Wolf Moon

by A. D. Ryan

  “You’re wondering how, aren’t you?” I didn’t say anything. His sinister smile broadened as his hands moved to my hips, pulling me against him. I contained a sob, but let the quiver in my chin slip by as I turned my face away from his. Slowly, his hands moved up my sides, brushing the swell of my breasts before gliding up my shoulders and caressing my neck. His thumb pressed hard into my chin while his hands tightened, and he forced my gaze back to his.

  “After the last time you and I had words,” he began to explain, “I stopped eating the food. Flushed it. Sure, I got hungry, but my body started to feel stronger regardless of the hunger pains once the effects of the nitrate started to flush out of my system. I knew the two of you would have to deal with me sooner rather than later, so all I had to do was lie in wait for it to happen.” His expression hardened, and his hands tightened painfully around my neck, cutting off my air flow.

  My hands flew up and started clawing at his wrists and forearms before I closed them into fists and tried to punch him. As my body was deprived of oxygen, my strength waned, and the room started to darken again.

  “Did you really think I would accept a coward’s death? Suicide? There’s no honor there… And being kicked out of a pack is even worse.”

  “Th-they’ll never let you stay…” I rasped, trying to swallow beneath his death grip “…af-after this.”

  Karl leaned in perilously close to my face, letting his bearded jaw brush against mine before dragging his tongue along my skin toward my earlobe. “Maybe not,” he whispered roughly. “But I’ll leave on my own terms, and other weres won’t think twice about fucking with me again. The reputation I have won’t be one of a neutered stray who’s been released from his pack. I’ll be able to claim land and no one will contest it out of fear of what I might do.”

  My lungs burned, my limbs tingled until they went numb, and the world started to slip away as my vision darkened. I forced my thoughts to my parents, wished I could have seen them one last time, and then I thought of David. If this was the end for me, would I be reunited with him again? Was that how it worked? Was Heaven a real place?

  Nick’s face appeared in the darkness just then, and I wondered if he’d be far behind once Karl had finished with me.

  There was a loud SNAP, and just as quickly as the lights had started to dim, my lungs filled with air and my eyes flew open. I coughed and inhaled deeply, trying to get as much oxygen in my body as I could after having been deprived it. As my senses retuned, I looked ahead of me to find a wide-eyed Karl, his mouth agape. I had no idea what had happened at first, but as he slowly sank to the floor, I understood all too well.

  There, in Karl’s place, was Nick. He looked unsteady on his feet, his right arm folded across his ribcage and his face bruised and bloodied thanks to Karl. The swelling above his left eye had forced it to close partially, and blood dripped from the cut in that eyebrow, likely obscuring his vision. His split lip had stopped bleeding, but based on the amount of blood on his neck and the front of his shirt, I could only assume that the cut had been pretty deep before his rapid werewolf healing had kicked in.

  I stood there in shock for a second, trying to find my bearings and catch my breath as I registered what exactly had happened, and when I looked down, I saw Karl’s head bent at an unnatural angle.

  Chapter 27 | contrition

  Neither of us said a word. The look on Nick’s face as we stood in silence was a combination of fear, concern, relief, and oddly, remorse and shame. When the intense energy in the room started to dissipate, he took a step toward me, stumbling because his legs were still weak from the beating he had taken only moments before. I rushed forward and wrapped my arms around his waist, trying to hold him up. Unfortunately, his weight was too much for me to bear, so I lowered us to the ground as gently as possible.

  All the fear I’d been feeling finally started to expel itself, and I hadn’t even realized I was crying until Nick brought a hand up and brushed the tears from my cheek with his thumb. He held me in his arms, kissing the top of my head. “You’re okay,” he whispered, his voice weak and wavering.

  I pressed myself as close to him as possible without thinking. It wasn’t until he groaned and his body protested my actions that I realized just how tightly I was holding him and how severely he’d been injured. “I’m sorry,” I said through the tears, trying to loosen my hold on him. He didn’t release me, though. He refused to, even when I tried to pull away out of consideration. Instead, his fingers threaded into my hair and he inhaled deeply.

  I figured he must have been just as scared as I was about what could have happened to either of us…to both of us.

  Filled with relief that we were okay, I lost track of how much time had passed. I could only take comfort in the fact that we were both alive. It wasn’t until Marcus found us in the room with Karl’s dead body that I learned it had been about an hour since we’d narrowly escaped death.

  He didn’t say a word as he assessed the situation, looking from us to Karl’s body. I feared Marcus’ wrath as he looked down at Karl’s lifeless body, eyes wide and hand gripping his dark hair. His jaw clenched as he stepped back, and I was about to tell him what happened—that this was all in self-defense—but he never gave me the chance.

  “Jax, Vince!” he shouted up the stairs. “I need you down in the pit.”

  Within minutes, they were downstairs. Jackson stopped in his tracks so suddenly, Vince almost bowled him over. He saw Karl, and then his eyes moved to Nick and me. “Shit,” he mumbled. “What the hell happened down here?”

  The events that led us here flashed in my mind again, and I tried to push it away. I wasn’t sure how to explain it—how to justify it. Thankfully, I didn’t have to.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Marcus interjected. “Whatever happened was within the parameters of Pack Law.” With a look of disgust, he nudged Karl’s lifeless body with his foot. “He had this coming.”

  One look into Marcus’ eyes, and I could see that there was no anger. No judgment. He only looked at us as though this was the outcome he expected, given the circumstances. Even Jackson and Vince appeared to accept it as they hoisted Karl’s body up and carried it up the stairs.

  Alone with Marcus, he turned to us. “Why don’t the two of you head upstairs,” he suggested. “We’ll take care of this.” He eyed Nick, worried once he observed his condition. “I’ll send Miranda right up to check on your wounds.”

  Nick finally released me, and I climbed to my feet, extending a hand to him. He took it, and I used more strength than I expected helping him up. His limbs shook with exertion as he stood, and I wrapped an arm around his waist and tried to support most of his weight with my own to keep us both upright. He was in rough shape, and I was more than a little concerned.

  Climbing the three flights of stairs to our bedroom wasn’t easy, but we finally made it. I sat Nick on the edge of the bed and was just turning away to grab a warm wash cloth from the bathroom when he grabbed my wrist and pulled me back to him. I stood between his legs, looking down on his bloodied and slowly swelling face. It broke my heart to see the conflict in his eyes, and I wished I could take it all away.

  “I’ll be right back,” I assured him, brushing his blood-matted hair from his forehead. “I’m just going to grab a cloth to clean you up a little before Miranda arrives.”

  Nick brought a shaky hand up and stroked my sore neck, tears filling his eyes. One escaped, leaving a trail through the blood and dirt on his cheek. “God, Brooke,” he murmured. “I thought…”

  “Shhh,” I soothed, running a hand over his cheek. “We’re fine.”

  Nick’s brow furrowed, and his gaze fell from mine, turning distant and empty. “What I did… What you must think of me…”

  “You had no choice. He caught us both by surprise.” I was surprised at just how quickly I’d accepted what happened. Especially considering how conflicted I’d been all this time. Whatever the reason, I couldn’t allow myself to dwell on it long, so I focuse
d on him. “Come on. Miranda should be up here soon. Let’s take your shirt off so she can assess the damage.”

  Nick moved to lift his arms while I gripped the hem of his shirt, but he hissed and instantly gave up when his rib cage protested. “Shit,” he muttered, his face contorted into one of excruciating pain.

  “It’s okay,” I soothed. “Don’t push yourself. We’ll find another way.” The collar of his shirt had a tear in it from the fight, and since he couldn’t lift his arms, I figured there was really only one other way. I gripped the shirt on either side of the rip and tugged carefully. The fabric split easily, and I slowly slid it down his arms. He was able to remove it without too much discomfort from there.

  The bruising on his upper body was alarming, but I tried to keep my surprise contained so Nick wouldn’t pick up on it. Either his injuries weren’t as severe as they appeared, or he was ignoring them completely, because he looked up at me and smirked.

  “Always looking for a reason to rip my clothes off,” he quipped weakly, leaning back on his hands and looking down at his ribs. I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped. Suddenly everything seemed marginally better. Nick was acting like his usual self, always making a bad situation seem just a little less awful.

  When he winced through his laughter, it sobered me in an instant. “It’s bad, isn’t it?” I didn’t mask the worry from my voice.

  Nick nodded. “It hurts,” he replied, “but I can feel it starting to heal already.”

  I sat next to him. “Will it take long?”

  Nick took a breath, careful not to inhale too deeply. “Tough to say. Cuts and scrapes heal within hours… Internal injuries? They can take days, sometimes weeks if they’re bad enough.”

  “And these? How bad are we talking?”

  Footsteps drew our attention to the doorway where Miranda stood with a bag of medical supplies in her hands. “Answer her,” she instructed. “That way I know what to expect.”

  Miranda sat on the other side of Nick and ran her fingers over his ribs lightly. He flinched, but allowed her to continue her examination. “Broken ribs,” he began. “Possible internal bleeding.”

  “Nick, that’s serious. Maybe you should go to a hospital,” I interrupted, worried because I knew that internal bleeding was potentially fatal.

  Nick shook his head. “The rate at which we heal usually takes care of what happens beneath the surface. It’s not the first time I’ve punctured a lung or some other organ.”

  “Usually isn’t always,” I pointed out. “This could still take a bad turn.”

  Miranda grabbed some gauze and soaked it in some alcohol to begin cleaning some of the cuts and scrapes on his skin. She’d tended to my wounds in the past, but it wasn’t until that moment that I realized how her hands moved. It was familiar to her; like she’d done this sort of thing hundreds of times.

  She caught me staring at her in awe, Miranda smiled. “I was a nurse, right up until I had Cordelia.” Mentioning her lost daughter must have stung, because her eyes lost a little bit of their usual glimmer. “Anyway, we’ll monitor him closely. If the internal injuries don’t heal correctly, there’ll be some pain, maybe some lightheadedness, and some very distinct bruising. Should that happen, I assure you we’re more than prepared to handle any medical situation that comes our way.”

  As she rattled off the list of symptoms and things to watch out for, I told myself I knew this. This was all stuff I’d learned while on the force. I felt a little better knowing she was equipped to care for Nick medically, even if there was still a risk.

  “I’ll wrap his ribcage,” Miranda informed us as she pulled a stethoscope out of the little black bag and placed it on Nick’s back. “Take a deep breath in.” He did as he was instructed, and she listened before moving it over to the other side. “And again.” He inhaled once more, his face screwing up in pain as his ribs expanded. “Everything sounds clear, which means you likely didn’t puncture a lung. I’ll clean, stitch, and bandage any cuts that require it, and then the two of you should rest. Your bodies will heal faster if you’re not expending your energy. Sleep. Let your bodies do what they’re meant to do.”

  After she was done bandaging Nick up, she looked me over. My neck was bruised and there was a small contusion on the back of my head from when Karl pushed me against the bars. She removed several bits of fabric from my back where the silver had burned me through my shirt and applied a little salve to my skin. It stung at first, but was then cool and soothing.

  “Keep an eye on each other’s conditions and call for me should you need anything. I’ll bring something to eat up in a bit. But, for now, rest.”

  Resting wasn’t too difficult; turned out, Nick and I were mentally and physically drained. The difficulty was in the days that followed.

  It wasn’t Karl’s death or how he even met his end that weighed on me. It was how okay with it I really was. I was relieved. Relieved that he was gone and that he couldn’t torment me or anyone else ever again.

  Yes, we put the safety of the Pack before everything else—acted out of self-defense—while avenging what had happened to me, but at what cost? By accepting Karl’s death so readily, I worried that I had let go of my humanity. That one piece of myself that I had been holding onto so tightly. My biggest fear had been what would become of me. I wondered if life might have been easier if I had abandoned my conscience—turned that switch off weeks ago. I had been fighting the primal nature of what I’d become since the day I found out, and it had done nothing but stress me out.

  I didn’t want to become someone who was passive about death, or someone who handed out executions like they were parking tickets…no matter who the guilty party was or the world I lived in now.

  Fortunately, I didn’t feel this way, and it continued to surprise me with each passing day.

  Honestly, I figured my humanity would have had a hard time accepting all of this and would continue to fight against my animal nature. It was how I was raised, after all; innocent until proven guilty and then a fair trial where a sentence was handed down. This particular form of justice was foreign to me, yet I felt more than okay knowing it was our fight for survival that had driven us. I understood and accepted it, but was that wrong? It didn’t feel that way. In fact, it felt perfectly natural… So why exactly had I been fighting it? I didn’t feel any less human, nor did I feel any more primal.

  Truthfully, I felt nothing resembling shame or remorse like I originally thought I would. Only freedom, and I was happy. For the first time in a long time, I actually felt joy. So why couldn’t I just sit back and enjoy that? Why had I been so worried about embracing this life completely? Why was I worried that my humanity would be compromised?

  On some level, I always knew it wouldn’t be like that. None of the others were numb to the harsher aspects of this lifestyle—save for Karl. They all understood what this life entailed and what it took to keep each other safe, and they were all some of the most compassionate people I’d ever met. They always looked out for one another and never put themselves before the good of the Pack. They had balance between the two worlds, and up until recently, I had been precariously teetering between one extreme and the other, unable to level out. It had been maddening and confusing. I was either human or wolf. I couldn’t accept both equally, and I didn’t know why.

  Over the few days that I struggled with sorting out my confusion, Nick seemed unaffected. I knew I couldn’t hold it against him; he’d been living this lifestyle for the last seven years. These types of situations weren’t out of the ordinary for him. From what I’d heard, it wasn’t uncommon for him to execute others like us who’d broken the rules. His humanity seemed completely intact, however. He had the balance I had been craving from the very beginning. The balance I thought unattainable, but eventually found.

  Regardless of all I’d observed, I knew something was bothering him, and it upset me when he chose not to confide in me. Did I think he regretted what happened? No. He saved our lives. Considering
my recent epiphany, there was no logical reason he’d regret that…especially if I didn’t. But something was going on, and that had me even more concerned than my lack of remorse for Karl. I could tell by the way he looked at me, or the way he’d pull away emotionally whenever we were alone. He always tried to be gentle and discreet about it, though, saying how he had to have a shower or go talk to Marcus. I wasn’t buying it. He could barely look at me, and I felt like there was an ever-widening chasm between us as he became more and more distant.

  Christmas music filled the house as I emerged from our bedroom after a long, hot shower. My hair was still damp as it hung down my back. The smell of fresh apple cider infused the air, forcing me to pick up speed and bound down the stairs excitedly. It reminded me of home. My favorite holiday tradition was sitting around the tree with my family, sipping warm cider.

  The sky outside was dark already, and Nick had gone out with Jackson to check the perimeter hours ago, even though the Pack hadn’t sensed or seen a vampire in almost two weeks. I wanted to believe they were giving us a reprieve for the holidays, but somehow, I knew that couldn’t be true. They were probably off lying in wait as they studied our routines and waited for the exact moment to strike. I’d learned just how cold and calculated they were in my time here, and I knew we couldn’t let our guard down, not even for a moment. Someone was always on watch at the manor while others were running perimeter sweeps. I couldn’t be sure when the last time Marcus even slept was—if he’d slept at all.

  Zach and Corbin were in the house with us while the other guys were outside, running checks. They’d cross paths occasionally, but for the most part, they remained focused on keeping the house secure.

  I said hello to Corbin as I walked past him in the foyer on my way to the kitchen. Miranda and Layla were just finishing up the dishes while Roxanne and Colby sat at the island and laughed about something over mugs of fresh cider. I smiled; I had to admit that Roxanne was a lot more tolerable now that she didn’t harbor any resentment toward me…or, as much resentment.