Christmas Moon (11 page)

Bree launched herself towards the table, but
she was too late. Just a hair too slow.

The rogue caught her around her waist and
flipped her back into the bed. Her feet tangled in the sheets as
she thrashed but he pinned her, one hand falling over her mouth to
block off her scream. A snarl rose in her chest. Like she’d have
screamed. This bastard was going down. She bucked against his grip,
twisting, and rammed her elbow into his ribs. He grunted and rolled
away.

She made another move towards the nightstand
when a gunshot sounded through the dark. Piercing, right before it
splintered the wood on the stand. “Looking for this?”

She caught the handle and dragged the drawer
opened.

Gone.

The bastard had her gun. Bree’s jaw
tightened, fury coiling through her, wild and ready to be
unleashed. He hadn’t shot her earlier today. She knew what he’d
wanted then. A confession. To have her prove that he was right in
his accusations, to make him a savior and her just another monster
ending up dead.

She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

Curling her hands into fists at her sides,
she turned to face him. His face was drawn tight, exhaustion etched
in every wrinkle and the dark bruises under his eyes. He’d slept
even less than her. He stank of sweat and she knew he hadn’t had a
real bath, one with soap, in a long time. She had no doubt he’d
been hunting her for far longer than he’d let on.

“Look at you,” he said, his cold eyes
flashing as he stepped closer to the window, gesturing with one
hand at the lights illuminating her side yard, “Getting all merry
and shit.”

“No use living in the past,” she said, voice
hollow.

“No? Are you done hiding from the truth
then?”

“I didn’t know what Caesar was going to
do.”

Rage enveloped him and he lunged towards her.
Bree took a step backwards, her hip hitting the splintered table
and she muffled a grunt, right before his fist slammed into the
wall beside her. “Liar! Stop lying to me! You shared the same
house, the same job. You slept in the same fucking bed.”

“And how many people have had affairs while
they went home at night and cuddled their ‘loved’ ones? Sometimes
the people closest to you are the last to know.” Hurt and anger
rolled into one and she lashed the words back out at him. She was
so damn tired of feeling guilty, but damn it, if
anyone
was
going to beat her up over this it was going to be herself. Not some
psycho asshole who
thought
he knew the truth. “I didn’t
know. He didn’t tell me. He didn’t say a
word
as he stalked
the woman who was like a daughter to me.”

There’d been a brief moment when she’d
actually thought Caesar was having an affair, but when the truth
had come out, she’d almost wished he had been. An affair she could
have taken a thousand times easier than having to live with the
fact that he’d killed so many.

“He was distant, withdrawn, but we’d lost our
daughter. I figured he needed time and space. I didn’t know what he
was going to do. If I had, I’d have done anything to stop him.”
Pain lanced through her heart as the words came tumbling out, one
after the other. Bree let herself feel the pain, the regret, the
wishes—because hiding her emotions in the dark hadn’t done a damn
thing. Maybe pouring them out now was exactly what she needed to
heal, and what he needed to hear. “I am sorry you lost your
brother. I’m sorry that mothers and fathers lost their children.
But I didn’t know until it was too late.”

Bree winced at the memory. She’d held out
hope that Caesar was good guy until the very end. She’d thought for
sure that he had to be hunting the killer, that he’d never be the
killer.

She trembled. It wasn’t until the end when
she’d finally accepted the truth. When she’d seen him lunging for
Lennox, spouting off things the real Caesar never would have
said.

“You mourn him,” the rogue spat.

Yeah, yeah she did. But she didn’t grieve for
the man he thought she did.

“I watched him die.” She’d sobbed over his
body, held him, but the man who’d died that day in the barren rocks
of the Boulder Pride’s territory wasn’t the man she’d mourned.
Arianna’s father, the sweet man she’d fallen in love with, that had
been who she had cried for. “But the man who did those horrible
things, he wasn’t the man I married. The man I married was someone
I loved, who loved our daughter, who wouldn’t have done those
things. I mourn that man. And some days I still don’t see how he
became the monster that killed those people. Including your
brother.”

Denial and rage flashed across his face a
second before he leapt at her. Bree had just enough time to lunge
out of the way. She bolted out her bedroom door just as she heard
the gun crack behind her. Plaster flicked across the floor from
where he’d struck the hallway wall.
Shit
.

Bree sprinted for the living room, flinging
open the front door, and bolting into the cold. The icy wind
wrapped around her and her breath froze in her lungs, burning, but
she pulled her inner-dog to the surface and shifted. In a single
stride she went from woman to a brilliant red hound dog. Another
shot fired but she was running for the trees, the dark bushes and
haunting shadows seemed to reach out for her as she dove into
them.

But she didn’t stop running.

She bolted into the forest, running full out,
when she heard the terrible howl rip through the wind behind her.
The rogue giving chase. And no matter how fast her dog ran, she
knew the wolf would be faster. Stronger.

Chapter Fourteen

Hunter stirred awake, tossing off the heavy
blankets as he blinked up into the dark. His muscles were tense and
the wolf under his skin stirred, eager to get out. Worried. Hell.
He rubbed his forehead. Maybe it was Rylie. The wolf always seemed
to know when something was off with the pack and he’d learned not
to ignore the animal.

Dragging his ass out of bed, he grabbed his
phone off the table and dialed the wolf in charge of guarding her
tonight. “‘llo,” the gruff man answered.

“How is she?”

“Fine. Sleeping like a rock. Doc says she’ll
be fine. He’ll release her in the morning.”

“Good.” Hunter severed the connection and
rolled his shoulders, trying to ease the growing tension out of
him. A muffled pop sounded in the distance and he tilted his head,
curious.

He was just about to reach for the covers and
go back to bed when he heard the eerie howl, distant and faded, but
it rocked the beast inside him and sent a chill down his spine. It
wasn’t from one of his wolves and he knew the direction the sound
came from.

Bree’s house.

Son of a bitch.
Hunter leapt from his
bed and sprinted down the hall. He should have known the bastard
was going to go after her, that he wouldn’t have just settled for
being one-upped at Wolf’s Peak. He’d just thought they’d have more
time, that the rogue would be too rattled to worry about attacking
now.

Hunter rammed open his front door and bolted
barefoot out into the snow. The wind slapped against his chest,
leaving an icy sting across the broad expanse of bare skin. But he
didn’t stop. Instead he yanked the beast inside him out and let the
wolf flow free. He didn’t make a sound as he raced towards the
woods behind Bree’s house and the direction of the second howl,
triumphant as it gave chase.

His wolf longed to answer, but Hunter clamped
down on the beast. The rogue didn’t deserve to know danger was
coming from him. That the hunter was also the hunted. He didn’t
want that bastard to know he was coming until he ripped out the
rogue’s throat.

And Bree, he trusted she could stay alive
until he got there.

It hadn’t been long, but already he knew her
well enough to know she could handle herself. He knew if that wolf
was howling through the forest it was because it was already
pursuing her, which meant she had a head start. She’d make the best
of every situation that turned up—including backup.

His lungs screamed against the rush of bitter
cold air flowing down his throat with every breath, every stride
pumping hot blood through his veins. His nose registered the wolf’s
scent the moment they neared his trail, followed by the unique,
feminine scent that was Bree. He spun and followed the trail,
rushing headlong through the dark bushes.

A snarl rippled ahead followed by a thump of
bodies hitting the snow. Desperation clawed through him, but no
matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t go any faster. The growl
that poured from him was beyond his control, nothing could stop the
beast from crying out. If that rogue so much as touched her, Hunter
was going to rip him apart.

There was a yelp ahead, then a second later a
gunshot. The piercing pop splitting through the quiet, night
forest. Hunter spilled from the trees just as another shot rang
out. He watched as a sleek red dog dove to get away, one leg black
with blood. Her body twitched as the bullet slammed into her
haunches. Her back leg gave out but she spun, white teeth flashing
in the dim light of the moon.

Her jaws snapped around the man’s wrist.
Hunter saw him squeeze for the trigger again and leapt.

The roar that thundered out of him startled
the rogue, it bought him the second he needed to clear that last
distance between them. The rogue looked up at him, eyes wide just
as Hunter’s wolf slammed into him, sending them all toppling into
the snow. His teeth tore through flesh, blood spilling into his
mouth as Hunter clamped his jaws over the man’s neck.

The rogue gave a last gurgling cry before he
shuddered and went still.

Hunter pulled up, only to see the gun lying
in the snow. Black against white.

Bree lay a foot away, her sides heaving, but
her head was up, ears pricked forward as she watched him. Her tail
gave a small, half-hearted wave. Hunter shifted back to human on a
breath, and then he was there, kneeling in the snow in front of
her. With a pained shiver, Bree shifted. There was blood on her
right arm. The skin was jagged and torn from where the rogue had
bit her. Her flannel pajama pants were torn on her left thigh.

“It went straight through,” she said as he
went to look at the gunshot wound. He looked up at her and she gave
him a rough smile. “It’s just going to hurt like hell when I walk
home.”

“You need to get to a hospital,” he said.

Bree lifted her good shoulder in a small
shrug. “Yeah that too. Could have been worse.”

She glanced at the rogue and he watched the
sadness flit across her gaze. Hunter reached out and ran his
knuckles over her cheek. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“I know. Want to help me up?”

Hunter wrapped an arm around her waist, and
boosted her up, holding her against him as they hobbled back
towards her house. It was a long, grueling walk and his feet burned
with the cold by the time her house came into view. He got her to
her door, grabbed her car keys and her phone, and dragged her to
her car. Once she was sitting in the passenger seat and they were
on the way to the hospital, he called the local Shifter Town
Enforcement.

Not that they’d care. It was a dead wolf out
there, a dead shifter. The only people that had been harmed were
other shifters. Hunter glanced at the pale woman in the seat next
to him, the regret still shimmering in her eyes. She had to have
made a damn good Hound.

Because unlike those he called, she cared.
That wolf had hunted her down and yet he’d still seen the sorrow in
her eyes when she’d looked at the body. They needed more Hounds
like her, especially in White Pine.

More importantly, they needed
her
here.

Hunter needed her here.

***

Bree fought back another yawn as they pulled
up in front of Hunter’s house. Exhaustion curled through, begging
for sleep. It’d been a long night dealing with the doctors and
Shifter Town Enforcement. All she wanted to do now was to go home
and sleep.

Home, however, wasn’t an option.

Hunter pulled her car up into his garage, the
door automatically closing behind them. “Just for the night,” he
said and glanced at her. “I don’t want you alone.”

“The rogue is dead.” The rogue had been
Jeremy Hale according to Shifter Town Enforcement after they’d
found the body. He’d been the only living relative of the man
Caesar had killed.

“I know, but please, for my sanity.” He
scrubbed a hand through his hair and she could see the black bags
under his eyes. Hunter looked every bit as exhausted as she did. It
was damn near morning by now, Christmas Eve at that, and they both
had yet to get more than a few hours sleep. “Please.”

It was the tired way he said, his eyes
imploring as he looked at her, that made her smile and nod.
Besides, if she were honest with herself, she didn’t really want to
be alone right now. She kept waiting for a phone to ring, the raspy
breathing over the other line to come back. And the thought of
walking back into her house and seeing the bullet hole in her wall
and bedside table...

She just didn’t want to deal with it tonight.
“Okay.”

The smile he flashed her was genuine and
Hunter hopped out of the car and headed around to her side. He
helped her out and handed her the crutches the doctor had given
her. Bracing the one under her good arm, she hobbled toward the
steps leading into his house. He touched the small of her back,
heat flaming under her skin at his touch.

The garage led straight into the kitchen. An
oak dining table sat in front of a large sliding glass door. Marble
countertops wrapped around the far wall, and an island sat between
the kitchen area and the table. Hunter tossed her keys on the
counter.

The whole place looked like him. Like home.
She could smell the wolves that were in and out all day, a variety
of scents that she recognized as part of his scent. She hobbled
over to the counter only to see the small Christmas present on the
marble. She glanced at it.
Breanne
, the tag read.