01 Six Moon Summer - Seasons of the Moon

by SM Reine

  “Aren’t you mad?”

  “I was at first, but he’s right. I’m a werewolf now, and I can’t change that. But I can change the fact we’re being slaughtered by hunters and kept as trophies. I can make it a better world for us to live in.”

  “It’s wrong for hunters to kill werewolves, but it’s just as wrong to attack all those people and change them against their will. Do you know how many of them will end up dead like Amber?” Rylie asked.

  “Just the weak ones.” Cassidy shrugged. “Who cares?”

  “I do,” she whispered.

  “Then maybe you’re one of the weak ones, too.” She turned her face toward the sky, staring at the invisible moon. A shiver rolled over her body. Rylie could see her skin ripple like water in a pond. “Guess it’s time.”

  The change was horrifying to watch. Cassidy’s jaw and nose burst forward as though they might tear out of her face. Her mouth spread in a long smile. Her teeth grew sharp and her ears became pointed. She screamed, and it sounded like any girl screaming at first—but then it turned into a howl, chilling and sharp in the cool night.

  Rylie backed away slowly, hands covering her mouth. She didn’t want to see it. She didn’t want to know what was going to happen to her.

  Cassidy got down on all fours before her knees snapped and reversed, pulling her shirt over her head with hands that quickly grew wicked claws. Her shredded jeans tore and fell to the ground as her body doubled in size. For a moment, she was a hideous, hairless wolf with a rat-like tail growing from her spine. Then shiny black fur erupted from her bubbling skin.

  Unlike Rylie, who had been more human than animal on the last moon, Cassidy looked like a demon. Her eyes glowed red. Her teeth were jagged and sharp. She smelled rancid, like Jericho, but a thousand times worse.

  Suddenly, Rylie recalled the last time she had turned. Two werewolves. Cassidy had been the smaller one all along. She remembered the wolf’s bloody face.

  Cassidy had killed Amber. It hadn’t been Rylie at all.

  Her momentary relief was quickly overwhelmed by fear. Cassidy had killed and she didn’t seem to feel any remorse about it. Now she was staring at Rylie with glowing red eyes, and she looked hungry.

  Words from The Legends of Gray Mountain came to mind: In the early years, he is the most mindless, the hungriest, and he knows insatiable hunger.

  “Cassidy,” Rylie said. “Don’t hurt me.”

  She didn’t show any signs of recognition.

  Cassidy was gone.

  Rylie ran.

  She heard the giant wolf follow, claws scrabbling against the ground. Rylie found speed within her that she didn’t know she had.

  Trees flashed past. She let her animal instincts guide her rather than her conscious human mind.

  Tremors began to spread over her limbs. The dark forest was trying to strip away her human flesh. Her heart beat faster as she ran harder, and her blood burned through her arteries.

  She recognized the fever. The weakness.

  The moon was calling her, too.

  Cassidy yipped and growled as she chased. She was close.

  Rylie was afraid, but the animal within was angry. The wolf wasn’t prey. The wolf was a predator, and it was being challenged by another. It knew Cassidy. This wasn’t the first time it had run from her, but it wanted it to be the last.

  She swept a heavy branch off the ground and spun, swinging with all her might.

  Crack! It connected with Cassidy’s face.

  The werewolf yelped and fell back. Rylie advanced on her, swinging again. Cassidy caught the branch in her jaws. She jerked it out of Rylie’s hands and nearly pulled her off her feet.

  Rylie dove toward the branch, but Cassidy got in her way. Her red eyes burned.

  A twig cracked behind her. Cassidy looked away for just an instant, but it was long enough.

  Rylie hauled a boulder off the ground. She shouldn’t have been able to pick it up, but it felt as light as her school bag.

  She smashed it into Cassidy’s head.

  The same fast healing that kept Rylie healthy and whole worked just as well for Cassidy. She recovered quickly and snapped at Rylie. Her jaws grazed her arm, shredding the skin.

  “Stop it! You don’t have to do this!” Rylie cried. The werewolf sniffed the air as though her pungent blood was enticing. She pressed a hand to the wound to try to stave the flow. “It’s not too late, Cassidy. You don’t have to be bad!”

  It was a lie. Rylie knew it had been too late the instant Cassidy killed Amber. But it made her falter.

  Rylie didn’t give her the chance to think twice about it.

  Jumping on Cassidy’s back, Rylie wrapped her arms around the thick fur at her neck. The werewolf shrieked and bucked, twisting to bite at Rylie’s legs. She shut her eyes and hung on as tightly as she could.

  It was just like riding one of the friskier horses at her aunt’s ranch. The thought was so absurd Rylie almost laughed.

  Instead, she squeezed tighter, pressing her fists into Cassidy’s trachea.

  Cassidy’s thrashing grew weaker. She staggered.

  With a final burst of energy, Cassidy slammed her body sideways into the tree. Rylie couldn’t hold on. Her hands slipped free.

  The werewolf tore away from her, spinning with a growl. Her eyes were darker than before.

  Rylie could see her death in them.

  Scrambling to her feet, she tried to run again. Her foot caught on a root. Her ankle twisted and broke with a snap. Crying out, Rylie collapsed.

  She tried to get up, but she wasn’t fast enough.

  Cassidy leapt.

  A shot rang out.

  Her body jerked in midair, then struck Rylie. It knocked them both to the ground. Rylie shrieked, anticipating the tearing pain of claws and teeth.

  But Cassidy didn’t attack once Rylie was flattened. She was a dead weight.

  “Oh my God,” Rylie whispered. “Oh my God.”

  She pushed the body off of her and slid out from underneath. Her ankle burned as the broken bones quickly knit. Her hands were bloodstained.

  Seth stood at the edge of the clearing, his rifle aimed. He hurried forward and put himself between Rylie and Cassidy. The muzzle stayed trained on her skull the entire time in case she moved again, but Rylie knew it wasn’t necessary. Seth’s first bullet had done the job. Cassidy was dead.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, reaching down to squeeze Rylie’s hand.

  “I’m alive.” Her voice was shaking. She grasped her ankle between both hands as it burned and throbbed with supernatural healing.

  He knelt by Cassidy’s body, slinging his rifle over his shoulder. “It’s smaller than I expected,” Seth said with a frown. He held his hand up to her paw, spreading his fingers out to judge the size. “I’m sure I found bigger prints.”

  “This isn’t the only one. She’s not Jericho, he’s…” A huge, hulking form rose behind Seth, and Rylie’s eyes widened. “Seth! Behind you!”

  He spun, but he couldn’t raise his gun in time.

  Jericho slammed into Seth, taking them both to the ground. Seth’s head bounced on a rock. He gave a sharp cry and fell silent.

  Rylie’s heart skipped a beat. “No!”

  Biting down on Seth’s calf, Jericho turned at the sound. There was more intelligence in his eyes than there had been for Cassidy. She was nuts, but he knew exactly what he was doing. He was just as human as he was monster, and that was even more terrifying than the younger werewolf had been.

  “Let him go,” Rylie ordered, voice trembling. She got up, keeping her weight on her good ankle.

  Jericho growled, baring his teeth around Seth’s leg, and he backed away without dropping it.

  It was a challenge. He was daring her to follow him, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to take him on unless she was a wolf, too—and once she changed, she probably wouldn’t want to fight him.

  In the early years, he is the most mindless, the hungriest, and he knows insatiable hunger
…

  Rylie couldn’t let Jericho take Seth. She moved to follow, but a strange feeling seized her when she stepped out of the shelter of the trees. It was a strong, low cramping in her chest and belly.

  The transformation.

  “No,” she whispered.

  As she watched, ripples ran down her skin and left goose bumps in their wake. It was like the fur was growing inside of her. It was fighting to push its way out.

  Claws erupted from her fingertips, and Rylie shut her fists tight. She squeezed her eyes closed.

  Focusing on her mental image of her own reflection—a leggy, pale girl with blonde hair and blue eyes, not gold like the wolf—she fought to concentrate on everything human.

  Her clothes. The city. Her mom’s condo. School.

  When she opened her eyes again, her skin had stopped rippling.

  She stared at her hands until her claws grew thin and became fingernails again.

  Rylie forced herself to take deep even breaths. She wasn’t going to become something evil. Seth wanted her to fight it, so she would.

  Even if it left her helpless to save him.

  Twenty

  The Third Werewolf

  Failure.

  Rylie sat beneath the boulder, hugging her knees to her chest. She could feel the moon fighting against everything that made her human to free the beast inside. She shivered and poured sweat at the same time. Her teeth chattered. She dug her fingernails into her shins to keep holding on.

  Seth was at Jericho’s mercy. She was the only one who could save him, but she was a failure, crying helplessly in the darkness.

  She forced herself to her feet and stumbled back to camp. Everyone was still locked in the recreation room. By the time she found the mess hall, she could barely see through the moon’s haze clouding her vision.

  Even though the moon was dark, it felt like she burst with its silver light. Rylie’s veins pulsed with its fire. It pressed against her bones, straining against her muscles and fighting to break free of her flesh.

  A wolf howled on the mountain. Jericho was taunting her. He wanted her to change.

  “No,” she whimpered through grit teeth. “No.”

  Rylie was burning up. The fire was going to consume her.

  She shut the door to the mess hall and wrapped her arms around her body. There was nothing she could do now but wait for morning.

  And why not? Everyone was safe.

  Everyone… except Seth.

  “He’s a werewolf hunter,” she whispered to the darkened mess. “He would kill me. I shouldn’t…” A spasm rocked her, and she groaned, shutting her eyes. “…I shouldn’t even care about him.”

  But she did.

  She dug her nails into the windowsill and pressed her forehead against the glass. It was Seth’s voice that called to her from within. Fight it…

  It was what he wanted. He didn’t want her to risk herself by saving him. Rylie was just following his orders.

  Fight it…

  With her eyes shut, she could almost make out her dad’s face. It was broad and friendly. He was smiling at her even though she was becoming something terrible.

  What would he want her to do? Would he want her to hide when she could save someone’s life?

  Rylie remembered sitting with him on their porch swing the week before camp started. His arm was warm over her shoulders and they were sharing a bag of popcorn.

  “You’re strong, pumpkin,” he told her, giving her shoulders a gentle squeeze. “Stronger than your mother and me combined. I need you to be brave this summer. It’s only going to get harder before it gets better.”

  She had been angry at the time. How could she be brave when her world was falling apart? Rylie felt like she was losing her family, and it was the worst thing she could have imagined.

  That was before Camp Silver Brook and the attack. Before she found out there were worse things to lose than her parent’s marriage.

  I need you to be brave.

  He wouldn’t have wanted Rylie to hide.

  “I don’t want to be evil, dad,” she whispered.

  He was replaced in her mind by Louise. Not the awful, mangled body she had seen earlier that night—the smiling counselor that reminded her of a gym teacher.

  She recalled their conversation the night Rylie stole the keys to the SUV. The werewolf thing—that was a deal between the humans and the animal gods. It was a blessing meant to bring man and nature together. It ended the war.

  Somehow, Rylie didn’t think that Louise would have thought her to be evil.

  But how could it be a blessing?

  She considered the question. Being bitten by a werewolf had made her stronger. She wasn’t the weak, whining thing she had been at the beginning of the summer. Three months of partial transformations might have been difficult, but it had also made her a better person. Rylie liked who she was becoming.

  Maybe she wouldn’t go home. She didn’t want to anyway, since she couldn’t go home to her dad or any of her friends, who had to know what happened at The South Den by now.

  Rylie could move away and live alone using her father’s money. She could make her own future.

  And now Seth was in danger. Maybe he would hunt her, but maybe he wouldn’t. It didn’t change anything about the time they had spent together. He was a good person at the core—better than Jericho. Rylie loved him. It was crazy to love someone sworn to kill you, but she couldn’t help it.

  Seth wasn’t just the only good thing about camp. He was the best thing left in her life.

  He would die if she didn’t intervene, and the only way she could save him was by embracing the wolf.

  She opened the door and stepped into the night air, facing the peak where Jericho must have taken Seth. They would be at the top, at the temple where the animals communed with the gods. Rylie was sure of it.

  “I’m going to save him,” Rylie said. She wasn’t sure who she wished could hear her—Seth, Louise, or her dad.

  For the first time in weeks, she didn’t feel alone.

  Rylie stripped off her clothes and let go.

  At first, it seemed like nothing would happen. All the muscles in her body relaxed. The piercing pain in her skull subsided.

  Instead of the wolf fighting its way out, Rylie felt like her human self melted away, allowing the beast to emerge. The bones of her skull crunched and cracked. The skin stretched over her protruding jaw. Fur blossomed down her shoulders.

  The mind of the animal came to the forefront, numbing the pain as her knees reversed and her spine elongated. It’s not as bad as you thought, Seth, she wanted to say, but Rylie no longer had lips with which to speak.

  She waited to disappear from herself and fade into the background of a wild mind as she had on every moon beforehand.

  It didn’t happen.

  The wolf was there. It processed the overwhelming input from smells and sounds as it licked its paws and considered the human blood splashed on the ground. But Rylie was there, too. She thought the same thoughts and felt the same things.

  It took her a moment to realize that Rylie and the wolf were one and the same. They weren’t separate creatures at all.

  She didn’t have time to examine her new, full-wolf body, or how strong and hungry she felt. She couldn’t fear for her humanity. She couldn’t wonder what was going to happen to her on every moon to come. Rylie focused on the thing that had inspired her in the first place: Seth. She needed to save Seth.

  Throwing back her head, she loosed a howl that she knew Jericho would hear.

  I am coming.

  The peak of the mountain was draped in darkness.

  Seth struggled toward consciousness as he was dragged across the ground. His leg was in so much pain it had gone numb. His rifle dragged behind him by the shoulder strap, and dirt inched past his face. Mud smeared up his cheek and into his hair.

  He tried to focus his bleary eyes. The haze of pain almost kept him from making out the massive teeth clamped on his leg
and the feeling of immense pressure where jaws pressed his armor against him.

  Seth was a few layers of fabric away from being cursed.

  He reached for his gun. His head swam and his hands were clumsy, so he couldn’t grip anything. Jericho pulled him onto a stone surface and released Seth’s leg, then took the rifle in his mouth and tossed it aside.