Canticle to the Midnight Moon

by Val St. Crowe

  My heart stopped. I remembered that Landon, when he’d run away that first time, had said to me that I should be with someone who I could have children with, and I had shoved thoughts of that to the back of my head ever since.

  Having kids, it was so far into my future anyway, and I’d rather have Landon, no matter what, but Aston was saying that maybe, if this cure worked, we could…

  I licked my lips. “So, you’re saying that… Landon could… that we could…”

  Aston nodded at me. “Absolutely, if we get this right, you can raise a passel of rugrats if that’s what you want.”

  I swallowed.

  “That not what you want to hear?” said Aston. “Because I talked to a doctor in the village, and I know you can get birth control at the clinic there if you—”

  “Thanks for the tip,” I said.

  “Sure.” He grinned at me.

  “And, uh, thank you for updating me on the progress you’re making. Really, take your time and don’t rush this, no matter what Judah says, okay?”

  “Okay,” said Aston.

  * * *

  I thought about talking to Landon about the possibility of children, but I didn’t, because I didn’t want to suggest the other possibility—chemical castration. I really wasn’t sure if we could trust Aston with this stuff.

  Desta texted me a few times, just letting me know that she was okay, and that she and Viggo had successfully made it to Pattos, where they were staying for now. They might be traveling overseas soon, but she wasn’t sure.

  I was glad to hear from her, and I was glad that things were going well for her. I did miss her, though, of course.

  Things began to settle into a normal sort of routine. Days passed, and I got used to shopping at the village market for food and then cooking with Landon in the evenings. Due to his time as a blood slave, he was very good in the kitchen, so he was teaching me all sorts of interesting things like how to grill steak or use a crockpot or make hollandaise sauce.

  One night, Ewan and Tempest had us over, and we ate together and drank some of the homemade cider made in the village. It was a fun night, all of us relaxing together. Ewan and Landon seemed to get along fine. But then, being stuck together in a dark dungeon tends to bond people, so I wasn’t exactly surprised by that. There had been tension before, though, and it all was seemingly resolved now. I guess that Ewan no longer thought that Landon was going to rage out and kill me or whatever.

  I felt as though I could finally see what my life could be. Since arriving in the village, it had been one dangerous situation after another, but things seemed to be settling down now. I liked it.

  Landon seemed happy too. Even though there was still some unrest amongst the pack about him, it was fading. He seemed to be settling in, and he was at home here too. That was good, because I knew he hadn’t had a home in a long time, and that his last home had been a werewolf pack. I remembered how angry he had been toward the entire idea of a pack when I met him, but he never talked that way anymore. Maybe because he had seen that having security almost always meant giving up a little freedom. I resolved to talk to him about it at some point, but I didn’t.

  I didn’t talk to him about anything too deep or serious, in fact. I was enjoying the time we were having together. I was enjoying being carefree and mundane. I didn’t want to talk about anything that might upset us, because I didn’t want to ruin anything.

  One night, Aston came by my cabin. He banged on the door. “Camber, Landon, come here quick!”

  I started toward the door.

  “Camber, where the fang are you?” said Aston. “Open the door.”

  “Geez, have a coronary,” I said, opening the door. “What’s going on?”

  Landon appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. “Hi, Aston.”

  “Look,” said Aston, thrusting his phone in my face.

  I blinked. “What am I looking at?”

  “Looks like rats,” said Landon.

  “Yeah, rats, um—”

  “Mating!” said Aston. “They’re full on screwing, look. Look.” He shoved the phone under my nose.

  I recoiled. “Yes, I see that. Thank you for giving me this visual.”

  Aston pushed the phone at Landon. “You know what this means, right?”

  Landon took the phone from Aston. He squinted. “It’s like a bloodhound rat.”

  Aston turned on me. “You didn’t tell him about my experiments?”

  “Uh, it didn’t come up,” I said. I hadn’t wanted to bring anything up that might even remotely ruffle our happiness.

  “So, you made bloodhound rats and then you took away the rage mode?” said Landon.

  “Yup,” said Aston. He tapped the screen. “That is a video I took in my lab. It worked. It’s the T-7000 series, and you come by tomorrow afternoon and I’ll have a batch whipped up that’s the right dosage for something human sized.”

  Landon gave the phone back to Aston.

  My lips parted.

  “Well?” said Aston. “I thought you guys would be more excited about this?”

  I looked at Landon.

  He looked at the floor.

  “Are you sure it works?” I said.

  “You can see the proof.” Aston gestured to the phone.

  “But those are rats,” I said. “What if it doesn’t translate to humans?”

  “You want me to test it on another bloodhound?” said Aston. “You go out and capture one and—”

  “No, that’s okay,” said Landon. “I’ll take it. Tomorrow afternoon, you said?”

  “Any time after 12:30 or so,” said Aston. “It’ll take me some time in the morning to mix it up.”

  “Thank you, Aston,” said Landon.

  “You’re so freaking welcome,” Aston said, rubbing his hands together. “I’m crazy excited about this. This is huge.” He glared at us. “Seriously, why aren’t you guys more excited?”

  “We’re…” I spread my hands. “I guess it’s just hard to think that things could work out okay for us. It seems too easy.”

  “This was not easy,” said Aston. “You have any idea how hard I worked on this? This was a hard-earned triumph. Come on.”

  I smiled.

  Landon didn’t. “See you tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll walk you out.”

  “Oh,” said Aston. “Okay. I thought maybe you guys might want to have a bottle of wine, celebrate, that kind of thing? But if you want me to leave—”

  “It’s late,” said Landon.

  Landon walked Aston out. He closed the door behind the other man and then put his back against it. He raised his gaze to mine.

  “You don’t have to do it,” I blurted.

  “You don’t want me to take it?”

  “I don’t… if it’s dangerous, I don’t want you to risk…”

  He shook his head. “Everything’s a risk.”

  “You don’t seem very happy about it.”

  “I guess it just seems unreal,” he said. He studied his hands, flexing his claws. “I wonder if there’s a way he could undo all this.”

  “No way,” I said.

  He raised his eyebrows at me.

  I blushed. “I like you the way you are, okay?”

  He pulled me close and planted a kiss on my forehead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I went with Landon to Aston’s lab the next afternoon to get the dose. I didn’t know how it was going to be administrated, but it turned out to be an injection, just like last time.

  Aston proudly showed off the rats that he had cured while we were there. I noticed there were significantly less rats than there had been before. This was apparently because most of the rats had raged out and killed their intended mates. Aston had gotten rid of those rats, but he was going to keep the cured rat and his mate and their babies.

  “You guys should probably hold off on getting pregnant until we see what the rat kids look like,” he said. “I mean, you don’t have to. It’s probably not a problem. Like I said,
I didn’t alter anything about the reproductive systems of the bloodhounds. They should be essentially human.”

  Landon, who was sitting in a chair with his shirt sleeve rolled up, gave me a pointed look. “This another thing you didn’t mention to me?”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “Are you guys, like, okay?” said Aston, looking back and forth between us. “Because, you know, I’m not an expert on relationships or anything, but if you’re having problems, and you think sex is magically going to fix everything—”

  “We’re not having problems,” I said. “We’re fine.”

  “Can you just stick me with that thing?” said Landon.

  Aston looked us over. “Okay, well, if that’s what you want, then fine.”

  “Fine,” said Landon.

  Aston gave him the injection. He put a cotton ball on it and made Landon hold the cotton ball against his vein while holding up his arm. Then he put a bandage over the cotton ball and told us that he couldn’t be sure how long it took for the injection to work. It had been days after he’d dosed the rat that he’d actually mated with the girl rat, even though he’d put them in the same cage together.

  “So, we should wait a few days?” I said.

  “Not necessarily,” said Aston. “The effect really should be instantaneous. Maybe go out away from the village and test it out, though. Give it, I don’t know, forty-five minutes?”

  “Okay,” said Landon.

  “Okay,” said Aston.

  We left Aston’s lab and walked through the village together.

  “Do you feel different?” I asked Landon.

  “Not really,” he said. “Why didn’t you say anything to me about the rat babies?”

  “Well, there aren’t any rat babies yet, and we were having fun, and that’s a big, serious topic even without all the complications there are between us, and I’m too young to be a mother, so…”

  “You don’t want to have kids with me?”

  “I never said that,” I said. “Do you want to have kids?”

  “Well, maybe someday,” he said.

  “Well, me too. Someday.”

  “Okay,” he said. “What was so big and serious and complicated about that conversation?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. I twisted my hands together.

  “You’re still afraid of me,” he said. “Deep down, you think that I’m going to rage out and hurt you—”

  “I don’t,” I said. “I’m not afraid of you. I’m afraid of everything else. I just want to hedge my bets and play it safe. That’s why I haven’t wanted to have any serious conversations lately. It’s easier if things are light. We’re happy that way.”

  “I guess,” he said.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything,” I said.

  He slung his arm around me. “It’s okay. I’m not mad. I’m, uh, I’m just nervous.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  We walked in silence for a few moments.

  “We should give it some time,” he said. “Maybe, you know, wait until tomorrow or something to even try to test it. Play it safe, like you’re saying.”

  “Sure,” I said. “We’ve waited this long. What’s another day?”

  * * *

  But we were both antsy all the rest of the afternoon, and neither of us could muster any energy or appetite for dinner. Instead, we avoided each other, moving around in the cabin and barely speaking to the other.

  Around seven that evening, Landon put on his shoes and walked past me in the living room.

  “Where are you going?” I said.

  “For a walk,” he said.

  “I’ll come with you,” I said.

  He shoved his hands in his pockets.

  “You don’t want me to come?”

  “Well, I was thinking that I might, uh, just sort of test things out and see what happens.”

  “But if you rage out, I should be there to contain you,” I said.

  “What if you can’t contain me, and I hurt you?”

  “What if you hurt someone else?”

  He swallowed. “Okay. You can come.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  We walked deep out into the woods, far away from the village. I would have walked further, but then Landon stopped and said we shouldn’t be too far away in case I needed to go back for help.

  Then we stopped.

  We looked at each other for a few moments, neither of us doing anything. It was a warm spring evening. The crickets were chirping in the distance.

  Landon scratched the back of his neck.

  I fidgeted with the zipper on my jacket.

  “You should probably stay back,” he said. “Like, over there.” He pointed to a tree about fifty feet away.

  “Okay,” I said. I went there.

  I watched him.

  It was quiet except for the crickets.

  Minutes passed.

  Finally, Landon came over to me, hands shoved in his pockets.

  “Well?” I said. “It works?”

  “I think so,” he said.

  “Oh, good,” I said. “Well, should we…?”

  He looked into my eyes for a minute, and then he looked away. “I don’t know. I know we did this before, but it was different then, you know? It seemed so desperate, and there was a time limit, and now…”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I know.”

  He hung his head.

  I reached out and tentatively touched his arm.

  He looked up at me.

  “Maybe,” I whispered, “we should really test it, to be really sure.”

  “What do you mean?” he said, and his voice had dropped in pitch as well.

  I unzipped my jacket and shrugged it off.

  “Camber, what are you—” But then his voice died in this throat.

  Because I had peeled my shirt over my head. I reached back and unclasped my bra and let it drop.

  He drew in a hissing breath.

  “You seem okay,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he rasped.

  “I’m a little cold,” I said.

  His lips curved into a smile. “I can tell.”

  “Ass,” I said. “You could warm me up, you know?”

  “I guess I could do that,” he said, reaching out to wrap one arm around my waist and pull me close.

  His lips met mine.

  I slammed my eyes closed against the sweetness of that. We never got to kiss often enough.

  And then his other hand grazed the underside of my breast.

  I gasped.

  His touch was gentle and expert, and I wrapped my arms around his neck and held on for dear life. Our kiss deepened, and I felt as though I was falling into a well of warmth and goodness, and all I wanted was Landon. More Landon. All of Landon.

  He kissed the side of my mouth, and then my jaw, and then my neck. He whispered into my skin. “You’re so beautiful, Camber.”

  I moaned. I wrapped my legs around his waist.

  He braced me against the tree trunk.

  I tugged at his shirt.

  He grunted. “Not that I’m complaining about this,” he panted, “but are you going to want to go back to the cabin? Do this in a bed?”

  “I want you right now,” I breathed. “I want you to take me against this tree. We have our whole lives to do it in bed.”

  He chuckled, kissing my shoulder.

  “Do you want to do it in bed?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I want you in bed, and I want you against a tree trunk, and I want you in the shower and on the kitchen table and bent over the couch and— Yes.” He squirmed his fingers between our bodies to undo the button of my pants. “I just want you, Camber. Always.”

  “Yes, yes, yes,” I murmured. “Yes, I’m yours. Always.” I leaned my head back against the tree.

  And he worked at pulling off my pants while his mouth traveled over my skin, and everything was perfect.

  * * *

  So, I want to say this about sex outside. It seems se
xy and urgent and exciting, and I’m not saying it’s not, but it’s also a little uncomfortable. I didn’t feel the stupid tree trunk scratching up my back while we were busy, but then afterward, it hurt so much that I had to shift to heal it, and Landon was all apologetic and worried, like, “Hell, Camber, I didn’t mean for that to happen. I’m really sorry,” even though it wasn’t his fault when I was spurring him on and completely oblivious to anything except how good it all felt.

  So, I was actually glad to go back home together and climb into bed together. And it was sublime to be able to do it in human form and amazing to do it while both of us weren’t wearing any clothes. And I think we both thought we were too tired and spent to do anything other than hold each other and kiss, but we were wrong.

  It was nicer and slower that time, pressed into each other everywhere, him inside me, our tongues entwined, our hands on each other, like we couldn’t get close enough.

  He wound his fingers through my fingers and breathed against my ear that he loved me, and tears came to my eyes because it was happening, this was happening, and it was everything I’d ever wanted, and I’d thought for so long that I couldn’t have this, and now here it was, and I couldn’t believe how good it was. I had never imagined it could possibly be this good. It was better than my best fantasies.

  We fell asleep cocooned together and then I woke up in the middle of the night to his mouth on mine. I was sleepy, but it was the nicest way to wake up that I could think of, and he teased me to alertness and then we made love again, and I thought to myself that I fully intended to do only this for as long as we could get away with it. All I wanted to do was sleep and have sex and maybe eat if we really got hungry, and that could be my life for a really long time.

  So, when I woke up again, some time later, with the light of late morning streaming in through the windows, I was the one who kissed him awake. I was the one who ran my fingers over his fur and muscles and I was the one who found him between his thighs and teased him stiff.

  Afterwards, we broke apart, out of breath. I had sore muscles that I had never seemed to have used before, and I felt alert but a little sleepy, and I thought that our bed was the perfect new world where I was happy to continue to exist.