Chase the Moon

by Kristen Strassel

  He laughed. “Takes the romance out of it.”

  “To hell with romance. Romance doesn’t keep us out of that lake. We’ve got three days.” I scanned the crowd and saw a woman sitting on a bench alone, eyes wide as she clutched the handle of her pancake on a stick, like she didn’t know what the hell she was doing here. We could scare the shit out of her even more, or we could turn this night around. I wanted the second thing to happen. “Let’s make the most of it.”

  Chapter Three

  TORI

  Holy shit, the crowd went from manageable to insane in a blink of an eye as soon as the band took the stage. The few times I’d gone to a concert, before I realized big groups of people freaked me out, I held onto my friends for dear life to get the hell out of there. But in Aurora Falls, I didn’t know anyone. And there was no place to get away from it. Rita’s Diner had a line out the door, and people stood shoulder to shoulder in the bookstore Legends and Tails. The vendors that were open already, the ones with the prettiest jewels, were swamped.

  I’d hoped this fear would go away once I started my adventure. But my baggage came with me on my trip.

  I could either face it or go sit in my dark and wobbly tiny house. I realized after I drove away from the lake that there wasn’t any place to hook up to electricity. Not exactly how I expected to spend my first night of my big adventure.

  An unfamiliar feeling filled my belly, and I couldn’t take another bite of pancake. Which bummed me out, because they were just as delicious as I remembered them. Maybe even better, because these were pumpkin spice pancakes. I didn’t mind being a little basic with my love of pumpkin stuff.

  I was homesick, not for my old house, but for the dream of when my adventure happened so much differently than it was right now.

  The band finished their first set, and I packed up my maple syrup dip and tried to figure out what to do next. Every time I asked someone for suggestions, they told me to have fun and experience the town. Usually, I considered myself good at this, but this crowd had my head spinning.

  Maybe I should call it a night and come up with a new plan in the morning. I picked up my stuff from the bench and braced myself to battle through the crowd.

  “I’m so sorry.” I walked right into a guy dressed like a Viking. Maple syrup splashed everywhere, on my shirt, and on his costume. “Let me clean that up for you.”

  All I had was my crumpled-up napkins. I dabbed them on his cape, but it didn’t do much to pick up the sticky mess.

  “It’s okay, my lady,” he said. Wow. I’d bumped into a total hunk. He was well over six feet tall, a wall of muscles that I was banging these dirty napkins against. “We all make sacrifices for Rita’s pancakes.”

  I laughed. “They’re even better than I remembered them.”

  “You’ve been to Aurora Falls before?” he asked, staying in character while I searched in my bag for my bottle of antibacterial gel or some wipes.

  “Not since I was a kid.” I found hand sanitizer. It would have to do. “I got some on your tattoo.”

  I didn’t understand why he was dressed as a Viking when he had a scaly tattoo. The string lights illuminating the main street made it sparkle, it wasn’t like any ink I’d seen before. Silver and glittery, fading into pale purples, greens, and even pinks. This giant, sexy man had the most beautiful tattoo.

  “I don’t have a tattoo,” he protested as I wiped my anti-bac dipped fingers over it.

  But I was the one who gasped.

  An image flashed into my mind like lightning. It was of the man standing in front of me, dressed like a very different kind of Viking. The soft velour and faux fur faded to the real thing. The fur of a real wolf head on his, his face streaked with drying blood. Bounty everywhere.

  I should’ve pulled away, but there was nowhere to run. Somehow, even though everything looked different, I knew this scene was taking place in Aurora Falls.

  Damn, the town was supposed to be spiritually charged, not haunted.

  We were surrounded by jewels and so much bounty, but none of it was for us. A goddess warrior descended from the sky and ordered this Viking into the lake. Not for a swim. This was a sentence.

  The vision was so real, I thought I was the one drowning as I watched his body submerge fully in the lake. No, that wouldn’t be nightmare-inducing at all tonight as I attempted to sleep in the pitch-black dark on its shore.

  I slid my hand down his arm, and the tattoo was still there. The beautiful man was back, no more blood running down his face. No animal skin on his head. He was still splattered with maple syrup. Standing perfectly still, with his lips parted. “What did you see, my lady?”

  He didn’t break character. That was some freaky act, like there was some weird button under his fake tattoo that showed random women a horror show.

  “You planned that?” I backed away from him, bumping into another woman who gazed longingly at the Viking and his friend, who was dressed like a merman put probably had his own freak show happening. “That wasn’t funny. You scared the hell out of me.”

  I turned away, into the sea of bodies, and made a break for it. Agoraphobia wasn’t half as scary what I’d just seen.

  “Wait! I can explain.” He easily caught up with me, stopping me with his big hand on his shoulder. I should have given him shit for grabbing me, but I’d just touched his freaky tattoo. We weren’t exactly even, but we’d both crossed a line.

  “You can’t do that,” I said between gritted teeth. If Main Street wasn’t such a mob scene, I would’ve kept going. But there was nowhere to go, and I wasn’t even sure if I was going in the right direction. Nothing like making a grand declaration and exit, only having to slink by him again because I’d gone the wrong way. “Take that shit to a haunted house. You’ll scare the wrong person here. They’ll have a heart attack and sue you.”

  Why the hell was he grinning? “You think this is funny?”

  “No, I don’t, my lady.” Now there was light dancing in those big blue eyes. My heart was still racing so it couldn’t skip a beat. I wouldn’t cut him any slack because he was the best looking man I’d ever laid eyes on.

  “You can drop the act with the ‘my lady’ stuff.” I crossed my arms over my chest.

  “I don’t know your name,” he said softly, like a confession. It didn’t take away that horrible scene, but it tipped the scales a little bit in his favor.

  “It’s Tori.”

  “I’m Abel.” He offered his hand.

  “Don’t touch me.” I backed away, just a step, and bumped into someone who didn’t see anything but Abel, the big, weird Viking dude with the sparkly eyes and scaly tattoo. I should’ve warned her away, but I had to admit, I was drawn to the man. He intrigued me as much as he scared me.

  “I’ve been hoping to find you,” he said. “Waiting for you to come.”

  Okay. Now he scared me more than he intrigued me. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Tori!” he called after me, and I expected him to try to touch me again, to feel the heat of his big body right behind me on this chilly October night, but when I turned around—why did I turn around?—he hadn’t moved. “Please, give me a chance to explain.”

  Women closed the gap between us, jostling me out of the way to get closer to him. I gasped when one of them put her hand on the tattoo, but her expression didn’t change. There was no way she saw what I did.

  Okay, so maybe he wasn’t the crazy one. Maybe it was me. Didn’t make me feel better.

  Abel stood, calm in the middle of the chaos, waiting for me to give him what he asked for. A chance. He was confident enough to think I would.

  It might work on the girls who were begging him to pay attention to them, but I wasn’t falling for it.

  I shook my head. “You need to get back to work.”

  Once I convinced myself to turn away from him, I ran, bumping into people all the way. Maybe I’d hated crowds so much because I’d feared exactly what had happened. That I’d touch someone and see their d
eepest, darkest secrets. That the lack of space wouldn’t only be my nightmare. I’d borrow everyone else’s.

  But not one other person in the crowd affected me like Abel.

  Chapter Four

  ABEL

  Her name was Tori, like victory, but I couldn’t claim her as mine.

  She saw my mark. Touched it to wipe away her own, and I scared her with a thing I couldn’t explain. Not quickly enough to stop her from running. She ducked between groups of women drinking beer out of cups shaped like giant plastic mermaid tails, and families, complete with little kids with their faces painted like my mark. But they didn’t scare her like I did.

  She was gone.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Zander grabbed my arm, rattling me back to this reality. That my mate was in Aurora Falls and I’d let her get away. “Follow her.”

  I shook my head. “She saw the visions. I scared the shit out of her.”

  “Go. Get. Her. You’ve been waiting hundreds of years for someone to see your mark. To touch you and know everything about you.” He stopped to grin at another group of women who approached, wanting pictures.

  “She’s terrified of me.”

  Zander didn’t have an answer for that as a group of women approached for photos.

  “Can we get a picture with you too, Viking?”

  The word Viking felt like a slap in the fucking face. I should have been taking what was mine, no matter what the cost, not spending another month sulking at the bottom of a lake, hoping that my mate would appear.

  She just did, and I was too fucking afraid to go after her. Some Viking I was.

  I could find her. I didn’t doubt that. I had no idea if I could keep her. If, in this modern world, I could make her believe in things she didn’t understand. That she was made for me and only me. That we were meant to spend forever together. That I’d protect her, not frighten her.

  “Viking!” The drunk girl grabbed my arm and giggled, then groped my bicep, right where the mark was. I held my breath, waiting for her to see the same things Tori did. Maybe I’d wanted this so badly I thought any woman who touched the mark would be able to see my story. But instead, she gave me one of those sleepy smiles, punctuated with a hiccup and she patted my arm.

  “You’re so strong,” she slurred.

  The women around us cheered as I ripped the cape away from my neck. I couldn’t fucking stand here and let my mate get away. It was festival weekend, and I’d never seen Tori before. She was probably on her way back to her hotel, ready to throw her things into her suitcase, and argue with the person at the front desk until she got a refund. It wouldn’t be the first time someone got more than they bargained for on a full moon weekend in Aurora Falls.

  “The Viking’s giving us a striptease!” one of the women said. A chant of “take it off!” broke out in the crowd, and parents glared at me as I ripped my costume away, piece by piece until I was down to my pants and boots. As much as I couldn’t let my mate get away, I also couldn’t ruin the festival weekend.

  I might not ever see Tori again, but there would be no avoiding Dolly’s wrath. These women were nothing more than a distraction for me, but it didn’t mean they weren’t someone else’s mate. They could see the mark on one of the other festival actors or later when they inevitably stumbled into Club Scales for the male revue.

  I was so glad I didn’t choose to work there this weekend. Tori would never have set foot into the club.

  Who the hell was I to make any assumptions about this woman? All I knew was she liked pumpkin pancakes on a stick.

  Standing head and shoulders above most of the crowd, it should’ve been easy to spot her. The crowd had swelled, and it was hard to move and see. I closed my eyes for a long blink, trying to remember the details of her face. But all I could see was the horror she felt when she saw what I was.

  I had to make her understand. The images scared her, but without her, I was bound to that watery hell for the rest of my life.

  All night I roamed the festival, declining requests for pictures. Leaving Zander on his own, hoping he was having better luck than I was.

  Tori was gone.

  Fuck.

  When the crowds thinned, I stopped into Club Scales, just in case—and turned down Blaire’s offer to go on stage—then headed back to the cabins. We’d built a cluster of them on the north shore of the lake, the brutal edge where our reality blurred into what we couldn’t have. Freedom. It gave us a place to stay for the three torturous days of the full moon, and a place to start our new lives when we found our mates.

  More like, when we convinced them we weren’t the devil on two legs and they freed us from our watery prisons.

  It should’ve just been me and the rest of the Mer, but some human had taken upon themselves to park their mobile home in the sandy lot by the shore. Not only was it dangerous, but they’d probably ignore the no swimming signs just like they did the no trespassing ones and go into the water. So many times we’d laughed as the lake serpent would drag them down to their watery graves. Natural selection. But I didn’t want to share Sapphire Lake with any more humans, not when I knew my mate roamed above the surface.

  The mobile home stood dark, a shadow against the moonlight that reflected on the lake. Even though I had half a mind to go bang on the door and tell them to get the hell off my land, something about the little house with no lights on was peaceful. Whoever parked there trusted this lake. They’d probably heard about the healing powers of the stones that we’d come to mine so long ago, and that they offered protection. They didn’t know about the nightmares that lived below the surface of the still water.

  I’d fucked enough things up tonight. The intruder could stay. If the house was still here in the morning, I’d let Sherriff Holmes deal with it. There was so little real crime in Aurora Falls he loved this kind of stuff.

  I had bigger problems, like how in only two days I’d convince a woman named Tori that she was meant to spend the rest of her life with me. If I hadn’t already scared her away for good.

  Chapter Five

  TORI

  Every time I closed my eyes, the nightmare Viking vision came back to me. Not the whole thing, which was maddening. It flickered in the shadows, like it was losing power.

  When I’d touched Abel’s arm, the vision was a whole story, like I was seeing it through his eyes. Now it was just frustrating, fractured pieces that I wanted to put together like a puzzle.

  Every detail of Abel was burned into my brain, just as maddening as the things I couldn’t remember. That long hair that captured every color of fall—yellow, reds, and browns. Those impossibly blue eyes, like he’d mined them from Sapphire Lake. He stood taller than most of the men at the festival, his shoulders broad, and not an inch of him wasted.

  A beautiful, cursed man. Such a metaphor for my visit to Aurora Falls. Nothing was happening the way I’d planned. Not that I’d planned anything, but I had an expectation for my trip that didn’t involve the crowds of the fall festival or this horrible vision.

  Or this gorgeous man.

  Even if I was without services, I was grateful for the solitude of my lakeside parking spot, and I could thank the festival for that. If I’d found a spot in the RV park, it could’ve been loud and rowdy there, full of people who didn’t know when it was time for the party to end. The full moon illuminated the lake, and the only other lights visible came from the little cabins in the woods.

  Using the flashlight on my phone to climb the narrow ladder up to my loft, I tumbled into bed and fell into a thankfully dreamless sleep. I woke in the early morning light, disorientated.

  The night before was fuzzier than ever. Enough that I almost wanted to give Aurora Falls another chance. Go back into town, get my sapphire massage, have some more delicious pancakes, and find the Viking. Maybe this time he’d show me something different.

  No. I was getting the hell out of this place before my stay got even weirder. My next stop wouldn’t have any spiritually charged a
nything, or mythical memories. If the RV park was full, I’d take it as a sign, like I should have in Aurora Falls. I didn’t belong there.

  My phone battery had drained down to single digits. I’d have to rely on the paper owner’s manual to hitch the tiny house up to the truck again.

  It wasn’t in the glove box. I searched between the seats, under them, but it was nowhere in the cab. Dad had insisted on using it, instead of relying on my online instructions. Anyone could tell you anything online, he always grumbled.

  I finally found it, tucked into one of the door pockets.

  After some struggle, I got the tiny house hitched to the truck, and ready for takeoff. I waved goodbye to the lake before stepping on the gas and turning the wheel toward the road.

  The engine revved but the tiny house didn’t move.

  Maneuvering the wheel, I gave it another try.

  Nothing.

  I could change the angle of the truck, no problem, but the house was too heavy for the soft sand I’d parked in. I needed to call for a tow truck and suck it up as they laughed their asses off at me, but all my phone was showing was an angry red sliver of drained battery and the ability to make emergency calls only. Which technically this was, but I’d get cut off before they could even find me.

  The least I could do was charge my phone, now that my truck was running. The gas gauge was low too. I had to get the tiny house moving and fast.

  Backing up should work.

  Nope.

  “If you keep that up, you’ll start an engine fire.” A man’s voice startled me.

  “I know what I’m doing,” I insisted. The last thing I needed was someone mansplaining my tiny house to me. Even if I knew I should put my pride aside and accept the help.

  “If you keep gunning the engine in the sand, it will overheat,” he said.

  I shut the engine off and slid out of the truck, gasping when I saw who came to my rescue.

  Abel.