Come Out Swinging (Reach for the Moon Book 2)

by Sam Hall

  “So what’re you saying? Aidan was what?” I shook my head, unwilling to accept the natural conclusions. “I barely knew Aidan. I used to watch him at school, but I didn’t dare get close. It was Declan—”

  “A teenage crush. To be expected of a young girl, and back then, no one considered him a serious contender,” Nan said.

  “Um…thanks,” the man himself muttered.

  “Back then, I said, young man.” Nan fixed him with her steely gaze. “The town’s seen you grow and become something altogether different than the damn fool you were as a boy. You’d have the support of the people if you put your name forward. Any of you boys would.”

  “But all together?” I glanced around the room, not entirely sure how the Meyer side viewed me being a nix. Everyone was making polite noises but…

  “Is that what you want? To stay and rule as a coalition?” Nan asked. “It would be hard for people to accept, but…”

  “We’re not getting sidetracked by that. Back then, I was all about Mason until I left town,” I said.

  “Which your father put the kybosh on, something I think they expected. The leaving town thing?” Nan shook her head. “That was entirely unexpected, wasn’t it?” She gave me a pleased grin. “What Spehr girl has shown the gumption to leave, find her own way, find her strength?”

  “And her mate,” Zack said from where he sat on the couch, those smouldering eyes taking me all in.

  “Put quite the crimp in their plans. Needed to bring you back and clip your wings a bit, didn’t they?”

  “You keep saying ‘they’, Nan. Who’re we talking here? Peters and Nance?”

  “He never did take rejection well,” Lyn said darkly, her eyes sliding to Rose’s. “He made an offer to Rose at some point.”

  “I’d found Darren by then, but Marshall didn’t seem to care.”

  “I remember that now,” my aunty’s mate growled. “High-handed prick. Made a big fuss, as if somehow his position in the community was supposed to mean more than being with your true mate.”

  “I sent him off with a flea in his ear,” Nan said. “Told him to not darken my door any time soon. Yes, Marshall Peters and Nancy Spehr. Thick as thieves, those two, even when they took their own mates. She used to look after you sometimes when you were little, Paige. Your father put a stop to that and brought you around here instead.”

  I went still, remembering Bridget’s words the other day.

  “Mum would shoosh her when she was crying, and she just would. Most unnatural bloody thing I’ve ever seen. As a kid, she did and said whatever Mum said, in all ways but one.”

  I stiffened, my eyes meeting my grandmother’s. “Did she…? Would she have…?” Nan’s eyes softened imperceptibly.

  “I don’t know what your aunt did or didn’t do. I just know your father wouldn’t leave you alone with her after that.”

  “Nance is always a tough one to manage,” Dad had said to me one night after a family function. I was doing my best to shred the hem of the frou-frou gown I’d been made to wear until Dad leaned over and pulled my hands away. “When you take your mate and step up to become alpha female, you’ll need to find a way to work with her while doing what you know is right.”

  “I’ll never be alpha female,” I sulked, because she’d said something to that effect. Nance had critiqued my dress, my posture, my manners, the way I ate my food and drank soft drinks. Basically, everything was wrong with my behaviour, according to her.

  “She’s hard on you because she sees herself as the caretaker of what it means to be a Spehr. After your mother died, that kinda fell to her, but with none of the actual power.” I looked up at him, soaking in that warm, calm gaze that seemed to see every little flaw in me and smile, deeming them good. “You’ll always have to deal with that, until you take your mother’s power. Then she’ll be forced to take a knee, just like anyone else.”

  “Really!?”

  “Really. When you’re a big girl and your poor old dad is just a doddering old fool…”

  He dropped his bottom lip down and screwed up his face in a gross caricature of someone vastly older, edging towards me until the giggles that had been thrust deep came spilling out.

  “That’s my girl.” I felt his arms sweep me up and hold me against his chest like it was yesterday. “Nance may have her ideas, but you’re the Spehr heir, not her.”

  I blinked, hearing the slide of the back door as Lorcan re-entered the house, his face like thunder. He met my eyes and just nodded.

  “You all need to come to the alpha residence for a while,” I said, surveying all my Meyer family. “Or go to the city. Zack’s got a place—”

  “No, love,” Nan said, laying a hand on my arm, the rest of my relatives taking their cues from her, as per usual. “There’s a fight coming, and we stand together as a family.”

  “Yeah…” My eyes went to the glass door, showcasing the kids screaming out in the backyard. “Problem is we fight as one too.”

  Chapter 17

  "Well, well, look who’s come crawling back. Mr Big Shot, the nix’s mate.”

  If Gary Engels were human, he would have been the stereotypical potbellied, greasy haired douche you saw in movies, but as a rule, wolf shifters don’t breed ugly people. While he was tall and muscular, with some of Lorcan’s good looks, that was where the resemblance stopped. Those dark eyes were hungry for everything—details he could use, conflicts he could inflame, weaknesses he could exploit. But it didn’t matter what he actually looked like on the outside, he was ugly, as was the twist of that smile as we walked en masse towards the warehouse.

  “Where’s my cousin?” I growled.

  And there it was—the weakness he was looking for. He grinned, his teeth just a shade too sharp, as if he never quite left his beast’s form. He shoved the rolled sleeves of his flannel shirt up his forearms and crossed them, his stance widening, but no information came pouring out. My hands formed fists, and I stepped forward, putting all of it, my dominance, the parade of horrors my brain kept concocting, my need to see my cousin safe, into my voice.

  “Where. Is. She?”

  I watched Gary’s smug expression falter slightly, some of his men and his family clustering closer, but Lorcan let out a low growl of warning. Gary rallied quickly though, the smile dropping, but his determination didn’t.

  “Which she are we talking about?”

  “For fuck’s sake, don’t pull the cat and mouse shit,” Lorcan snapped. “Everyone here knows you sell yourself to the highest bidder, so what do you want?”

  “Watch your mouth, Roth,” Gary snarled in response. “I don’t care who you’re fucking now, you show respect to family.”

  “Give me one thing to respect, Gary, just one. We’re here because we tracked Bridget Spehr’s phone to here.” If you looked carefully, you could see the slight wince on the man’s face. “Yeah, nice bit of oversight by you again, not turning off the tracker on it. Or did Nancy just neglect to mention it? Maybe she figured a piece of shit Engel could take the fall for whatever she did to her own daughter? Give her to us, and no one has to get hurt.”

  Gary’s face was still and quiet for a heartbeat before a bright smile spread across his face, startling in its brilliance. It should’ve prepared us for the harsh bark of laughter that came afterwards, but nope, we all jumped in response. That seemed to please him inordinately.

  “Well, she’s not fucking here. You want the phone?” He nodded to someone over his shoulder, who turned and walked into the warehouse. “The phone that somehow ended up here was found on the street. You know how it is.” A man returned, slapping it down in his boss’ hand before he held it out to us. “There you go, take it. Now, if our business is concluded here?”

  I tried a few passcodes, failing each time, before remembering her old computer password. “Look, if you read these numbers upside down, they say boobies!” a thirteen-year-old Bridget had told me, brandishing a calculator. My thumb moved across the screen, inputting the code
, and sure enough, it worked. I clicked through to Bridge’s messages, seeing that she’d gotten one from her mother last, then turned the phone into speaker mode and played the message.

  “Hello, darling. I need you to meet us at the Peters’ house. Selma’s got some big news to share!”

  Gary didn’t look in any way surprised by the message, but he went still and quiet before saying, “You’ve got what you want.”

  “No, we don’t. I want my cousin, and I don’t care who I have to go through…”

  My voice trailed away as Lorcan whipped out a gun from god knows where, shoving it against the temple of his uncle. Gary’s men retrieved their own, but belatedly, obviously not expecting this move.

  “What the hell are you—!” Gary’s voice stopped abruptly as Lorcan pulled the safety off. His hands went up shakily, but Lorcan hissed at him to get them down. He forced his uncle down on his knees, hands behind his back, keeping the gun pressed on Gary the whole time. “Lorcan, mate…”

  “Just shut the fuck up.” Lorcan said the words with such deadly intensity, the whole complex went quiet. When I looked around, I saw Mason, Micah, and Declan all had their guns out as well, but kept them aimed down, ready to back Lorcan’s play. When his eyes met mine, they burned bright, piercing straight into me. “Dominance displays don’t cut it here,” he told me, and I hated that he knew that. “Not unless they’re backed by something real. Ask him for what you want.”

  I shook my head, refocussing my attention back on his prone uncle.

  “Where is she? Where’s Bridget, my cousin?”

  “We didn’t look after that side of things. Your aunt, she likes to do her own wetwork, so to speak.” Gary let that sink in. “She’s not in town, that’s for sure. They made sure to take her out, remove her as an obstacle, then Peters and your aunt gave her over to us to get rid of.” Lorcan’s fingers tightened on the gun grip, his knuckles going white. “I gave her to Marty, Jim, and Baz to dispose of. You’re in luck. The boys, they like to play with their food. If you get the fuck out of my face, you might be able to track her down before they finish with her.”

  For a second, my body and the world faded away, and there was only this long hollow feeling of harrowing emptiness. Not entirely empty, as a long, drawn-out scream rose and rose to fill it, and only my teeth clamping down stopped it from coming out. I was such a fucking idiot. I thought… I assumed… For a split second, I felt the ache inside me from where I’d tried to force in Aidan’s knot, and my fingers clawed at my stomach to shift that.

  “Where?” I forced out.

  “The big forest in between here and Berkefeld. We don’t shit where we eat.”

  “I know where that is,” Lorcan said. “There’s an old cabin… I’ll drive.”

  He pulled back, all four men keeping their guns trained on Gary’s men as they did the same to mine, while Gary got to his feet. He fixed the lot of us with a gaze of molten silver.

  “I hope you’re too late. I hope you find the bloody corpse of that Spehr bitch, or better yet, roll up just as they’re choking the last breath out of her, all that rush for nothing.” I didn’t have time for posturing, but I bristled anyway, snarling my disdain. “Your family, they think they can put on airs, but you’re just pieces of shit like the rest of us. But you, Lor.” I didn’t like it when Gary’s gaze swivelled to my mate, so I moved to stand beside him. “Don’t come ‘round here again. No more ‘Hey, uncle…’ calls. The Engels, we stick together no matter what, and you broke the only fucking law we abide by. Anyone else, we’d shoot you where we stand. As it is, we’re gonna have to tell Lila her son’s dead to us.”

  “You just admitted to handing over a woman beat half to death to a pair of raping, abusing fucks. Tell me what I’m losing, Uncle? I’ve been wanting this family to fuck off and leave me alone since I was a kid. Now I have a mate, and I’m breaking ties with you. Sounds like a win-win.”

  “Then off you run, little Spehr lackey. If you’re quick, they might not have raped all her holes.”

  And so that was how we ended up packed back into the 4WD, Lorcan throwing the car into gear and sending it screeching down the street, the Engels men watching us leave. But as I looked out the back window, I saw Gary fish out his phone and put it to his ear, no doubt to let his sons know we were on our way.

  Chapter 18

  In a movie, this would have been so much quicker, more thrill packed, with the Engels on our tails or something. Instead, we screamed out of Lupindorf like a bat out of hell, the lot of us holding onto the ‘oh fuck’ bars until we cleared town, then it was the long straight stretch of road that led to the nearby town. I stared out the windows, watching endless fields and softwood forests pass us by, until Zack pulled me in tight by his side.

  “It’ll be OK.”

  “It won’t.” I shook my head, stiffening in his arms.

  Here was I, surrounded by all these guys who cared about me and… I was sinking into a space women instinctively knew, where all the stories they’d heard of sexual assault or rape, all the lore they’d had handed down to them from mothers and grandmothers about staying safe, all the statistics, and all the grim, horrible reality of assaults on women comes welling up. We spent so much of our existence ignoring that elephant in the room, pushing away its invasive bulk, until finally, we couldn’t, because one of our own was in danger.

  “Paige, we’ll…”

  “I’ll shoot the fucks…”

  “We’ll damn well…”

  But their voices all blurred into an amorphous muffle, clutching at my focus but unable to keep it. Instead, I was pulled under by the rumble of the engine and the sounds of the wheels on the road, caught up in their endless whirr.

  “There!” Declan shouted, jerking me out of my trance and pulling me free of Zack’s grip, my eyes following where my love pointed. “Fresh tracks!”

  “A bit closer than I thought, but hang on!” Lorcan yelped, wrenching the car to the left, the whole bloody thing rolling precariously sideways as we all leant against the momentum of the turn.

  “You’re gonna fucking kill us!” Mason shouted.

  “Nope, I’m gonna kill them. Shoulda done it years ago. Get your guns out,” Lorcan shot back.

  “Won’t need ‘em,” Micah said in a deadly growl. “Those fucks are going down.”

  We were jolted in our seats as we drove through soft, powdery limestone dust, over tree roots, and through mounds of pine needles, nowhere near as fast as before, but still. Light flickered rapidly as we passed, filtered by the straight pine tree trunks, while butterflies and grasshoppers splattered the windscreen, unable to get away from the car quickly enough. My body wound tight, and my claws emerged from my hands, flexing at the ready.

  “You need to stay with the car,” Mason said.

  “The fuck I do,” I shot back.

  “You’re the one who’s important, not us. You can’t get hurt.”

  “What? Like Bridge can’t? Being a precious fucking Spehr doesn’t mean shit, does it? We still bleed, hurt, scream…”

  My speech was curtailed as a clearing appeared, complete with a crumbling old shack. My eyes took in every fucking detail as we approached, including the beat-up Toyota parked just out front, and then I registered the sound of her scream. My fingers wound the windows down as we rolled up, then I was shoving the door open as we slowed.

  “Paige, Paige! Fuck, girl…!”

  I was up and out of my seat, over Zack’s lap and through his hands, then shifting into my wolf form as I landed on the grass. As I padded closer, I heard every muffled shout and protest, the yelps of pain, the stupid fucking diatribe the men recited, telling Bridget what they intended to do to her. I slunk forward with the wind in my face, whisking my scent away, my jaws open. There were three of them, and they were spreading her out on some kind of old rotting table outside the shack, her face a swollen mess. A whine escaped my throat when I saw how effectively they’d removed everything that was my cousin.

 
; When I thought of Bridget, I always saw cheeky smiles and her saying outrageous things, filled from within with this almost defiant happy go luckiness that Nance had always sought to squash. Well, she’d finally succeeded.

  “She does her own wetwork.” Gary’s words ricocheted around in my head. Somehow, some way, Nance had done this. With Peters’ help, maybe Aidan’s? Perhaps not Aidan, as he was with me, or was it afterwards? Had they waited until he staggered home and then handed him a crow bar? My lips pulled back in a silent snarl as I crept closer, trying not to let her little muffled cries of pain distract me.

  Thankfully, this was a body that knew where to put its paws so prey did not hear our approach, caught up in their own bloodlust as they were, their eyes alien balls of silver and completely devoid of humanity as they considered what to do with her. This was a body of instincts, that knew the snap of iron trap jaws, the rending of flesh, and how sweet their blood would taste. This was a body that felt others in the same form as mine fan around me, a pack ready to strike, that watched the big, meaty hand of Baz Engels rise when Bridget spat a mouthful of blood at him, about to break her face and produce more.

  But it wasn’t her that was to be broken.

  Our hindquarters coiled, the muscles clenching tight, building, building.

  “Stop fighting the bitch and stick it in!” Marty whined.

  “Fighting bitches makes me hard,” Baz snarled. “You’ll get what’s left, don’t worry. Won’t he, Spehr bitch? Walking past me all the time with her fucking nose in the—ARRGH!”

  I was glad we were in the forest. They’d hoped to muffle or hide Bridge’s cries, but the trees did the same for theirs. Sharp, visceral screams cut through the verdant quiet, animals and birds, even the trees falling silent to witness. When our claws rent their flesh, when our jaws closed around their limbs. When their blood gushed. When fingers and hands hung limply, half torn away from bodies. When we partially shifted forms, slashing our claws through them, too fast for them to make their own shifts.