Black River Moon

A Supernatural Romance Trilogy

by A. Mariposa

Heart of the Wolf (Black River Moon Trilogy, Book 1)

Prologue

She struggled up the hill, her breath laboring in her lungs, rocks biting into her feet. She fled the house without shoes. Her heart pounded, threatening to escape her chest. Her legs shook so badly, she could barely keep herself upright.

The night was perfectly black, darker than her bedroom closet. She didn’t have a destination. She fled to escape the trailer and the monster inside of it.

She was only fourteen, but her home had been hell for a long time.

The rain poured down as she fought her way through blackberry bushes and tangled undergrowth. She fell, twisting her ankle on a slick rock, but she pushed on. She ran from a danger as silent and unseen as the night itself. No one followed her, but panic lent wings to her feet.

Finally she could go no farther. She collapsed at the base of a pine tree, her breath heaving, so tired she wanted to puke. She pressed herself against the rough, wet bark. Rain dripped onto her cheeks from the pine branches. She closed her eyes, struggling to breathe.

A bruise like a thundercloud spread across her cheek. She pressed her hand against it.

Since her mother's death, her stepdad's drinking had worsened. Now Maddy knew her father for the monster he was. At least her mother had been generous with her love. Now, she had no buffer between herself and her stepfather’s alcoholism.

She curled up into a tight ball at the base of the tree, an attempt to protect herself. She wanted to run away from home, but where could she go? The foster system was a bleak option. She didn’t want to live with strangers, or get shuttled around between group homes. No one wanted a fourteen year old.

Tears ran down her cheeks, fueled by helplessness and rage.

Snap! Twitch.

She flinched at the sudden sound. She looked around, near blind in the dark. Mountain lions and wolves lived this high up . . . Still, her stepdad scared her worse than a wild animal.

There—a crunch and rustle—something moving through the underbrush.

Then the blue screen of a cell phone lit up the night. A human shape emerged from between the pine trees. She cringed, a muffled scream in her throat. In the silver-blue light, she saw a man’s wide shoulders. His long black hair was slick with rain and fell wildly around his face. His jaw was covered by several weeks of unshaven scruff. His shirt had the grungy look of a hitchhiker. He smelled of wet earth and the forest.

His hazel eyes looked gold in the dark. He gazed down at her curiously. She felt the tension in her stomach ease away. Somehow, though she wasn’t sure why, she felt calm. Like she knew him.

“You’re just a kid,” he said, his voice a deep baritone. “What are you doing way out here?”

She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came. She had been struggling with math homework when her stepdad stumbled home from the casino. He reeked of whiskey. He must have lost a lot, because he started cursing and kicking over furniture.

He shoved her into the wall when he passed her in the hallway. He went to the bathroom, and she ran out the back door before he targeted her again.

She touched the bruise on her cheek where he cracked her head against the wall. By now, he was probably watching TV and opening up a new bottle.

How could she tell this stranger all that? She didn't want to go home. But she still had school in the morning.

“I got lost,” she whispered, her throat closing.

The man didn’t question her. He gazed at her for some time in quiet thought. Then he took her hand and pulled her to her feet. She wobbled and gasped; her ankle was sprained. She staggered, but his arms went around her knees and he scooped her high into the air. He settled her against his strong chest. She disliked being touched or carried, but she could tolerate this. She felt safe.

“Let’s get you home.”

The man’s voice was deep and soothing. He started walking down the forested hill. Exhaustion made her head swoon against his shoulder. She glimpsed the man’s feet on the ground below. He wasn’t wearing any shoes.

She was half asleep when they reached her backyard. A wobbly, half-assed fence encircled their property. A grown man could step over it—and he did. But he paused beyond the light of her kitchen window. He kept to the edge of the forest, hidden by shadows. There, he set her down on her feet.

“Do you want to come in?” she asked, half-delirious from exhaustion.

“No. You live here?”

“With my stepdad. My mom died a while ago.”

“I'm sorry to hear that. Did he leave that bruise on your cheek?”

She didn’t make eye contact. Silence stretched between them.

“Go inside, then,” he said.

Please, I don’t care who you are, stay with me, she wanted to beg. But she knew how adults were. If she told him what was really going on, he would report her to social services, and then she would be ripped away from everything she had ever known.

She didn’t remember going inside that night. She just remembered his wild face, half-illuminated by the light from the kitchen window, and that he wore no shoes.