sighed. “Your ex. I’ll need his address.”

She stared, her lips parted, unsure. When she was silent for a second too long, the guy beside her gave me the address.

I generally refused to get mixed up in human affairs unless a supernatural was fucking with them, but I wanted to have a look at Jessie’s ex. I’d check him out tomorrow. Tonight, I wanted a hot shower, some dinner—my wolf might be hobbled but she could eat like a bear—and a nice soft bed.

I’d nearly forgotten about Lucille.

I walked into my little house and leaned back against the door, the handle of my case in my right hand. I stood there for a few moments, taking in the feel of the house, listening, absorbing. I was suspicious by nature, and when I wasn’t overwhelmed by a full moon and the agony inside me, I was careful.

Not even my house was safe from the creatures of the night, creatures most humans were unaware existed. I heard the clock ticking on the wall, the sporadic street traffic, and down the block, the sound of a garbage truck.

I glanced at the clock. 4:27 am. God, I was tired. But the agony of the full moon was dissipating, and by the time I woke up at noon or so, I would be back to my normal self. Still in pain—that never left—but not in agony.

Someone tapped on the door at my back and I jerked away from it and to the side, my blade already in my hand. I set my kit down gently and closed my eyes. I inhaled, and a familiar scent, one I no longer smelled regularly, slid into my brain.

Wolf.

There was a wolf on the other side of my door.

“What do you want?” I murmured.

My voice was soft, but he heard me anyway. “I need to speak with you.”

“Who are you?” Now my voice was less soft, a thread of impatience and a dark threat running through it.

He hesitated. “I am Jared Walker. Open the door, Ms. Silver.”

“Fuck,” I whispered.

What the hell had I done to get on the radar of the Gray Shadow Pack alpha?