Midnight Moonrising (Moonrising #2)(32)

"I'm pissed, *!" I shouted, and was delighted when my wolf winced.

She sighed as she glanced over at him. He really was beautiful, and that look of alarm on his face was damn right comical, but he wasn't getting out of this unscathed. I had every intention of hurting him bad.

"She will be fine once she realizes we are trying to help her instead of hurt her," my wolf said through a clenched jaw. I had a feeling she was talking to me more than she was to him.

"I don't need your help!"

"Yes, you do, Mena! I'm not going to let you get us killed. Whether you like it or not, this is my body, too, and I aim to keep it alive and out of prison!" she shouted back as she flung a small suitcase onto the bed.

"Your body is hairy and has four legs, bitch!"

"Screw you—"

A rush of anger surged through my body and my hand came up swiftly to slap myself across the face. Had I done that? I was so stunned that I didn't know what to say or do. Better yet, neither did she.

"Mena?" Phoenix whispered, and my head rose up so I could see him approaching cautiously.

I giggled and, before long, the teeters turned into full-blown manic laughter.

My wolf huffed as she threw the suitcase open and started for the closet. "Your girlfriend is mad, Phoenix—crazy mad."

I heard him chuckle. "That's one of her finest qualities."

I could feel his eyes on me as my wolf loaded the overnight luggage with clothes and personal hygiene items, but she avoided looking at him. That was fine; I had no interest in seeing him until I had full control of my body, so I could do some real damage. He had a magic way of calming me down before the bomb in me exploded and I didn't want that. I wanted him to know how angry I was with him.

I felt my lips curl up.

"What the hell are you smiling about?" I said to her. "I'm not done with you, either."

She didn't respond, but the grin faded as she took the handle of the suitcase and met Phoenix at the door. She looked up at him and spoke quietly. "You might want to consider keeping your private chamber locked once we get to your home and I give Mena back her body. I won't help her hurt you, but I'm not sure she would need me to."

Those dark eyebrows popped up in dismay. "Noted. Thank you."

She nodded once. "I can't sense the location of the rogue shifters anymore. It's like they've fallen off the grid or something. I'd feel it if they had died, so that isn't it. I think going to your home is the best thing for us right now, at least until I can feel them again." The wolf didn't wait for a response from him, before closing the bedroom door and leading the way down the staircase.

The number of heads in my house had at least tripled since we left them to pack my bag. It appeared the whole pack was present. Some were crying and some were hugging, but all of them seemed to be angry about what had happened to Katie and what had almost happened to me.

One by one, each head in the room looked up to me as I descended the staircase, and then they fell to one knee, their right fists coming up to cover their sternums.

I was never going to get used to it. "Please, stand up," my wolf said with the use of my mouth, and waited until the shuffling ceased. "What has happened to Katie has indeed hit us where it hurts and caused us much grief. We won't let this weaken us, though. They will pay dearly for taking her life and they will regret having ever chosen to mess with me or any of my pack. Go home. Grieve for your friend. Find the strength they have attempted to steal from you, because we are going to find them, and when we do, we are going to unleash hell on them!"

I was surprised the windows of my home stayed intact as cheers and shouting erupted from every man and woman in the foyer of the house.

I let my eyes drift out across the riled crowd. I felt safe to have these people surrounding me. Even if one or two of them were conspiring against me, I found I trusted the others to watch my back and help me weed them out.





Chapter 20



Jaxon





Pushing against the garage door that led into Phoenix's compound, Jaxon walked into the house to hear an obscene amount of cursing and shouting.


Someone wasn't happy, he thought, and he rounded the corner to see Santino's fangs bared and his hands balled into tight fists. The guy was doing a whole lot of huffing and puffing through those clenched teeth as Lea screamed at him, spittle flying from her lips as she stomped her foot and poked at his unyielding chest with the tip of her pointer finger.

What the hell had he done or said to cause her to be so outraged? Jaxon had never seen her so upset before.

They were so consumed by their argument that they didn't even notice Jaxon in the room. He had to do something or that big Latino would have Phoenix's vampire assistant as a midnight snack, and that would be strike three for Santino. Not that Phoenix wouldn't kill anything that breathed for hurting Lea on even a first offense; the girl knew exactly what the high vampire of the city wanted her to do before he knew it himself. Finding skills like that in a personal assistant to a vampire didn't happen every day, and Jaxon knew that Santino was aware of that, too, or else the guy would have already tasted her sweet blood on his tongue.

"Lea?" Jaxon said calmly, and when she didn't acknowledge that he'd spoken, he raised the volume of his voice to a level that wouldn't go unheard by anyone in the huge house. "Lea! Back the hell up! Have you lost your damn mind?"