Alpha Moon (The Cain Chronicles) (Seasons of the Moon) (9 page)
Read Alpha Moon (The Cain Chronicles) (Seasons of the Moon) Online
Authors: SM Reine
When they crested the surface, it was together. The water sloshed around her shoulders. Abel didn’t let her break away. He pulled her hard against him, biting her bottom lip almost hard enough to draw blood.
“This is ours,” he growled.
It took her way too long to understand what he was saying. “The lake?”
“Everything. Yours and mine.” Abel pulled her legs around his hips, forced her head back so he could bite under her chin. “And since you belong to me, too…”
At another time, Rylie would have happily argued with him about who was more Alpha, and which of them belonged to which, but she had much better ideas for their mouths. When his lips returned to hers, she bit back. And she didn’t do it gently.
“Mine,” she said.
Someone cleared her throat.
Rylie broke away, feet dropping to sink into wet sand. Her head whipped around.
Summer stood beside the tent cabin, grinning an impish, embarrassed grin. She politely looked at her feet. “We’re here,” she said. Her arms were wrapped around Sir Lumpy, who seemed content to survey his new territory from the vantage point of her chest.
“Shit,” Abel said.
“We?” Rylie asked, leaning around to look behind Summer. Jessica was trudging up the path in the same impractical heels that she had worn on the day of her arrest. She didn’t seem to have noticed Rylie and Abel yet.
Rylie turned to tell Abel to hide, but he had already dipped under the surface, swimming for the opposite shore with long strokes. He was a great swimmer. He disappeared in moments.
She tugged her dress into a more modest position as she trudged out of the water.
“Hi, Mom,” Rylie said brightly as Jessica approached.
“Lord in Heaven, what happened to you?” Jessica asked by way of greeting.
Her cheeks burned so hard that she thought they might catch fire. “I went swimming.”
“Fully clothed?”
Actually, Abel had managed to strip her underwear at some point, while they were underwater. He was talented like that. But Rylie nodded her agreement, casting a surreptitious glance at her body to double-check that everything was hidden. “Yeah, only way to enjoy the lake. It felt…refreshing.”
Summer snorted indelicately, setting Sir Lumpy on the grass. He darted into the bushes.
Time for a quick change of subject.
“You survived,” Rylie said, taking a visual assessment of her mother’s condition from head to toe. Her hair was limp, her shirt was wrinkled, and she wore no makeup. But she looked to be fine otherwise. Not even bruised.
“I was questioned thoroughly. They didn’t get anything out of me.” Jessica smirked. “Being clueless is helpful.”
“How did you explain the werewolf rescuing you at the airport?”
“He kidnapped me, the ravenous beast,” she said. “I was a victim.”
Well, not exactly the best way to give werewolves a good reputation, but it would work. Rylie couldn’t exactly nitpick the methods her mother had used to save her from incarceration—or worse. “Thank you,” she said. “Really.”
Jessica nodded. “It’s the least I could do. I haven’t been doing my job lately. I’ve missed…a lot.” She said the last with a glance at Summer. She had definitely heard the entire story.
Summer grabbed the pile of Abel’s clothing. “I’m going for a walk around the lake,” she said. “Be back in a minute.”
As soon as she was gone, Jessica let out a sigh and embraced Rylie’s damp shoulders. “Oh, sweetheart. It’s even worse than I thought. I can’t believe everything you’ve been through.”
Rylie hugged her back tightly, chin trembling. It felt like the first time that someone had acknowledged what she had suffered through for the last couple of years: shouldering the responsibility of the pack, breaking up with her fiance, having and losing twins, being hunted mercilessly by the Union. Having her mommy’s sympathy was almost enough to make her melt down on the spot.
“It’s kind of sucked,” she said. Her voice quavered.
Jessica leaned back, wiping the tears off of Rylie’s cheeks. “Is there no cure?” Rylie shook her head. “Can you control it?”
She nodded. “Yeah. Pretty well.”
“Then you’ve always got somewhere to hide when you need to,” Jessica said. “Visit me in the city. Get away from it all.”
It was kind of funny—the idea that she could get away from “it” by taking a vacation. But her mom meant well. The gesture meant more than Rylie could say.
She forced a smile. “Am I still invited to be your maid of honor?”
“Absolutely.”
“Great,” Rylie said. “I’ll do it.” Sure, it would mean having to face her mom’s fiance—but at least she wasn’t dating anymore. Getting used to one guy would be a lot easier than dealing with the rotating boyfriends. And Abel was right. Her mother deserved happiness.
“I love you, sweetheart,” Jessica said. “No matter what.”
Rylie sniffled. “I love you, too.”
Jessica turned, head tilted back to look at the trees, the cliffs, the waterfall. “This is the property you bought with your trust fund, I take it?”
“Yeah,” Rylie said. “It’s kind of hard to access without a lot of hiking, so you’ll have to trust me when I tell you that it’s fantastic. Unless you feel like a very long walk.”
Her mother silently deliberated for a moment, then kicked off her heeled pumps, dropping them beside the tent cabin.
“I want to see it,” Jessica said. “I want to see it all.”
Jessica rescheduled her
flight back to the city. It was the first full moon that the pack would get to enjoy at the sanctuary, and she stuck by Rylie’s side as everyone arrived: Trevin, Crystal, Pyper, almost a dozen members of the pack. Jessica handled the overwhelming number of introductions with the grace of an experienced CEO. She even seemed to remember everyone’s names.
Night was already falling by the time that they reached the valley, so they didn’t have much time to socialize.
“You don’t have to watch,” Rylie said, standing in front of the tent-cabin with her mother. “It looks painful. It’s very messy. I won’t blame you if you don’t want to see it.”
Jessica was watching the pack strip out of the corner of her eye. Most of them weren’t as modest as Rylie, and preferred to welcome the change naked. “Sweetheart, I’m ready to be part of your life. I’ll accept all of it. Even…this.” Her face brightened when Trevin dropped his shirt.
Rylie rolled her eyes. “We’ll be out all night, so don’t stay up for us.”
“Have fun,” Jessica said. To her credit, she only sounded a little nervous.
Abel joined hands with Rylie, drawing her into the pack as the energy of the moon swept over them. The huge, silvery sphere hung over the ridges of the mountains, turning the trees into blue shadows and making the waterfall sparkle.
“Ready?” Abel asked.
Rylie tilted her face toward the moon, drinking in its rays, spreading her energy through the pack.
“Yes,” she whispered.
She allowed all of her wolves to change at once, drawing their pain away so that they could shift effortlessly into their second skins. Fur blossomed like flowers facing the sun. They were a dozen different shades of gray and brown and gold—huge, beautiful beasts that Rylie could never see as monsters.
Rylie and Abel changed last. He was black, and she was gold. Together, they were the sun and the night, yin and yang.
She was afraid to face her mother, afraid to see Jessica’s reaction. But she wasn’t going to try to hide from her mom anymore. Rylie turned to her proudly—Alpha of the pack.
Jessica’s hands covered her mouth, eyes filled with tears. “You’re beautiful,” she said.
Rylie’s heart swelled. Abel rammed his face into hers, as if to say,
I told you so
.
The pack ran into the night, and Rylie was home.
DEAR READER,
THE Cain Chronicles is over, but Rylie’s story is not. All of your favorite characters will return in the The Ascension Series, beginning with
Sacrificed in Shadow
, which is a crossover with my other urban fantasy novels. This series will conclude Rylie, Abel, and Seth’s journey—and I can already tell you, it’s pretty epic. Book one is slated for an August 2013 release.
If you’d like to know when Rylie’s next book comes out, visit
my website
to sign up for my
new release email alerts
. I’ve also put “
liner notes
” for Alpha Moon on my website, in case you want a behind-the-scenes peek into the thought process behind writing this episode. By which I mean, my crazy ramblings. To-may-to, to-mah-to.
Happy reading!
Sara (SM Reine)