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

and the next. Micah wasn’t playing now. The street fighter was gone, now replaced by a methodical killer.

“I don’t give a fuck who he is. I need back in there. They’re both my mates.”

“Yes they are, and you’ll have them back, as soon as you agree.”

“What?”

He turned to face me, waving a hand so my view of the fight was obscured by a grey haze, so that my focus was on him.

“You woke me, little girl, you and your mates. I’ve been forced down into the darkness by him for so long, I can’t remember.” He approached at a slow pace, the steps of a predator. He had me right where he wanted me, so he didn’t need to hurry. “In the beginning, there were wolves and the moon.”

“Yeah, yeah, and she sent you her daughter and you chewed her up. I get it, but what the fuck has that to do with this? You’re letting my mates kill each other.” My voice broke on that, but I charged onwards. “And for what?”

“The man of sorrows is a powerful god. His gentle ways, his lambs lying down with lions. It appeals greatly to humans because deep down, they know that they are the lambs and a divine being that promises them protection in this life and everlasting bliss in the next is an enticing lure. I didn’t take him seriously when the first of his lambs came bleating at our settlements. We were wild, untamed, not answering to anyone but ourselves. They came, waving their arms around like newborn calves, preaching their ways of softness. We laughed and sent them on their way, or made use of them if they kept persisting.”

He conjured a bone toothpick from nowhere and used it to pick his teeth before tossing it in the air.

“But the message he preaches is a powerful one.” The man’s eyes ran down mine. “Love, it’s an infection even we are susceptible to.” His eyes slid upwards. “We loved the moon the best. It’s why she took me and my brothers as consort. The first of our kind were driven by a pack instinct so strong, we couldn’t let one experience something the others didn’t, but I was her first. I pierced the moon with my cock as she slid a knife into my heart, and I was hers forever. Like your pack is yours.”

Those eyes burned unearthly bright now, making it harder and harder to meet. That didn’t matter, he came closer, closer, until his fingers walked up the sternum of my chest.

“You hurt for your lovers, would do anything to be reunited with them, including diving into my throat?”

I nodded sharply, my breath ragged as I fought to suck oxygen in.

“Then we are of one heart then. The man of sorrows, he usurped me. They made our people shun me, thinking the Mother and all her harsh beauty was just another manifestation of their Madonna.” I couldn’t see him, but I could feel his teeth when they were bared, smelling the fetid scent of raw meat on his breath. “They took her from me, just as I will take your mates from you.”

I gasped when the glass cleared, showing a beaten Lorcan and a bloodied Micah, the latter standing over the kneeling form of my love, a savagery I’d never seen on his face transforming it into a brutal mask.

“They didn’t want me, her, or our savage love. They didn’t want nix, our wild daughters taking their fill of the men and welding them to her. They didn’t want us. We’ve been forced into a form that is not ours by them, the lambs. I want her back, my heart sings for her like yours does for them. I need her, Paige.”

My eyes were wrenched away from the imminent threat by the change of tone, a familiar figure now standing over me, his eerie golden eyes soft with it, with his love, his hand raking his tawny hair back.

“Aidan…”

“In all these years, I’ve not been able to get free of the darkness they bound me in, not until you. If you help me, if you get me on the path to reuniting with her, I’ll smash every barrier in your way. You’ll have your pack, your mates, wrapped tight around you, and never have to worry about the wolves at your door.”

He, Aidan, the black-haired man wearing his visage, reached out his hand as Micah pulled his fist back, ready to administer a killing blow. I took it, of course, because I needed to stay Micah’s fist, because the first thing I’d do was demand he heal every single one of my mates, never to be hurt again. A paper cut would be a serious breach of our agreement. Because I knew the agony in those eyes because it was a mirror image of my own, of all the pain I’d felt on separation from my mates. But mostly, because right now he was Aidan, and not touching felt much the same as not breathing—I wasn’t sure how to do either. He pulled me in close, this god, my mate, his lips brushing my ear.

“I am Ulfric,” he said, and then everything shattered.

Chapter 34

We found ourselves standing on the boardwalk of the theme park, all six of us perfectly uninjured, blinking against the afternoon sunlight, just staring at each other. For a second, that was all we could do, then I surged forward, arms out, not sure who to hug first and managing to collect everyone around the neck as a result.

“What the actual fuck?” Lorcan muttered, but his arm snaked around my waist, a whole, unhurt arm. I pulled back slightly, probably looking like an insane woman as I pawed at their skin, unable to believe the acres of golden flesh were completely unblemished.

“You’re OK. Jesus fucking—” I had started to babble, but as the blasphemous words fell from my lips, I stopped. The guys stared at me, still shell-shocked, not having heard the deal