September Moon

by Trina M. Lee

  “You’re not finished, Alexa. Not even close. As a Hound of God, you have a duty to uphold, regardless of whether you’re a vampire or not. The dark side will lure you into blood and mayhem while the light will guide you in love and honor.” Veryl’s expression grew grave. He leaned in close as if sharing a secret. “Possessing them both will be a great challenge. But if anyone can overcome it, it’s you.”

  His warning left me feeling sad in a place that didn’t seem to recognize such an emotion. Sadness just didn’t belong here.

  “What if I don’t want to go back?” I challenged. “Can’t I just stay here with you?”

  Veryl patted my hand in a fatherly way and gave me a gentle smile. “I’m afraid not. You’re needed among the living. There are things you must do yet. A role to play that is yours and yours alone.”

  Hadn’t I done enough? Was the face off with Shya only the beginning? I wasn’t sure I could take any more of that.

  “And if I refuse?” It was a stubborn, childish remark. Feeling backed into a corner, I had an irrational urge to argue his words though he had given me no reason to.

  “You won’t. It isn’t your way.” Veryl rose and held his arms out to me expectantly.

  I moved lightly, as if my feet never touched the ground. His embrace was strong but gentle, parental and encouraging. Veryl had cared for me as if I were his daughter. And I hadn’t known that until now, when I could feel it without him ever having to say so.

  “I’m sorry for the ways I’ve wronged you.” The words were not enough, but I had nothing else to offer.

  He patted my back and smoothed my hair back before peering deep into my eyes. “Don’t be sorry. Just be who you’re called to be, a protector of mankind.”

  I stared at him in wonder. Only Willow had spoken those words to me. Had Veryl always known?

  There were so many questions I needed him to answer. Before I could utter a single one, I was pulled away, drawn by an unseen force. It felt as if I were being sucked through a shrinking tunnel, watching the white room grow smaller in the distance.

  Veryl’s final words reverberated through my thoughts, an echo that followed me back to where I belonged: protector of mankind.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  A hurricane of sensations welcomed me back. From the overbearing scent of cologne, wolf, and paint to the immaculate touch of satin sheets on my skin, it all hit me at once.

  Voices carried to me. They belonged to Arys and Shaz, and though they spoke in low tones, I heard every word as if they shouted in my ears.

  “It’s almost sunrise,” Arys was saying. “She probably won’t rise tonight.”

  “I don’t care. I’m not leaving. And neither should you.” There was such vindication in Shaz’s tone. “Do you think she’ll still have the wolf?”

  “She died with the amulet on. If Lena knew what she was doing when she made that thing, then yeah, Alexa should still have her wolf. Don’t worry, pup. She’ll still love you either way.”

  My eyes popped open, and I sat up slowly. A dim lamp lit the room. Harley’s room. I was at The Wicked Kiss. In my current state, I couldn’t make much of that. Aside from an inner sense of disappointment, it didn’t mean much to me.

  My vision was impeccable. The wolf had given me superior eyesight, but it paled compared to how I now saw. It was like stepping into the light for the first time after wandering around in the dark. There were no words for how detailed and pure everything was. From the cracks in the ceiling to the fibers of the carpet, it all was richer and more complex than I’d ever noticed before.

  With a vague curiosity, I slid my tongue over the tiny but deadly fangs in my mouth. They were much smaller than I was used to.

  No conscious thought commanded my mental state. In a state of strange observation, I merely took in my surroundings, thinking and feeling nothing.

  I wore the same clothes I’d had on when Arys killed me. It felt like two days ago though I wasn’t certain. The dragon on my forearm looked especially black against my alabaster skin. I studied it for a moment and shrugged.

  “I still can’t believe you did it.” There was judgment in Shaz’s voice from beyond the door. “You loved it. Didn’t you?”

  A sense of detached surprise drifted through me when I lightly tossed the blankets aside and they slapped against the wall as if I’d hurled them in violence. Weird.

  “Do you really want an answer to that?” came Arys’s mysterious reply.

  There was silence for a minute. The door opened and the two of them entered. They stopped dead in the doorway at finding me sitting up in bed.

  I stared at them, uncertain and suspicious. They were familiar to me somehow. I knew that. But in that moment, I could only think in terms of instinctive feelings. The new dark, undead entity dominated.

  “Lex?” Shaz barely breathed my name. Wide-eyed and speechless, he stared in disbelief.

  The sound of his mortal heartbeat reverberated in my ears. His blood smelled wild and earthy. It called to me, and nothing else mattered. I needed it.

  I sprang off the bed and cleared the room in a bound. The speed with which I moved was impossibly inhuman. It was invigorating, bringing me a gleeful victory when I easily took Shaz down beneath me.

  Kneeling on his chest, I pinned him down and went for his throat. With a low growl, he flung an arm up to block me. My attack was vicious as I retaliated, fighting to get to that fount of hot, pumping scarlet nectar.

  Suddenly I was airborne. I flew into the hallway, head over feet before smacking the wall and rolling into the middle of the hall. Feeling no pain, I was up and ready to face my attacker.

  Arys stood in the doorway to Harley’s room. He shoved Shaz behind him and faced me with hands crackling with power. There was a melancholy element to him. It confused me in my predatory state.

  Our eyes met and I froze. I knew him. Something deep inside me recognized him as mine, and yet all I could think about when I looked at him was death. He was the one. He was the one who killed me.

  “Alexa?” He took a tentative step toward me. “I can help you through this, but you have to trust me.”

  A snarl bubbled up in my throat. Arys’s memories echoed inside me. He had killed me, and he had loved it.

  All at once the remnants of who I was swam to the surface. I was immediately overcome by a torrent of emotion. It was intensified, imbued with an abyss-like passion that outweighed any feelings I’d ever had before. I wanted to cry, scream, and dissolve into hysterical laughter all at the same time.

  Arys took another step toward me, his hands held up in surrender. “It’ll be ok. I promise you, my wolf. Let me help you.”

  “Help me?” I repeated, not recognizing my own voice. “You did this to me. You knew what would happen, and you did it anyway.”

  I backed away, unable to understand why I should trust him. It just didn’t compute amid the sudden confusion and mental distress.

  “There will be time to talk about that later. Right now we need to calm your bloodlust before you run amok and terrorize the city. You know me, Alexa. All of me. You know you can trust me.” Holding a hand out toward me, Arys pleaded with his eyes for understanding.

  The hallway hummed with the intriguing energy of vampires. Like an intricate, fascinating song, it played through me, a beautiful piece of music that resonated in every fiber of my being. It was no longer merely something I felt from outside of me, but something that lived within.

  Arys didn’t give me a choice. He continued toward me, and I reacted. The power went out from me with no real thought to guide it. My intent was to ward him off and that’s what it did.

  Stronger than ever before, I threw Arys backward; he flipped over the small bistro table in the bedroom before hitting the floor. It had taken no effort on my part, sapping none of my strength.

  I didn’t wait around for him to get up. Turning on a heel, I darted down the hallway toward freedom. The red glowing exit sign was suddenly before me as I cleare
d the entire length from one end to the other in seconds.

  The door slammed open, and I was gone, shooting through the parking lot like a bullet from a gun. Right away I felt the coming sunrise. It was less than an hour off. Instinct warned me to be careful. There was no taunting the sun and living to tell the tale.

  I ran down the street, darting across in front of traffic, ignoring the sound of horns blaring and drivers telling me off. Running north, I followed the erratic urge to flee, paying no mind to where I was actually headed. My legs moved like the wind carried me. There was no gasping for breath. It felt like a dream.

  Then something did bring me to a halt. As I passed the university a few blocks from The Wicked Kiss, the scent of humans and the sound of voices drew me to the dorm parking lot.

  Despite the early hour there were people just getting out of a vehicle. I didn’t pause to reconsider. There was no moment of tortured decision making. The bloodlust was in charge, and I was its slave.

  They barely had time to scream. Two men and a woman, I was on them before they could react. The men went down fast and easy. Their blood sprayed, and I greedily consumed all that I could. The rush of their fear was perhaps the best part. Bittersweet and mesmerizing, it quenched a thirst I hadn’t known I had.

  The woman ran. She made it to the next row of vehicles before I caught her. With wide eyes and an expression of pure horror, she begged for her life. Not a single word penetrated the blood-crazed force commanding me.

  Jerking her close, I breathed deeply of her scent. So human and so tantalizing. My fangs slid into her vein with perfect precision. It was leaps and bounds better than using wolf fangs. I could get used to this.

  Only when she lay dead at my feet did I come back to myself. Slowly, like surfacing from a deep sleep, I became aware of where I was. I stared at her bloody throat, wide eyes, and mouth frozen open in a silent scream. At first I felt nothing but confusion. Then the fog lifted from my brain, and what I’d just done sunk in.

  “Oh my God.” I clapped a hand over my bloodstained mouth. This couldn’t be real. It just couldn’t be.

  I backed away from the corpse, bumping into a nearby car, which set off the alarm. The lights began to flash, and the horn honked repeatedly. There was no time to linger. It would draw attention soon enough. I fled, continuing for several blocks. As I ran I asked myself if this was reality because if it was a horrible nightmare I really needed to wake up now.

  When I reached Saint Joachim Catholic Cemetery I let myself stop. Amongst the headstones I felt a sense of safety. Everyone there was already dead; I couldn’t harm them.

  I walked along the paths that wound between the trees. Fallen leaves crunched beneath my feet, the only sound to accompany my descent into madness. It was impossible to wrap my mind around it all, what had happened and what I was now. It just couldn’t be real.

  But it was. Knowing that I’d been trapped inside myself while the bloodlust commanded my actions was terrifying. I could not be a prisoner inside my own body.

  Slumping against a headstone, I lay down in the leaves and waited for sunrise. It was the only way out of this. What I had known of the bloodlust thus far had been nothing, a bare shred of what it really was. I couldn’t control a force like this.

  I dissolved into hysterical tears. With clawed fingertips I held tight to the headstone, praying that death would be fast. The stone gave beneath the pressure of my grip. With such little effort, it crumbled. Perhaps the claws should have been comforting, a sign of the wolf that dwelled within. In that moment I could only focus on the taste of blood and the memory of how damn good it felt to spill it.

  “I can’t do this,” I whispered to nobody. “I can’t do this.”

  Dawn crept ever closer with each passing minute. It wasn’t suicide if you were already dead. Right?

  The taste of honey in my mouth was sudden and sickly sweet. The overpowering scent of genuine leather accompanied it. Kale. His name drifted up into my thoughts, and I was sure it was a hallucination. Until he spoke.

  “Aww, Alexa. How could Arys let this happen to you?” He knelt beside me and gently tried to pry my hands off the headstone. “Come on. We have to get you out of here before sunrise.”

  “No.” I clung harder to the headstone, causing crumbs to flake off beneath my fingers. “Just let me die.”

  “It’s hard at first. Actually, it’s always hard. But if anyone can handle it, it’s you.” Kale touched the side of my face, drawing my gaze to him. There was such sorrow in those beautiful brown and blue eyes.

  I shook my head and bit my lip as I fought back another wave of tears. “I can’t be like this.”

  His touch was tender as he stroked a hand down my face. “You already are. Taking the easy way out just isn’t your style. If you want to stay here to die, then I’m staying with you.”

  Alarm sang through me. “No! Just get out of here, Kale. This is my choice.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s mine too.”

  I groaned and rolled away, turning my back to him. Maybe he would just go away. But as dawn drew closer, Kale stayed.

  “Are you really going to make me watch you die?” he asked. “I think you’re better than this. In fact, I know you are. The Alexa I know and love would never give in so easily.”

  I said nothing, choosing to stare at the 1973 etched into the headstone in front of me. Everything in me demanded that I flee the sun before it could roast me. I’d seen a vampire die that way, and it had been ugly. We were quickly running out of time. Doubt crept in. Fear was not far behind.

  “All right,” he announced. “You’re forcing me to do this. As appealing as dying together is, I’d much rather exist another night with you instead. I hope you’ll thank me later.”

  Without giving me a chance to protest, Kale lifted me in his arms. My claws slid across the stone, unable to get a grip. I was confused and afraid, an emotional wreck. Rather than fight him, I settled in to his embrace, resting my head against his shoulder.

  As he carried me from the graveyard, back to the land of the living, I clung to him as if he were the only life preserver in an ocean of pain. I felt safe. In Kale I found the solace that my soul so desperately needed.

  Epilogue

  Arys

  The soft scratch of my pencil against the paper usually brought me satisfaction. As I watched the image come to life on the page before me, I remembered why I’d given up this form of self-expression.

  A dragon sneered up at me, a mocking gleam in its reptilian eyes. Every feather on its wings was drawn with precision and detail. It was one of my best. I hated it.

  Three nights since Alexa rose. Five since I had killed her.

  “Come on, Arys. You can’t just sit here feeling sorry for yourself. Let’s go out.” Jenner wandered about my living room, bored and impatient. Though I had wronged him greatly in the past, the fact that he was still here spoke volumes as to his ability to forgive.

  “Go without me. Shaz will go with you.” I volunteered the wolf pup who sat on my couch frowning at his cell phone. “Oh, and I am not feeling sorry for myself. I’m choosing to lay low and reflect rather than act out by doing something rash.”

  Shaz and Jenner shared a look. I ignored it, knowing what they were thinking. I also knew that they were wrong.

  “If you don’t hunt soon you’re going to snap,” Jenner warned with a knowing look. He had seen me at my worst, something I didn’t need to be reminded of.

  “What you need to do,” Shaz interjected, “is go bring Alexa home. Or I will.”

  “No you won’t.” I didn’t look up from my sketchpad. “You will leave Alexa right where she is. If you force her to do anything before she’s ready, you’re just going to drive her further away.”

  Tossing his phone down on the coffee table, Shaz shot me a dark glare that I didn’t have to see in order to feel. It was one of many such looks he’d given me over the last few nights.

  “I don’t know how you can sit on your ass and
do nothing while she’s with him. That’s not where she belongs.” The angry vibe emanating from Shaz was raw and predatory. If he knew how much it tempted me, he might have toned it down a little.

  “No, it isn’t. But it’s where she wants to be right now. This is a difficult time for her, pup. Try to be understanding.” It was a conversation we’d had repeatedly since the night Alexa awoke and ran out of The Wicked Kiss as if the devil himself chased her.

  That’s how she’d looked at me too. Like I was the greatest evil she’d ever laid eyes on. I wanted only to help her, and she saw only the monster who had delighted in every blissful second of her death. And I had.

  Hurting Alexa was never something I enjoyed. That wasn’t what it was about. It was about the moment with a victim when we are one. When everything they are becomes a part of everything I am. It’s the brief but poignant moment where there is no way of knowing where they end and I begin. That is what I always desired when it came to Alexa. The need to consume her so fully, in a way that no other ever could. Being her twin flame should have been enough. But for me, a vampire, it wasn’t. I had to have it all.

  Then I did. And it was spectacular. She was mine in every way, and it drove her straight into Kale Sinclair’s arms. Now she was his.

  “Be understanding?” Shaz repeated, aghast. He clenched a fist as if he wanted to take a swing at me. “After everything that happened, you just let him have her? There’s no way in hell I’ll ever understand that. It’s dangerous for the two of you to be apart, especially now.”

  “The wolf is right,” Jenner said. He came over to where I sat on the recliner armchair and scrutinized my drawing. “You said yourself being apart takes its toll on you both. What do you think it’s doing to her as a new vampire?”

  I frowned and met his gaze, finding it held unspoken judgment. “Don’t you have a plane to catch, Jenner? Vegas must be imploding without you.”