Christmas Moon by Sadie Hart Page B

splitting through the quiet, night
forest. Hunter spilled from the trees just as another shot rang
out. He watched as a sleek red dog dove to get away, one leg black
with blood. Her body twitched as the bullet slammed into her
haunches. Her back leg gave out but she spun, white teeth flashing
in the dim light of the moon.
    Her jaws snapped around the man’s wrist.
Hunter saw him squeeze for the trigger again and leapt.
    The roar that thundered out of him startled
the rogue, it bought him the second he needed to clear that last
distance between them. The rogue looked up at him, eyes wide just
as Hunter’s wolf slammed into him, sending them all toppling into
the snow. His teeth tore through flesh, blood spilling into his
mouth as Hunter clamped his jaws over the man’s neck.
    The rogue gave a last gurgling cry before he
shuddered and went still.
    Hunter pulled up, only to see the gun lying
in the snow. Black against white.
    Bree lay a foot away, her sides heaving, but
her head was up, ears pricked forward as she watched him. Her tail
gave a small, half-hearted wave. Hunter shifted back to human on a
breath, and then he was there, kneeling in the snow in front of
her. With a pained shiver, Bree shifted. There was blood on her
right arm. The skin was jagged and torn from where the rogue had
bit her. Her flannel pajama pants were torn on her left thigh.
    “It went straight through,” she said as he
went to look at the gunshot wound. He looked up at her and she gave
him a rough smile. “It’s just going to hurt like hell when I walk
home.”
    “You need to get to a hospital,” he said.
    Bree lifted her good shoulder in a small
shrug. “Yeah that too. Could have been worse.”
    She glanced at the rogue and he watched the
sadness flit across her gaze. Hunter reached out and ran his
knuckles over her cheek. “It wasn’t your fault.”
    “I know. Want to help me up?”
    Hunter wrapped an arm around her waist, and
boosted her up, holding her against him as they hobbled back
towards her house. It was a long, grueling walk and his feet burned
with the cold by the time her house came into view. He got her to
her door, grabbed her car keys and her phone, and dragged her to
her car. Once she was sitting in the passenger seat and they were
on the way to the hospital, he called the local Shifter Town
Enforcement.
    Not that they’d care. It was a dead wolf out
there, a dead shifter. The only people that had been harmed were
other shifters. Hunter glanced at the pale woman in the seat next
to him, the regret still shimmering in her eyes. She had to have
made a damn good Hound.
    Because unlike those he called, she cared.
That wolf had hunted her down and yet he’d still seen the sorrow in
her eyes when she’d looked at the body. They needed more Hounds
like her, especially in White Pine.
    More importantly, they needed her here.
    Hunter needed her here.
     
    ***
     
    Bree fought back another yawn as they pulled
up in front of Hunter’s house. Exhaustion curled through, begging
for sleep. It’d been a long night dealing with the doctors and
Shifter Town Enforcement. All she wanted to do now was to go home
and sleep.
    Home, however, wasn’t an option.
    Hunter pulled her car up into his garage, the
door automatically closing behind them. “Just for the night,” he
said and glanced at her. “I don’t want you alone.”
    “The rogue is dead.” The rogue had been
Jeremy Hale according to Shifter Town Enforcement after they’d
found the body. He’d been the only living relative of the man
Caesar had killed.
    “I know, but please, for my sanity.” He
scrubbed a hand through his hair and she could see the black bags
under his eyes. Hunter looked every bit as exhausted as she did. It
was damn near morning by now, Christmas Eve at that, and they both
had yet to get more than a few hours sleep. “Please.”
    It was the tired way he said, his eyes
imploring as he looked at her, that made her smile and nod.
Besides, if she were