Wolf Shadow

  Shadow of the Moon Book 3

  Mac Flynn

  Contents

  Copyright

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Sneak Peek: The Alpha Mated Series

  A Small Favor

  When’s the Next Book?

  Series by Mac Flynn

  About Mac Flynn

  Copyright

  Wolf Shadow (Shadow of the Moon Book 2). Copyright © 2024 by Mac Flynn.

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  Published by Crescent Moon Studios, Inc.

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  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, disseminated, or transmitted in any form or by any or for any use, including recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the author and/or artist. The only except ions shirt excerpts or the cover image in reviews.

  * * *

  This is a work of fiction. All the names, characters, organizations, places and events portrayed in this novel or on the cover are either products of the author’s or artist’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author or artist.

  Author’s Note

  Dear Reader,

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  Thank you so much for joining me on a journey through my imagination. If you’re looking for romance and adventure with a guaranteed Happily Ever After, then you’ve come to the right place. My books contain paranormal plotting and fantastical action, and I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy writing them.

  You can keep in touch with me by joining my newsletter or checking out my website for the latest updates.

  Check out my website

  Sign up for my newsletter

  Thank you for giving my book a chance, and Happy Reading!

  - Mac Flynn

  Chapter One

  It had been a hell of a night, but I wasn’t going to go to bed until I had my answers. There I was in Quinn’s house, and he and I were seated opposite each other in his living room. I sat on the couch, and he was in a chair.

  He leaned against the back of his chair and clasped his hands together in his lap. “What would you like to know first?”

  I nodded at his inner jacket pocket. “I’d like to know what’s on that disk.”

  He grinned and shook his head. “Not until I get what I want.”

  “So what will you tell me right now?” I asked him.

  He nodded at my hands. “I can tell you how to get rid of that.”

  I raised my hands and looked at my clawed fingers. My fingers hadn’t changed back. I ground my teeth together and fisted my hands as I felt the claws break the skin of my palms.

  “This is only part of my problem. Making this go away isn’t going to rid of the curse,” I told him.

  “No, but you’ll be able to help me and yourself by hiding what you are now,” he pointed out.

  I opened my fists and my eyes flickered up to him. “How the hell do you know so much? Did you learn it all from the disk?”

  He grinned and shrugged. “Maybe I did, and maybe I didn’t. All you need to know is what I tell you now.”

  I jumped to my feet and glared at him. “You think I’m some servant dog because I look like this? I won’t take orders from you.” I held my fists in front of me so he could clearly see it. “I could crush steel with these. What makes you think I won’t put a dent in that face of yours?”

  Quinn chuckled. “For one, you’re a detective, Detective. To protect and serve is your motto. I won’t believe for a second that just because you look like a monster that you’ve become one. For another, you don’t quite have a grasp on what you’re capable of.”

  “And you know what I’m capable of?” I questioned him.

  “More than you know, but I don’t think we’re getting anywhere with your questions.” He stood and gestured to the doorway. “Maybe we should get some sleep and-”

  “I don’t want any sleep!” I screamed. I took a step towards him and felt my teeth lengthen into fangs. “I want answers, and you’re going to give them to me now!”

  Quinn’s smile slid off his lips and he folded his arms across his chest. “You’re letting the beast take control of you. That wouldn’t be a good idea around me.”

  I ticked off everything that ticked me off. His smug attitude, the miserable night I’d had, and all the stupid mystery that I’d dealt with since that night. I couldn’t take it anymore. I sprang at him with my claws and teeth bared. He just stood there waiting for me to jump on him like he was a giant wolf treat, and the next second he was gone. Vanished like a ghost.

  That didn’t stop me. I landed where he had stood and lifted my head. My nose sniffed the air for him, and I whipped my head back to glance over my shoulder.

  Quinn stood where I had jumped from. His eyes were narrowed and I detected a reddish hue in their depths. I snarled and spun around to make another leap at him, but the next moment he was gone again. My eyes widened and I looked and I slept my gaze over the room.

  “Behind you,” Quinn’s voice spoke up. A pair of arms reached around me and pulled me against a hard chess. I strained and kicked, but the strength of my captor was unbelievable. “Calm down or I will crush you,” Quinn threatened me.

  “Let me go!” I growled.

  “Call me down, Detective!” he insisted. The next words he spoke were softer, but no less firm. “I’ll tell you more of what you want to know if you calm down.”

  “I said let me go!” I snarled. I was too far gone to care about anything except getting his blood on my teeth.

  “Get a hold of yourself, Detective Maria Selena!” Quinn snapped at me. “You’re better than this! Fight it!

  I shut my eyes and ground my sharp teeth together. God dammit, but he was right. I wasn’t the bloodthirsty type. It didn’t suit my badge. I did an old trick my dad once taught me.

  “One, two, three, four. . .” I counted off until I hit ten. I took a deep breath and opened my eyes. The world was no longer red, and I noticed my fangs were teeth and all of the hair and claws were gone from my hands.

  “Very well done, Detective,” Quinn complemented me.

  Quinn opened his arms and I dropped to the ground. I pressed my hands against my face and didn’t feel the peach fuzz of wolf hair, though the normal spots for my hair were still long and thick. I spun around to face him. Quinn stood there with his arms crossed and that strange glint in his eyes. I raised an eyebrow.

  “What are you?” I asked him.

  He chuckled. “Now you’re asking the right questions.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “What you talking about?”

  He shrugged and walked over to his chair. “And there you go asking the wrong questions again,” he scolded me as he took a seat. He clasped his hands together in front of his face with his elbows on the arms of the chair and looked at me over his fingers. “You asked me what I was. What I am is a vampire.”

  I shook my head and ran a hand through my thick, wolfy hair. “You’ve got to be kidding me. . .” I grumbled.

  “Some nights I wish I was, but this night isn’t one of them,” Quinn replied. He dropped his hands into his lap and smirked. “I don’t mean to brag, but I’m pretty old even for my kind. It was my love of information that kept me alive, and keeps me in business.”

  I opened my eyes and glared at him. “So you’re telling me that you want a werewolf to work for you, a vampire, to gets something from a mob boss?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” he confirmed.

  I dropped onto the couch. “If you’re such an old and powerful vampire then why don’t you get it yourself?”

  He smiled and shook his head. “They’d spot me in an instant. You saw what happened at the club.”

  I leaned forward and frowned. “Speaking of that, why did you have us meet at the club, and who were those men who chased us?” I questioned him.

  Quinn studied my face. “You don’t believe I’m a vampire.”

  “I believe you believe it,” I quipped.

  “But that’s not quite the same thing, but I suppose it doesn’t matter,” he mused. “What matters is that I have that vial in my possession so I can put the disk in yours.”

  “How am I supposed to get this vial when you can’t?” I asked him.

  “Like I said before, with your-shall we say new personality-you’ll fit right in with this crowd,” he assured me. He glanced over my body and frowned. “We’ll have to get something more suitable for the occasion, but you’ll fit fine into a slick dress.”

  “You forgot one thing. I still don’t have an invitation, and if this guy’s as powerful as you’re implying then he’s going to have the place watched and wired for security,” I pointed out.

  Quinn stood and stretched his arms above his head. “That’s for you to figure out, Detective. I’ll give you a dress and a ride. The rest is up to you.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “That disk better be worth it,” I warned him.

  “I think you’ll find my information very-well, interesting,” he assured me.

  “How interesting?” I asked him.

  “Just the identity of this-well, we’ll call this Shadow a man, and his dealings throughout the city. It could blow the criminal world wide open. You would be a hero, the city’s savior,” he mused.

  “I don’t care about being a hero, but if what you’re telling me is true-”

  “And it is,” he insisted.

  “-then what you have there is evidence of criminal activity, and needs to be handed over, so give it,” I demanded as I held out my hand palm-up to him.

  He chuckled and patted his chest. “You know I don’t work for free, Detective, and this certainly cost me a great deal. That’s why I’m asking for the vial.”

  I folded my arms across my chest. “And I’m supposed to trust a self-proclaimed vampire to hand over that disk after I get the vial?”

  He grinned and bowed his head. “You have my word, Detective.”

  I snorted. “Keep it. It’s not worth the breath you used to say it.”

  “If that is all you have to say then I think it’s time we got some rest,” Quinn suggested. He walked past me and towards the doorway.

  “This questioning isn’t over, Quinn. Not by a long shot,” I warned him.

  He waved to me as he left the room. “Good day, Detective.”

  Chapter Two

  I sat on the couch for a few minutes thinking about what Quinn had said. None of it sounded sane, but my world had become one long stay at a psycho ward. I leaned forward and ran a hand through my hair.

  “What do you have to lose?” I whispered to myself.

  Well, beside my life. My sanity was already forfeit.

  I got up and looked out the window. The sun peeked over the horizon and spilled into the room. Another day, another mess to get into.

  I walked out of the living room and into the entrance hall. The house was eerily quiet. Too quiet. The last few days had trained me to treat quiet as a threat. I moved to the bottom of the stairs and looked up.

  “Quinn?” I called.

  No answer. My sensitive hearing didn’t even hear a board creak. I wished for my gun as I slowly moved up the stairs. The second floor had two hallways. One traveled the length of the house, and the other the width. There were six doors; two to my right, two to my left, and the others in front of me at the back of the house. A door to my right and in front of me was partially ajar. I crept forward and glanced down at my sides. Nothing and nobody there.

  I reached the door and peeked inside. It was a large bedroom with a dresser, oriental rugs that cost more than my pension, and some paintings of demons attacking women. The windows opposite the door were covered in a thick layer of dark curtains. The bed was missing, but there was a long, rectangular box in its place and a nightstand beside the head.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. . .” I murmured as I slipped inside.

  I crept up to the box and looked it over. It was made of some dark-red wood and the hinges were on the side that faced away from the door. I knelt down and slipped my fingers beneath the lid. An easy lift and the lid flew open. I looked in.

  Quinn looked back at me.

  I yelped and stumbled back on my hands and knees. My eyes never left the box as my back hit the wall close to the door. I tried to get a hold of my oncoming heart attack and make some sense out of what I saw. Whatever I saw, it wasn’t Quinn sitting up. Nobody appeared out of the box.

  I slid my back up the wall onto my feet and peered into the box. Quinn lay there in the same position with his eyes staring at the ceiling.

  “Quinn?” I whispered. No reply, and no breathing. His chest didn’t move an inch.

  I slipped over to the box, and looked down at Quinn and his bed. The inside of the box was lined with soft red velvet and there was a pillow at the head. Quinn lay there with his hands clasped on his chest and as still as death.

  I knelt beside the box and took hold of one of his arms. He didn’t object, and I checked for his pulse. I felt the color drain from my face when I didn’t feel anything. No pulse, but there also wasn’t any rigor mortus. If this guy was a stiff, he wasn’t stiff yet. That meant either I was dealing with a freshly dead guy, or a long undead guy.

  Unfortunately, in my recent line of work my brain aimed towards the latter rather than the former, and I guessed Quinn was a former human-turned-blood sucker. I dropped his hand back onto his chest and looked at his pale face.

  “Damn it, Quinn. Why’d you have to do this to me?” I murmured. I turned around and rested my back against the side of the coffin. “Seriously? Why couldn’t you have been just a normal guy?”

  “Because that is no more me than it is you,” a voice whispered in my ear.

  I yelped and sprang to my feet. I spun around and saw Quinn in a seated position with a smile slapped on his face.

  “You’re supposed to be dead!” I shouted at him.

  “Undead, Detective,” he corrected me.

  I frowned and crossed my arms over my chest. “If you’re undead than how are you awake? And why the hell didn’t you wake up when I was checking your pulse?”

  “I thought it would be more amusing and useful if you found out the truth for yourself,” he explained. “And I taught you a valuable lesson.”

  “What’s that?” I questioned him.

  His smile slid off his face and his voice was firm. “That you shouldn’t turn your back on a person unless you’re sure they’re dead. Permanently.”

  I threw my hands up in the air. “Fine, you’re not dead and you’re not alive. I admit that. Happy?”

  He covered his mouth to hide a yawn. “No. You interrupted my rest, and I’ll ask that you not do it again. Your bedroom is across the hall, and as I said before there’s food in the fridge. Now I’ll bid you good day and we’ll resume our discussion after night fall.” He grabbed the lid and shut it over himself.

  I shook my head and sighed. “You’re in deep shit. . .”

  “How very true, Detective,” came Quinn’s muffled voice from the coffin.

  I left the room and made sure to give the door a good bang shut on my way out. The force shook the wall, and Quinn yelled something that didn’t get through the door but what I understand as a four-letter word with my name attached. I grinned and moved to the room on the opposite side of the hall. It was a normal bedroom with a normal bed.

  I sat down on the foot and fell back onto the bed. The white ceiling stared back at me, and I sighed.

  “What I wouldn’t give to go to sleep and wake up at my apartment. . .” I whispered.

  Wishful thinking wasn’t going to get me anywhere, so I tucked my legs onto the bed and closed my eyes.

  My nocturnal habits guaranteed I slept, and it wasn’t until an hour before sunset that I woke up. I sat up and rubbed my eyes. One glance out the window gave me a good estimate of the time, and the clock on the nightstand confirmed it. I sat up in my wrinkled clothes and stretched. One of my hands got caught in the tangled mess of hair atop my head. That hadn’t changed since last night, and I guessed I was stuck with it, at least until I got this curse off me.

  I found the bathroom down the hall and one of Quinn’s combs. In a few minutes I was brushed and a little more awake. Armed with my newfound wakefulness, I glanced down he hall at Quinn’s room. I walked down the hall and knocked on the door.

  “You still dead?” I called.

  “No,” was the reply.

  I opened the door a crack and peeked my head inside. The coffin lid was still shut. “So are you going to tell me what I’m supposed to do tonight or what?”

  “You can wait an hour, Detective,” he scolded me.

  “Sun allergy?” I guessed.

  “Something of the sort,” he agreed.

 

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