Midsummer's Moon

by Megan Derr

  Peter was lying. Lowell knew it immediately. Something in what he said was not true, but the look in Peter's eyes gave him pause. He let Peter keep speaking.

  "The wolf came after us," Peter said quietly. "We couldn't find our siblings or parents, so we started running for my house. I guess Connor showed up at some point in there, because he saw what happened next…sort of…"

  He looked toward his brother, who glared hatefully back – but did not speak.

  "I tripped," Peter said. "A branch, a root, I don't know what it was, but I tripped on it and groped blindly for balance – accidentally grabbing Anita. The wolf lunged then, and wound up biting her."

  "Instead of you!" Connor suddenly snarled. "You didn't trip. You grabbed her and threw her in the wolf's path so you could get away."

  Lowell spun around and snarled. "I said be silent, mongrel, unless you want to feel the full force of my anger."

  Connor stared at him, eyes wide. "What are you?"

  "He's purebred," Peter said quietly. "A purebred alpha."

  "How can someone that small be an alpha?"

  "How can something so big and pretty be so stupid?" Lowell retorted. "Be quiet."

  Connor snapped his mouth shut and stood silent.

  Lowell growled a low approval and turned back to Peter. "So what happened?"

  "She was infected by the bite," Peter said tiredly. "She didn't take well to it, not at all. In theory, she should have…but for reasons unknown it was simply too much for her. At the next full moon, she turned into a wolf and went completely crazy. She badly wounded both my mother and me…"

  Peter's face contorted with pain. "My mother died…and I took a long time to heal…and when the next full moon came around, I did not change." He stared at the ground. "No one could ever forgive me that." He looked at his brother, who stared hatefully back. Turning away, Peter stared off into the woods, voice barely audible as he resumed speaking. "My father couldn't bear to live without my mother…he wasted away after a few months. My uncle and aunt could not stand to be here anymore, and they hated the sight of me. So too my cousin and big brother. Six months after Anita was bitten, everyone but me moved away, and since then no werewolves have lived in Midsummer."

  "You're trying to find a cure so there are no more Anita's," Lowell said.

  "Yes," Peter said softly.

  "Liar," Stacey said hatefully. "You torture werewolves and make empty promises about cures because you want to be a werewolf yourself."

  Peter flinched, and did not say anything.

  "So what?" Lowell asked. He refused to be nervous, refused to be his stupid timid self. No. His mate needed him, that was all that mattered. He knew what it was like to be hated and feared, he wouldn't permit these foolish wolves to treat his mate that way. Not in his territory. "Most werewolves want to be human. Why do you hate a human for wanting to be a werewolf, when all the people he loves are werewolves and he is not? You hold his humanity against him, yet also hate him for wanting to fit in?"

  "He's the reason my sister is dead," Antonio snarled. "He let her get bitten, when if he had taken the bite all would have been fine."

  Lowell glared at him. "No one knew that at the time."

  "Yet if he wanted so badly to be a wolf," Connor broke in coldly, "why not let the wolf bite him?"

  "We were children," Peter said, voice full of pain. "It was an accident. We were scared and running in the dark, Connor. I tripped. That was all. Anita never hated me for it, so why do you? Why…why was she so willing to forgive me, and the rest of you were only willing to hate me?"

  He closed his eyes, reaching up to pinch the space between them, the gesture pushing his glasses up. "Everyone but mother and Anita hated me after that, and it was just a fucking accident."

  Lowell ached to hold him close, to banish Peter's pain in whatever way he could.

  Instead he forced himself to focus. He was an alpha, that meant he had to do something to fix all this, right?

  "Why are you here?" he asked. "If you're only here to cause more pain, or because you listened to him, then leave." He looked at Stacey. "You are fortunate you are not already dead. Peter keeps me from doing it, because it would make him unhappy were I to kill you, but I was not bluffing when I said I would. Do you understand me, wolf?"

  "Yes," Stacey snarled, and Lowell was gratified to see that he did in fact seem a bit pale.

  Lowell turned to Connor. "Tell me why you are here."

  "Because he's hurting other wolves, making empty promises of cures."

  "No," Lowell said. "He never said anything except that he was trying to make a cure. The wolves who helped him grew impatient and angry and left. That one," he pointed to Stacey, "was also his lover, though he did not deserve to be, and broke it off because Peter did not develop the cure as quickly as Stacey though he should. So Stacey went around telling every werewolf he saw that Peter had a cure. Stacey is the liar, not Peter."

  Connor was silent.

  Antonio stirred. "He has no fucking right to meddle. Everything would have been better if he'd been the one bitten that night. It's his fault my sister is dead, and now he's making more suffer." He glared hatefully at Peter. "Why did you have to be a freak? Why is she dead while you're still alive?"

  Peter said nothing, merely continued to stare miserably at the ground.

  "Why are you such jerks?" Lowell demanded. "You're family. You were all a bunch of kids. I don't understand it." He balled his hands into fists. "All my life I've been homeless, unwanted, a fucking freak no matter how hard I tried to work or how nice I tried to be. No one wanted me, no one would give me a chance. I knew nothing about my own damned Lycanthropy until I came here." At least he'd finally remembered the stupid word. "I didn't know werewolves could have real families and stuff. Yet the first family I learn about….and you're all torn apart because of stupidity and childhood and mistakes."

  He licked his lips, refusing to be nervous, not when Peter hurt so badly. "You should understand better than anyone about being a freak, about not being able to control everything…yet you hurt the person who most needs you, who always loved you…and still does. He has the pictures in his room, he never forgot any of you, and here you come to be total assholes. I've been beaten up by cops who are nicer than you three."

  Connor and Antonio remained unmoved, and beside them Stacey was looking entirely too smug.

  "Fine," Lowell said quietly. "If you will not listen to reason, then you will learn the hard way.

  He licked his lips again, and wondered who it was speaking – surely not him. Had he ever talked this much in his entire life? When had he gotten so damned bossy and stuff? 'Werewolf Suffers From Split Personalities; At Least Three Have Introduced Themselves.'

  Swallowing, hands still fisted at his side, he turned to Peter. Oh, he really fucking hated himself for this. He couldn't ignore his instincts however, not when he was this riled – and it was more than a little disconcerting that more and more he was getting comfortable with his instincts, with…being an alpha, he guessed. 'Wolf Goes To Bed Wuss, Wakes up Badass; Experts Mystified.'

  "Peter," he said quietly. "Tell the truth."

  "No," Peter said, eyes dark and pleading behind the glasses. "I promised. Please, Low…"

  Lowell shook his head, feeling awful but he would not back down, no matter how much he loved his mate. "I'm ordering you to tell the truth. I know you were lying about what happened that night."

  "Oh, please," Antonio said.

  "Be quiet," Lowell bellowed, turning around. "I grow tired of your defiance, mongrel. Disobey me one more time and I will rip your tongue out. Do you understand me?"

  "Y-yeah," Antonio stuttered, clearly taken aback.

  Lowell growled. "I said, do you understand me?"

  Antonio swallowed, then slowly nodded. "Yes."

  "Yes, what?" Lowell asked softly, but coldly.

  "Yes, master," Antonio said.

  Growling again, he turned back to Peter, reaching up to snag the
front of his shirt, yanking him close, tugging him down to kiss Peter hard, wishing he were better at it – but it was enough. "Tell the truth," he repeated.

  Peter nodded, looking sick. "It…it wasn't a strange wolf that attacked us." He spoke haltingly, as though it were difficult to say each word. "We were playing in a favorite field, waiting for Toni and Connor to show up. We saw Toni, finally, and ran toward him…"

  He looked away, making a rough sound. "Something was wrong with him. He growled at us, but in a mean way, not his usual playful way… We got scared and started running. He chased us…"

  "What?" Antonio demanded – then fell silent at a look from Lowell.

  Peter kept talking, the words coming faster now, as if suddenly he could not stop, like water from a broken dam. "I tripped, he wound up biting Anita…then Connor showed up, and he was acting funny too, though not as badly as Toni… My mother found us shortly thereafter. After everyone was in bed, I sat in the living room unable to sleep. She asked me what happened, and told me that she'd smelled wolfsbane on Toni and Connor. Especially on Toni. She said it was what made them go crazy, made Toni so scary and violent…and that likely neither of them would remember much, if anything, come morning."

  He made a sound like a choked-off sob. "The next day, she went off to find the wolfsbane and destroy it. She made me promise not to tell anyone, explaining that there was likely going to be enough pain for everyone without telling them about the wolfsbane. It was an accident, she said, and children shouldn't be punished for accidents."

  As his words faded away, Peter reached up to press at his eyes, again shoving up his glasses, and this time Lowell could see he was fighting tears.

  Still holding fast to Peter with one hand, he turned back to the silent, pale-faced werewolves.

  "Would you like to speak now?" he asked quietly.

  "That can't be," Antonio said, shouting the words, voice shaky. "I would never hurt my little sister. He's a liar!"

  "No," Lowell said sharply. "He speaks the truth, I know he does and you know I do not lie. Tell me that you realize this, mongrels. Now!"

  "You're speaking the truth," Connor said, a choking sound to the words, his own eyes as dark now as Peter's had been throughout the conversation. He looked at his brother. "Oh, god, you're telling the truth."

  Antonio sank to the ground, holding himself tight, looking ill and close to tears. "I killed my own sister…oh my god…I killed my own sister…it's my fault everything went to hell." He began to sob, burying his face in his hands.

  Connor moved toward him and knelt, resting a hand on Antonio's shoulder – catching the hand that tried to shove him away, yanking Antonio close. "It was wolfsbane, Toni…not…" He stared hard at the ground, holding Antonio tightly, then slowly looked up at his brother. "It was an accident."

  Peter nodded, then turned away and strode into the house.

  Lowell looked at Connor. "Leave, all three of you. Come back when you are willing to act like pack." He looked at Stacey. "You are not welcome here. If I or the drinker ever senses your presence, you will be killed. Is that understood?"

  Stacey nodded, and fumbled for his car keys, struggling to get in the car without tearing his eyes from Lowell.

  He watched in silence as all three of them slowly got into the car, refusing to feel or say or do anything until they were well out of sight and the only scent of them was the lingering traces that would fade in time.

  Then he bolted for the house, racing up the stairs and into Peter's bedroom. Peter lay on his back on the bed, an arm thrown over his face.

  Lowell sat down on the edge of the bed, feeling sick and guilty and worried and hurting that Peter was in so much pain and he was the reason. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. Because he was sorry for causing Peter pain – but he wasn't sorry he'd forced the truth.

  "I promised her I wouldn't tell," Peter said, slowly dragging his arm away, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. "I promised her that night, and again later when she was dying. She didn't want things to be worse."

  He couldn't stand it. Moving on instinct, on the need to comfort, Lowell lay down alongside Peter and held him close. "It wasn't fair of her to make you promise," he said. "You were just a kid, yeah? You were all kids."

  "But he shouldn't have to live with the fact he bit her," Peter said quietly.

  "No," Lowell said, growling the words. "A good wolf accepts responsibility for his actions. He bit her, that was his mistake to bear – but it was her choice to endure or not. She was a weak wolf, and that is no one's fault but hers."

  "Maybe…" Peter said, clearly unconvinced.

  Lowell held him tight. What could he say? He knew things, and yet did not know them. Instinct only carried him so far. He was a wolf, but also a stupid homeless kid who didn't know anything.

  Things should have gone differently all those years ago…but they hadn't. It wasn't fair that Peter be the only one to suffer, when he was apparently the one least responsible for anything.

  "Are you mad at me?" he asked quietly.

  Peter sighed softly. "I want to be…but…I was tired of holding the secret in…I just hate to see anyone in pain…"

  "You shouldn't be in pain either," Lowell said. "Maybe everything will start to get better now."

  "I hope so," Peter replied. "I—I just want my family back. Our parents are dead, but I know my aunt and uncle…and my brother…Toni…we used to be so close and they all hated me after that and I promised my mother—"

  Lowell kissed him, heart beating fiercely in his chest. Beneath his hands, braced on Peter's chest, he could feel Peter's heart beating just as fast. His mouth was warm and willing, though, a desperate edge to the kiss.

  One kiss turned into another, and gradually they shifted in tone from simple comfort to genuine heat. When at last they broke apart, Lowell felt hot and almost dizzy – and more than a little relieved that the light was back in Peter's eyes.

  "A pity the circumstances were so grim," Peter said, familiar smile curving his mouth. "You are more than a little distracting when you are acting all alpha, Low."

  Lowell flushed. "Uh, that's good, 'cause, um, I seem to, uh, like doing it?"

  Peter laughed softly, hands moving to wrap around Lowell's waist, and Lowell about expired on the spot as he was pulled from lying alongside to Peter to fully atop him. He shifted, straddling Peter's legs, arms falling to rest awkwardly on either side of Peter's head. "How was I lucky enough to get you?" Peter asked.

  "You, um, saved a drowning wolf from the rain?" Lowell answered. "I think I'm the lucky one, really." He licked his lips. "Maybe we're, um, really good for each other? Cause you know everything and I know nothing…and I'm good at making jerks go away and leave you alone, yeah?"

  "Yeah," Peter said, the words little more than a whisper, his smile gentle and fond, arms a pleasant weight.

  Lowell smiled back, and leaned down to kiss him again, barely able to believe everything was real and likely to stay that way. 'Werewolf Finds Happiness, World Cheers.'

  About the Author

  A homeless werewolf travels to the town of Midsummer's Night, following a rumor that a doctor there has developed a cure for the lycanthropy that has always been the bane of his existence. But the cure he discovers is the very thing he ever expected to find...

  This is Book 1 of the Midsummer series.