Vanilla Moon: Awakening

by Airiel Hawkins

  She nodded, looking at me with a shocked and horrified expression on her face. "Soph!" she called as she started for the bathroom they shared. "Soph, we got a problem!" she said.

  Riley looked at me from the bed. "What's up?" he asked.

  I shook my head, too angry to tell him. "Come to the library," I replied. "You'll get all the answers you need there."

  The only thing I needed to know was how much danger I could find Ceres and the twins in as soon as their old teacher realized who they were....

  Chapter 33 ~Ceres~

  I expected Leon to want to talk about Brenda before the twins arrived. He surprised me by asking a question I never would have thought he wanted to know.

  "Are you happy with your choice to come to Adamsville?" he asked with a sigh. The weight of the events since my arrival had taken their toll on him. The stress had caused the dark circles under his eyes and the lines on his face. "Before you met my son, you were living a content life. Now... you have so many scars, both physical and emotional. If you could go back, would you change things?"

  I exhaled. "That's a loaded question," I said with a chuckle. "My immediate response is 'of course not'," I said. He gave me a curious look. "I met a person who makes me feel alive," I explained. "I've never felt that way before. I was always just going through the motions of my life, feeling as if I was only half-involved in it. Now, I understand why; I was only half of myself. On the other hand, I've never experienced so much pain, loss, or death before. I think my tattoos were the most painful experience I'd ever had. I lived a privileged life in a privileged existence. The world was mine and I didn't want it. Since being here, I have learned things about love and loss in ways I didn't know were possible. Would I trade it?" I stared into the fire for a moment. I thought about everything and made myself be honest with myself. I shook my head. "I wouldn't trade a single moment," I said as I met Leon's gaze once more. "Not for the world."

  Leon smiled at me. "That warms my heart to hear," he said.

  I gave him a smile before I sighed. "How bad is it?" I asked.

  He gave me look that didn't have an answer. "We've had problems with the coven in the past," he said. "I'm sure that Wolfgang has told you about the history of this town." I nodded. "We've almost wiped them out before. We've never been one-hundred percent successful." He sighed as he rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. "They've never recovered this soon," he whispered. "An estimated fifteen witches have died since your arrival. The coven was only twenty strong. We've always had the stronger foothold in this town because we're the ones who settled the area. The last time we took their numbers down this low, it took them years to recover, not days. Something else is happening here," he said, meeting my eyes. "I don't know for certain how bad it is, but I guarantee there will be more blood on the ground."

  I let out a slow breath. "Well then," I said. I ran my hands through my hair and pulled out a couple of leaves. I stared at them for a moment before I looked up again. Abigail's words echoed in my head and tears fell from my eyes. I met Leon's eyes. "They took our baby," I whispered.

  "What?" Leon whispered.

  I cleared my throat. "When Abigail attacked us in the woods, she told me that they forced me to drink something that caused me to lose the baby. It wasn't trauma, or self-preservation, or anything like that... it was murder...."

  "Does Wolfgang know?" Leon asked.

  I shook my head. "He was unconscious when she told me," I said. "I haven't told him yet," I added as my eyes welled up with tears. I blinked them back as best I could, but they still escaped.

  Leon stepped up to me and hugged me. "Ils paieront," he vowed before I completely broke down.

  Within seconds, Wolfgang was at my side, pulling me away from his father and guiding me to one of the sofas to sit down. He pulled me close and kissed my forehead as he dried my tears. "Tell me," he whispered.

  I couldn't breathe passed my sobs to tell him, so his father had to do it for me. Wolfgang tensed around me, muscles becoming as hard as stone. He wrapped himself around me, shielding me from the world as if he was the best security blanket in the world. "Ils paieront," he whispered in my ear. "Ils paieront...."

  I wanted to know who would pay. Alan, Addie, and Abigail were all dead. Who was here to pay? How would they pay? What was there to do aside from kill them all—even the ones who had nothing to do with this? How would we have our vengeance?

  When I calmed down, the twins and I talked to Leon about Brenda while Wolfgang, Riley, and Luke listened. She was wealthy for a teacher, which was unsurprising because Walton paid top dollar to all their staff. She was the history teacher for the high school grades. The twins said that they had always known she was a witch. Since their parents had been honest with them, they had smelled it right away. Brenda had been sharp in everything she had done. Her words were always right to the point. She never wasted time on anything excess, even though she always surrounded herself with luxury. She spent thousands of dollars on her appearance, just to make sure she looked as good as possible. I never saw her in anything that wasn't 'dry clean only'.

  The twins agreed with everything I said. They even added in a few things. Then, I dropped the bombshell:

  "She was having an affair with my ex's father," I said.

  The twins stared at me in shock. "Todd?" Selena asked.

  "Do I have any other exes?" I asked.

  "I thought Evan and Janice were solid," she replied. "Evan's having an affair?"

  "I don't know if it's still going on," I said. "I just know it was happening for a long time."

  "That could be a problem," Sophia said. She looked up at Leon. "If Brenda is with Evan, there's another coven in New York that might retaliate when something happens to her."

  "Unless we can just find a way to make her leave on her own," I suggested. "That's possible, isn't it?" I asked.

  "I'm not sure how we would accomplish that," Leon said.

  "We should try," I replied. "The last thing we need is yet another wave."

  Leon nodded, agreeing with me. He turned his attention to encompass all three of us. "Is there anything else I should know?" he asked. I shook my head. The twins followed suit. "Then you're dismissed."

  Wolfgang was waiting when we finished talking to Leon. He reached for me as I exited the library and pulled me close, kissing me. "Come with me," he said. He held my hand as he walked out of the house. We got into his truck and he drove us up the mountain. Neither of us said anything. I don't think we knew what to say in that moment.

  When Wolfgang stopped the truck, we were on one of those scenic pullouts where you could look over the landscape. He took my hand and we didn't see anything of the world around us. He led me to a trail that you wouldn't see unless you already knew about it. We walked down toward the bottom of the gorge below. I struggled to keep my footing in the ice, snow, and mud.

  Wolfgang stopped roughly halfway down the slope. I looked out at the world around me and found myself awed by the beauty of nature. There was so much around us. The snow frosted everything. There were patches where it looked like the grass was growing out of the snow itself. The sky was the palest of blues in a way that I had only ever seen in Wolfgang's eyes.

  I turned to look at him. He had an air about him that suggested he was wound up and ready to explode. "I'm sorry," I said.

  He shook his head. "Don't you dare apologize for something you had no control over," he said. He looked up at the sky. "I just needed to get away from everything," he said as he sat down on a large rock.

  I sighed. "I can understand that," I said. "I checked out for days...."

  "No one is blaming you for shutting down," Wolfgang said.

  "I am," I said. I shook my head. "I shouldn't have done that. What am I going to do when we're leading the pack?" I asked. "When I'm the Skaapie, I can't shut down when things go south like that. The pack can't work without both of us."

  "Ceres, a lot has happened since you came here," he said. "In the last tw
o months, Lycans and Witches have obliterated the world you knew. You must give yourself time to adjust. You didn't just jump into the water with both feet; we threw you into it without a lot of prep time. It's not surprising that it's taking you a little while to figure out how to swim."

  "It's not good enough!" I cried, staring at him. I shook my head. Wolfgang stared at me in shock. "It's not okay," I said. "The next wave is coming, whether we're ready for it or not. Nothing we can do is going to prevent that. Brenda has spent most of her spare time studying the greatest strategists in history. She loves them. For an assignment, she made us all plan an epic battle based on the principles of Sun Tzu!" I felt the panic rising inside of me and fought hard to swallow it back down. I took in a deep breath and let it out. "You have no idea what's coming," I said.

  Wolfgang shook his head and rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands, much like his father. In that moment, he wasn't just the son of the alpha. He was the next leader of the pack. He was looking at the situation and wondering if there would even be a pack for us to lead when this was over.

  "It's not safe here anymore," he said. "Even if it wasn't so bleak, the coven knows where our Hunting Grounds are. It's pretty much taboo to hunt anywhere else, so the pack will be too stubborn to hunt elsewhere. There is no doubt that Alan told someone that he figured it out, so the rest of the coven must know. We either need to destroy the coven before the next full moon or find a way to negotiate with them and make them leave."

  "What did the note say?" I asked.

  Wolfgang shrugged. "It said that Brenda Caulfield is coming with a coven and that we have two choices: Fight or flight."

  "How much time did she give us?" I asked.

  "The next full moon," he repeated.

  I sighed and looked out over the beautiful landscape, wishing I could enjoy it as much as I wanted to. "I'm going to assume that it's a bad thing to ask for help from other packs?" I asked.

  Wolfgang nodded. "It shows weakness and suggests that we cannot hold our own territory. There's another pack in Vernal that would love to claim Adamsville as well. If we ask for help, they'll see us as weak and come after us."

  "We can't appear weak then," I said. "God, why is this so complicated?" I asked. "It would be so much simpler if we would all just help each other instead of work against each other."

  Wolfgang nodded with his agreement. "I wish everyone thought that way," he said. "You know, in the beginning, we were one pack. We worked together, we followed one leader, and we were happy and united. Then the Vampires enslaved us, broke us, and forced us to adapt to being in smaller groups. After we won our freedom, we didn't know how to be one cohesive unit anymore. That's when the separate packs started. That's when the territory wars started. We didn't know how to play nice. We fell apart. Now... we don't seem to know how to be friendly with each other unless we have a reason to be."

  "Like my father or the twins' uncle," I said.

  Wolfgang nodded. "Exactly."

  I sighed. "What about telling the pack in Vernal that when the coven finishes with us, they'll move on them next? Will that make them more apt to fight with us?"

  Wolfgang shook his head. "No," he said. "That'll make them prepare for when we fall so that they can destroy the coven and take the territory."

  "This is so frustrating that I want to scream," I spat. "You people need to fucking work together or we're all dead!"

  "You just said the exact reason why that won't work," he said. I stared at him. "We're not people," he reminded me.

  Oh. Right. Somehow, I'd forgotten that. Most Lycans in the world weren't like me. They didn't live human lives before they lived Lycan ones.

  "When the humans find out about us, they're going to force us into peace," I said. "They won't stand for a war, even one that's almost older than they are."

  "You say that like you know it's going to happen," he said, meeting my gaze.

  I nodded. "Because I do," I whispered. "It doesn't take rocket science. Someday, we're going to get exposed. It's inevitable. Nothing can be secret forever."

  "Maybe we can keep it for a while longer," Wolfgang whispered as his cellphone began to ring. He pulled it out of his pocket and looked at it before he answered. "We're up the mountain," he said. He was quiet for a moment. I didn't try to listen to what Leon said on the other end. "Right," he said. "We're on our way."

  He ended the call and put his phone away. "What's going on now?" I asked.

  "Dad's called a meeting," he said. "Everyone needs to attend."

  "Where?" I asked. As far as I knew, there wasn't enough space for five hundred people to gather outside of the Hunting Grounds.

  "The basement," he replied.

  When Wolfgang and I walked into the basement, it wasn't what I was expecting. Instead of there being a basement underneath the house, there was something else. At first, it surprised me because the "basement" was just a tiny room with one door at the bottom of the stairs. I knew for sure that there was no possible way for five hundred people to gather in this room. Not only would we cram together like a can of sardines, we'd have to stand on each other's heads. That was when Wolfgang opened the door. Beyond that tiny room was a giant cavern with smaller caves leading away. There were some electric lights down here, but not many. Most of them were bare bulbs on wires.

  The whole pack fit down here, which was amazing when you thought about how large the pack was.

  At the back of the room, they had built a platform. Leon stood on that platform with Ravyn, the four Guardians, and the Neuri. Wolfgang led me through the crowd and up to the platform. As the Volsunga, his place was with his parents. As his mate, mine was with him.

  Leon looked at the crowd. He was calculating something. I almost wondered if he was counting the faces to see if everyone had arrived or not. He looked concerned for a moment before he looked at one of the Guardians. "How many are missing?" he asked.

  "Seven," the man replied. "They are the ones with small children. One parent stayed behind so the other could be here."

  The Enkidu nodded before he looked out at everyone. I saw that they looked scared to be here. When was the last time that this had happened?

  Leon raised a fist into the air. The din of the cavern quieted as the gathered Lycans realized he was ready to speak. When the last of the conversations had died down, he cleared his throat. "My family, I have gathered you here today because we face a danger that may leave us crippled in the end. As most of you know, we have recently battled Falling Star. Their numbers were almost none. We have defeated their leaders after a long war in this town. Today, I stand here to tell you that a new and even greater threat has arrived... with reinforcements. She gives us an ultimatum: Leave, or she will destroy us. We settled this land. It is ours. We will not go silent into the night. We have been able to survive decades of fighting with Falling Star. I know we're tired. I know we want to rest. Unfortunately, our enemy is not giving us that option. I will give you this option: I will not force you to stay. I will not force you to fight. I will release those of you who wish to leave of your bond in good standing. I will give you all the highest recommendations to other packs.

  "To those of you who stay, we will have preparations to attend. She has given us until the next full moon. That is fourteen days away. Fourteen days to develop a strategy. Fourteen days to build a defense. Fourteen days to retaliate against those who give us this new ultimatum. I will stay and fight. Who among you will join me?"

  They cheered. Every single one of them cheered. I expected some of them to stay silent. I expected some to want to leave now. I didn't expect all of them to cheer. I had to remember: These people were not human. These people didn't think like humans. These weren't people afraid for their individual families. These were Lycans standing at the side of their leader on behalf of their individual families. These were Lycans who were a part of something so much greater than themselves. They would stay and fight because this was their home. This was their family. You protected y
our family, no matter what. This is what the pack meant. This is what it meant to belong. This is what it meant to be Lycan.

  Wolfgang put his fist up into the air. The Guardians and the Skaapie did the same. The Neuri put their hands up. I put my fist up into the air. The rest of the pack followed. We united in a goal that none of us wanted to face. The time for war had come.

  To Be Continued...

  Acknowledgments

  I'd like to thank all the people who helped me get to where I am today. To the English and Creative Writing teachers who pushed me the extra mile in school, I thank you. You knew me by a different name back then, but I still think of you fondly. To the people who put up with my late-night conversations about who should die, survive, and what should happen next, I thank you. Without being able to bounce those ideas off my family and friends, this book would not have become what it is today. To the people who put up with my grueling editing process, I thank you. Yes, it took five of you for this book, but that just means it is going to be fantastic, right? :)

  In all seriousness, though, I would not be the writer I am today without the support, love, and willingness of each and every one of you, and I am taking a moment here and now to acknowledge that you have put in nearly as many hours into research, plotting, and just plain putting-up-with-me as I have. Truly, from the depths of my heart, I thank you for that.

  And to all my editors: Chadd Hawkins, my loving husband and best friend. To Sabreena Barton, my mother and biggest fan. To Jessica Grimm, who can always tell me if I need more blood. To Andrea Mouser, who has encouraged me to keep going when I felt like giving up (and designed the beautiful cover!). Nicole Ludwig, who read it before it was published and gave me her input with her great eye for editing. And, of course, everyone else who has helped me make myself a better person along the way. I love each and every one of you. Thank you.

  Airiel Hawkins

  has been writing most of her life. She wrote her first short story in the third grade as part of a writing workshop and hasn't stopped. She is currently working on two series, Vanilla Moon and the Legend of Catseye. Both books are available in eBook format and Vanilla Moon is also available in paperback.