Harvest Moon
Authors: Helena Shaw
Tags: #Fiction, #alpha, #werewolf, #Contemporary Fiction, #romance adult, #Romance
Harvest Moon
Night Hunters Book One
Helena Shaw
First Kindle Edition 2014
Copyright 2014 Helena Shaw
Published by Jynxed Moon Press
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright
holders.
Edited by
Wyrmwood
Publishing & Editing
Cover design by Helena Shaw
Cover images provided by
© sbelov & artem_furman | Deposit Photos
Contents
Light poured from the never-fading streetlights of
Manhattan and into Jennifer’s bedroom. Still, even with the curtains of her
bedroom pushed open, it wasn’t enough for her to see what she was doing. Not
entirely, at least.
It was midnight, and below her, the city was still
alive with residents and tourists alike. None of them were aware of the young
woman who had, as of only a moment ago, just turned eighteen. None of them
would have any idea that she was scrambling to pack a suitcase.
No one at all knew that tonight, Jenny would end five
years of torture.
She knew that leaving the posh, exclusive condo that
she and her mother shared with her mother’s second husband, Richard Clarkson,
would be a shock. She was only eighteen, and her senior year of high school had
barely just begun, but now she was leaving it all behind.
For the last six months, she’d struggled to tell her
mother about the abuse she was suffering at her stepfather’s hands, but her
pleas fell on deaf ears. Her mother couldn’t imagine, or refused to, that her
wonderful, powerful, rich husband was anything but perfect. He was the director
of city planning for the great city of New York, and somehow Jenny’s mother
thought that made him invincible.
He wasn’t, though. For five years, he’d been coming to
Jenny’s room in the night.
It had started out innocently enough; tickle fights
when she was eleven, cuddles when she was twelve, and one night of
“accidentally taking it too far,” as he’d put it, soon turned into many
mistakes, and finally into a horrible, soul-breaking routine.
At eighteen, Jenny was an adult. She could leave, get
out of the city entirely, maybe find a job and become someone else.
She would have to.
Despite her mother’s insistence that Richard was
nothing but sweet and perfect, Jenny knew the truth. He’d made enough threats
over the years that she was well aware what would happen to her if she told
anyone what he was doing. If word got out that a man in his position was
screwing his underage stepdaughter against her will, the media would have a
field day. Richard wouldn’t let that happen. They both knew that.
Her stepfather also had friends, powerful, dangerous
friends who would take care of a problem, if he so asked. He had never said
that, not exactly, but over the last few years, Jenny had gotten quite good at
sitting back and listening to people. She was like a fly on the wall; no one
ever noticed the slender teen with her big brown eyes and neatly-cropped
brunette hair. She was pretty, but average for the prep school crowd, and
seemed to blend in so well that no one remembered she was in the room at all.
So she listened.
Crooked cops, the mob, the mayor’s office—they were
all connected, one way or another, and Richard was right in the thick of it.
She saw them all come and go, even with money and sometimes drugs being
exchanged. The men, and some women, never thought to tell the petite teen to
buzz off while they talked and traded, and Jenny learned.
Just the thought of her stepfather sending some
crooked cop or a mob goon after her made her shudder with fear. She was trying
to race through her packing, only grabbing the things she needed most, but her
fingers were clumsy with nerves. By the light of her phone, she threw sweaters
and leggings into the Louis Vuitton suitcase that her mother had given her when
they went on a trip to Europe together last spring.
That was when Jenny had first tried to tell her mom
what had happened. She’d only tested the waters, but her mother resisted her at
every turn. Richard was a good man, a just man, and nothing would convince her
otherwise.
By time she was done filling her bag, Jenny was so
nervous that she wasn’t even sure exactly what she’d packed. It was hard enough
to see with only the dim light of her phone, her clumsy hands only made things
worse.
Packing wasn’t even the hardest part. No, packing up a
suitcase in the security of her room was the easiest part of her plan. The next
step was where things got a little more intense.
Once the suitcase was packed full, Jenny propped the
boxy piece of luggage up by her door and then slipped out into the hallway of
the condo that Richard’s dirty money had paid for. She forced herself to
remember back to the few times her father, her real father, had taken her
hunting when she was just a girl.
Those had been good times. They weren’t wealthy, like
they were with Richard, but they were happy. She was safe with a mother and father
who loved her. All that shattered when her father was killed in a freak
electrical fire, and then only a few months later, her mother announced her
engagement to Richard.
As she stalked her way through the condo, Jenny’s
father’s voice whispered in her mind.
Slow breaths
, his memory
instructed.
Control your breathing. Don’t make a sound. Walk on your toes
and listen. Listen to the forest, and the deer won’t know you’re there until
it’s too late.
There was no forest now, just the high ceilings and
designer wallpaper of their home surrounding her. Still, Jenny did as her
father’s voice instructed as she moved toward Richard’s study.
It wasn’t far, but it felt like she’d walked a mile to
get there. Even when she opened the door and let herself in, she couldn’t let
herself relax. She’d made it so far, but she knew if she stopped for even a
second, she would chicken out and go racing back to her room.
His office was, by far, the nicest room in their
condo. It had taken Jenny a few years to figure out why that was, but as she
got older, she realized that was where Richard took his “friends” to talk and
deal, and she knew he needed to show off just how wealthy and powerful he
really was in order to impress Manhattan’s best, and worst.
Foolishly, Richard always left his wallet in his
office. He spent most mornings going over emails as he sipped the coffee that
Jenny’s mother made him. He liked to have his wallet and phone handy for him to
grab before he walked out the door, which meant for about seven hours each
night, they were completely unguarded.
On his desk beside his computer was a family portrait
in a mother-of-pearl frame. Jenny stared at her own face, her own smile, and
almost let herself scoff. The picture made them look like any other normal,
happy family, and that alone disgusted her.
She forced her gaze away from the portrait as she
moved to the upper right drawer of Richard’s desk. Richard, in the sense of
security that had to come with his eclectic and powerful group of friends, left
the drawer unlocked, and it was no work at all for Jenny to pull it open and
find the treasure inside.
Her fingers were just about to touch the leather of
his Gucci wallet when she picked up the faint sound of something moving in
their condo. Her whole body froze as electric fear jolted through her. If it
was Richard, she was caught and so much worse. She could only pray that what
she’d heard was someone next door.
For five minutes, she waited, frozen stiff while she
listened for another noise, another indicator that she wasn’t the only one
awake. Her father had taught her to stay perfectly still while she waited for a
deer to come into her sights, and she went back to that training while she
listened.
Finally, mercifully, she felt certain that the danger
had passed. What she had heard was probably a neighbor, or maybe their maid,
Rosita, going to the kitchen for a late night snack. Either way, she needed to
act quickly, or she might lose her chance entirely.
She grabbed a credit card out of Richard’s wallet—the
MasterCard, not the Amex, because not everyone would take the more exclusive
card. At least she knew that much. She shoved the card into the pocket of her
True Religion jeans before she snuck back to her room.
Jenny only gave herself thirty seconds to assure
herself she was doing the right thing. She had to go, she had to get away, and
now was her chance. She might never get another one, and it was time to leave.
After she pulled on a faded old Juicy Couture hoodie,
Jenny grabbed her suitcase and made for the front door.
It was a lot harder to be quiet with the clunky
suitcase in tow. She’d packed it too heavily, and even with the wheels, it was
almost too much to manage. Every step across the hardwood floor threatened to
give her away as the wheels clicked and clacked, but it was too late now to
turn back. The front door was in sight. She was going to make it.
“Miss Jenny?” Rosita’s heavily-accented voice
whispered to her through the dark. “Where are you going?”
“Rosita,” Jenny half-hissed, half-whispered back at
her family’s greatly underpaid maid. “I’m just going out. I’ll be right back.”
“But your suitcase,” Rosita said as she pointed a
shaking finger at Jenny’s luggage. “You cannot go.”
“I have to,” Jenny tried to explain. “Please, just...
don’t tell, okay?”
For a second, Rosita looked like she was going to let
her go, that maybe she would just return to the small room she called her own
and let the poor girl flee into the night.
But in an instant, the look Rosita’s face changed from
sympathy to fear. “Mr. Richard!” she called out, her eyes still locked on
Jenny. “Mr. Richard, come quick!”
Jenny wanted to scream at the woman to shut up. She
wanted to lunge at her and choke the voice right out of her, but she didn’t
have time. She could only turn toward the door and run.
Somehow, with divine luck on her side, the elevator
was there when she needed it. She knew that her stepfather wouldn’t be far
behind, and she threw her suitcase into the lift before she pressed the button
for the lobby.
The ride was the longest of her life, but she wasn’t
in the clear yet. There was no doubt in her mind that Richard would be in the
next elevator and coming after her. The moment the doors opened to the lobby,
Jenny took off running, her suitcase trailing awkwardly behind her.
Their building was one of the exclusive ones that was
nestled right up to Central Park. The fastest way to not only lose her
stepfather, but to get to Penn Station, was to cut across the park. In the
dark, she had a chance of losing anyone who might be chasing after her, and she
could find her way to a cab when she exited out the other side. There was
enough cash in her suitcase to cover the ride.
She was still running when she heard her stepfather’s
voice call her name from somewhere behind her. She needed to go faster, but the
suitcase was slowing her down. It was heavy and awkward as it rolled along the
path, and she knew it would only get worse as she cut through the trees.
His voice was getting closer, though. He was in the
park, too, and though he’d grown a belly over the years, he was a big man and
could run. She knew she had no choice. Jenny let go of the suitcase and broke
into a sprint. Her designer clothes and accessories were only there to sell,
and she could buy more necessities with Richard’s credit card until he realized
it was stolen. Still, her cash was in her suitcase, and as she ran, she soon
realized that she would be walking the rest of the way to the station.
By time she left the park, the muscles in her legs had
begun to tighten and her sides were crippled with cramps, but she still jogged
on. She passed hookers and junkies and cops alike, but she never stopped and no
one looked at her. Tomorrow they would be looking for her, but that wasn’t now.
Now, she was free to run.
The sun was just starting to peek through the
skyscrapers when she reached the station. In truth, she never thought she would
get this far and now that she was walking into the station, she had no idea
what to do. She hadn’t really thought about where exactly she was going. She
just knew she wanted out of the city.
“Excuse me,” she said when she reached the Amtrak
ticket booth.
“Yes?” a sleepy, middle-aged man yawned.
“When does the next train leave?” she asked him.
“The next train leaves for Philly in about fifteen
minutes,” he told her without checking a schedule.
“Can I get a ticket for that one, please?” she said as
she handed over Richard’s credit card.
For a second, she thought she was about to get turned
away. The attendant’s eyebrow raised just enough to indicate his suspicions,
but he said nothing as he swiped her card and printed her ticket.
“Track seventeen,” he told her as he handed her back
the card and her ticket. “Have a safe trip.”
“Thanks.” Jenny offered him a quick smile before she
walked through the station. She didn’t want to raise anyone’s suspicions, but
she didn’t want to walk too slowly either. Forcing herself to move at a regular
pace was like a strange torture, but she kept it up until she boarded her
train.
It wasn’t until the train lurched forward that Jenny
let herself breathe a sigh of relief. In her wildest dreams, she’d never really
thought she’d go through with it, but she had. She was on a train, leaving the
city for good.
The train left the station, and the bright morning sun
met her as they began to pick up speed. She didn’t know what awaited her, but
at least she was free.
