by Reine, SM
She was slipping away from him, dying as he watched.
He knelt. “Are you there?” he whispered, but she didn’t react. Her tongue lolled out of her mouth. She was drooling blood.
“Shoot her!”
No more. He couldn’t watch for another second.
“I’m sorry, Rylie.”
Seth fired.
The wolf shrieked…
…and the bullet smacked into the lock, shattering the metal. The latch swung open. The silence that followed was only broken by Rylie’s whimpering.
Eleanor immediately raised her gun, and he saw her finger tense on the trigger. He whirled to aim the rifle at her. “Don’t move,” he said.
“Put it down, you dumb little shit. I’ll kill her.”
“And I’ll kill you,” he said, voice shaking.
Seth was sure that Eleanor would pull the trigger, and then he would have to pull his trigger too. He had never taken the time to imagine such a situation. Did his skill match his mother’s? Was he strong enough, fast enough, to survive against her?
Could he really kill her?
Eleanor’s lips trembled with fury. “You wouldn’t.”
Seth moved in front of her gun. She couldn’t fire on Rylie without hitting him.
“Try me,” he said. Something in his face must have convinced her that he was serious. She slowly set her gun on the ground. “Step back.”
She didn’t move. “Seth…”
“I told you to step back!”
In one smooth motion, she picked the gun up again, aimed it at Seth, and squeezed the trigger.
He moved an instant before she did.
Seth threw himself at her, knocking them both to the ground. The shot exploded in his ear and went wild.
They wrestled. Her elbow connected with his face. He smacked the heel of his palm into her nose and blood splattered down her lip.
He yanked the pistol out of her hands and leaped back, leaving her defenseless on the ground.
“What are you doing?” she asked, voice dangerously low.
“This is wrong. Can’t you see? That’s not a monster in there. That’s Rylie! She’s a human being! She has an aunt who loves her, and she likes sundresses and modern art, and—”
“And she’s a monster,” Eleanor spat.
“I love her, Mom.”
She laughed. It was a hysterical laugh, the kind of cackle that came from a madman being wheeled into an asylum. “You love that thing? You love it? You know how I found her today? Look around the garden! See those dead goats? Those weren’t coyotes—those weren’t even killed by a wolf. They were slaughtered by that thing you love as a human, with her bare teeth.”
He opened the cage with his free hand and grabbed a fistful of Rylie’s fur, hauling her into the open. Her breathing was rapid and shallow. Her eyes were only half open.
“They were just goats,” he said. He never dropped his aim.
“Just goats? It’s just goats now—but isn’t it always? It’ll be humans next! Jim would be furious!”
“Dad’s dead,” Seth said.
“Because one of them murdered him and ate his liver!”
“After he murdered her entire pack!” Seth ran his hand down Rylie’s side, ruffling her fur. She didn’t respond. He turned to give Eleanor his full attention, putting both hands on the gun to steady it. “We’ve been on his vendetta for years. We’re not a family. We’re an army! Haven’t you ever thought about what we’re doing?”
She opened her mouth to argue—but then her gaze focused over his shoulder. “Look out!”
He was shocked to see Rylie climbing to her paws. Her entire body shook. Her fur was matted with sweat and blood, and he could see lesions on her nose where the bars had burned her skin.
Eleanor drew her knife, but Seth threw an arm out to stop her.
“Wait!”
The wolf staggered forward one step at a time. She was dripping blood from her jaws. Eleanor hadn’t just thrown her in a cage. She had beaten her first, and now Rylie had internal injuries.
A low growl rose in her throat as Seth reached a hand for her.
“Don’t be suicidal. Injured wolves are very, very dangerous,” Eleanor said, inching backward on the ground.
“She won’t hurt me.” He stepped forward and Rylie bared bloody teeth. He froze. “Rylie… it’s me.”
She whined.
He lowered to his knees and set the pistol on the ground, careful not to make any sudden motions.
“It will kill you,” Eleanor said.
“Come on, Rylie,” he whispered, tuning her out. “It’s okay.”
She twitched. It looked like silver poisoning might have advanced to the point of causing nerve damage. Her ear flicked back, and her right eye wouldn’t open all the way.
His mom was right. Approaching a werewolf under the best of circumstances was dangerous, but trying to get close to one when she was injured and irrational was asking to get bitten.
But Seth knew she was different. He believed it with every fiber of his soul.
She loved him. She would never hurt him.
The wolf limped forward. Slowly, so slowly, she stretched out her head… and bumped her nose into his hand. It left a red smear on his palm.
“Lord in Heaven,” Eleanor murmured.
And then Rylie collapsed.
Her full weight fell against his legs, and he almost fell because she was so big. It wasn’t an attack. She went completely limp with her eyes rolled into the back of her head.
“Rylie?” he asked, touching the ruff of fur around her neck.
His hand came away soaked with blood.
No.
Werewolves were almost impossibly hard to kill. Seth had seen Abel plant a silver bullet in the skull of a werewolf four years ago, and it dragged itself away to survive. They had to wait two weeks to kill it.
So Rylie couldn’t be dead.
She couldn’t be.
Seth pushed his hand through her fur, searching for a heartbeat. He couldn’t find anything.
“Rylie?”
Eleanor crawled over and touched his shoulder. “She’s gone, boy. You should—”
He shoved her off of him. “Don’t touch me! Go to the car. Get bandages. Get… I don’t know, just go get something. She might change back in the morning. She’s not dead!”
“We don’t have bandages.”
Seth didn’t hear her. He ran his hand through her fur, pressed his hands to her ribs, and shut his eyes. He needed to feel a breath. Just one breath, and he knew she would be fine.
“Go away,” he said. “Leave us alone.”
“After everything you’ve done? You little—”
Seth grabbed his mom by the throat, and he felt gripped by a fury so inhuman that for one instant, he thought he was the werewolf instead of Rylie. Eleanor gurgled. “Go,” he said, and his voice was thick with grief.
He shoved her back. She sprawled out on the ground.
“I hope you’re happy with your little bitch,” she said. “My blessings for a happy life together—however long that is.”
Eleanor left, but Seth barely noticed or cared.
He drew his knife and found the bullet wound on Rylie’s shoulder. She wouldn’t heal with silver inside of her. Digging out bullet fragments with the tweezers had nearly blinded her with pain, but he didn’t have time to be gentle now.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “This would hurt if you were awake.”
He cut the bullet wound open wider and reached in with his first finger and thumb. She didn’t move. Seth dug around until he found the bullet flattened against her shoulder blade, which felt like it had cracked from the impact.
Seth flung the silver into the night and felt her nose again. Her breaths were so slow and faint that he wasn’t sure if he was imagining them.
He struggled to lift her body, but he had to get away from the cage. They made it as far as the tree before his strength gave out.
Seth h
ad promised to spend the night with Rylie. He had sworn to protect her.
I’m scared, she had said. Stay with me.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said to the wolf in his lap.
She didn’t respond.
Nineteen
Sunrise
When the golden line of dawn broke over the horizon, Seth had his back leaned against the tree with Rylie’s body pressed against his legs. He watched the sky as it brightened without moving.
He felt like a dried out husk. It was like he left his body sometime in the middle of the night, and now he watched everything from a great distance.
Seth clung to the hope that the sun would turn Rylie back like a prayer. But the longer he sat with her, the less he thought it was likely. His insides felt weighted with lead. “Rylie,” he whispered into the chill morning air. His breath curled out of him in foggy lines.
The sun inched up the hill and touched his fingers where they rested in her fur.
Her side jerked. She sucked in a long breath.
He sat up to watch as her skin rippled. The fur rolled along her body like a wave passing through her.
And then… she changed.
The golden fur slipped from her skin as her tail shrunk back into her body. Paw pads lengthened into fingers and toes. Her nose receded into her face, and the sharp fangs shrank into human canines.
It only took a few moments for Rylie to become human again. She was dirty, but completely uninjured and whole.
Her eyes opened and focused on him. They glimmered with tears. “Seth?”
He couldn’t respond. If he spoke, he would lose control of himself, and he never cried. Seth wrapped his arms round her back and held her tight to his body, burying his face in her hair.
They held onto each other until the whole farm was bathed in golden sunlight. Seth realized she was shivering and took off his jacket to wrap it around her, but Rylie didn’t want to let go of him long enough to get it on her arms.
“Seth,” she said, clinging to his shoulders, “your dad was right. It was horrible. My mind… I changed before the moon. I almost killed a dog. I ate a bunch of goats! It was—”
He interrupted her. “Hey, hey, don’t worry about it. They were goats. Nobody got hurt. You’re okay.”
“But I got mad at Dean Block. I pushed her. I’m going to be suspended from school!”
Eleanor had almost killed Rylie, and she was worried about school. Seth had to laugh. “Who cares? You can finish high school somewhere else.”
She looked down at her bloody body. “What happened?”
Seth didn’t know what to say. It was probably better if she didn’t know what Eleanor had done.
“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing important.”
Their faces were so close together that he couldn’t see anything else. Rylie didn’t look anything like the girl he glimpsed on that first full moon so many months before. She looked like the spirit of a wild animal with her hair blowing behind her. It was simultaneously inhuman and intoxicating.
Seth didn’t want to fight it anymore. He kissed her.
It wasn’t like their first kiss when Jericho attacked the summer camp, which had been brief and hurried. His lips fell on hers, and they both paused—waiting, probably, to see if one of them would draw back. She reached up and laid her fingers on the back of his neck.
That small gesture was enough. His lips parted, and then they were kissing, really kissing. She tasted like blood. He didn’t care.
When they parted, she was smiling. He smiled back.
A voice spoke from behind them. “So that’s how it is.”
Eleanor.
Seth moved to conceal Rylie, but his mom lifted her hands in the universal gesture of peace.
She looked terrible. It was like she had aged a decade overnight. Deep lines scored the sides of her mouth and between her eyebrows. He couldn’t see a gun, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there.
“What do you want?” Rylie growled.
“This isn’t worth it, Seth,” Eleanor said. “Let’s go. We’ll leave her alone. That’s what you want, isn’t it?” She looked defeated. He had never seen his mother like that.
“Where’s Abel?”
“He’s packing,” she said stiffly.
“For what?”
“He says…” She cleared his throat. “He doesn’t like what I’ve done. He thinks it’s time to go out on his own. So it’s time for you and me to go.”
She thought Seth would go with her? The idea was ridiculous. He might have been seventeen, but he wasn’t an idiot.
“Would you have shot me?” Seth asked.
A muscle in her jaw twitched. “You’re my baby. I would never shoot you.” He couldn’t tell if she was lying or not.
“I’m not going with you. I’m done fighting Dad’s battles.”
She stiffened. “You’re still a kid.”
“I’ll live with Abel.”
“Seth—”
“I’m going to finish school, Mom. I’m going to graduate, and then I’m going to college. And I’m going to do it without you.”
Eleanor looked tempted to kidnap him again. Her fists clenched and unclenched. Her barely-bridled fury boiled beneath the surface, and Seth braced himself for a fight.
Rylie got to her feet, hugging Seth’s jacket around her. Even though she was a couple inches shorter than him, it barely covered enough to be decent. “You heard Seth,” she said. “Go away. We don’t want to see you again.”
His mother’s lip curled. “This is your fault.”
“You’re stupid if you think that’s true.”
Eleanor raised her hand, but Rylie didn’t flinch.
“I can do better than to waste my time with you anyway,” she said. And that was goodbye. She marched down the hill and waited by the Chevelle for a moment as though she expected Seth to change his mind and join her.
He didn’t. He wrapped his arm around Rylie’s shoulders and watched as it drove away.
“What am I going to do?” Seth asked.
She gripped his hand. “I said you could stay with me. My aunt’s coming back today. I’ll ask her. I mean, you’re turning eighteen soon, right? So it would only be for a few months anyway.”
“I can probably stay with Abel. That’s not what I’m worried about. But…” Admitting the problem pained him. Seth grimaced. “We’ve never had much money. Without Dad’s life insurance, I won’t have anything at all.”
“That’s okay,” Rylie said. “I could—”
“I don’t want your money.”
Her cheeks colored. “That’s not what I was going to say. I could ask my aunt if you could work here, too, since we’ll need a lot of help around the ranch if she’s sick. She pays pretty good.”
“Oh. Do you think she would hire me?”
“I’m sure she would. Gwyn trusts me,” Rylie said firmly. She looked down at herself, and her cheeks got pinker. “Um… do you think we could go inside? I’m kind of freezing.”
Seth laughed. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
The wolf was unusually quiet after the moon on All Hallows’ Eve. Rylie didn’t feel the slightest bit of a stir as she went through her morning chores, and she even managed to feed the chicks without sending them into a panic.
She never felt too much the morning after a transformation, but now it was like she was hollow on the inside. The wolf wasn’t just quiet. It had completely gone away.
“Do you think this is it for now?” she asked, standing by the pond with her shoulder bumping against Seth’s.
“What?”
“The werewolf thing. I don’t feel it at all.”
He tangled his fingers with hers. “You’re not cured, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“But that was the worst it will get, right? I’ll never have a day as bad as this Halloween.”
“No. Probably not.”
“Good,” she said. “Then I want to try something.”
Gwyn came home that
afternoon to find them in the stables. Her aunt took one look at Seth, who was brushing and saddling Butch, and her eyebrows lifted so high on her forehead that they looked like they might fly off completely.
“Did you have fun while I was gone?” she asked. She looked exhausted. Her sleeves were rolled down to the wrists, but Rylie could see bruises on the backs of her hands.
“Not really. I missed you,” Rylie said honestly.
Gwyn lowered her voice so Seth wouldn’t be able to hear her. “We should probably talk as soon as possible.”
Sadness gripped her heart. “I already know, Auntie,” Rylie said. Gwyn’s eyes widened. “I looked in your room and I saw everything. I’m really sorry. I know I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Well.” She hooked her thumbs in her belt loops and didn’t say anything else about it, but Rylie saw her swallow hard. “That’s that.”
“It’s okay. I’m going to stay and help you.”
A hint of a smile crossed Gwyn’s face. “Are you going to introduce me to your friend?”
Seth walked over and offered her a disarmingly handsome smile. “My name is Seth, ma’am. I’m Abel’s brother.”
“He mentioned you,” she said, and they shook hands. “How long have you and Rylie been… friends?”
“A little while,” he said.
“Uh huh.” Gwyn gave Rylie a look that said you have a lot of explaining to do, but she was polite enough to save it for later. “What are you two doing in the stables?”
“I’m going to ride a horse,” Rylie said.
“Really?”
“Really.”
Once Butch was ready, Seth and Gwyneth stood back to watch Rylie. The horses were watching her, too. Rylie felt like the whole world was waiting to see what would happen.
All she had to do was mount the horse, but she couldn’t make herself move forward. She kept thinking about the last time she reached for a bridle and ended up with a broken collarbone. Even though Butch barely looked awake, Rylie had to hold her breath while she opened his door. He huffed.
“Good horse,” she muttered. “I’m not a scary monster. I’m just a girl going for a ride.”
He didn’t move away when she grabbed the pommel, and he stood still while she climbed on and got her foot in the other stirrup.
