Werewolf Queen wasn't on her middle aged bingo card...
In the Midnight Hour
A Midnight Madness Nightcreature Novel Book 3
by Lori Handeland
Genre: Paranormal Women's Fiction
Just
when I thought it was safe to go home…
Amazon * Apple * B&N * Kobo * Smashwords * Books2Read * Bookbub * Goodreads
I strolled down the deserted streets of Wisconsin’s capital city and tried to think of a plan. I could only come up with one.
The first person I saw getting out of a car was in the employee lot of a twenty-four-hour diner. I approached her, and she smiled. I was an older woman, nonthreatening, no danger. I felt bad about what I was about to do, but I did it anyway, smiling back as I touched my fingertips to my temple. “Give me your car keys, then go to work.”
She repeated my instructions, handed over her keys, and reached into the midnight-blue Hyundai SUV for her purse.
“Leave it.”
Sadly, my borrowed pockets held nothing but lint. Should have thought ahead and asked my daughter for some cash—though like most Gen Zers, she rarely had any. But what difference did stealing make on top of grand theft auto?
At the next gas station, I used the woman’s cell phone—no password, shame on her—to search for the Leonard farm, then scribbled the address on a stray receipt. I tossed her phone into a sewer grate before heading inside where I bought a burner, then asked for a map of Wisconsin.
“You could just get this one.” The clerk pointed to a more expensive phone. “Then you could GPS it.”
I’d have to connect to my personal provider for that. And the entire point of tossing my own phone days ago, as well as tossing the phone of the waitress I’d robbed just now, was so Gideon couldn’t find me.
I shook my head. “Maps?”
The guy pointed to a revolving wire carousel hidden behind a display of energy drinks, which contained maps of Wisconsin and the surrounding states.
“I don’t know the last time anyone bought one of these.” The clerk scanned the barcode. “I hope it doesn’t send you down a road to nowhere.”
I wasn’t worried. The roads of northern Wisconsin didn’t change much. The Department of Transportation spent its budget on the byways that got the most use, for instance, the ones that went into and out of big cities or those that went into and out of the state. Considering those restored Victorians, Viroqua had been there since the mid-to-late 1800s, which meant the roads surrounding it had been there that long as well with only baseline maintenance and little to no rerouting.
In less than two hours, I turned off a highway that had been mostly deserted and rattled down the rutted gravel driveway that led to the Leonard farm. The moon’s silvery glow had been dulled to pewter by a sky filled with clouds. I still heard the moon singing, but her voice had waned, night by night, since she’d been full. According to every werewolf I knew, that music would grow louder as she waxed from new to full.
The just-sprung buds of corn in the fields fluttered, their shade a muted moss shrouded in ice, while the mud in the barnyard recalled a cup of espresso, the puddles undulating like a raven’s wing. In that vista of sepia, the white clapboard house and outbuildings shone pearlescent.
The night held its breath, but all I heard were the clicks of a cooling engine and the beginnings of a breeze. Shouldn’t there be the lowing of cows? Shouldn’t there be cows? Shouldn’t there be someone waking up to deal with the cows?
The porch steps creaked like those in a Gothic novel. I’d read quite a few once I’d discovered that Gothic lit became popular during the Victorian period. I’d been partial to Dracula. Kind of hilarious now.
I lifted my hand to knock, and the door screeched open. Maybe not so hilarious. If there were werewolves, were there vampires?
“Bloody hell.” I bit my tongue to stem the hysterical laughter that bubbled up over my choice of curse words. “Hello? Anyone home?”
As I didn’t want to be shot for trespassing, I remained perched on the threshold. Then it occurred to me that while that might hurt, it probably wouldn’t kill me because the chances of a dairy farmer in Viroqua packing silver cartridges were slim to none.
I stepped inside. “I have information about Natalie.”
I’d thought of little else during the two-hour drive, but what could I tell the Leonards that wouldn’t get them wiped out by a werewolf for knowing it? All I had were two truths and a lie—she’d been kidnapped by sex traffickers, then killed. And me? I was with the FBI task force handling the case.
I’d believed it when Ash said it; I hoped the Leonards would believe it when I did. If not, I’d have to push them to do so, as well as to keep the news to themselves. Didn’t need any real FBI agents following up.
Not a great plan, but I had to work with what I had.
I listened for the sounds of someone getting out of bed, opening a door, flushing a toilet. All I heard was another creak. I wished I had a gun, but my fangs and my teeth and my inability to die except by silver were pretty good weapons.
However, I was here to tell the Leonard family a partial truth. I wasn’t going to be able to do that if I was a wolf. And I wanted to tell them, needed to. There were many, many girls who weren’t coming home. Many, many families who would never know where they’d gone or what had happened to them. This girl I could do something about.
I took a breath to call out again, and the door slammed behind me. I would have blamed the wind if not for the gun barrel pressed to the base of my skull. I went very still.
“I told you I’d kill you the next time I saw you.”
Blame It On Midnight
A Midnight Madness Nightcreature Novel Book 2
I
saved my daughter. But how do I save myself?
Amazon * Apple * B&N * Kobo * Smashwords * Books2Read * Bookbub * Goodreads
“You’re my wife,” he said. “We’ll figure it out.”
“I’m not your wife.”
“My mate. Same thing.”
“You said it wasn’t the same. That humans marry and wolves mate.”
“Mating is deeper, more.” A growl rippled the air. My air, and he wasn’t even in my air. “Until death, which is a very long time in our world.”
I’d allowed this, embraced this to save my girl, but now I needed to save not only Gideon, but also the pack that had come to feel like family far too fast.
“I’m sorry, but we need to do whatever we have to do to undo this.” I waved a finger back and forth between us.
“There is no undoing it.”
“I don’t believe you.” And with that, I disconnected the call, powered down, yanked out the SIM card, and dropped both it and the phone into the tropical fish tank Patrick had given to Frankie one Christmas.
“Sarah! What the hell?” Frankie stood in the entryway from the hall.
“I’ll buy you another one.”
He waved a hand as if to chase a fly. “Heir? Mates? Pack?”
“You were eavesdropping?” I had waited for the sound of a door closing, but what I hadn’t done was check to make sure that Frankie was behind it. Silly me.
“You sound like a lunatic.”
“Feel like one too.”
Frankie shoved his fingers through his hair, mussing it more than I’d ever seen it mussed. “He’s Jenna’s dad?”
I nodded.
“Did Patrick know?”
Since Patrick and I had never had sex—surprised he hadn’t shared that . . . “Of course.” I paused, gathering my thoughts. I wasn’t supposed to share this, but there was a lot I wasn’t supposed to do that I’d already done. “There’s another world that lives beneath the moon. One that howls. One that kills.”
“You really believe that.” It wasn’t a question. “What else?”
I told him. All of it. Why not? I could always make him forget.
When I got to the part about Ash, Frankie held up a hand. “The FBI sent a werewolf hunter.”
“Apparently, certain cases are routed to them.”
“To the . . . what was it? Jager-Suchers?”
“Hunter-searchers. When you called your contact and said Jenna was missing, that contact called Ash, who’d been trying to find other missing girls.”
His niece, Haley, being one of them.
“I don’t know an Ash.” Frankie rubbed his temple. “Do I?”
“I made you forget. I didn’t want you searching for him or calling anyone who might.” And I should have stuck with that plan, but the ship had sailed.
“And where is he now?”
Chained in a dungeon somewhere awaiting execution. I’d tried to find out where but—
“Don’t have a clue.”
Frankie glanced at the door. “We should probably go.”
“Where?”
“Psych hospital.”
I laughed so hard I had to bend over to catch my breath.
“You finished?” he asked when I had. “Were you experimenting with psychedelics? Weird mushrooms? Bad food? Did someone slip you a mickey?”
“I don’t think that’s what they call it anymore.” Though what they called it I had no idea. “You believe I’m crazy.”
“As a shithouse rat. No offense.”
I snorted; I’d heard worse on the campaign trail. “And Gideon?”
“Who’s Gideon?”
“Guy on your phone.”
“Ah. The alpha.” He twisted the title into an insult, and annoyance trilled along my spine. “Shared delusion?”
“What about these?” I pointed at my formerly gingham-blue eyes, now a lovely royal cerulean.
He frowned; he hadn’t noticed them. Maybe because I had turned off all the lights.
“Tinted contacts.”
Except I wasn’t wearing any, but why bother? He was going to see what he wanted to see, it was the way of humans when what they saw was impossible.
I strode for the door.
Frankie hurried to keep up. “I’ll call ahead, talk to someone I know at the—” He peered into the fish tank, where all the pretty fishies flitted around his phone like it was a brand-new fish toy. “Crap.”
“Guess it’s show-and-tell time,” I said. “Or maybe tell, then show.”
Why I didn’t just zap his memory—again—I wasn’t sure. Perhaps a nagging concern that doing so too many times might give him a brain bleed. Or maybe I just needed someone to know. Someone who wasn’t part of this frightening new world I’d been thrust into. Still, telling Frankie had been a dumb idea. All about what I needed, what I wanted. Selfish.
“Hold on. Let me . . .” He glanced around, lost as a millennial without a cell phone. Or a landline.
I set my hand on the doorknob. “Don’t worry. I won’t tear out your throat.” I yanked open the door.
The wolf on the porch lifted his lip, and a snarl curled free.
“But he might.”
Nothing Good Happens After Midnight
A Midnight Madness Nightcreature Novel Book 1
They
say a mother will do anything for her child . . . I’m living
proof
Amazon * B&N * Kobo * Smashwords * Books2Read * Bookbub * Goodreads
When the phone rings in the middle of the night, everything changes.
Mother always said: Nothing good happens after midnight. I’d found in my forty-one years on this earth, in that at least, Mom had been right.
I sat up so fast I jiggled the mattress. I froze, my gaze shifting to, then away from the empty side of the bed. I still hadn’t gotten used to Patrick not being there. Would I ever?
The shrill slice of sound continued to cut through the oh so silent night. I only had one ringtone left on my allowed calls after that indelible hour of midnight, and this was it. My heart rate increased from WTF? to OMG!
“Jenna?”
“Sorry, Mrs. Sullivan. It’s Cammy.”
I searched my memory for the identity of Cammy, feeling slow, stupid despite the far too rapid rate of my heart.
Spring, same time two years ago, my OB had diagnosed the reason for my newly sluggish brain and sudden ability to fry eggs atop my head as premature menopause.
Look at it this way, you won’t have to worry about getting pregnant for very much longer.
Not that I had for decades. However, having my body betray me like that—basically saying I was old, when I never really got to be young—had stung. It still did.
Cammy’s tentative voice brought me back to the right now. “I’m Jenna’s roommate.”
My skin prickled with heat and a fine sheen of sweat started up at my hairline. “What’s wrong?”
“Jenna hasn’t been here since Tuesday.”
Here being the University of Wisconsin. I’d been so proud when Jenna had decided to go to UW like me. Or like the me I could have been, would have been if not for her.
“Tuesday,” I repeated. “But it’s . . .”
Come on, brain, don’t fail me now!
Thursday! I thought at the same time Cammy said, “Thursday.”
For an instant, I was near ecstatic to have concluded something at the same speed as a millennial. Then I did the math, never my strong suit even before all the brain-fart BS. “That’s two days, and you’re just calling me now?”
“Sometimes she pulls an all-nighter. Stays at the library or goes to a study group. But she lets me know. I didn’t really worry until I called her phone, and it was . . .”
My skin did that prickle again. Jenna’s phone was in Cammy’s hand, obviously, since she was talking to me on it. That I hadn’t asked why earlier put another notch in my losin’ it belt.
“Her phone was in her backpack,” Cammy continued. “In her room, along with her laptop and her books.”
Cammy paused, waiting for me to fill in the blanks. Jenna probably wouldn’t be studying without her backpack, and the notes and books and computer within. But even if she’d grabbed a few things and left the rest, she never would have left her cell phone. I didn’t think it had been out of her sight—more accurately, out of her hand—since I’d handed it to her when she was ten.
“In Lunar Lake, anywhere can be reached from anywhere in a handful of minutes,” Patrick had argued. “Even if she falls off her bike and breaks her leg, someone’s gonna be at her side quicker than she can make a call. She’s safer than safe, like every other kid in town. What are you worried about?”
When I lifted my eyebrows, he’d blinked, said, “Oh,” and that had been the last Patrick had said about that. He knew why I was the way I was better than anyone. It was one of the reasons I’d married him.
I’d devoted my life to raising Jenna. She was everything. The only thing. When she’d gone to college, I’d been proud but also terrified. This exact scenario—a midnight phone call, a missing child—played through my mind far too often. Sadly, what I should do about it had never played through as well.
“Hello?” Cammy’s worried voice broke into my thoughts. She probably thought I’d fainted. Or stroked out. I was tempted.
But all Jenna had was me now, and all I had was her. If that meant facing my greatest fear again, I’d face it. What choice did I have?
She was my baby.
**FREEBIE ALERT!**
Get the first Nightcreature novel, Blue Moon for FREE!!
Can you, for those who don't know you already, tell something about yourself and how you became an author?
Hi, I’m Lori Handeland and I always wanted to be an author even while I was studying to be a high school English teacher. (Hey, they have summers off for a reason, right? Besides sanity, that is.) Life intervened and while home with two boys under the age of three, I decided to try writing the book I always wanted to.
That book, SECOND CHANCE, won the Wisconsin Romance Writers Fabulous Five contest and was requested by an editor at Harlequin. Several revisions and submissions and years later, it sold to Dorchester Publishing.
If you knew you'd die tomorrow, how would you spend your last day?
With my grandchildren, doing whatever they wanted to.
What kind of world ruler would you be?
No nonsense. I have no patience for it. Behave or b-bye.
What do you do to unwind and relax?
I go on wonderful writing retreats with my writing friends, where we write all day, drink wine and chat at night. The perfect recharge.
How to find time to write as a parent?
When my boys were small I wrote at 5 am, midnight, whenever (if) they napped. I also exchanged babysitting with other moms so I could have uninterrupted writing time.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
When my first fan letter arrived.
Do you have a favorite movie?
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Which of your novels can you imagine made into a movie?
JUST ONCE. And it almost was. The book was optioned by Catalyst Global Media. I even wrote the screenplay. But as those things go, it did not. I am still submitting my screenplay. It’s done, so why not?
As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal?
A wolf, of course.
Lori Handeland is a five-time nominee and two-time winner of the prestigious RITA™ Award from Romance Writers of America, as well as the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over sixty novels spanning the genres of paranormal romance, urban fantasy, contemporary romance, historical romance, historical fantasy and women’s fiction. Her novel Just Once received a coveted, starred review from Library Journal and was optioned as a feature film by Catalyst Global Media.
Lori set her sight on being an author at the age of ten. She remembers sitting at a typewriter before she knew how to type, pecking out a story about a family who went into space. As an only child her summers were spent with that typewriter, television, and, above all, books. As a young adult, she got sidetracked by the need to make a living. She worked as a waitress and later enrolled in college to become a teacher.
Lori lives in Southern Wisconsin with her husband of over thirty-five years. In between writing and reading, she enjoys long walks with their rescue mutt, Arnold, and visits from her two grown sons, awesome daughter-in-law and perfectly adorable grandchildren.
Website * Facebook * Instagram * Bookbub * Amazon * Goodreads
Thanks so much for the great feature!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the excerpts. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDelete