Moonlight

by Rachel Hawthorne

  There was an urgency in Lucas’s voice that I hadn’t heard before. I’d fallen asleep wrapped in the cocoon of his embrace. I didn’t know when he’d left me, but now he was crouched beside me, shaking my shoulder. I squinted at him. I hadn’t expected to fall so soundly asleep, and I resented that he was waking me up. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just a feeling I have.”

  The words hit me like a jolt of caffeine. And I could feel it, too. It was like that first night, the tingly feeling I’d had, that sense of being watched.

  “Mason. They found us,” I said.

  “No way. They didn’t have trackers in their group. And this area is too well hidden.”

  “We didn’t know they had scientists in their group either—and they did.”

  “Good point.” He shoved a backpack into my arms. “Here, you wear it. I may have to shift.”

  I started pulling on my boots. “What are we going to do?”

  “Have a look around and, if we need to, run.”

  He stood up with that graceful, lithe movement he had. Then he reached down, took my hand, and pulled me to my feet. Still holding my hand, he began leading me toward the waterfall. “I want you to wait by the entrance until I’ve checked—”

  A figure stepped into the entrance, and just like in some corny movie, he was wielding a gun. It wasn’t anyone I knew, but Lucas stiffened and shoved me behind him. He eased a little closer to the waterfall, then he tried to push me back. “Go out the other side.”

  “Oh, Lucas, do you really want her to miss the party? And where are your manners? Shouldn’t you introduce your brother to your girlfriend?”

  Devlin? This was Devlin? I peered around Lucas for a better look. I thought if it weren’t for all the hatred in his eyes, Devlin might have been handsome. At one time he probably was. What had changed him?

  Lucas emitted a low growl and went very still.

  “Don’t even think about morphing,” Devlin said. “I loaded a silver bullet into the gun. If I shoot you while you’re in wolf form, it’s hopeless—you’ll be dead. Maybe not immediately, but eventually.”

  “I know how silver works. What do you want?”

  “The return of my rightful place as leader of the pack would be nice.”

  “The pack leader serves as leader of the Dark Guardians. He protects the existence of our kind. You led Keane to us.”

  “That’s just a guess on your part, but it so happens that you’re right.”

  “Did you lead them here?”

  “No. Those idiots. I washed my hands of them when they didn’t kill you. They took off in their choppers. I imagine they’ll be back. But I don’t care. They were supposed to do an autopsy on you, study you. Instead they planned to draw blood and swab your mouth. Where’s the fun in that?”

  “You’ve put our entire existence at risk.”

  Devlin released a deep sigh. I kept trying to find even a hint of Lucas in him, but I couldn’t. His hair was only one shade: black. His eyes were a lifeless gray. What had happened to make him the way he was?

  “Our existence was already at risk. There are so few of us left. Do you think any Static female is going to mate with us? God, I hate what we are.”

  “Just because one girl—”

  “One girl? She was everything to me. My own family wouldn’t accept her. She wouldn’t accept me. I shifted to save her life one night when some thugs attacked her in an alley, and all I did was horrify her. Do you know what it is to name your mate and then know you can’t have her? To know you’re destined to spend your life alone and lonely? To always be empty and have no love to fill the void?”

  “I know it was hard—”

  “You don’t know anything! But you will. Before the next full moon, you will. You’ll know what it is to hate what you are. I went to Keane because I wanted to find a cure for what I am. I wanted him to make me normal. Instead he wanted to make everyone like us.”

  “So you’re not working with them?” I asked.

  I felt Lucas stiffen again. I knew he wanted me to quietly disappear, but his brother was dangerous.

  Devlin didn’t answer my question. Instead he said, “If you’re not with her when she shifts for the first time, you could lose her completely. Your heart will break and then you’ll understand my pain.”

  “I’m going to be there for her.”

  “We’ll see.” Devlin began moving slowly into the cave. Lucas turned to face him, pushing me away in the process.

  I don’t know what I was expecting. Maybe I thought they both would shift and go at it. I mean, if Devlin wanted Lucas to suffer, he needed him alive.

  So the explosion echoing through the cavern and Lucas flying backward into the waterfall stunned me, and my instincts took over.

  My horrified scream was lost in the roar of the rushing water as I dove in after him.

  Being a strong swimmer was an advantage when tons of water was crushing down on you. Those rescue lessons I’d taken when I’d worked as a lifeguard didn’t hurt either.

  Any other time I might have marveled at how luminescent the pool was with the moon shining through the clear water, but all my efforts were focused on retrieving Lucas. I wrapped an arm beneath his arm and around his chest before shooting back to the surface. I swam to the edge of the pool, away from the waterfall.

  “Help me, Lucas,” I ordered.

  I heard him groan, felt him trembling, and was aware of his warm blood flowing around me. I tried to push him out of the water. “Lucas, please.”

  With another groan and herculean effort, he surged up and belly flopped onto the grass. I shoved him completely out of the water. Then I hauled myself out and knelt beside him.

  “How bad is it?” I asked.

  “Bad,” he answered through clenched teeth.

  I eased up his T-shirt. With the moonlight and the faint rays of the approaching dawn, I could see the dark ragged hole in his side and the blood flowing from it. I tore off my shirt, leaving just my tank underneath it. I’d tear it off, too, if I had to. I pressed my shirt to his side to try to staunch the river of blood.

  “Are you sure you can’t shift?” I asked. “Just for a few seconds?”

  “If he does, he’ll die.”

  I was startled by Devlin’s voice. I wasn’t sure when he’d joined us, but I should have known he’d want to see his handiwork.

  “He can feel the burning of the silver. He knows I wasn’t lying about the bullet,” Devlin said with satisfaction in his voice. “I don’t want him dead. I just wanted to prevent him from stopping me.”

  “Stopping you from what?”

  He jerked me to my feet and before I could protest, he’d looped and lassoed a rope around my wrists, securing them tightly, then jerking me toward him. “From taking you away.”

  He started pulling me and I dug in my heels. “You’re insane.”

  “According to Nietzsche, ‘There is always some madness in love.’” He glanced over at me and smiled a cruel smile. “I was a philosophy major.”

  “Lucas did what he did to protect the pack. You can’t punish him for that.”

  “Of course I can. What I’m doing only has to make sense to me. That’s the beauty of madness. Now, you don’t want to fight me, because I have more bullets in this gun. Killing you would take you away from him permanently.”

  “I’m going to die anyway. Lucas said I wouldn’t survive if he wasn’t with me.”

  “Guess we’ll find out.”

  He tugged on the rope, pulling me along behind him. I wasn’t afraid of dying. Okay, I was. I was terrified by the thought. I didn’t want to leave Lucas behind, but I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t go easily, but neither did I resist with everything in me.

  I glanced back over my shoulder. Lucas was struggling to his knees. Please don’t follow, I thought. Save yourself. Wait for me.

  I was optimistic that one way or another I could escape and find help for Lucas.

  It wa
s a hard climb up the side of the forested slope that created the basin around the waterfall and pond—especially as my hands were bound. Lucas and I had come in at the bottom of the slope. Devlin wanted to leave from the top.

  I was exhausted when we finally reached our destination. The sky was awash in a reddish orange to herald the new day. From up here, I could see the river that created the powerful waterfall. I had no time or desire to appreciate its magnificence.

  Breathing heavily, I dropped to my knees. “Give me a minute to rest, please.”

  “I forget how little stamina humans have before the first shift.” He was still holding the rope attached to my hands. I wondered if I tugged on it could I jerk him over the edge of the cliff and back into the valley that we’d crawled out of.

  “Lucas is your brother,” I pointed out, panting.

  “Your point?”

  “How can you do this to him?”

  He crouched in front of me. “He challenged me! He took my place as leader. Okay, so maybe I was dancing at the edge of responsibility—but I’d lost Jenny. They could have cut me some slack.”

  “Mason told me that his college roommate—”

  “Yeah, that was me. He was such a geeky kid, in awe of his father. When he started talking about Bio-Chrome, I thought it was destiny.”

  “If you wanted a cure so badly, why not let them experiment on you?”

  “Because I didn’t trust Keane not to portray me for what I am: a freak.” He shrugged. “Besides, I was in the mood for a little revenge.” He stood up and jerked me to my feet. “Now let’s go.”

  I heard a low, threatening growl. There were probably a hundred wolves in this forest, and I had no idea how many Shifters. But I knew before I turned around and saw the familiar multicolored coat of fur that it was Lucas in wolf form. He bared his sharp incisors.

  “Dammit, Lucas, what did you do—dig the bullet out? You are determined to prove yourself, aren’t you? Unfortunately I don’t have any more silver bullets. Do you know how expensive they are?” Devlin shoved me to the ground. I hit with a jarring thud. “So I guess we’ll settle this in the way of our kind.”

  From my position, I could see Lucas’s side. He was still bleeding. Even with the bullet gone, I guessed he couldn’t heal completely. He’d be weaker—

  A shirt flew at me and landed over my face. By the time I could snatch it off, Devlin had shifted and a black wolf was crouched near me. The black wolf I’d seen the night of the beer party. He was larger than Lucas. His teeth seemed longer, sharper.

  Mason had mumbled something about the eyes not changing. I understood what he meant now. Shifters retained their human eyes. I could see Lucas in the silver and the madness that was Devlin in the gray.

  I knew this would be a fight to the death, as it was supposed to have been when Lucas first challenged Devlin’s place as pack leader. I knew Lucas was weak and wounded. I knew Devlin was strong and insane—and there was a certain strength that came with madness. Lucas was risking the loss of everything. Devlin had already lost it all. He risked nothing, and that made him the more dangerous of the two.

  I knew that Devlin had every advantage. That I was likely to lose Lucas, lose what I’d only just discovered.

  I love you.

  The words were just a whisper in my mind. But it was enough. Lucas heard them. His head jerked toward me.

  It was a tactical mistake. As Devlin launched himself at Lucas, I realized that with my words, I’d sentenced Lucas to death.

  FIFTEEN

  With a challenging growl, Lucas catapulted himself toward Devlin.

  Teeth bared, the brothers collided in midair, snarling. Their strong jaws were snapping, and their claws were tearing through fur to reach vulnerable flesh. I could smell the earthy scent of fresh blood on the air, and my nostrils flared in response. Was it because I was that much closer to a full moon and would soon be what they’d become?

  They slammed to the ground, scrambling apart to regroup. They slowly circled, each searching for a weakness—a vulnerability—in the other. Lucas waited, and I knew he was hoarding what little strength he had left. Devlin lunged.

  Lucas sprung to the side. Devlin landed. Lucas pounced onto his back, biting into Devlin’s shoulder. Devlin yelped from pain and maybe surprise, too. Surely he hadn’t expected Lucas to be so aggressive. Devlin bucked, trying to throw Lucas off. Lucas bit Devlin again.

  They rolled. They snapped at each other. They broke apart and came back together. Over and over. I could see Lucas’s strength waning. I kept my eyes on him, wondering what I could do to help and knowing with a sense of helplessness that there was nothing. Tomorrow it might have been a different story; tomorrow I might have been more help, with my first shift behind me. But for now, Lucas had to battle alone.

  I knew Devlin would show no mercy. Devlin would go for his throat if the opportunity presented itself.

  They fought on. Tumbling, one over the other, they were getting closer and closer to the edge of the cliff. They broke apart as though they realized that was the only way to slow their momentum. I tried to blank my mind. I didn’t want Lucas to know how frightened I was for him. I didn’t want to make my previous mistake of distracting him. His breathing was labored, his side coated in blood.

  I clutched Devlin’s shirt only because it was something to hold on to. I glanced over at his discarded pants and saw the gun. I scrambled over to it and lifted it. It was hard to hold with my hands tied, but I managed. My adoptive dad had taken me to the shooting range lots of times. I was pretty good with a gun, if I did say so myself. Even though up until this point, all my targets had been outlines on paper.

  I aimed it, but Lucas was in the way. Was this his battle and his battle alone to fight? Would he hate me for killing his brother? The bullet wasn’t silver. The odds were it wouldn’t kill him, but it might give Lucas a chance. I moved over to the side, hoping for a better angle.

  Devlin launched himself. Lucas sprung up and slammed into Devlin, sending them both careening over the edge of the cliff.

  My scream followed them down.

  Still holding the gun uselessly, I rushed to the edge of the cliff and looked over it. I could see Devlin, partway down, impaled by the broken branch of a tree. He wasn’t moving and he was in human form. I assumed he was dead.

  My heart was thudding painfully in my chest. Where was Lucas?

  Then I saw him, still in wolf form, making his way painfully back up the side of the cliff.

  “No!” I yelled. “Go back down. I’ll meet you at the bottom.”

  But he kept trudging upward until he reached level ground. He trotted over to me. He licked my chin. I wrapped my arms around him, buried my face in his fur, and wept.

  After all that, my mind was blank. I didn’t know what to think, except that maybe he’d welcome the silence.

  When my embarrassing breakdown was finished, I leaned back and looked into his silver eyes that remained the same whether he was wolf or human. “I was so scared. I know he was your brother and you didn’t want to fight him, but he forced you. It’s not your fault he’s dead.”

  He threw back his head and howled. It was the most lonesome sound I’d ever heard. When the echo of his sorrow and pain fell into silence he collapsed against me.

  I didn’t know what to do, but I knew if I couldn’t stop the bleeding in his side, he was going to die.

  His howl had been more than a reflection of his suffering. It had been a call to the others. Within an hour, a dozen wolves had reached us. A black wolf with brown eyes cautiously approached.

  Using Devlin’s shirt, I’d been able to stop the bleeding, but Lucas was too heavy for me to carry anywhere and too exhausted to move himself.

  Lucas lifted his head slightly and I knew he was communicating with the wolf. I also suspected who it was: Rafe, who’d always been Lucas’s second-in-command when we were taking the Keanes into the wilderness. He disappeared down the cliff and into the cavern for several minutes and wh
en he returned, he was in human form and wearing clothes. He took charge.

  The other wolves didn’t seem inclined to reveal their true identities, but when it became apparent that Rafe couldn’t get Lucas into the lair behind the waterfall alone, another wolf stepped forward. His fur was an almost golden hue, his eyes blue. Connor, I realized. He, too, went behind the waterfall and returned clothed and in human form.

  Once we had Lucas back in the cavern and beneath blankets, he shifted. I wouldn’t have expected Shifters to be so modest. Maybe it was only because I wasn’t one of them yet.

  Rafe examined his wound. “Looks like it’s healing slowly.”

  “Yeah, if I go back into wolf form for a few hours, I think it’ll heal enough not to be bothersome.”

  “So why did you shift?” I asked, squeezing his hand.

  He gave me a tired smile. “Because I wanted to talk with you, be there for you.” He touched my cheek. “I know what you’re thinking, but you don’t know what I’m thinking—not yet anyway.”

  I wished Rafe and Connor would leave so I could curl up against Lucas. I just wanted to be alone with him.

  Rafe said, “I’m going to pack some gauze around the wound to slow the bleeding.” He gave Lucas a pointed stare. “You should have called for us as soon as you started running into trouble. You don’t have to face all our problems by yourself.”

  “Think you could chew him out later?” I asked. “He’s really been through enough today.”

  “Do you want Devlin taken back to the village?” Connor asked.

  Lucas nodded. “Yeah, my parents need to know.”

  “We’ll see to him,” Rafe said. He and Connor left.

  I touched his side near the wound. “I can’t believe you dug the bullet out.”

  “It wasn’t that bad. He didn’t hit anything vital. I’m surprised it didn’t go through on its own.”

  “So it’ll heal now?”

  “It’ll take most of the day, and it hurts like a bitch, but I should be okay by tonight.”

  By the time I was supposed to transform.

  “We should both sleep,” he said. “It’s been a rough day and tonight’s going to be challenging.”