Blood on the Moon

by Jennifer Knight

  Lucas’s face tightened. “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “Everything.”

  “Could you be a little more cryptic, please, I think I understand too much.”

  Lucas’s lips twitched. “Sorry. I’m not used to talking about it with people. It’s been a long time since anyone has found out. It’s kind of freaking me out to talk openly like this.”

  “Oh, you’re freaked?”

  Lucas just stared at his shoes.

  “How many people know?” I asked softly.

  “Excluding my family?” His eyes met mine. “You.”

  My pulse jumped. It was strange and thrilling to know that he trusted me with such a secret. He could have let me die rather than tell me, but he didn’t.

  “I have to admit,” I murmured, “I’m afraid of you. Aren’t werewolves supposed to be wild killers? And aren’t they only supposed to change at the full moon? And how come your eyes—”

  “Whoa, whoa,” Lucas stopped me. “One at a time. I still got a headache.”

  “Sorry. I’m just trying to understand.”

  “It’s okay. You’re actually taking it better than I would have thought. I was expecting lots of screaming and fainting. What was the first thing you asked?”

  I swallowed. “Are you dangerous?” My voice came out like a whisper, I barely heard myself.

  Lucas looked over at me, his eyes flaring silver for an instant. “Around you? Yes.”

  “All the time ... or just when you . . . when you change?”

  Lucas regarded me for a moment. “The way I think of it,” he said, “is that I’ve got this energy inside me, bouncing off my insides and fighting to get loose. I can keep it locked up, but only for so long. I’m safe while I’m under control, but once something sets me off ... I’m dangerous, yeah. And it’s the worst at the full moon.”

  I stared. I’d never heard Lucas speak so much. I didn’t want him to stop before he told me everything.

  “Why is it worse?” I asked.

  Lucas’s face became shadowy and his voice turned low. “Because the moon triggers its own transformation. When it’s full, I’m not quite wolf, not quite man. But I’m strongest at that time. The bad part is that the strength and the power of it pushes your mind past the edges of sanity. At the full moon, I’m not Lucas Whelan anymore. I’m a monster ... capable of anything.” He looked up at me and must have seen the horror on my face because his expression relaxed. “But when it’s not the full moon, I’m not all that dangerous when I change. I mean, I wouldn’t want you around, because I can’t really control my impulses too well. I might hurt you without even knowing it’s you. Plus when I change it’s . . . violent.”

  I nodded, imagining Lucas’s body exploding in a frenzy of claws and fangs the size of machetes. I shuddered. “Is it voluntary? Changing, I mean?”

  Lucas shook his head, almost as if he were sad. “If I were to relax myself, the change would overcome me, but it fades fast. The time I’m allotted in my wolf form depends on how often I’ve changed recently, what the situation is. If there’s someone in danger, I’ll keep it a little longer. It’s like focus fire. I target the most dangerous enemy in range, and then when the danger’s gone, I shift back. Thirty minutes is the longest I’ve ever held it outside of the full moon.”

  I took this in, steeling myself all the while to ask what was really scaring me.

  “What if you bite me,” I asked softly. “Would I change?”

  “I would never bite you,” he said sharply. A tremor ran down his spine, and I saw him inhale deeply.

  “It’s okay,” I tried to soothe him. “I’m just talking hypothetically. What if you bit someone, not necessarily me?”

  Lucas appeared to relax. “I can only infect someone else when I’ve changed. But you don’t have to worry about getting hurt around me, Faith. I’ve had a lot of time to manage myself. I’ll make sure I never lose control around you. And nothing else will hurt you while I’m here either. I’m strong, even without changing. I have keen senses, so I’ll know if someone’s coming. You’re safe with me.” He seemed to be convincing himself as well, as though he wasn’t really sure if I was safe with him.

  But I was sure. I looked into his eyes and knew he wouldn’t hurt me—not after he’d gone to such lengths to save me tonight.

  “So, exactly how strong are you?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light. “Could you like, rip a phone book apart with your bare hands?”

  Lucas cocked an eyebrow at me. “I could rip a car apart with my hands.” He grinned, white teeth flashing dangerously. I was suddenly aware of how lethal they were.

  I felt my mouth slide open slightly, but I tried to disguise my awe by joking, “Am I supposed to be impressed?”

  Lucas’s smile stayed in place, like he was mocking me. “Hey, you asked.” He eyed me for a moment, and then his lips broke into a wide grin. He looked like a little boy on his birthday. “I’m fast, too,” he said. “Timed it once with my brother, and I can sprint at close to a hundred miles per hour.”

  Now I was impressed.

  “Anything else you wanna know?” he asked, smirking at the dazed look on my face.

  I thought for a moment. “Are you really nineteen?”

  Lucas’s smile faded. “Yes and no.”

  “Explain,” I said wearily.

  He took a deep breath. “I was born in Scotland in 1624, the son of a tailor in Kirkcaldy. I was bitten when I was nineteen years old, and I haven’t aged since.” He paused. “I’m more than three hundred years old, Faith.”

  “That’s impossible.” I breathed deeply. Three hundred years old? Born in Scotland? Why did that sound familiar? Then, of all people, Courtney’s words came rushing back to me. He’s got a castle off in Scotland or Ireland or something. So Courtney wasn’t lying. Somehow that shocked me more than the fact that wasn’t lying. Somehow that shocked me more than the fact that Lucas was more than three hundred years old. And not only that, but he would continue to live, long after I was dead. Lucas’s life was eternal.

  “You can’t die?” I asked, hoping desperately that I had heard wrong.

  “I didn’t say that. I said I don’t age.”

  “Same thing.”

  “No, I can die. Silver to the heart will do it.” He paused, looking pensive. “But even then, there are ways that I could recover. I heal fast, as I guess you noticed tonight.” He gave me a heartstopping grin.

  My face got hot as I remembered him lying on the ground naked, and I put my hands up to my cheeks to cool them.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. “You handling this?”

  “I think so. So I guess, now I have to ask another big question.”

  “Yeah,” he said nodding, like he already knew what it would be.

  I took in a shuddered breath and prepared myself for what was about to come—for my world to be rocked, yet again. “If you’re a werewolf,” I said slowly, “then what does that make Vincent?” I had a terrible feeling I already knew, but that I also had to hear it to believe.

  Lucas smiled and his eyes pressed into mine with animalistic intensity. “And now we’ve come to the bad part.”

  10

  CONTROL ISSUES

  “Let’s see if you can figure it out,” he said. “Two plus two?” I frowned down at my shoes, ruined now from the fight in the woods. “Okay, well, I know he’s strong. I know he’s fast. . . .” I glanced at Lucas to see that he was nodding slowly. “Is he . . . one of you?” I asked tentatively. “A werewolf?”

  The left corner of Lucas’s mouth pulled up, crinkling his eye into a smile.

  “Nah,” he said. “Think about it, Faith. Why have you only seen him at night? Why’s he so cold? So fast? So pale?”

  “Oh my God,” I whispered. Lucas nodded almost sadly. “Vampire?” I breathed, so softly I almost didn’t hear myself say it.

  “Yup,” he said, still nodding.

  I tried to breathe normally, but my lungs weren�
��t cooperating. They forced the air up my throat in large heaves. I put my head in my hands and closed my eyes. I felt Lucas stand and move closer to me.

  “You okay?” he asked gruffly.

  “Yeah,” I whispered, “it’s just ... a lot of information for one night. I went from thinking werewolves and vampires were all just imaginary. Now I have to try and wrap my head around the fact that it’s all real.”

  “It’s not all real,” Lucas said comfortingly. He knelt in front of me and peered into my eyes. “Some of it’s made up for movies and junk.”

  “What part of it’s made up? Please say that the whole ‘I vant to suck your blood’ thing has all been a lie?” I gave him a little smile, which he halfway returned.

  “No,” he said. “That’s all true. They drink human blood to survive. They only come out at night, and a wooden stake to the heart is the only thing that’ll kill ’em. Well, that and ripping their heads off.”

  “Okay.” I nodded some more, disgusted at the mental image passing through my head. “What’s fake then?”

  “Pretty much everything else. Garlic allergies, coffin sleeping, bat-morphing, and pretty much everything you’ve heard that makes them vulnerable.”

  “Great,” I mumbled.

  “Yeah,” he said. “It makes it a pain in the ass to kill them sometimes, but we get it done.”

  “We?”

  “My pack. My family. We’re the ones who keep the vampires in this area in line. Werewolf packs all have territories. Ours is Fort Collins and most of the Rockies.” He smiled, showing his straight white teeth. “We keep you sweet little humans safe from the big bad vampires.”

  I giggled nervously. “I thought it was supposed to be the big bad wolf.”

  “I can be, if that’s what you want,” he said. He growled a little, and I smacked his arm without thinking about it.

  He stood up quickly, this weirdly strained look on his face. His eyes were so bright I swore they were stars.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, slightly scared. Maybe he saw Vincent or something. My eyes flickered to the window.

  “Nothing,” he grunted, his jaw flexing a bit.

  “No, come on,” I urged. “You’re scaring me.”

  He stuck his hands in his pockets, looking supremely uncomfortable. “Well, I guess I might as well be honest with you now that you know everything.” He looked down and kicked some clothes around. “Don’t get mad when I say this.... It’s just, I don’t think you should touch me. I don’t know; it might trigger the change.”

  I stared at him, still looking away, still fidgeting with the clothes on the floor. “Why?” I asked slowly.

  His eyes met mine, and they were still bright silver, the pupils narrowed into slits. He took a step closer to me. “Because you’ve triggered something in me. Something I don’t really understand. When I look at you it’s like everything I try so hard to repress comes rushing to the surface—I can’t stop it.”

  Suddenly my heart was beating a mile a minute. I remembered the first time our skin had made contact in the Panda Express—the static electricity and the wave of emotions. His emotions, I realized now. I’d felt fear. He was scared in that moment, scared that he would change.

  “So this is bad,” I said. If I was making him want to change, it put me in serious danger. “Really bad.”

  Lucas nodded morosely. “It’s the worst thing that could possibly happen. It’s what I’ve been trying to avoid my whole life. Hurting someone else because of what I am.”

  I totally got that. I, too, was hurting someone because of my own issues—Derek. Granted, Lucas was talking about literally hurting people, while I was speaking metaphorically. But still, I got what he meant.

  “So when you come near me . . . It’s setting you off?”

  “Exactly,” he said, sounding relieved that I understood. “It’s called a trigger. I don’t know any other werewolves with this problem, and I don’t even know if touching you would set me off, but I just can’t chance it. Not yet. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “So, what? You’re afraid if you touch me you’ll turn into a wolf and be too crazed to know it’s me anymore? You’re afraid you’ll attack me?”

  “No,” Lucas said, looking both disgusted and appalled. Then he sighed heavily. “I don’t know. I just don’t want to take any chances until I figure this out—until I figure out why being around you triggers the change. Just bear with me for a little bit. I can control myself, given time.”

  Control himself? He hadn’t needed to control himself when he was sucking tongue with Courtney.

  “But, why’s it so different with me?” I asked, voicing my thoughts. “This doesn’t happen with everyone, right?”

  Lucas looked directly at me. “No. Never. Humans don’t trigger me—or any other werewolf for that matter.” He dragged his hands over his face. “And I told you—I have no idea why I’m like this with you, why I’m so on edge. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Is that why you’re always so short with me?”

  “No, that’s just me, I guess. I’ve been told that I’m naturally and incurably grumpy.” He shrugged and his mouth curved into a wry smile so cute it stopped my heart. “I’m sorry it’s gotta be this way, sorry I’m such a jerk. But it was the only way I could manage—pushing you away, I mean. That’s the only way you can be safe when I start to lose it. The problem now is that pushing you away isn’t an option anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because now we’ve got Vincent to deal with.”

  “Vincent,” I said. “Right. Vincent the vampire. God, that’s so weird.”

  “You’ll get used to it.”

  “I doubt it,” I grumbled. “What’s going on between you two? You really seem to hate each other.”

  Lucas’s jaw tightened. “That’s not important right now. What’s important is making sure he doesn’t get to you. That means you need a werewolf with you from nightfall till dawn until he’s caught. You need protection.”

  I gulped and shot him a look, knowing where he was going with this.

  “It doesn’t have to be me,” Lucas said. “It’s probably better if it’s not me, actually. I can get one of my brothers to—”

  “No,” I said. “I want you. I trust you.”

  Lucas knelt down next to me again. “You do?” he whispered.

  I nodded. “Surprisingly . . . I really do.”

  Lucas’s eyes melded into mine, and I stared into their silvery depths for a long time, heart beating wildly.

  Finally Lucas looked away. “So,” he said softly. “Now that you know what’s going on, you gotta know that you can never tell anyone about us. It’s the biggest secret you’ll ever keep in your life. If you tell anyone, I won’t be able to stop the pack from killing you—and whoever you’ve told.” His eyes bored into mine, waiting for me to confirm that I understood.

  I nodded jerkily. “It’s not like anyone would believe me anyway.”

  Lucas stood and cocked an eyebrow up. “True.” He let his arms fall, and I felt the tension break as they hit his sides. It was as though someone had punctured a gigantic bubble filled with water and I could breathe at long last.

  “So,” Lucas said. “We can do one of two things. We can either stay in your room or we can stay in mine. I think here would be best since it’s a single. We won’t have to explain ourselves to anyone.”

  I nodded as something close to panic fluttered through my chest, or maybe it was excitement. I don’t know, but it made my hands tremble.

  “I’ll sleep on the couch,” Lucas said. “You can get some stuff from your room in the morning to keep over here, but for now, I have some spare stuff in the closet. Use what you want.” He waved his hand at the door to his right. “I gotta go make some calls, but I’ll be right outside the door. I promise you’ll be safe.”

  I nodded again, feeling numb. “I feel like I’m in the witness protection program or something.”

  Lucas let out a barkin
g laugh. “You sort of are.”

  Once alone in the bathroom, I peeled off my filthy vampire costume. Looking at my pallid reflection in the mirror and the fake fangs I’d glued to my teeth, I was completely and the fake fangs I’d glued to my teeth, I was completely mortified. Lucas must have thought I was the biggest idiot. I showered the grime from my body, taking care to clean the cut on my head so it wouldn’t get infected. Afterward, I wrapped myself in a towel and realized I had nothing to wear. I peeked out the bathroom door to ask Lucas if he would lend me a shirt, but found that one had been folded neatly at the foot of the door. It was a black concert tee with LED ZEPPELIN written in bold white letters. It was thin and faded, and I was willing to bet it was an original shirt from an actual Led Zeppelin concert. So cool.

  Thoroughly impressed, I threw it over my head, wishing I had some shorts or something. I thought about wearing some of Lucas’s boxers, but that might have been weird. Or stinky. Or both.

  I climbed into Lucas’s bed and snuggled in his soft sheets. They smelled of him—warm and woodsy. Which made sense, since he probably spent a lot of time in the forest.

  God, this is crazy.

  Lucas Whelan was a werewolf.

  Everything Mark had said about him and his family had been right. Well, except for them being murderers. They were the opposite of murderers. They were protectors. Saviors from the evil in the world.

  From Vincent. A vampire who wanted my blood more than any other. Maybe it was because he thought Lucas and I were lovers and he wanted to hurt me to get at Lucas. But why would he want to get at Lucas? What was going on between the two of them? What was their history? And how in the world did I manage to get myself in the middle of it?

  But I knew how. It was because of Lucas. It was because of my strange fascination with him. Even before I knew what he was, I was drawn to him. Those eyes, his raging vibe, and his incessantly grumpy disposition—all things that should have turned me off but only did the opposite. I wished I knew why, wished he wouldn’t be so distant.