Moon of the Terrible (Seasons of the Moon) (7 page)
Read Moon of the Terrible (Seasons of the Moon) Online
Authors: SM Reine
“Shut up.” Abel shoved Seth a little too hard. “You guys will make great Alphas together. Just the perfect fucking prince and princess of wolves.” He stripped off his shirt and unbuckled his pants. “You don’t need me. Not tonight. Not ever.”
“Wait,” Seth said, but his brother only turned away and loped into the night.
Seth stayed outside, waiting for his change. Younger werewolves changed later—sometimes not until midnight. But midnight came and went, and he still felt fine. Cold, but fine.
He went inside and listened to the wolves howl until he fell asleep on the couch.
Seth woke up after sunrise totally human.
T
EN
An Answer
Rylie didn’t expect to be
able to sleep the night of the moon—not when she couldn’t reach the California sanctuary, Cain and Eleanor were still out there, and there was a chance that her boyfriend was about to become her mate in a literal way.
But she did sleep, and she woke up with the sun creeping over the horizon. She felt just as tired as she had been before sleeping.
And nauseous.
Rylie rolled over in bed and threw up on the floor.
She groaned. Her mouth tasted horrible.
Where did that come from?
Rylie staggered into the hallway. Seth was on the couch, human and asleep. She sneaked a towel out of the linen closet and wiped up her bedroom floor.
He was still sleeping when she threw the towel in the laundry and got into the shower.
Rylie stood under the hot water feeling dizzy and tired. She had to lean against the wall to stay standing. As if getting kidnapped by her zombie in-laws wasn’t enough misery on its own, she had to go and catch a bug, too.
“Bad timing,” she muttered to the showerhead, like it cared.
Rylie popped open the shampoo bottle, and the smell of flowers wafted through the bathroom. It reminded her of Pagan. Her stomach clenched.
She closed the bottle and breathed shallowly, trying to suppress the nausea.
When the surge subsided, she toweled off, wrapped herself in her robe, and slipped back into her bedroom. The couch was empty—Seth must have finally woken up. The house smelled like cooking bacon. That didn’t help her nausea at all.
Even though it was cold, Rylie threw open her window to try to air out the room.
A piece of paper fluttered to the ground.
She bent down to pick it up, and for an instant, she thought it was going to be another gift from Cain—another threat. But the handwriting was too blocky and uneven.
It was from Abel. All it said was,
Gone to hunt Cain.
Abel was gone?
She sat down on the edge of her bed, feeling even sicker than ever.
Rylie showed Seth the note
at breakfast, while Crystal and Trevin devoured a cow’s worth of steak. All he said was, “Okay.” Like it wasn’t a big deal. Like Rylie didn’t feel like an important part of her life had just been amputated.
They got back on the road an hour later—even though Rylie felt like she was on the verge of throwing up again, and the smell of the car’s oils weren’t helping.
Nobody talked as they beelined for California.
They stopped in town to fill up the gas tank, and Rylie took the chance to pace the parking lot, hands hooked together behind her head. She was feeling a little better than before—still exhausted, but not as queasy.
Maybe she wasn’t sick after all. Maybe it was just stress.
But then she walked around the back of the gas station, and it came over her all at once.
Rylie threw up all over the ground.
She groaned and wiped her mouth clean on the back of her hand. A feeling of dread crept over Rylie as she stared at the puddle of vomit.
Werewolves
didn’t
get sick.
But there was more than one reason she could be throwing up.
“No way,” she whispered.
Seth was putting the cap back on the gas tank when she recovered enough to walk around to the other side of the parking lot again. He hadn’t seen her throw up. Crystal and Trevin looked like they were arguing in the backseat of the van.
“Ready to go?” Seth asked.
“Yeah, I just need to use the bathroom,” she said. “I’m not feeling awesome.”
“Take your time. I’ll stretch my legs,” Seth said.
Rylie ducked into the gas station and pulled a wad of cash out of her pocket. Twenty-three dollars. Would it be enough?
Her cheeks burned as she found the aisle with the condoms, headache medicine, and pregnancy tests. They had two different brands. One of them was for early detection, and the other had two sticks in it.
The one with the two sticks was a dollar cheaper, so she grabbed it. She also picked up a pack of gum and a green tea before going to the counter.
“Congrats,” said the grizzled old woman behind the counter. Her nametag said “Brenda.”
Rylie blinked. “Huh?”
“Congrats on the good news. That’ll be twenty-one fifty.” She dropped the pregnancy test into a bag.
Rylie didn’t think her cheeks could have burned any hotter. “I don’t think I’m really pregnant. It’s just in case.”
Brenda gave her a knowing look and pulled the bathroom key off of the wall. “Come on.”
She set a sign on the counter that said “Out for Lunch,” and then took Rylie to the bathrooms and unlocked the door.
“Thanks,” Rylie said.
“Hang on a second.” Brenda disappeared, and came back with a paper cup from the break room. “You’ll need this. You have to pee in the cup and put the sticks in them. Read the directions. They’re pretty good. I’ve got six kids, myself.”
Six kids? Rylie felt dizzy.
“I’m not pregnant,” she whispered.
Brenda patted her on the shoulder, pushed her into the bathroom, and shut the door.
The light over the toilet flickered on. Rylie opened the box and read the instructions. Brenda was right—they were very clear. It would be pretty hard to mess it up.
Her heart pounded as she did her business, dipped the sticks in her urine, and set them on the edge of the sink.
The instructions said three minutes. Three minutes until Rylie would know.
She paced around the tiny, dingy bathroom with her hands jammed under her arms.
What if she
was
pregnant? A werewolf that had babies would have more werewolves. Cain was proof of that. And she had promised not to continue the species.
It wasn’t that Rylie didn’t want to be a mom—she just hadn’t ever given it that much thought. She didn’t get along with her own mother, Jessica. They had zero interests in common. And the only other mom she knew well at all was Eleanor. Hardly a shining example of motherhood.
Somehow, three minutes passed.
Rylie picked up one of the sticks and held it to the light.
There was one pink line on the right, rich and dark and thick. She grabbed the instructions. One line was just the control to show the test was working—that didn’t mean anything.
But when she tilted the test, she could see another line, too. A very faint, but definitely pink, line. Right where the positive line was meant to show up.
Rylie dropped the first test and picked the second one up. The line was there too.
Her legs suddenly wouldn’t support her weight anymore. She sat down hard on the toilet seat.
Someone knocked on the door.
“Rylie?” Seth asked. “Are you almost done?”
She felt like she had swallowed an entire pack of werewolves, and that they were warring in her stomach. “Almost,” she croaked.
“Trevin wants another burrito. Do you want anything to eat?”
“No. I’m fine.”
Except that she
wasn’t
fine. And nothing was going to be fine ever again.
Rylie was pregnant.
T
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A
UTHOR’S
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OTE
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