Free Blue Moon: Blood Moon Trilogy #3 by A.D. Ryan

thinking.”
    “Doubt it.” I sat back in my chair and crossed my arms. “But do try to enlighten me.”
    “We don’t hunt to kill.”
    I tried but failed to suppress a laugh. “So what happened to my brother seven years ago…?”
    Bobby sighed heavily, dropping his eyes from mine. I sensed his unease. He was no different than any other suspect I’d questioned back in Scottsdale. “What happened to me was planned. Gianna doesn’t —” he cut himself off, and I noticed the tension in his jaw as his anger rose. “ Didn’t go to that club looking to kill.”
    “No,” I concurred, unable to sit back and listen to him try to feed me a line of bullshit. “She was looking to recruit. I’ve heard all about that club you took us to and the countless others she had set up over the years. Even the one the two of you were vetting back in Scottsdale.” I stood up, placing my hands on the tabletop and leaning toward him. The wolf seemed sated by my change in tone, and I felt her just beneath my skin, lending me some of her strength and confidence. “I know that she came to Scottsdale for me… She wanted to use me as some sort of revenge for what happened to you.”
    “Is that what Nick told you?” Bobby asked, his voice changing from the one I knew to something darker. It surprised me, but I tried not to let it show. He, too, stood up and circled the table, darkening eyes on me as he flashed his fangs with a wicked grin. “He always was a bit of a meathead.”
    I didn’t budge when Bobby stood less than an inch from me. I wanted to pull away, but I fought the urge; I couldn’t let him think he held the upper hand.
    “I always thought you could do better.” His smile widened, and he stroked the back of my hand with his index finger. My skin crawled at the disturbingly intimate gesture, and my stomach tightened. “David, however, showed real promise.”
    My chin quivered, and I ripped my hand from beneath his. “Fuck you,” I spat. “Don’t you even speak his name.”
    “Touched a nerve, have I?”
    Heat flared beneath my skin as my bones started to stretch. I could feel the change was close, but the jabbing of the silver spikes around my neck as it thickened kept me from letting it out. Bobby reveled in my discomfort. I flinched when he brought his right hand up and stroked my jaw, letting his finger slide down and over the thick collar around my neck. “Simple, yet effective, aren’t they?” he queried unnecessarily.
    I slapped his hand away as it drifted down my sternum and toward the swell of my breasts. There was absolutely no trace of my brother inside this monster, yet to see his face as he eyed me like some kind of predator made my stomach churn. “You should know that it was in this form that I ripped your precious Gianna’s head off,” I snarled.
    He never even gave me a chance to appreciate the look of horror on his face before he wrapped a hand around my neck, just below my collar, and threw me down on the table. I thrashed in his grasp, but I was still weak from the nitrate in my food over the last few days. Plates of food went crashing to the floor as I flailed, trying to pry his hand from my throat as I gasped for air.
    His hand tightened just enough to make it impossible for me to breathe. I curled my fingers, clutching the cold skin of his arm and raking my nails down. I could feel my claws break through my fingers as the wolf struggled to fight, and his skin tore easily. Hissing in pain, he loosened his grip, and I gasped for air. With his hand still around my neck, he leaned in close…so close his chilled lips brushed the shell of my ear.
    “I could end you,” he snarled.
    I struggled again to no avail as he lifted his head.
    “I could snap your neck and rip your head off exactly the way you did to Gianna—I want to.” All traces of my brother had been wiped away, his eyes flashing red and then black.
    Courage surged through me—or maybe it was stupidity, I couldn’t really be