Blood Moon Harvest (Seasons of the Moon) (4 page)

Pagan rolled onto her side. Her hair fell over her face, but Seth could still see her white teeth when she smiled. “Give the boy a diploma. He figured it out.”

“A demon?” Gwyn asked, eyebrows lifting toward her hairline. She tipped her hat back with a knuckle. “Say that again, because I’m thinking I heard you wrong.”

“Creatures from Hell,” Stripes muttered, shooting a sideways look at Pagan.

“There aren’t many of them in this part of America,” Yasir said, speaking over his companion. “They stick to major urban areas. Out here? Not enough humans, not enough food.”

“You know, I don’t believe in God,” Gwyn said.

Yasir barked a mirthless laugh. “Neither do I.”

The door rattled.

Seth stood up, putting the gun to his shoulder. Gwyn took position at his side.

The door rattled again.

“You are all in deep trouble,” Pagan said.

Stripes kicked her. “Shut up!”

The door rattled a third time, and Seth heard the chains sliding against the handles. He raised his voice. “Whoever is there, I’m warning you—anyone who comes through that door tonight is getting shot.”

“It’s not one of your dogs out there,” Pagan said. Her eyes glimmered darkly, and blood stained her teeth. “Cain’s come for me.”

The single light bulb popped, showering sparks on them.

Darkness filled the cellar, so black and complete that Seth couldn’t see his own hands.

The door slammed open.

The air split with the sound of gunshots as four firearms were simultaneously discharged. Cloth shifted and metal clacked.

A grunt. A meaty slam, like a body hitting the floor.

Someone shouted—someone male. Stripes?

Seth spun, searching for something to shoot. He couldn’t tell the difference between Gwyneth and Yasir, much less an intruder.

Another gunshot. Someone screamed.

“Lights—we need lights!” Gwyn shouted.

Seth fumbled, and his hand fell on a camping lantern on the shelf. It took three tries to flip the switch.

A brilliant LED glow flooded the cellar. Two other people were standing nearby—Gwyn and the commander.

And there was a body on the ground.

Seth kicked over the dark shape on the floor, and Stripes rolled onto his back. His eyes were empty.

Dead.

“Where’s Pagan?” Gwyn asked.

Yasir was already running up the steps. Seth followed, gun hugged to his chest.

Even without a moon, it was so much brighter on the surface than it had been in the cellar. A dozen dark shapes tracked over the hills, each of them the size of a small pony. Werewolves.

And somewhere among them, Pagan and Cain.

Seth moved to chase. But before he made it three steps into the field, he realized something was wrong.

The werewolves were usually playful under Rylie’s control, but they were scattered and wild that night. They chased each other through the hills with piercing howls.

The entire pack was out of control, which meant their Alpha was too focused on something else to notice them.

Abel must have been worse than Seth expected.

Was that his brother’s dark form among the trees? Seth cupped his hands around his mouth. “Abel! Rylie!”

The wolf didn’t react.

Seth prepared to shout again, but the smell of something burning stopped him. It was a cloying, powerful scent. If his human nose could pick it up, then something had to be burning hot.

He glanced at the ranch house. No hint of smoke.

“Seth!” Yasir yelled. He was on the opposite hill, and his silhouette was lit on the edges with a dancing red glow.

Swearing under his breath, Seth ran to his side.

The barn was on fire.

Flames leaped in the shattered windows, licking at the walls and turning them black. Sparks lit in the dry grass.

“Cain,” Yasir said. “It must have been Cain.” Seth pulled out his cell phone, starting to dial the emergency number, but Yasir grabbed his arm. “Wait! We can’t have firefighters come to a ranch filled with werewolves.”

He was right.

Seth groaned and scrubbed his hands over his hair. “Okay. There’s a pump on the other side of the barn. I’ll get the hose.”

“I don’t think we can stop this fire,” Yasir said.

“No, but we can stop it from spreading. Come on. We have to move fast.”

Seth abandoned the hunt for Pagan and rushed to save what little of the barn he could.

Rylie ran, and Abel chased.

She flew through the long grass, her feet thudded against the soil, and the nighttime wind blasted hair back from her face. Her chest heaved as her arms pumped. Her legs burned.

And behind her, the wolf was growling.

She could run for hours, if she had to—but Abel was faster. She could hear him gaining.

Rylie needed somewhere safe to transform so she could stand a chance against him. But he was snapping at her heels.

A wolf scurried past in the corner of her vision. He was dark brown with streaks of gold.

“Vanthe!” she yelled, and the word was whipped away on the wind. “Help!”

He wheeled around, looping wide through the hills. Rylie jumped behind a tree to put the trunk between her and the sleek black monster that was Abel.

The werewolves crashed together.

A yelp.

She glanced around the tree long enough to see that Abel had raked his long, silver claws down Vanthe’s side. He wasn’t slowed by the other wolf—not for long.

Rylie shut her eyes and began to change.

It was hard to focus with her heart beating a panicked tattoo against her ribs. She focused on fur and claws, and heat swept over her skin.

Too slow.

Another howl, and paws were pounding on the ground again. Abel rounded the tree.

“Oh no,” Rylie whispered.

She turned to run again. But her legs were reversing, her bones were growing, and her coordination was shot.

Abel plowed into her back, knocking them both to the ground.

She threw up an arm to protect her face, even as it blossomed with fur. Abel’s teeth clamped on her skin, snapping just inches from her face. Blood splattered onto her chest.

“No!” she cried. “Abel!”

He twisted his head back and forth, nearly wrenching the arm from its socket. It felt like her arm was being crushed under a car.

Her spine popped and twisted. Her muzzle grew, blurry in the bottom edge of her vision.

Rylie brought her mutating legs between them and shoved her feet into Abel’s chest, launching him off of her body.

He flew into the air. Hit the tree with a yelp.

She flipped onto all fours and finished the change as quickly as she could. Rylie took a short inventory of her body—paws, tail, fur in all the right places—and faced Abel as he got to his feet.

Drool hung from his bottom jaw, which was half-scarred, just like his human face. But his sharp eyes focused on her.

She issued a growl, trying to warn him:
I am Alpha, Do not fight me.

He stepped forward anyway.

There was no play-bowing or impudent wriggling in the dirt. Abel was completely serious and completely out of his mind. There was no man in him. Only beast and raw instinct.

A real werewolf.

“Abel! Rylie!”

A human voice echoing over the hills—
Seth’s
voice.

Rylie’s head snapped up, and she searched the horizon for her boyfriend. He was by the ranch house. What was he doing out of the cellar? Did that mean Pagan had changed?

She didn’t have long to consider the implications. Abel heard Seth’s voice too, and he growled.

Sibling rivalry could get awfully ugly when one of them was a monster.

Rylie snapped at his side, drawing his attention back to her.

He struck. Her vision blurred and doubled, and they rolled down the hill together. Rylie twisted her head around, searching for any part of Abel to bite, trying to restrain him.

His teeth snapped on the ruff of fur at her neck. Her paws. Her muzzle.

The pressure of his jaws on her limbs drew forth the mind of Rylie’s wolf. She surrendered to it, letting instinct carry her away.

The wolf was a calming force—raw logic and cold anger.

And it could fight.

They bounced over rocks and slid to the shore of the pond. She flipped him over and bit his muzzle. The taste of blood flooded her tongue.

Her teeth ripped into his shoulder, pushing through the fur to tear at the vulnerable skin underneath.

He seized her back leg. She broke free, but only for an instant. Abel dived for another attack. She lowered her head and slammed it into his side.

The force of the impact threw him into the pond. Water slopped over the rocks.

He thrashed, growling and howling.

By the time he emerged from the pond, fur dripping with crimson-stained water, Rylie had the higher ground. But even with blood streaming down his face and flank, his eyes burned. Challenging her.

Abel jumped, and he slammed her into the rocks. His weight pressed against her shoulders. Forced her chest to the ground.

Jaws clamped tight on the back of her neck.

A sense of peace spread through Rylie—an acknowledgment of dominance. She sagged underneath him.

He growled and shook her, but it was gentler than before.

Someone was calling her name. Humans were somewhere on the other side of the property, searching for Rylie and Abel.

The wolf didn’t care. She didn’t acknowledge them.

She didn’t even notice when smoke rose over the hills.

Abel was dominant—Alpha. And she was at his mercy.

S
IX

Abandon Ship

Rylie woke up at the
furthest edge of the sanctuary, in the back corner where a barbed wire fence protected the farms beyond from an onslaught of werewolves.

And she was bleeding.

She rolled onto her back with a groan. Everywhere hurt. Her back, her legs, her head—it had been a
long
time since she had a headache.

There was no accompanying rush of healing fever. Just pain.

She sat up to look at herself in the blue light of dawn. Her body was a mess of scrapes and tears. How was that even possible?

Weirdly, the ache was kind of… good. Rylie had the kind of heavy, satiated feeling she enjoyed after devouring a deer or cow as a wolf. But there were no prey animals on the ranch, and she obviously hadn’t escaped. It made no sense.

Someone else groaned.

Rylie twisted to find Abel laying a few feet away. He looked a lot like she did—naked and bleeding. But he hadn’t woken up yet.

“Oh my God,” she said, crawling to his side.

Abel had healed the silver injury. There was a neat scar on his side where he had been shot. But his shoulder was torn open, and the skin was ragged all the way down his chest. A ring of puncture marks on his arms formed the shape of teeth.

Wounds inflicted by the Alpha didn’t heal as quickly as those delivered by another wolf. Which meant that Rylie must have ripped him open the night before.

She squeezed her eyes shut and struggled to remember what had happened, but nothing came to mind. Rylie had the impression of body clashing against body, a struggle in the grass, the rush of adrenaline—but that was it.

A fight between them would have explained what happened to Abel. But what had happened to
her
?

Abel roused enough to walk
on his own, and they staggered toward the house together. Climbing up and down the swelling hills was much harder on two tired legs than four.

When they crested the hill by the pond, Rylie saw the barn. She gasped.

The skeletal remains of a building stood where the barn should have been. Ribs of iron jutted from the earth, and broken red wood was scattered everywhere, like something had exploded. The surrounding grass was scorched and wet.

Her mind tried to make sense of the debris. Was that the TV? Had those been beds?

It didn’t matter. Everything was destroyed.

Seth was still wetting down charred embers with Gwyn and Yasir’s help, but he dropped the hose when he saw them.

“Rylie!”

He scrambled to the top of the hill, and she sagged in his arms. He was covered in ash.

“What happened?” she asked, clutching at his shirt. His hands cupped her elbows to keep her on her feet.

“Pagan escaped,” Seth said, addressing Abel as well. “Cain came for her. They burned the barn.

Even after seeing it for herself, hearing the words from Seth made Rylie feel like she had been punched in the chest.

They had spent months converting the barn into a living space for the pack. She spent so many long hours picking out furniture for the bedrooms, laying carpet, getting into paint fights with Seth—and it was gone. All gone.

“Survivors?” Abel asked.

“Stripes was killed, but the pack is fine.” Seth hugged Rylie tightly. “I was so worried about you. You vanished.”

“I’m fine,” she said with a wince. The pressure hurt her scrapes.

Seth only just seemed to realize that she was wounded. His eyes widened into huge circles. “Why aren’t you healing?”

“I don’t know,” Rylie said. “I really don’t know.”

When the last of the
fire was put out and dirt was spread on the coals, everyone moved inside. A lot of the pack was crying and angry, but if Aunt Gwyn was shaken, she showed no sign of it. She immediately bustled off to prepare coffee, which was her idea of being comforting.

Seth sat with Rylie on a few inches of couch and hugged her chilled body to him. She was strangely quiet, but he couldn’t exactly talk about her feelings when the living room was packed tight with werewolves.

The front door opened, and Yasir stepped in. He caught Seth’s eye over the crowd.

“Can I talk to you?” Yasir asked.

Seth gave Rylie’s shoulders one last squeeze, and then joined the commander outside. There was a light breeze and just enough clouds to keep it from getting hot. It would have been a beautiful day, if not for the destroyed barn.”

“What’s wrong?” Seth asked.

“You mean, aside from the obvious? It’s Stripes.” Yasir jerked his thumb down the road. “I found something while moving his body. Come look.”