Moonstruck: The Beginning

By L.R. Xavier

What do you do when everything is taken from you, all that you own, all that you are? Do you roll over and play dead? Or do you fight?

I have no memory of my life before, no childhood or family. I woke in pain and it forged me into what I am now. But I managed to escape and have found people to help me. Can I trust them or is it too good to be true. Can I really believe the fantastical things they say are true? Do I really have the power now to take revenge on the people that took everything from me?

The beginning to a new Paranormal series about shifters, magic and revenge, showing just how much one woman can take and overcome. And just how far she will go to get back her life and protect those she counts as her own.

• Language: English
• Publisher: L.R. Xavier
• Release date: Jan 31, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370734511

L.R. Xavier

L.R. Xavier is an Australian author who writes Paranormal Romance. Well on her way to becoming a crazy cat lady (or at least a lady with a crazy cat) she writes in the hopes that the voices in her head will transfer to the pages on her computer and not urge her on to world domination. She is much too lazy for that.

Book preview

Moonstruck

The Beginning

L.R. XAVIER

Acknowledgements

As any writer knows, there’s a huge amount of work that goes into making a book an enjoyable read. A good story will only get you so far and typos, incorrect grammar and questionable narrative can be the kiss of death. It’s not just my hard work that has made this (revised edition) possible.

Sydney, Arinda, you were both generous enough with your time and patience to offer my work the boost it needed to be the best it could be. Though I hope we’re more than strangers now, that you would do that for someone you didn’t know at the time warms my heart and I hope we can continue to work together, both on my work and yours, for a long time to come. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Mum, it goes without saying, thank you too.

© 2018 All rights reserved Leanne Will

GENESIS

At first, there was nothing. A blinding white, sterile room. There was confusion, why was I here? There was nothing of me, no memory of who I was before. No answers.

Then came the torture. My question changed from why was I here, to why me? Still no answers. Taken from the white room and thrust into a dank, cold hole, darkness was my companion, bearing witness to my shame, tears, and degradation. Endless time was spent in the darkness, till it became a part of me, closing in, pushing down, bullying me. Even the darkness wanted something from me. But unlike my mysterious tormentor, I knew what the darkness wanted. Complete and utter submission.

I fought, I don’t know why. It would’ve been so much easier to just give in to the darkness, to sink into my pain and despair and just disappear. But something inside me wouldn’t lay down quietly. So I fought. Most times my efforts were laughable, easily quashed and pitiful in comparison. Until it wasn’t.

Once, just once was all I needed. Something changed, I was the winner! Escape!

Blinding light again, only this time, I was outside. Pain radiated from me. My lungs burning as I gasped in the air. The skin on my bare feet, legs, and arms tearing as branches, trees and rocks resisted my flight, unmoved by my terror and anguish.

Panic became my centre, my driving need for escape was my only goal. Stumbling, I slammed into a tree, half spinning around from the impact. No one behind me. Yet. My left arm, now numb from the impact with the tree, swung uselessly at my side as I pushed myself harder.

Shadows flickered across my eyes, the sun playing peek-a-boo through the canopy of the trees, densely packed together, disorienting me as I ran.

More endless time of pain and suffering, my body screaming from exertion. Only this time, something was different. Something unfamiliar and addictive. Hope?

Awareness sank into my brain in an instant. A change! The trees no longer cocooned me, I was in a clearing. No dense underbrush impeded me. I stumbled and fell, palms and knees skidding painfully on bitumen, layers of skin scraping off, being abraded by dirt and grit. A road. Keep going, get up, get up!

A high pitch squealing sound rents the air. My head spun to my right in time to see some kind of pick-up racing towards me, its tires locked and back-end swerving as the driver stood on the brakes, attempting to stop the vehicle in time.

Turning to face the truck, I spread my arms out wide, closed my eyes and waited for sweet oblivion to take me. It wasn’t cowardice. Just another form of escape.

Fuck!

The rough deep voice as it shouted the obscenity tickled through the haze that fogged my mind and I opened my eyes. The truck had managed to stop a few yards from me, the bitter smell of burning rubber hung in the air.

Through the windscreen of the vehicle, I could see a horrified male face, covered with a scraggly beard and surrounded by a halo of unruly white hair.

Only seconds had passed, but I felt the energy draining from me, my adrenaline no longer fueling my flight instinct. The man’s mouth moved as he stared at me, shaking free of his seatbelt, his eyes never leaving mine as he pushed open the truck door.

My knees suddenly gave out and I dropped back down, barely registering the pain as more of my skin scraped off on the hot asphalt, the edges of my vision started to go black. I was caught, it was over. All for nothing.

But no. Something was different. Something undefinable, my long forgotten instincts came screaming back, telling me one thing. Safe.

His scent hit me, soothed me. I could taste it on the back of my tongue and in my throat and it felt right, good. I started to tip, gravity catching my dead weight and dragging me towards the ground. He was there, catching, scooping me up into his arms, the alarmed expression on his face somehow reassuring me that he wasn’t with my captors, wouldn’t take me back.

Agony flared along my nerve endings, preceding the darkness that came calling. Surrounded by that oddly familiar scent, I gathered the last bit of strength I possessed and whispered my plea as the darkness finally overtook me and I succumbed to my injuries.

Hide me…

Chapter 1

She smells funny Gabe.

The voice was the first thing I heard as I came back to consciousness with a rush. No slow gradual awakening for me apparently. Drawing in a sharp gasp of air that came back out on a moan, I sounded like a wounded animal, whimpering and feral. If truth be told, that was essentially what I was.

Shhh, it’s okay. You’re safe. A female voice came from beside me and a feather-light touch in my hair let me know there was someone beside me. I couldn’t open my eyes, but I knew that one of them had been swollen shut before my impromptu run through the forest. I had no idea what had happened to the other one.

My pitiful whimpering continued, I couldn’t help myself, the agony was all consuming. Shifting restlessly only made things worse, but the pain was so bad I couldn’t hold still.

For the love of god Sam, give her something for the pain. She’s awake and suffering and from the looks of things she’s suffered enough! The woman’s voice was a command, an order that dared not be disobeyed.

Laura, I told you, I don’t know how it will affect-

The man’s voice was cut off abruptly. Samuel Wilkins, you give this woman a shot now, or I’ll come over there, knock you out and do it myself!

Laura, it could be doing more harm-