Read Gray Moon Rising: Seasons of the Moon Online
Authors: S. M. Reine
Gwyn waved her hands. “Don’t go all ma’am on me right now. There’s plenty of time for that later. Come here.” They embraced, and Rylie caught Abel smiling over Gwyn’s shoulder. He tried to hide it when he saw her watching. “Now, enough of all this hugging and crying business. Bah!” She gave a hard snort. “You boys been looking after my girl?”
“Yes ma’am,” Abel said. She gave him a sharp look.
Seth wrapped his arm around Rylie’s waist. “She’s been looking after us.”
The van doors opened, and Scott climbed out. Bekah and Levi followed after a moment, hanging back like they weren’t certain they would be welcome. They were on their way to California, but they had detoured instead of following Stephanie’s bus.
“Think you brought a big enough entourage?” Gwyn asked, eyeballing Rylie. She shrugged helplessly. She couldn’t do anything about her pack.
“I’m so happy to see you in good health,” Scott said, shaking her hand. “How have you been doing?”
Gwyneth’s voice took a sharp edge. “I’m well enough, as long as you’re not here to kidnap my niece again.”
“Aunt Gwyneth!” Rylie gasped. “That was my choice!”
But Scott didn’t seem offended. He gave them an apologetic smile. “I have no intent of separating your family again. In fact, the boys tell me you’ve been trying to sell the ranch. May I ask how that’s progressing?”
“We’ve got a couple offers. I’m considering.”
“I hope you would consider one more offer. You see, we’ve recently come upon a larger ‘family’ than we expected to have. About a dozen werewolves. Even without Rylie and Abel, my sanctuary in California can only house another eight people. Four more need a place to stay while they work on learning self-control.” He swept a hand toward the fields. “With a new fence, and without the livestock, this would be a great place for a new sanctuary. I’d like to buy it.”
Gwyn raised an eyebrow. “A werewolf sanctuary?”
“I already promised Scott I would run it,” Rylie said helpfully.
“You’re sixteen, babe.”
“Well, I can run it when I’m not in school.” When Gwyn continued to look skeptical, she hastily added, “And Abel could take care of everything when I’m busy doing homework and stuff.”
“Could he now?”
Abel shrugged. “It’s not like I’ve got anything else going on.”
Gwyn stared at them. Bekah gave her biggest grin from behind Scott’s back. Rylie was sure her aunt would say no, but when she finally spoke, it was to say, “Oh, all right. If it keeps you close to home.”
Scott and Gwyneth shook hands. Rylie tried not to cheer. She could tell by the way that Seth squeezed her to his side that he felt exactly the same way.
“I don’t want to be rude, but we’ve been driving for quite some time,” Scott said. “Would you mind if we rested for a bit?”
“Suppose not, if you don’t mind the house being a mess. Most of it’s in boxes right now while I get ready to move. Oh, but that reminds me!” Gwyn ducked into the kitchen and reemerged with a stack of envelopes, which she handed to Seth. “The owner of the apartments where you and Abel used to live visited last week with some mail. He asked me to have you set up a forwarding address. Look.”
Seth looked through the envelopes. Some of them were really thick. Rylie leaned around his shoulder to read the addresses as he flipped through them.
Some of it was junk, but most of it wasn’t. They were packets from universities.
“Oh my gosh,” she whispered. “Open one!”
Seth handed Rylie most of the mail, keeping one envelope. He tore it open. His breathing was a little too fast as he skimmed the contents of the letter.
“Don’t keep us hanging,” Gwyn said. “What’s the word?”
“We are pleased to inform you…” he read aloud in a whisper. A huge smile dawned on his face. He spread his arms wide to Rylie. “I got accepted! I’m going to college!”
Gwyn whooped, and Rylie set the letters on a fence post before jumping on Seth. He swung her around with a laugh.
“Look at these,” Abel said, going through the rest of the envelopes as they spun. His eyes widened a little more as he looked at each one. “You’ve been getting them for months.”
Seth couldn’t seem to stop laughing. He finally put Rylie back on her feet, and she pushed him gently. “Open more!” she urged.
He tore through one after the other. He didn’t get accepted to one college—which wasn’t his first choice anyway—but the rest were acceptances. Some even included scholarship offers. He was going to have his pick of universities.
Scott shook his hand vigorously. Aunt Gwyn gave him a hug and a peck on the cheek. Even Levi gave him a slap on the back, and he had never really cared that much for Seth.
“This calls for a celebration!” Gwyn declared. “I’ve still got all kinds of meat in the deep freezer, so let me go thaw some steaks. How’s some beer sound to y’all?” She took two steps for the kitchen before thinking about that offer. “Well, for Scott, at least. Rest of you can have well water. It’s all I’ve got.”
“I’m almost drinking age,” Abel said.
She shot him a look. “
Almost
.”
Scott and his kids hadn’t planned on sticking around for long, but they ended up doing a big barbecue on the grill out back. And somehow, before long, the day stretched out into the evening.
Bekah made a run to the store for drinks that didn’t have alcohol and got supplies for s’mores, too. They stayed outside until long after the sun set and left crystalline stars in its place. They roasted the marshmallows over the fire and talked about a lot of things, none of which had anything to do with werewolves.
“Believe it or not, you made it back in time for the last week of classes. And graduation, for that matter,” Gwyn told Seth as he carefully mashed a chocolate bar against a marshmallow. “The school called. Missing finals means you’re not valedictorian, but they might have mentioned something about being salutatorian.”
He was still grinning from the college acceptances, but that almost made him light up brighter than the fire. “That’s not hard in a graduating class of twenty, is it?”
She kicked him in the ankle. “Keep your sass to yourself. I’m saying congratulations.”
“Thank you.”
He kissed her on the temple. Gwyn kicked him again before going to talk business with Scott.
“It’s going to be fun having a sanctuary out here, huh?” Bekah asked. “It’s so nice with all these rolling hills.”
“And not a mountain in sight,” Levi agreed.
Rylie shared the sentiment. She would have been perfectly happy to never set foot on a mountain again.
She wouldn’t have minded if the night kept going forever, but they had been driving for a long time, and eventually, people started yawning. Scott tried to leave for the motel in town, but Gwyn wouldn’t hear anything of it.
“If you’re buying the ranch, you might as well stay here,” she said. “I can even drag in a mattress or two from the shed.” Gwyn took Scott, Bekah, and Levi inside to find them sleeping space on the living room floor.
Rylie was exhausted, too, but she didn’t want to go inside. Abel was on his sixth or seventh s’more, which seemed to be the only acceptable non-meat food he had encountered since turning into a werewolf. Seth’s arm over her shoulders felt so comfortable, so
right
, that she couldn’t bear to move him. And the quiet night had filled her with a sense of peace that she hadn’t known since her dad had died.
They stayed on the patio swing to watch the fire burn down until there was nothing but glowing embers. Crickets chirped around them in a pulsing rhythm. Muffled conversation drifted through the windows as a breeze ruffled the grass.
“Which college do you think you’ll pick?” Rylie asked Seth.
“I don’t know. The closest one, I guess. I don’t want to go too far.”
“Don’t do that,” she said. “I mean, the closest one is still three hours of driving away. It’s not like you could be that close anyway. You should go to your favorite and I’ll fly out to visit.”
He kissed the top of her head. “I’ll figure it out later,” he murmured into her hair.
“It kind of sucks,” Abel finally said. He had been quiet all night. “I thought we would all get to be together after this, but you’ve got to go and become some big, important doctor.” Seth didn’t say anything, but Rylie could see his frown in the dim light of the dying fire. She opened her mouth to protest. Abel spoke first. “But it’s good.” He hesitated. “I’m proud of you.”
Seth grew very still. “Thanks,” he said.
“Whatever. Shut up. Don’t go all wimpy on me, you ugly jerk.” His brother stood up and dusted off his jeans. “I’m wasted. Too much chocolate. I’m going to den up on the softest part of the floor and go unconscious for a few days, but wake me up on the next moon.”
“No problem,” Rylie said with a half-smile. He went inside, slamming the screen door behind him.
She and Seth continued to swing, very slowly, for a very long time.
The moon seemed so big in the sky. Before getting bitten, she never would have known that it wasn’t full, but she could feel the subtle difference in the shadows on the edges. Yet the silvery rays had no pull on her. It wasn’t some powerful, immutable force drawing out her wolf. It was just a moon.
Seth was gazing at it, too. “What was it like?” Seth asked. “Talking to gods?”
Rylie gave a faint smile. “Does this mean you believe me?”
“I don’t know. I mean, the whole idea is nuts. But I saw you change back to human on a moon. I saw you make everyone else change, too. How do you explain that?”
“It’s my animal magnetism,” she said with a small giggle.
“You are so hilarious.” Seth squeezed her hand. “But I’m serious. What was it like?”
Her smile faded. Her eyes went distant. “It was like… being really warm, and safe. Someone whispered to me. Everything was gray.” She shook herself. “I don’t know, I can’t really remember.”
“How do you feel now?”
“Good. Normal.” She laughed. “Almost the old normal, even.”
“Maybe it’s over,” he said.
Rylie searched inside herself for the wolf. It was still there, but it was either sleeping or so satisfied that it didn’t respond to her internal probe.
“Maybe,” she agreed. She nudged a rock off the patio with her toe. “You know… I kind of have to agree with Abel. I mean, I’m happy that you’re going to college. But I’ve still got two more years of high school before I can come, and I just got you back.”
Seth wrapped his hand around hers. Their tangled fingers looked right in the moonlight.
“Don’t worry about it right now. Right now is good, and I’m not going anywhere yet.” He kissed her gently. “We still have all summer.”
A
N
OTE FROM THE
A
UTHOR
I can’t believe we reached
the end. When I wrote
Six Moon Summer
eighteen months ago, I never could have imagined all the love that it would receive from readers, and I never would have imagined that it would help me reach my dream of becoming a full-time writer. It’s all because of support from wonderful readers like you. Thank you for everything.
This is all I have planned for Rylie and Seth, but it’s not the end. My urban fantasy series for adult audiences (beginning with
Death’s Hand
) actually takes place in the same universe, although the heroine, Elise, fights demons instead of werewolves. I hope you’ll join me as my writing journey continues with The Descent Series. :)
If you would like to know when my next release is available, please consider enlisting in my
Army of Evil
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eepurl.com/eWERY
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Thanks again for everything we’ve gotten to share together. Happy reading!
Sara (SM Reine)
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