Darkmoon (#5) (The Cain Chronicles) (18 page)

“I can’t believe we’re even talking about this!”

“I’m sorry I mentioned it,” James said, although he didn’t sound very sorry at all.

She stepped away from the swing. Her rising anxiety had triggered the wolf, and getting upset was too risky on the night of the moon. “You should leave. It’s going to be dangerous out here tonight.”

“I’ll be unobtrusive.”

“She told you to leave,” Brody said. He flipped his knife closed, pocketed it, and cracked his knuckles. James arched an eyebrow. He didn’t have to speak to show how unimpressed he was by the threat of two werewolves.

Abel stepped out the back door, followed closely by Trevin, Daven, and Bekah. It broke the tension immediately. Or maybe Rylie was just too distracted by Abel to be tense. “How long?” he asked without looking at her. He had barely spoken to her since their night by the pond, and his silent rejection stung.

She tilted her face toward the sky. “Twenty minutes, maybe.” Rylie noticed Bekah hanging back from the others, looking troubled. “Did you ever reach Levi?”

It was Trevin who responded. “He joined the Union.”

“No way,” Rylie said.

“He texted me this morning.” Bekah’s words were thick with tears, and her lip trembled. “He said that he was tired of putting up with Scott and…you, Rylie. So he joined the Union.”

“Kiara followed as soon as we heard,” Pyper added.

That meant that they were two wolves short that night. Fewer members of the pack meant that Rylie had to expend less energy to control their changes, which should have been good news—especially since it meant that the two biggest troublemakers were gone. But they had abandoned the pack for the
Union
. That couldn’t be anything but bad news.

Rylie realized that everyone was watching her, and she tried to compose herself. “Okay. That’s fine. If that’s what they want to do, then I hope they’re happy. But we still have to get through this moon.”

The entire pack gathered at the bottom of the hill, and Rylie followed, leaving James and his eerily blue eyes behind. She studied the remaining werewolves. Ten of them, and all great people—even Crystal. They needed her.

“Five minutes,” she said, and the less shy members of the group started to strip.

It wasn’t long before the moon rose. Rylie moved among them as they shifted, drawing their pain away and loosing it into the coolness of the night.

One by one, they changed. After a few minutes, only Abel remained.

He stood just out of arm’s reach and watched Rylie with a hunger in his eyes that made something clench deep within her body. “Can you do it?” she asked softly, and Abel shook his head.

She cupped his cheeks between her hands and released her own energy into him. It was a relief to unleash the wolf. But instead of traveling through her own bones, muscles, and skin, it leaped into him. He fell to his knees with a grunt. Rylie heard a muffled
pop
.

“Sorry,” she said. She couldn’t keep it from hurting him. Not when she had so much to release.

The energy poured from her, and kept pouring. The alpine smell of evergreen trees and frozen rivers flooded her. For a moment, she could almost see the trees towering over them, and the sparkling stars watching Gray Mountain, and hear the rushing of icy water.

When Abel gave a second, louder cry, she blinked hard to clear her eyes.

His spine arched as his bones cracked and rearranged. His skull crunched, and his jaw extended into a muzzle, stretching his facial scars until it looked like they might tear. His ears slid up either side of his head. Claws erupted from his fingertips, and new teeth grew in his gums.

She threw back her head and let the rest of the power rush out with a sound that was too bestial to be anything but a howl.

Fur erupted from Abel. Blood splattered on the snow.

All of the energy drained out of Rylie, and she dropped to her knees beside him.

A warm tongue lapped up her arm from wrist to elbow. She ran her fingers over Abel’s fur, just like she had on every other night, and a smile found its way to her lips. It didn’t last long. As soon as he confirmed that she was okay, he whirled and bounded away into the night with everyone else. Only Brody remained, a copper-furred wolf dense with muscle.

He offered his flank to her, and Rylie leaned on him to stand.

James was watching a few feet away.

“Perfect,” he breathed. “I know how we can resurrect your aunt.”

The cellar was sheltered from
the world outside by magic and several feet of earth, but even those protections weren’t enough to block out the sound of the howling pack. Rylie felt strange and disconnected from them. She should have been outside, running and howling and playing. Instead, she sat on a crate next to her aunt, who smelled like decay.

Everyone who wasn’t furry was in attendance: Rylie, Gwyn, Seth, Brianna, Stephanie, and Scott. The cellar was packed and claustrophobic, and Rylie wasn’t even afraid of small spaces.

“What do you mean, you’ll be able to repair us in two weeks?” Scott asked. He was wearing a baggy sweater now that the damage was creeping down his neck, and the hands protruding from the sleeves were skeletal.

“As I said, we’ll need a source of immense power to resurrect you two,” James said. “Fortunately, I’ve discovered that we have access to a power greater than that supplied by ritual death.” He gestured to Rylie. “She’ll do well.”

“Not a chance,” Seth said.

Rylie rolled her eyes. She was getting so sick of people trying to protect her. “What are you talking about, James?”

“Do you understand what makes a human into a werewolf?” he asked.

Seth responded before she could. “It’s a curse.”

“No, the gods gave it to us as a gift,” Rylie said. She had spoken to those gods herself on top of Gray Mountain. She didn’t actually remember the specifics of the conversation, but she knew that they had made her the Alpha that night, too.

“Both of you are wrong,” James said. “It’s most similar to demonic possession. There are primal spirits that wander the earth. Spirits of animals and the elements. With the proper method of transmission—such as a bite—it’s fairly easy to transfer these spirits to humans. All werewolves share in a single animal spirit. The Alpha is the core of the power. The head of the beast, if you will. Fewer surviving werewolves leaves you with a greater portion of that power.”

It was hard to argue with someone who spoke with such conviction. She stared at her shoes as she nudged a bit of dirt with her toe. “Let’s say I believe you. What would that mean for the ritual?”

“I can use you as a funnel to access the power of that primal animal spirit. On the night of the full moon, its energy will be at its peak. If you permit me to do so, I will draw the entire pack’s energy through you, and use it to resurrect Scott and Gwyneth.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Gwyn said.

Rylie considered the suggestion, massaging a hand over her navel. The pressure of her growing stomach had made it pop out in a tiny nub. “Will it hurt me?”

James pulled off his reading glasses. “Probably.”

“Will it hurt them?” she asked, patting her stomach.

“No. That won’t be a problem.”

“Then I think we should do it.”

“Babe, you don’t—” Gwyn began, but Rylie cut her off.

“It’s not going to kill me or my passengers, and I’m willing to go through a little pain to bring you back.” Her aunt opened her mouth again, but Rylie held up her hands to silence the protests. “This is my life, my pack, and my choice. That’s final.”

Gwyn’s mouth clapped shut. It seemed to take physical effort to remain silent, but she eventually nodded.

“Very well,” James said. “We only have two weeks until the next moon. We should prepare.”

Seth joined Rylie while she
was trying to get comfortable in bed—an impossible task, between the wolves howling outside and the pressure on her bladder.

“You’re not seriously considering James’s ‘solution,’ are you?” he asked, hanging in the doorway of Gwyn’s bedroom. Seth was dressed for bed in nothing but a necklace of shells and a pair of gray sweatpants. He had really filled out in the last couple of years, and Stephanie’s order to avoid sex lingered in the back of her mind.

Rylie sighed and adjusted her millions of pillows. Looking at Seth’s cut abs and biceps made her feel impossibly fat. “I’ll do whatever I have to in order to save Gwyn.”

“She’s already dead, Rylie.”

“So you want me to just give up on her?”

He didn’t respond to her anger in kind. He moved to the side of the bed and sat down. “I want you to think about the babies first,” he said, fluffing up a pillow and sticking it behind her lower back. “Gwyn agrees with me.”

“This isn’t up to Gwyn.”

Seth moved a few more pillows, and somehow, he put her in just the right position that her hips didn’t hurt. Rylie sank into the bed with a sigh. When he turned to prop up her feet, she spotted the tattoo of a paw print and a moon on his back. He had gotten that inked indelibly into his skin for her.

She stroked a finger down the line of the moon. Seth closed his eyes.

“Rylie…” She moved to touch his chest, and he stopped her with a hand on hers. With her fingers trapped against his chest, she could feel his heart beating. His brow knitted. “You’re killing me. I’m going to sleep outside your room tonight. Brody’s furry and four-legged, so he can’t watch you. But…” Seth stood and clenched his fists at his side. “I’m not going to watch you sacrifice yourself. I won’t have anything to do with this ritual.”

Seth stepped into the hall and shut the door. She heard him rustling against the other side as he got comfortable.

Outside, the wolves continued to howl.

The next two weeks were
filled with the rush of preparation. Moving to a whole different dimension was no small feat, especially when everyone had to be prepared to survive for a week without civilization.

The werewolves would all be able to hunt for themselves, so they only needed to take enough food for the humans. That meant almost everything else at the ranch got donated or taken to the dump—furniture, old clothes, kitchenware—and whatever remained had to be packed into as small of a space as possible.

Rylie didn’t need much. She packed a couple of outfits, a diary that she hadn’t written in for over a year, and her box of Seth’s letters. She couldn’t help but smile as she put everything into the duffel bag Seth and Abel shared. When you could only take the essentials, it really made you think about what mattered the most.

When she was done, she gazed into the open duffel bag. Abel’s belongings were on one side. There was a gun, of course. Seth’s was on the opposite side. And between them, creating a narrow border, were Rylie’s three outfits.

A hard lump formed in her throat. How was it possible to care so much about two men who were so different? Rylie’s love for Seth was an intense, teenage crush that had grown up into something warm and comfortable. But Abel was a slow burn, like a forest fire hidden in the depths of the wilderness.

Her fingers trailed from Abel’s gun to Seth’s old fang earring, which he hadn’t worn in years. Which one was more real? Which path was she meant to follow? And why did it have to be so damn hard?

She felt something hard among Seth’s belongings, and on impulse, she pulled it out.

Rylie recognized the brown cover instantly. It was marked with a gash, like a claw mark, and the pages curled at the edges.

She thought that the diary she had used at Camp Silver Brook had gone missing long ago. But here it was, among all of the things that Seth considered to be most important. He must have had it all along. It still smelled like Rylie had when she was a human, and like the oils on Seth’s hands. He must have held it frequently.

Sinking to the edge of the bed, she opened it to a page at the end.

Tonight’s the night. It’s my only chance to save myself. I have to be strong, like Seth said, but I don’t know how. I’m scared.

He might be right. If I do change, I’m probably better off dead. I won’t be able to go home. I won’t even have a home anymore. Going back to the city of school is out of the question, especially since even my friends think I’m a freak by now.

I’m not the same person anymore. I don’t want to die, diary, but I feel like I’ve reached the end of days anyway.

I wish Seth was here.

Rylie stared at the page, feeling numb. She didn’t often think about when she had first become a werewolf. It had been an awful time. Life was so much better now, in every way. And it was entirely because of Seth and Abel.

But she was going to have to break someone’s heart.

Closing the diary with trembling hands, Rylie stuck it back into the duffel bag, and zipped it shut.

Rylie stepped into the living
room on the morning before the next moon to find yellow balloons covering the floor, banners hanging from the ceiling, and a lot of people in party hats.

“Surprise!” they shouted.

She froze in the doorway, staring at them like a deer that had just spotted a werewolf.

Almost all of the furniture and wall hangings were gone now, leaving plenty of room for pictures of cartoon babies. They were on the balloons and banners, the plates and napkins, and even on the confetti that had been scattered across the floor. All the women were there, including James’s apprentice, Brianna. Even Brody lurked in the corner, apart from the festivities.

“Uh,” Rylie said. She was still wearing her pajamas.

Bekah took her hand and led her to the lone chair. “It seemed like it was time to lighten the mood, so we thought we would throw you a baby shower. Are you surprised?”

“That’s a word for it,” she said faintly.

It hadn’t occurred to her that people might want to throw a baby shower. She had been so caught up with moving that she hadn’t thought about the babies much at all. And now there were babies
everywhere
.

“We got presents for you,” Pyper said.

“But not much,” Stephanie interjected. “You’ll have to travel light when you reach the Haven, but all of the essentials should be covered.”