The Moonlight Breed 8: Leap in the Dark by Gabrielle Evans (chrysanthemum read aloud .txt) 📕

is top priority, though.” He’d seen what could happen once the poisons were activated, and he didn’t want anyone to have to go through that again. “Does anyone have any questions or concerns? Now’s the time to ask.”

When no one responded, Xander dipped his head and crossed the room to the front door. “Let’s go then.”

“I’ll catch up with you later,” Braxton called to him as he began to backpedal toward the kitchen. “I have to meet Keeton, and you really don’t need me for this anyway.”

Call him paranoid, but Xander didn’t like the idea of his mate being out of his sight. “Can’t it wait?”

“I’ll take them up to the house,” Demitrius offered as he slipped past Xander to lead the way. “We’ll meet you there.”

“Xander, I’ll be fine. We’re not even going to leave the house. Logan, Talon, and Jackson are there.” Using his index finger, Braxton drew an X over his heart. “I promise. I’ll be perfectly safe, and I’ll see you tonight after your meetings.”

Then he turned and hurried away before Xander could argue further. He could chase after the guy and probably start a fight, or he could let it go and trust his pack brothers to keep Braxton safe for a few hours. Besides, he’d be inside the house the whole time. What was the worst that could happen?

Chapter Nine

“Okay, so these are the sketches I’ve done.” Six different sheets of paper were spread out on the table before him. Each one was of a wolf, but with different features, expressions, and details. “So, once you decide what you like best, I can go from there.”

Guilt tasted sour on his tongue and settled into the pit of his stomach as he listened to Keeton talk. With everything going on, Braxton hadn’t given much thought to their new project. Keeton, it seemed, had been very busy.

“They all look good.”

“Well, of course, they do.” Keeton rolled his eyes and huffed as he plopped down on the floor on the other side of the coffee table. “I wasn’t sure what feel you were going for, though. I mean, do you want realistic or cute and cuddly? I did some cartoonish stuff, as well.” He tapped one of the sketches with an adorable black wolf pup. “I need some direction, honey.”

Braxton felt horrible for his lack of involvement, but apologies wouldn’t get the job done. So, he bit his tongue and looked over the sketches, carefully examining each one and trying to piece it with a story. “If we’re going to gear these toward paranormal kiddos, I think we should go with realistic, but softer.” He wasn’t an artist, so he didn’t know all the technical terms, but Keeton seemed to speak his language.

“Like this one.” He tapped at a sketch that could have been a photograph for how real it looked. “You want it less angular and more expressive.”

“Exactly.”

“Okay, I can do that. Do you think we should add other supes, like vampires and elves?”

“I think that’s a brilliant idea.” An entire fictional world began to take shape inside Braxton’s mind. “I don’t want to lecture kids on right and wrong, but I think these stories should have a message, something that tells them it’s okay to be different.”

“I did think of a small problem.”

Braxton looked up from the drawings and tilted his head to the side. “I don’t like problems.”

“Well, you know that shifters don’t actually make that first transition until puberty.”

Okay, that wasn’t really a problem. With a bit of creative liberty, they could shape these books into whatever they wanted. “It’s fiction, Kee. You’re completely missing the point.”

Keeton shrugged, stretched across the carpet on his back, and linked his fingers behind his head. “I just thought I’d bring it up. You’re kind of anal about details.”

He wished everyone would stop talking about his ass. He was not anal, uptight, a stick in the mud, or any of those other synonymous phrases for the perpetually non-fun. In the two years since he’d met Xander, he’d undergone a few changes. Being beaten, nearly burning to death in his own apartment, and accidently shooting his ex-boyfriend had only been the beginning. After that was when the real fun had started.

It felt like someone was always out to get them—demons, vampires, secret labs, organized slave traders, and now, apparently, goblins. The good times far outnumbered the bad, but none of them knew what the future held. Each day was a leap in the dark across an ever-widening canyon. Sometimes, Braxton landed with both feet firmly on the other side, but other times, he spiraled into free fall, just hoping someone would catch him before he hit bottom.

“Do you ever regret it?” Keeton asked, using his uncanny ability to decipher Braxton’s thoughts from just a look. “Do you ever wish that you were still clueless about all this paranormal stuff?”

“No, I don’t think so. Even if we didn’t know about it, everything would still be going on around us.” He waved a hand around over his head in an awesome gesture that was sure to make him look intelligent. “I also wouldn’t have met Xander.” There weren’t enough demons in the world to make him regret falling for his mate. “What about you? Do you regret it?”

The silence stretched on for several seconds before Keeton finally answered. “I’m over all the bullshit and drama, but I guess it wouldn’t be much different if we were still in the dark. It would just be different bullshit and drama.” He levered up on his elbows and smirked. “And yeah, Logan is definitely worth it.”

His friend had a point to a certain extent. If they hadn’t met their mates and had gone on to live a boring human existence, he doubted they’d face life-threatening events with such frequency.

Things had changed a lot in the past couple of years. Braxton had changed. Things that would have seemed outrageous were now commonplace in his life. He was practically married to a shifter. He