Shadow of the Moon: The Nightcreature Novels

By Lori Handeland

A Nightcreature short story featuring Jessie McQuade and Will Cadotte from the RITA Award winning BLUE MOON

 

When Will and I are sent to a small Wisconsin town to investigate a sudden rash of violent insanity, we encounter a mad scientist who has invented a new kind of werewolf . . .

 

One that silver can't kill.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lori Handeland
• Release date: Nov 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781519924810

Lori Handeland

Lori Handeland is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author with more than 60 published works of fiction to her credit. Her novels, novellas, and short stories span genres from paranormal and urban fantasy to historical romance. After a quarter-century of success and accolades, she began a new chapter in her career. Marking her women’s fiction debut, Just Once (Severn House, January 2019) is a richly layered novel about two women who love the same man, how their lives intertwine, and their journeys of loss, grief, sacrifice, and forgiveness. While student teaching, Lori started reading a life-changing book, How to Write a Romance and Get It Published. Within its pages. the author, Kathryn Falk, mentioned Romance Writers of America. There was a local chapter; Lori joined it, dived into learning all about the craft and business, and got busy writing a romance novel. With only five pages completed, she entered a contest where the prize was having an editor at Harlequin read her first chapter. She won. Lori sold her first novel, a western historical romance, in 1993. In the years since then, she has written eleven novels in the popular Nightcreature series, five installments in the Phoenix Chronicles, six works of spicy contemporary romance about the Luchettis, a duet of Shakespeare Undead novels, and many more books. Her fiction has won critical acclaim and coveted awards, including two RITA Awards from Romance Writers of America for Best Paranormal Romance (Blue Moon) and Best Long Contemporary Category Romance (The Mommy Quest), a Romantic Times Award for Best Harlequin Superromance (A Soldier’s Quest), and a National Reader’s Choice Award for Best Paranormal (Hunter’s Moon). Lori Handeland lives in Southern Wisconsin with her husband. In between writing and reading, she enjoys long walks with their rescue mutt, Arnold, and occasional visits from her two grown sons and her perfectly adorable grandson.

Book preview

Shadow of the Moon

SHADOW OF THE MOON

A NIGHTCREATURE SHORT STORY

LORI HANDELAND

CONTENTS

Shadow of the Moon

Dear Reader/Free Story

Just Once (2)

About the Author

Also by Lori Handeland

SHADOW OF THE MOON

As a child I didn’t believe in the bogeyman. There was no monster in the closet. No dragon under the bed. When I was twenty-six I learned differently. The bogeyman was real. The monsters popped up in my own backyard. I haven’t seen a dragon yet, but that doesn’t mean one doesn’t exist.

I was just a small town cop, doing my job—a little bored, a little lonely. Then the wolves went berserk and the people did, too. Once the dust settled, and I figured out who was good, who was bad and who was a psychotically evil werewolf, I was no longer Officer Jessie McQuade but a Jager-Sucher.

My whole world changed, in more ways than one. I swapped the relative safety of cop-hood in small town Miniwa, Wisconsin for extreme danger as a member of a secret group of government funded operatives. The trade-off was sleeping with Will Cadotte. The man was a sex god.

Oh, not literally. But in my new world, you never know. As I had to kill my best friend after she turned into a wolf god, it isn't too much of a stretch that my boyfriend could be an actual sex god. Stranger things have happened in the past few months. You don't believe me, watch a person turn into a wolf and back again, then we’ll talk.

After the wolf god incident, Will and I became Jager-Suchers, or Hunter-Searchers. I was the hunter, while Will was more the searcher. Though he was accomplished in tai chi and had kicked my ass on occasion, when it came time to kill things, he usually left that to me.

Late one night, not long after the previously mentioned incident the doorbell rang. I was uneasy. My mother always said that nothing good happened after midnight. Lately, nothing good happened after sundown.

I retrieved my weapon and checked the load—silver from this point forward. Once I'd taken a quick peep through the peephole, I opened the door.

Jessie. The leader of the Jager-Suchers, Edward Mandenauer, stepped inside without being invited. We must talk.

Will was asleep. He wasn’t a night person. However I’d been working third shift throughout my career as a