Moon Guardian: Crescent Five Book One © 2021 by J.R. Thorn

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  Cover Art by Manuela Serra

  Interior Illustration by Ricky Gunawan Book Cover Art

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  All Persons Fictitious Disclaimer:

  This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and co-incidental.

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  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system.

  Published in the United States.

  Contents

  Blurb

  1. Prologue: Vern

  2. Katlyn

  3. Dash

  4. Katlyn

  5. Dash

  6. Katlyn

  7. Ryker

  8. Katlyn

  9. Dash

  10. Katlyn

  11. Vern

  12. Katlyn

  13. Vern

  14. Katlyn

  15. Katlyn

  16. Vern

  17. Katlyn

  18. Vern

  19. Katlyn

  20. Kane

  21. Katlyn

  22. Kane

  23. Vern

  24. Katlyn

  Epilogue: Dante

  To Be Continued

  Author's Note

  Fortune Academy: Year One Sneak Peek

  Recommended Reading Order

  To Skoga, a puppy who brought my bestie and I together while I wrote this book. May you be a happy member of the pack!

  I broke the pact and now I’m stuck with five sexy mates.

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  Wolves aren’t supposed to mate humans. Humans also aren’t supposed to interrupt sacred mating ceremonies, but I had a good reason, all right? I needed magic, and I needed a lot of it to save my little sister from the Moon Shadow plague running rampant in human territory.

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  Do the wolves think twice about consequences? No. They’ve been careless of the side effects caused by their little territory battles. They have never cared about us.

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  But they’ll care now, because I have all of their magic in the palm of my hand.

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  Literally. The Goddess Crescent was supposed to be a myth, the power to turn a human and unite the major clans. I just didn’t expect it to bond me to an Alpha from each of the five packs, and now I’m afraid I bit off far more than I can chew.

  What you can expect in this book:

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  * Five Fated Mates with No Choosing Required

  * Slow-Burn Romance

  * Rejected Mate/Second Change tropes with severe groveling by book 3

  * Human Female and Wolf Shifter Males

  Prologue: Vern

  Blood tinged the air, making my nostrils flare.

  Home wasn’t supposed to smell like this, like violence and death, but this was what happened when all of the packs were in one place without an outlet for our wolves.

  Soon, we would shift.

  Soon, we would hunt.

  Assuming we didn’t all kill each other, first.

  I watched as another brawl broke out, this time a female striking a beta male. Normally, such aggression would catch my interest, but none of the females here called to my wolf.

  Not since I became alpha.

  Not since everything changed.

  Now that I had taken on my father’s role, I would need a mate. The need for a wolf worthy of mine burned in my core. The only way to find her would be through the blessing of the Moon Goddess, and reaching her had been a tradition passed down through generations. The ceremony would sate my need to mate, to fuck, to dominate as the new alpha of my pack, and quell the unrest running rampant after the loss of our leaders.

  Doubt tugged at my thoughts. The Moon Goddess had been too quiet for too long. She had allowed all of our alphas to be massacred, or perhaps, that had been a test, one we had failed.

  What if she had abandoned us for good this time? What if I really wasn’t worthy to call myself Alpha of this pack?

  “We need to get this shit under control,” Ryker said, one of the other new alphas I’d known since I’d been a pup. He didn’t show a shred of doubt in his silver eyes. He’d prepared all his life for this role, unlike me, and was ready to take charge.

  I nodded to him in agreement, grateful to have someone familiar at my side. My father always had a strong alliance with the mystics. A growing streak of silver hair formed at Ryker’s temple, marking him as an elder of his pack, even though he was only twenty-three.

  Both of our fathers were gone.

  The fresh slice across his eye, running from his cheekbone to his brow, marked the result of our grief. The Mercury Pack had lost their alpha, just like the rest of us, forcing a new alpha to be chosen.

  He’d been the last wolf standing that night, the same night that I had emerged as alpha of my pack. Given our genetics, it was no surprise, alphas had run in our families for generations, but it wasn’t supposed to happen like this. So sudden and after so much bloodshed. I especially hadn’t been prepared to follow in my father’s pawprints, not when I’d had two older brothers.

  Both now dead.

  Grief wound its way through my heart and I pushed down the sour taste. None of us were ready for this, but we’d take on the role. We had to. A new force threatened our very existence and we needed to be at the top of our game to face it.

  Crossing my arms, I perused the shifters throwing insults at one another, this time it was the Mercury Pack and the Soldiers who’d managed to piss each other off. “Where’s Merc?” I asked, the newest alpha of the Soldier Pack. This might be my land, but Soldier wolves were not my responsibility. I’d let their new alpha deal with them.

  I had enough problems on my hands, like the High Moon Ceremony coming three days early, further evidence that something was wrong with our Goddess. Despite that, we still needed to perform the rite if we wished to find mates, so I’d gathered the wolves from all five cities. Without mates, we’d lose the Goddess’s blessing, meaning we’d permanently lose our ability to shift and procreate.

  Something that would destroy our race forever.

  It was enough to convince the packs of the urgency, although they’d barely arrived in time. Now if I could just keep them from killing each other before midnight, we’d be golden.

  Ryker glanced at the forest, his gaze narrowing. “Dash said he would scout the area before the ceremony, but I think he was just chasing some tail.”

  Quite the accusation.

  None of us could fuck, or mate, or even shift. Not yet. Not until the ceremony had been completed. The Moon Goddess didn’t need to be further provoked by attempting any of those things without her blessing.

  “He better not be,” I growled.

  A male with shaggy black hair approached us, the fresh slice on his eye marking him as the alpha of the Midnight Pack. Although the blood on his knuckles suggested he might be contributing to the problem. “I have my wolves on him,” he informed us, not bothering to introduce himself. It didn’t much matter to me which alpha the other packs had chosen. We’d be back in our own lands after tonight.

  Assuming we didn’t all kill each other, first.

  We took our positions at the moondial and waited for the sun to set.

  And the moon to rise.

  Ryker clenched his fists and widened his stance as the first hit of power rushed through our bodies. “I’m not waiting for the douchebag. If he doesn’t want the blessing of the Moon Goddess, then it’s his loss.”

  My best friend kept his gaze skyward. He’d always been a superstitious wolf, and loyal to our Goddess to a fault. He’d gone old school, hadn’t even slept with anyone to keep his future mate-bond pure. I admired him for it, even if I hadn’t abided by that rule before I’d become alpha. I’d never intended to lead, but here I was, fighting the urge to shift and hunt my new mate through the forest.

  I wondered if this was what Ryker had always felt. Yearning like I’d never experienced stirred in my core, calling me to release my wolf and let him begin the chase. Something waited for us, all of us, that would change our lives forever.

  The other alphas felt it too, their muscles straining as they steadied themselves at the point of each moondial. The ceremony would take hours before the Goddess appeared.

  But she was here, watching us. I could feel it.

  A sliver of moonlight broke through the clouds as the sun edged closer to the horizon, making me tilt my head back.

  The howl that my wolf released came straight from my soul as my first shift in three full weeks finally began.

  Katlyn

  “Did you hear that?” I asked Charlie as I stopped in my tracks, gripping my bow in one hand as a drew an arrow halfway out of my quiver.

  The motion was reflex. One born out of a lifetime of being hunted like the prey I was.

  Except, this time the sensation felt different. As if something exciting might happen.

  I peered through the thick canopy, moonlight now our only source of light after the sun had descended. I wondered what had shot through to my core and made my stomach twist with anticipation like that. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was coming. Something wonderful and terrible at the same time.

  Although, I hadn’t slept for three days while I searched for Moon Blossoms with Charlie, so there was that. Maybe I was just losing my mind.

  “Stop trying to scare me, Kaitsja,” Charlie chided, approaching a glimmering white flower from a hidden curve of forest I’d missed. The moonlight hit it just right, revealing what had been invisible a moment before moonrise.

  Plucking it from the ground, he twirled the bloom between his fingers. The mud he’d caked over his face cracked when he grinned, giving him a comical appearance. “It won’t work. I’m not scared of anything.”

  Returning my arrow to its quiver, and draping my bowstring over my shoulder, I gently took the blossom from him and placed it in the bag hanging from my elbow with the others. “That’s not true,” I countered. “You’re terrified of my Auntie Daliah.”

  He tilted his head in admission. “I stand corrected. Your aunt scares the shit out of me.”

  “And don’t call me that,” I said, poking him in the chest. “Only Aunt Daliah calls me Kaitsja.”

  He grinned. “I know. And you hate it.”

  I did. It was some obscure name she’d latched onto when I’d been born. My mother had appeased her, naming me Katlyn, but Aunt Daliah always called me by the name she’d seen in her dreams.

  Crazy Aunt Daliah. And Charlie loved to tease me about it.

  He gave me a wink, lightening the mood.

  “Jerk,” I said, chuckling as I brushed past him and resumed the search, my mood quickly turning somber again as I realized how few blossoms we’d found. My bag dangled from my arm with only four of the prize blooms.

  We needed a lot more than that to survive what was coming next.

  “Hey,” Charlie said, catching up to me. “We’ll find enough, okay? We still have a few more days.”

  A few more days before those damn wolves made my life hell again.

  A few more days until those monsters went after my family.

  Glancing up again, I couldn’t shake the feeling that we didn’t have much time left. The High Moon had always come on the same night every month, with the annual wolf mating ceremony bringing the worst of the magical storms, but after the massacre, I questioned our timetable. The wolves would be angry, and that meant their Goddess would be pissed off as well.

  They weren’t just going to wait around to kill us off this time. Not when they’d lost their alphas. The wolves were already a volatile race. They were outright murderous psychos when provoked.

  Punctuating my fear, a breeze carried a new scent into our section of the forest. My nostrils flared, picking up that faint metallic stench that came with the storm I saw in my nightmares.

  While I was just as human as the rest of my village, the Moon Shadow Plague had affected me differently than my sister when we’d been caught outside in a sudden storm a few years ago. She’d grown sick and weak, whereas I had gained the ability to scent the storms before they came.

  I didn’t tell anyone about my strange new talents.

  Not even Charlie.

  The scent faded after a moment, making me shake my head as a wave of dizziness washed over me. Maybe I was just going crazy after no sleep. Even when I did get home, I doubted I’d fare much better. Not when my sister suffered.

  Not when I failed to fix her.

  “Let’s keep looking,” I said through clenched teeth as another whiff of metallic disease slithered across my senses. “Four blossoms won’t be enough to line my roof, much less yours or anyone else’s to deflect the worst of the magic.” I didn’t trust the rest of my village to come up with the Moon Blossoms that absorbed the invisible essence that made humans sick. Charlie seemed to have an uncanny ability to find the flowers, but the Moon Blossoms had become scarce, as if the protective blooms were dying out.

  At the rate we picked them, I wouldn’t have been surprised. The magical blooms couldn’t be grown, only harvested. We had tried. Their seeds never sprouted on human lands. Their nature required access to wolf magic and a specific dose of moonlight, which meant they only grew on wolf territory in exposed areas. Although even a sliver of moonlight through the forest canopy could do the trick, if the ground was rich enough. Given that we couldn’t risk being exposed, the forest was the best place to scavenge.

  Human lands scarcely grew anything anymore. Simple crops proved difficult and we were growing desperate enough to venture onto wolf territory, not just for Moon Blossoms for protection from the storms, but for food, too. There were a few territories down south, and east, that humans hadn’t explored, only because the terrain was inhospitable to our kind. It made it difficult to find the protective blossoms that could keep us safe from the worst of the magical effects when the wolves chose to call their Goddess.

  We were human. We weren’t meant to mix with magical things, and the wolves didn’t give two shits about that. They shifted as much as they wanted to, hunted and killed, and used the humans when it benefited them.

  Now it was biting them in the ass. Their cocky nature was why their alphas had gotten killed, because a new predator had entered the playing field. One that I hoped would be on our side.

  Given my shit luck, I doubted it. When the wolves were gone, we’d probably be next.

  Charlie caught me by my wrist, forcing me to stop. He misunderstood the worry that crunched my brow. “Your sister can be saved. The entire village can be protected. We don’t need many flowers, just enough to line the roof of a single house. We can all huddle up for a few nights, if we have to. The village can count on us. That’s why we’re out here,” he reminded me. It was dangerous. Being outside in wolf territory was a death sentence if we were caught.

  Especially now, after humans were accused of breaking the truce.

  I wish we’d been the ones to kill all of their damn alphas. Seeing their heads roll would have given me a thousand blessed nights of peaceful sleep.

  No, we couldn’t take the credit, but we’d sure as hell take the blame.

  Glancing down at the gorgeous blooms in my bag, I sighed as I resumed my search. Twigs crunched under my feet and I winced, hoping any wolves in the vicinity would only smell the caked mud we’d slathered all over our bodies. “I wish these grew closer to home.”

  He squeezed my arm as he walked beside me, matching my pace. “I don’t,” he said cheerfully. “Because then I’d never get to play moon-tag with you!”

  “Wait,” I said, glancing up, “Charlie we don’t have time—” I didn’t have a chance to protest because Charlie snagged one of the precious blooms from my bag and tapped me on the nose with it, making me sneeze as the potent floral aroma puffed in my face.

  “Catch me if you can!” he whispered, keeping his voice low as he returned the bloom to my basket before sprinting through the forest as if wolves were after him.

  It amazed me how silently he disappeared into the forest. I blinked, finding no trace of him. My nostrils flared, unable to scent him.

  Because that had been a new thing, too, and Charlie smelled like firewood and earth.

  Like home.

  The mud around my cheeks cracked as I grinned, the first true smile I’d had in days.

  He always knew how to make me feel better.

  Crouching, I adjusted my bow strap across my chest and strapped my bag across my shoulder, securing the blooms against my hip.

 

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