Huntbound (Moonfate Serial Book 2) by Sylvia Frost Read Free Book Online

better, but because if all this is someone else’s fault, maybe it won’t be mine.
    “It’s not your fault,” I say, and for the first time I actually believe it. An arrogant bastard Orion may be. Dangerous, and with more secrets and darkness in him that I can bear. But he’s not the one who killed my parents. And I’m not the only one who’s suffered.
    “I know,” he whispers. “And it’s not your fault either.”
 
    My heart sinks. It is somehow my fault, what happened to his kind. While it took Timothy Higgens transforming on national television to finally convince the public that werebeasts had returned, I have no doubt that it was pictures of my sad face that mobilized people into action. Like it or not, I was the poster girl for the movement that forced him into hiding. Forced him to endure years of abuse at the hands of his father, just so he wouldn’t go insane.
    Orion leans in closer, until the warmth of his body and the coolness of his breath intermingle into something poignant and seductive at the same time. I can hear my heart beating in time with his and the world narrows until I live only between each of those beats, those moments.
    That’s all we have, a handful of heartbeats. You can never be sure when they’ll be up.
     
    Cooper’s are done. So are my parents’. I wonder how many I have left. I wonder why I suddenly want so badly to spend mine with Orion.
     
    He strokes my cheek once before he sighs and hands me the gun. “We don’t have any more time. We have to go. You’ll need this.”
     
    “You’re not worried about me having a gun?” I take it from him reluctantly. Even after last night and this morning, holding it still feels like holding a snake. I’m never sure if it’s going to attack me or not.
     
    He smirks. “I’m pretty sure you’ll wait until after we find your friend to shoot me.”
     
    “Will it hurt you to have the bullets nearby?”
     
    “As long as you don’t fire any at me, I’ll be fine.” Orion shakes his head. “Most likely you won’t need to use the gun, anyway. As long as you do as I say you’ll never be in any real danger, but—”
 
    “Better safe than sorry?” Happy for any excuse to tear my gaze away from his, I bend down and collect the silver bullets from the pockets of the duffle, threading them into the chamber before reloading the gun.
     
    His grin returns. “Better safe. I’m never sorry.”
     
    “Eugh.” I roll my eyes and pick up the rest of my loose clothes and throw them back into my purse again. “Sometimes I think you want me to slam you up against the wall and punch some sense into you and you’re just pretending to be an obnoxious asshole to torment me.”
     
    “Punch away, just do it quickly.” He grabs my arm and, practically yanking it out of its socket, drags me down the stairs until we’re in the living room once more.
     
    “Wait.” All the false ease leaks out of me as I stare at the obstacle still standing between us and the exit. Cooper’s body. “What if the police or the FBSI find him and think we murdered him?”
     
    Orion winces. “They won’t think that.”
     
    “And why not?” I stare around the house. Other than the body in the middle of the room it’s almost sterilely empty. It even has that same strange chemical smell, like a photography darkroom. Like the dream. Silver. Of course.
     
    I wasn’t best friends with Cooper, but it seems unreasonably harsh to just leave him in my house. “Someone should bury him.”
     
    “That won’t be necessary,” Orion says. He tilts his head, as if looking out a window.
     
    I follow his gaze and notice three black cars slinking down my suburban street. Hell. I know those cars. They’re the same ones that visited this house seven years ago. They’re the FBSI. “Shit, Orion! Did you see that!?”
     
    He gives an exasperated sigh. “You’d think they’d try to be a little bit more inconspicuous.”
     
    “Why aren’t you freaking