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

And the fae swirled between us and them. Every time I tried to take a step forward, two fae pushed me backward. They weren’t solid enough—yet—to do real damage, but I still ended up being buffeted like a boat in stormy seas.

Jasmine was doing no better. The bed slats, unlike Tank’s sword, weren’t sharp enough to cause serious damage. The metal protected us, but that was it.

Still, I did have an awful lot of slats on hand....

So I did the only thing I could think of. I remembered the way Harper had gained assertiveness after spending just a few hours among werewolves. She’d been buoyed up by pack and had risen to the challenge. Was that all Rowan’s harem needed? To be shown their own strength?

Slipping the bundle of slats between my knees, I drew one out and flung it. Another. Another. Tossing them through the air.

Weapons whipped across the haze of fae, who ducked rather than trying to catch them. I tossed seven slats into the cloud of fae and harem girls, keeping only one for myself.

Metal spun through the air, seeming to catch sunlight even though that was impossible down here in the basement. A slat cut through one immaterial fae’s shoulder and he bared smoky yet still sharp teeth that were far too large to be human. I couldn’t tell if the gesture was a laugh or a scream.

Probably the former, since he twisted his smoke tighter and began drifting toward me. Randomly flung slats wasn’t the way to expel our enemies back to the Otherworld. Plus, seven slats was nothing in this battle against hundreds of ethereal beings.

But I wasn’t trying to kill the fae. I was trying to wake the harem girls. Give them a weapon. Prove they weren’t helpless to impact their own fates.

The first slat hit a harem girl on the forehead. She stumbled backwards, sinking to the ground. I winced. My ploy wasn’t working.

But Jasmine caught on and ran with it. Her voice turned fierce as she dove for the fallen slat and sent it spinning back upwards. “You’re wolves,” she growled, sounding for all the world like Ryder at his surliest. “Act like it!”

This time, the slat was grabbed out of the air by a girl Harper’s age. The next slat I’d thrown thudded into the fist of a mature woman. Four, five, six, seven. One after another, the rest were caught.

“Now fight!” Jasmine ordered, suiting actions to words by slicing at encircling fae.

Maybe the burst of command was what did it. Or maybe the harem girls were boosted simply because the handlocked circle had broken. Either way, glazed eyes cleared. Smiles turned into frowns.

“Slice through their chests!” Jasmine called, repeating my instructions.

And they did. Slats caught the air, caught fae not yet materialized. The harem girls were more successful than Jasmine and I had been. Perhaps because they were at the center of the portal? Because their energy had been used to open the node wider? Whatever the reason, hazy fae poofed into nothing beneath their onslaught. The room was growing less crowded rather than more so.

But the solidified fae weren’t so easily vanquished. One grabbed the hair of a teenager who fell, shrieking. Another swept an older woman off her feet.

The members of the harem weren’t trained in swordcraft. Like me, they had little chance of standing up in the face of outright battle....

Before I could speak, though, Jasmine was on it. “Lillian, grab Catherine’s legs,” she barked. “Minta, take her feet. You and you, help McKenzie up.”

The fallen woman was lifted. The teenager scrambled upright with the help of her compatriots. The harem girl I’d accidentally struck in the head was also on her feet.

Those with weapons formed a bristling circle protecting the unarmed from damage. Slowly but surely, they inched backwards. Away from the portal. Away from danger. Tank and I were the only ones in the midst of the fae now. I turned to help him...

...And found Marina in front of me. She smiled, the chill of her regard raising goosebumps all over my skin.

SHE WAS GLAD TO SEE me. That couldn’t be good.

I jabbed out with my slat, ignoring the tremors of wrongness sliding through my body. Marina had no weapon and made no move to stop me, so this should have been easy.

It wasn’t. I felt like I was trying to push a needle through a bar of iron. My arm moved a mere millimeter before freezing into place.

Marina smiled then, the fruity scent of her breath seductively awful. She raised one perfectly arched eyebrow. “Are you ready to discuss your boon?”

Behind me, the slap of bare feet against pavement promised that Jasmine and the other women were fleeing the harem. I was glad. They were safer gone. Still, I swallowed as I realized Tank and I were the only ones left to deal with the fae.

“My boon?” I asked, risking a glance sideways. Tank’s sword had been remarkably effective. There were less than a dozen fae left now, although the ones who remained were sucking up the remnants of the others. As if each fae sent back to the Otherworld left all of their energy behind.

“Yes.” Marina took a step closer, whipping my attention back to her. Her voice sweetened and I tasted elderberry syrup, as if I was an ailing child being dosed by her mother. “So many opportunities for you to consider.”

I tried to ignore her words and stab her torso just like I’d told Jasmine to do. But my arm wasn’t moving. Instead, something forced me to consider what Marina had to say.

Ideas I’d dismissed swirled around me like yellow jackets above rotting fruit in an abandoned orchard. Harper’s social network. Tank’s charisma. My place in the werewolf world.

Marina took another step forward, the buzz of yellow jackets turning into words of seduction. “Do you really want to depend on the goodwill of an alpha to keep yourself and your sister safe?”

I