Kissed by Moonlight

Kissed by Moonlight By Adrianne Brooks
Wild Hunt, Book 1


Chapter One





I foiled the terrorists because they’d parked in my parking spot.

You may be thinking “huh?” or even “what the Hell?”, but it’s true.

The car blew up because it was in my parking space.

I work for a newspaper in the heart of corporate America, and as a corporate American, I am predictably irritable and unhappy on a regular basis. To appease me, the corporate American powers that be assigned me my very own parking space. I suppose they figured having a nameplate in front of a designated square of pavement would keep me from wandering into the office one day hyped up on caffeine and sporting an Uzi like a Gucci bag.

And, strangely enough, it had.

My coworkers were alive today because of my parking spot.

Hell, the building was still standing because of that spot.

And then some a*shole had to go and ruin it by parking in it.

To say I was pissed would be an understatement. I was enraged, hurt, and disillusioned with mankind.

Vengeful.

Most people don’t know this, but road rage doesn’t actually go away. It gets sucked into your lungs through the rising heat of the pavement and stays there just beneath the surface of your skin. Waiting. Watching for the perfect opportunity to strike and f*ck up everybody’s day.

My road rage found the perfect opportunity to rear its bitchy little head when I looked through my windshield to see what had become of my parking space. I glared at the series of numbers that made up the license plate and felt the warning bells begin to chime away in my head. My particular brand of rage was so strong that by the time I realized what I was doing, I had already scrambled out of my Ford Explorer and stalked over to the offending hunk of metal.

Then I busted the driver’s side window in with my low-heeled pump.

The parking garage for the Examiner is close enough to the main building that it takes no more than five minutes to walk from there to the lobby. The paper had bought the small garage when it was apparent that not only did they need it for all the new employees, but that they could also afford it now that the money was rolling in in a steady stream.

My parking space sat up on the roof. By far the nicest, roomiest, and closest space to the main building. My parking space was a god among parking spaces. It kicked ass.

At the risk of sounding like a thirteen-year-old, it ruled.

So, when I busted in that window and shimmied my boobs past the glass still sticking up, so that I could set the car in neutral, I did so with a very clear idea of what it was that I was fighting for.

Because honestly, with my attention span, my rage could only drive me to do so much. After the glass smashed I was still seething, but no longer blinded by anger. So, telling the cops I was gripped with momentary insanity when they came for me wouldn’t work because when I set my shoulder against the frame of the door and started to push forward, my thinking was as clear as it had ever been.

I was going to push this bitch of a car (because, according to my last boyfriend, cars were females and with its sleek black leather interior this particular vehicle just screamed “vagina”) off the parking garage roof.

What about the innocent people below? you may ask.

You could kill pedestrians!

F*ck the pedestrians. The pedestrians wouldn’t cover the cost of my insurance if my car got scratched or stolen simply because I’d relegated it to a poor man’s parking space.

So I pushed and I shoved and my feet (one still in its pump and the other scrambling along the ground encased in my pantyhose) dug into the hot pavement and gave me the leverage I needed to put the guilty car in question where I wanted it.

Then the bumper hit the metal railing that extended around the perimeter of the roof and my vision went red. So I pulled back, then pushed forward. Again and again until the car was rocking like a boat tossed by waves. When it reached its backward zenith, I pushed it forward as hard as I could and was rewarded when the bumper broke through the cheap barrier.

The front two tires quickly followed and in an instant that seemed to stretch out endlessly the car teetered, lost its balance, and took a nosedive off the side of the building.

On a related note, I use Google a lot.

According to Google, there are very specific requirements that have to be met before a car will blow up. It’s actually not as simple as the movies make it out to be. For instance, being shoved off the roof of a ten story parking garage should only be enough to crush the car like a bug. To blow up I would have needed to rupture the gas tank and, even then, there would have been a spark required to get things going.

So when the car, which shouldn’t have exploded, did in fact, explode, I figured I was in more trouble than I had originally prepared myself for.

So I spoke accordingly.

“Oh shit.”

* * * *

“Phaedra Conners?”

I glanced up at the sound of my name to the woman standing before me, clipboard in hand. When no one responded right away, she glanced over the room’s occupants in rising annoyance and called for me again.

“Phaedra Conners?”

Her voice wasn’t nearly as pleasant this second time around. I froze for one more heartbeat and then cleared my throat as I came to my feet. My hands felt clammy, so I wiped them on my hips, the material of my gray slacks soft beneath my palms. The woman looked me up and down. Though there was no expression on her face to imply as much, I could tell that she found me unimpressive.

“Ms. Dawson is ready to see you now,” she said neutrally. “If you could follow me.” As she turned and started away I grabbed my purse from the floor beside my seat and hurried after her. It was hard to keep up with her long legged stride and I found myself wondering testily how she was even able to move so fast in five inch heels, when I could barely shuffle along in three.

The Oracle wasn’t nearly as large as the Examiner had been and I found myself feeling more than a little claustrophobic as I followed Miss Attitude past the desks and cubicles that marked the personal spaces of individual reporters. As with any newspaper, the few people who were there were bundles of activity. I played follow the leader until we both came to a closed door that read:





Lynette Dawson, Editor in-Chief





The woman knocked twice on the door, waited until we heard a muffled “come in” from beyond the confines, and then walked away from me without a word. I made a face at her retreating backside before opening the door and stepping cautiously inside.

Ms. Dawson had her back to me, so I allowed myself a moment or two to study her in unabashed curiosity. She was an older woman, if the gray in her brown hair was any indication. When I came into the room, I found her staring down a pin board that was completely covered with newspaper clippings and photographs. Her stocking feet were bare against the worn hardwood, and I watched as she lifted her foot to scratch the calf of her opposite leg. Her hair was done up in a messy bun, and the skirt suit she wore had obviously seen better days.

I had to clear my throat twice before she would turn to look at me, but when she did I was both surprised and pleased to see the sharp intelligence in her eyes. Grinning, Lynette Dawson came towards me, hand outstretched.

“Miss Conners.” Her voice was warm and her grip was firm as we shook hands. “It’s such a pleasure to finally meet you. Please, have a seat.”

I followed her suggestion willingly enough and watched as she plopped down in the creaking chair behind her desk. Her sudden weight in the chair made it roll a bit, but she swung back up to the desk with enthusiasm, elbows resting on the surface and her fingers entwining so that she could rest her chin upon them.


“So,” her brows waggled mischievously, “what brings Fiery Phaedra to our humble abode?”

I made a rude sound in the back of my throat, but tried to play it off with a strained half smile. “Please don’t call me that.”

“Why not? You should enjoy the moniker while it lasts, Miss Conners. It’s not every day that people hail you as a revolutionary.” She tapped her chin and there was laughter in her eyes. “How did the Examiner put it? ‘A perfect example of what happens when freedom of speech is no longer a right, but a weapon to be wielded against the majority.’” She sighed and wiped a tear of mirth from one corner of her eye. “That line was a particular favorite of mine. They were always going on about how you were trying to make a statement with your little explosion, but they never explained exactly what that statement was.”

The smile I’d been maintaining became just a tad more forced, so I finally gave it up as a lost cause.

“I’m no revolutionary, Ms. Dawson.”

“Then what, pray tell, are you?”

I sighed. Some people called me a hero, but that percentage was small. The rest of the city thought I was either a dumb schmuck who’d been at the wrong place at the wrong time, or a co-conspirator.

“That really depends on who you ask.”

“I’m asking you.” There was no amusement in Lynette Dawson’s voice. No room for fancy maneuverings. Yet again, I was reminded that it was the woman’s no-nonsense reputation that had attracted me to this place, despite the fact that many viewed it as nothing more than tacky gossip rag.

I’d spent most of my adult life handling drama. I was a fan of the sensational, the chaotic, and the strange. I spotlighted the unique, the heartbreaking, the unbelievable; I gave a voice to the masses, and, for the most part, I even enjoyed myself. It didn’t hurt that as long as the paper was doing well and I stayed on my game, I was able to make a decent living.

The problem wasn’t my work. It was my temperament. The court-appointed psychologist that I’d been seeing after the bomb incident had claimed that I lacked impulse control or something.

I hadn’t really been listening.

Jeez, you’re instrumental in the explosion of a shitty reproduction of the Mystery Machine and suddenly you’re being detained by authorities and charged with destroying public property and reckless endangerment. It didn’t matter that said van had an arsenal’s worth of weaponry and high tech surveillance equipment. It didn’t matter that the piece of junk had been carrying enough explosives to level an entire building. Sure, I pushed it off the roof of a parking garage, but imagine all the lives my petty refusal to share had saved.

I mean, come on. Where was my freaking medal?

Instead of pats on the back and congrats, I was getting hate mail and being accused of being a communist. Apparently no one was buying my version of things, which was that it had all been a big misunderstanding. According to the majority there was no way I hadn’t been in on whatever nefarious plot the as of yet unknown terrorists had planned. They had been parked in my space after all. I must have had a change of heart at the last minute and decided to do the Christian thing by getting rid of the bombs before they could enact their bloody purpose.

I knew it was bullshit, but hey. I had to appreciate the creative genius behind it. After all, it had been on the front page months ago, and for a while my face had been plastered all over three major news channels. If today was any indication, people hadn’t forgotten about it nearly as quickly as I’d hoped they had, and I mentally prepared myself for another rejection.

Ever since the car bomb thing, other newspapers had been reluctant to hire me on. Just because the police weren’t able to prove that I hadn’t been involved didn’t mean that I was innocent, and the controversy surrounding the part I’d played in the whole debacle had cost me my job. No paper wanted to employ a woman that many believed to be a domestic terrorist. Bad for sales and bad for employee morale.

I’m pretty sure that the only reason I wasn’t facing jail time was because the cops wanted to see if I would eventually lead them to any of my accomplices. That, and because I’d done my fair share of favors for a particular judge during my years at the Examiner and he’d vouched for me. In the end, I had saved lives after all.

So here I was, almost a month later. Still looking for a job that wouldn’t put my journalism degree to waste and glaring at parked cars with tinted windows because I was 99.9% sure that they were surveillance vans put in place by the Feds.

There were a number of ways that I could have answered Ms. Dawson, but in the end I simply shrugged and said, “I’m a reporter who got on the wrong end of a story.”

She regarded me for another moment or two, and then smiled.

“You’re hired.”

My eyes went wide and I gaped. “Really? Just like that?” Not that I was complaining or anything, but usually when an interview took less than three minutes it was because I hadn’t gotten the job.

“Just like that,” she said, getting to her feet and stretching the kinks out of her back. “I know your work, Miss Conners,” she continued, wandering back over to her board. “You’re good at what you do. You’d be an asset to our team. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t—”

Dawson seemed to struggle for the right words; finally, she simply used her fingers to make a circular motion in the air above one temple.

I laughed despite myself. Far be it for me to look a gift horse in the mouth but— “What about the Fiery Phaedra thing?”

She shrugged without turning around. “We’re a tabloid, Conners. Any publicity is good publicity as far as I’m concerned.”

Happiness was a hesitant warmth in my chest, and I found myself stifling giggles as I came to my feet.

“Thank you. You have no idea how much this means to me. I promise I—”

She waved the rest of my words away. “You start Monday. We have staff meetings every Wednesday. Give me headlines. Proof it wasn’t a mistake to hire you. That’s all the thanks I need.”

* * * *

That night I lay in bed watching TV, flipping from one channel to the next, when something caught my eye. A newscaster was standing in front of the Examiner and gesturing behind her to where you could see the parking deck connected to it. I got the gist of what the story was about even before I turned the volume up.

The newswoman was standing next to an older gentleman who was squinting at the camera as if it were a beast he’d never before seen. He had his hands folded at the small of his back and his suit was so crisply pressed that it was a wonder that he could move in it at all.

“—true that your employer, CEO and philanthropist, Gabriel Evans was visiting the Examiner that day?”

“Yes, it is. Mr. Evans and I were there conducting an interview when we heard the explosion.”

“Many citizens are skeptical that there was any danger at all. In fact, some are even saying that the bomb was for Mr. Evans rather than a paper that focused mainly on political and economic issues.”

I sat up, my blanket pooling around my waist. Gabriel Evans had been at the Examiner the day the car bomb went off? They must have found some footage of him or something. The man was notorious for avoiding both the cameras and the people who wielded them for a living. Spotting Evans was like spotting a chupacabra. Which is to say that it was the singularly most terrifying thing that could ever happen to you. Especially if you were dumb enough to go after him alone. It made me wonder how Channel 8 had managed to land an interview, even if it was with one of his lackeys.


“Whether the bomb was meant for the newspaper or Mr. Evans is irrelevant. The Lumière Corporation is opposed to all forms of violence. We abhor the thought that anyone would have to live in fear, regardless of the bomber’s real intent. That is why Mr. Evans is hoping to increase the city’s security by donating over half a million dollars to the police department. These funds will allow them to hire new officers as needed, acquire new equipment, weapons, and so forth. In addition to that, the Lumière Corporation will also be financing the building of a new task force that will be designed to respond to high risk situations that other officers may not be trained to handle.”

For a split second the look of stunned disbelief on the anchor’s face mirrored my own, but she bounced back with almost no hesitation.

“That’s very generous of him, but what sort of ‘high risk situations’ are you preparing for exactly? And what do the Mayor and Police commissioner have to say about such a drastic change?”

The man’s smile was a little frosty. “You can’t put a price tag on a peaceful night’s sleep, and the Mayor and Commissioner are behind the project 100%. In fact it was their idea. As far as the types of situations that would call for a specially trained task force, the bomb incident wasn’t the first, nor the only, sign that criminal syndicates are fighting for dominance within the city limits. Our current police force is too small and too poorly equipped to handle the crime wave. If our only line of defense is overwhelmed, then it’s only a matter of time before the rest of us start drowning as well. Mr. Evans only hopes to prevent such an outcome.”

The anchor was nodding along with the man (whose name appeared to be David Reed, if the little box below his face was to be trusted), but I was more than a little skeptical. I’d be the first one to admit that Briarcliff had its share of…mishaps. It was a lot like Sin City, or maybe Gotham City before Batman started taking out the trash. But even if we were overrun with our fair share of murder, drugs, prostitution, and smuggling, nothing about Gabriel Evans equaled “hero” or “savior.” That half a million dollars sounded like some sort of payoff, and now that I knew he’d been in the Examiner, I was convinced that the bomb had been meant for him.

Now he was creating a “special task force”? A division that would probably be full of highly trained individuals who answered solely to Evans whenever they weren’t out kicking ass and taking names.

God help us all. The man was taking over the city, and he was going to pull it off without even a token protest. I tuned back into the broadcast at the sound of my name.

“—about Phaedra Conners? There’s a lot of speculation going around that Miss Conners was responsible for the bomb’s presence there that day. Can you tell me what Mr. Evans has to say on the subject? Will people like Phaedra Conners soon find themselves with a target painted on their backs?”

My heart started beating a mile a minute. While Reed’s face was just as composed as it had been throughout the interview, there was a new hardness in his voice when he spoke.

“Mr. Evans doesn’t believe that Miss Conners had anything to do with the events that occurred. He believes that she was simply in the wrong place at the right time. Either way, no matter her involvement, or lack thereof, Miss Conners was single-handedly responsible for saving countless lives. The fact that Mr. Evans could have been included in the death toll simply makes him all the more aware of her heroism.” His eyes bored into the camera in a silent bid to drive his point home. “We are grateful for her intervention in this matter.”

And that was that. The anchor thanked him for his time, and they segued smoothly into a story about a local boy being suspended from school for attacking one of his teachers. I sat back against my mound of pillows, still staring at the screen but no longer really seeing or hearing anything. I was lost in my thoughts. Lost in the warm glow of that single statement:

We are grateful for her intervention.

It wasn’t exactly a medal or the key to the city, but it was more than I’d gotten in the month since I’d pushed that car off the roof. I knew that I was no hero, but it was still nice being confused for one.





“I didn’t always howl at the moon. I used to be a housewife.”

—Kestril Winters