Moon Glamour Aimee Easterling (reading women TXT) 📖

if my primary goal was the good of the Samhain Shifters. Wasn’t willing to explain how tantalizing some of Marina’s offers really were.

Probably because those two purposes were mutually contradictory....

I must have hesitated too long because Lupe frowned. “About your territory issues?” She raised both eyebrows and enunciated clearly. “Do you need me to speak with Rowan McCallister about your right to return to your apartment until Tuesday?”

Oh, right. The old problem...the one I was solving in a very outside-the-box manner. I shook my head. “No. I’m good.”

Lupe’s dark brown eyes were sharp now. I’d piqued her curiosity, and she didn’t seem like the type to let things slide. “Do...?” she started.

Then Tank was beside me. “Try these,” he suggested, dropping two practice swords into arms that had risen automatically to receive them. “How do they feel?”

“Heavy?” Unlike Kira, I had no idea how to choose a weapon.

And Tank, I suspected, didn’t either. But he’d distracted me at just the right moment, long enough for Lupe to dismiss my reaction and move on. “Butch!” she called. “We need to talk.”

So the moment passed, and the rest of the afternoon passed also. The girls returned from the lake damp from splashing each other but wreathed in smiles. By the time Tank dropped me off outside my apartment, they were arguing over who would get to take the wheel of his SUV.

“Do you girls even have drivers’ licenses?” Tank demanded, trying to sound tough but the words coming out laced with amusement.

“Learner’s permit,” Clara piped up.

“Me too,” Kira added. “Because someone won’t take me to do the test.”

Harper’s voice wasn’t quite as loud as everyone else’s, but she admitted: “I have a license.”

“Lucky!” Kira exclaimed while Harper glanced my way.

It wasn’t luck that had spurred her fast licensure. I’d wanted my sister to have an emergency escape hatch from Nick’s house as soon as possible, so we’d gone to the DMV together the day she turned sixteen. She’d used that skill to flee a dicey situation twice already.

It was almost as if Tank smelled the shift in mood because he threw my sister a bone that set her above her companions. “Then Harper can drive. Once we’re off the highway.”

“And you’ll take me and Clara to get our licenses tomorrow,” Kira prodded.

“Maybe,” Tank answered, eyes on me as I dragged my suitcase and all four swords out of the car. His voice dropped. “Do you need a hand?”

“No, I’m good.”

And, surprisingly, I was. Even though Harper was leaving with a man I’d known for only a few days, I trusted Tank to protect her.

The only flaw was that I couldn’t ride away in the exact same car.

Chapter 26

Instead, I lugged my suitcase and swords over to my own vehicle and headed west. Ten years ago, I’d parked in a secluded spot within McCallister territory but past the boundary of their daily patrol runs. That time, I’d snuck in to speak with my father and snuck back out again with no one the wiser.

Tonight, I intended to repeat the trick.

First, though, I needed information from Marina. When I called to tell her I was heading in tonight, I’d been shunted straight to voice mail. Now, though, a text response chimed as my headlights illuminated the narrow pull-off of my destination.

“Send me a photo of Rowan’s bedroom,” Marina ordered.

His bedroom? I deleted the incriminating evidence and pursed my lips.

Marina wanted me to take Rowan up on his offer, not only the overt one of joining his pack but the insinuated one of becoming his mistress. That would certainly be one way to get her photo.

But I wasn’t that desperate. Instead, I intended to use my own skillset. Scout out the lay of the land tonight. Then, tomorrow, make a plan for a fast in-and-out.

After all, stealing a photo wasn’t that much different from planning a heist.

So I slid out of human clothing, shivering for one split second before warm fur clad a lupine body. It had been only a few days since my last shift, but exhilaration consumed me. I leapt over a fallen log as easily as if gravity had reduced to lunar levels. Then I followed my nose to a muddy slurry of half-rotten leaves.

This was just what I needed to cover up any residual human aromas. The damp leaf litter rustled as I rolled and scratched, paying most attention to my paw pads. As long as I didn’t drink so much my bladder threatened, feet were the biggest threat to passing the sniff test.

So I worked rotten leaves into my paws then shook most of the debris away from me. Specks of mud splattered out to stain nearby tree trunks and I couldn’t resist huffing out a laugh. I’d forgotten how much fun it was to inhabit my lupine skin in a wild environment where I could act like a real wolf.

But I wasn’t here to play. I was here to work.

So, just as the moon rose, I got down to business. Racing upstream, I crested a hill and peered toward the McCallister home place. Their lights were barely visible in the distance, just where I’d expected them. Probably a dozen houses. Not such a big pack that I needed to be overly concerned.

I’d thought their settlement would have grown in the last decade, actually, but it hadn’t. I, on the other hand, was older and considerably wiser. So rather than making a beeline for the lights the way I had last time, I ran in the opposite direction. Up the crest of the hill I was on, then swinging a sharp left onto a taller ridge.

Because I’d planned ahead before making the drive today, checking a map and plotting a more circuitous route. The result should have made my foray even less likely to catch the pack’s attention. But I was only halfway through the planned loop when a howl rose off to the east. Another to the north. A third one between me and my