Darkmoon (#5) (The Cain Chronicles)

by Reine, SM

  She paced between the rocks, cradling her stomach with her eyes closed.

  An epidural sure would have been nice.

  She felt another contraction building. Abel grabbed her and hung on through the entire contraction, but she was barely aware of it. All she could feel was her stomach, the babies, the urge to bear down.

  Rylie needed to push.

  “I think they’re coming,” Rylie said, and she could hear Abel’s heart pounding beside her.

  He might have responded, but she didn’t hear any of it. She could only hear the rush of blood through her own body, the white roar of an icy river in her ears, and smell the pine trees on Gray Mountain. She seized his hand and squeezed so tightly that the bones creaked.

  The weight between her legs was incredible, unimaginable, immense. Rylie lost sense of her skin and bones.

  The pressure shifted, a scream ripped from her throat, and suddenly, there was a lot less weight between her legs.

  Rylie flopped on her side against the ground, gasping and panting. She felt weak, useless. She almost didn’t hear Abel speaking under the drumming of rain on leaves.

  “It’s—it’s a girl,” he said, and he gave a disbelieving laugh. “It’s a girl, Rylie.”

  She lifted her head enough to see him holding something small, which was covered in creamy white fluid and blood. A baby. Her baby. But only the first of them.

  Abel’s face had changed. All the worry was wiped clean, replaced by a look of wonder as he lifted the baby in front of him, one hand supporting her neck and the other under her back. She was tiny, so much smaller than any baby Rylie had seen before.

  There was a wet cough, a small choking sound, and then a cry. A loud, beautiful scream of protest.

  “Let me see,” Rylie tried to say, but she couldn’t seem to get the words out. She was so exhausted. The thought of having one more contraction made her want to cry, though she didn’t even have the strength for that anymore.

  Another contraction struck, and she rode it out, digging her hands into the ground and loosing a sob. There was no room left in her mind and body for thought after that—there was still one more baby to come, and she could feel the body descending even faster than the first. Rylie had no control over herself anymore. She was only along for the ride.

  Her mind was filled with white noise. The forest blurred around her, simultaneously clear and foggy. Her heart pounded.

  The next wave came almost on top of the first, and then the next. Time meant nothing. All she knew was blood, and mud, and her heaving body.

  And then Abel was speaking, she felt the pressure vanish, and she knew that the twin was out, and it felt like every bone in her body had simultaneously liquefied.

  Rylie puddled on the ground. It was hard to breathe.

  “A boy,” he said, but that was all she heard.

  One boy and one girl. Perfect.

  Rylie collapsed. It was over.

  Everything is over…

  “Change, Rylie,” Abel said. His voice swam in and out of her head. “There’s too much blood. Something is wrong. You’ve gotta change.”

  It wasn’t the full moon. How was she supposed to change?

  Babies were crying. She wanted to go to them and find out why, but she couldn’t open her eyes, much less move.

  She hadn’t even named them yet.

  Abel’s voice grew louder. A hand touched her cheek. “Change, Rylie.” It wasn’t a suggestion. It was an order.

  She tried to whisper back to him. “I’m too tired.”

  But the wolf was rising. Rylie hadn’t invited it to emerge, nor did it have the strength to emerge on its own. Abel’s touch was drawing it from her. He called to it, and his voice resonated deep within her in a way that it never had before.

  The power of the moon crested and splashed over her.

  “Change,” Abel said, and she had no choice but to obey.

  Rylie released her flesh. She exploded into the night and the moonlight. Fur erupted from her with a howl, her spine snapped, and the wolf devoured her body in a single gulp.

  And then all she knew was darkness.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Safety

  Rylie woke up warm and dry with something heavy on her chest. She peeled her eyes open, lifted her head, and came face-to-face with two small, wrinkly babies resting stomach-down on her bare breasts. A blanket cocooned Rylie and the infants together.

  She stared, shocked to stillness. The babies’ eyes were closed with miniature fists pressed to their cheeks. They were wiped clean, soft, and so very smelly. Their skin was a few shades darker than hers.

  Belatedly, she realized that these were her babies. The ones that she had been carrying in her belly for the last seven months.

  Rylie took a deep breath of their hair. They both had a lot of it. It was soft and black and emanated a distinctive odor that was nothing like anything she had smelled before.

  They didn’t smell anything like Eleanor, that was for sure.

  “You’re awake,” Gwyn said, walking over to sit on the floor beside her. It was only then that Rylie realized she was in a cave with a concrete floor—one that had been built by the hands of man—and that there were desks and computers nearby. She wasn’t far from a wall covered in petroglyphs.

  Rylie tried to sit up, but she couldn’t without moving the babies, so she settled for resting her hands on them. Their backs rose and fell in tandem.

  “Is this it?” she asked. “Are we in the Haven?”

  “Not yet. We’re still waiting for Seth to come back with the pack.” The corners of Gwyn’s eyes crinkled as she smiled. She was looking much more alive than she had for weeks. Scott’s healing magic was working wonders. “He called to say that he freed everyone from the Union, so they’re on their way. We’re almost home, babe.”

  Rylie craned her head around. They were alone. “How did I get here? The last thing I remember is being lost.”

  “Abel carried you.” Gwyn’s smile grew. “All three of you. They’re beautiful, Rylie.”

  “They’re so small.” Rylie stroked her fingers down their bodies. The one on the left squirmed, scrunched up his face, and then settled back down.

  “Well, they’re premature. But my cousin had a premature baby at this age, and these darlings are sturdier. The girl just about broke my finger squeezing it when Abel first brought her in. You should be proud. I am.”

  Rylie was proud. But the idea of Gwyn breaking bones worried her, too. “Where’s Scott?”

  “He’s already taken the supplies to the Haven,” Gwyn said, nodding toward the wall. There was a narrow, unremarkable archway in the center of the petroglyphs, and a dark cave on the other side. “Seth said that time passes fast over there, so by the time we arrive, he should have found somewhere for us to live.”

  Rylie barely heard her aunt speak. She couldn’t seem to stop staring at her babies.

  She didn’t have to check to know that the one resting against her right breast was the girl. She just knew, with the same surety that she knew the girl was a werewolf. Her smell was that of lakes and woods, fur and fang, the earth and the sky and everything in between.

  “Summer,” Rylie said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Summer.” It sounded even better the second time she said it. “I want to call her Summer.”

  A tear slid down Gwyn’s cheek. “That’s perfect, pumpkin. I like it.”

  Rylie buried her nose in the boy’s curls. Unlike his sister, he wasn’t a werewolf. Brianna had been right—he was one hundred percent human. Yet he wasn’t just any human. He smelled like the warm sweat that slicked Seth’s skin when he was exercising, and the fury of the hunt. He was a kopis, just like his uncle.

  Rylie didn’t have any ideas for his name yet, but that was okay. She had plenty of time to choose.

  Abel appeared behind Gwyn, and her eyes met his. He looked fiercely proud, as though he stood ten feet tall, and the love in his expression made it impos
sible to breathe. And he didn’t even know the truth yet.

  “How do you feel?” he asked, crouching beside Aunt Gwyn.

  “I feel really good,” Rylie said. “I’m not sore at all anymore. But how is that possible? I could have sworn that I hemorrhaged or something.”

  He gave a half-smile. “I healed you. I made you change.”

  The implications of that rocked Rylie to her core. If Abel had finally made her change, then that meant he had finally found the power of the Alpha within himself. He really was her mate. The yin to her yang.

  She opened her mouth to tell him what Stephanie said—that they knew, with seventy-five percent certainty, that Abel was the father.

  But before she could speak, he stood. “As long as you’re okay, I’m going outside to watch the forest.”

  Rylie struggled to sit up. She had to rearrange the babies in order to do it, and Gwyn ended up holding Summer in the process.

  By the time she was upright, Abel was gone, and the boy was squirming. He gave a tiny, pathetic cry. “Abel’s the daddy, isn’t he?” Gwyn asked, resting Summer against her shoulder. “He was right all along.”

  She just nodded as she stared down at her hungry baby. Rylie had no idea what to do with it. But what else was new? She had been taking care of an entire pack for years without a clue, too.

  “It’s okay,” Rylie said, running a finger down her son’s cheek. “Everything’s going to be okay now.”

  Abel could smell Cain. His stink was on the wind.

  Abel had been chased by that smell as he carried Rylie and the babies through the forest. More than once, the odor had been so strong that Abel feared he was about to stumble upon the Union by accident, but he had managed to avoid all of the hunters and gotten Rylie to safety.

  When Scott had opened a magical wall protecting the cave to let Abel through, he had said that it would only stay open for another two hours. That should have been plenty of time for Seth and the pack to reach them. Seth had said that he was only twenty minutes away at the time. But twenty minutes had long since come and gone, and there was no sign of him or the rest of the pack.

  Abel wanted to be inside, underground, with Rylie and Gwyn and those tiny babies. But with the wall still open, he had to be vigilant. He stayed outside to keep an eye on the dark, stormy forest and watch for his brother—either of them.

  He checked his watch. Only an hour until the wall closed.

  Where the hell was Seth?

  “Hurry up,” he muttered, checking the magazine in his handgun for the sixth time. It was fully loaded, but he wasn’t actually sure it would work. Abel had fallen in the mud a couple of times while searching for Rylie.

  Cain’s smell grew closer, but between the wind and the rain, it was hard to tell where it came from. He could have been anywhere. He could have been a few miles away, or up on the hill, or in the valley.

  Or right behind Abel.

  He heard the pine needles crunch an instant before the pain lanced through his back.

  Abel roared, and a hand clapped down on his mouth to muffle the noise. It remained tight to his face as he sank onto his knees.

  Another ripping pain, and another—he could taste the silver on the back of his tongue.

  He twisted his arm around and fired off three blind shots behind him. The metal warmed in his fingers. Someone jerked the gun out of his hand.

  The forest whirled around him as he collapsed onto his back, and he saw Cain kneeling over him with a bloody knife and satisfaction in his eyes. He flung the handgun into the trees.

  He had stabbed Abel in the back. Several times.

  “Hello, brother,” Cain said, and then he drove the knife in again, this time under the ribs.

  Abel tried to twist away, but the pain in his back was too extreme to move. Something had been severed.

  Cain leaned a hand into his throat, cutting off oxygen, and jerked the blade free. Pulling the knife out of Abel’s ribs hurt as much as having it driven in the first time. The edge was serrated, and it ripped the skin open in its wake.

  “Where—what—Seth?” Abel squeezed out.

  “Oh, who knows?” Cain asked, and a mischievous smile crossed his lips. “Am I my brother’s keeper? Oh, wait, wrong brother for that line. I should save it until I’m done killing you.”

  All of the strength drained out of Abel’s muscles. His vision darkened.

  Under the tinny whine in his ears, he heard a meaty cutting sound, but he couldn’t see it. He did see blood pool out from under his back and spread across the forest floor. And then he saw something red and meaty splatter on the leaves.

  Abel realized, with distant horror, that Cain had gutted him.

  He didn’t even feel it.

  When Cain got to his feet and gave a satisfied smile, all Abel could think of was Rylie with two babies curled up on her chest, Gwyn’s thick gray braids framing her smile, and Seth somewhere in the forest with the pack.

  “I wish we could have had more time to savor this,” Cain said. “But you’re too strong for me, and there’s no way I could get at your cute little girlfriend unless you die first.” He bent forward and braced his hands on his knees. “Go ahead and spend your last few seconds thinking about what you did to our mother. And think about what I’m doing to Rylie.” Cain patted his brother’s cheek. “Have fun.”

  He drove the knife into Abel’s heart.

  “Did you hear that?” Gwyn asked, holding Summer against her shoulder and swaying gently from side to side.

  Rylie frowned. “Hear what?” Ever since she started nursing her son, the twins had consumed her every sense, and all she could hear was the beating hearts of her babies. She wouldn’t have been able to hear the 1812 Overture being performed six feet away.

  “Someone’s out there,” her aunt said.

  Gwyneth was many things—tough but loving, crafty and resourceful—and paranoid was not one of them. If she said there was someone out there, there was someone out there.

  The boy had fallen asleep at Rylie’s breast. She carefully removed him and placed him into Gwyn’s free arm. “It was probably just Abel. I’ll check. Here, hold him.”

  Rylie felt fine while she was sitting down, but getting up to move showed her that she was still weak from giving birth. There were some things that werewolf super-healing just couldn’t fix in a few seconds. She pulled a shirt over her head and stumbled to the mouth of the cave.

  The steep path leading to the surface was empty, with no sign of Abel.

  Breathing out to clear her nose, Rylie took a deep sniff of the fresh air floating down the tunnel. Still, all she could smell was the warm odor of soft baby skin. Her senses were totally shot.

  Rylie faced Gwyn again. With the twins nestled in her arms, she looked more like an angel than a zombie. “I think it’s okay,” Rylie said.

  Gwyn’s eyes widened. “Look out!”

  Rylie spun to see that two men had jumped down the tunnel. They wore black slacks, black shirts, and black vests, which had “UKA” stamped across the chest in white letters. More members of the Union followed close behind, marching into the tunnel two at a time. Their guns were all aimed at Rylie and Gwyn, cradling twin babies in her arms.

  Rylie shoved her aunt toward the door, putting herself between the babies and the guns. “Run, Gwyn!”

  “But—”

  “Run!”

  “Freeze!” shouted one of the black-clad men, but Gwyn had already jumped through the door with the twins, and her passage made the doorway flash with gray light. When it faded, Gwyn was gone. The mirrored cave on the other side was empty.

  Rylie was about to follow—but then she saw Cain.

  He pushed through the ranks of the Union to stand in the center of the room, just in front of the consoles.

  Cain’s hand was coated in blood. Blood that smelled like Abel.

  If Cain and the Union had gotten past Abel, then that meant he couldn’t still be standing. He never would have let them get in. Not u
nless it was over his dead body. “No,” she whispered.

  Cain lifted his hand. It looked like his skin was gloved in the glossy sheen of Abel’s blood. “Where’s the werewolf pup?”

  When Rylie didn’t immediately respond, one of the Union men said, “The old woman took it through the door. There were two of them. Two infants.”

  A thousand emotions flitted across Cain’s face—wonder, delight, pleasure. “Perfect,” he breathed. He jerked his head toward the doorway. “Go get them back.”

  Rylie spread her arms wide in front of the door. “Don’t you even think about it,” she said in a low, deep growl. Her throat was thick with tears. “What did you do to Abel?”

  “He’s dead,” Cain said.

  It felt like she had fallen from the top of a building and impacted the street a hundred stories below. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t see.

  The wolf was happy to take over.

  Its hulking presence grew to fill her heart and mind. Without the smell of her babies to distract her, Rylie could instead smell pine trees, icy rivers, and the stones deep within the earth of Gray Mountain. She smelled musky fur and moonlight. “You’re lying,” Rylie said. She stumbled over the words. Her teeth were loosening in her mouth.

  The Union still hadn’t moved for the door.

  “I told you to go get the werewolf pups back,” Cain snapped, shoving one of his men forward.

  The man moved to pass Rylie.

  She lashed out with a hand that had turned to claws and ripped his throat out.

  Rylie hadn’t even considered killing him—she was too busy fearing for Abel, and wanting to go find him to prove that Cain was wrong. But the wolf was satisfied to watch the Union soldier drop to her feet and gurgle out his last breaths.

  She sucked in a gasp when she realized what she had done.

  The cavern was completely silent aside from the rattle in the dying soldier’s chest. And then he exhaled a final time and went limp.

  It had only been three years since Rylie killed Jericho, the werewolf who originally bit and turned her, in order to save Seth. At the time, she had thought that losing Seth would be the worst thing that she could ever dream of experiencing, but it had been worth it. She hadn’t wanted to have to kill again. Not after that.