Midnight Moonrising (Moonrising #2)(124)

"Stop, Daryn!" Ace shouted. "Bow down before your Alpha!"

Daryn's front legs buckled and his head dropped low before me, but his baffled eyes were on Ace.

I risked a glance in Ace's direction, and saw that he was standing, and that Phoenix, Jaxon, six lions and three witches were there with him. My gaze moved to the wolves Daryn had under his spell, but a dozen naked men and women were looking around, dazed.

My only guess was that Daryn couldn't use his magic in wolf form.

"Kill him, Andromeda," Ace said. "If you don't, I will. Something this dangerous can't be allowed to live."

He was right, but now that I'd had a moment of clarity and had calmed down a bit, executing someone seemed impossible to me. I wasn't a killer. I shouldn't have this responsibility; I couldn't handle it.

"Do it, Lupacchiotto," Phoenix said.

But I couldn't. I'd had too much time to think about it. Surely the sisters could take his magic somehow, and we could lock him in a cage until we figured out a different punishment than death.


My eyes shot back to Daryn as he began to shift back to human form.

"Kill him, Andra!" Ace shouted. "He'll kill us all when he is able to use his magic again."

I was frozen in place. Even knowing what would happen, I couldn't make myself kill another person.

"Fuck!" Ace swore, and then dropped to his hands and knees. The breath left my lungs when a massive lion burst out of Ace's body, nearly twice as large as the six lions behind him.

Phoenix and Ace attacked Daryn just as he became fully human. There wasn't even time for Daryn to scream or cast a spell before Ace's jaws clamped down on his throat. Phoenix grabbed Daryn's legs and they jerked Daryn's body in opposite directions, tearing his head off.

My heart pounded against my ribs as I stared at Daryn's unseeing eyes. He was dead, and I had put everyone in danger because I couldn't do what was necessary to stop him. I didn't have enough courage in me to kill someone who threatened the people I loved.

I wanted to hide in shame, but nobody was looking at me like they blamed me. They were cheering. They were celebrating. Was I the only one unhappy about this?

I had to face them, regardless of the coward that I was.

Calling my wolf back, I transformed to my human body.

Phoenix was in front of me and wrapping me in his arms, shielding my nudity from the others. At this point, I didn't care who saw me this way. I had failed them, and I felt like crap because of it.

"It's okay, Andra," Ace said through my mind, and my eyes met his human ones over Phoenix's shoulder. "We took care of it. You're all right."

"I'm not alright," I said back. "I can't do this. I can't be who they need." Tears stung my eyes.

Ace's eyes shifted to the back of Phoenix's head, and then he just looked down at the ground, his lips pressed into a hard line. I could tell he wanted to come to me, to touch me, to take my anxiety and fear away, but Phoenix was holding me, and he didn't want to upset me again.

"I need Ace," I whispered to Phoenix.

He pulled back a bit, enough to look down at my face. His eyes were saddened, but he finally nodded and took a step back, allowing Ace to pick me up and carry me toward the woods.

"The witches and vampires have left to go get blankets and vehicles," I heard Brad say. "An unscheduled naked marathon running through Montgomery might alert the police."

I was tired, but it made me smile.





Chapter 61



Mena





I spent the rest of the night and the whole next day in bed, wrapped in Ace's arms. Every time I tried to leave his side, the fact that I'd almost let Daryn win would slam into me, and have me running back to feel his touch.

Regardless of how many times he tried to assure me that this was normal behavior for new shifters, I couldn't get past it.

Phoenix, Roel, Alex, Brad, Heather, Tracy and Heath all came to check on me at different times, all of them saying the same as Ace had, but none of their reassurances seemed to help me feel better about the situation.

I didn't know if I ever would.

Ace brushed my hair back with his fingers. "You will, Andra."

"I don't see how."

"I can teach you how. I've been where you are. I will train you to fight and show you how to be an Alpha."

"Can't I just step down, give the crown to someone else?"

"I wish it were that easy."

There were some fuzzy parts in his memories, but I did manage to see a face and put a name with it. "Who is Justice?" I said out loud.

He stiffened, and then I sensed walls being thrown up. He blocked me out of his mind completely. I sat up in alarm. "How'd you do that? Or, better yet, why did you do it?"

"I'm not ready to talk about him, okay? I promise I'll tell you, but not while you're going through this. It's a lot to swallow."

I sighed as I lay back down. "So, how did you block me?"

"The same way I think about a memory, I guess. I just imagined walls going up around them. I'm really not trying to keep anything from you, Andra; it's just not time for you to know yet. Okay?"

My mouth pulled to one side as I thought about it. At least he'd told me how to block him from my mind when I didn't want him knowing something. That made me a little happier. "Okay."