Come Out Swinging (Reach for the Moon Book 2), Sam Hall [leveled readers .TXT] 📗

striding over and trying the door. Of course it was locked. The wolf howl started up again, louder, drowning out the sound effects until there was only him.

“Father Wolf,” Micah said in an eerie tone. I wasn’t entirely sure if Micah was home right now, his voice somehow empty and hollow sounding.

“Obviously, we need to get out of here,” Zack said. “We should’ve known that wasn’t the end of things. You two, you were connecting. That’s what brings him forth.”

Our eyes jerked upwards at the sound of masculine laughter. Long and lazy, it was an unhurried sound, because of course it was. I was willing to bet all my future happiness he’d been watching and waiting for some time.

“So what’s up ahead?” Lorcan walked up to the next doorway. “Oh fuck.”

“What?” The guys surged forward to look at what was before us.

Was it here beforehand? A maze of mirrors spread out before us, each one reflecting this intricate web of lines made of neon lights in a space that looked like it went forever. But this seemed way more complex and a helluva lot less cheese than the rest of the place.

“Whatever’s going on, it’s trying to make us step out into this,” Zack said, eyeing it warily. “Which makes me think we shouldn’t.”

“We can use our phone GPS,” Declan said, grabbing his out and checking it. “Oh…”

“Lemme guess, it doesn’t work.” Lorcan snorted, then shook his head. “The next thing is for us to get separated.”

He was right—that was the script. Dark mysterious space, creepy shit underlying the silly stuff, something lurking in the gloom, so I should’ve known better than to step away from the guys. But I wasn’t thinking that when he appeared, gleaming like a dusky gem in all the glare, reflected a thousand times over in each mirror. His eyes glowed silver, unable to dull like ours did because he carried her in his face every day. He stared at me through long silky strands of black hair, his lean chest on display, just like the guys, but only a primitive form of brown leather pants on his legs. But it was his hand that drew my attention, that and his cruel smile. He reached for me through a million panes of glass, and because he was a god and I was a girl, I stepped into the maze.

Chapter 32

I didn’t feel his fingers when I reached for them, I felt glass. Glass that gave beneath my fingers as the wall of mirror swung open, admitting me to the maze.

“That’s it…” he crooned, luring me forward with the dark silk of his voice. “Come closer, little wolf.”

I walked inside, seeing the same triangulated view reflected in front of me, my hands slamming up against the glass until I found the one that gave beneath them, walking deeper.

“It occurs to me that if you’re all powerful, this is all weird window dressing. You could vaporise the glass, the haunted house, the whole boardwalk if you liked.” I tried to keep my voice calm and clear, but it wavered. “You’re a god. You want my attention. Why fuck around with foreplay?”

That same silky smooth laugh licked over my skin, but I saw him in the mirror, a reflection within a reflection. His arms crossed, his lips twisted into a smirk, and those alien eyes bore into mine before he reached for me again.

“In all cultures, the way to the gods was always a series of complex steps. Simple creatures, you don’t value what is easy.”

“You’re a wolf who tore a goddess’ daughter to pieces because you couldn’t work out how to fuck her. I dunno if you should be bandying the ‘simple’ label around.”

It was then that I saw the first truly scary thing in this place. He emerged from the darkness at the centre of each piece of glass, his lips parting to reveal a mouth way too full of fangs. It was right about now I deeply regretted watching Bill Skarsgård in the Steven King movie, because damn, Pennywise had nothing on wolf god boy. I grit my teeth, slammed my hand against the glass, and pushed the next entrance open.

“What do you want?” I asked, not fucking around now. My hands felt each wall of glass, finding the way forward, then moving to the next. “Why the big theatrical thing? Why can’t you just come out and tell me what the fuck is going on? You can’t have Mason back. I won’t fucking let you. He’s mine.”

“No,” the reflection said as I shoved the wall open, but as I reached out into the next space, my hands landed on warm flesh, not cool glass. His covered mine, holding them to his muscular pecs. I could feel the prickle of his chest hair, the rise and fall of his ribcage, the beat of his heart. When I looked up at him, peering past that curtain of black hair, I imagined those moonlit eyes softening somewhat. “I don’t need to take back your lovers. They are already mine, as is every shifter that identifies as male. They are my sons, my soul split into a thousand pieces, scattered to the wind, just as you” —his hand went to my cheek, and I only flinched a little when it landed there— “are hers. Daughter of the moon.”

His thumb brushed my bottom lip, which lowered for him on automatic, the tip pushing past to slide against the wet flesh there.

“My daughter, my lover.” He spun me around, held me against his chest, his hot breath playing on the sensitive skin of Micah’s bite. He smiled when I shivered, when he shivered, the dark hair bleeding away to much shorter red hair, that full mouth almost hidden by his beard. I jerked away, but he followed me until my back bumped up against the glass.

“I need you.”

Declan breathed the words on me, a spell that sucked me under, that had my lips tilting up to meet his, that