Rebecca York - Moon 3 - Witching Moon

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WITCHING MOON
Moon 3
By
Rebecca York
Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
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CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
EPILOGUE
National Bestselling Author
REBECCA
YORK
WITCHING MOON
Ruth Glick writing as Rebecca York
"Rebecca York's writing is fast-paced, suspenseful, and loaded with tension."
—Jayne Ann Krentz
"[Her] books… deliver what they promise: excitement, mystery, romance."
—The Washington Post Book World
The swamp is their sanctuary. Its nights echo with
the beat of their moonlit revels, feeding their dark
hunger for power—and for revenge…
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The Nature's Refuge preserve deep in the southern Georgia swamp was a place steeped in superstition
and legend—and death. The previous head ranger had ended up dead, but werewolf Adam Marshall is
ideally suited to explore the park and investigate its dangers. But in the still of the night, a mysterious fire
burns, and even Adam's highly honed instincts are disoriented by the thick, druggingsmoke—leading to a
near disaster…
Adam's suspicions are raised by Sara Weston, a botanist who has come to the swamp to research the
vegetation. He finds himself drawn to her in ways he doesn't understand, yet fights the passion that
threatens to cloud his judgment. And when a coven of witches with a score to settle with the locals
decides that Adam and Sara are in their way, Adam will discover that Sara is hiding secrets as powerful
as the one that runs through his blood.
www.penguin.com
Berkley Sensation Titles by Rebecca York
KILLING MOON
EDGE OF THE MOON
WITCHING MOON
WITCHING
MOON
REBECCA YORK
BERKLEY SENSATION, NEW YORK
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's
imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business
establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
WITCHING MOON
A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with the author
PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley Sensation edition / October 2003
Copyright © 2003 by Ruth Glick
Cover design by Brad Springer
Text design by Julie Rogers
ISBN: 0-425-19278-4
A BERKLEY SENSATION™ BOOK Berkley Sensation Books are published by
The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
BERKLEY SENSATION and the "B" design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
PROLOGUE
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^»
SHE WOKE TO the sound of voices and sat up in her narrow bed, rubbing her eyes. The toys on her
shelves were only shapes in the darkness. But moonlight peeked in around the edges of the window
curtains.
Out in the front room, Momma and Daddy were talking. He wasn't usually here at night, but he came
when he could to the little cabin at the edge of the swamp.
He would hug her and tell her she was his special little girl. He would run his fingers through her hair and
say it was spun gold.
Maybe he'd have a treat for her. A toy. Or some candy like the last time. Momma didn't approve of
candy, but Daddy liked to give her a few pieces—and tell her to enjoy them when Momma wasn't
looking.
She started to swing her skinny legs over the side of the bed. Then stopped. Momma and Daddy
weren't speaking very loud, and she couldn't make out the actual words. But as she caught the tone of
the conversation, the happy sense of anticipation dried up, like the drops of water on the ground in the
morning.
Momma and Daddy were worried, the way they'd been that other time when Daddy had said the town
was on the warpath. Only nothing bad had happened then. And everything had gone on just the way it
always did.
She picked up Mr. Rabbit, her favorite stuffed animal, from the pillow and hugged his limp body to her,
as Daddy's footsteps came rapidly across the wooden floor. Flinging the door open, he strode into her
room and bent over her bed, scooping her into his arms.
"We have to leave. We don't have much time."
Momma came hurrying after him. "This is my home. I won't let them drive me out."
"You've been taking too many chances."
"No. I've tried to help people."
"And look where it's gotten you. Darlin', you have to listen to me this time."
"If I'd listened to you…" Momma's voice trailed off.
Daddy gathered her up and hugged her to him. "Come on little bit, you're going with me."
"No!" Momma protested, almost drowning out the voices in the background. There were people
outside, she realized with a sudden spurt of fear. Angry people.
One of Daddy's arms tightened around her; the other reached for Momma. "Jenna, let me get you away
from here, before it's too late."
"I can't."
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She could feel Daddy's heart pounding, hear his voice rising.
"Oh Lord, don't do this to me, please."
"Come out and show yourself—you damn witch," an unseen voice screamed, making her cower against
Daddy. Other voices joined the chorus. "Come out before we burn you out."
Daddy tried to keep hold of Momma's arm, but she wrenched herself away from him and hurried into
the front room. "I only tried to help. I've done nothing wrong," Momma called into the darkness beyond
the walls of the house. Turning back to Daddy, she said, "I won't let them drive me from my home."
"It's too late." Daddy's warning was swallowed up by a rising babble of voices, like the wind tearing at
the tree branches in a storm.
She was afraid of storms because one time a tree had fallen right across the path to the front door. But
this was much worse.
She buried her face against her father's shoulder, her free hand clutching Mr. Rabbit. "Don't let them hurt
Momma," she whimpered.
"I won't," he answered, starting toward the front of the house.
Before he could reach the living room, the window beside the door shattered, sending glass dancing over
the wood floor.
Momma screamed, rooted to the spot where she stood.
Then a smell that was strong and dangerous filled the air—and a strange roaring noise howled through
the house.
"Save her. Get her out of here," Momma screamed.
Her father cursed, started forward. But the heat from the front of the house beat him back. Still clasping
her to his body, he sprinted across the bedroom, then bent to push up the window sash.
"Daddy! I'm scared, Daddy," she whimpered into the soft fabric of his shirt, trying to breathe through the
cloud of smoke choking her nose and throat.
Daddy coughed and staggered, and she thought he was going to fall down, but he kept going.
"It's okay. Everything will be okay," he said. He said it over and over between coughs as he lowered her
out the window. When she was standing on the ground, he quickly followed and scooped her up. His
body curved over hers, he ran from the cabin. Behind her she heard a sound like thunder. Raising her
head, she saw the whole house explode into flames.
"Momma! Where's Momma?"
Daddy put his hand on the back of her head, pressing her face into his shoulder and hunching
protectively over her as he ran into the darkness of the swamp.
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CHAPTER ONE
«^»
THE LAST GUY who had walked in his shoes was a dead man, Adam Marshall thought as his booted
feet sank into the soggy ground of the southern Georgia swamp. But he didn't intend to suffer the same
fate. He had advantages that the previous head ranger at Nature's Refuge hadn't possessed.
Still, something was making his skin prickle tonight, Adam silently admitted as he slipped one hand into
the pocket of his jeans. Standing very still on the porch of his cabin, he listened to the night sounds
around him. The clicking noise of a bullfrog. The buzz of insects. The splash of a predator slipping into
the murky waters of the mysterious marshes that the Indians had called Olakompa.
The Indians were long gone, but an aura of otherworldliness remained in this pocket of wetlands, which
had managed to withstand the encroachment of civilization. It was a place steeped in superstition, and
Adam had heard some pretty wild tales—of people who had been swallowed up by the "trembling earth"
and of strange creatures that roamed the backcountry.
In the darkness, he laughed. He'd taken all that with a grain of salt. But maybe he could contribute to the
myths while he was here.
This was a very different setting from his previous post in the dry desert country of Big Bend National
Park.
He liked the change. Liked the swamp. For now. He never stayed any place too long. It didn't matter
where he lived, actually. Just so he had the space he needed to roam free.
He looked up and saw the moon filtering through the branches of the willow oaks and cypress trees. It
was huge and yellow and full, and he knew there were people who would think that the large orb in the
sky had something to do with his unsettled mood. But it wasn't that.
He dragged in a long breath, detecting a scent that was out of place in the sultry air. Nothing he had ever
smelled before, he thought, as he walked into the shadows under the oak trees.
Whatever it was had a strange tang, a pull, an edge of danger that he found disturbing. Of course, he
was affected by odors as few people were. And by other things most folks took in stride. Coffee, for
example, made him sick. And forget liquor.
Later tonight, he'd probably have a cup of herbal tea. By himself, since he was the only staffer who lived
in the park—in the cozy cabin thoughtfully provided by Austen Barnette, who owned this
three-hundred-acre corner of the swampland, along with a sizable portion of Wayland, Georgia.
Barnette was the big cheese in the area. And he'd gone to the expense and bother of hiring Adam
Marshall away from the U.S. Park Service to show he was serious about running Nature's Refuge as a
private enterprise. But there was another reason as well. Adam had a reputation for solving problems.
Most recently, at Big Bend, he had shut down a bunch of drug smugglers who had been bringing their
cargoes across the drought-shrunken Rio Grande. He had tracked them to their mountain hideout and
scared the shit out of them before turning them over to the border patrol.
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He had done a good job, because he always demanded the best from himself as far as his work was
concerned. It compensated for the other area of his life where he wasn't quite so effective—personal
relationships. But he was damn well going to find out who had killed Ken White, the previous head
ranger.
He walked to a spot about a hundred yards from his cabin, a place where he often stopped and
contemplated the swamp before going out to prowl the park. It was a good distance from the house,
where he was sure nobody would find his clothing.
Standing in the shade of a pine, he sniffed the wind again as his hands went to the front of his shirt. He
unbuttoned the garment and dropped it on the ground, then pulled off his shoes and pants, stripping to the
buff.
The sultry air felt good on his bare skin, and he stood for a moment, digging his toes into the springy
layer of decomposing leaves covering the ground, caught by a push-pull within himself. The man warring
with the animal clamoring to run free.
The animal won, as it must. Closing his dark eyes, he called on ancient knowledge, ancient ritual, ancient
deities as he gathered his inner strength, steeling himself for familiar pain, even as he said the words that
he had learned on his sixteenth birthday—the way his brothers had before him. As far as he knew, the
only Marshall boys still alive were himself and Ross. But he didn't know for sure because he hadn't seen
his brother in years.
It was when he prepared to change that his thoughts sometimes turned to Ross, but he didn't let those
thoughts break his concentration.
"Taranis, Epona, Cerridwen," he intoned, then repeated the same phrase and went on to another."Ga.
Feart. Cleas. Duais. Aithriocht. Go gcumhdai is dtreorai na deithe thu."
On that night so long ago, the ceremonial words had helped him through the agony of transformation,
opened his mind, freed him from the bonds of the human shape. Maybe they were nonsense syllables. He
didn't know. Ross had studied the ancient Gaelic language and said he understood what they meant.
Adam didn't care about the meaning.
All that mattered was that they blocked some of the blinding pain that always came with transformation.
While the human part of his mind screamed in protest, he felt his jaw elongate, his teeth sharpen, his
body contort as muscles and limbs transformed themselves into a different shape that was as familiar to
him as his human form.
The first few times he'd done it had been a nightmare of torture and terror. But gradually, he'd learned
what to expect, learned to rise above the physical sensations of muscles spasming, bones changing shape,
the very structure of his cells mutating from one kind of DNA to another. At least that was how he
thought about it, because he didn't understand the science involved. In fact, he was sure modern science
would have no explanations for his family heritage.
But the change came upon him nevertheless.
Gray hair formed along his flanks, covering his body in a thick, silver-tipped pelt. The color—the very
structure—of his eyes changed as he dropped to all fours. He was no longer a man but an animal far
more suited to the natural environment around him.
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A wolf. Where no wolves had made their home for decades. But now one had command of Nature's
Refuge. It was his. And the night was his.
Once the transformation was complete, a raw, primal joy rippled through him, and he pawed the ground,
reveling in the feel of the damp soil under his feet. Raising his head, he sucked in a draft of air, his lungs
expanding as his nose drank in the rich scents that were suddenly part of the landscape. To his right an
alligator had gone very still. And a bear had stopped and sniffed the wind sensing the presence of a rival.
The large black beast stayed where it was for a moment, then ambled off in the other direction, unwilling
to challenge the creature with whom he suddenly shared the swamp.
Adam's lips shaped themselves into a wolfish grin. He wanted to throw back his head and howl at the
small victory. But he checked the impulse, because the mind inside his skull still held his human
intelligence. And the man understood the need for stealth.
Dragging in a breath, he examined the unfamiliar scent he had picked up. It was nothing that belonged in
this natural world. Men had brought something here that was out of place.
The smell was acrid, yet at the same time strangely sweet to his wolf's senses. And it drew him forward.
Still, he moved with caution, setting off in the direction of the odor, feeling the air thicken around him in a
strange, unfamiliar way as he padded forward.
Each breath seemed to change his sense of awareness. His mind was usually sharp, but the edges of his
thoughts were beginning to blur as though someone had soaked his brain with a bottle of sweet, sticky
syrup.
The air stung his eyes now, and he blinked back moisture, then blinked again as he caught his first
glimpse of fire.
The flames jolted him out of his lethargy.
Fire! Where no fire should be. Out here in the open—in the middle of the park. The swamp might be
wet, but that wouldn't stop a blaze from sweeping through the area, if the flames were hot enough. He'd
read as much as he could about the Olakompa in the past few months, and he knew that in the winter of
nineteen fifty-five, wildfires had burned eighty percent of the swamp area.
Fires were usually due to lightning igniting the layer of peat buried under some areas of the swamp.
He'd seen no lightning tonight, but it wasn't difficult to imagine a conflagration roaring unchecked through
the park. Imagine birds taking flight, animals scattering for safety, the water evaporating in the heat.
His mind fuzzy from the smoke, he kept moving forward, toward the center of the danger. But when he
took a second look, he saw that the flames were contained. A bonfire. Deep in the wilderness.
Tall, upright shadows moved around the flames, and in his bleary state, he could make no sense of what
he was seeing. Then the wavery images resolved themselves into naked human figures—dancing and
gyrating in the glow of the fire.
He shook his head, trying to clear away the fog that seemed to swirl up from the sweet, enticing smoke.
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For a moment he questioned his own sanity.
He'd heard people describe hallucinations that came from drug trips, heard some pretty strange stuff.
Had his mind conjured up these images? Against his will, the circle of fire and the gyrating figures drew
him, and he padded forward once more, although caution made his steps slow. He had come upon many
strange things in his thirty years of living, but never a scene like this.
He blinked, but nothing changed. The naked men and women were still there, chanting words he didn't
understand, dancing around the fire, sometimes alone, sometimes touching and swaying erotically
together, sometimes falling to the ground in two- and threesomes—grappling in a sexual frenzy.
The thick, drugging smoke held him in its power, compelling his eyes to fix on the images before him,
making the wolf hairs along his back bristle.
Getting high was deliberately outside his experience. He had never tried so much as a joint, although he
had been at parties where people had been smoking them. But just the passive smoke had made him
sick, and he'd always bailed out, which meant that he was ill-equipped to deal with mind-altering
substances. Street drugs were poison to the wolf part of him. He was pretty sure that even some legal
drugs could bend his mind so far out of shape that he would never be able to cram it back into his skull.
But the poison smoke had a stranglehold on his senses and on his mind. He was powerless to back
away, powerless to stop breathing the choking stuff.
He took a step forward and then another, his eyes focused on the figures dancing in the moonlight. The
smoke obscured their features. The smoke and the slashes of red, blue, and yellow paint both the men
and women had used to decorate their faces and their bodies. He licked his long pink tongue over his lips
and teeth, his eyes focused on sweaty bodies and pumping limbs, his own actions no longer under the
control of his brain. Recklessly, he dragged in a deep breath of the tainted air. The fumes obscured the
raw scent of the dancers' arousal. But he didn't need scent to understand their frenzy.
He watched a naked man, his cock jutting straight out from his body, reach for a woman's breasts,
watched her thrust herself boldly into his hands, watched another woman join them in their sexual play,
the three of them dancing and cavorting in unholy delight, the firelight flickering on their sweat-slick
bodies.
His gaze cutting through the group of gamboling figures, he kept his heated focus on the threesome. He
saw them swaying together, saw them fall to the ground, writhing with an urgency that took his breath
away.
His own sexual experience was pretty extensive. But he'd never participated in anything beyond one
man/one woman coupling. And some part of his mind was scandalized by the uninhibited orgy. Yet the
urge to join the gang-shag was stronger than the shock. He felt as though his skin were cutting off his
breath, restraining him like a straitjacket.
He had to escape the wolf. And in his mind, in a kind of desperate rush, the ancient chant came to him,
and he reversed the process that had turned him from man to wolf.
"Taranis, Epona, Cerridwen," he silently chanted, the words slurring in his brain."Ga. Feart. Cleas.
Duais. Aithriocht. Go gcumhdai is dtreorai na deithe thu."
His consciousness was so full of the sweet, sticky smoke that he could barely focus on the syllables that
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摘要：

WITCHINGMOONMoon3ByRebeccaYorkContents PROLOGUECHAPTERONECHAPTERTWOCHAPTERTHREECHAPTERFOURCHAPTERFIVECHAPTERSIXCHAPTERSEVENCHAPTEREIGHTCHAPTERNINECHAPTERTENCHAPTERELEVENCHAPTERTWELVECHAPTERTHIRTEENCHAPTERFOURTEENCHAPTERFIFTEENCHAPTERSIXTEENCHAPTERSEVENTEENCHAPTEREIGHTEENGeneratedbyABCAmberLITConvert...

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