Page 73 of In the Light of the Moon

His answering growl made me laugh out loud, and just as I reached into the passenger seat to grab my purse and overnight bag, the shifting of light before me caught my attention.

My body froze, utterly shocked when the front door of the cabin opened, light from inside spilling out into the quickly darkening yard.

And then I felt utterly cold when a—woman stepped out onto the front porch.

I blinked a few times, wondering if my eyes were playing a trick on me, but she didn’t go away. In fact, she walked closer, stopping to rest her arms on the wooden railing near the front steps.

She was looking right at me.

It took me a long time to figure out what to say with her staring with an expectant brow raised. Finally, I pried my mouth open to croak, “Orion…”

“I’m packing up my things now, so you better?—”

“Why is there a woman at your house?” I bit out the words, anger creeping up. There was a strange woman. In my mate’s house. And the way she was looking was as if she was challenging me. Conveying with her eyes that she’d already staked her claim.

“What?”

“Why. Is there. A woman. At your house.” I seethed. Wrath. I wanted to march up to the porch and rip her throat out then wait for him to get back and claw at his face.

“I don’t know what you’re talking ab—what does she look like?”

My eyes were burning, but I gritted to him, debating on just turning around and going home before I did something that would surely get me arrested. “Blonde. Tall. Pale.” Was that how he liked his women? Her coloring was like his, and mine was the complete opposite. Her perfectly straight hair was neatly parted on the side, and though it was harder to see with the light coming from behind her, I could tell that she was thin, her jeans and blouse clinging to her lithe frame.

Was this the woman from the pack he’d left those years ago? Did he lie and go off to see her when he took that time away to ‘camp’? In that moment, I realized that I was far more capable ofmurder than I ever thought before. My rational mind would have reasoned that my anger was most likely misplaced on her rather than him, but at the moment, I didn’t care. She was here, still staring at me, and—was shesmirking?

I reached for the door, but Orion’s curse made me pause. “Stay in the car. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” He sounded just as angry as I felt, and I supposed most men did get that way when they got caught. I couldn’t believe it. Orion never,evergave me an indication that he would do something like this. Underneath the rage, I knew that my heart was breaking. And once I throttled this woman and gave him a piece of my mind, I knew that I would have to feel it.

“Who is she, Orion.”

His voice echoed over the phone, and I heard the air whip past him as he was probably bolting out of the English Department. “Fuck. What thefuck.”

“Who, Orion.”

And then, the woman grinned. And the tilt of her lips made her look an awful lot like… like him?

The sound of a metal door opening and closing made me jump, and I heard the slaps of Orion’s boots on asphalt as he made his way to the parking lot. The woman kept staring, kept grinning, and I felt my brows tighten in confusion. My call with Orion shifted, his phone hooking up to the car speakers, just before I heard the click of his seatbelt.

“My mother.”

Orion

What thefuckwas my mother doingin my home. And how did she get a fucking key?

I cursed aloud at the traffic that was slowing me down. It was a busier time, what with people starting to go out for dinner or whatever evening plans they had, and I narrowly avoided getting into three different accidents as I weaved between lanes, testing fate that I wouldn’t get pulled over for speeding.

“Sylvie, listen to me. Stay in the car until I get there. I’m just a few minutes away.” Though I’d now exited campus and could see the edges of town coming upon me, the racing in my heart and dread settling over my mind felt like it was going to make me explode.

“I—is she dangerous?” Sylvie’s tone shifted from harsh to something wary.

I’d heard her speak like that enough now, and I cursed myself again for making her anxious. “No—she’s not,” I took a deep breath and pressed harder on the gas when I reached the road that led out to my land. There were luckily no cars about, and I let mine hit ninety miles per hour, trying to shave off as much time as possible. “She’s just,” I struggled to find the word, “complicated at best. Unpleasant at worst.”

And then there was a surprised squawk. “What, Sylvie?”

“There’s someone else here. Another woman with dark hair, skin a little lighter than mine,” she didn’t sound angry at all anymore.

Once again, I cursed to myself,What the fuck. “Must be Ramona.” I was coming up on the turn off to my private road, tires shifting over gravel now.

“Y-your sister?” Sylvie whispered.

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