BloodMoon (3 page)

I sensed a presence nearby and felt the hand of my mother Anabelle, AKA Ghost Mom, settle on my head and scratch behind my ears. When I was lupine, I could pretty much feel her as if she was a live person, but when I was human the most I got was the impression of being caressed by a Jean Nate-scented marshmallow.

“Not the wisest choice, sweetheart,” she whispered in my ear, and I know she wasn’t commenting on my metaphor.

I stifled a whine.

“I know you, and I know why, but I hope you’re prepared for the consequences,” she said as she faded out.

Well, nobody’d ever accused me of being wise, so I stayed where I was and held my breath.

The wolves below began to howl and my ears perked up; something seemed wrong. I could feel the tingle of pack magic like ants digging into my fur and I chewed my tongue, resisting the urge to howl with them.

Will seemed to be having trouble with the change, the smell of fear telling me he was resisting.
I knew this was going to happen,
I thought. I know visions and premonitions are Amber’s territory, but at that moment I was glad I’d heeded my own doggie intuition. Will needed me.

I stood up to raise a howl, and all the voices of the pack died out as they turned to stare in my direction.

Will’s eyes shifted first and he dropped to all fours. I don’t normally pay attention to anyone’s change but my own, but this was Will’s first, and all I could think of was how incredibly scared he must be.

My heart went out to him and I whined as his body hit the dust and he rolled from fetal position into the most excruciating downward dog yoga pose I’d ever seen. Viscera poured off him as his skin split like cloth, the bloody bones of his spine cracked and reoriented themselves, waves of fur and new skin rushing to cover his form. He gave one last howl and gasp and collapsed.

The rest of the pack had shifted with him, and the wolves came forward to lick his pelt clean and welcome the new cub into their mix. Because that’s what he was. His body may be adult wolf, but his lycanthrope mind was young and new.

He rose on unsteady legs and the pack gave him some room. Then, one by one, they all sat on their haunches and began to howl. And of course, silly me, I howled with them.

Then I didn’t have time to think because Will the wolf joined the other males in a mad scramble up the hill toward me. Thank God experience and maturity beat newbie enthusiasm, ’cause the rest of the pack tore up the hill to surround me and place their bodies between Will and me.

At first, Will transmitted joy at seeing me, anger at being denied his mate, and then he vibrated with need. For what? I didn’t know. Doggie Sex? Hunger and the lust to kill something while its blood ran down his throat? Or something entirely different?

Will’s muzzle leaked fluid and his barks and howls threw slobber all over us. The rest of the pack stood silent, blocking his way shoulder to shoulder, until Will realized he was outmatched. He whined and dropped his head onto his forepaws, his haunches in the air, a typical translation of “play.”

Jackson must have seen something I didn’t, because he vocalized a great coughing growl-bark, which I interpreted as a command to
run
.

With a howl, Will launched himself into the air and cleared Dex’s body, landing right behind me. And run I did. Thank God I was in better shape than Will, and faster. I was so not going to do the deed with Will his first time out, not until he gained some control and knew I was more than the wolf he currently thought me to be.

Natural wolves were clocked at about forty miles an hour at their fastest and have been known to travel 125 miles in a day. Lycanthropes and lupines? We’re even faster.

So I ran until mountains became sun-dried meadows and became mountains again. I ran until Mt. Rettig blended with the Sierra foothills. I ran until the scent and sounds of pack were far behind me, though they never quite faded. I ran until I knew I’d better circle around or I’d never get back to Knightsbridge before sunup.

When I did, I had a lot to think about as I made my way home.

I had the pack at my door in the morning. Well, Amber’s door. But JR let them in, and though he tried to text me on my cell, I was still passed out from the long night. They brought coffee with them, and God love ’em, they tried to be quiet sitting out on the back patio waiting, but the natural laughter and teasing that happened in pack mentality soon became too loud for my sister to ignore.

Ashlee, get your ass out of bed and get the pack off my property!
Amber mind-screamed at me, sending me to the floor and scrambling for the shower.

“I’ll get right on that, Roz,” I mumbled.

Bleary-eyed, I threw on some denim short-shorts and a fire-engine red checkerboard bikini top and stumbled out of the pool house, not knowing how I was going to deal with the fallout of my transgression, but hoping that they would be more distracted by my assets than my disregard for pack law. The rest of the pack was dressed for the heat, so at least we matched.

Jackson looked at me and smirked, turning to Sully with a whisper. The rest of them eyed me like…well, like a pack of wolves. And then they all laughed.

I should have taken it better, but that got me mad, and I opened my mouth to blast them with a piece of my mind.

“Before you say something you’ll regret, we’re not laughing at you; well I guess in a way we are, but mostly we’re laughing
with
you,” Jackson said.

“Don’t get me wrong, Ashlee.” Sully sat me down and put a tall latte in my hand. “We love you, but what you did was incredibly stupid and could have ended in non-consensual canine copulation.”

“That was
not
going to happen,” I spat.

“Only because you happen to be lighter, faster and you have a lot more endurance than the rest of us,” Dex said.

“Fine, I screwed up, but it all worked out. Happy now?”

“Come on. We can’t stay mad at you, not only because you’re so damn cute, but you’re acting just like a teenager, testing your boundaries,” Jackson said.

“Wow, now there’s a compliment guaranteed to warm a girl’s heart. And by the way, when I was a teenager I killed someone, so no, I don’t think I’m acting like a teenager at all.” Okay, I was kinda proving his point right now, I admit.

Jackson sighed. “We’ve all done stupid stuff. We’re incredibly thankful that this didn’t turn out different. We’re glad you’re okay. But what you did was not okay. We don’t draw hard boundaries on pack law unless we have to. I’d like to assume that this is a one-time occurrence. Think about how Will would have felt…”

Will snapped, “Hey, now. Don’t assume you all know what I think and feel. I knew what I was doing.” Then underneath his breath he mumbled, “And you’re not the boss of me.”

Jackson gave Will a little snarl, but let the
faux pas
pass unremarked.

I sighed. We may not always like the feedback people give us, but relationships are often the best reflection of how we’re doing. I guess the pack’s the best mirror I’ve got to help make me a better lupine, not to mention human.

Our former next-door neighbors Darcy and her daughter Tara came by. Amber had been BFFs with Darcy, and her brother Ollie and I had hit it off, staying best friends until he passed on. I never did see his ghost, which always made me sad; every girl should have at least one gay best friend, even if he’s dead.

Elle stood at the grill making sure that everyone got their meat cooked to order, which for most of us was rare to blue, but there were a few who enjoyed their meat cooked well done. Yuck, ruins the flavor and, even worse, the texture if you ask me. If I had my way, every steak would be seared on both sides then allowed to run to the plate under its own power, dripping. You may think that’s gross, but hey, were-girl here, you know.

I turned to Amber to ask if she needed anything as I made to remove the platter of meat waiting on the grill’s sideboard, in order to fend off the rush of the salivating lycanthropes, when they both interrupted, “Don’t touch the Hibachi!” But I think it was for two different reasons: Elle, because she was afraid that I was going to mess with her grill, and Amber, well, because she liked playing hostess and receiving accolades for her efforts and she hated for me to upstage her by serving the food. Which is fine, I mean, but I wish she would learn to chillax a bit.

I always thought Amber and I were like Mary and Martha. See, in this story, Jesus is visiting the sisters of Lazarus, you know, the guy that he resurrected. Well, there’s this party going on; maybe it was to celebrate Lazarus’ return. Anyway, Martha complains to Jesus that Mary isn’t helping her out because her lazy sister is just sitting at the feet of Jesus, listening to him talk about spiritual things. Jesus turns to Martha and says, my paraphrase, “Martha, you’re way too spun up about stuff that doesn’t matter. Mary’s hanging out with me, and I’m not going to tell her she’s wrong.”

So, good strokes to my ego, but underneath it all the takeaway message I got was this: relationships are what matter, not perfect hostessing, not the externals. Relationships with your higher power of choice, relationships with the people that the gods have brought into your life, family and friends. Like in Project Runway, people are here one day and gone the next, poof. Honor the time you have and share the love.

And yeah, I guess I judge my twin for being a doer and not a be-er, but it makes me sad sometimes. I think Amber misses out on the best things in life in her drive to make everything perfect.

But I digress.

As Amber brought the meat to the patio, the pack moved in and swarmed the table, passing over it like the dogs they were and leaving room for the second wave of food that Amber had waiting. I gotta give it to the girl; she sure can throw a party.

“Hey, honey, can you get me another beer when you get a chance?” Elle asked my sister as she was passing.

“Same flavor?” Amber replied, but as she always did, answered her own question. “Never mind, the usual.”

Elle smiled at Amber as she returned to exercising her gift of hospitality and, in a rare moment of transparency I saw emotion in her eyes. I leaned over and put my arm around my sister-in-law and gave her a big bear, er, wolf hug. “Aww….”

“Go away Ashlee,” Elle said, but she had a smile on her face, and I laughed as I let her be. Sometimes I enjoyed being a little shit-pot-stirrer.

I followed Amber inside to see if she needed any help, though she typically refused. I think she felt that I got in the way more than I assisted, but she was nowhere to be found until I heard her voice on the front porch.

Curious, I went to the door. She was just signing for a Fedex package and I smiled at the delivery guy as she sent him stumbling on his way with a bemused look. Hey, he was cute and I enjoyed the power of the twinship to confuse. Both of us, with the charm turned up, were pretty hard to resist.

Amber ripped open the package back at the kitchen counter, discarding the cardboard.

“Hearth Magic. Spells for Hosting and Hospitality,” I read over her shoulder.
“Since when are you learning witchcraft?”

She shrugged, turned to her shelf of cookbooks and added it to the library. “Just thought, since all this supernatural stuff is coming out of the woodwork I might as well educate myself.”

“Hey, let me see that,” I said and went to retrieve it.

“Don’t break the spine.”

I sighed. “I’m surprised you would need this at all; you already make magic in the kitchen.”

“Research. Now that JR’s in school I have a bit more time on my hands. Oh by the way, did you know that there’s a lunar tetrad coming up?”

“What’s a lunar tetrad?” Amber always enjoyed teaching me something I didn’t know, and as long as it didn’t carry any judgment about what I was required to do with the information, I didn’t mind.

“Well, you know how a Blood Moon is a full lunar eclipse that turns red?”

“Yeah, not to mention it’s the only time I can get pregnant with super-pups.”

“Well, a lunar tetrad is four Blood Moons in a row. It’s incredibly rare, happens oh…”

“Once in a blue moon,” I finished for her, laughing.

Amber gave me a conciliatory smile. “And when a blue moon and a Blood Moon coincide, well that’s one for the history books.”

“What’s a blue moon again?” I should know these things, but hey, that’s what Google is for.

“A blue moon is the second full moon that appears in the same month. Normally there’s only one full moon per calendar month.”

“When’s the next blue moon?”

“January, I think.”

“And does it cross with the Blood Moon?” I asked.

“Yup. But what I’m worried about is this next Blood Moon as it crosses with a Witches’ Moon.”

“What, more moons? What’s a Witches’ Moon?”

“It’s when a full moon is partially obscured by wispy clouds. It takes on a cool corona, like in ghost story movies.”

“And when is that?” I asked her.

“September, this September.”

“Coming up on Halloween, at least according to the stores selling candy. Well I’m not planning on getting knocked up anyway this year. Although if I did try, I suppose with a lunar tetrad I would have four chances to put a bun in the oven. And at least I won’t have to deal with in vitro fertilization,” I added, and then blanched as I saw pain cross my sister’s face. It had cost Amber dearly in both money and suffering trying to get pregnant with John Robert.

“You can’t mate over the lunar tetrad,” Amber said.

“What do you mean I can’t?”

“Not can’t – really,
really
shouldn’t, I mean. Especially not on the last Blood Moon of the Lunar Tetrad. This full moon is supposed to be a Witches’ Moon. But combine that with a Blood Moon and you’ve got some very bad news.”