Blood Moon Harvest (Seasons of the Moon) (6 page)

Before she could come to a decision, it opened.

Abel stood on the other side. He was shirtless, and his shoulders glistened. It looked like he had been pummeling his punching bag again.

He looked at her. She looked at him.

Are you okay?

That was what she meant to say. But that wasn’t what she
wanted
to say.

She wanted to ask him if it was okay to leave with Seth. Like she needed his permission.

There was a disconnect somewhere between her brain and her mouth, and instead, all she could say was: “I’m sorry.”

Abel responded by grabbing her shoulders, dragging her into the room, and slamming the door shut.

He shoved her into the wall, and her back hit hard enough to dent plaster. His hands captured her face. She clung to his shoulders, unable to trust her ability to stand, but the burning brand of his fingers held her suspended.

And then they were kissing.

His mouth crashed over hers. He tasted like blood and meat, and it was so deliciously
animal
that her wolf rose to meet him.

Abel’s hands were everywhere—on her shoulders, lifting her hips, spreading her thighs. He pushed himself between her knees and all she could do was hang on as he crushed her to the wall with his chest and hips.

Her wolf should have been angry that he would manhandle her. That he would be so presumptuous as to take charge.

But it was
happy
.

It was Abel who shoved himself back, stumbling away from Rylie and leaving her suddenly cold.

She almost fell over, but caught herself on the end of Levi’s bed. Abel glared at her from across the room, breathing as hard as if he had just been running.

The reality of what she had done sank in.

She had kissed Abel.

And the worst part of it was that it didn’t feel particularly new or strange. It felt like something they had done a thousand times.

And her wolf loved it.

“Oh my God,” Rylie whispered, her hand flying to her bruised lips.

Abel strode toward her again, and she braced herself, as if expecting to get hit. But he only pounded a fist into the wall by her head. The already-weakened plaster cracked again, and she jumped at the sound.

“God
dammit
, Rylie,” he hissed.

Her legs were jelly and every inch of her skin was hot, and she couldn’t seem to catch her breath. She also couldn’t seem to raise her voice above a squeak. “I’m sorry,” she said again, and she felt twice as stupid the second time.

“You’re sorry?” He gave a bitter laugh. “
You’re
sorry?” His arms were braced on the wall at either side of her shoulders, trapping her underneath him. “I’m the one who can’t stop thinking about his brother’s girlfriend.” He bent forward, like he might kiss her again, but he stopped an inch away. “Where were you last night?”

She swallowed hard. “I stayed in the house.”

“Why?”

“Because…” It was so hard to breathe when he was looking at her like that. He was close enough that if she licked her lips, she might just lick him, too. “Because I don’t know what we’ve been doing when we’re wolves. Kissing you feels… familiar.”

“Familiar,” he echoed.

She didn’t know how to elaborate beyond that, so she just nodded.

Abel’s eyes raked over her face, like he could violate her with his gaze alone. “I want you so damn bad,” he said, biting out every word. “When I look at you—it’s like I’m an alcoholic, and you’re the last bottle of whiskey on Earth.” The heat in his voice weakened her knees.

“But—”

He cut her off. “Why did you come here?”

“I don’t know,” Rylie said, her trembling fingers running over the broad planes of his chest. She couldn’t seem to stop touching him. “I guess… because I want you, too. And I don’t know
why
.”

He seized her arms. “You don’t know why you want me? You don’t think it’s because of this?”

Abel’s second kiss was shorter, but no gentler. He pulled her against him with an iron grip. He consumed her like a forest fire, savage and merciless. And when he dropped her, she desperately regretted it.

It took all of her strength to push the wolf away, forcing it deep inside of her.

She clenched her fists. “I don’t love you,” Rylie said. “I love Seth.”

Abel grabbed her chin, forcing her to look up at him. “You can keep telling yourself that, but it doesn’t change anything.”

“I’m leaving with him.”

“But you’ll be back for me,” he said.

“No.” Her protest was weak.

But wasn’t that true? How could she stay away from her pack?

How could she stay away from her Alpha?

The thought rose to the surface, totally unbidden, and she couldn’t shake it once it crossed her mind. Abel wasn’t Alpha.
She
was Alpha.

“I’m sorry,” Rylie said one last time, stepping away from him. “I shouldn’t have come here. Take care of the pack.”

And then she ran out of his room, away from Abel, away from the heat of his lips on hers.

But she couldn’t escape the memory of his kiss.

N
INE

Lost Chapters

Rylie was already sitting in
the passenger’s seat of the Chevelle when Seth joined her. She had her knees hugged to her chest as she stared out the window.

Yasir met him at the car, carrying a binder under one arm. “You need to let us know if you find Cain before we do,” the commander said.

Seth nodded reluctantly. He didn’t want to call the Union in for anything he didn’t have to, but it was hard to deny their usefulness. “You’ll be the first to hear about it.”

Yasir handed him an earpiece—the same one worn by every member of the Union. “The button on the side goes directly to me. Don’t lose it.” He hesitated, and then also handed the binder to Seth. “It took a while to requisition, but I finally got a complete copy of your father’s book from Union HQ. This is all we have. I hope it has the answers you want.”

“Thank you.”

They clasped each other’s forearms, and with a short nod, Yasir left to escort the rest of the pack to California.

Seth climbed into the Chevelle, set the binder in the back seat, and started the engine.

“Ready to go?” he asked Rylie.

She nodded silently.

Rylie was unusually quiet on the long drive out of town. Seth waited an hour before trying to strike up a conversation, but she only responded by shaking her head or nodding. And when he asked if she wanted to take a break, she just shrugged.

Seth pulled into a gas station parking lot to buy a soda. He hesitated before getting out. “Is something wrong, Rylie?”

She glanced at him. Ducked her head. “No.”

Rylie was a horrible liar. The truth was written all over her face: she was freaking out about something, and it was killing her.

Seth glanced down at her right hand. The moonstone glimmered on her finger.

“Do you want anything to eat?” he asked.

She shrugged again.

Seth left her in the car while he bought a soda for himself and a green tea for Rylie.

When he returned, she was still staring out the window without acknowledging him. Her arms were folded tightly across her chest and her cheeks were pink.

Seth kept driving.

Another two hours passed. Two long, boring hours with nothing to do but stare at the asphalt.

The air was cool with autumn’s chill. Most of the trees were caught between summer and fall, with half of their leaves a dull shade of green, and the other half shimmering gold. The trees became more dense as they moved north, and then turned sparse again as they passed through a city. Nothing waited on the other side but plains.

“Let’s trade,” Rylie said at the next rest stop. She hadn’t touched her tea.

While she drove, Seth read the binder that Yasir had given him. He flipped through the pages one by one.

He had been drilled on werewolf hunting procedure using that manual a thousand times, and Seth knew the rules by memory.

Be careful when verifying a suspected werewolf. Double-check all of your sources.

Look for a history of crime, mental illness, and especially domestic violence. Werewolves are unstable and struggle to integrate into society.

Make sure that the werewolf is who you think they are before killing them.

Don’t kill them when they don’t have four legs and fur.

That was pretty much it. As far as hunting and killing tactics went, anything had been considered fair game by his parents.

There was nothing new in that part of the book. He flipped through the familiar chapters—the section on skinning, the section on removing teeth to keep track of the kills, the part about different species—and found a chapter that he didn’t recognize.

Pack behavior.

He read a few lines into it, skimming for words like “Alpha” and “mating.”

What he found made his blood run cold.

“What are you reading?” Rylie asked, breaking the silence.

He closed the cover. “Nothing interesting.” It was late afternoon; they must have traveled a pretty good distance while he was distracted, because he didn’t recognize any of the landmarks anymore. The long shadows of trees stretched across the road. “Where are we?”

“Nowhere right now. We’ll get to Aguilar in about an hour,” she said. “I’m getting tired. Where do you want to stop for the night?”

“Aguilar works.”

Seth zipped the binder up in his bag, and they finished the drive in silence.

The motel in Aguilar wasn’t
much to look at. It definitely wasn’t up to Scott Whyte’s standards of cleanliness—just looking at the yellow curtains and tarnished brass numbers on the doors probably would have made him break out in hives.

But they hadn’t made advance arrangements, and there were no five star hotels in the middle of nowhere. So Rylie waited in the car while Seth went in to book the room.

They were in room number six, which was almost at the end. They parked in front of it and took their bags inside.

All they had by way of furniture was a TV stand, a side table, and one big bed. The comforter was probably even older than the curtains. But the TV was new, and there were streaks on the mirror, which meant someone had tried to clean the room at some point. Maybe even that week.

Rylie looked at Seth, and he looked at her.

I kissed your brother
.

“I’m going to take a shower,” she said, grabbing a towel out of the closet and ducking into the bathroom.

When Rylie had gone to school in the city, some of her guy friends liked to play the field. Nick had bragged constantly about making out with different girls.

It was no big deal,
he had said.
As long as we didn’t have sex, it wasn’t even cheating.

But that word stuck inside her brain like a thorn.

Cheater
.

She washed using the tiny bottle of shampoo that smelled like jasmine. It made her hair feel weird and crunchy, but it was the first time she had showered in months without Bekah banging on the bathroom door, so she tried to enjoy it.

That word hung over her like Pagan’s foul perfume.

Cheater
.

She was going to have to tell Seth. She couldn’t keep quiet anymore.

After a few minutes, she gave up trying to enjoy herself. She got dressed, combed out her hair, and rejoined Seth.

He was sitting on the bed, still fully clothed except for his shoes, and watching the news while he oiled his gun. He smiled when she came out. It only made her feel guiltier.

“Good shower?” he asked.

She nodded mutely and sat beside him. The mattress springs creaked under her weight.

There was nothing interesting on the news. They were going on about all the disasters that had been happening in the west, from Oregon down into Nevada and Arizona, and Rylie was so sick of hearing about earthquakes and fires that she tuned it out.

But that left nothing for her to think about except Abel’s bruising kisses, and how much her body ached to do it again, and her resolution to tell Seth what had happened.

Her boyfriend set down his gun.

“Okay, Rylie. What’s eating at you?”

She threw her legs over the side of the bed and turned her back so that she wouldn’t have to see his expression.

Deep breaths.

“I kissed Abel,” she said, twisting the moonstone ring on her hand.

“You kissed…” He trailed off, like he couldn’t quite understand the words.

She bit her bottom lip and nodded.

He was quiet for so long that she had to look over her shoulder to see his reaction. But his face was blank as he stared at the wall. There was no way to tell what was going on in his head.

The news program switched to commercials. A used car ad blasted through the room. Something about big deals and low interest rate and no payments for a few months.

Seth didn’t move.

She couldn’t stand his silence. “What are you thinking about?”

“You kissed my brother,” he said. He sounded numb. “What do you think I’m thinking about?”

Rylie smothered her face in her hands. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened. I’d been trying to avoid him, but like I told you, I’ve been feeling so—so
weird
about him—and when I realized I was leaving, and he was—”

He stood up abruptly, pushing his chair back. “Stop.”

Seth didn’t sound numb anymore. He sounded angry.

She shut her mouth.
Here it comes.

He strode to the bed, and she tensed. But he only unzipped his suitcase.

“I shouldn’t be surprised.” He pulled out the binder he had been reading in the car while she drove. “That’s what this said would happen.”

Seth tossed the binder on the bed. It slid across the old bedspread to her, so that she could read what was printed on the cover at an angle.
Hunting the Once-Human Beast
.

She reached out to touch it, and then decided she didn’t want to. “Is that…?”

“Yeah. It’s my dad’s book. He did more research into them than he originally published, including an entire chapter on Alphas. My mom had a copy of his rough draft on Gray Mountain. I’ve been reading it.”