The Lunar Secret Read online

  “Who the hell are you?” Alexander called out to the two of us.

  “I think you know who I am,” I replied, stepping out from behind the tree with my arms folded over my chest. My dagger was gripped tightly in my fist.

  “Alex, who is it?” I heard Beth ask.

  He quickly turned his head and said, “Take Jordan inside, now.”

  She nodded, went inside the tent, and zipped up the door behind her.

  In the light of the moon, I could see Alexander narrow his eyes at us and then come stalking forward across a small clearing in the trees. He wasn’t saying anything, but definitely looked angry. I looked down and could see he had that same handgun gripped in his fist that he’d had back at his house.

  “Be ready,” came Kellan’s voice in my head.

  “I’m more than ready. This fucker needs to die.”

  I had barely registered his chuckle when I suddenly wondered why I could see Alexander and his family so clearly, as if it were the middle of the day. Looking up, I could see that the moon was full, fat, and bright.

  Wait. Oh, no. Why does that moon look fully-full? That’s not ’til tomorrow night. That can’t be right. No. Crap. Crap. Crap... Shit!

  I couldn’t take my eyes off it. It looked especially huge tonight, not a cloud in the sky blocking it. The bright blue light illuminated the clearing we stood in, its huge presence reflecting perfectly off the surface of the lake.

  “Ayla...” I heard Kellan say, his voice threaded with concern.

  The heat seemed to start from inside, like it always did, but this time, I was in denial that it was there. It spread from my very core and began to blossom over the surface of my skin. Then the rage started. As my natural werewolf blood mixed with the vampire venom, I began to twitch.

  I barely registered Alexander stop his forward stalking and freeze with his eyes wide. He began to lift the gun out in front of him, panic taking root in his gaze.

  “Ayla!” Kellan cried out, rushing forward as I fell to one knee with my head down. I didn’t need to open my eyes to know that if I wasn’t already fully wolfed-out, I would be within a matter of seconds. My incisors were already cutting into my bottom lip.

  “Just... get rid of him,” I literally growled out to Kellan. “Leave me, please.”

  “I don’t underst—” His words suddenly cut off as he watched me lift my eyes to the sky. He followed my line of sight, and let out a small gasp. “Bloody full moon. Ayla, how did you not...?”

  I shifted my glowing yellow eyes to Alexander, who still stood frozen in what must have been a very unhealthy curiosity, pistol twitching in his hand. “What is going on?” He sounded scared, unsure.

  “Please, Kellan, don’t look at me,” I whisper-growled.

  Kellan shifted his gaze between Alexander and me, and then said softly into my pointed ear, “If you think I’ve never seen a hybrid before, you obviously don’t know me that well. Stand up and fight, Ayla. End him. I’m not going to do it for you.”

  Still doubled over, I could hear Alexander’s footsteps retreating away.

  Then, like PMS symptoms on overdrive, I suddenly grew incredibly angry again. My entire body vibrated with rage, and I began to growl and snarl like a cornered animal. This time, I knew I wasn’t angry at myself for underestimating the days I had left before the full moon, but at Alexander. Only Alexander. The reason we had come here to begin with.

  With my eyes screwed shut, his lustful, crazed face was burned into my brain, and I could hear his voice as plain as day inside my head as if I was lying on the ground of that filthy alley.

  This will go much faster if you just be still.

  Keep moving and I’ll kill you, bitch.

  Mmm, you taste delicious.

  The feel of him thrusting his pelvis against the thin material of my dress.

  The searing agony of my throat being torn open and the cool night breeze blowing against the open wound.

  Blacking out in the alley, thinking that was it. That I was going to die without avenging Austyn’s death.

  I growled as rage continued to build up inside, seeming to come from my very soul.

  Still violently trembling, I suddenly sprung up into the night, my leather pants torn around my hips and legs, my once cute, low-cut top now ripped around my breasts, stomach, and shoulders where my body had expanded just enough during my transformation to keep me clothed. The boots were destroyed, my disgusting feet—claws—had obliterated them as I’d transformed, and now they poked out through the top like the Incredible Hulk. I looked down at the fur sticking out through the rips in my now-destroyed clothes, and then up at Alexander. I paid no attention to anyone around me. Kellan could have run off for all I knew, and I couldn’t care less in that moment if Alexander’s wife and kid were watching on.

  With my fangs piercing my bottom lip, the blood-tainted drool swung from my lips in frothy red lengths as what I was sure was my best sneer colored my face. The minute Alexander’s frightened eyes met my freaky glowing ones, his went wide. With a yelp, he dropped the gun and turned to run like the chicken-shit he was.

  He used vampire speed, but so did I. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to blitz in this bulky form. It was as if I had reached down into my very soul and conjured up everything awesome about being a vampire and a wolf and combined it into one huge superpower. Normally when I turned into Sasquatch, I was moping around my apartment, or up in the mountains with the guys, stuffing my face with pizza. I never had a reason to try to use blitzing.

  With a maniacal laugh, I easily surpassed Alexander and stopped in front of him, halting his movements.

  “Where ya goin’, dickhead?” I asked, still shaking with rage, but trying to rein it in for a minute.

  He stared at me in horror. “Wh-wha-what happened to you, Ayla?”

  With one claw, I snatched him up by the front of his shirt and lifted him into the air.

  “Fuck me,” I heard Kellan breathe out.

  I paid him no mind. “Funny you should ask, Alex,” I said into his terrified face. I pointed to my head with my dagger. “This is what happened to me. This is what you did to me. I was a perfectly normal werewolf, just minding my own business, when you decided to tear my throat open with your filthy fangs. This is what happens when a selfish vampire bites a wolf!” I shook him like he was nothing but a child’s teddy bear. “Are you listening to me, Alex?”

  He was swearing at me and continued to squirm to get free.

  With my other hand, I brought the dagger up to his throat. I then heard a high-pitched scream from behind me, but I didn’t turn around, because I didn’t fucking care.

  “Please, Ayla, please.” He continued to flail with futility to get out of my grip.

  Those words invoked another wave of indescribable rage. “Are you seriously asking me for mercy right now?” I roared.

  Bending into a crouch, I lowered him almost to the ground, and then I sprung up and let go of him, launching him into the air, his body flying like a ragdoll across the small clearing. He landed at the base of a tree, and before he could even shake off the landing, I was on top of him, straddling him with my dagger at his throat.

  I heard a low whistle of appreciation come from somewhere, followed by Kellan’s throaty chuckle.

  I looked down at Alexander. “Do you know what other weird shit your bite did to me?”

  He tried bucking me off, but it was useless. I had his arms and body pinned. He didn’t answer my question, of course, but stared at me, now getting angry. His eyes reflected a rage I had seen on him only one time—at his house when we were trying to prevent him from leaving with his unconscious vampire wife.

  At his silence, I said, “I’ll take, ‘Questions I’ve Never Been Asked Before’ for two-hundred, Alex!”

  I began to laugh entirely too hard at my own question. “Alex! Get it, Alex?”

  “Get off me, you crazy bitch!” he howled.

  My laughter died in my throat as I tapped my
temple with the dagger, right above my pointed ear. “It caused all sorts of fucked-up psychic visions, Alex. That’s how I found you. So, thank you for that!”

  “Oh, little wolf, why didn’t you tell me?” Kellan’s voice almost sounded... hurt.

  “Hush, Kellan!” I said aloud. I forgot he was here, but it was too late now, the cat was out of the bag. I’d have to tell him about my visions now.

  “Let me go, please. I will leave and never come back,” Alex wheezed out underneath me, and I realized I was probably cutting off his breathing and crushing his internal organs.

  I threw back my head, and after letting out a high-pitched howl, I laughed. “Now where have I heard that before? Hmmm? Oh yeah, last night when you said the same motherfuckin’ thing!” I bobbed my head from side to side, the tapping the dagger against the back of my neck. “Remember when I let you go and you said you’d get the hell out of Colorado?”

  He just stared up at me, but gave no reply as he tried to suck in air.

  “That was me, showing you a small bit of mercy. Only because you have a wife and kid. But my patience, my compassion, my leniency, and most of all... my fucks are allllll gone, Alex.” I knew I sounded silly with my fangs out, but at that point, like I’d told him—my fucks? All gone. Plus, I was feeling more than just slightly insane, and sort of enjoying the crazy.

  “Please,” he pled, struggling to breathe. “We... we... we were leaving. Tomorrow, at-at, uh, sundown.”

  “I’ll take, ‘I’ve Heard That One Before’ for one-hundred, Alex,” I said with an angry scowl.

  “No,” he whimpered as I raised the dagger and teased the sharp point under his chin.

  “Ya know what? I don’t need this thing.” I dropped it into the brown grass and dirt next to me.

  Leaning down, I grabbed the vampire’s face in both claws, and watched with pleasure as he recoiled in horror. With my lips just inches from his, his eyes bulged in their sockets as I began to squeeze. Now, I’d never taken anyone’s head off before, but it looked cool in the movies, and with the amount of adrenaline, hormones, magic, and rage I had thrumming through my body, it didn’t seem like it would be hard to do.

  Turned out, it kind of was.

  I began to twist as Alexander began to holler and beg, his eyes looking like they were going to pop out of his head. When I started to hear crunching sounds of bones breaking, I knew I was almost there. With all my strength and concentration, I closed my eyes and continued to twist. We both screamed out the split second before I wrenched his head all the way around, and watched with sick fascination as the skin, tendons, bones, and blood exploded out of the side of his neck. I continued to twist until Alexander fell silent and all I had left was to sever the spinal cord. That proved to be quite the challenge, so I grabbed my dagger, and with one violent swipe, it came free.

  I hopped off the body, covered in blood and running on a post-homicidal high, and re-sheathed the dagger. With Alex’s head gripped in my fist by his hair, I skulked over to the small outcropping that overlooked the lake. Channeling my inner quarterback, I closed my eyes and pictured Ryder right before he had thrown the winning touchdown downfield all those years ago in college. Opening my eyes, I lifted Alexander’s head, patted it twice on the side of his dead cheek, and tossed it overhand. It didn’t quite spin like a football, but I did a little dance when it landed in the large body of water with a big splash, disrupting its still, glass-like surface. For whatever reason, I stood there, waiting to see if it would bob back to the surface or sink. I grinned when it floated back up and began to instantly deteriorate.

  When I felt a hand on my shoulder, I spun around as I pulled out my weapon from its holster.

  Kellan put his hands up in surrender. “Don’t shoot.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “It’s a not a gun.”

  “I know, I was trying to be funny.”

  I looked beyond him and saw Beth lying in the grass outside the tent—except her head was about three feet away from her body. I watched as it began to decompose and realized it would be a slow process since she was still practically part human and probably hadn’t fully transformed. I looked at Kellan and cocked my head questioningly—you know, the way dogs do when they’re trying to figure out why you’re using baby-talk on them.

  He lifted a shoulder and grinned. “I saw you rip that fuck-wit’s head off, and decided to join the party.”

  My eyes widened momentarily, and before I could ask about the kid, he said, “Dead.” He shook his head sadly. “She ripped his throat out. Poor little lad didn’t stand a chance. I have zero tolerance for child murderers.”

  I cringed. Even though I was obviously bat-shit crazy, and had just committed vampiricide (yes, I just made up that word), I didn’t like hearing about the death of a child.

  “That’s the real reason you took her head off, isn’t it?” I asked, trying to find my calm.

  “No. She came out screaming when she saw you put the dagger to ol’ Alex’s neck. So I took care of her, then went inside to get the child, thinking we should probably drop him off at the nearest police station, but I was obviously too late.” He grimaced. “If I would have found him like that first, I would have surely killed her after that, anyway.”

  Coming down off my high, I realized I was still in my freakish wolf state, and for some reason, started to feel embarrassed about my appearance once again. I turned away and stomped back to Alexander’s body, which was nothing but clothing and ash now, and was thankful I didn’t have to bury it.

  I stalked past him and went to the tent. I stepped over Beth’s remains, knowing nature would run its course on her corpse, and went inside. The murdered boy lay on one of the small beds, and, steeling my emotions, I picked up his little body and walked out.

  “What are you doing? We should just set the damn thing on fire,” Kellan commented, jutting his thumb at the tent.

  “No,” I said through my fangs. “He gets a burial.”

  “All right,” he murmured.

  I carefully made my way down the outcropping and to the edge of the lake. I set Jordan’s body down. After taking a deep breath, I began to dig in the mud and dirt with my claws until I was about four feet down into the ground.

  “You’re too close to the water,” Kellan commented, pointing to the grassy edge of the lake. “I don’t think the body will stay buried.”

  I looked around to see he was right, but I was suddenly exhausted and didn’t care. I nodded and said, “It’ll be okay.”

  I grabbed the boy’s body and laid him down on his back, his arms folded over his chest. The action made me think of something. I looked up at Kellan. “He’s not going to turn into a tiny little vampire, is he? Wake up in a few days and terrorize the campgrounds?”

  He shook his head. “No, he was murdered, not turned. She ripped his throat out and I doubt she fed him any of her blood.”

  I nodded. Kellan then bent down to help me cover him up with dirt and mud. When we had filled the hole, I patted the top to pack it down, and then put some rocks and grass on top. I found two sticks and tied them together with a few blades of grass, making a small cross. I stood and looked down at the tiny grave and sighed. I wasn’t trying to cover up a crime, especially since I hadn’t been the one who’d killed him, but some twisted part of me felt responsible for his death. Giving him a burial instead of just dumping him into the lake, or burning his remains, seemed the most respectful thing to do.

  I saw Kellan check his watch, and then look at me, then to the sky. “C’mon, love.”

  He put his hand out and I looked down at it. My gaze traveled to the claw on my left hand, the top covered in fine, blonde hair, and each nail long and black. I looked up at him, and he gave me reassuring smile and a nod. I put my claw in his perfect pale hand and we walked up the bank and back to the tent. I gathered up Alexander’s clothes on my way, and stopped to strip Beth out of hers, and carried them inside. We used Alexander’s clothing to cover any cracks there could be
inside, which were already sealed closed with blankets and tin foil, but we didn’t want to take a chance. The tent was also surrounded by a large copse of trees for plenty of shade. I quickly changed into the dead woman’s clothes, and barely made it over to the bed that wasn’t covered in the child’s blood before I passed out cold.

  Chapter 4

  The groan escaped my lips before my eyes opened—and once they did, I wished they hadn’t.

  The first thing I saw was my very human-looking hand covered in dried blood and dirt. It looked as though I was wearing a gory red glove. The next thing I noticed was a pale hand, also caked in blood, resting under mine. Deep, even breathing was what I heard next, combined with a body pressed up against my back. The purple T-shirt and black yoga pants I wore were foreign to me, until everything from the night before came flooding back to me.

  With a gasp, I bolted upright, which caused Kellan to startle awake.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, also sitting up.

  I looked down at my hand, my arm, then patted my face to find that I was me again. The glow outside the tent told me it was daytime... well, what was left of it. But I didn’t need to see the sun to tell know that; I could feel it inside me. I always could. It was late in the day.

  “Nothing,” I said, trying to even out my breathing and happy that my voice sounded like me again.

  I turned around to meet Kellan’s beautiful crystal-blue eyes. He was smiling at me. “Did you sleep well, love?”

  Reaching up to touch the side of his face, I stroked the beginning of stubble on his cheek, and smiled at him. “You’re still here.”

  He grinned at me, the gesture so boyish, yet it still brought a flurry of butterflies to my stomach. “Where else would I be?”

  “I’m...” I swallowed hard as the events of the night before continued to flood my brain like some kind of grisly cartoon. “I’m sorry I got you involved.”

  “What are you talking about, silly wolf? I haven’t had that much fun in...” He looked up as if he was deep in thought, then brought his playful gaze back to mine. “At least a decade.”