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

But Harper wasn’t done with her questions. “Dad said you owe him money too?” Her voice grew quieter and quieter. “That when you pay him, you can pick me up.”

Her last four words came out as a plea. It was the same voice Harper had used to ask for a puppy four Christmases ago.

I’d had to deny her then, and I had to deny her now. “I can’t, Harper.”

Shoes clicked on concrete. If my guide was close enough for me to hear her footsteps, I was close enough for her to hear my voice.

And yet, Harper was still talking. “Please. I know I’m only your half sister, but....” Her voice dropped into a quaver at the same moment Nick called out an order.

“Get off your ass and bring me a beer.”

He wasn’t an alpha wolf, but Harper was his daughter. Stuck in his house all week unless I sprang her from prison.

But I couldn’t. I needed to deal with Rowan and Marina and Lupe. Meanwhile, my sister was safe. I knew that. I trusted Tank to choose pack mates who would keep the fae far away from her.

Worst-case scenario, Nick would keep Harper on house arrest until I finished this job and wiggled out from under Rowan’s thumb. The so-called vacation would be unpleasant, but my sister would survive it.

And footsteps were getting closer by the second. I wriggled out of my dress and started crawling back down the tunnel toward the showers.

At the same time, I gave my sister the only thing I could—an apology. Cupping my hands around the phone, I whispered just barely loud enough for human ears to pick up on.

“I’m sorry,” I told Harper, not certain she even heard me before reception was lost.

Chapter 30

I was in the shower, phone hidden beneath my rumpled red dress, when my guide reappeared. Yet again, her arms were full of clothing, but these were awfully familiar. Even from a distance, I could recognize the outfit I’d shucked before shifting to wolf form two days before.

“Does this mean you found my suitcase?” I asked, swiping one last time at the dirt ingrained in my skin. I’d spent most of my wash time talking to my sister, and my guide was tapping her foot impatiently. So I accepted the towel she handed me then wriggled into jeans.

It had never felt so good to pull my scuffed leather jacket around my shoulders. Especially when I slid one finger along the inside seam and felt the bump I’d hoped was still present. It was all I could do not to smile despite my guide’s disappointing response:

“I’m afraid not. I think the suitcase might have gotten lost in transit.”

As if Rowan’s pack was an international airport able to reroute my luggage onto a plane bound for the other side of the country. Still, I didn’t press the issue. Shrugging, I scooped up the dress, palmed the cell phone, then followed my guide down the hall back to my room.

There, I paused as I took in a familiar figure. “Lupe?”

The older woman nodded curtly before turning back to face the shifter beside her. He might have been one of the males who’d guarded me during my imprisonment, but if so he certainly wasn’t restricting Lupe’s movement. Instead, the power dynamic flowed the opposite way.

“It’s clear the door knob was inserted backwards,” Lupe bit out. When the male just stared at her, she elaborated. “The locking mechanism is on the outside not the inside. I expect it fixed before I return.”

He was already examining the door when we turned away, following our guide back up to the ground floor and into a banquet hall full of shifters. There, Lupe was led in one direction and me in another. My wolf, seeing the food at the only empty seat, plopped us down without my permission. It was all I could do to use a fork and knife when my wolf wanted to grab up handfuls to stuff into our mouth.

It hasn’t been that long, I chided her, trying to pay attention to the bigger picture. Hard when the warmth of nourishment in my belly tried to soothe me into complacency. Rather than letting it, I assessed the utility of nearby objects.

Salt shaker. Knife. Those would definitely come in handy. Knocking both into my lap, I stashed them one at a time in my jacket’s voluminous pockets....

“Nice trick,” observed the female shifter seated to my left.

IT WAS JASMINE, THE sarcastic phone operator. I knew by her voice, even though she looked like all the other twenty-something brunettes.

“Busted,” I answered, drawing the knife back out and using it to saw at my steak.

“What are you going to use the salt for?” Jasmine asked, not seeming bothered that I’d kept the shaker. Did that mean I could have held onto the knife too? I decided not to risk a repeat of the weapon grab.

“Slugs give me the heebie-jeebies,” I answered. Which wasn’t a lie...although I hadn’t pocketed the salt to counteract slugs.

Jasmine scrunched up her face in sympathy. “Yeah, the downstairs isn’t sealed yet. I asked Rowan why we were in such a hurry, but he told me not to trouble my pretty little head about that.”

Pretty, little head was spat out with such venom that I couldn’t help smiling. There was so much of interest in her short statement. I chose to focus on the most telling slip. “You call him Rowan.”

“It’s his name.” Jasmine paused, then she gave me the information I’d been angling for. “He’s my little brother. Seems silly to address him as ‘alpha’ when I used to call him ‘baby boy.’”

“It must be tough to have a younger brother as your leader.”

I expected her to turn coy, but Jasmine snorted then elaborated. “Some days, I wish I could shake sense into him.”

“Because of the way he treats women?”

“You mean his harem?” Jasmine shook her head, not as if she was disagreeing with me but rather as