Gray Moon Rising: Seasons of the Moon (17 page)

“Stop what?”

She peeked over the edge of the blanket. “Looking at me.”

“Rylie, I just saw all of you.” That slanted grin grew. “
Everything
. Don’t you think it’s a bit late to be shy?”

“Well, you were too busy to stare,” she mumbled into the wool. “I can’t believe I didn’t… you know.” She made a fake growling noise, which sounded more like a kitten’s purr than her beast’s bass hum. “I used to change every time I got one of your letters, and this was a lot more, um, stimulating.”

Seth laughed and dropped onto the cot again, framing her head on either side with his forearms. It was harder to tell with his dark skin, but she thought he might be blushing, too. “You didn’t change because you’re better than this, you can control it, and you’re amazing,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Shut up. You know I hate it when you get all nice.” She swatted at him. “You were getting dressed, weren’t you?”

“I can be distracted.”

He tried to kiss her again, but she squirmed out of his grip, and he gave up. Seth sat on the edge of the bed to grab his shirt.

When he turned his back, she saw a tattoo on his shoulder. Rylie sat up for a closer look, keeping the blanket hugged around her body, and spread her fingers over the ink. It was a paw print the same size as her hand, encircled by a moon.

That glow flushed through her all over again. “When did you get this?”

“For my eighteenth birthday.” Seth shot a crooked smile over his shoulder. “Aunt Gwyn didn’t want me to tell you that she paid for it.”

Rylie gasped. “She did not.”

“Bet you don’t know she has a tattoo of a unicorn on her calf, huh?”

“Now you’re making stuff up.”

Seth laughed, and she couldn’t tell if he was picking on her or not. She didn’t really care. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her again, like he had all the time in the world. He seemed to have forgotten all about his shirt.

Then he whipped the blanket off, and she shrieked with laughter as he pounced.

“It’s too cold! Give it back!”

“I’ll keep you warm,” he growled, and she kicked at him playfully as he pressed his body against hers. Even her light-hearted attempts at fending him off were backed by the bruising strength of a werewolf, so Seth chuckled and flopped onto his side. “I give up!”

She flopped onto him and tucked her head into his shoulder. “And I thought I was the animal.”

“I learned from the best.” He looped his fingers around hers. Silence sank upon them, and the warm peace of being comfortable and cozy was almost too good to break. But after a few moments, Seth craned his neck around to look at her. “We can’t stay here for long. People will come looking.”

Rylie ran a finger down his bare chest. “I don’t see why not.”

“Well, we have to eat eventually. And we’re still on this stupid mountain with three teams of Union hunters and about fifty werewolves. You won’t be much fun to be locked up with in a couple of nights, either.”

She sighed. “Yeah. I guess you’re right. But Seth?”

“Huh?”

“Can we stay for a few more minutes?”

“Yeah,” he said. “We can.”

Seth didn’t realize he had
fallen asleep until a weird noise woke him up.

His eyes popped open. Rylie was curled against his side. She was still totally unconscious, and very quietly snoring, which would have been cute if his heart hadn’t been pounding from the adrenaline.

What had disturbed him?

He slipped out of bed, careful not to stir his girlfriend, and went to the window. Rylie rolled over, pressed her face into the lumpy pillow he had vacated, and let out a sigh.

Night had fallen. The moon was quickly becoming full, but he could barely make out the trees beyond the ring of cabins. They were a towering black mass of branches. There wasn’t even the faintest breeze to stir them. Clouds blotted out the stars on the east, but they were suspended in the air, like they were waiting for something.

It was quiet. Kind of too quiet.

Rylie’s arm flopped to the side, searching for Seth. When she didn’t find anything, her eyes cracked open. “What are you doing?” she asked with a sleepy smile.

“I thought I heard something. Stay low.”

Her smile was gone immediately. He could tell the wolf’s senses were taking over by the calculating look that filled her eyes and the tilt of her head. Seth grabbed his gun and returned to the window, ears perked.

Snap
.

The faint sound of a foot pressing against a twig was barely audible through the walls, but it jolted through him as if he had been struck by a sledgehammer.

She moved to his side. “Who is it?” she whispered.

A red dot appeared on the glass. He looked down. It was on Rylie’s chest, too, like a glowing freckle. She tried to touch it, but the dot only moved to her hand, lighting up the shadows between her fingers.

Laser sight.

“Get down!”

Seth shoved her to the ground an instant before the shot split the air and shattered the glass. The bullet hit the wall behind them. Rylie screamed.

He took the safety off on his rifle and peeked over the windowsill. Someone was running outside. All he saw was a black shape flashing through the trees. He steadied his aim on the window, tracked their motion for a few seconds, and squeezed the trigger.

Even though Seth hadn’t shot the werewolves when Yasir told him to and blamed it on bad aim, he actually had really good aim. Even at night.

Someone cried out. It was a woman’s voice.

The runner dropped to the ground, and Seth dropped, too. He pressed his back against the wall.

“What’s happening?” Rylie asked. Her voice was surprisingly clear. She hadn’t started losing her teeth to fangs again yet. Seth checked her fingers—no claws.

“We’re being attacked. We’ll have to run.”

She nodded, mouth sealed shut in a thin line.

Seth pushed himself up to peek out again, but two more shots blasted through the air and splintered the wood by the window. He threw himself over Rylie to protect her from the falling debris.

“Let’s go,” he said.

He pulled Rylie to the front door, pausing only to let her scoop her clothes off the ground, and pointed his gun around the corner to pop off a couple of shots without aiming. A responding bullet smacked into the wood deck.

And then another gun began to fire.

He searched for the source of the gunshots, but he couldn’t make out any motion. Had Yasir followed him?

Rylie frozen in the middle of wiggling into her shirt. She pointed. “Abel!”

Once she said his name, Seth saw Abel taking cover behind a picnic table. He was shooting blindly into the trees. It seemed to work. The other shooter fired one more time, and then stopped.

Seth stepped down before Rylie, rifle braced against his shoulder as he searched the trees. But Eleanor was gone. There were no more red dots, either.

Rylie bounced down the steps on one foot as she tried to pull on her shorts.

“How did you find us?” she asked, hurrying to Abel’s side.

“You’ve been missing for hours. I followed your trail. Watch out.” Abel shoved Rylie behind him and raised the gun to point it at Seth.

He froze in the middle of putting the rifle’s strap across his chest.

Rylie grabbed Abel’s arm, dragging the pistol down. “Wait!”

He wrenched away from her with a disbelieving look. “Did you seriously just jump me when I had my finger on the trigger? Do you know how easy it would be to accidentally fire?”

“You had your finger on the trigger? Did you actually plan on shooting me?” Seth asked. He lifted both of his hands in a gesture of peace. “Dude, trigger discipline.”

“Yeah, I’d shoot you. You’re here with hunters. You’re here with Mom!” Abel waved the gun at the trees. “That was her, wasn’t it? How else did she know where to find Rylie if it wasn’t for you?”

“It’s not like that, you big dummy,” she said, angling to put her body between Seth and Abel. “He only followed the hunters so he could help us. He’s still on our side. Okay?”

“Are you willing to risk your life on that?”

“Yes,” Rylie said firmly, wrapping her hand around Seth’s.

Abel glared at them for a moment longer, and then dropped the gun. “You’re hanging out with a bad crowd, bro.”

“Not anymore,” he said, finally tearing his eyes away from his brother’s gun to watch the trees. It was disturbingly quiet again. Midnight was approaching. “But we shouldn’t talk here. Let’s move.”

“Okay.” Rylie paused to button up the shorts she had taken from the lost and found before following Abel. She was probably trying to be discreet under her baggy shirt, but Abel noticed anyway. His eyes went from her to Seth, and then his eyebrow lifted.

“Where’s your shirt, man?”

Rylie flushed and stared at the sky like it had suddenly become really, really interesting. “I lost it in the cabin,” Seth said, trying not to smirk, or look too hard at his girlfriend, or otherwise project “we had awesome sex” vibes all over the place.

But hanging out with werewolves made it really, really hard not to share their private business. Their senses were too keen. Abel’s narrowed eyes flicked between both of them, and he could practically see the moment that his brain shifted interpretations of Rylie putting on clothing from “just changed back from werewolf” to “formerly undressed with his half-naked brother.”

He leaned over Rylie’s shoulder and took a short sniff of the air. She kept staring at the sky. Her face couldn’t get any redder.

“Lost your shirt. Uh huh,” Abel said. “You lost
something
.”

Seth shoved him away from Rylie. “Move it, you ugly maniac. And keep your nose to yourself.”

He tried to keep his dignity when he ducked back into the cabin for his shirt.

They were quiet as they headed up the mountain. Rylie and Abel seemed to know where they were going, so Seth took up the rear and watched for any more potential signs of attack. But Abel didn’t seem willing to let him out of his sight. He kept a steady gold eye on Seth over his shoulder.

After about an hour, Abel stopped them near a trail.

“I’ll go ahead to the rocks and check on them,” he said. “Keep your clothes on until I get back.”

He vanished.

“Check on who?” Seth asked.

“We’ve met up with other werewolves. Some of them are injured. I think he wants to make sure that you aren’t going to run in and shoot them. Oh, Seth!” Rylie flung her arms around his neck, and he hugged her tightly. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why he’s being so… I don’t know. Weird.” Her voice was muffled against his shoulder.

“Ignore him,” he said, massaging her back.

“But Abel
knows
about us.”

“Yeah. So?”

“So if he knows then—then everyone else will know, too,” Rylie said. It was a pretty lame excuse. Seth held her at arm’s length and studied her face. Even in the dark, he could see that she was still pink-cheeked and having a hard time looking at him.

“Are you embarrassed because we did it, or because you don’t want Abel to know?”

She didn’t get an opportunity to respond. Bekah appeared out of the trees.

“You made it!” She hugged Rylie tightly, and then Seth, too. “I was getting worried! Did you run across the hunters again?”

“I think we were attacked by a hunter, yeah. But we’re fine. What about everything here? Did Stephanie stitch together the injured wolves?”

Bekah nodded. “They’re healing. Come on, everyone’s trying to sleep.”

She led them back to the hollow under the cliff. The group had expanded again. There were three more people squeezed in the back, and they slept on top of each other in a big pile. Stephanie wasn’t sleeping; she was deep in conversation with Abel. Every time Rylie saw her, she seemed to have lost a little more of her composure. Her hair was frazzled and her eyes were shadowed. She still managed to give a thin smile at the sight of Seth.

“Tell her, Rylie,” Abel said. “Eleanor’s onto us. We have to move
tonight
.”

Stephanie huffed. “Not all of these werewolves heal as well as you do. These people have been through a lot, and they’re working their way through silver-inflicted injuries. They need rest.”

“They’ll get enough time to rest if hunters shoot them in the head!”

Seth kneeled by the closest of the injured wolves—a sleeping man with olive skin who looked like he hadn’t shaved in a year. He gently moved the gauze to examine the wound. If they had been shot during the beach attack, then Stephanie was right. They were healing too slowly.

“I think she’s right,” he said. “We should let them sleep it off.”

Abel folded his arms. “I didn’t ask you.”

“I’m really tired,” Rylie said helpfully. “Why don’t we take turns staying up to watch for hunters? We can leave in the morning.”

The vote wasn’t in his favor. Abel threw his hands in the air, making a disgusted noise.

“Fine. I’ll take first watch.”

T
WENTY

Counterattack

Seth and Abel spent the
next morning arguing.

They stood outside the hollow under the cliff and didn’t try to keep their voices down. Rylie listened as she helped Toshiko clean up camp. They covered the blood splatters with dirt and picked up their trash so the Union wouldn’t know they had slept there.

“We can’t stay ahead of the hunters forever. They know too much,” Seth said. “Motion trackers, cameras, heat sensors, guns—”

“That’s why we should just go to the top of the mountain.”

“But they’ll expect to find you there. We
have
to go on the offensive.” Seth lowered his voice, but Rylie’s hearing was good enough that it didn’t really matter. “Get Stephanie’s phone, call Scott, get the van…”

Abel gave a derisive snort. “I’m not going anywhere until I know why we’re here. I need answers!”

“Your answers could get everyone killed. They could get
Rylie
killed,” Seth snapped.

Her ears burned. She focused on putting trash in the bag that Toshiko held. The other werewolves were quickly working through their short supply of food, even though trying to choke down cans of vegetables was difficult for werewolves. They would have to find a new supply of food—preferably meat—and they would have to do it fast.