Page 15 of Under the Moonlight

Xander put the truck into gear grimly. If she was already healing, then it was just a matter of time before she turned.

“Because she’s not human anymore.”

Xander flipped off the dome light. He peeled out of the parking lot, heading back to his place.

“Tell me what’s going on Xander!” Greer shouted.

“Shifters, Greer. Paranormal creatures. That is what is going on. I’ve been tracking two of them for five years, and I followed them here. The man, Pax Steel, he is the one who bit y

our friend.”

“Why did he bite her?”

“I don’t know but it’s nothing good.” He hesitated, afraid to tell her everything. “They killed Kelsey and Sam.”

Greer’s voice was barely over a whisper. “Sam?”

“Yeah, I found him this morning on my way into town. The police haven’t discovered his body yet.”

There was a pause, and he glanced over at her. In the darkness of the cab, it was hard to tell, but he had a feeling she was staring at him in horror. “How did you find him? Were you hiking again or something?”

Xander knew he was burying himself, and putting a whole lot of trust in her, but he couldn’t lie. She needed to know everything. “I smelled him.”

“You…smelled him?”

“Jill, you doing okay back there?” Xander asked as he sped back up the mountain road.

“No, I’m far from freaking alright! I…I think I’m going to pass out.”

The cab went quiet and he glanced over his shoulder quickly to make sure she was okay. She was prone across the seat. “Thank God.”

“Is she going to be alright?”

“I think so. It’s always an adjustment, especially if it’s not a consensual bite.”

Greer scoffed. “People actually consent to being bitten and turned?”

He turned briefly, and the light of the moon caught the incredulous expression on her face. His guts tied up in knots. “When two people choose to be mated, yes. If they aren’t both shifters already.”

He saw her swallow and he would have given a pound of flesh to know what she was thinking.

“You said you smelled Sam. Was he close to the road or something?”

Xander knew where this was leading and there was nothing for it. He had to tell her. “No he was about a half a mile into the woods. I was driving with the windows down and I smelled his dead body.”

“How…Oh my God. What are you?”

The terror in her voice stabbed him in the chest.

“I’m a werewolf.”

11

Twenty minutes later, Greer paced Xander’s living room, trying to put everything together. Jill was resting in the spare bedroom and Xander was in the kitchen making coffee.

How in the hell was she supposed to wrap her brain around all this? Jill had been bitten by a shifter and Xander, the guy she’d thought she could trust, was one too. Her ex was dead, Kelsey was dead, and she still had a buttload of questions Xander needed to answer.

Finally, she stopped running a trench in his floor and leaned against the kitchen counter. “So, are you like a shifter bounty hunter or something?”

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