Dark Side of the Moon (26 page)

For a while, we just ran around.  If we didn’t encounter the rogue, then we had to treat this like a normal full moon by patrolling London’s territory for signs of intruders.  When we approached the O’Malley border, we could smell the rivaling pack on their side of the border doing the same thing.  They hadn’t crossed the line, and we had no reason to, either.

So far, the night was uneventful.  We only stopped to rest for a moment and drink from the rivers that we crossed.  Maybe the rogue left town after we killed his partner.  We could only hope that he wouldn’t terrorize the town again and stay gone for good.  But if he did leave, then we wouldn’t receive any answers as to why he was here in the first place.

That thought ran through my mind when I caught the scent of the woods being masked.  I looked to London for guidance.  Though I wanted to attack the rogue, I’d need the pack to back me up.  Still running, my mate threw his head back, and howled, calling the rest of the pack to us.  Then, he picked up the pace to attack the rogue head on.  He wasn’t going to know what hit him when the whole pack descended upon him.

We all ran as fast as we could in the direction of the rogue.  We had about forty people behind us, and another forty were on the way.  There was no way he was going to escape.  We were finally going to figure out what he was doing here and what he wanted with me and my brother.

When the scent grew stronger, I was a little shocked to find the members of the other group standing close together, growling and snarling.  London barked at them, and a couple moved to let him through.  I tried following him, and was glad that the wolves stayed apart for me, too.  That’s when I realized that they were standing in a circle, surrounding the rogue to where he couldn’t escape.

London growled at him, the hairs all over his body standing on end.  It was so strange seeing him that angry, but I was sure I looked the same as I growled at the rogue, too.  The rogue stood in the middle of the circle, looking around, trying to find an opening.  He didn’t even seem bothered by us, which just pissed me off even more.

But before I could charge him, I saw Channing sneak up on him.  He bit one of the rogue’s hind legs, drawing a shriek of pain out of him.  A couple other wolves attacked him, too, but he was able to twist out of their grasps, kicking and biting at them as he tried to get away.

London charged the wolf, clamping his jaw down on his neck.  He should have waited for the others to get their grips back on the rogue’s legs before he made a move.  The wolf struggled against my mate, rolling around on the ground to get him to let go.  I was worried about London’s head hitting a rock and going unconscious, and attacked the rogue with the others.

While I went for one of his hind legs, three others copied me, and one went for his stomach since the wolf was on his back on top of our alpha.  He yelped from the attack, but we didn’t relent, trying to keep our teeth sunk deep in his skin.  Since London was preoccupied with being pinned under the rogue, another wolf came up and tried to attack the wolf’s neck.

The rogue struggled against all of us, and I ended up losing my grip on him.  With one leg free, he was able to kick at the others, getting a few of them square in the jaw.  I tried to get back on him, but he had gotten back on his feet.  London was a little disoriented, and couldn’t quite stand just yet.

I went to charge the rogue, but stopped right before I got to him.  The others that had been attacking him continued, grabbing at his legs and tail.  With them distracting him, I went for his neck, jumping on top of his back to make him lose his balance.  Now was my chance.

Clamping down on his throat as hard as I could, I tried to keep my grip on him.  If I could close his airway in a couple minutes, then this nightmare would be over.  Yes I wanted answers, but I just couldn’t help wanting him dead.  He forever changed my life against my will, tried to kill me and my brother.  I wanted him to be gone from the face of the earth for what he did to us.

I kept my grip on his throat tight.  With the weight of me on his back and my pack members biting his legs and tail and stomach, I knew he wasn’t going to last long.  Rage fueled me to try and bite harder, to draw the last breath out of him.  I had never been vengeful or blood thirsty before, and though I felt relieved that I was trying to end this wolf’s life, I knew I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to do this again unless my pack was threatened.

A couple minutes later, I felt a nose gently nudge my side.  Opening my eyes, I found pale blue ones staring at me.  London nudged me again, whimpering.  What in the hell was he doing?  Looking around, I found the wolves that had been attacking the rogue standing behind my mate.  Why weren’t they trying to bring him down?  Shit, was I the only one attacking him?

That’s when I realized that I wasn’t moving anymore.  Releasing the wolf’s neck, I found him to be still, not even breathing.  I had killed him?

I stared at his lifeless body for a moment, trying to comprehend what I had done.  I had killed the rogue that had attacked me, turned me into a werewolf.  Relief coursed through my body as I realized that he was never going to bother us again, never attack anyone else again.

London bumped his head against mine and licked my muzzle.  I wasn’t sure if he was trying to comfort me, was proud of me, or had been fearful like I had been when he was pinned under the wolf.  Either way, I was glad we were safe and unscathed from this ordeal.

Then, he took a deep breath, and howled his heart out.  A couple others joined in with him.  After I got enough air in my lungs, I howled as well.  We had eliminated the threat to our pack, and this was the only way we could celebrate in our wolf forms.  Plus, this howling told at least the O’Malley clan that we had taken care of the rogue.

When he finished howling, London headed off in the direction of his house.  I followed him, both of us walking since we weren’t frantically searching for anything anymore.  Footsteps followed us, wanting to return home as well.

Though I had killed someone, I just couldn’t feel remorse.  Maybe it’ll hit me in a day or two, but I just felt so happy right now.  Not only did I have revenge on my attacker, but I showed the pack that I was capable of defending myself, was capable of being their second alpha.  Both London and I needed to be strong in order to lead this group.

As we grew closer to London’s, wolves broke off to return to their own homes.  Eventually, it was just my mate and I walking into the house through the doggy door.  Once inside, we made our way upstairs to his room.

I wasn’t sure if I had any blood on me, but to be sure, I lay down on the floor.  London approached me, and curled up beside me, resting his head on my side.  Taking a deep breath, he sighed, hopefully with content.  I knew that we’d have a talk in the morning about what happened, and we’ll have to send someone out into the woods to discover the body so that we’ll know who it is.

Though we wouldn’t get any answers from him as to why he was here or why he tried to kill me and Dan, I was very glad the rogue was finally out of our lives.

Chapter 28

A hand lightly running against my skin woke me.  He ran his fingers along my back, tracing random patterns.  His touch tickled, and I tried to move away from him.

Turning a little to look at him, I found London to be propped up on one of his elbows.  He continued to softly stroke my skin.  “Hey,” he murmured.  “How do you feel?”

“I feel fine.”

He cocked an eyebrow at me.

“Really, I do, London.”

“Are you sure?  I mean, you took down that wolf last night.”

“I know.  I’ve wanted some sort of revenge on him ever since I was attacked.  If anything, I feel relieved.”

He looked me over for a moment before leaning down to give me a kiss.  I twisted my torso a little to wrap my arms around his neck so that we could deepen the kiss.  London hovered over me, keeping his weight off of me, but it didn’t help with his arousal.

My heart beat increased, and I felt my body heat up despite the fact that I was naked and the room was a little chilly.  London turned the kiss into something more urgent, our tongues sliding together, my fingers digging into the skin of his shoulders.

But I still wasn’t ready just yet.

I was thinking about stopping him before we got a little too carried away when he moved a little, completely hovering over me.  I twisted onto my back to get a little more comfortable, and our legs twisted together.  I gasped when I felt his whole body press against me, my heart pounding in overdrive now.

Then, he rested one of his hands on my hips.  I thought nothing of it at first until his hand slowly slid up my ribcage.  His touch tickled me, but then his fingers arrived at the under curve of one of my breasts.  I had no idea if I should let him continue or wait until we were mated to do anything.  I had liked his touch, and wanted to feel more of it.  Thankfully, he must have sensed my hesitation, and just ran his fingers along my stomach and lower chest.

A moment later, I pulled away from him.  We were both breathing heavily, staring at each other.  When I finally found my voice, I asked him, “Want to join me in the shower?”

I probably would have taken him to the hospital and had him committed if he told me no.

After washing our hair and rinsing off and a hasty shaving on my part, I went to turn the shower off when London stopped me.  “I’ll get it, Selina.  You go ahead and dry off.”

“O-Okay,” I said, pulling the curtain back a little so I could climb out of the tub.  But while I dried off, London stayed in the shower.  And the temperature of the room grew cold.

Needless to say, I opted to dress in his room once I was dry.

London came into the room as I pulled my shirt over my head.  And I couldn’t help looking him over.  He had dried off and wrapped the towel around his waist.  His chest was still perfectly toned, his muscles not too bulky, and just had a little trail of dark hair running from his navel to beneath the towel.  His hair had grown out a little, almost touching his shoulders.  It was still damp, a couple water droplets falling onto his chest and back.

He brought me out of my thoughts by asking, “Like what you see, Selina?”

I looked at his face.  He had an amused smirk plastered there.  “Maybe,” I answered, approaching him so I could give him a quick kiss.  “I’m going to go make breakfast.  Do you have a preference?”

He shook his head.

One more kiss, and I was going down the stairs.  I was more comfortable being in the house than I was when I first stayed the night here.  His parents weren’t home most of the time, either at work or together or out with friends I guessed.  He didn’t really talk about them that much because he didn’t have anything in common with his dad and his mother didn’t particularly like me because I wasn’t born a werewolf.  She was going to have to get over it because I was her son’s mate as well as her alpha.

When London came downstairs, fully dressed, we had a breakfast of stuffed omelets.  As we were cleaning up afterwards, the front door opened.  I guess the pack was going to arrive so we can talk about last night.

Channing and Artemis were the first to arrive.  To keep our minds off the topic of last night, we busied ourselves with talking about finals and graduation.  London wasn’t too thrilled about that topic of conversation.  Somehow, he was passing in all of his classes.  But he didn’t have to worry about going to college or finding a job after graduation because he had his commissions that he was going to live off of.

Slowly, the rest of the pack arrived.  We all crammed into the living room, everyone talking with each other.  I was so glad I could block out every little sound and smell now.  When Dan and Josie arrived, they came to sit with us, my brother asking if I was okay.

After I nodded, the last pack member arrived.  London stood, and called everyone to order so he could speak.  When he had silence, he said, “Last night, Selina killed the rogue that has been trespassing on my land since December.  We have no idea who he was or what he wanted with her or Dan, and we may never now.  We also don’t know if he had managed to change anyone else in the town either last night or the previous full moon.  We’ll just have to be on the lookout and hope that we can get some answers and convince them to join, or force them out of Moonlight Falls.  Just make sure that you all have alibies for last night if anyone comes asking about the person we took out.  We finally eliminated one threat, and do not need another.”

Raff spoke up then.  “Do you want a group to go out to find the body?”

“Yes, but different people this time.  It’ll look too suspicious if the same people discovered this one, too.  You can either go now or wait a day or two.”

Everyone nodded, and filtered back through the front door, going back to normal.  All that was left was our little group.  When I mentioned the word
study
, London immediately stood, and went upstairs, probably to his studio.

We crammed for our exams until dinner, taking a break to make some sandwiches for lunch.  The entire time, London was upstairs, working on a project.  We decided to go out for dinner in Blue Pine, needing a break from Moonlight Falls.

We kept the dinner conversation light and happy.  But when we left, in the parking lot, we heard someone gruffly call, “Fairbanks.”

We turned to look at the voice to find O’Malley standing about ten feet away.  How had we not smelled him?  And what did he want?

London’s body tensed as he looked the rivaling alpha over.  One thing that struck me as odd was that he was alone, no other pack members in sight.  “What do you want, O’Malley?” my mate asked, his voice hard.

He took a couple steps closer to us.  London immediately put himself between me and him.  “I just want to talk.  I even came here all by myself hoping to run into you.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you did.”

He didn’t respond to that little jab.  “That rogue that’s been hanging around recently, have you seen it?”

“It attacked Selina and her brother Dan, and turned someone else in our town with the intention of attacking them.”

“Three people were attacked?  I only heard about a girl and a boy.”

“Selina was reported being attacked in December.  Dan was attacked on our camping trip, and it wasn’t reported.  The other one was a second rogue the first one turned.”

O’Malley gave him a very confused look.

“We killed him two full moons ago and reported the body shortly after.”

“Shit,” he muttered under his breath.

“Why did you have something to do with it?”

“No, not at all.  I just caught its scent a while ago, and thought you were doing recon on me.”

“You know we’re peaceful, O’Malley.”

He was quiet for a moment.  “What about the original one?”

“Selina took care of him last night.”

O’Malley’s eyes widened as he looked at me.  “Well, I guess she’s secured her place as alpha in your pack.”

“Yeah, she has.”

He stuffed his hands in his pockets.  “And you said her brother was attacked?”

“Yes, and he’s joined my pack for obvious reasons.”

“You really need to start telling people when your pack increases in number Fairbanks.”

“Yeah, yeah, is that all you wanted?”

He nodded.  “Just wanted to see what all that howling was last night.  See you around, Fairbanks bunch.”

We watched him walk off, get in a car, and drive down the road before moving.  I wasn’t sure what we were waiting for, unless it was to make sure it hadn’t been a trap.  They had said that this was a neutral town, but I wasn’t sure if O’Malley would respect that or not.

When nothing happened, London led us over to our cars.  “What was that about?” I asked as he pulled out of the parking lot.

“Like he said, he was just checking to see if the rogue had been a part of my group.  We all get used to each other’s scents, and we know when someone intrudes on our land because of it.  The first rogue probably went through O’Malley’s territory before coming to mine.  Hopefully he won’t bother us again.”

Dan spoke up then.  “You’re supposed to tell other packs when you gain new members?”

“If there are a lot of them, yeah.  You two came to the pack a couple months apart, so I didn’t see the point.”

Dan then went on to ask questions about pack dynamics and relationships between other packs.  That conversation carried all the way to Moonlight Falls.  After we returned to London’s, Josie returned home, and I figured it was time for Dan and I to do so as well.  Besides, I needed to cram some more information in in the next week so I could pass my exams.

All throughout the week at school, we reviewed everything we learned throughout the year.  London only participated because I told him to.  And during Art, I worked on my project that I finally figured out.

I was going to draw half of London’s face on one side, and his wolf face on the other in charcoal and give it to him as soon as finals were over.

After school, we continued to hang out like normal, but I studied instead of watching a movie or watching London paint.  Making good grades was the last thing I needed before heading off to college.

And speaking of, I never heard London saying or asking anything about either of us furthering our education.  Did he want to go?  I had already been accepted at several, and had been planning on attending one of the big ones in Charleston with Miranda and Jocelyn.  But I haven’t heard from either of them for several weeks.

Also, I wasn’t sure if now was the time to bring up college with finals so close.  I was already stressed enough, and I didn’t want to think about going to school on the other side of the state, possibly away from my mate.

The first half of next week was reserved for finals.  Then the Friday afterward was rehearsal, and the Saturday afterward was graduation.  Some of my family from Charleston was coming to attend and visit; it has been five months since I’ve seen them.  And they were going to have a chance to meet London, too.

They were all going to arrive a couple hours before graduation.  That gave me some time to focus on my exams and tell London about my family.  I had already met all of his family members, and he’d only met my parents and brother.  If he was going to be around for a while, then he was going to have to at least meet them.

After we passed our exams with flying colors, we went out to celebrate.  Dan still had a couple years before he graduated, and he was going to be without Josie for a year.  How were they going to manage being away from each other that long every day?  I was kind of glad that London and I didn’t have to worry about that.

Rehearsal went smoothly.  We were placed alphabetically, so I was several rows behind London and our friends.  We had to run through the routine several times before they were satisfied that we had everything right and let us go.  Afterwards, I went with London back to his house to hang out and make out.

But Saturday morning, as I was heading to the kitchen to get some breakfast and mentally prepare for today, I overheard my dad talking to someone at the front door.  “He’s been missing for almost two weeks?  Did he say where he was going?” my dad asked the person.

Upon closer inspection, I saw that he was speaking to a cop. 
What the hell?

“No, he didn’t tell anyone else that we’ve spoken to if he was going somewhere.  Have you had any contact with Mr. Hershvitz?”

Mr. Hershvitz?  That was Dad’s boss before we moved to Moonlight Falls.

“No, I haven’t seen him since we moved here.  I’ve had no reason to since I left the firm.  Do you think something has happened to him, officer?”

“Maybe.  Some kids found another body in the woods, and he matched the description.”

My eyes widened. 
Did I kill Dad’s former boss?

“Another body was found?  First my daughter was attacked by wolves, and then two bodies turned up?”