Come Out Swinging (Reach for the Moon Book 2) Read online

  Come Out Swinging

  Sam Hall

  Come Out Swinging

  Come Out Swinging © Sam Hall 2021

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except for in the case of brief quotations for the use in critical articles or reviews.

  Cover art and design by CJ Romano

  The characters and events depicted in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Created with Vellum

  Stalk me!

  Stalk me!

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  Author Note

  This book is written in Australian English, which is a weird lovechild of British and American English. We tend to spell things the way the Brits do (expect a lot more u’s), yet also use American slang and swear more than both combined.

  While many people have gone over this book, trying to find all the typos and other mistakes, they just keep on popping up like bloody rabbits. If you spot one, don’t report it to Amazon, drop me an email at the below address so I can fix the issue.

  [email protected]

  Trigger Warning

  This book deals with the following issues:

  Inferred child abuse at the end of the book, but nothing is seen or happens on or off screen.

  Neglectful parents, addiction, abuse of women. A flashback shows brief scenes of a parent in the throes of alcohol addiction. The attitudes about addiction are the character’s, not mine (I believe it to be a disease). These are mostly inferred or happen off screen in Chapter 42.

  A member of the family who comes out is gay and is being pressured and coerced into a role they do not want.

  A family member is attacked and hurt very badly in Chapter 18, with the bad guys intending to rape them.

  A note for Christian readers:

  I’m an atheist, so sometimes I play fast and loose with people’s religions, but I don’t mean to do so in a way that’s offensive. Having said that, it doesn’t mean it isn’t. In the book a character talks about the impact of Christianity being great for humans, not for wolf shifters. It could be construed as blaming the religion as the reason why some of the bad treatment of nix arises.

  Rest assured that’s not actually it. People use religion as an excuse all the time to do hurtful things. Most people try to treat others the best they can by whatever religious or ethical code they follow, but then there’s those others…

  A note about the kink in the book:

  I did consult with some readers who are members of the community and now know a lot of the kink in the scenes included do not follow good practice. So for the love of all that’s holy, if interested in experimenting, consult with reputable, authoritative sites to get a good grounding in safe, sane play, not paranormal romance books!

  Contents

  Stalk me!

  Author Note

  Trigger Warning

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Epilogue

  Stalk me!

  Chapter 1

  I woke up to pain, so much pain, to the sound of machines that go ping, and him. My eyes opened reluctantly, seeming to anticipate the sharp stab of light that made me want to flinch back, but I couldn’t. My muscles, my body, they didn’t obey my orders. Partly because I was wrapped up tight under blankets in the hospital, and partly because of him. Lorcan gasped, his eyes flicking open as if jerked from sleep, those mossy eyes containing so many more shades of green and brown than I’d ever thought possible. He just blinked for a second from where he lay beside me, staring for what felt like an age, only one single tear falling from his eye to alert me to how he felt. Then he was up, off the bed, making sure he still had a hand on my shoulder as he pushed the nurse call button repeatedly.

  “Hey,” he said, trying for calm and failing utterly. “It’s OK, you’re in the hospital. Someone—”

  “Smacked me in the head with a baseball bat.”

  I barely croaked out the words, my mouth bone-dry, resulting in a fit of coughing. Lorcan finally relinquished his hold, reaching for a cup of water with a straw and bringing it to my lips. His hand rubbed my shoulder blades as I struggled to sit up and take mouthfuls of the blessed water. The world felt like it swayed and rolled violently in response, and every movement brought with it a stab of pain so intense, I had to push the water away to pant through each wave.

  “It’s OK, love. The doctor’s coming. You’re gonna be OK. The boys, they’re—”

  His words came out hurried, rushed, desperate to fill me in on everything, while I struggled to just keep on breathing.

  “Ms Spehr! You’re awake. Let’s sit you back again. Nurse, some more pillows!” The doctor’s tone was a familiar one, the war between professionalism and pack hierarchy being fought within it. “That’s it.” He bent over me, looking me over closely before pulling out one of those penlights that they always seem to use in hospital dramas. I jerked back when he flashed them in my eyes, provoking a growl from Lorcan. Then the door filled, Mason ambling in with two cups of coffee in hand, looking like he’d been dragged backwards through a bush, the bags under his eyes and the unruly mess of his hair telling me how he’d been coping. But he looked up belatedly, finally sensing all the fuss, and just stared.

  I’d always known Mason Klein was my mate, and I knew it now. His gaze contained a kind of vulnerability, a completely naked, throbbing pain, it felt like it was a twin to the one that raged in my head. His fingers went slack, dropping the two drinks in a heated splatter, the medical professionals aghast at the mess, but he didn’t hear them. He stepped through it, leaving coffee stained footprints on the white lino.

  “Fuck, Paige…”

  I’d waited my whole bloody life to hear him say my name like that, like you would oxygen or water, like I was essential to his survival. His fingers dug hard into the guardrail of the bed as I heard Lorcan making a call, alerting the others. My mates, I thought.

  “Jesus, sweetheart. I…”

  I wanted to lift my hand, cup his cheek, brush away the tears that formed in his eyes, then spilled down his cheeks, but something held me back.

  “Beta Klein, I’ll need you to move to do my evaluation. It’s, of course, wonderful that the heir has woken, but she may not be out of the woods yet. She was hit in
credibly hard.”

  “Of course.”

  I hated them right then, the people that had helped keep me alive, because I watched Mason pack it all up again, tamping what he felt down deep inside him. Was it going to stay there? my eyes asked. Even when the doctor asked me to look at him, I stared at Mason, waiting for some sort of sign. My gaze was pulled away by Lorcan putting the phone down. He just nodded, my mate, seeming to know exactly what I was thinking.

  “When can I get out of here, Doc?” I rasped.

  I needed to get home, pull my loved ones in close, and then find out who the fuck hurt my dad, then me.

  “Earliest possible date that’s safe to take her home, Doc,” Mason said, regarding the man steadily. “Someone tried to kill her. They won’t get a chance again, and you don’t want another attempt taking place here.”

  The doctor had been about to protest, but his mouth closed with a click at that.

  “I don’t want her out of here before she’s well enough, but if it’s a matter of rest and pain relief, prescribe what you need and let her go into our care. We’ve got the guns, we’ve got the mechanisms to protect her, and we’ll use every single one of them,” Mason said.

  “The others are coming,” Lorcan said to me in a low voice. “We’ve been sleeping in shifts, making sure you’re safe.”

  I finally moved my hand, my limbs feeling heavy and clumsy, but when I reached for him, he met me more than halfway, cradling my hand in his.

  “It’s OK. It’s gonna be OK.”

  It wasn’t. A wave of tiredness came over me as the nurse gave me some pain killers, but as I sagged back on the bed, the awful stabbing in my head eased. I stared at the two of them, unable to look away as Mason conducted the negotiations with the doctor.

  Mine, mine, mine… throbbed inside me, unable to settle and slow until all of my men were in the room.

  Chapter 2

  A fighter takes a hit, gets up, and keeps on going.

  I’d been released from the hospital with a fistful of painkillers and a whole lotta warnings, but left I had. Initially, in a wheelchair, but as soon as we got to the carpark, I was up and out of it, but shaking, weak. How had that happened so fast? Whoever had tried to bring me down had done a damn good job.

  But not enough.

  Mason, Lorcan, they all swept in to try and help me, but I shook them off as I shot them apologetic looks. I wasn’t trying to be a hard-arse, except I was. They nodded, hovering like mother hens as I walked towards the car. Everything hurt, every footfall feeling like an explosion in my head, but I kept on going.

  “She’s bruised, but the fracture to her skull has repaired itself. The headaches will persist for a little while. As the swelling goes down, they will stop. Just keep her quiet, still, and hydrated until they ease. Use the painkillers as directed. Waiting for the pain to reappear isn’t helpful,” the doctor had said to the guys as they quizzed him about releasing me.

  Bruised I could deal with, fractured gave me a start. My jaw muscle flexed as I kept moving, but I was forced to stop that by a spike of pain in response. Lorcan got in the backseat and held a hand out to me as I got in. A wash of blessed relief came at his touch, wiping the hurt away, or at least beating it back somewhat. I looked up into those deep green eyes, saw it all there, up on the surface—pain, fear, anger, need, and worry, so much worry. When I glanced at the rear vision mirror, Mason’s eyes reflected the same swirl of emotion. The cab of the car felt too small to hold all of that, all of us.

  “The others are at home,” Mason said. “They wanted to be here, but we need someone there at all times, just in case whoever it was comes back.”

  My head jerked up at that, the pain letting me know what a bad idea that was.

  “You think they will?”

  I hated the waver in my voice, but Lorcan’s hand took mine as Mason turned around.

  “If they do, we will fuck them up.” Each word was bitten off precisely.

  I nodded, feeling it, that which had been tamped down, kept deep inside until I was well enough to deal with it. My wolf, she stretched, got to her feet, and then bared her fangs at this unseen enemy. We would take out this coward lurking in the shadows, swiping at me with man-made weapons, no doubt the same one who took out my father without even giving him the courtesy of fighting back. My fangs lengthened in my mouth, ready to rend and snap.

  “Let’s go home,” I said in the hoarse voice of my wolf.

  I arrived back to a wall of men.

  “We’ve changed the codes to the gates and the doors. The locks have been refitted, and only we have the keys. Your family is in an uproar,” Mason said as we pulled up in the carpark at the rear of the building.

  “Spehrs,” I said. “The Spehrs are in an uproar. Nance, if I had to guess.”

  “The Spehrs all seem equally pissed,” Lorcan said. “They called the fucking police.”

  I tried to listen to what they were saying, but the backdoor to the house opened and out they spilled. Zack, Micah, Declan, all the good humour I’d come to associate with any of them completely scrubbed clear. More worry, more anger, just more. I read their expressions as they jogged over to the car.

  “We let the police in, but not them,” Mason said. “An investigation is underway.”

  “But we’re not leaving it to them,” I said in a low growl.

  “No, we’re not.”

  The backdoor opened, and Zack surged in.

  “Babe…” He leaned over the back seat, peering at me, cataloguing all my aches and pains in one look I bet. “Let’s get you inside.” His arms reached out to pull me toward him. “I’ll carry you up and—”

  “No.”

  Lorcan’s hand tightened around mine as I denied my other mate what he wanted. I could see it—the carrying me up the stairs, the pampering me with scented baths, washing away the remains of what had been done to me, the soft snuggle down into the bed with the lot of them. I could fall into all five of them, I knew that. Wrap myself tight in them, hide away from the world. They’d follow me to every trip to the toilet or the kitchen, shadowing me with their strength.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t want that, but that I also wanted to be strong too.

  Zack frowned and then pulled back, leaving the door open for me to slip from. They still clustered in close when I got out slowly, gingerly, but that was right. We were pack. We would always reach for the other, move closer, touch where circumstances allowed, but as I walked into the house, slower than I would normally, I needed to do this under my own steam.

  I’d been beaten down, but I wasn’t about to stay down. Each step, each crunch of gravel under my feet, was a declaration of sorts, I thought. You will not keep me down. You will not walk free from what you did to my family and me. I let my hands fan out, brushing Declan’s side, his eyes jerking around in response, trailing down Zack’s spine as he walked in front of me, and then finally, sliding into Micah’s waiting one. He nodded to me, my most mysterious of potential mates, those pale grey eyes almost phosphorescent. He stared like he could see my thoughts and he approved of them, and we walked up the steps to my home together.

  Chapter 3

  I paused at the spot on the floor where I could still smell my blood. It was muted, by their scents, by the cleaning products they’d used to try and eradicate the evidence after the police had been there, but I could detect it if I searched for it.

  “I’ve never been so fucking scared,” Mason said, looking down. “When I saw you lying on that floor…” For a moment, I thought his knees had faltered, but no, he was dropping down onto them.

  “Mase…” I said, not wanting that. Anything but that.

  “I’ve got to, love.” When he looked up at me, I wondered if I’d ever seen the real Mason before this. His eyes burned, so dark a brown as to be almost black, every thought and feeling writ clear on his face for me to see. “Jeez, I fucked up. I fucked up so completely and thoroughly, I don’t know how you even look at me. What I said, what I did�
�� I had so many chances…”

  Watching those big strong hands flex on empty air, aimless, made me ache in ways I didn’t expect, my eyes beginning to burn.

  “I should have thrown myself at your feet and begged for your forgiveness the minute you came home.” He shook his head, short and sharp. “The fact I just compounded that pain, turned my back on you when you fucking needed me, let you think…”

  I knew what he was doing. I needed to hear him say these words over and over until it finally sunk in, eradicating all the hard ones he’d said before, but not right now. I hurt, he hurt, and as I looked around the ring of us, we were all hurting. I frowned for a second before that made my head ache too much. That’s what they’d done, this interloper, sneaking into my house, killing my father, belting me. They were lashing out at my pack, and I was finished with that, even from within. I bent down gingerly and drew him up, placing a hand to his mouth when the words kept coming. I stared into his eyes as he stood, trying to make it clear what I felt, what I needed.