03 Long Night Moon - Seasons of the Moon (2 page)

When she caught a whiff of bacon and eggs, it perked her up in a way even Seth couldn’t do. Hunger gave her enough energy to stand on her own so it wouldn’t look like Seth was dragging a body into the house, which would have looked weird to Aunt Gwyneth.

But it wasn’t Gwyn waiting when they entered the kitchen.

It was Seth’s brother.

“Good morning, sunshines. Looks like you had a good night,” Abel said.

He had made himself at home in the kitchen. He gnawed on a chunk of leftover steak while cooking bacon, sausage, and eggs on the griddle. Judging by the smell of the oven, he was making ham, too. The sight of so much meat made her mouth fill with saliva.

“What are you doing here?” Rylie asked.

“I’m cooking breakfast. What does it look like?”

It looked like one of Rylie’s worst nightmares had taken over her house
again
. She couldn’t get used to it. Gwyn hired him as a ranch hand after Rylie hospitalized the last one, and now Abel and Seth worked there all the time.

They were supposed to be friends now. Abel had even kind of apologized for spending half of the autumn stalking and threatening to kill her. She was still pretty sure he hated her. Rylie felt the same about him.

“Where’s Gwyn?” she asked.

“Still asleep. I haven’t seen her.” Abel flipped an egg on the griddle and the yolk broke, oozing into a puddle of bacon grease.

Rylie took several deep breaths to settle her nerves. Finding a werewolf hunter in her kitchen right after a new moon made her adrenaline spike to ridiculous levels.

“I’m going to take a shower,” she said, leaning over to kiss Seth on the cheek.

When she left the kitchen, she didn’t go to the bathroom. She stood on the other side of the doorway to listen.

“What are you doing?” Seth asked.

“I said, I’m making—”

“That’s not what I mean. You promised not to make trouble.”

“I’m not making trouble. I’m making eggs.” There was a dangerous undertone to Abel’s voice.

“Were you following Rylie last night? I saw boot prints.”

Abel laughed. “Listen to yourself, bro. You’re paranoid. Dating a werewolf is turning you crazy.”

“Oh yeah? Why else would you be here so early?”

“Gwyn asked me to come.”

Whatever they said beyond that, she didn’t hear it. The brothers continued their conversation in lowered voices, and she couldn’t make it out over the sizzle of bacon. She dropped her boots by the woodstove and pressed her ear to her aunt’s bedroom door. There was no hint of motion on the other side.

Gwyn was a total morning person. By the time the sun rose, she should have done a thousand things around the ranch and cooked a hearty breakfast.

She claimed she got sluggish during winter, but Rylie had to wonder if it wasn’t something else.

Her aunt was sick. Really sick. What if it was catching up with her?

Rylie tried to purge her worries in the shower, but no amount of hot water could dislodge the sense of fear creeping over her. After she finished, she combed out her hair and dressed in leggings, boots, and a sweater that went to her knees.

When she left the bathroom, Gwyn’s door was still shut.

Abel and Seth were sitting at the kitchen table when she joined them. The sight of Seth made her glow with warmth, but Abel was another story. His face was bisected by deep, cruel scars that horribly twisted his handsome profile. He had been mauled by a werewolf more than once. It was an unpleasant reminder of the damage Rylie could cause.

Seth’s smile was heart-stopping. “You were in there for days. I thought you drowned.”

Rylie took the chair next to him, which was as far from Abel as she could get without eating in the living room. Even though he pretended to focus on his breakfast, she could feel him watching. “Sorry. You can have a turn before we go to school. I left some hot water.”

“Nah. It’s fine.” He pushed a plate toward her. It was heaped high with ham and sausage. “Here, I saved some from my monstrous brother.”

Abel stayed silent. Rylie ate without looking at him.

When the first werewolf mauled him, Abel had been infected. There was a short period after the bite where the victim could stop the transformation, and with Seth’s help, Abel hadn’t become a werewolf. Some of the symptoms stuck around, though—mostly the craving for meat, an endless appetite, and serious anger issues. Between the two of them, they could have eaten an entire cow.

But Rylie wasn’t as hungry as usual. “We should get to school,” she said, wiping her mouth with a cloth napkin.

“Okay.” Seth dropped their dishes in the sink.

“Have a good time, kids,” Abel said with mock brightness. “Lots to do today! All that learning!”

Seth shoved him. “Shut up, you ugly jerk.”

“Touch me again and I’ll bite off your hands, dork wad.”

Rylie packed leftover roast beef and boiled eggs for lunch, keeping Abel in the corner of her eye as she prepared. When he caught Rylie looking, she shot him a dirty look.

“What’s taking so long?” Seth called from the front room.

She hurried to catch up.

The drive to school was long on good days. On snowy days, it was practically a road trip. It took almost an hour to do twenty miles, with nothing to look at on the way except endless sheets of white, so Rylie grabbed Seth’s homework binder.

“Brainstem,” she prompted.

Seth thought about it for a minute. “It keeps people alive and controls all the secondary stuff, like breathing and coughing. Right?”

She checked the back of the flash card. “Yeah. And the heartbeat, too.”

“Heartbeat,” he repeated. “Okay. I’ve got it. Give me another.”

“Cerebellum.”

“Is that the attention one?”

“No,” Rylie said. Seth tried to peek at the back, but she pressed it to her chest. “No cheating!”

“Okay, okay.” He took a deep breath and furrowed his brow. “Cerebellum. Cerebellum…” One vein stuck out on his forehead when he concentrated. Rylie thought it was cute. This was the first time Seth had tried to do an entire year of school, so she saw that vein a lot.

“It’s the one that—” she began.

“Muscle memory!” he interrupted.

“You peeked.”

He looked wounded. “I did not.”

“You did too. I saw you.”

“I wouldn’t cheat. I need to know this stuff.” He glared at the snowy road like it was challenging him. “I’m going to be a doctor. Maybe a brain surgeon.”

“You can work on my brain whenever,” Rylie said loyally.

He flashed his lopsided grin again, but it faded quickly. Seth was a senior. Even though he was taking extra classes and had good grades, he hadn’t gotten any responses to his college applications. Rylie was only a junior, but she had been dutifully writing essays and applying for scholarships since she was fourteen, so she was pretty much guaranteed to go wherever she wanted.

“Studying isn’t going to do much good right now anyway,” Seth said. “I keep thinking about Branson.”

Rylie blinked. It had only been an hour, but she completely forgot about the body. “Why? What are you thinking?”

“A wild animal didn’t kill him. His hands and forearms weren’t even injured. Think of it like this—what do you do if someone jumps at you?” Seth asked. Rylie bared her teeth and gave a small growl. “Okay. What do
normal
people do if something jumps at them?”

“I’m normal,” she muttered sullenly.

Seth took a hand from the wheel to mimic shielding his face, arm up and palm out. “Your arm is your first line of defense. Or maybe your last. Anyway, I’ve seen people get attacked by dogs, and their arms get ripped up. Branson’s only injury was his throat. I’m thinking he was surprised.”

“Or he trusted his attacker,” Rylie said.

He gave her a surprised look. “Or that.”

They hit the edge of a neighborhood, and traffic made them slow down further. It never seemed like there were many people living in town until they all tried to get somewhere at the same time.

Eventually, they reached the high school. Seth parked in the empty lot at the back.

“So if it’s not a werewolf, what is it?” Rylie asked.

“I don’t know, but it won’t stick to one kill. We’ll watch for it.” He rolled his eyes. “Abel’s going to be psyched to have something to do.”

Rylie jumped out of the truck and slammed the door behind her. The cold air nipped her cheeks, and she hurried to the warmth of his side. “Should we go to school if something’s around? I mean, should you be, like… hunting?”

“Branson’s killer won’t be wandering around town. We’ll hunt all right, but not during the day.”

“What can I do to help?”

Seth took her hand and gazed at her for a long time. She noticed he was wearing a black plug in his pierced ear instead of the fang he used to have, and she wasn’t sure how long it had been since she saw it. The way he looked at her made it hard to think or breathe or move at all.

He lifted the back of his hand to her lips. “You’re amazing,” he whispered. Seth’s breath was warm on her skin, and her cheeks flamed with heat.

“Shut up,” she mumbled. “You know how much that embarrasses me.”

He laughed and pulled her against his body. Even with a half dozen layers of clothing between them, a thrill of excitement raced through her. She wasn’t used to having a boyfriend, much less someone like Seth. They were usually too busy to have fun, but when they did, it was better than she could have imagined.

He bent down to kiss her, and Rylie stretched up on her toes. Someone cleared their throat behind her.

Her thoughts went murderous and black. She couldn’t help but growl. “What?” she snapped, shooting a nasty look over her shoulder.

The dean of students waited by the fence in a bulky jacket and earmuffs. “I don’t think I need to remind you two about our policy on public displays of affection.
Again
.”

“Good thing we aren’t at school yet,” Seth said. Rylie felt like she had to straighten her clothes even though they hadn’t done anything.

“This is your third warning this week. Next time, it’s detention—separately. Get to class.”

Sometimes, Rylie wished she had eaten Dean Block on All Hallows’ Eve.

She got her knapsack out of the truck and stalked through the fence. The dean watched them go inside before shutting the gate behind them.

They trudged to the quad. The lonely tree was naked of leaves, and icicles hung off its highest branches. “I’ll see you at lunch,” Seth said. Dean Block was still watching them, so he squeezed her hand to say goodbye.

She was the last person to arrive in her English class, and all the students were whispering around a desk in the front. This was nothing new. Ever since Rylie and Seth started publicly dating, people whispered about them constantly. They were basically school celebrities.

But this time, nobody looked at her when she came in. The teacher didn’t even acknowledge Rylie as she took her seat. She shoved her knapsack under the chair and realized she still had the flashcards.

“Hypothalamus,” Rylie murmured, reading the one on top before flipping it over. Seth’s sharp, slanted handwriting said “body temperature, appetite, hormone signaling.” She bet that if her boyfriend did operate on her brain, he would find the werewolf crouched where the hypothalamus should be.

Maybe Rylie should have been the one skipping school to hunt for bad guys. The wolf gave her an amazing sense of smell, even as a human. She could probably track by scent.

But Seth was right. The killer wouldn’t just be wandering around.

The bell rang, and the teacher stood.

“Take your seats. We have a couple announcements this morning. First of all, the leadership committee wants everyone to know that the date of the Winter Ball has been changed from the sixteenth to the twenty-third. You can still buy tickets at the front office.”

Rylie’s stomach pitched. She’d been trying not to think about the dance since it was announced, but it was hard, considering that glitter-drenched blue posters had been plastered everywhere. The smaller rural schools were throwing it together. Hundreds of kids would be there—more people than there were at Rylie’s whole school, in fact.

Seth hadn’t asked her to go yet, but the change in date was bad. The new moon was the night of the twenty-third.

“Secondly, as you’ve already discovered, we have a new student today. Bekah, could you please stand?”

A girl rose from her desk at the front of the classroom.

Bekah turned to face everyone. She had a hooked nose, cascades of golden-brown curls, and a big smile with white teeth. A pendant shaped like a five pointed star dangled from a chain around her neck.

Shock jolted through Rylie. Bekah’s eyes were bright gold.

“Hi everyone. I’m Rebecca Riese. I just moved here from California, and I can’t wait to get to know you.”

She stared at Rylie in the back of the class while she spoke, as though there was nobody else in the room. Rylie knew with total certainty that Seth wouldn’t have to hunt for Isaiah Branson’s killer after all.

Bekah was a werewolf.

Rylie’s fingertips itched. She looked down to see spots of blood oozing at the edges of her nails. Underneath, the hard points of knife-sharp claws were emerging.

She gasped and stuffed her hands into her lap.

Bekah’s mouth moved. She was still talking, using human lips to make human sounds, but Rylie couldn’t understand any of it. White noise filled her skull.

Now that she had seen Bekah’s eyes, her smell was overwhelming—snow, soil, pine, icy rivers, cold stone. Rylie knew that odor because it was hers, too. It was the smell of Gray Mountain, the place where she had been turned into a werewolf.

The wolf rose in her gut at the smell of a challenger. Rylie’s body seized, and she bowed her head against the strength of it.

She shouldn’t have been able to change. Not during the day.
Not here
.

The teacher sorted papers at her lectern. The students were entranced by the allure of a new student. Nobody saw Rylie’s internal battle except Bekah, and her expression didn’t change. She wasn’t surprised to see Rylie in so much pain.