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

Stumbled...and took in two final allies arriving with dramatically disparate modes of transportation. Ryder’s was what I would have expected, actually, if I’d taken time to think about it. His legs gripped the broad barrel of a motorcycle, and he whooped as he swerved toward the enemy line then back in my direction.

Butch, in contrast, appeared atop what at first appeared to be the most beautiful horse I’d ever seen, in real life or on television. It gleamed. Purple, blue, and black, the colors intermingling from hooves to nostrils.

But, no, it wasn’t a horse. An enormous silver horn emerged from its forehead.

“A unicorn,” I breathed. Then I blinked and Butch was walking toward me, stride hitching as his injury slowed him. Maybe I’d imagined the unicorn? Regardless, I wasn’t the only one who noted Butch’s struggle to walk.

“Here.” Ryder was gruff as he patted the back of his idling motorcycle. “My hog can take two. He glanced at me. “Three, I guess. You’re skinny.”

I struggled onto the far back, behind both Ryder and Butch. Then, before the former could steer us to the frontlines, I provided alternative instructions. “We have to find the node.”

“To your left,” Butch murmured, voice quiet. His body, before mine, was bowed.

Ryder’s wasn’t. He was ready for any adventure. Revving the engine, he roared so loud my ears rung. Then we were off.

IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN exhilarating, riding a motorcycle to the rescue. Instead, all I could think about was Tank. Where was he? He would have found a way to join this battle if he was in control of his own movements. Was he even still alive?

Shaking my head against my own thoughts, I refocused. Marina. I was here to find the node and the woman who’d been toying with us. I was here to protect werewolves Tank cared about from the dangers of fae invasion.

To that end, I clutched Butch’s waist, steadying him as much as hanging on while we skirted the margins of the battle. The directions he gave us, though, didn’t let us steer clear of the fighting entirely. Then Rowan’s forces swung out to meet us, slowing our forward progress. It wasn’t long before the motorcycle stalled.

“Crap,” Ryder growled, kicking the ignition then revving the engine. “Hang on. This is going to get rough.”

“Wait,” I countered, something off to our right catching my attention. It was one of the alphas Gunner had assembled greeting an enemy as if he was an ally. “Nice sword, Clifford,” the alpha called to the advancing man whose raised sword was ready to skewer him. “Do they need me out front?”

But that wasn’t Clifford. Not that I knew who Clifford was. But I knew this guy was one of Rowan’s underlings. I recognized him by his long, curly hair and his extreme lankiness. This was the shifter who Lupe had ordered to change her lock.

I slithered down off the side of the motorcycle and dove between the two shifters. By chance, the situation suited one of my two practiced parries and I managed to catch our enemy’s sword before it skewered my ally’s gut.

Still, the reverberation juddered up my shoulder. My fingers buzzed painfully. The chances of me halting a second blow were zero.

Then Ryder was there, driving between us with all the finesse of a stampeding bull. “What the fuck?” He roared. “Dude’s got a red bandanna.”

Not-Clifford had no red bandanna. He was dressed in jeans and a hoody, nothing tied around his arm at all.

But he grinned at Ryder’s words, breaking away from my so-called defense and swirling back toward his compatriots. Now he knew what we were using to recognize each other....

“Glamour,” I explained tersely. “Get the bandannas off everyone. Figure out an alternative marker. And don’t trust what you see!”

Ryder, to my dismay, didn’t move. “I can do that,” he growled, “or I can drive you to the node.”

Not both. Obviously.

I closed my eyes for one split second, understanding at last why Lupe always looked vaguely dyspeptic. It made my stomach ache to guess the proper course of action. To send friends into danger without me.

But there was only one solution. Ryder was the obvious choice to brute force our allies into understanding the danger of this new glamour. And...

“We’re close enough so I can walk,” Butch agreed before I even had to state my case. Joining me on the ground, he swayed only a little. I steadied him with a surreptitious hand around his elbow.

“Go,” I told Ryder, the emptiness in my stomach lessening. And he went. Roared back into the battle, stopping at intervals to fire off short verbal bursts at our allies.

Convinced he’d get the job done, I turned away. Back to the darkness beyond the battlefield. Back to the one ally I had left. “We’re close?”

Butch nodded, all the while walking a curving path that started large then spiraled inward. Minutes later, he stopped in what appeared to be an empty patch of lawn.

“It’s here,” he murmured, prodding at the soil with one boot toe.

“You’re sure?”

I’d expected a fairy ring of mushrooms. An earthen burial mound. Something to suggest this wasn’t just a patch of lawn no different than the others.

I’d also expected Marina. But she was absent, her presence only visible in the glamour that continued to trip up our allies.

“I’m certain,” Butch confirmed.

The confusion on our side was worsening, I noted. For a minute or two, ditching our armbands might have helped us. But our enemies seemed to have caught on to that already. In the distance, I saw one of my own allies turn away from Rowan as if expecting a friend to guard his back.

This time, I was too distant to warn him. Could only watch in horror as the nameless alpha was mown down.

The fae trickiness would all end at sunset, however, and the light was already dimming. Sunset would mean Marina’s friends coming through the node, but there were enough of us left to stop them. We’d stop the fae