Thunder Moon Read online

  I hesitated, still afraid to reveal my heart, afraid to have it broken again, this time for good. His job was dangerous; it was only a matter of time until something evil ended him. I wasn’t sure I could survive that.

  “We should get back.” I refused to meet his eyes. “Claire’s probably called the Marines by now.”

  Woof.

  Great. The messenger wolf was back.

  “What is it?” Ian asked.

  I wasn’t sure. The witch was dead; what else did Grandmother have to tell me?

  She threw back her head and howled, long, loud, lonely, and I understood her as clearly as if she’d spoken. Better to have some time with Ian than none at all. No matter what happened, at least we’d have love. We’d both nearly lost our lives tonight, and we needed to—

  “Seize the day,” I said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you back. What brought that on?”

  I glanced at the wolf, but she was gone. I must be headed down the right path.

  “Hard to say.”

  He lifted a brow, but he didn’t press for more of an answer than that.

  “Carpe diem, huh?” Ian brushed loose hair out of my face. “Seize the day?” I nodded, and he ran his thumb over my lips. “How about we carpe noctem, too?”

  I grabbed the tip of his thumb between my teeth, then suckled it until his brown eyes flickered topaz. “Would that be ‘seize the night’?”

  “Yes.” He began to unbutton my uniform. “Just be careful of the lip.”

  Chapter 37

  I was right about Claire calling the Marines.

  Or at least one Marine—Cal—who’d brought every cop in town. Luckily, they weren’t as good at tracking as I was, and by the time they’d found us, Ian and I were dressed and making our way down the mountain.

  We’d gotten our story straight—a garbled tale of jealousy and obsession, starring Adsila. She’d wanted Ian; she’d taken him. I’d taken him back, and she’d taken off. Cal would be occupied trying to find her for days. By the time he realized she was nowhere to be found, there’d be something new to worry about.

  Quatie’s disappearance could be laid at Adsila’s door as well. She’d wanted the land; she’d buried her great-great-grandmother in the forest somewhere. We’d never find Quatie, either. Only Ian and I—and Claire, Mal, and Doc—would know why.

  Doc met us at the cars. “Everything all right?”

  “Dandy,” I said, and he nodded once in understanding. His gaze said he’d expect a complete report when we had time alone. I’d be happy to oblige.

  “Claire wants you to come straight to her house,” Cal said when Doc had patched Ian up the best he could.

  Ian refused to go to the hospital. “I’ve got better cures at my clinic than any hospital could ever hope for.”

  Remembering my black eye and how quickly it had faded, I drove him home.

  “I’ll run to Claire’s and fill her in,” I said.

  “Come back soon.” He kissed me, gingerly because of the lip.

  “Put some of that gunk on your mouth.”

  Claire ran onto the porch as soon as I pulled up. She didn’t wait for me to reach her but flew down the steps and threw herself at me.

  “Hey, people will say we’re in love.”

  She hugged me so tightly I had to fight for breath, then let me go. “Don’t ever do that again.”

  “No problem.” Though I knew if I had to do it over, I’d do exactly the same thing. If we had any other supernatural problems—and considering our track record, I had to think we might—I’d do whatever I had to do to keep the people I loved safe.

  I followed Claire inside. The house was quiet; it was just the two of us. She tossed me a beer; I drank half in one gulp. Then I told her everything that had happened.

  “You can make your eyes go panther?”

  “Yeah. It was pretty cool.”

  “Let me see.”

  “Now?”

  “Why not?”

  Yeah, why not?

  I closed my eyes and chanted the spell in Cherokee, felt the power, the magic, the belief, flow through me, and when I opened my eyes again, Claire narrowed hers. “Don’t tell Elise or Edward.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said, then murmured, “Ahnigi’a,” and the magic faded. “Elise would want to take me apart and see what made me ... well, me. Edward would just want to shoot me.”

  “They’re slightly predictable in their reactions to shape-shifters.”

  “I didn’t shape-shift.”

  “But you might.” She took a sip of her own beer. “There’s no telling what you could do with a little practice.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. I wasn’t sure I wanted to, despite any childhood dreams to the contrary. There’s a difference between seeing like a panther and actually being one.

  We worked out our strategy for what we’d say to the people of Lake Bluff to explain all the autopsies and the exhumations. Doc had already laid the groundwork for the virus excuse. Now we’d claim false alarm and everyone could go back to their lives. If the medical examiner, the sheriff, and the mayor all agreed, and the news was good, I didn’t think we’d have too many people pressing the issue. I’d learned in my years as an elected official that most citizens didn’t want to know the truth. They couldn’t handle the truth.

  “We’d better call Elise,” Claire said. “Tell her what happened so she can check the Raven Mocker off her list. You know how anal she is.”

  “You do it. Now that I’ve actually accessed my inner panther, I doubt she and I will ever get along.”

  “You weren’t ever going to get along anyway,” Claire said, and dialed.

  I drank the rest of my beer as I waited for Claire to speak. When she didn’t, I lowered the can. The expression on her face made me stand. “What is it?”

  “No one’s answering.”

  Someone always answered the Jager-Sucher hotline. Always. Although the last time I’d called, the place had sounded frantic.

  Claire hung up and tried again. She listened, shook her head, and disconnected. “I’ll try tomorrow.”

  I suddenly felt antsy. I wanted to see Ian. Now.

  “I’d better go.” I set my empty can on the counter. Claire followed me to the door and hugged me again. I let her. Last summer when she’d nearly died by werewolf, it had taken me a while to get over it.

  As I walked to the clinic, the sky cleared and a lopsided moon spilled silver across the rooftops. God, I loved this town.

  The front door stood ajar. Shaking my head at Ian’s absentmindedness, I slipped in. I followed his voice upstairs to his office where he stood at the window, talking on the phone.

  He’d showered and now wore loose cotton pants and nothing else. His hair was wet; the eagle feather lay on the desk next to a jar of balm. Even from the doorway, I could see the bruises on his back and across his ribs. I got angry all over again.

  “I think at one time Quatie read about the Raven Mocker in Rose Scott’s papers.” He paused. “No, she didn’t say that, but it makes sense. She read the spell, and when her body began to break down she remembered and performed it.”

  For several seconds he listened to whoever was on the other end of the line.

  “You’re sure they’re all missing?” Ian cursed. “Okay. Right. I’ll be there in the morning.” He hung up but didn’t turn around. “You heard?”

  “You’re leaving me?”

  He spun. “No. Of course not.”

  “But—”

  “Just because I have to leave doesn’t mean I’m leaving you. Didn’t you ever wonder why I opened a clinic in this town when I’ve never stayed more than the time it took me to kill something in any other?”

  “Why?”

  “I’m tired of wandering. I need a home.”

  “You’re coming back?”

  He crossed the room and pulled me against him. “Have so many people left that you don’t know the
y sometimes come back?”

  I nodded.

  “I’ll come back.”

  “Unless something kills you.”

  “I’ve been doing this for years. Not a scratch on me. “Until tonight.”

  I picked up the balm, and screwed off the top; then I spread it gently over his skin just as he’d once done for me.

  “I’d never ask you to quit being a cop. It’s part of who you are. But I wish you could—”

  I stopped spreading the goo. “What?”

  “Come with me.”

  I considered it. I’d be good at chasing monsters. I’d save more people helping Ian than I did protecting Lake Bluff from the tourists—although there’d been more than tourists here lately. Still—

  “I can’t.”

  He kissed the inside of my wrist. “Lake Bluff is where you belong. It’s where I belong now, too. Even if we hadn’t found each other ...” His voice trailed off, and he stared out the window at the distant hills of blue. “I’d come back here just for them.”

  I linked my fingers with his. I hadn’t known him long, but the bonds we shared—the mountains, our heritage, what we knew about the world that so few others did—gave us a history that went much deeper than mere days.

  “When you say you want a home, does that include a family?”

  “Don’t they go together?”

  “Not for everyone.”

  “For me and for you, too. The way you look at Noah, Grace—” He smiled, and everything I wanted was in his eyes. “I never thought I’d be able to love again. I couldn’t take the chance that I’d get someone else killed. But tonight—you were unbelievable—your power, your strength, your courage. I know you’ll be safe, and our children, too, because of who you are and what you can do.”

  Later, much later, when we were all wrapped up together on his bed, I thought to ask, “Who’s missing?”

  “The Jäger-Suchers.”

  I remembered Elise’s phone ringing and ringing and felt a trickle of dread. “All of them?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “So are werewolves, vampires, and witches.”

  “Very funny.” Except I didn’t feel at all like laughing. Without the Jäger-Suchers to keep the call of the monsters down to a dull roar, the human race was in big trouble.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked.

  “Search for them, and take up the slack.”

  “You’re going to be gone for a while.”

  “Probably.”

  “Okay.” I kissed him. “I’ll be right here when you get back.”

  Epilogue

  From The National Enquirer

  Werewolves Attack Small Town in Northern Maine

  Under siege during a terrible blizzard, the residents of Harper’s Landing watched their numbers dwindle as the number of werewolves increased.

  They were saved when an old man with a heavy German accent walked out of the storm carrying guns and silver ammunition. Within days, every werewolf was dead, and the old gentleman disappeared as mysteriously as he’d arrived.

  “Edward,” I murmured. I knew he was too tough to die.

  I read a lot of stories like those over the next few years. The Jäger-Suchers had gone into hiding, popping up here and there, usually in the annals of magazines and newspapers catering to the bizarre. Sometimes I recognized Edward’s signature. Sometimes the stories mentioned a gorgeous blonde or a shaggy white wolf and I knew Elise was still alive, too. Other tales told of people I didn’t know, but I could recognize the handiwork of a Jäger-Sucher anywhere. When there were a lot of ashes left behind, it was kind of obvious.

  No one ever got close enough to them to find out just what in hell was going on, why they’d disappeared, how they’d managed to continue their work, but they did.

  And because of the Jäger-Suchers, the human race not only survived; we thrived.

  THE END

  If you enjoyed Thunder Moon, I would be honored if you would tell others by writing a review on the retailer’s website where you purchased this title.

  Thank you!

  Lori Handeland

  Read on for an excerpt of

  IN THE AIR TONIGHT,

  the first novel in Lori’s Sisters of the Craft witches trilogy

  IN THE AIR TONIGHT

  Lori Handeland

  Prologue

  Scotland, four hundred years ago

  Three men with large, hard, dirty hands lifted three infant girls from their cradles.

  “No!” Prudence Taggart cried, and a crockery bowl fell off the table, shattering against the floor.

  Roland McHugh, the king’s chief witch hunter, flicked a finger in her direction, and two other dark clad men dragged her out the door of the cottage. Several more yanked her husband, Henry, along behind. Those not occupied hauling the five Taggarts from their home built a pyre. From the speed at which they completed their task, they’d done so before.

  “More than one soul in a womb is Satan’s work.” McHugh’s lip curled as he contemplated the sleeping children. “How many lives did you sacrifice so your Devil’s spawn might be born?”

  Both Henry and Prudence remained silent. There was nothing they could say that would save them, and they knew it.

  Since King James had nearly been killed, along with his Danish queen, in a great storm he believed had been brought about by witchcraft, his majesty had become slightly obsessed on the subject of witches.

  However, as he didn’t want to seem backward and superstitious to his English subjects, who had very little regard for the Scots in the first place, he had been forced to commission a secret society, the Venatores Mali, or Hunters of Evil, to do his bidding. In McHugh the King had found a leader who hated witches as much as he did.

  Their captors lashed Henry and Prudence back-to-back against the stake then formed a circle around them. McHugh snapped his fingers, and two lackeys appeared with torches.

  The witch hunter removed a ring from his finger and a pincher from his wool doublet then held the circlet within the flame until it glowed. He pressed the red hot metal to Henry’s neck. The scent of burning flesh rose, along with a nasty hiss, and the livid image of a snarling wolf emerged from Henry’s flesh.

  “Are you mad?” Henry managed.

  “Sometimes the brand brings forth a confession.”

  “Shocking how pain and torture makes people say anything.”

  “It did not make you.” McHugh shoved his ring back into the flames, and his gaze slid to Prudence.

  “I did it,” Henry blurted. “I sold to Satan the lives of your wife and child to bring forth our own.”

  “Of course you did,” McHugh agreed.

  He was convinced magic, sorcery, witchcraft had been involved in the deaths of his loved ones. Nothing would change his mind. Not even the truth.

  Some things could not be healed. McHugh’s wife had been one of them. By the time he had fetched Prudence, the woman had lost far too much blood, and the child was already dead.

  McHugh pressed his ring to Pru’s neck. She stiffened until the stake creaked. Lightning flashed, and somewhere deep in the woods a tree toppled over. Wolves began to howl in the distance—a lot of them—and the circle of hunters shifted uneasily.

  “I confessed, you swine.”

  “You thought that would save her?” McHugh tut-tutted, then he snatched the blazing torches and tossed them onto the pyre. The dry, ancient wood flared.

  Henry reached for his wife’s hands. They were just close enough to touch palm-to-palm. “Imagine a safe place where no one believes in witches anymore.”

  The forest shimmered. Clouds skittered over the moon. Flames shot so high they seemed to touch the sky. When they died with a whoosh, nothing remained but ashes and smoke.

  And the men who had held the three infant girls held nothing but empty blankets.

  Chapter 1

  I understand that my dream of being normal is merely that.
r />   For one thing, I’m adopted and everyone knows it. In a town like New Bergin, Wisconsin adoptions are rare. Strapping Scandinavian farm folk produce blond-haired, blue-eyed children quick as bunnies. Which means my blue-black hair and so-brown-they’ll-never-be-blue eyes make me stand out like the single ugly duckling in a lake full of swans. Even before factoring in that I’m an only child.

  The only only child in New Bergin. Which doesn’t necessarily make me abnormal, but it doesn’t mean I fit in either.

  No, what makes me abnormal are the ghosts. As the freaky little kid in the movie said: They’re everywhere.

  At first my parents thought my speaking to empty corners and laughing for no reason was cute. As time went on, and people started talking... not so cute anymore.

  “Should we take her to a psychiatrist?” my mother asked softly.

  Ella Larsen always spoke softly. That night she whispered, yet still I heard. Or maybe one of the ghosts told me. I’d been four at the time. My recollection is muzzy.

  “Take her to a psychiatrist?” my father repeated. “I was thinking of taking her back.”

  Perhaps that was the beginning of my feelings of inadequacy in New Bergin, or at the least, the birth of my incessant need to please. If I wasn’t “right” I could be returned like a broken chair or a moldy loaf of bread.

  I stopped mentioning the ghosts the next day. I never did see that psychiatrist, although sometimes I think that I should. I’m still living in New Bergin. My name’s still Raye Larsen.

  Once I stopped chattering to nothing my father and I came to an unspoken understanding. He coached my softball team and took me fishing. I pretended to be Daddy’s girl. I had to. I didn’t want to go “back.”

  According to my records, I’d been abandoned on Interstate 94, halfway between Madison and Eau Claire. Whoever had left me behind had not liked me very much. They’d dumped me in a ditch on the side of the road—naked without even a blanket.