Moon Glamour by Aimee Easterling (books to read to be successful TXT) 📕

flowing out of me. Tank was being a gentleman. Harper, after a moment of consideration, accepted the peace gesture. “Harper D’Argent,” she replied.

“Good grip,” Tank observed. Which likely meant my sister had tried to squeeze his fingers off.

“Ditto,” Harper answered. Her eyes, when they met mine, were full of questions.

Well, there was no point in pretending we weren’t sisters at this point. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow at five,” I told Harper. “We can talk then.”

And, to my surprise, she accepted the brush off. “Okay,” she agreed. “Nice meeting you, Tank.”

She slid me a glance that was full of mischief. Her eyebrows wiggled. Then she took off, heading back to her simple human life.

Together, Tank and I stood watch until my kid sister made it safely back across the lawn and into her dormitory. My foot and ankle both throbbed, but my waist was warm where Tank’s arm encircled it.

The contact felt strangely right.

IT WAS SO LATE THAT even the highway was empty by the time we made it back to the exit closest to my apartment. Which meant no nosy neighbors noticed when Tank pulled into an empty parking space and helped me pry myself out of the car.

By this point, one of my toenails had turned purple from where Harper had stepped on it. My ankle had swollen to the size of a cantaloupe. My muscles felt like they’d been attached to lead weights.

For the first time, I sincerely regretted choosing an apartment on the seventh floor.

But even though stairs felt insurmountable at the present moment, I wasn’t about to lead Tank into my ramshackle building. Not that I was ashamed of the books spread across my couch and the dirty dishes in the sink...much. The real issue was who he was and who I was. No way I was inviting a strange werewolf into my den.

“Thanks for the ride,” I dismissed him.

Rather than leaving, Tank waited, head turned slightly away. Silent. Immovable.

I sighed and unlocked the downstairs door.

“Look, you don’t need to come up with me. I’ll be fine,” I told him at the bottom of the dark stairwell. It seemed to rise up into eternity, as if I lived at the top of a lighthouse rather than in an ordinary, if run-down, apartment building.

Tank’s response was diffident. “I don’t have anything better to do.”

I blinked and his arm was around my waist again. I was leaning into him...for no reason other than the fact that each stair loomed approximately ten feet tall. When had they expanded from their original size?

“Step up,” he murmured, and I did. Again and again and again. Time and space tunneled. I lost a few minutes to a strange combination of pleasure and pain.

Then we were on my landing. Tank’s hand rose in front of me, palm up. “Key?”

My growl was half-hearted. “I can open my own door.”

After I fumbled at the lock for ten long seconds, however, me swaying and Tank as solid as his namesake, it became apparent Tank had won that round. Who knew silence could be so effective? He turned the key in the lock, opened my door...and froze.

Adrenaline woke me out of my haze as I took a step forward. “What?”

My nose provided an answer. The air, which should have stunk of carpet that refused to release its dirt plus the musty hint of ceiling mold, was filled with the wildness of wolf. Someone had been in my apartment since I was here last. Had shifted and, if I wasn’t mistaken, had peed on the door jamb.

I’d hoped to have at least until morning before anyone heard about a pair of wolves robbing the local museum. But word, apparently, travelled fast.

“Keep an eye on the stairs,” Tank demanded before pushing me back out the door and closing it in my face.

I rattled the knob. Blinked. Had he seriously just locked me out of my own apartment?

Endless minutes later, the door I was leaning against opened. Tank’s grip on my arm was firm as he pulled me into the overwhelming brightness of my own living room. “There’s no one here. I tried calling Lupe, but my phone doesn’t have service.”

“The office building across the way blocks it.” I waved vaguely. “You’ll get three bars down on the corner.”

Tank lowered me onto the couch, propped my injured leg up on a pillow, then crouched down to my level. His head was averted as he spoke to the wall. “I’m going to lock the door behind me. Stay here. I’ll be back once I’ve made a call.”

The raised hairs on his arms and neck were too long to be human so I didn’t bother arguing with him. Tank was acting like an alpha werewolf, which meant he wouldn’t listen to reason. I’d learned that the hard way. Didn’t need to beat my head against that particular wall ever again.

Instead, I watched him leave. Waited as my own key turned in the lock to protect me from danger that wouldn’t come from that direction.

Then I wrestled my way back to my feet. Hunted down my wallet. Opened the sliding glass doors across from the metal one Tank had locked behind him....

The instant I stepped out onto the seemingly empty balcony, a werewolf dropped down from above.

Chapter 12

“Rowan,” I greeted the alpha I’d known would be lying in wait for me. The one who’d given me the card in my pocket. The one I’d hoped never to see again.

“Ace’s daughter.”

As if I had no name other than a relationship to an absent father. My face twisted but I didn’t argue. After all, I was the one in the wrong.

Instead, I dug in my wallet for the card that had granted me safe passage through this alpha’s domain for the last year and change. I’d known what I was risking when I took the furry shortcut at the museum. Had hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but had accepted that it might.

Losing access to Harper’s visiting hours