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

up our timeline. Because we can’t be a pack, but we must be a team.”

Her words slapped me as I stepped into the circle of shifters, sliding between Lupe and Tank. His nose, I noted, was bleeding. Ryder, across from us, looked similarly battered. No wonder Lupe was pissed.

Only, her anger didn’t strike the males who’d engaged in fisticuffs. It lashed out like a striking snake and bit me.

“Athena is a professional thief. She’s stolen millions of dollars worth of art to line her own pockets.”

Lupe’s blunt assertion of my darkest secret rocked me back on my heels. My fists, I found, were clenched. Fur tickled the back of my throat.

“A mercenary.” Butch’s reaction was exactly what I’d expected, but it hit me harder after the day we’d spent together. He was the only one present who appeared civilized, which gave his words additional weight. “Can we trust a team mate who’s in it for the money?”

Beside me, Tank growled so softly I hoped I was the only one to hear him. For my own part, I was glad the night was dark enough to hide the heat in my cheeks.

And, I mean, how could I argue? I was here for the money. The money...and the safe passage through Rowan’s territory while I figured something else out.

Swallowing down anger, I kept my tone level as I responded to Lupe rather than Butch. “Do you intend to air everyone’s dirty laundry?”

Our boss’s arms crossed as she waited out our various reactions. The night had settled back into silence by the time she replied. “Yes, that’s exactly what I intend to do. Secrets are a faster pathway to bonding than falling backwards into your team mates’ arms and hoping they won’t drop you.”

Okay, I could see her point. Tank, apparently could as well.

“I’ll tell my own secret then.” His voice seemed to stroke across my skin, never mind that he hadn’t looked at me since I entered the circle. I somehow knew that he’d volunteered in order to move the spotlight off of me.

“Is this about your face?” Ryder’s voice was grittier than it had been. As if he’d lost his sense of humor during the preceding battle. “Because that’s not a secret. It looks like the inside of a horse’s asshole.”

Tank didn’t take advantage of the obvious opening. Didn’t ask when Ryder had last spent time inside a horse’s asshole. Instead, he shrugged. “Yes. My secret is that I did the damage myself.”

I wasn’t the only one who gasped. I had so many questions...and I certainly wasn’t going to ask them in front of the others. Especially not in front of Ryder.

So I was grateful when Lupe interjected a secret of her own. “I was raised in a puppy mill. Sometimes, dealing with the stupidity of werewolves, I wish I was back there.”

A puppy mill? As in, she’d actually been a wolf pup locked in a cage for her entire childhood?

Ryder gave us no time to digest Lupe’s secret. He shrugged in a gesture that looked uncannily like Tank’s, voice gruffer than usual as he admitted: “I stabbed my alpha in the back. Literally.”

The night pressed in around us. So much darkness, and I didn’t mean the lack of moonlight either.

All eyes turned to Butch, waiting for his secret. And...he shook his head.

“You don’t want them to know?” Lupe asked. She, it appeared, was familiar with all of our dark spots.

“They haven’t earned that knowledge,” Butch answered. His tailored bathrobe spun out around him as he turned on his heel and stalked back toward his cabin, secret carried with him.

Which left me wondering, later when I was tucked in my own bed peering up through a grimy skylight, what could possibly be worse than stabbing your alpha in the back?

Chapter 21

By the time the alarm on my cell phone went off, I was the furthest thing from well rested. I’d tossed and turned for half the night, replaying my mistakes and my team mates’ secrets. Revisiting Tank’s use of the M word and his reaction to Ryder’s presence. It all added up to more trouble than I could handle. My feet itched with the impulse to cut my losses and run.

But Harper wanted to stay. I needed Lupe to stand up for me so I wouldn’t lose safe passage to my sister’s boarding school before I found a long-term solution. And some small part of me wanted to learn more about this thing buzzing between me and Tank. To continue working toward the greater good.

Plus, my wolf was adamant. Good pack, she murmured. Which made no sense given the fact that the Samhain Shifters very much weren’t a pack.

Still, I accepted her decision. Showered and dressed and headed out in search of breakfast. Or, that’s what I intended to do. Instead, I literally stumbled across a pair of ankle-high boots on my doorstep.

Boots and braces. The same ones I’d left behind in Butch’s convertible. Something to keep my ankle from twinging, even though the injured joint felt a thousand times better than it had last night.

I crouched down, smelling the faintest residual aroma of wolf. Slid off my shoes and replaced them with Tank’s offerings. The fabric cupped my injured ankle like a healing touch.

That, unfortunately, was the brightest spot of the morning. It went seriously downhill from there.

In fact, by the time we assembled at 7 am, the air stunk of sullen werewolves. Ryder looked hungover. Tank sported a black eye. And Butch was so intent upon meditating that he didn’t greet any of us.

For her part, Lupe showed up late and rumpled, as if she hadn’t slept any better than I had. She scowled then barked out an order. “Warmup for today is a run around the lake. Whoever finishes first can choose our exercise option tomorrow.”

My ankle twinged. The lake’s size ballooned the more I peered at it.

But this was what I’d signed up for. I just needed to find the path.

I’d taken a