Whispers at Moonrise (21 page)

For some crazy reason, she remembered Nana telling her to enjoy her childhood because soon enough she’d be an adult. Was this adulthood? To wake up every day and know it would bring both good and bad? To do things you had to do, even if you wished you didn’t have to do them?

Then she recalled another piece of Nana’s advice.
Just remember, sweetie, sometimes we can’t change what happens, but we can change how we let those things affect us.

“Easier said than done, Nana.” Kylie inhaled a big gulp of frustration and the sweet smell of roses tickled her senses. Turning her head, she saw the single pink rose on her nightstand. The memory of Lucas having robbed his grandmother’s rose garden and filling Kylie’s room with roses sent her bad mood on time-out. Then, seeing the note beside the rose, she sat up and reached for the slip of paper.

Kylie,

Sorry I was late. Something came up and I had to go visit my dad. You were out like a light when I got here. But damn, you are so beautiful when you sleep. If Della hadn’t heard me opening your window and poked her head in and shot me the bird for waking her up—she’s impossible—I would have climbed in bed with you just to feel you next to me.

You have no idea how much I’d like that. To feel you against me. All of you.

Sweet dreams,

Lucas

Kylie reached for the rose and placed it to her nose. The sweet scent made her smile. Maybe the bad mood wasn’t going to win after all.

*   *   *

Kylie reconsidered her positive attitude when a couple of hours later, she batted at the bugs swarming around her as she moved into the woods with Holiday and Burnett. But it wasn’t the bugs causing the deterioration of her good mood. It was one certain dark-haired, blue-eyed werewolf.

Kylie should have been excited about going to the falls. She always felt better after a visit. But right now, she didn’t want to feel better. She wanted to feel … mad.

Wait. She didn’t
want
to feel it, she did feel mad.

Mad at the rose-leaving, note-writing were.

She’d completely let go of her aggravation about Lucas not showing up last night. She’d tried to set aside the fact that he’d practically told her he had to keep secrets from her. While she didn’t like it, she’d even accepted that Fredericka, his one-time sex buddy, would always be within touching distance of him, when Kylie wasn’t anywhere close enough to touch him herself. She had worked at overcoming the fact that his grandmother, his father, and even his entire pack, were against their being together.

She’d done a lot of setting aside, overcoming, and accepting. And after this morning, she realized that it might have been too much—because after not showing up last night, after hardly seeing her yesterday, he’d barely acknowledged her this morning in the cafeteria.

Another mosquito buzzed past and she swiped at the air, sending the pest headfirst into a tree.
Bzzz … splat!

Couldn’t Lucas have come over and had breakfast with her? She wouldn’t have even blamed him if he’d brought Clara with him. But no, all she’d gotten was a smile, and even that smile had seemed somehow purposefully short. Then he’d joined the were table with all his other friends, his pack—people who clearly came before her now and probably always would.

Last night, he’d climbed into her bedroom way after midnight while she’d been asleep. He’d left her a rose and a sweet note, and this morning all she’d gotten from him was a half-assed smile. What was up with that?

She sure as hell didn’t know. Who was she kidding? She knew exactly what was up. She wasn’t good enough for him, because she wasn’t a were.

That stung. Really stung. Then, to make matters worse, when Derek sat beside her, Lucas had the audacity to text her and say he didn’t like it.

Right. He didn’t like the fact that Derek had sat beside her, but he’d chosen not to sit with her. Instead, his sexy little butt was sandwiched between Fredericka and one of the new female weres, who was all over Lucas to the point that even Fredericka was unhappy about it.

Yeah, Kylie could hear Lucas telling her that he no longer cared about Fredericka. She could hear him saying that he hadn’t asked the new girl to sit beside him, and she could hear him saying he had to be loyal to his pack. And maybe Kylie was wrong to feel angry, or maybe she wasn’t so much angry as she was just tired of playing second fiddle.

Second fiddle sucked.

Another mosquito bit the dust when she swiped it off her cheek.

“You might want to slow down,” Burnett said, moving up beside her with his long-legged strides.

Kylie glanced at him. He studied her briefly, then shifted his gaze back to the terrain as if expecting something to jump out at them. He’d been acting antsy since they walked into the woods, not that Kylie paid too much attention; her heart had been too busy fiddling with her second fiddle matters to care if Burnett had drunk too much caffeine.

“Seriously, slow down,” Burnett said.

“Why?” Kylie asked.

He briefly glanced over his shoulder again. “As wonderful as faes are, they’re slow.”

Kylie sighed. She hadn’t realized that she was moving at a fast sprint. A non-human sprint. A non-witch sprint, too. Which meant she wasn’t really a witch, right? Glancing back, she saw Holiday power walking to keep up.

“Sorry.” Kylie slowed down and noticed how Burnett kept looking around as if he expected something to jump out at them. Had something happened? And if so, did it have anything to do with her?

Holiday’s footfalls sounded beside Kylie. She glanced from the nervous vampire to Holiday.

“Thanks for slowing down,” Holiday said, sounding a bit breathless. In less than a minute, Burnett lagged behind them, just out of vampire hearing range. Probably at Holiday’s insistence. No doubt she wanted to talk with Kylie, and Holiday didn’t like knowing he’d listen in.

The verdant smells of the forest filled Kylie’s senses. For the first time since she entered the woods she recalled her grandfather and the fog. She immediately tried to listen with her heart to see if she felt the calling sensation from before; it wasn’t there. Then she wondered if somehow the whole fog episode was behind Burnett’s edginess. Or even worse, had they tried to return and set off the alarms? Would Burnett even tell her about it if they had?

Probably not.

She looked back at Burnett. What did the vamp know?

Moving closer to Holiday, Kylie asked, “Can you tell me something and be honest about it?”

Holiday’s footsteps on moist earth made squishy sounds, as if Kylie’s question had added a weight to her step. “I don’t lie to you.”

“By omission you do. Not being up-front about something is as bad as lying.” And then there was the issue of how little Holiday shared about herself. As much as Kylie confided in Holiday, it hurt to realize it wasn’t a two-way street.

“I don’t purposefully keep things from you.” The truth in her tone hung in the damp air. They walked without talking for a few moments.

“What is it you want to know?” Holiday asked.

Kylie fought back her frustration with Holiday, knowing her anger with Lucas was affecting her attitude. “What’s with Burnett? He seems extra alert. Has he … learned something that concerns me? Does he have news about my grandfather? Today was supposed to be the day he showed and yet … I don’t think there’s a chance in hell that he’s coming. And no one is even saying anything about it, as if it never happened.”

Holiday frowned. “Because we didn’t think it would happen, we decided to downplay it. But Burnett and I talked earlier about it and he hasn’t heard anything about your grandfather. But … I agree about him being … let’s call it on the defensive. I asked about it. He says he’s feeling jittery.” Her tone seemed to say that Holiday didn’t buy it.

And neither did Kylie. Something was up. But what?

As they continued over the rocky path, an unnatural cold seemed to sweep in with every other breeze. Someone, someone dead, was close by. She gave Burnett another glance over her shoulder and remembered their talk about ghosts.

Was that the issue bothering him?

Holiday slowed down and peered back with concern. A slight huff of air leaked from her lips and her expression shifted from concern to annoyance. Not just any kind of annoyance, but the kind that stemmed from the opposite sex.

The mood must have been contagious because Kylie’s own thoughts ventured to her opposite-sex issues and she wondered if men weren’t just created to drive women crazy.

A few more minutes down the path, Holiday spoke up. “Now it’s your turn. What’s up with you? And don’t tell me nothing, because you have anger dripping from you like a leaky faucet.”

Kylie frowned, too angry to deny her feelings. “Lucas is what’s up.”

“Boy trouble, huh?”

“Boy catastrophe is more like it. I’m not sure I can do this.”

“Do what?” Concern sounded in Holiday’s voice.

“Do Lucas,” Kylie said.

Holiday made a funny face and raised one eyebrow.

“Not do him as in … get naked,” Kylie blurted out, realizing what she’d said and thinking this was the cause of Holiday’s odd expression.

“I mean, dealing with being the last thing on his to-do list. I mean him treating me as if I’m an afterthought in his life. I mean me feeling as if everyone he knows and cares about thinks I’m not good enough for him because I’m not a were.”

Sympathy filled Holiday’s eyes. “If it helps, I don’t think Lucas shares the old beliefs of the weres. Most of the young weres don’t agree with them, but there’s pressure from the elders in their society to follow them anyway.”

“I know,” Kylie said. “And I also know that the only reason he’s abiding by the stupid rules is because he needs his father’s approval to make the Council so he can change things. But when he won’t even smile at me for longer than a second, it hurts!” she seethed. “I guess that makes me a selfish twit for feeling this way.” Her words resonated deep inside her and the guilt, like flies on a bad banana, started buzzing around her chest.

“No.” Holiday cut her green eyes toward Kylie as they took the bend in the trail. “It doesn’t make you selfish. It makes you normal. No one wants to be made to feel as if they aren’t good enough.”

“But I still feel like a selfish twit,” Kylie said. The sound of the falls started playing in her ears, and even from this distance she felt the calming in her mood. “Or I feel selfish when I’m not feeling furious.”

Holiday leaned in and brushed shoulders with her. “Your feelings are valid. Don’t feel guilty. Sure, Lucas is making these choices for a reason. It’s part of his quest, and we all must pay a price for following our own paths. But…” She paused in thought. “It’s not always fair to ask others to pay that price.” She glanced back at Burnett again.

Kylie sensed Holiday’s words held a personal significance. In the last few days, Kylie suspected the relationship between Burnett and Holiday had gone backward. And she didn’t think it was Burnett doing the backtracking.

“I think he’d be willing to pay it,” Kylie said.

Holiday frowned. “I was talking about you and Lucas.”

“Right,” Kylie said.
But you were thinking about you and Burnett.

They moved off the path and into the alcove of thick trees as they completed the journey to the falls. The moist smell of wet earth perfumed the air, the sound of rushing water played in the symphony of the woodsy sounds, and the serene ambience grew stronger.

Kylie’s anger, her frustrations, all seemed lighter with each step. And when they arrived, it was … surreal. Each time, she seemed to forget how good it felt. They stood on the bank of the creek and stared through the misty air at the spray of water cascading downward.

Kylie heard Holiday draw in a deep, calm breath that matched her own.

“What is it about this place?” Kylie asked.

“Magic. Power.” Holiday reached down to remove her shoes and Kylie did the same. “Back in the 1960s, there was actually a supernatural doctor in botany science who came here to prove that all this could be explained by some chemical compounds in some plant life. A natural drug of sorts.”

“But how could that be when not everyone experiences it?” Kylie unlaced her shoes.

“Ahh, but those not welcome here generally feel the opposite, an uncomfortable sensation that urges them to flee. Which is why this scientist believed it was a chemical reaction. Meaning, the few supernaturals who experience positive emotions were just genetically inclined to react differently to the plant’s compounds. Like how some groups of people react differently to drugs.”

“And what did he find?” Kylie asked, intrigued by the subject, but no more believing it was a drug than she believed in Santa Claus.

Holiday pulled off her shoes and set them beside a rock and stood up, glancing down at Kylie with a slight smile on her lips. “Not a damn thing. After only a few weeks of working in the area, he and his teams suddenly gave up the grant that was going to pay for the project. Rumor was the Death Angels scared them away.”

Kylie moved her gaze around the verdant and beautiful landscape. The mingling of mist and sprays of sunshine beaming down from above the trees spoke of the power and magic that Holiday had mentioned. The ambience that existed here was too reverent to be considered a drug, and the natural splendor too spiritual to be dissected and studied under the microscope.

“I can see how the Death Angels wouldn’t like unbelievers digging around. I’m glad they chased them away.”

“Ditto,” Holiday said.

Standing up, Kylie’s bare feet sank into the moss-covered bank. Wiggling her toes, she bent down and rolled up her jeans.

Right then something swooped down in front of her. She swallowed her scream when she saw it was the blue jay. The bird she’d brought back to life that had somehow imprinted on Kylie and kept stopping in for visits. Hovering right in front of her, it sang as if personally performing a ballad just for her.

“I’m not your mama,” Kylie said. “Go, find your own way. Do what all birds do. Leave the nest, so to speak. Find a hunky blue jay to flutter after.”