Insolita Luna

by M. J. O'Shea

  Insolita Luna

  By M.J. O’Shea

  Zack has been best friends with Noah since they were five years old, but his feelings have grown, in Blood Moon. Their first kiss ends in disaster, but next summer, Noah acts like nothing’s wrong. But Noah’s hiding something, and Zach can’t remain in the dark forever. In Hunter’s Moon, Miles Hunter has been dreaming of New York City for his entire life, but a mugging and daring rescue have turned his life upside down. Stuck with PC until they can find a way to break the bond, Miles begins to wonder if he really wants the bond broken. Charles Fitzgerald, determined to prove his worth once and for all, volunteers for a dangerous mission to Romania, in Cold Moon. His best friend Xan is furious, and willing to follow him anywhere to keep him safe.

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  Insolita Luna by M.J. O’Shea includes

  Blood Moon

  Hunter’s Moon

  Cold Moon

  About the Author

  Visit Harmony Ink Press

  Copyright Page

  Insolita Luna by M.J. O’Shea includes:

  Insolita Luna: Book One

  Zack met his best friend, Noah, at Harper Lake when they were five years old. Summer after summer, his feelings grew, but he assumed Noah didn’t feel the same. But one night when they were seventeen, Zack kissed Noah... and Noah kissed him back. Zack was sure he did. But the next morning, Noah put an end to their friendship and walked away, leaving Zack with a broken heart.

  A year has passed, and Zack goes back to the lake—where every leaf, rock, and turn in the road remind him of the biggest mistake he ever made. He hates thinking about what he lost, and more than anything he wants his best friend back. He figures it’ll be the longest summer ever. But then Noah shows up out of the blue, apologetic and more gorgeous than ever. Noah is sweet and attentive, and Zack can almost believe nothing had ever gone wrong. But there’s something different about his old friend, something not quite right. Zack doesn’t want to ruin the fragile new bond between them, but he has to know... What secret is Noah hiding?

  Insolita Luna: Book Two

  New York City has been calling Miles Hunter for as long as he can remember, but he’s sure the imaginary monsters in his stories are all the adventure he’ll experience—until a mugging and daring rescue leave him wondering what else is out there that he had never believed in before.

  PC has spent eighteen years doing the opposite of what everyone expects. He hunts supernatural troublemakers, hangs out with vampires, and refuses to settle down—to the disapproval of his respectable parents and the stuffy lycan council. Then one confusing night, his instincts turn him to wolf form to save a stranger.

  Miles and PC must learn to live together, because even minutes of separation mean extreme pain. Miles falls for the unpredictable PC, the wolf’s strange friends, and their nightly adventures, but his reluctant lover is determined to break their bond. As they are drawn into a mystery involving werewolves, rogue vampires, and a lot of dead humans, finding the truth might mean the hunt of PC’s life—especially if he wants to keep Miles alive.

  Insolita Luna: Book Three

  Charlie Fitzgerald is sick of being the kid nobody takes seriously. His older brother Colin is fighting vampires and other troublemakers in New York City, and Charlie wants in on the action—but no one will listen. Then he overhears the lycan council is looking for a human emissary to take a message of peace to a werewolf in the forests of Romania, and Charlie decides he’s the man for the job.

  Xan is furious: his best friend, Charlie, one of the Fitzgeralds he’s vowed to protect, is walking into danger, and Xan chases him all the way to the freezing Romanian forest to save his stubborn butt. When Charlie is almost killed, Xan realizes he feels much more than friendship for his charge, and emotions that have been bubbling under the surface of his calm façade threaten to boil over and flood them both.

  They end up in the middle of a political mess involving lycans, werewolves, and nosy vampires, and if they make it out alive, the friendship between the headstrong hunter and his bullheaded protector might turn into a love neither can live without.

  Chapter One: Never Again

  I CAN’T believe they talked me into coming back here.

  All year long, I promised myself that I’d say no, and still I’d ended up in the back of my parents’ rickety station wagon “one last time,” watching civilization dissolve slowly into an endless sea of oppressive vegetation. It seemed heavier than the year before, when I’d been mentally willing my dad to drive faster, faster; I just wanted to get there. Not anymore. The trees felt like they were strangling me and I wished we could just turn around and go home.

  Not much farther….

  I hated that I was going to be in college in three months and I still hadn’t learned how to say no to my mother. I probably wouldn’t have learned to say no to her by the time I was fifty. Mom was a master at getting her way, as most mothers are. And in the summer, “her way” was having the entire family together at the lake—no matter how much her stubborn, mostly grown son didn’t want to go.

  I barely contained the urge to scream swear words out loud. I felt like I was dying. Okay, maybe dying was a bit dramatic but it was so hot in that freaking car, I wanted to pass out.

  For about the millionth time I wondered why my parents, who could easily afford a newer car, never got one. They told me they used it so rarely, leaving it in a parking garage in the city for most of the year, that it just wasn’t worth it to buy another. It so was. Even some nearly as crappy secondhand model would be fine as long as it had air conditioning or a back window that actually rolled down.

  After a few moments of struggling with the perpetually broken back window, I managed to create a small crack I could stick my face out of. A waft of air, green and thick on my face, burst through the crack. It was humid and hot, fetid with the smell of wet leaves and overgrown grass, barely a relief at all. If it weren’t for the near-death heat inside the old beast, I wouldn’t have even bothered.

  I heaved a sigh and flopped theatrically against the vinyl seat. Yeah, you heard me right. I said vinyl. I tried to ignore my sister Maya’s jubilant grin and the familiar old strains drifting from the push-button radio. My parents were singing “Puff the Magic Dragon” with Peter, Paul and Mary—a song meant for little kids that had taken on a whole new meaning after a few years of high school. An ironic little smile tugged at the corner of my mouth, but I stifled it. Not something I wanted to have to explain to my twelve-year-old sister. I saw my mother eyeing me sagely in the rearview mirror.

  “You know, Zack, you don’t have to act like we’re dragging you to your execution. We’re on vacation as a family. You can at least pretend to be happy.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I just had a bunch of things I needed to take care of in the city this summer.” Total lie, of course, but I could have found something, anything, else to do.

  “Like what?”

  “Like for my new classes and stuff.” I was enrolled at NYU in the fall, and I couldn’t wait to get out and try something new.

  It was her turn to roll her eyes. “You didn’t have anything to do except dye your hair again and write more morose poetry. It’ll be good for you to get out of the city, get some fresh air and maybe a little sun. You’re starting to look positively vampirish.”

  “Is that even a word?” I was tired of her harping on my newly blackened hair. It had seemed like such a good idea at the time. Besides, it matched my almost permanent mood. Black.

  My mother tilted her head to the side. “I’m sure vampirish is a word somewhere. If not, then it should be.” Even I had to crack a smile at that. “I’m serious, Zack. You needed to get out of the city. I know things haven’t been so good
for you since No—”

  “It’s fine, Mom. New subject. I’m with you, aren’t I?” I smiled at her in the mirror. I could tell the subject wasn’t really dropped, just postponed. She knew damn well my smile wasn’t real, but it was the best I could do.

  My family had been going to the old lake house since I was a kid. I used to look forward to it the entire year. The lake summers of my past were filled with great memories of swimming, fort building, and the easy friendships of youth. That had all changed last summer. I’d been dreading going back ever since.

  All I could see ahead were endless weeks of unhappiness. There was nothing there but trees and birds and memories of a boy who crept into my head when I was least prepared. I pushed my iPod’s earbuds into my ears as far as they’d go and cranked the volume up. There had to be an hour or so to kill before we got to the cabin. I couldn’t deal with any more grilling, and I thought I might throw up if I had to listen to my family sing another folk song.

  I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew, I was being poked in the side by a very insistent finger.

  “Zack! Wake up, snorty. We’re here.”

  “Snorty? That’s a new one.”

  Maya smothered a giggle. “Yeah, well, you didn’t hear the sounds you’ve been making for the past twenty miles. They could probably hear them in the Bronx, but you missed out.”

  “Shut up,” I grumbled but without any heat. I ruffled Maya’s gingery curls so she would know I wasn’t serious. She grinned at me and hopped out of the car, then ran toward the old cedar shake house perched on the side of Harper Lake. It had looked as if it were about to keel over for as many summers as I’d been there, but I supposed that was part of its charm. I heaved another huge sigh and peeled my sweaty back from the seat of the car, cringing at the wet slurping noise it made. Mine were the only bags left so I struggled them out of the trunk and headed for the house and my usual bedroom, dragging my feet the entire way.

  IT WAS close to midnight. The air was way too heavy and it was too quiet. Too everything, honestly. I sighed my millionth unhappy sigh of the day and admitted to myself that I wasn’t going to fall asleep; I decided I might as well do something rather than just lie there and look at the warped wooden ceiling. Only problem was, all my usual distractions were missing—no internet, no video games, no phone or TV. It sucked the big one. I had to get out of there, but I had nowhere to go. I figured I could get out of my stifling hot and silent room, at least.

  I tiptoed to the bathroom and shut the door before turning on the bright fluorescent light. For long minutes, I studied myself in the mirror, wondering if what I was feeling was visible. I looked a little paler than usual—the ink-black of my recent hair coloring adventure probably didn’t do much for me. Other than that, I looked disappointingly normal. None of the heartbreak of being there showed on my face.

  I might have looked the same as usual, but I felt awful. The memories I’d spent the last twelve months running away from caught up to me once we got to the lake. It was seriously depressing. Every tree trunk and rock, my bedroom, the lake itself; they all reminded me of him. Of Noah.

  I couldn’t stand to be inside a second longer. It felt like the walls were strangling me. I had to get out. Careful not to wake up my sister, who I loved to death but who had a mouth the size of the Chrysler building, I slid out the door. My mother wouldn’t be pleased with me wandering around in the woods in the dark. Like most born and bred city people, she had a healthy fear of things that went bump in the night… at least in the wilderness. Give her a nut job in Times Square any day, she usually said. I’d always liked chirping birds and the occasional howl of a coyote. The forest didn’t scare me. The months spent running through the trees were my happiest. At least, they used to be.

  The night enveloped me the second I stepped out into the trees. As much as I didn’t want to be at the lake again, I had to admit there was something about the place that called me. A sort of magic was there, still lingering from the past.

  I’d unconsciously been following the path to the dock where we used to swim and fish for hours until it was so dark we couldn’t even see our hands. I stepped out onto the ancient pilings, comforted by their familiar groaning.

  The dock ended about thirty feet out from the shore. I sank down on the end to sit in the same place I’d sat for hours at a time, year after year. I rolled up my jeans and pulled my shoes from my hot feet, then I dangled my legs off the edge into the lake. The water was cool and refreshing, relief from the sweaty stillness of the night. It was overcast, but the pale moon shone stubbornly through breaks in the clouds.

  I lay back on the still-warmed wood and wished I could see the stars. Maybe if I could, they would be able to give me some answers. I’d sure never been able to figure out on my own why I couldn’t get over him after an entire year. It had only been a few kisses, after all… well, a few kisses and a lifetime of friendship and longing.

  I sighed and stared at the perfect blackness of the sky. I’d tried so hard to forget him, dated every guy in the city who paid even the smallest amount of attention to me, even a few I should’ve stayed away from. I hadn’t wanted any of them. I’d done it hoping to purge his kisses from my mouth, his voice from my ears, his touch from the surface of my skin. It never worked. Never.

  I sat up and gazed out at the water and the hodgepodge of homes that surrounded it. It was too dark to see, but I knew them all so well I could recite the details from memory. There was a strange mixture of buildings at the lake—little tumbledown cabins mixed with huge well-kept lakeside retreats. And then there was the house I tried not to look at. The one I avoided with my eyes but couldn’t avoid in my mind, the one that… wait a second. Was that a light? Is he home?

  I clenched my fists, angry with myself for getting excited over nothing, and violently yanked my legs out of the water, feeling like a pathetic moron. It wasn’t a mystery why I came out to this stupid dock practically the second I got to the lake.

  Might as well be a stalker. You’re such a loser.

  I stood and shoved my wet feet into my Converses before I stomped back to the cabin to force myself to lie down and go to sleep.

  Didn’t work, of course. Anger isn’t exactly the best cure for insomnia. Neither is frustration or the irreparable pain of unrequited love.

  I don’t love him.

  It’s hard to lie to yourself, though. At least, if you want to be convincing about it. I knew I did love him. I had for years and as far as I could tell, I always would.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and thought about calculus, Charles Dickens, ionic compounds, anything that had put me to sleep on a regular basis in class. It must have worked, because the next thing I knew the sun was shining brightly through my open curtains, and I had to cover my face with my blanket so I could fall back to sleep.

  MAYA CAME in around nine that morning, bouncing and ready to go. I knew she’d been waiting for a while and had finally reached the end of her patience. She always got like that. When my eyes opened to find her face only inches from mine, I wanted to groan but I didn’t. It would have hurt her feelings, and I’d mainly come on vacation one last time for her. At least, I tried to rationalize that my reasons for being there had nothing to do with the big stone house at the end of the lake.

  Have I mentioned before that it’s hard to lie to yourself? Well, it is.

  “I’ll be out in a minute, Maya. I just need to get changed. I didn’t sleep very well last night.”

  “Okay. I’ll get you some cereal. Bring a towel.” She bounded back out of the room, her endless energy radiating from every surface of her body. I flopped back down and closed my eyes for a second.

  I swear this is the last time I’m coming here.

  Chapter Two: Noah

  IT HAD been four days since we’d arrived at the lake, tired and hot from a long car ride. Could’ve been a hundred for all I knew. I didn’t really care. I just wanted the summer to be over. Every day I played with Maya in t
he sun, endlessly applying sun block so my pale butt didn’t get burnt. I tried to smile, dig in the sand, and race her to the buoys out in the middle of the water. My heart was halfway in it, attempting to have fun for my sister’s benefit, but I was distracted. I was constantly drawn to the huge stone house at the end of the lake—looking for movement, cars coming and going, familiar faces. The only thing I ever saw was the gardening crew and some guy in overalls painting the deck railing. It was insanely frustrating.

  I barely slept. The nights were too quiet and it was impossible to stop listening to my mind. The only place where I had any peace at all was the dock. In the middle of the night, I’d go there and stare at the moon, wishing I could be anywhere else.

  It was on the fourth night that everything changed. I’d slipped out as usual to sit by the water and think about how lame my life was. I was seriously considering asking my mother to take me to the nearest bus depot so I could get a ticket back to Manhattan, where the noise could drown out my thoughts.

  I hadn’t realized it would be so bad, but that was stupid. Of course it was. Maybe it was seeing that light go on the first night, a reminder that he was still out there and I couldn’t have him. Maybe I’d finally realized that he was gone from my life and even if he was only a few hundred feet away, I still wasn’t going to ever see him again. Maybe it was—

  I stopped in my tracks. I’d just rounded the corner in the path and stepped out onto the dock. I was shocked to see I wasn’t the only one out there. The moon glinted on a wild halo of silvery-blond hair.

  He was sitting on the edge of the dock, where I’d seen him a million times. I blinked and shook my head but he was still there. Impossible. Maybe I’d dreamed him back into existence so my life didn’t feel so pathetic. He couldn’t be real. My mouth went dry and the walls of my throat felt like they were stuck together.