Blue Moon: Blood Moon Trilogy #3

by A. D. Ryan

  “So what are we supposed to do?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer deep down. “We’ve already got our plates full, trying to find Cordelia and stop the vampires.”

  Jackson gave a slight shrug. “We hunt.”

  Chapter30 | disclosure

  Strays. Now? I wasn’t prepared to deal with this—I didn’t know how to deal with this. I was barely equipped to deal with the vampire situation, and now I had to deal with other wolves out there, encroaching on my territory?

  “Why are they here?” I blurted out.

  Jackson sighed. “My guess? Word got out about Marcus and Miranda and someone is looking to take over the territory.”

  “So they’re going around attacking people?”

  “Probably building an army,” Jackson explained further. “It’s likely they think Corbin is Alpha, and since he’s young and inexperienced, they figure they can challenge him to a fight.”

  “But I’m Alpha…and I’m even more inexperienced.” Dread started to build in my chest, forcing my lungs to tighten.

  “True, but you have Nick and me at your side, and the rest of the Pack to back you up.”

  I tried to wrap my head around this new development, but it was hard for me to try to find a solution when we were basically on lockdown with the police breathing down our necks, Bobby’s coven hunting us, and now a power-hungry pack of strays moving in to challenge me for our territory.

  It was too much, and I suddenly found myself wishing it was all a nightmare. I wanted someone to pinch me and wake me up to find that Marcus and Miranda were alive and well. I knew that wasn’t going to happen, though. The Pack and I would need to find the strength to deal with this, even if it seemed impossible right now.

  A gentle touch on the back of my arm startled me, and I turned around to see Nick. I was grateful for the momentary reprieve…for about a second, anyway.

  “Your parents have a few more questions for you,” he informed me. “I’ve answered what I can, but I think they’d be more receptive if they heard a few things from you. Regarding Bobby.”

  Suddenly exhausted, my energy having been zapped just thinking about everything I still had to deal with, I rubbed my hands over my face. “Of course.” I turned back to Jackson. “We’ll talk a bit more later, all right? The whole pack.”

  “You bet,” Jackson replied. “Later, then.”

  When I returned to the room, my parents were sitting on the couch again. Their bodies were rigid, eyes downcast to their joined hands. Upon hearing me clear my throat, they looked up and watched as I lowered myself back into the armchair. I rested my elbows on my knees, tenting my fingers and pressing them against my lips as I waited for them to initiate the conversation.

  I didn’t have to wait very long.

  “Have you known your brother’s been alive this entire time?”

  “He’s not alive,” I started to explain, but my dad cut me off.

  “We saw him, Brooke.”

  Sighing, I lifted my gaze. Nick was behind my parents, leaning against the doorframe, his arms crossed in front of him. He nodded, silently urging me to explain further.

  There was no other way to explain what they had seen, so I just went for it. “The man you saw wasn’t Bobby. I know how confusing that must be to hear, but you have to believe me. Remember everything Nick and I have told you—all that you’ve seen up until this point. Bobby died the night of our twenty-first birthday.”

  I inhaled deeply. “But three nights later, he woke up. A demon had taken up residence in his body, and he clawed his way out of his grave. He’s a vampire.”

  Hearing that their only son was a vampire didn’t appear to come as that much of a shock. I could only assume it was because they’d started to come to terms with another world within their own.

  “He’s not your son. As much as I wanted to believe it when I first saw him, it didn’t take me long to realize I was wrong.” I had to work to keep the tremor from my voice, and I struggled to stay afloat as the memories of my time in captivity threatened to pull me under. “He looks like Bobby, walks like him, talks like him, but it’s not him. He’s become a soulless monster who hunts and kills humans. Destroys families.” I struggled to take another breath, and my heart clenched as I prepared my next confession. “He and the one who made him into what he is were the ones responsible for what happened to David.

  “Shortly after the two of you left the city, Bobby lured me into a trap. He held me hostage for weeks, running tests and experiments on me.” Thinking back to the experiments that were done on me while I was unconscious made me uneasy; he’d known I was pregnant, and he’d made it abundantly clear that he was interested in using the child as some kind of experiment as well. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath. “Some of the things he said to me—things he implied—made me realize that Bobby really did die that night seven years ago.”

  A knock on the front door interrupted us, but I remained seated as Vince and Layla answered it. I was just about to continue my explanation when I heard our visitor introduce himself as Detective Matthews. One sniff confirmed this. “Excuse me,” I said, leaving the room and approaching the front door.

  Detective Matthews acknowledged me over Vince and Layla’s shoulders before they stepped aside to invite him in.

  “Good evening, Detective Leighton,” he greeted. “Glad to see you made it back all right. I trust everything went well back home? You were able to locate your parents?”

  “I was, thank you. They’re actually here for a visit.”

  Detective Matthews’ eyebrows furrow. “Odd time for a visit. Right in the middle of a homicide investigation?”

  “Are we suspects? Have you uncovered something that might indicate as much?” I inquired, wondering if they stumbled upon the pit beneath the manor. Honing the intuition I often relied on as a detective, I read his posture and his expression; he had nothing.

  “Actually, no. While the investigation is still very much active, we’ve released the house as a crime scene. You’re free to move back in any time. The library is still taped off until we can get someone in to clean it more thoroughly, but you can return whenever you feel it best.”

  While the idea of moving back into the manor invited just as much anxiety as returning to my house back in Scottsdale, I repressed it. “Thank you for letting us know,” I replied. “You’ll keep us updated on the investigation?”

  Nodding, Matthews cleared his throat. “I will.”

  “And my parents’ bodies?” a small voice asked from behind me.

  I whipped around to find Colby descending the stairs. Her dark hair was unclean and hanging like a curtain around her face and shoulders. Dark circles rimmed her normally bright eyes, making them appear dull and lackluster.

  “Wh-when can we bury them?”

  I placed a hand over my heart, feeling the sting. “Colby, honey…”

  “The medical examiner has a few last things to record, and then we’ll be in contact,” the detective told her, his voice softening with empathy. Turning back to me, he shrugged. “I apologize for the inconvenience, but I’m certain you understand.”

  I nodded once. “I do, and we appreciate all your hard work. Please stay in touch. The sooner we can say a proper goodbye to our friends, the sooner we can work toward healing.”

  “Of course.” He seemed nervous, but only for a moment. “Naturally, we ask that you still stay close.”

  “We will,” I assured him. “We’ll cooperate in whatever way we can.”

  After apologizing for interrupting our evening, Detective Matthews exited the house and headed for his unmarked car. I watched from the front step as he drove away, and raised a hand to wave at the cop car that had been parked at the end of our driveway for the last few days.

  When they were gone, I stepped back inside and closed the door. Nick was there now, waiting with the rest of the Pack and my parents. “We can return to the manor. They’ve released the crime scene.”

  “Cri
me scene?” my dad asked.

  Colby headed back upstairs, not needing to hear the details again. It was likely she wouldn’t return to the manor any time soon, and I could understand that; I couldn’t go into Bobby’s room for months after his death, and even just walking by the alley I’d found him in gave me anxiety.

  I explained the situation to my parents, shocking them further, naturally. “This whole week has been a mess,” I told them, collapsing onto the stairs. Exhaustion seeped into me, settling deep into my bones. “And now, having to deal with strays on top of everything else?”

  “What?” Nick spoke up. “What strays?”

  Groaning, I looked up at him. “Sorry. Jax just told me. I was going to call a meeting to discuss how to deal with it.”

  Eyes moving between Nick and my parents, Jackson offered up some information. “Roxy and I investigated the attacks like we were supposed to. The bites were already healing, and based on their recount of the events, it sounds like we’re dealing with a pack of strays…likely ones who’ve heard what happened to Marcus and want to challenge his successor.”

  “And his successor would be?” my dad asked out of habit; leaving the detective back at the office was difficult.

  Exhaling heavily, I pushed myself to my feet. “Me,” I proclaimed. “I’m Marcus’s successor. I’ve been left in charge, and they’re coming to challenge me for our territory.”

  “You make it all sound so…feral and inhuman.” My mom’s voice was soft, yet a lot steadier than before.

  “It kind of has to be,” I replied gently. “But it’s not all bad. I’ve learned that there’s a healthy balance that we all have to live by if we’re expected to co-exist. Some don’t value the same standards or abide by our laws.” I could see she was still struggling to accept this, and I decided not to push her beyond her limits.

  “The strays?” my father interjected, and I nodded my response. He looked from one pack member to the next, eyeing us each with scrutiny. Finally his eyes fell on me. “So, this is all true? Werewolves and vampires…they exist?”

  “They do,” I told him.

  While he still seemed hesitant to believe, I sensed he was trying his hardest to understand. I could practically hear the wheels turning, gears grinding, and I waited patiently for his next question.

  “And you said Bobby is a…” An uncomfortable pause. “A vampire?” I nodded once, and that was all he needed to continue. I wasn’t expecting his next question to catch me as off guard as it did; it hit me as hard, the unseen force of it almost knocking me off my feet. “So, if he is a vampire, how was he able to walk in the sun?” The room remained silent. “Or is that not how it works?”

  I’d almost completely forgotten about a concern that had plagued me earlier, but now that my dad had addressed it, it was all I could think about. “No, that’s exactly how it works,” I told him.

  “Then, how?”

  “Bobby walked in the sunlight?” Jackson inquired, shock obvious on his face. “How is that possible? He’s a vampire.”

  I thought about it, remembering all the way back to the day I escaped the compound and the sun burned his skin as I’d gotten away. He had to wait until nightfall before coming after us, yet earlier, he walked out into the late afternoon sun without so much as singeing his hair.

  The answer came to me in an instant as I stared at the healing cuts and dried blood on my arm from Bobby’s earlier attack. I didn’t even have to work through it; our conversation back at the compound regarding his plans slammed into me with a dizzying force.

  “No,” I croaked in response to Jackson. “He’s not.”

  “Then what the hell is he?”

  Grim, I looked up at him before looking around the room. Bobby’s voice filled my head with something he’d told me weeks earlier, and I repeated it, my voice barely above a whisper. “The perfect killer.”

  Chapter31 | primeval

  Silence surrounded me as they all tried to put the pieces together. He did it. He’d successfully turned himself into a hybrid.

  “How?” The question registered before the voice. Slowly, my eyes lifted to Corbin, who stood near the front door.

  I stroked the pink scars on my arms, remembering the sound as Bobby’s nails tore through my skin. I traced them up to the spot on my elbow, recalling with crystal clarity the way the needle felt as it pierced my skin and how each beat of my heart filled the vial more and more.

  “He took my blood,” I explained. One quick glance at my parents told me they were confused, so I decided to start from the beginning. “When he held me captive, in the compound, he’d ordered my blood taken. When he wasn’t forcing me into a room to watch me change into the wolf, he was either torturing me, drugging me, or sticking needles in my arms.”

  A gasp escaped my mother as she clapped a hand over her mouth. I hated that I was tarnishing the image of her son, even if he was no longer the man she’d raised.

  “His sire—the one who’d made him what he is—Gianna, had this theory that she could merge the two species. She’d been trying for years to mix our DNA with theirs multiple different ways, but always failed. Every test subject they’d acquired died an excruciating death.” Forcing myself to relive that awful time forced my heart to race and my unease to heighten. “Recently, she and Bobby had wondered if there was something they were missing, something that might help link the two bloodlines seamlessly.”

  My mom and dad regarded me, expressions both curious and shocked.

  “That string of murders in Scottsdale wasn’t just about Gianna building her army,” I told my dad. “They were to draw me out. They knew I would see the similarities to Bobby’s death. They wanted me involved because I was that link. The key to their success. They thought that since my DNA and Bobby’s came from the same bloodline that maybe they could get the werewolf and vampire blood to merge without the risk of rejection. He was all amped up to use me as his guinea pig, but he decided to wait. He hadn’t anticipated my escape.”

  “Why would he wait?” Dad continued to prod like a good little detective. “If he had you, wouldn’t it have made more sense to just do what he’d intended?”

  Nervous, I shifted my glance around the room before finding Nick. He gave me no indication as to whether I should tell them about the pregnancy or not; I would have to make that decision all on my own.

  “At first, I had no idea,” I replied honestly, twisting my hands together anxiously. “He seemed ready to go forward with his plan, and then he just stopped. He told me he was going to wait a few months.” I bit my lip hard, dropping my eyes to the floor. “I didn’t know it at the time—until very recently, actually—but I’m pregnant.”

  Any and all noise was snuffed out in an instant like all the oxygen had been sucked from the room. Nick came up beside me and took my hand in a show of support as my parents’ eyes widened in surprise. I looked from one pack member to the next, slowly gauging their reactions, and aside from Nick, Layla was the only one who didn’t look shocked by this news.

  “Pregnant?” my mom finally said, stepping toward me, her eyes flitting between mine and my stomach. “At Christmas, you said—”

  I cut her off before she could think I had lied to her. “I either wasn’t…or I simply wasn’t aware.”

  A laugh slipped past her lips; it was a nervous sound. “It’s only been a couple of weeks. There’s no way you could possibly know already if—”

  “Everything progresses faster with our pregnancies,” Layla spoke up, rubbing her own distended stomach. “I’ve only been pregnant just shy of four months. I’ll be considered full term by six.”

  My parents seemed to be struggling with this news, so I decided to try and segue back to Bobby’s plans. “Bobby kept saying how he wanted to reunite our family. Chances are, if he’d succeeded with me, your fate would have been sealed in with ours. When I heard from O’Malley and Keaton that you’d both gone missing, I panicked. I flew to Scottsdale and found the clue Bobby left for me before
rushing back here. At first, I hadn’t realized it was he who had taken you. The surveillance video from the airport didn’t show anything suspicious in that regard.”

  “This is all so confusing,” Mom said, voice shaking.

  “I know, Mom. I know.” I turned to the Pack. “Knowing what we know about Bobby now, we’re not safe during the day. He could attack at random. I don’t know if he’s able to create more hybrids or if he needs a pure bloodline for that, but we need to be on guard.”

  Vince nodded. “The Shaman is coming over today to cast the barrier spell. I tried to get them here sooner, but I struggled to get a hold of them. They were reluctant to talk to anyone other than Marcus, and I figured you weren’t ready to take that on,” he told me, apologizing with his eyes.

  “Magic?” Dad said, his skepticism audible. I admit, I felt the same thing originally, but then I remembered what I was now and all I was being forced to deal with because of it. Magic was absolutely a possibility.

  “I know it sounds unbelievable, Mr. Leighton,” Vince told him, “but Marcus had a few connections. He had made contact with them before his death, but no plans were confirmed. I’ve been trying to make contact for days in order to get the barrier up and running. It won’t stop Bobby from getting through, but it will slow him down and give us enough of a warning to brace ourselves for his attack.”

  “Why isn’t this something that’s in effect now?” Dad asked.

  Vince answered as best he could, sounding a little hesitant. “We’ve used these barriers from time to time when the threat level is high, but they come at a price that Marcus isn’t always willing to barter.”

  “And that price?” I asked, having never heard this before.

  Reluctant to give me the details, Vince paused, taking a deep breath. “Shaman’s practice defensive magicks—barriers, shields, binding spells. They don’t cast anything that could knowingly harm another living thing. That’s not to say they can’t, but it goes against their moral compass.”