Six Moon Summer (18 page)

And then she reached the peak.

Natural stone pillars formed a ring on a smooth, open plane at the top. It was the same gray stone as the ruins of the church, and it gave off the same air of being holy land: eerily quiet, untouched by wind, and empty of all the little animals that lived elsewhere on Gray Mountain. Snow dotted the shadowy places beneath the rocks where it would never melt, even on the hottest days of summer. Ice limned the pillars. Her breath came from her in cloudy puffs.

No sound broke the silence but her padding feet. But while it was quiet, the litany of smells formed brilliant images in her mind of men and beasts, and creatures in between. It was as though hundreds of years of smells lingered in one place.

She climbed a sloped rock that stood above the others. The moon was so huge it looked like she could have leapt onto its surface.

While sitting back on her haunches, the wolf was the tallest point around. The mountain range stretched below her for miles in every direction, and the trees looked like nothing more than distant grass. Tiny pinpoints of light marked the human outposts below.

The wolf tilted her head back and gave a soft howl to the swollen moon.

Another howl responded.

She wasn’t alone.

Looking down upon the rocks below, she saw an animal circling its way up the mountain. It was not a wolf of the forest, of the earth and trees and dark dens. She could smell man on its thick fur and the sour tang of its cursed saliva.

She moved down the rocks. It was not a safe position, and she wanted to be ready to fight.

It approached her. She gave a small warning growl.

They stood across from each other at the apex of the mountain, backed by nothing but the clear sky and moon. She puffed herself up to look more intimidating. The wolf knew she was not complete yet, so the werewolf was stronger. She would not show weakness.

A second dark shape moved between the rocks, emerging in the moonlight.

Two werewolves.

Blood formed a mask on the face of the smaller beast. It had been eating something. They both seemed familiar in some way, as though they were pack—but she had no pack. The wolf was alone.

They growled and circled her. She stood her ground, turning to keep them in her line of sight.

She was smaller than both of them, still half-human. The two werewolves were massive beasts, almost more demon than wolf, with bulky shoulders and paws the size of boulders. Their teeth and claws were silver knives in the moonlight. She couldn’t take either of them alone, much less both.

The bigger werewolf moved forward to sniff her, and its nose raked over her shoulders and back. This was not the one who had been in her home. This was the one that had bitten her. Her upper lip skinned over her teeth.

Tension throbbed in the air between them. The bigger werewolf stepped back, and the smaller darted at her heels, snapping its teeth.

She growled and lunged, striking the small werewolf in the side. They rolled together across the mountain and struck one of the rock pillars. She leapt off. It tried to bury its jaws in her belly, and she dodged back.

The big werewolf tried to move between them, but she wouldn’t give it a chance. Her teeth sank into the furred ruff around its neck. It yelped.

Pain flashed across her side as the smaller one clawed her ribs. Blood spurted from her fur.

She was outmatched two to one, and both were more powerful. One injury was enough to convince her that the fight wasn’t worth it. Turning, she fled down the mountain.

They followed.

The wolf’s paws pounded against rock. She wanted to reach the trees to hide, but the flash of intelligence that was Rylie told her it wouldn’t be good enough. She needed to make them lose her scent.

She ducked when the smaller one leapt again, and she felt the breeze from its passing ruffle her fur. It landed in front of her. She swerved to avoid it.

A splashing sound reached her ears across the crisp, empty night air. The river. Rylie could use it to mask her smell.

Angling south, she put on a burst of speed. The werewolves growled and snapped and drooled behind her. They weren’t just stronger; they were faster too. She felt jaws bite at her tail, and she tucked it between her legs to keep it out of reach.

The mountain grew steep. She lost her footing on gravel and slid, paws scrabbling wildly for purchase.

She bounced on the rocks and landed in a cluster of trees with a crunch. The branches battered her body, scraping and catching on her fine fur. A thick bough connected with her stomach. She grunted and slipped to the ground below.

Her pursuers were nowhere in sight, but she could hear them. The werewolves crashed thunderously through the branches. There was no time to lick her injuries even though she was half-skinned from her slide down the rocks.

Getting back to her paws, she dove for the river.

It split into many smaller brooks by the camp, but it ran thick and furious in the mountains. The last of the melting ice and snow turned it into a freezing, foamy spray. Perfect.

The bigger werewolf burst from the trees in front of her. She barely stopped herself in time, digging her claws into the ground. She turned to run the other way, but the smaller werewolf blocked her.

She hunched her shoulders and growled. They didn’t look threatened.

So close to the river. So close to safety. Rylie was screaming inside.

The two werewolves maneuvered to force her backward toward a steep drop off. The wolf tried to hold her ground on the very edge.

Glancing down, she saw the river far below. It was a waterfall.

She looked between the werewolves and the river. It was a creature of instinct, and not decision-making; the beast had no means to decide whether potential death by falling or drowning was better than being torn apart at the jaws of certain death.

But Rylie knew she didn’t want to be eaten. The smaller werewolf darted forward.

Rylie threw herself off the waterfall.

She hit the water. All the air rushed out of her with a shock of pain. She was swept downriver instantly, battered by rocks and crashing rapids.

The wolf struggled to surface for air. Her nose found oxygen for a brief second, but then she sank below again. There was no up or down in the river. There was only chaos and the struggle of trying to paddle toward the shore.

Something hard hit her, tearing open the wound on her side afresh. The wolf gasped and sucked in water. She caught on a boulder and the river crushed her to its side.

Her snout pushed into the air. She breathed fresh air for a moment, then was swept away once more.

Beyond the row of boulders, the river grew calmer. She didn’t have to fight to float at the surface. She sped down the mountain, unable to do anything but keep breathing and let the water take her away.

Her paws finally found purchase in the mud. Her rapid descent halted.

Inch by inch, the wolf dredged herself out of the water, fur heavy with moisture. It doubled her weight. Finally, she collapsed on dry land.

Coughing up a lungful of fluid, she tried to make sense of her surroundings. Was she safe? The shore was near where she had begun the night. It saved her hours of walking, but now she was wet and cold and broken from hitting the rocks on the way down.

Shaking out her fur, she stood on wobbling legs and forced her weary body to trot away from the river. She kept her ears perked, but she couldn’t hear the werewolves following.

She continued until she grew too tired, then curled up in the shelter of thick bushes to rest. The wolf sniffed the air, but there was nothing to smell. They had not followed her. The only werewolf scents were hours old.

Licking the wound on her side, she cleaned grit and hair from her lesions so they could heal. Blood dribbled across the ground. A fever swept over her beneath the chill of her damp fur. Once she could rest, the wounds would disappear.

Morning approached slowly, and the wolf curled her tail over her nose to doze. The beast didn’t dream.

Something in the back of her mind nudged at her when the first rays of sunlight touched the air, stirring her from her rest. Taking deep sniffs of the ground, a different scent caught her attention. It was a familiar, human smell. She snuffled through the bushes and found a folded pile of clothing.

Rylie. These clothes belonged to Rylie. The wolf’s mind faded away with the smell of her human form.

Dawn crept into the sky, turning the violet air into gold. A beam of light touched her through the trees.

Fire swept over her skin as all her fur fell to the forest floor, leaving bare flesh behind. Stinging pains pricked her jaw as her snout receded into a normal chin and nose. Her gums bled as her sharp teeth fell out and the blunt human teeth grew in their place.

Rylie found herself lying naked on the dirt with pine needles stabbing her in the side. She sat up, looking at herself in confusion.

Why was she naked outside?

She tried to remember the night before, but she couldn’t recall anything. Rylie knew she had hiked up the mountain with Seth, and that they intended to track the werewolf, but things were all a blur from there.

“Seth?” she called. No response. They must have been separated.

Blood soaked into the ground around her, and Rylie suspected it was hers. She felt hot and itchy like she always did after super-healing. No injuries remained upon inspection, but her hair was strangely damp.

Rylie felt there was something very, very important she needed to warn Seth about, but it was as though the wolf was someone else even though they occupied the same body. She didn’t have access to its memories.

The sky grew lighter. It wouldn’t be long before Katie checked her cabin.

Dressing quickly, she ran down the mountain to the trail, hoping Cassidy would be where she said she would.

It was even more dangerous trying to sneak back into camp than it was sneaking out. At least at the beginning of the night, it had been dark.

But Cassidy wasn’t waiting at the mouth of camp.

Rylie waited a few minutes. As the time for cabin checks inched closer, she grew more impatient. Her friend must have fallen asleep.

There was no other option: she had to sneak in.

Angling herself so she would enter from the back, Rylie picked her way through the trees. Hopefully none of her roommates had gotten cold and shut the window. Then she would
really
be in trouble.

Rylie heard shouting. “Louise! Over here!” It was Katie.

Her stomach turned. Had they seen her?

She hid behind a tree and peered around the side. Katie, Louise, and a pair of counselors she didn’t recognize were hurrying up the trail in the opposite direction. They carried flashlights to brighten the dim morning.

It was the perfect distraction, but Rylie couldn’t resist. She had to see what was so exciting.

Following them from a safe distance, she saw the counselors stop off the side of the trail. Rylie vaguely recalled passing through this area the night before.

“What happened?” Louise asked. Her voice was tight.

“Meredith found her this morning. We think it was an animal attack.”

“Is she…?”

“Yeah. She’s dead,” Katie said.

Dead? Rylie strained to see who they were talking about.

She caught a glimpse of a gold anklet, and her stomach flipped. “Oh my God,” Rylie whispered.

She tried to run, but she only got three steps before collapsing. Her stomach heaved. Rylie vomited her dinner into the bushes.

It wasn’t just any body. It was Amber.

News of Amber’s death spread quickly.

It was impossible to hide the arrival of police and park rangers. They came in with blaring sirens. Ambulances, photographers, and a whole mess of other officials arrived to mark lines on the trail, collect evidence, and analyze the body. The counselors tried to keep everyone away, but a few girls managed to sneak in anyway.

By the time the police cleaned up and left in the evening, everyone knew what happened.

Rylie had no problems getting back into her cabin unseen. The counselors didn’t even retrieve the campers for showers. When everyone else went to breakfast, she sat on the edge of her bed and tried to remember, rapping her journaling pen against her knee.

She had glimpsed Amber’s injuries. It had not been a random animal attack: Amber had been killed by a werewolf.

The question was… had Rylie been the one to do it?

She stared out at the forest as she gnawed her bottom lip. She still hadn’t shaken that nagging feeling that Seth needed to know something about the night before. Was it that she had attacked someone?
Killed
someone? Rylie hated Amber, but she didn’t think she hated her that
much.