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

But my pockets were full of salt. The not-really weapon that had slowed Marina down for one split second. I grabbed a fistful and flung it....

The particles struck Tank as well as the fae. There’d been no time to warn him. He coughed out a curse as salt hit open wounds and uncovered eyes....

The bear being, though, was more hindered. It staggered backwards, clawed hands waving wildly. One struck Tank’s shoulder, sliding through his shirt. Blood blossomed....

But I was ready. I was on my knees, grabbing the bed slat. “Tank!”

He glanced down as the slender piece of metal flew upwards. Grabbed it out of the air as if he’d known it was coming. Thrust the metal through the bear being’s chest.

THE BEAR FAE COLLAPSED then disappeared, just like Marina had done. Only without the sucking wind, presumably because the node had already closed.

Which left four fae loose amid over a hundred werewolves. They could slide into the gap Marina had left in the power structure. Could turn the battle above us ten times worse.

Because the fighting hadn’t ended. I could hear it. Swords clanged above us. Screams of rage or pain or both erupted. Perhaps it was my imagination, but I could have sworn I could even smell the blood.

Tank and I didn’t have to speak. We grabbed our weapons and we ran.

The floral scent in the fae’s wake was much weaker than Marina’s had been. As if these new fae hadn’t possessed sufficient time to marshal their energy. Which was a good thing...except for the fact it made them nearly impossible to track.

Not that we travelled far along their scent trail. Instead, when we pushed our way out of Rowan’s house, we were greeted by a wolf. She snarled once then shimmered upwards into humanity.

“My brother refuses to end this.” Jasmine sounded furious. From the sounds and smells behind her, I could understand why.

Rowan might have been in Marina’s pocket to some extent. But the instigating fae was gone and the McCallister alpha had turned no less belligerent. The fighting wasn’t over yet.

“Your pack would stop if their alpha told them to.” Tank’s rejoinder was a non-answer...or at least I thought so at first.

Then I saw what he saw. Jasmine, facing him down. Staring directly into his eyes the way Ryder had done. The same Jasmine who’d known how to activate the harem girls, who’d been able to command them. She wasn’t acting like a wilting wallflower, shrieking at the sight of Tank’s grotesqueness. Instead, she resembled just what she was—an alpha werewolf.

The breeze shifted and the reek of blood was replaced by a hint of honeysuckle. The fae weren’t entirely gone yet. It was time to divide and conquer.

“I can handle this,” I promised Tank. And he didn’t argue. Merely nodded and turned toward the honeysuckle. Sniffed once, then broke into a run.

“This is the thanks I get for helping you?” Jasmine demanded when I turned back to face her. “You send away our only support?”

“No, this is the help you get,” I countered. Then, raising my voice, I called to the alphas who had obeyed me in the ride-share van. “Alphas! Gather! It’s time to make a treaty with the true leader of this pack.”

IT TURNED OUT THAT the McCallisters were willing to follow a woman if she came with powerful allies. Especially since the battle had been trending against them. Several of his own underlings leapt upon Rowan, taking him down in a pile of werewolves. Soon, every sword was dropped.

There would be growing pains, of course. One of those pains being Rowan himself, who Jasmine was intent upon rehabilitating. Another being the harem girls, who gathered dropped weapons and seemed keen to use them against their own pack mates. The new McCallister alpha had a lot on her plate.

Still, that was a problem for later. For now, pack bonds sizzled through the night as McCallister shifter after McCallister shifter bowed to their former leader’s sister. The connections flared bright for one split second. And in that moment, I learned how a pack leader was born.

The exhilaration faded in the face of Tank’s lack of success though. I sent Ryder and Lupe after him as soon as swords returned to scabbards, but they found only one of the four runners. The other three were gone, scattered to the winds where they could slowly gather their strength and power over the course of the upcoming year.

“I’ll hunt them,” Lupe assured us as a McCallister healer triaged the grievously wounded from both sides of the battle. In my opinion, Butch was among the dangerously injured, his legs barely holding him upright. But he’d waved away Ryder’s efforts to bring him over to the medical station. He wanted to be part of this conversation.

And his experience made that effort worthwhile. “It takes newly arrived fae weeks or months to start causing trouble,” Butch assured us. “We have time to hunt for them.”

“I have time.” Lupe’s correction of Butch’s pronoun struck me in the stomach. Her continuation turned that pain into ice. “You’ve all served well and I’ll commend you to your alphas. Thank you for being a Samhain Shifter. Your job is complete.”

To no one’s surprise, Ryder was the one who reacted. “Oh, hell no,” he growled. “They’re still out there. We’re not finished.”

And as if that was all it took to formalize our connections, light sparked between us just like it had between the McCallisters and Jasmine. Pack bonds kindled. My stomach warmed for one split second then chilled back down as Lupe slapped us with a cold dose of reality.

“If you want to hunt fae, you can’t do this.” She waved her hand at the tendrils of light dancing in the air between us. “Pack bonds are a liability.”

As we’d seen with Rowan. Marina had found a way into his pack and used his harem’s bonds against them. She’d used me as a locational beacon and would