Page 8 of Broken Moon

There was a wolf on the otherside of my door.

“What do you want?” I murmured.

My voice was soft, but he heardme anyway. “I need to speak with you.”

“Who are you?” Now my voice wasless soft, a thread of impatience and a dark threat running through it.

He hesitated. “I am JaredWalker. Open the door, Ms. Silver.”

“Fuck,” I whispered.

What the hell had I done to geton the radar of the Gray Shadow Pack alpha?

Chapter Four

I opened the door and leaned againstthe doorjamb, not about to invite him in. His eyes—light gray circled with arim of dark blue, eyes I had never forgotten—dropped immediately to the demondagger I held in my right hand. I made no attempt to hide it from him.

“What do you want?” I didn’tattempt to hide the hostility in my voice, either.

“May I come in?” He didn’t seemto care if I held a grudge or that I’d rather stick my blade into his muscularchest than invite him into my house.

“Yeah,” I said, finally. “Butjust you. Your goons can wait outside.”

I moved aside and shut the doorafter he strode past me, then showed him into the living room and pointed to achair. Tempted to stand, I hesitated, then sprawled in the chair across fromhim. “Would you like something to drink?” I asked. “Or perhaps a nice juicy chunkof raw meat?”

I disliked Jared Walker. Notnearly as much as I disliked my ex-alpha, of course, as that asshole had killedmy father, but he was definitely on my shit list. When Adam Thorne had cast usout, my mother had taken us immediately to our rival pack.

Jared’s pack.

They’d shunned us. Jaredhimself had stood silently by when his father had refused to take us in,instead ordering two of his warriors to escort the exiled wolves off his land.

Then he’d turned on his heeland strode back into his big comfy house and forgot about us. Jared hadn’tfollowed him but had watched as his father’s big wolves had grabbed our arms toyank us away, and he hadn’t said a word.

He could have. Everyone knewOliver Walker doted on his son. His only child. The future alpha.

The future was here, and Jaredhad been alpha for about ten years now. He hadn’t lost the cold light in hisgray eyes.

I remember feeling that coldstare on me when his people, incensed at my mother’s nerve—imagine, a traitorwhose husband and daughter had attempted to kill their alpha coming into arival pack to beg support—began to hurl insults—to which they soon added stonesand other objects—at us as we were dragged away. They didn’t have to shift toshow us their wolves, and some of them got in our faces, growling and baringtheir teeth, and their rage had been frightening.

I lifted my fingers to thesmall scar on my forehead—a scar one of those sharp stones had left. I couldhave healed that scar if I’d been able to shift when it happened.

No one trusted us.

Worse than that, they hated us.

“Kaitlyn,” the alpha said, andthough there was nothing soft in his voice, I realized he knew what memorieshis visit had conjured up for me. “I understand you take on work as the humans’…paranormalinvestigator. I’d like to hire you in that capacity.”

That surprised a burst ofshocked laughter from me. I sat up, and his icy gaze traveled over my hair anddown my shirt, and abruptly I went from contemptuous to slightly embarrassed.

I was filthy and bloody andbedraggled. I’d braided my hair, thank goodness, before I began my attempt tooutrun the moon, but even so, tendrils had escaped the waist-length ponytailand clung to my face and my neck. My blood covered my shirt.

I attempted to resistself-consciously touching my hair, though my hand drifted there as though ithad a mind of its own.

“That’s the craziest thing I’veheard in a long time,” I murmured, then sat back, crossed my legs, and noddedfor him to continue.

A spark of anger lit his eyes,anger, I was sure, because of my lofty attitude and my inhospitality. How dareI treat an alpha this way? His anger pleased me.

“I understand you have no tieswith the wolves,” he said smoothly, “and you won’t know what’s been happeningin the territories.”