Midnight Moonrising (Moonrising #2)(71)

Alex nodded once, seeming to buy every lie that escaped her mouth. "You should think about becoming an investigator, Mena. You really have a nose for this kind of stuff."

"You have no idea just how big that snout is," Phoenix muttered to himself, but thankfully no one was paying him any attention.

Phoenix pulled the cell phone from his pocket and typed out a quick text then sent it to Mena's phone. He smiled when he heard her phone ding, alerting her of a text message.

Very smooth. You keeping up with all these lies or are you making Mena do that for you, Wolf? Is that your real name or would you rather I call you Bitch?

He waited for her reply with a stupid grin on his face, knowing she wouldn't be able to let him get the last word in. His phone vibrated in his hand a full minute later, and he looked down at the screen, instantly seeing red. Damn, he wanted to be rid of her.

Call me whatever you like, but nothing will stop me from moving in with Alex after the meeting with the witches is over. You screwed with the wrong alpha wolf, Bloodsucker.

Phoenix tossed his phone on the dash then balled his hands into tight fists. Brad shot him a nervous look from the driver's seat, but didn't bother asking what his problem was; he already knew.





Mena





I was actually relieved to have my wolf take over for a while. It gave me time to think, and I prayed she was distracted enough by the detective that she wouldn't listen in on my mental vomit.

Privacy was a luxury I no longer had, and damn, did I miss it.

The wolf avoided looking at Phoenix. The good thing about that was it gave me the space I needed to think without the distraction of his presence that always seemed to keep my head in the clouds, but the bad thing was I was being forced to look at Alex Rhodes. However handsome he may be, I wasn't interested, though I supposed that was a good thing, since I had my own issues to work through.

My wolf was relentless as she flirted and chatted cheerfully with Alex. It was a bit humiliating to see, first hand, her flaunt my body shamelessly in front of the others, but I knew she was only doing it to get under Phoenix's skin.

The text she had sent back to Phoenix bothered me. Moving in with Alex was an even worse idea than moving in with Phoenix. I understood that I was in danger, and that my house wasn't safe, but I was really tired of everyone making my decisions for me. Staying with Phoenix wasn't really even a big deal to me anymore. It was just a shock seeing that he had moved me in with him without asking what I thought about it first. Who does that? Definitely not men who claim they will never love you. It had to be a control thing. Phoenix had been in control of his clan for over a century. If an order was spoken from his mouth, they did it without question. What did I have to do or say to get it through his thick head that I wasn't beneath him? A little respect was all I wanted. Was it really too much to ask that he communicate with me, ask my opinion on things instead of doing what he thought was best?

Maybe I could talk to my wolf about the living arrangements. We seemed to be getting along a lot better the last few days. She hadn't even barged in on my sexual encounter with Mr. Fabulous earlier.


I laughed when she rolled her eyes—or my eyes, rather; they were part of my body, not hers. I assumed the only reason she hadn't interrupted Phoenix and me was because she didn't want me to interrupt her when she finally got a chance to nail Alex. I really needed to figure out a way to sleep or turn my mental voice off when she was doing inappropriate things with my body. Being present when Alex was feeling me up or deep inside me wasn't something I looked forward to.

I suppose I had come to terms with the fact that she would always be a part of me. Friend? Yeah, that may be pushing it a bit, but I honestly didn't mind the company most of the time. She negotiated and compromised most things with me.

The sound of a throat clearing had my wolf's ears perking up in interest. As she glanced over my shoulder, I realized the sound had come from Jaxon. He was looking at me, expression wiped clean of any clue as to what he was about to say; I did have a hunch, though. He didn't have to come out and say it for me to know he was upset with his master for demoting him and promoting me—and that was pretty sad considering I wasn't even a vampire.

"How was your afternoon, Mena?" Jaxon said, the corner of his mouth rising into a cocky, mischievous smirk.

My eyes narrowed of my wolf's accord as we speculated what the vampire was plotting to do. It was going to get really ugly really fast if he outed that I and three of the other vehicle's occupants were of the canine species. Okay, we weren't exactly wolves, but we were closer to being one of those than the human sitting beneath me, now turning his full attention to Jaxon.

"I trust everything went well with Dana today? I saw her come in, but don't recall her leaving." He stared at me, eyes shimmering with amusement, making it bluntly obvious to me that he was about to reveal a large piece of the supernatural puzzle to my wolf's favorite human. I couldn't let that happen. Alex would bolt if he knew everything this early, and possibly try to have me committed. Jaxon had to know that. Phoenix would kill him—I gasped as I realized that he knew he was untouchable, to me or to Phoenix. He was linked to the seven of us, Alex's link being quite a bit weaker than the rest of ours was; he wouldn't actually die if the rest of us did. I didn't think he would, anyway.

"Dana?" Daryn said. "You saw Dana today? Did she try to hurt you, Mena? Why didn't you call me?"