Midnight Moonrising (Moonrising #2)(57)

"You didn't answer my first question."

Soft titters sounded through my head, but I didn't find anything she was saying humorous.

"Answer me!" I screamed through my thoughts.

"Alex won't have to worry about another man, Mena, because you don't have it in you to stay with someone who doesn't love you back."

"You think I'm going to leave him, don't you?"


"I don't think; I know."

My cell phone tweeted, and I looked down at the screen. Another text from Daryn.

I'm getting worried, Mena. Please call or text me back.

"Was that boyfriend number one, number two or the brown-noser?" Roel said.

I exhaled heavily as I contemplated my answer. I didn't know how to explain my situation with Alex and Phoenix to the guys, but obviously they had made assumptions already, so I wouldn't bother with that one. My personal life really wasn't anybody's business but my own, anyway. "Daryn just wants to protect me, like all of you do. Stop being so hard on him."

Brad snorted.

But Heath was the one who responded to my comment. "Sorry if I'm out of line by saying this, but I think I speak for all of us when I say that we feel pretty close to you, so we may say and do things that are more relaxed than proper."

"I don't want any of you to feel like you can't be open with me about anything. Go on," I said.

Heath looked in the rearview mirror at the guys in the backseat. One or both of them must have nodded, because he continued. "Daryn is a little bitch who tries too hard to fit in and then cries when he doesn't. We've known him a lot longer than you, Mena. You don't want him as your Beta. He doesn't do well under pressure and he will fail you. Marc even considered making Daryn transfer to another pack outside of Montgomery."

My eyes popped wide in shock. "Are you kidding me? He can't be that bad."

"You haven't been in battle with him," Brad said. "Two of our pack got badly injured and another got killed because Daryn got scared and ran away. I thought Marc was going to kill the poor bastard that night. Nobody would have missed him if he had," he finished a little quieter.

"My wolf isn't interested in making him my Beta anyway. She—"

"What?" Roel said, but as I was turning to look at him, I caught Heath's confused expression, so I gave the guys one of my own.

"Did you honestly believe she would?" I said.

"Uh, Mena…" Brad said. "Why are you talking about yourself in third person?"

What the hell were they talking about? I wasn't talking about myself at all. I was talking about the bitch living in my headspace. Did their wolves not talk to them the way mine did me?

"You are an Alpha wolf, Mena," my wolf said. "There is much more we can do that they can't. They don't need to know about me just yet, though. The time will come soon enough for introductions."

A chill skittered up my spine. "Why do I get the feeling that you're hiding something from me?"

"I have no reason to hide anything from you, Mena."

"Really? So, if I tell them my wolf is actually another person living in my body, they won't find that weird or think I'm crazy?"

"They wouldn't understand. Only Alphas have—"

"I don't understand, either!" I screamed. "You said earlier that you were the one who killed Marc, that you helped me pull that trigger, so you were in me before I became an Alpha wolf. What aren't you telling me? I think you're lying. There is something very important I should know, isn't there?" I waited, but she didn't respond. "Isn't there?" I shouted, and anger slammed into me from what felt like all directions. I knew she was about to take over again.

She had a secret, an extremely valuable secret that I should know about, and now that she knew I would try to find out what it was, there was no telling when she would let me back out. I had to do something, and fast.

"Mena, are you all right?" Heath said as he pulled to a stop in front of Phoenix's home.

I turned and gave him frightened eyes. Shaking my head quickly, I opened my mouth to tell him 'no', but nothing came out.

My wolf smiled with my mouth, and then waved a hand at him. "Yeah, I'm fine. I was just thinking of all the ways I'm going to make Dana scream; that's all. I got a little carried away with the role-playing in my head."

"You can't do this to me!" I shouted.

"When are you going to learn that I can do anything I want and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it?"

I felt defeated, and my emotions got the better of me. I screamed in frustration. "Please, don't leave me in here! I don't even care what you aren't telling me! Just let me back out!"

"Hush now, Mena. I have a werewolf to torture. We'll chat later, love," she said, and then opened the passenger door.





Chapter 32



Roel





Roel gave Brad a side-long glance, then nodded in Mena's direction.

Brad shrugged, the look in his eyes letting Roel know that he sensed something amiss with their pack leader, but he didn't have a clue as to what it might be.

Heath's nervous eyes glanced back at them in the rearview mirror before he opened his own door to follow Mena into Phoenix's home.