by E. J. King
When I finally made it to the living room, Rafe was waiting for me with a big grin on his face.
“I knew you couldn’t stay away all night.” He pulled back the blanket and I nearly threw myself against him. The couch was barely big enough for one person, so I had to lay on top of him to make it work. Not that I minded.
“I missed you,” I admitted. His body felt so warm and strong beneath mine, but his arms were gentle as they wrapped around me. “I need to be with you tonight, James.”
He stared at me in the dark, eyes wide and unblinking. “Is everything okay?”
“No, it’s not,” I said with a dry laugh. “But right now, in your arms, it feels like maybe everything doesn’t have to be okay. The only thing that has to be okay is you and me.”
He brushed a strand of hair away from my face, tucking it behind my ear. Rafe didn’t say anything, but with the way he was looking at me, he didn’t need to. I could tell exactly what he was thinking, because I was thinking it too. I loved him more than anything, and even with all of the chaos around us, all that mattered right then was us.
Rafe slowly rotated us until I was on my back and he was above me. “We’ll have to be quiet,” he said, eyes deep with longing.
“Okay,” I put a hand on his chest. “Take it slow.”
I wanted it to last, because it was going to be our last night together for a while. I was going to savor every touch, every kiss.
A couple of hours later, Rafe was still kissing me- my face, my neck. His lips trailed warm, happy paths over my skin.
“What’s this?” he asked, finding the silver charm around my neck.
“Kate gave it to me. It belonged to my mother.” I could feel his fingers tracing a circle around it. “Benton made it for her.”
He leaned close to it, squinting in the dark. “It’s engraved?”
“Always and forever,” I said, covering his hand with mine. “Just like us.”
Rafe smiled and kissed me on the lips. “Let’s hope we keep that promise better than they did.”
A little while later, we settled side-by-side on the couch and Rafe fell into a deep sleep. I lay facing him, studying each bend and curve of his face. The sun would be up soon and I needed to go.
After I slipped away as smoothly as possible, I stood over the couch. With shaking hands, I removed the necklace and carefully placed it in Rafe’s limp hand, curling his fingers around it. I brushed my lips over his ear and whispered, “I love you. Always and forever.”
One last, long look, and then I went to wake Luke.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Luke had been waiting for me in his room, certain that I would decide to agree with his plan. We left as quietly as possible and made a quick trip to the hotel so I could pick up my things. I might have agreed to hit the road with Luke, but I wasn’t doing it without a fresh change of clothes.
Then we hit the highway without looking back. I kept my phone off, knowing that Rafe would call the minute he woke up and realized I was gone. When he found out that Luke was gone, too, I had no idea what he would think. After we put some space between us and the town, I’d send him a quick message to let him know that my departure had nothing to do with Luke.
“He’ll forgive you,” Luke said, shooting a glance my way. Our ride had been relatively silent so far as I was lost in thoughts of Rafe and my mother.
“He’s going to be very upset,” I said. Trees whizzed past the window with dizzying affect. I wondered just how fast Luke was driving. “He already didn’t like you.”
“I’m crushed,” Luke gasped dramatically. “Do you supposed that he’ll think we decided to run away together to rekindle our love affair? Maybe eloping to Vegas?”
I glared. “He knows better than that.”
“If you say so.” A faint smiled played at the corner of his lips, then faded. “You never told me why you left, Kaylie. I thought we were in love.”
“You were in love,” I replied, somewhat coolly. “I was acting out, being stupid.”
His jaw clenched hard. “Being with me was you acting stupid?”
“I’m sorry.” And I was. I hadn’t meant it that way. “I just meant that I wasn’t processing feelings normally back then. Being with you felt better than not being with you at first. Then, one day, it didn’t.”
“Just like that?” He kept his eyes fixed on the road in front of us.
“When I realized how you felt about me, I knew I had to leave. It wasn’t right to lead you on if I didn’t feel the same way.”
Luke waited for a long beat before he asked, “You’re sure that you love him?”
“I am.” I asked curiously, “Why are you so surprised?”
“I’m not surprised.” He gave me a chagrined look. “I think part of me just always hoped that one day it would be me that you loved.”
“Part of me used to hope for that, too,” I offered. “I hope that we can find a way to still be friends, Luke. I do care about you.”
He forced a smile. “We’re more than friends, Kaylie. We are road trip buddies!”
I laughed as he cranked up the radio and began singing along. It was a better option than engaging more in a serious conversation, so I joined in. We had a long journey ahead of us, but it felt like we had at least managed to put our past behind us.
We took turns driving throughout the day, stopping only for gas and meals. My legs were numb by the time we stopped for dinner at a roadside hole-in-the-wall. I was pleased to find that the coffee only tasted a little burnt.
“Maybe we should’ve just flown,” I said after we had each ordered burgers from the cranky waitress. She was just as happy to see us as we were to see her. “Another few hours listening to you sing and I’m going to have to kill one of us.”
“You love it when I serenade you,” he teased.
We both glanced at my phone as it vibrated loudly on the table. I had turned it back on a few minutes ago to finally send Rafe a message. He’d responded immediately, but I hadn’t been brave enough to read his reply.
“Is he pissed?” Luke asked grudgingly. He didn’t really care about Rafe’s feelings, but he was trying to be a good friend to me.
“Of course.” I looked away from the phone. “He’ll get over it.”
“I bet Kate was glad to see you had gone,” he teased. “She wasn’t a big fan of you hooking up with her son.”
“What are you talking about?” I pretended to be shocked. “Kate loved me.”
Luke just laughed.
I reached for a discarded newspaper, unable to resist the urge to check for any supernatural activity in the area. Luke snagged the sports page from me.
“Still placing bets with Bubba?” I asked.
“Still winning bets.” He winked at me.
My eyes narrowed as I scanned the front page. Something was definitely off in the area.
“Three bodies have turned up in the last two nights. Shredded to pieces.” I lowered the paper to look at Luke.
“Wild animal?” he guessed without much conviction.
“Missing organs,” I clarified.
Wild animals might attack people and tear them apart, but they didn’t typically make sure to eat all of the organs before they got full. Weres did.
“Any idea what the moon phase is right now?” I asked.
Moon Hunters focused on Weres and Shifters. Soul Hunters only paid attention to the moon phases when they stumbled across a Were attack accidentally.
“We’re due for a full moon,” he said and I remembered that he and Ken had suspected Shifters in the area already. Luke sighed. “Does this mean we’re not getting back on the road tonight?”
“We can’t just leave, Luke. We at least need to check this out. More people could die.”
“It’s tough being a superhero,” he said with a dramatic flair.
The waitress arrived with our burgers and a surly attitude when I asked her about the attacks. She claimed the woods were notorious for wild animals and
the victims were stupid to be out there after dark.
She probably wasn’t wrong about that.
“Do you really think this is a good idea? Neither of us are Mooners.” Mooners was the word Soul Hunters used to distinguish Hunters that specialized in Weres and Shifters, or any creature that was controlled by the phases of the moon.
“Come on. Doesn’t a regular Were hunt sound like a good thing right now?” I felt it would be nice to focus on a supernatural attack that didn’t involve my crazy vampire father.
Luke eventually relented. He never could pass up a hunt, and this one seemed pretty straight forward. It meant we would have to stay in town overnight, slightly putting us behind schedule. I was willing to sacrifice a few hours if it meant preventing future deaths.
We found a motel in the center of town and I reluctantly agreed to only one room. Even I had to admit that it would be silly to waste money on separate rooms for one night when we would probably be out hunting the entire time.
“Two beds,” Luke said when we walked into the room. “Too bad.”
“Ha.” I dug out my laptop while Luke flopped onto one of the beds.
“Wake me when it’s time to hunt,” he said, closing his eyes.
Luke always had been calm and cool. He was cocky to a fault, and just assumed that he would be able to handle whatever we might face. I was less confident and felt the need to start researching Weres.
Monster movies liked to brag about being able to kill them with a silver bullet to the heart. While that was technically true, anything silver will kill them if you hit their heart. Bullets were actually tricky because Weres moved extremely fast. To kill them, you needed to immobilize them, or get really close to them.
Weres would turn back into their human form when the sun comes up, making them almost impossible to track. They could function somewhat normally during the day, but they much preferred the nighttime, and they particularly enjoyed the full moon. The fuller the moon, the more power they possessed.
It looked like we were coming up on a full moon in two days, which meant the Were in the woods had already killed three people without being at full power. That meant we weren’t going to have an easy time bringing it down.
I went back and looked at archives of the local paper and it was true that the woods were notorious for violent animal attacks. Mostly only a couple of deaths per year, though, so three in two nights was quite an escalation. That led to the possibility that another Were had arrived in town.
One thing that was unique about Weres was their penchant for mating. They tended to pair up and when they mated, they mated for life. It was kind of sweet, in a horrific and disgusting way. If the original Were had found its soul mate, we faced the possibility that they were nesting. Mama Were might be getting ready to give birth, which would also explain the extra meals.
I told Luke my theory when he woke up from his nap and he agreed that it was quite likely. Neither of us were pleased by the thought that we might have to kill a baby Were. I had never actually seen one.
“My parents came across a Were nest one time,” Luke said as he sharpened a silver blade. “They wouldn’t really talk about it, but Dad barely spoke for almost a month.”
The talk of hunting Weres made me think of Lincoln’s friend, Olivia Silver. She came from a Moon Hunter family, and I was willing to bet she had some good tips.
She answered on the fifth ring, sounding groggy. Even though I had likely woken her up, she answered my questions eagerly.
I was pleased to learn that all of my assumptions of Weres were correct, but was less pleased to learn that nesting Weres tended to be even harder to kill. They weren’t just protecting themselves and their territory anymore- they were protecting their offspring and bloodline. That was going to make things tricky.
Her advice was to strike fast and take out the male Were first. If the female really was pregnant, she would be slower and more cautious. When I asked Olivia what to do if the baby had already been born, she answered simply, “Kill it.”
It was cold and snowy outside, so we dressed in a lot of layers and I packed us a thermos of warm coffee. I was going to need a kick if I was going to stay focused in the cold.
“You could’ve put a little Irish in the coffee,” Luke complained as we made our way through the woods.
“This is going to be a hard enough hunt without you blitzed on whiskey,” I replied.
“How do you even know we’re going in the right direction?” He waved his hands around, gesturing to the snowy vastness around us.
That was something I had never been able to explain. When evil was close, I could always sense it. “I just know.”
A few yards later, we both noticed the tracks. Two sets of prints, leading deeper into the woods. I could practically feel the supernatural energy in the air. It was a wonder that the rest of the world was so oblivious.
“We’re getting close,” I whispered, pulling my knife from my bag. Luke had sharpened it to a deadly point.
We circled around a large tree and both heard the growling at the same time. It wasn’t an aggressive growl, more like one animal speaking to another. I had a feeling we were about to stumble upon the nest.
“If you get an opening, don’t hesitate,” I said as quietly as possible.
Luke nodded and twirled his own blade. He took the lead as we pushed through some foliage, our trained Hunter footsteps making no noise.
The Weres heard us anyway.
When we stepped into the clearing, they were waiting. Their hungry eyes glinted in the dark and their Were-fangs snapped viciously. The female was easy to spot, her belly round and protruding.
Even with Olivia’s warning about how quick they would be, I still was taken by surprise. The female ended up being the first one to make a move. Luke managed to land a kick, sending her off course, but that unfortunately meant she crashed right into me.
I got my hands up just in time to shove her snout away from my neck, but I dropped my blade when I fell. With one hand, I gripped her neck and I fumbled around furiously in the snow with my other hand.
My fingers were frozen and numb within seconds, making it almost impossible to know if I was touching the blade. Fortunately, the sharp tip poked hard enough into my palm that I was able to feel it.
The next few seconds were all training and instinct. Grabbing the blade, reaching around the Were’s back, and plunging it into her heart in one perfectly aimed stab. I didn’t let myself think about the fact that she was pregnant and partially human. That would’ve distracted me from the task at hand. Because even if she lived most of her days in human form, she was still a monster. And there was no cure. She had to die.
I pushed the body off of me and crawled to my knees, breathing heavily. Luke had managed to take out the male and he glanced over to make sure I was okay. It had all gone according to plan.
What I hadn’t been expecting, the thing that surprised and horrified me, was that she changed back into her human form as she died.
She had been younger than I would’ve suspected, maybe a year older than myself. Long blond hair, soft features, and a round belly. I had no doubt that her belly held a tiny human.
“We should go, Kales,” Luke said softly. He put a hand on my shoulder. “There’s nothing we can do.”
“I didn’t know,” I muttered through chattering teeth. “The human forms, I didn’t know about that.”
“They were still monsters.”
Luke took my elbow and started to pull me away. I followed him on numb feet.
Just a few yards away from the bodies, Luke froze. “We aren’t alone,” he said.
“What?” My head snapped as I quickly surveyed the area.
When a half-dozen forms emerged from the trees, we both instinctively reached for our weapons.
“Don’t move!” One of the figures commanded.
We didn’t listen.
Just as my hand closed over the knife handle, a gun sounded and I was hit hard i
n the shoulder. As I fell to my knees, my hand closed over the object that had struck me, still protruding from my body. I pulled it out and stared in confusion. A dart?
Footsteps closed in on me and I looked up through blurred vision. The thing that knelt in front of me looked to be a male human, but it was hard to say for certain with the haziness settling in my brain.
“Kaylie Hart?” he asked.
I tried to nod, but things started to go black. He reached out an arm and caught me, just as I lost consciousness completely.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I woke up in a white room. There was no other way to describe it. The walls were white, the ceiling was white, and the floors were white linoleum. Even the bedding tucked around me was white.
When I pushed it aside, my arms felt heavy and my shoulder ached. I was surprised to find that even my clothing was now white. The black clothes I had worn to hunt in were gone, replaced with white sweatpants and a white long-sleeve shirt. For a second, I was convinced that I was in a mental institution.
The lone door to the room was closed, but I had no idea how long it would stay that way. I looked around the sparse room for anything I could use as a weapon, settling for a pen on the bedside table. I tucked it into my sleeve and then pulled on a white pair of sneakers that I found at the foot of the bed.
I was so surprised that the door wasn’t locked that I gasped when it clicked open. Stepping into the hall, I was still surrounded by white. I walked on my toes to keep from making squeaking noises on the linoleum.
At the end of the hall, I heard voices talking in what appeared to be an office. All of the other doors I had encountered along the way had been closed and locked. This one was wide open.
“I don’t think you should’ve brought them here. They are Hunters.” The tiny but forceful voice belonged to a tough-looking Asian woman.
“We’ve brought plenty of Hunters here,” the male protested. I recognized his voice as belonging to the man that had shot me.
“She’s different,” the Asian woman insisted.
