Blood Moon (MalexMale Paranormal Fantasy)

Chapter 5 ∞ REEVE

"Alright, Warder, you've made your point. Come down from there."

"Do you concede?" I hear from a tree different from the one I had tracked him to.

Throughout the night, I tolerated his tugs on my fur and pokes to my ribs, only to find him long gone by the time I'd whip around to catch him. Since shifting into human form this morning and getting dressed, I'm left with the tattered remains of a shirt he's managed to cut from me and a knife missing from my belt sheathe. Somehow he dive-bombs and attacks, and then disappears back up into the trees in a dizzying blur of movement, like some freakish peregrine falcon.

I spin to my right and glare up into a new canopy of leaves. "It's a draw."

"It can't be a draw, Young Alpha," he says as he drops out of yet a different tree behind me and pins my back to his chest, "when you never caught me."

I whip around to face him, my fascination long eclipsed by boiling hot frustration. "I've had you cornered to these trees for nearly an hour. It's a draw."

"Or was it I who had you cornered to these trees for an hour? You weren't even looking up at the right branches."

I stare in disbelief. "Is this how you overcome your enemies? Annoy them until they explode from the fury that builds inside them?"

"Whatever gets the job done." His smile transforms his regal features, surging heat into my chest. If there's a prettier and more contrary male than him, I'm never met them.

The vampyre shrugs and holds my knife out to me. "You'll want this back. No one's ever said that I'm not generous after a victory," he teases.

"That wasn't a victory."

He doesn't bother to look behind him as he walks away. "We'll agree to disagree."

And that stokes my rage even more. I breathe through it and count to thirty as my father always preaches, then I roll my neck and shake out my limbs. "It doesn't matter," I mutter to myself. "This doesn't matter."

The vampyre looks back at me then, hazel eyes peering into my soul. "That's usually what losers say."

Delta Banks, in all his muscled glory, approaches me from the larger group in the field. "Alpha wants to meet with these wolves as soon as we can get them down to the beach," he informs me, then cringes at seeing my expression. "Everything alright?"

"There's a good chance I'm going to gag that vampyre before the end of the night. Which is saying a lot from someone who has Rainer as a brother."

Banks throws his head back in a scratchy, growling day-after-shifting laugh. "Well, maybe he won't stay for long," he offers.

And that thought manages to annoy me even further.

My father strides down the driftwood beams-cum-steps of the rocky trail to where we await him on our gritty beach, away from our pack's homes where they might come upon the new wolves and get nervous. Omi is at his back, along with the betas of his personal guard and Theta Redd, who I'm guessing is there since he's studied about vampyres more than anyone else in our pack.

"Reeve," my father reaches out and runs a hand through my hair, marking me with his scent, "how did last night go?"

"No issues. Thank you for suggesting I join them."

Alpha leans in and sniffs the curve of my neck, pausing for a fuller inhale before pulling back to look me over.

"What is it?"

"Your scent has changed."

I put my arm to my nose, inhaling up to my elbow. "I don't smell anything."