Rise of the Moon (Moonlit Series Book 1)

by Rachel Hera

  I exited through the front door, hopping off the front porch and narrowly avoiding stepping where someone had decided to throw up. Nothing a hosing down couldn’t fix in the morning, though I dreaded the number of people that would be walking through it before the night’s end.

  The night was warm. Humid. Not that I felt the change when I was already gross and sticky from the beer that’d been spilled on me. That aside, it was a lovely night to walk home. I hummed as I did so, glad to be leaving my worries at the party –not so glad to be leaving them with Maddie to deal with, but there were so many people there that I seriously doubted they’d try anything.

  As I passed the first intersection, I heard an animal cry out. I stopped to listen, closing my eyes, but it was over before I could fully enjoy it. A wolf’s howl. I frowned, though I didn’t think I’d mistaken it. My not-so-secret obsession of werewolves stemmed off into my obsession with wolves. I’d go on YouTube and listen to the howls of wolves, coyotes and foxes, over and over again until I could tell them apart nine times out of ten when Maddie played them for me. Maybe I needed more practice though, because wolves didn’t inhabit the area.

  I couldn’t be sure without hearing it again, but there was nothing to be heard. There wasn’t a second howl to make a final call. With a sigh, I continued on my way. Maybe it was really a coyote calling out instead.

  The walk back, alone, was always so much longer than the walk to Maddie’s house. There was a reason she was my best friend, and time definitely flew by when I was with her. The forty minute walk definitely felt that long now. But I enjoyed my time alone. When you grew up in a crowded home, peace becomes a virtue. It used to be me, my parents and my three sisters. Now, Sydney and Bree were both married with kids, so it was just Sophie, me and mom. Dad came and went on business, hardly ever home. It was empty, but time away was still appreciated. Mom was clingier than ever since Bree moved out with Nick, and Sophie was like every other little sister –annoying and frustrating.

  Up ahead, I spotted a sleek, black car parked at the head of a driveway, almost invisible except for the light of the moon hitting its roof, and a boy about my age sitting on the hood, looking at the house. Even in the best light of day, it didn’t look all that appealing, although my mother would say it had character. There was a long stretch of driveway that rounded to the back side of the house, not allowing you to see who was home unless you walked right up to the front door and knocked. It was a dark red brick, three stories with a rotting wooden porch that surrounded the entire building. The third floor was an attic, as far as I knew, with a round window facing the road. The sign hammered into the front lawn had read “sold” for two weeks now, but this was the first time I’d seen anyone around that could possibly live there.

  My heart rammed into my throat, taken by surprise that someone else was out on this road at this hour. I debated crossing the street, to the side opposite of the driveway, but decided against it. I was admittedly shy though, and while I could see that he was tall and thin, I didn’t dare look at his face. I tried to walk by, hoping he wasn’t the social type.

  “Evangeline?” he asked suddenly, and I looked up. He was handsome, with dark brown hair, silver-blue eyes that seemed to glow in the moonlight, fair skin, and pale lips. Everything about him screamed nonthreatening. That almost made me more wary.

  “Um,” I looked around, not quite sure that I believed that he was talking to me. “No.”

  “Ah, I’m sorry, you just looked like someone I used to know,” he said, looking away. He had an accent. British. And if that line hadn’t irked me, making any shy feelings I had vanish, then I might have felt a little giddy. If there was one thing I couldn’t stand, it was cheesy pick-up lines.

  “Does that line actually work?” I crossed my arms in front of me.

  “Line?”

  “You’re kidding, right? That has to be one of the oldest pick-up lines in the book,” I said. “You just moved here –what are the chances that you’d run into someone you know here?”

  “That’s true,” he laughed, showing fanged teeth. Sharp, pointy. Different that most people I knew. Maddie would have gone crazy to see them, her obsession with vampires rivaling mine of werewolves. A chill ran down my spine and to the tips of my fingers as the moon glinted off them. “Do you live around here?”

  “Well, yeah,” I uncrossed my arms. I found myself not knowing what to do with them, and settled for putting them on my hips. When I felt like a tool, I crossed them again. “I wouldn’t just be walking around here in the middle of the night if I didn’t.”

  “That’s also true, I suppose,” he chuckled. “Though, I’d hardly call ten-thirty the middle of the night.”

  We fell into silence. I took the moment to take a better look at him. He was Maddie’s type; her type being really attractive. Was he my type? Did I have a type? As I looked at him, I couldn’t tell.

  “Well, I should probably get going,” I said, brushing my hair over my shoulder.

  “So soon?”

  “I don’t see why I should stay,” I told him bluntly. “I don’t even know you.”

  “So let’s change that,” he said, getting up from the car and taking my hand as I began to walk away. He moved really quickly, I had barely blinked before he was at my side. His fingers were only slightly colder than mine, but I shivered at his touch.

  “You’re very forward, aren’t you?”

  “Being forward is a good trait to have,” he told me.

  I sighed. “Well, if you’re lucky, maybe you’ll see me around.”

  “I’ll bring out my lucky rabbit’s foot,” he smiled.

  He wouldn’t be saying those kinds of things to me after seeing some of the other girls at my school. Or once he caught sight of Maddie. She had a huge chest that seemed to attract the boys better than flies with honey. She’d been a full C-cup in grade seven. They’ve only grown since then. I didn’t stand a chance. I was in a training bra in grade seven –I was barely a C-cup now. And I mean barely.

  “I’ll see you around,” he said, releasing my arm.

  “I suppose you might,” I replied.

  “Unless you want a lift home,” he offered as I began to walk away.

  “I’m alright,” I glanced over my shoulder. “But thank you.”

  When I was a short distance away, I heard the car door slam and the engine start. I looked back again to see him driving up to the house. And so what could have been a glorious moment where I was swept off my feet by a handsome stranger had passed instantly. Damn.

  I needed to stop reading my mother’s romance novels.

  The sound of the piano greeted me as I neared the intersection that I lived on. It was faint but, in the quiet village I lived in, I could hear it pretty clearly. We never got complaints, so I don’t think the neighbours could hear it inside their own houses. I followed the fence from the corner to the driveway to the rusting front gate, unlocking it before slipping through. It squealed in protest as I shut it, and Shadow ran at me, jumping up and nearly knocking me down.

  “Hey! Get down,” I scolded him. He continued to run around me. For being such a large dog he sure had a lot of energy. I smiled and scratched him behind his ears. “Yeah, yeah. I’ve been gone, what, hour and a half? Give a girl a break…”

  I walked up the brick-porch steps and opened the front door. I loved my house. It was old, the brick aged, even crumbling in some places. Ivy crawled up the brick left of the front porch, but the right was bare except for the doghouse that sat against the house between two basement windows. Inside, parts of the house were under minor renovations –like they have been for the past ten years of my life –but, like my mom always said, it had character.

  Slipping my shoes off, I glanced at Mom. She continued to play, positioned on the bench in front of the piano that sat across from the entrance of our front hallway. Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. That was her favourite piece to play. I pulled the heels of my shoes together, placing them on the mat in front
of the closet door.

  “Hi mom,” I said, heading immediately for the stairs.

  “Hi sweetie,” she barely glanced up. “I thought you were spending the night at Maddie’s.”

  “I was –but then things came up. It was just easier for me to go home.”

  “Did they drive you?” she asked.

  “I walked,” I replied, having the feeling that she already knew that though.

  “Walked?” Mom stopped to glance at the clock. “Honey, we’ve talked about this. It’s dangerous at night. Someone could easily grab you off the streets. And do I smell alcohol?”

  “Mom, I’m fine. I jog those same roads every other morning.” I deliberately ignored her question.

  “The night is always different. The night brings out the worst in people. Maybe we should buy you a whistle –”

  I forced a laugh. “A rape whistle? Mom! Seriously?”

  “Well, rape is a serious thing,” she said.

  “We may live out in the country, but it’s safe. We know our neighbours, and really, a whistle wouldn’t help on the walk between here and Maddie’s place,” I took another step up the stairs. “I’m fine. I’m always fine.”

  “I’m just worried about you,” she told me.

  “I know I’m still a child in your eyes, but I can take care of myself. It’s why I’m saving up for my own car.”

  “I’ll chip in –”

  “You’ll chip in no more than we already agreed upon,” I climbed higher up the steps. “Goodnight, mom.”

  “We’re not done talking about this,” my mother got up from the piano bench. “Come back down here.”

  “I’m safe. I’m safe today, I’ll be safe tomorrow, and the next day. Worse comes to worst I’ll run like my life depends on it.”

  “Why do you always…” she sighed loudly. “Just be careful. In today’s society, there’re all kinds of creeps.”

  “Goodnight,” I called over my shoulder. I sighed as I ascended the stairs. In the upstairs hallway, I ran into my little sister. She, like the rest of the girls in my family, was blond and blue-eyed, a direct contrast to my mousy brown hair and green eyes. Height varied greatly in our family, Sophie being the shortest at five foot one. My oldest sister, Sydney, was the tallest at five eight. I would have thought I was adopted if my father didn’t have brown hair similar to mine. Mom always told me I got my looks from his side of the family.

  “I don’t know why you bother telling her the truth,” Sophie told me. “You can do as you like, and she doesn’t have to worry so much. Everyone’s happy.”

  “I don’t like lying,” I said. And it was true. I would get immense guilt when I lie, and I couldn’t shake the feeling for hours. Days, depending on what I was lying about. I was good at it, too. I just got lousy side-effects that I didn’t like. It was a good thing, I guess. Too many people lie too much these days.

  Sophie rolled her eyes. Our relationship was unsteady, my little sister’s and mine. Some days we didn’t get along, and others we got along so well that my parents would tell us to be quiet when we couldn’t stop giggling. Today was one of those rougher days for us.

  “What?” she scowled at me.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re looking at me funny,” she said, crossing her arms.

  “Then you should stop being funny looking,” I replied instantly, unable to stop myself from being rude to my little sister. She just made it so easy.

  She huffed, going into her room and closing the door loudly. I blew a hair out of my face, going into my own bedroom and changing my clothes. In my sheep-covered pajama pants and tank top, I crawled into bed, plugging my phone into the charger and quickly shooting Maddie a text.

  What a night.

  Chapter 2: Blake

  The Alpha stared me down across the living room’s coffee table. He sat in ‘his’ chair, which was big, old, wore in; the royal blue fabric was faded and there was a small hole in the armrest, right next to where his hand rested. When he was in a good mood, he pulled lightly at the loose strings. When he was serious or had business on his mind –a thing that I liked to call ‘Alpha mode’ –he refrained.

  Carlos was in Alpha mode now. Black hair grazed his shoulders, the longest I’ve ever seen him have. His eyes –the same golden-brown that seemed to come with lycanthropy –were focused on me. Most of my Pack brothers squirmed under his stare –but I’d grown up with it. I met it evenly, even when I knew I should be more humble.

  Having finally gotten back from the town of Eiden, I’d put in my request to move the Alpha house south. He’d been surprised, and while I never tried to understand my father, this I could comprehend to a certain degree. I’d left angry, and had come crawling back with a personal request. And I never asked for anything from my father.

  “We have the beach house along Lake Erie,” he said finally. “It’s a half hour drive, but –”

  “It has to be in town,” I interrupted. I knew of the beach house. When I’d gotten a grasp of where I was, I had headed there for a day, scrounged up a bit of money and borrowed one of the cars left there to drive back to the current Alpha house. It sat between Timmins and Sudbury, surrounded by lakes and kilometers of forest.

  What if he said no? The thought hadn’t occurred to me until I sat on the sofa across from him. Would I have to choose between him and the girl that had captivated me instantly? I may have gotten frustrated with him, but at the end of the day, I knew that Carlos was the only person I could rely on no matter what the circumstances. He’d proven that over and over again as I grew up. Carlos had always been on my side when it came to dealing with people like the past Alpha –his father –or my twin brother, Keegan. Two forces of evil that I was glad had disappeared, even if it was slightly concerning.

  “This girl… she’s your mate?” the Alpha asked.

  Mate… a term that hadn’t occurred to me, but felt like it hit home the moment it was spoken. I didn’t hesitate: “Yes.”

  He let out the smallest of sighs. I straightened up; I recognized that sigh. That was him about to give in. “I’ll start searching for a place to live, Blake –but on one condition.”

  “Anything,” I answered.

  “In exchange for all of this –you can’t go against anything I say. Or, for that matter, anything Noah says. You acted rashly in your last mission with him –I can’t have that happening again.”

  “Fine,” the word fell from my mouth quickly. “I won’t.”

  “Not a single step out of line,” he warned. “Or else I’ll have to fall to desperate measures. As my son you can only get away with so much.”

  “Would you kick me out? Like Keegan?” I asked. It would be harder to watch over the Pack if I wasn’t allowed in the same province as them. And it would be harder to win over my mate.

  Mate.

  I liked that.

  “Just don’t step out of line,” he sighed.

  “I won’t,” I promised again.

  My father watched me for a long moment before nodding. A small grin broke his Alpha mode, and his fingers found the loose strings. “I can’t believe you found your mate. You, out of all your Pack brothers.”

  “What’s that’s supposed to mean?” I snorted.

  “Nothing –but I’m glad. You were starting to worry me –like you had nothing to fight for anymore. I think this is just what you need.”

  It wasn’t that I had nothing to fight for –I would put my life on the line for my Pack. But I worried that my brother and I were more alike than I imagined. And if we were, the Pack was better off without me. But I never could muster the courage to completely cut myself out of the Pack. I think it mostly had to do with the man that sat in front of me. I still owed him so much.

  And I kept putting myself deeper into his debt.

  Chapter 3: Evelyn

  First day of school, grade twelve. It was scary that the first three years of my high school life had flown by so quickly. And it was going to fly by even fas
ter, since I only had one semester this year. With the help of the guidance counsellor, I’d managed to get all the credits I needed to graduate a semester early. It probably helped that I had no idea what I wanted to do with my future, so the courses required to get me into college, or university, were really the bare minimum. That, plus sacrificing my spare periods where I could, meant I could earn a bit of money before I even tried to enroll in whichever post-secondary school I ended up at.

  There were two very special people to thank for graduating a semester early. Those two people were none other than Cole and Marissa. Their bullying in grade nine was what sparked my wanting to get the hell out of high school. The school had fought against me, but there was finally a reward for my mother’s persistence. I didn’t mind the heavy semesters. In fact, I think I surprised everyone with how well I’d come out of all of my classes –at an academic level, no less.

  Things were better now. I liked to think I’d grown a backbone, again, thanks to them –and Maddie, of course. And all that hard work had paid off tremendously. My final semester at school was by far the easiest. I started the morning off with gym and music and ended with English and a spare.

  “Aren’t you excited?” Maddie asked. We sat beside each other on the bus, neither one of us having our own car –though I did have my license.

  “For school?” I rolled my eyes. “No.”

  “Come on. We’re in grade twelve, and you, of all people, can’t complain. You’ve only got this semester. Lucky,” she nudged me. When I showed no real response, she grinned and lifted my pant leg. “Well, even if you’re not excited, at least you shaved your legs.”

  “Seriously?” I raised an eyebrow, slapping her hand away. “A girl’s not allowed to shave her legs now?”

  “You’re telling me that you shaved your legs to wear full length denim on the first day of your final year in high school because you’re not excited?” she gave me a look that said she knew me better than that. And I’d be the first to admit that she was right. “Besides… it’s way too hot for jeans. Aren’t you dying?”