Broken Melody (Luna's Children) Read online

  BROKEN MELODY

  Luna's Children Book 2

  By

  Melissa Kay Clarke

  Copyright © 2013 by Melissa Kay Clarke - All Rights Reserved

  No portion of this book may be reproduced, copied or transmitted in any form by any means without written permission of Melissa Kay Clarke

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places,

  events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination

  or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons,

  living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Luna's Children

  Shattered Dreams

  Broken Melody

  The Strength Within (Spring 2014)

  The Binds That Heal (Coming Soon)

  Dedication

  Robert and Rebecca - for being my muse and my support.

  Robin - for showing me that life is too short to ignore your dreams. You are missed more than words can ever explain. LYMI!!!

  My readers - for giving me the courage to try this again.

  My brother, Kevin and my mother, Joan - for being my biggest supporters and critics. It couldn't happen without you!

  But most of all, my God for giving me this "talent", the strength to rise above the struggles and find the harmony for my own Broken Melody.

  Table of Contents

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  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from "The Strength Within"

  ONE

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  It was a beautiful day - the kind of day that was made for the simple joy of just being outdoors in the bright sunshine. Brilliant cobalt blue skies were marred only by the occasional white puff of a drifting cloud. A gentle wind slid down the hills and through the trees into the little valley where its inhabitants found any reason they could to enjoy the break from the normally unbearable Deep South summer. Everywhere one looked, the trees had burst forth with vibrant green leaves while underneath the laden boughs, a multitude of flower blossoms danced and swayed. The birds sang, the squirrels frolicked and a multitude of children played and screamed, lost in their childhood games.

  In the middle of the meadow, a young girl, no more than perhaps eight years old, crouched. Nearby, her best friend, Tammy, called out numbers, her head resting against the gnarled trunk of an old oak tree. The girl flattened herself on the tall grass when she heard her friend call out, “Ready or not, here I come!” Several moments passed, Tammy thrashed noisily around creating plumes of dandelion fluff and wildflower petals to swirl in her wake. After several moments of searching, she spied her prey. She squealed, “I see you!” and ran in for the tag.

  The girl jumped up and bolted as fast as her little pudgy legs could go with Tammy giving pursuit. Reaching her hands out to touch the trunk designated as home base, she almost made it when she fell headlong into the oak. There was a thump, followed by a burst of stars in her eyesight as her forehead made connection with the immovable tree. Carried by the momentum, she rolled to the right of the trunk and then slid off to the ground. She laid there a moment, blinking her eyes to clear the bursts of lights dancing in her vision. Raising her hand up, she pressed it against her head and pulled it away bright red with blood. Looking down, she saw more blood splattered across the normal peach toned cotton of her shirt. “Mumma is gonna get me,” she whimpered.

  “Stupid freak! Didn't even know I was there because you can't see! You're just a human freak! A real wolf would have known and could see! You're just a Cur! Freak! Stupid!”

  She felt the tears burn, threatening to run down her cheeks. Through the blur, she could make out three boys, Jeremy, Lucas and Henry, as they laughed and pointed at her. Their cries of “Freak,” “Human,” and the most vile of all names, “Cur,” echoed in her ears. Slowly she stood up and faced them, her hands clenched into fists at her side. She glared at them. These three had been bullying her for years, ever since the pack healer had figured out she was missing her inner wolf, the spirit that every werewolf had inside. Her mumma always told her to ignore them, to not let them bother her, but they did.

  Standing there, facing them as they continued to jeer at her, her anger burned hotter and hotter until her eyes began to glow, shifting from deep sapphire to sky blue. Her hair blew back as if touched by the wind; her cheeks stained a bright pink. Drawing a deep breath, she opened her lips and screamed as hard as she could at them.

  “GO AWAY!!!!”

  The world stopped and held its breath as she poured all the pain, hurt and frustration into her cry. Once she had run out of wind, she staggered forward, her strength completely depleted and dropped to hands and knees. Raising her head, she saw Tammy staring at her, wide-eyed, face pale white.

  They were alone.

  “You made them disappear,” Tammy whispered. “They're gone.”

  Turning, Tammy ran back towards the village, screaming at the top of her lungs. “She made them disappear! She made them go away! Zandria made them go away!”

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  Gasping for breath, Zandria sat bolt upright in bed, one hand fumbling for the light switch beside her. Sweat plastered her hair to her face and her heart thundered in her chest. The light tank and shorts she wore to bed were twisted around her torso as evidence of the tossing she had done. Her covers lay in a heap on the floor. Several moments passed before she was able to get her breathing under control and her pulse to steady. The nightmare, one of many that continuously haunted her, had felt as real as the day it had actually happened.

  She jumped when she heard pounding on her front door. Slipping out of bed, she slid her feet into her slippers and glanced at the oversized clock, squinting until she could make out the numbers. Only one person would be beating her door down at two a.m. Wiping her face with the back of her hand then drying it on her shorts, she took a breath then opened the door.

  “Zan? Are you alright? I felt you panicking,” Cayson's emerald green eyes fastened on her worriedly.

  Damn that gift of his that allowed him to pick up on emotions. Just when she thought she had a good handle on hiding hers from him, she learned just how wrong she really was. It was getting harder to shield herself from him and the effort was taking a toll on her. She knew that there were dark circles under her eyes and the faint white scars that crossed her face would be standing out. She may be mostly blind, but even she couldn't miss them. Wearily, she nodded. “Just a nightmare,” she murmured. “You didn't have to come all the way over here."

  He chuckled and the sound sent little tingles through her body and her toes curled appreciatively. Reaching down, he picked her up like she weighed nothing, stepped inside and closed the door with his foot.

  “Put me down, please.” She pushed against the thick expanse of his muscled chest. It was like trying to move a building. “Cayson, please?” She looked into his face and couldn't help but feel the reaction of her body to his proximity. He was, after all, her life mate and just touching him is enough to cause every nerve to tingle. It didn't hurt that he really was one of the drop-dead, most handsome males
she had ever seen.

  He grinned at her in that lopsided way that made her heart skip a beat, pressed a kiss to her forehead and gently set her down on her feet again. Even though she had asked him to put her down, the loss of his body against her was distressing. Nevertheless, she couldn't afford to let him think she would allow there to be anything between them. Steeling her nerves, she took a step back and knuckled her fists on her plump hips. “I don't recall inviting you into my house.”

  One eyebrow shot up and he looked down at her. “I didn't think I would have to wait for my mate to invite me in.”

  “I'm not your ma...,” she began.

  He stopped her with a growled, “Not yet.”

  Zandria threw her hands up. “How many times are we going to go through this? I've told you over and over, I'm not interested. You are so stubborn!”

  He snorted. “I'm the stubborn one?” He pointed to a small round mark over her left breast, approximately two inches in diameter made of red and white swirls and lines resembling a fingerprint. “That says differently. That one and this one,” he touched his own mark, a mirror image to hers, “says we are mates. Our hearts say it and so do our souls. The only one refuting it is you.”

  “You don't understand,” she huffed and flopped on the sofa, pulling her legs up to sit Indian style. Picking up one of the small brown pillows, she hugged it to herself with both arms.

  Cayson folded up his six foot five inch body and sat beside her. Even though she was plump, having curves where most wolves were all lean muscle, he dwarfed her, making her feel almost petite. Reaching a hand out, he cupped her face. His touch once again sent electricity racing through her nerves to center in her chest. “Then make me understand, honey, because I really don't. I know you can feel that, feel us. Why do you fight it so hard?”

  His words were soft and beseeching, his beautiful brow wrinkled in concern mirroring the hurt that burned in his eyes. Even with Zandria's reduced vision and the room being dim, she knew every inch of that face and though she would like to ignore it, his pain tore at her heart. Shoring up her defenses, she pulled her face out of his hand. “I'm not fighting anything, Cayson. You think you want me and that I'm the right mate for you, but I'm not. I'm not even a real wolf.”

  He growled. “We've had this conversation before. I don't think it, I know it. I spent four years thinking I was in love with Amanda Thistle; four years waiting for her to realize it too. I was told that one day I would look into the eyes of my true mate and forget what Amanda looked like. I didn't believe it then but now I do. Zandria, I couldn't tell you the last time I saw her, what she was wearing or what she was doing, but I can recite to you everything about you going all the way back to the day you first arrived here. I know what color hair band you wore last Monday. I can tell you that your toes were painted pale pink for three days and you had a small spot on your pinky toe on your right foot. The cutoff shorts you wore yesterday had one string that was twice as long as the others.' He sighed heavily and placed a hand on her bare knee then gently squeezed. "Two weeks ago, you stopped drinking anything except water and it's been a month since the last time you put salt on your food. See, I notice everything about you, everything about you interests me. Zan, it fascinated me even before you finally let me look in your eyes!”

  She swallowed and tried a different line of reasoning. “But Amanda...”

  His eyes narrowed and his lips firmed into a line. His voice dropped lower as he grasped her chin in his fingers and pulled her face up to look at him. “Amanda wasn't my mate." he whispered gently. "She knew it, her family knew it and my family knew it. By Luna, everyone knew it, even my own wolf - he knew she wasn't right for me, for us, but he knows you are. It's nature. We are made for each other.”

  She shook her head. “Your wolf is wrong. I don't have one. I'm a freak, a human born to wolf parents. I'm just a.. a..” She swallowed then forced herself to say the hateful word, “a cur.” She lowered her head hiding her face behind a curtain of blonde. “I'm nothing,” she finished softly.

  The tone of his voice steeled. “You aren't 'nothing', and you damn well are not a cur. Don't let me ever hear you call yourself such a filthy word again!” He took a breath and softened a bit when she flinched. “You are a wolf. Humans and wolves can't be life mates. The link that forms between them is a doubled connection – human to human and animal to animal. You are a wolf, a beautiful, wonderful, exciting one and you are my mate. We are trying to find out more about your gift and maybe explain why your beast is repressed, but one thing I know as much as I know my own name, you definitely have one. Maybe it's your gift? It's so special, there hasn't been one like you in centuries and we aren't sure what all it means.”

  She looked up, tears welling in her eyes. “I don't want to be special. I want to be normal just like everyone else. This isn't a gift, it's a curse and I hate it. My whole life I've had to deal with it. You don't know what I've gone through,” she spat out bitterly.

  “Then tell me. Zandria, let me in, let me help you.” Using his gift of empathy, he gently pushed love and sincerity through his hand on her knee. She was hurting so badly, and he was totally locked out of her heart, unable to help her. Just the thought of it felt like a dagger slicing through his chest.

  She felt him in her mind, begging with her to share her pain with him. She gasped and jumped up, breaking the contact. “I… I think you need to go.” She took a step back, tossed the pillow back onto the couch and pointed at the door.

  “Zan, please let me help.”

  “You can't help. Please go before I call the Enforcers.” Her hands had begun to shake. Looking into his eyes, she barely kept from falling into them again. “Please,” she pleaded. She looked at him, the slight illumination from the moon shining through her window causing the tears to sparkle brightly in her eyes. The sight of his Zandria, standing so boldly with her lip trembling and eyes so full of pain broke him.

  He sighed and got up. Putting his hand on the knob, he turned back and gazed at her again. He began to say something but with a wince, changed his mind. Shaking his head sadly, he opened the door and walked out, closing it quietly behind him. She watched him go and once she was sure he was out of hearing, dropped to the floor and threw her face into her hands, finally letting the floodgate down and bitterly weeping for the life she so desperately wanted but could never have; a life as Cayson's mate.

  TWO

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  A soft, gentle breeze filled the trees surrounding Sapphire Lake, while through the sparse underbrush, squirrels and rabbits were being chased by young pups. Their laughter, mixed with hunting howls, filled the common grounds. Above the ruckus, a crystal blue summer sky stretched across the heavens lazily, only broken by the occasional fluff of a drifting white cloud.

  The kitchen of the bakery was warm, as was often the case on Thursdays. Audrey opened the huge double oven door and peeked in at the loaves of cinnamon raisin bread that were just starting to brown on top. With a satisfied nod, she gently closed the door and turned her attention back to measuring out ingredients for a cake. Across the room, standing at the counter with her back turned, Zandria huffed as she worked the lump of dough laying on the cool marble surface. Punching it down with her fists, then grunting as she carefully turned it over then punching it again. She pulled out a tea towel, rolled the lump over onto it then covered it up. With a push, she nudged it into place alongside the other similarly wrapped balls lining the end of the counter. Wiping her hands on her apron, she turned around.

  “The bread is all done. What's next?”

  Zandria had the most beautiful voice that Audrey, or anyone else for that matter, had ever heard. The girl could read a physics text and have every person in earshot hanging on each word. Normally, she sang or hummed while working, as was evidenced by the unusual number of people milling around the commons on Thursdays and Fridays, but today she had been strangely silent. Several times Audrey had start
ed to inquire what was wrong, but held her tongue.

  “That's it. I'm going to finish this cake and then it'll just be putting the pies in.” Audrey gave her a warm smile. “Why don't you go ahead and go home? Five a.m. comes awfully early.” She pointed to the mass of wrapped bundles lining the workplace. “We'll be baking all day tomorrow to finish.”

  Zandria chewed on her upper lip a moment, uncertainty tearing at her. “If you're sure?” She mumbled. Truthfully, she was exhausted. She had stayed up late using the computer in the pack room to order gifts for the pack children – something she did monthly. What else was she going to spend her salary on? The pack supplied everything she needed. After finally dropping in her bed at midnight, the horrible nightmare woke her a few hours later. The final insult came as sleep eluded her following Cayson's departure from her house afterward.

  Audrey nodded. “Go ahead dear. You're such a huge help, I can't remember how I ever got all the pack's baking done before you came here.”

  Zandria's cheeks flamed a deep pink as she pulled the flour dusted apron from her body and dropped it into the basket beside the door. She didn't know what to say – compliments were still new to her, so she said nothing at all. Washing her hands, she dried them and hung the towel up to dry. “I'll see you in the morning,” she called out over her shoulder, then slipped out of the bakery and into the commons. Tucking her hands into the back pocket of her capri jeans, she lowered her head and quickly crossed the commons towards her cottage. Most would think she was trying to hide from the world, and maybe in a way that was right, but the truth was that she simply had to watch every step she took. She could make out shapes and colors through the blurry haze of her vision, but little else. Something as simple as a stick or forgotten toy could result in her being sprawled across the ground. The last thing she wanted was to point out to others how different she was from them.