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    Blue Moon: The Nightcreature Novels, #1
    Blue Moon: The Nightcreature Novels, #1
    Blue Moon: The Nightcreature Novels, #1
    Ebook350 pages5 hours

    Blue Moon: The Nightcreature Novels, #1

    By Lori Handeland

    5/5

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    • Werewolves

    • Mystery

    • Supernatural

    • Romance

    • Hunting

    • Love Triangle

    • Secret Identity

    • Forbidden Love

    • Supernatural Romance

    • Native American Mythology

    • Werewolf Transformation

    • Love Conquers All

    • Secret Society

    • Small Town Secrets

    • Mysterious Stranger

    • Supernatural Creatures

    • Native American Culture

    • Survival

    • Small Town Life

    • Police Work

    About this ebook

    Winner of the RITA® Award for Best Paranormal Romance!

     

    When darkness falls, another world comes alive . . .

     

    The summer I discovered the world was not black-and-white but a host of annoying shades of gray was the summer a lot more changed than my vision.

     

    Call me Jessie, or better yet, Officer McQuade. On the night the truth began, our usually shy wolf population near my hometown of Miniwa, Wisconsin attacked. At the scene of the first crime, I found a wolf totem, which lead me to Professor Will Cadotte, an expert in Native American mythology, particularly of his tribe the Ojibwe.

     

    From day one, he annoyed me. Tall, dark and gorgeous, he's also funny, smart and nearly as sarcastic as I am. I felt things when I looked at him.  I wanted to keep feeling them longer than was healthy for a woman like me.  I know what I am. Better off alone.

     

    Nevertheless, we began to work together in an attempt to determine what was rotten in Miniwa. We were getting nowhere until the arrival of Edward Mandenauer, a self-proclaimed werewolf hunter.

     

    Sure, I laughed and then one of our dead bodies walked out of the morgue. After that . . . things got really strange.

     

    Now a rare Blue Moon approaches, making me wonder: Who can I trust when the moon is full?

     

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLori Handeland
    Release dateMar 31, 2018
    ISBN9780998530444
    Blue Moon: The Nightcreature Novels, #1
    Author

    Lori Handeland

    Lori Handeland decided she wanted to be a writer when she was ten years old and was struck with the sudden fear that she might read all the books in the world and be left with nothing interesting to do. Detours into waitressing, teaching, business management, and motherhood pushed her dream of writing back a few years, but she eventually sold her first novel in 1993. Since then her books have spanned the contemporary, historical, and paranormal genres. She is recipient of many industry awards, including the PRISM for Dark Paranormal Romance. Lori lives in Wisconsin with her husband, two sons, and a yellow lab named Elwood.

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      Book preview

      Blue Moon - Lori Handeland

      CHAPTER 1

      The summer I discovered the world was not black-and-white—the way I liked it—but a host of annoying shades of gray was the summer a lot more changed than my vision.

      However, on the night the truth began I was still just another small-town cop—bored, cranky, waiting, even wishing, for something to happen. I learned never to be so open-ended in my wishes again.

      The car radio crackled. Three Adam One, what’s your ten-twenty?

      I’m watching the corn grow on the east side of town. I waited for the imminent spatter of profanity from the dispatcher on duty. I wasn’t disappointed.

      You’d think it was a goddamn full moon. I swear those things bring out every nut cake in three counties.

      Zelda Hupmen was seventy-five if she was a day. A hard-drinking, chain-smoking throwback to the good times when such a lifestyle was commonplace and the fact it would kill you still a mystery. Obviously Zelda had yet to hear the scientific findings, since she was going to outlive everyone by smoking unfiltered Camels and drinking Jim Beam for breakfast.

      Maybe the crazies are just gearing up for the blue moon we’ve got coming, I said.

      What in living hell is a blue moon?

      The reason Zee was still working third shift after countless years on the force? Her charming vocabulary.

      Two full moons in one month makes a blue moon on the second course. Very rare. Very powerful. If you’re into that stuff.

      Living in the north woods of Wisconsin, elbow to elbow with what was left of the Ojibwe nation, I’d heard enough woo-woo legends to last a lifetime. They always pissed me off. I lived in a modern world where legends had no place except in the history books. To do my job, I needed facts. In Miniwa, depending on who you talked to, facts and fiction blurred together too close for my comfort.

      Zee’s exhale of derision turned into a long, hacking cough. I waited, ever patient, for her to regain her breath.

      Powerful my ass. Now get yours out to Highway One-ninety-nine. We got trouble, girl.

      What kind of trouble? I flicked on the red lights, considered the siren.

      Cell call—lots of screaming, lots of static. Brad’s on his way.

      I had planned to inquire about the second officer on duty, but, as usual, Zee answered questions before they could even be asked. Sometimes she was spookier than anything I heard or saw on the job.

      It’ll take him a while. He was at the other end of the lake, so you’ll be first on the scene. Let me know what happens.

      Since I’d never found screaming to be good news, I stopped considering the siren and sped my wailing vehicle in the direction of Highway 199.

      The Miniwa PD consisted of myself, the sheriff, and six other officers, plus Zee and an endless array of young dispatchers—until summer, when the force swelled to twenty because of the tourists.

      I hated summer. Rich fools from Southern cities traveled the two-lane highway to the north to sit on their butt next to a lake and fry their skin the shade of fuchsia agony. Their kids shrieked, their dogs ran wild, they drove their boats too fast and their minds too slow, but they came into town and spent their easy money in the bars, restaurants, and junk shops.

      As annoying as the tourist trade was for a cop, the three months of torture kept Miniwa on the map. According to my calendar, we had just entered week three of hell.

      I came over a hill and slammed on my brakes. A gas-sucking, lane-hogging luxury SUV was parked crosswise on the yellow line. A single headlight blazed; the other was a gaping black hole.

      Why the owner hadn’t pulled the vehicle onto the shoulder I had no idea. But then, I’d always suspected the majority of the population were too stupid to live.

      I inched my squad car off the road, positioning my lights on the vehicle. Leaving the red dome flashing, I turned off the siren. The resulting hush was as deafening as the shrill wail had been.

      The clip of my boots on the asphalt made a lonely, ghostly sound. If my headlights hadn’t illuminated the hazy outline of a person in the driver’s seat, I’d have believed I was alone, so deep was the silence, so complete the stillness of the night.

      Hello?

      No response. Not a hint of movement.

      I hurried around the front of the car, taking in the pieces of the grille and one headlight splayed across the pavement. For a car that cost upward of $70,000 it sure broke into pieces easily enough.

      That’s what I liked about the department’s custom-issue Ford Interceptor Sedan aka Taurus. Other cities might have switched over to SUVs, but Miniwa stuck with the tried and true. Sure, four-wheel drive was nice, but sandbags in the trunk and chains on the tires worked just fine and were a lot cheaper.

      Miniwa PD. I skirted the fender of the SUV.

      My gaze flicked over the droplets of blood that shone black beneath the silver moonlight. They trailed off toward the far side of the road. I took a minute to check the ditch for any sign of a wounded animal or human being, but there was nothing.

      Returning to the car, I yanked open the door and blinked to find a woman behind the wheel. In my experience men drove these cars—or soccer moms. I saw no soccer balls, no kids, no wedding ring.

      Are you all right?

      She had a bump on her forehead and her eyes were glassy. Very young and very blond—the fairy princess type—she was too petite to be driving a vehicle of this size, but—I gave a mental shrug—it was a free country

      The airbag hadn’t deployed, which meant the car was a piece of shit or she hadn’t been going very fast when she’d hit ... whatever it was she’d hit.

      I voted on the latter, since she wasn’t lying on the pavement shredded from the windshield. The bump indicated she hadn’t been wearing her seat belt. Shame on her. A ticketing offense in this state, but hard to prove after the fact.

      Are you all right? I tried again when she continued to stare at me without answering. What’s your name?

      She raised her hand to her head. There was blood dripping down her arm.

      I frowned. No broken glass, except on the front of the car, which appeared to be more plastic than anything else. How had she cut herself?

      I grabbed the flashlight from my belt and trained it on her arm. Something had taken a bite-sized chunk out of the skin between her thumb and her wrist.

      What did you hit, ma’am?

      Karen. Her eyes were wide, pupils dilated; she was shocky. Karen Larson.

      Right answer, wrong question. The distant wail of a siren sliced through the cool night air. Help was on the way.

      Since the nearest hospital was a forty-minute drive, Miniwa made do with a small general practice clinic for everything but life-threatening crises. Even so, the clinic was on the other end of town, a good twenty minutes over dark, deserted roads.

      Brad could transport Miss Larson while I finished up here, but first things first. I needed to move her vehicle out of the road before someone, if not Brad, plowed into us. Thank God Highway 199 at 3:00 a.m. was not a hotbed of traffic, or there’d be more glass and blood on the pavement.

      Miss Larson, we need to move the vehicle. Slide over.

      She did as I ordered, like a child, and I quickly parked her car near mine. Planning to retrieve my first-aid kit and do some minor cleaning and repairs—perhaps bandage her up just enough to keep the blood off the seats—I paused, half in and half out of the car, when she answered my third question as late as the second.

      I hit a wolf.

      A litany of Zee’s favorites ran through my head. The wolves were becoming a problem. They followed the food, and with the deer herds increasing in alarming numbers despite the generosity of the Department of Natural Resources with hunting licenses, the wolves had multiplied along with their prey. Wolves were not typically aggressive; however, if they were wounded or rabid, typical did not apply.

      Did it bite you?

      I knew the answer, but I had to ask. For the record.

      She nodded. I-I thought it was a dog.

      Damn big dog.

      Yes. Damn big, she repeated. It ran in front of my car. I couldn’t stop. Black like the night. Chasing, chasing— She frowned, then moaned as if the effort of thought was too much for her poor head.

      How did you get bitten?

      I thought it was dead.

      A good rule to remember when dealing with wild animals and superhero villains? They usually aren’t dead—even when everyone thinks they are.

      Ma’am, I’m just going to check your license and registration, okay?

      She nodded in the same zoned-out manner she’d had all along. I didn’t smell alcohol, but even so, she’d be checked for that and drugs at the clinic.

      I quickly rifled her wallet. Yep, Karen Larson. The registration in the glove compartment proved she owned the car. All my ducks were in a row, just the way I liked them.

      Brad arrived at last. Young, eager, he was one of the summer cops, which meant he wasn’t from here. Who knows what he did during the other nine months of the year. From the looks of him he lifted weights and worked on his tan beneath an artificial sun. Having dealt with Brad before, I was of the opinion he’d fried his brain along with his skin. But he was competent enough to take Miss Larson to the clinic.

      I met him halfway between his car and hers. We’ve got a wolf bite. I had no time for chitchat. Not that I would have bothered even if I did. Get her to the clinic. I’m going to see if I can find the wolf.

      He laughed. Right, Jessie. You’re gonna catch a wolf, in the middle of the night, in these woods. And it’ll be the particular wolf you’re searching for.

      That’s why Brad was a summer cop and I was an all-through-the-year cop. I had a brain and I wasn’t afraid to use it.

      Call me silly, I pointed at the blood, plastic, and glass on the pavement, but that’s gonna leave a mark. If I find a wolf with a fender-sized dent, I’ll just arrest him. Who knows, we might be able to avoid rabies shots for our victim.

      Brad blinked. Oh.

      Yeah. ‘Oh.’ Can you call Zee, tell her what happened, have her inform the DNR?

      Why?

      I resisted the urge to thump him upside the head, maybe I’d shake some sense loose, but I doubted it. Wolves are endangered. Standard procedure when dealing with them is to call the hunting and fishing police.

      Do we have to?

      Though I shared his sentiments—no one around here had much use for the Department of Natural Resources—rules were rules. If I had to shoot a rabid wolf, I wanted to do so with my butt already covered.

      Yes. We have to. Have Zee get someone else out here to secure, then measure this scene. I patted the antiquated walkie-talkie on my belt. I’ll be in touch.

      But— Uh, I was thinking ... Maybe, um, I should, uh, you know ... His uncertain gaze flicked toward the trees, then back to me.

      I know. And you shouldn’t.

      Think. Ever. Trailed through my brain but not out of my mouth. I had learned a few things in my twenty-six years, and one of them was to keep my smart-ass mind-comments to myself. Mostly.

      I’ve lived here all my life. I’m the best hunter on the force.

      A fact that did not endear me to many of the guys I worked with. I couldn’t recall the last time I hadn’t taken top prize in the Big Buck contests run by the taverns every fall. Still Brad appeared uneasy at letting me wander off alone into the darkness.

      Relax, I said. I know these woods. You don’t.

      Without waiting for further argument, I went after the wolf.

      CHAPTER 2

      I’d learned to follow a blood trail before I grew breasts.

      Not from my father. He disappeared right about the time I uttered Da-da. I should have kept my mouth shut. But that was nothing new.

      My mother was, make that is, a true girlie-girl. She never knew what to make of a daughter who preferred to play with boys, shoot guns, and get dirty. She still doesn’t.

      I was a wild child. Not her fault, though she blames herself. I don’t think I turned out too bad. I’m a cop, not a delinquent. That has to be good for something.

      Except my mother’s approval. I gave up on that a long time ago.

      I don’t hear much from her these days. If she couldn’t have the perfect daughter, she’d hoped for perfect grandchildren—as if she’d get them from me. Marriage and family aren’t high on my list of priorities.

      Oh, wait—they aren’t on the list at all.

      I had no doubt Miss Larson’s wolf was long gone; still I couldn’t just give up without trying. It wasn’t in me.

      Following a blood trail through the dark was a neat trick, one I’d picked up from my best friend in the sixth grade, Craig Simmons, who’d learned it from his best friend in the fifth grade, George Standwater.

      The Indian kids didn’t mix much with the white kids, and vice versa, despite any smiley-faced propaganda to the contrary. Once in a while a few became friends, but it never lasted long. The adults, on both sides, took care of that.

      I’ll never forget how awful Craig felt when his parents told him he couldn’t see George anymore. Like I felt, I’m sure, when Craig decided he’d rather play with girls in the Biblical sense and he no longer had any need for a friend-girl like Jessie McQuade.

      With a near audible whoosh, the forest closed in around me, leaving the civilized world of cars, electric lights, and roads behind. Beneath the canopy of the evergreens and birch trees I could barely see the stars. That’s how a lot of losers got lost.

      I’d learned in my years on the force that more people disappeared than the public ever heard about. Miniwa was no exception. Folks walked into the woods on a regular basis and never came out.

      Not me. I had my flashlight, my gun, and my compass. I could stay out here for days and find my way home, even without the walkie-talkie. . The only reason we had them was that they worked better than cell phones in the shadow of a hundred thousand trees.

      The walkie chose that moment to crackle, so I shut it off. All I needed was to get close to the wolf and have Zee cuss a blue streak through the receiver. If this wolf was rabid, and it probably was, I’d have one chance, if that, and I wasn’t going to blow it.

      I wished momentarily for a rifle. With a handgun I’d need to get awfully close, but we didn’t keep long-range firearms in the squad cars. They were all locked up safe and tight back at the station—where they were of no use to me.

      The blood trail veered right, then left, then right again. Nearing three-quarter size, the moon blared bright. The kind of night most animals kept to the forest, spooked into hiding by the shiny disc in the sky.

      Except for the wolves. They seemed to like it.

      Tonight, I liked it too. Because the silver sheen bounced off a glistening splotch on the ground here, a leaf there. That the blood was still wet gave me hope my quarry might not be too far ahead. The wolf could even be dead, which would solve a whole lot of problems.

      Still, I kept my gun handy. I knew better than to follow a wounded wild animal without protection.

      The breeze ruffled the short length of my hair and I paused, lifted my face to the night, then cursed. I was upwind. If the wolf wasn’t dead, he knew I was coming.

      A howl split the night, rising on the breeze, sifting through the darkness, and fleeing toward the moon. Not the soulful sound of a lonely animal searching for a mate, but the furious, aggressive wail of a dominant male.

      The back of my neck tingled. He knew I was coming, and he was ready.

      My adrenaline kicked in. I wanted to move faster. Get there. Fight, not flee. Finish this. But I had to follow the blood, and that hadn’t gotten any easier.

      Then, suddenly, the trail was gone. I backtracked. Located the blood again. Moved forward, found nothing. My wolf seemed to have disappeared into thin air.

      Uneasy, I glanced up at the swaying silhouettes of the trees. A laugh escaped, the sound more nervous than amused. What kind of wolf could climb a tree? Not one that I wanted to meet.

      A movement ahead had me scurrying forward, screw the blood trail. I burst through the brush and into a clearing, nearly stumbled, and fell at the sight of a shiny log cabin. Had it sprouted from the dirt?

      My curiosity vanished when my gaze lit on a swaying, shivering bush at the far side of the clearing. The windows of the cabin were dark. If I was lucky, the occupants were asleep or, even better, not in residence. I didn’t want to scare anyone with gunshots outside their new home at 4:00 a.m.

      Gun drawn, I advanced.

      A single, glistening drop of blood on a leaf made me aim my handgun in that direction. The bush stilled.

      I was so tense my body ached with it. I couldn’t just shoot without knowing what was there. But what if the wolf leaped out, jaws slashing before I could fire?

      Decisions, decisions. I hated them. Give me a nice, sure, clean shot any day. Black-and-white. Right and wrong. Good versus evil.

      Hey! I shouted, hoping the wolf would run away.

      No such luck. The bush began to shake again, and a shadow lifted, lengthened, grew broader, and took the shape of a man.

      A very handsome, well-proportioned, naked man.

      From far to the north came the cry of a wolf, reminding me I needed to move on.

      Ignoring the naked man—which wasn’t easy, he was quite spectacular and I hadn’t seen one in a long, long time—I searched the ground for the blood trail. However, it was well and truly gone this time.

      Damn it! I holstered my weapon.

      Problem?

      His voice was deep, almost soothing, flowing like water over smooth stones. He was taller than me by a good five inches, which made him six-three in bare feet. The moon shone silver across his golden skin, which appeared to be the same hue all over. He obviously had no qualms about going bare-assed beneath the sun as well as the moon.

      He stared at me calmly, as if he didn’t know, or maybe just didn’t care, that he’d forgotten his clothes when he’d stepped outside.

      Well, if he could be nonchalant, so could I. Did a wolf run through here?

      He crossed his arms. His biceps flexed; so did the muscles in his stomach.

      I couldn’t help myself. I stared. Ridges and dips in all the right places. He’d been working out.

      Seen enough?

      With no small amount of difficulty, I raised my gaze to his face. I refused to be embarrassed. He was the one standing naked in the night.

      Is there more?

      His teeth flashed against the darker shade of his face. His eyes were black, his hair, too, and nearly as short as my own. A golden feather swung from one ear.

      Interesting. Most Native American jewelry was silver.

      If he were white, he’d take a lot of heat for that earring in a place like Miniwa. It might be the twenty-first century, but in small Midwestern towns earrings were for fairies, just as tattoos were for motorcycle gangs.

      Unless you were an Indian; then folks just ignored you. However, I doubted a man who looked like he did was ignored by the entire population.

      You’re after a wolf?

      He stepped from behind the bush, giving me a much clearer view of a whole lot more. My cheeks heated. For all my bravado and smart-mouthed comments, I’d never had much use for men beyond friendship. Probably because they’d never had much use for me. Still, a girl has needs, or so I discovered beneath the shiny, silver moon.

      You wanna put on some clothes before we chat? I aimed for a bored, woman-of-the-world tone. I got a breathless, sexy rasp. To cover my embarrassment I snapped, What are you doing out here?

      "I’m not out anywhere. This is my place, my land. And I don’t have to explain anything. You’re trespassing."

      Hot pursuit. Exigent circumstances, I mumbled. Just seems odd to be out in the dark in the buff.

      Why have a cabin in the woods if you can’t walk around naked whenever the urge strikes you?

      I don’t know. Poison ivy in all the wrong places?

      I thought he laughed, but when I glanced at him, he’d turned away. I lost my train of thought again at the sight of his back. The muscles rippled as he moved. Was it hot out here?

      You’re chasing a wolf, alone, through the woods in the middle of the night, Officer . . . ?

      Suddenly he was right in front of me. Had I been so entranced with my fantasies that I hadn’t noticed him slip in close?

      A slim, dark finger reached out; the white moon of a nail brushed the nameplate perched on my left breast. ‘McQuade,’ he read, then lifted his eyes to mine.

      I had to tilt my head back, not a common occurrence for me. I could usually stare guys straight in the eye, and I was rarely this close to them. They were never naked.

      He smelled like the forest—green trees, brown earth, and . . . something wild, something free. I felt as if I were falling into his dark, endless eyes. His cheekbones were sharp, his lips full, his skin perfect. The man was prettier than I was.

      I took a giant step back. Just because I was in a woodland clearing with a gorgeous, naked Indian man didn’t mean I had to swoon like the heroine of a historical romance novel. I wasn’t the type.

      I’m doing my job, I said, as much to answer him as remind myself. A wolf bit a woman out on the highway. I need to find the thing.

      Something flickered in his eyes and was gone so quickly I wasn’t sure if I’d seen

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