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

Barks, growls, and chuffs of understanding met his instructions.

Shifting right there on the porch, Xander shook off the momentary disorientation and leapt down the steps, sprinting for the front gates with his pack following closely behind.

Chapter Eleven

The illustrious ten-foot gates were nothing more than mangled heaps of metal by the time Xander reached the coven entrance. Two heavy-duty trucks with oversized wheels and snow plows attached to the front grills blocked the exit as smoke poured from beneath their crumpled hoods.

His fellow Enforcers were already fully engaged, fighting tooth and nail to defend the residents of Haven from the threat of the goblins. Even if the putrid odor hadn’t alerted Xander to the type of enemy they faced, the invaders had chosen to take on their true forms. With almost transparent skin, steely blue eyes, and absolutely no hair anywhere on their bodies, they resembled something straight out of his darkest nightmares.

Pale blue lips lined rows of jagged teeth, and inch-long talons curved from the tips of their fingers in deadly daggers that they used to claw and slash at anything within reach. Their battle cries were something closer to the laugh of a pack of hyenas, but it did nothing to dispel their creepy factor.

The goblins’ arms stretched nearly as long as their legs, giving them an expanded reach, and when they ran, they appeared more apelike than humanoid. A quick count estimated their ranks to total over thirty. With the vampires tucked inside for the day and several other guards off on assignments, the goblins outnumbered the Haven Enforcers two to one, and they showed no mercy in using their superior numbers to their advantage.

While Xander was busy analyzing the situation, his pack of would-be warriors charged ahead of him, barking, growling, and screeching as they jumped heedlessly into the fray. Wolves, tigers, leopards, and werewolves fought alongside each other, gnashing their teeth and swiping at their adversaries.

The massive white lion was the most prominent of the group, and Xander was momentarily stunned at the raw power Spiro exhibited as he cut down two goblins in mid-leap with a mighty roar that shook the ground beneath his feet. The addition of their pack evened the playing field and bettered their odds of victory, but the goblins were ruthless in their assault.

The air was heavy with the scent of blood and sweat. Some Enforcers were barely standing, while others had fallen and lay sprawled across the dewy grass. The goblins weren’t untouched, though, and as the battle progressed, their ranks continued to dwindle.

Three of the creatures sailed through the air in a coordinated attack aimed at Jacobi who’d chosen to resume his tiger form. Before Xander could blink, however, Spiro caught one of the goblins’ ankles between his teeth and jerked the beast to the ground with a sickening crunch. Undeterred by the loss of their brethren, the other two found their mark, landing on Jacobi’s back in a vicious attack of fangs and claws.

Barreling through the horde, Xander pushed off with his back legs, catapulting himself toward Jacobi. He grabbed one goblin around the throat, while his momentum succeeded in sending the other somersaulting across the ground where he was dispatched quickly by one of the werewolves.

Jacobi looked in bad shape as the blood ran in rivers down his back and right flank, but he was moving, struggling to get his feet under him. Confident that the guy would be okay until they could assess his injuries further, Xander turned his attention to another pair of goblins who seemed hell-bent on ripping out Logan’s jugular.

The leopard danced around them, quicker and more agile, but certainly no match for their combined strength. Stealth was pointless, and there was no time for a sneak attack anyway. Dropping his head and lengthening his spine, he used himself as a battering ram, charging forward and connecting squarely with the goblin’s hip. The moment he hit the ground, Logan was on him, incapacitating him while Xander clamped his powerful jaws around the thigh of the second beast and jerked him to the ground.

The remaining goblins hissed and screeched, obviously communicating in some way as they turned their efforts and attention toward the shifters with white pelts. The Moonlighters might have some crazy magic in them, but it only seemed effective when rage consumed them. Right then, everyone was too busy fighting for their lives to even process what was going on, let alone be angry about it.

The goblins, however, were remedying the problem without even realizing it. An attack on Jackson sent Talon into a fury. Another attempt on Jacobi’s life was enough to push Spiro over the edge. When a group of five converged on Nikola, who was already down and unmoving, the despicable nature of the act seemed to push the rest of the pack into a frenzy.

All Xander had to do was think about the reason the goblins were there in the first place. As he surveyed the carnage around him, he imagined that each drop of spilled blood belonged to Braxton, and a murderous red haze settled over his vision. His heart rate quickened, his blood boiled, and his muscles quivered in eager anticipation as his cat screamed for vengeance.

Of course, the one problem with being a Moonlighter was that once he reached that point, attack was kind of unnecessary. As the anger roiled through the pack, the magic within them exploded until even Xander could feel the electricity it created in the air.

One by one, the goblins began to fall, crying out to the morning sky as they shifted back to their human forms, grabbed their heads, and rocked in uncoordinated movements in the dirt. Fortunately for the other Enforcers, their fury was directed only at their enemies. That didn’t mean they were unaffected by the magic, but hopefully, it would only be a temporary discomfort.

When the last of their enemies was kneeling and babbling nonsense to himself,