Page 18 of Under the Moonlight

“Are we talking about a girl?” Xander could hear the smile in Clyde’s voice. Clyde was as alpha as they come, but his wife wasn’t the only one who liked matchmaking.

“Her name is Greer, but we’re actually talking about the girl’s friend, Jill. Pax bit her.”

Clyde cursed. “Is she alright?”

“Freaked at first, but she passed out. I just can’t deal with holding her hand through her transition and fighting Dakota and Pax.”

“We’ll take off tomorrow and give you a hand.”

Xander didn’t want Clyde and his family getting in the way of what he needed to do. “Dakota and Pax are mine, Clyde.”

“Easy there, boy wonder. I meant we’ll come up to take care of the girl. But you know if you need some backup, we’ve got you covered. I love you like a son. No sense in you dying because you were too damn stubborn to accept our help.”

“This is not about pride. This is about me finishing what I started.”

“Boy, you took on each of those shifters one on one. Pax and his bitch don’t strike me as the type to play by the rules.”

“I can handle it.”

He heard Clyde sigh. “I hope so. We’ll see you tomorrow. Try not to get yourself killed before I can give you a hug, alright?”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Night, son.”

“Bye.”

Xander ended the call and set his phone down on the counter. If he was being completely honest with himself, he didn’t expect to make it out of the show down with Dakota and Pax alive. Clyde wasn’t wrong about them not playing well with others. Judging by the way she’d reacted when he’d warned her about Pax, Dakota’s devotion couldn’t be shaken. It was sad that she was completely under the sociopath’s spell or she may have gone down another path.

Xander poured himself a glass of whisky and sat on his couch, closing his eyes, his mind drifted back to that morning. His parents had been planning the mating ceremony for months, inviting females for their three sons. He’d gone out with his friends as a last hurrah in case he met someone. As the youngest at twenty-three, he hadn’t felt ready for it, but was willing to try at least to make his mother happy.

He could still remember coming home, high on life after a long weekend with his boys. He’d walked through the door, the smile still on his face when the blast of death had washed over him. His duffle bag had fallen from his shoulder to the floor as he rushed forward, the smell of blood and decaying bodies choking him.

He found his father first, although he hadn’t recognized him. His face had been completely bashed in, his head severed from his body. His two older brothers were lying halfway down the stairs, practically on top of each other. It looked as though they had been shot a hundred times until their insides were just mush. They each had their own apartment, and Xander remembered wondering what they were doing there, thinking that it must have gotten late so they just stayed over.

Xander had screamed his mother’s name as he’d leaped up the stairs. Opened the bedroom door to find her sprawled grotesquely on the bed.

When he saw what they had done to her, he’d lost the contents of his stomach all over the floor.

They’d taken all the jewelry and electronics in the house, even ripped into the safe. A robbery gone wrong is what authorities had called it.

How could he express all that pain and horror into words that Greer would be able to understand? The sheer hate he carried in his heart for those responsible wouldn’t diminish by talking about it. An eye for an eye.

The scent of death hadn’t covered the smell of the shifters responsible. He’d called in every favor, tracked down all leads. Finally, he’d caught a break when he’d accidentally found that first werewolf at the strip club. After he’d beat him, he’d tortured him for hours until he’d dragged every member’s name out of him. He’d gone to hell and back over the last five years.

It was his right to take his revenge.

He heard a cry and rushed upstairs, abandoning his whisky. He stood outside Jill’s room, and all was quiet. Then he heard Greer’s gasping breaths.

He knocked on the door. “Greer? Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

Her choked reply ripped his heart out and he turned the knob. “I’m coming in.”

She didn’t tell him to stop, so he pushed the door all the way open. As the hallway light streaked in, he saw the tears on Greer’s cheeks and closed it behind him.

“What happened?”

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