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

as hard as I can to ensure that all responses are truthful.”

The air in the room became charged as I let my natural dominance leech into my words.

“Tell the family to expect a call.” I got to my feet, looking down at her with the weight of my pack at my back. “Tell them that an investigation is underway, and that it will continue until the murderer is found. Tell them I will sort things out with the perpetrator, personally. Tell them the estate is off-limits, that hassling the locksmith or the police or the enforcers or their families will result in my attention being wholly focussed on the instigators. Tell them that there will be no secrets left in this family once I’m done, not until I know. Do you feel sufficiently informed now, Nancy?”

I left off the familial honorific deliberately, something she noted with a terse nod.

“We’ll be in touch,” I said as she got to her feet, spinning on her heel before storming out.

“So… I’m not the only one who got a raging hard-on from that dominance display, am I?” Declan asked, shattering the mood as a series of chuckles and snorts came from my guys. Well, almost all of them.

My eyes were drawn back to Lorcan, noting the tension in his body, his grim expression, and my hand took his as a matter of course. But like when Pygmalion kisses Galatea, one touch was all it took to unfreeze him.

“We need a computer to take a look at that drive,” Zack said.

“I’ll grab Adam’s,” Mason replied. “I’m pretty sure I know his password. We need to take a look at his hard drive anyway.”

“Do that. I’ll be back, but I need to talk to Lorcan for a second.”

He looked at me, then nodded, not sure why obviously, but there was something here. His hand tightened around mine and then drew me out the door into the living area before heading for one of the spare rooms. I was about to ask why when he turned to me.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” he said, finally pulling away.

“I figured you might. I do too.”

Chapter 5

Would I ever get to the point where I wouldn’t feel the pull towards my mates? I definitely hadn’t reached that yet as I moved closer on automatic, my hand sliding around Lorcan’s neck, a long breath leaking out of him as I did so. Whatever he was going to say, whatever I was going to say, paused for a moment while there was just us.

When I went up on tiptoes to kiss him, he yanked me closer, keeping my body pressed against his with a hand on my arse, making clear how responsive he was feeling. His mouth sucked on mine, moving slowly, kissing me deeply, until I pulled back.

“You were going to say?”

I expected him to lighten up or say something snarky, but he just watched me closely before nodding and looking away.

“I’ve always known it was you, that you’re my mate. I didn’t knot for you at two years old or anything sick, but…” Those eyes darted back, burning intensely now. “I was drawn to you. They used to take me kicking and screaming from your nan’s house when we played together. ‘Pay… Pay…’ I’d cry. I’d be sobbing, you’d be crying. It got to the point your mum always picked you up first, to try to stop the dramas. It was then Dad knew we had to leave town. I was never going to leave the alpha’s daughter alone, and being an Engel…

“So we moved a few towns away for a new life, where people didn’t know who we were.” He stared at the wall with a deadly intensity. “I cried every fucking night for you for years, feeling this longing that just wouldn’t stop. So I learned to just live with it. Half of my heart was walking around without me, what was left of it ached, and I just slapped a coat of denial and anger over it and called it good.”

“Fuck… Lorcan.”

“Don’t feel sorry for me.” That was as close to a snap as he dared, his eyes boring into mine. “I didn’t tell you for that reason.”

“I know, I—”

“I just want you to know. They… Plenty of townspeople are gonna think it was me who hurt you, just for who I’m related to. I can’t, Paige, I never could. I dreamed of you all the time. Dad told me as I got older that you were some sort of vision of the girl I’d eventually mate with, but not that he knew exactly where you and your family lived. Mum came back here, but didn’t take me. Engel blood breeds true, they say. We cling to each other because no one else will touch us.”

He pulled away from me, and I hated it.

“Someone like me shouldn’t touch someone like you. It’s why Dad took us away, why he didn’t tell me. I came back here after he died, because where else was I gonna go? We kept to ourselves in Berkefeld, stayed out of people’s way, and all I had in the world was a shitty derelict house in Lupindorf willed to me.”

“Lorcan…”

“They’re gonna think it was me. Fuck, maybe it was one of my family that got the drugs illegally. I could ask around, see what I can find out.” He started to pace back and forth, his words coming out faster, harder. “Fuck… I should’ve thought of them. Maybe it was them that got inside the house. We didn’t smell them in here, but we never checked the backdoor.”

He didn’t hear me, caught up in his cavalcade of thoughts. I called out to him, said his name, but the words kept coming out in a tumble—what people would think about him, what his family might actually have done to mine, what…

I stepped in front of him, putting my arms up and grabbing him when he kept on going. For a moment,