The Full Moon Effect

Chapter 7: Without Him

When darkness

branches to your

soul,

light still

finds a way to

rise.

Angie Welland-Crosby

**********

My heart ached for Jones as every minute put miles between us. To leave so soon after our mating with no scheduled return date was hard enough. Gratitude surged through me for him. I'll make it up to him, I thought.

Though the close presence of other males besides Jones bothered me, I recognized my gratitude for them as well. I doubted I would actually be able to restrain myself if I saw Leyton in front of me again. If he wasn't already dead upon my arrival, I was going to rip his throat out.

The eight hour drive lasted eight hundred. Even though Amar never let the speedometer dip below eighty and we chose back roads to avoid city traffic, it wasn't fast enough.

One of Anders' Betas, Shem, asked if I had fleas. I shot him a glare but stopped tapping my leg. Instead, I drummed by thumb silently against the arm rest.

When we finally crossed the border, I rolled down my window and stuck my clawed hand out the window. By partially shifting my paw, I could smell just as good as my wolf but in human form. My father's scent was faint, as if he hadn't traveled back to the border since he drove in. That meant he was still at the pack house. Underneath his, Uncle Taylor's, and AJ's, I could smell an even fainter trace of someone: Leyton.

Twenty more miles and we reached the heart of my old territory—the pack homes. The streets were bare without their inhabitants, the parks empty as our forests. The pack house loomed over the others, two stories taller than any building on our territory.

Before Amar put the car in park, I was jumping out the passenger door. The car my father had driven here was gone and the fact that no one greeted us was a bad sign. As anxious as I'd been to arrive, I found myself entering my home cautiously.

I paused outside the front door and breathed in. Blood. I smelled blood. I ripped open the front door. "Dad?"

No one answered. The men followed me as I tore through the house, following my nose. The kitchen that was spotless when we left was colored with blood. I recognized the scent and walked around the island to confirm it. AJ was face down on the floor, his head turned to the side, face forever frozen in fear. From the amount of blood that pooled around him, I guessed more than his heart had been ripped out.

Fear ripped through me when I thought about this. If his body and the mess was still here, that meant my uncle and father weren't able to clean it up. Adrenaline blocked my remorse over his death and I continued the search for my family. I followed their scents to my father's office.

My Uncle's dead body blocked the doorway. The edges of his neck were smeared with blood as if his throat had been slit. Tears flooded my eyes but I was still able to see the body in the chair.

"No," I said. "No!"

A hole occupied my father's chest. Blood dripped down his front and splatter covered his neck and face. The organ that should've been there was pinned to the desk with a note. You shouldn't have spared me.

In that moment, it was like every nightmare I ever had and every memory of killing someone merged to form a dagger that struck my own heart. Someone pulled me away from my dad and another had to restrain me when my claws scratched at the first. They tried pinning me to the floor but I wriggled out of their grasp and shifted, shredding my clothes.