Page 37 of Blood Moon

Many will not believe. Still, we push forward.

Article I, Lost Letters from Aadan the First

I should have skipped class and went straight to him. It wasn’t ideal to sit in a room full of people with the information I now knew.

Julian was a werewolf. Just like the ones in the story.

He’d been one this entire time, and he’d tried to tell me, but I kept missing the hints, kept pushing them to the side, unable to cope with the idea that something like that could be possible.

It was why he possessed incredible strength and speed, why he could track anything by scent, why he was dangerous.

When class was over, I hurried down the long hall toward the exit. Outside, I stood under the awning, determined to know if he was where he said he’d be.

Julian sat on the bench with his backpack on the ground beside his feet, a book propped on his legs, hair falling forward while he read.

“Julian,” I all but mumbled as I tried to balance my shock.

A single look confirmed that he’d heard me, and when our eyes met, he was expressionless. I wanted to know what he was thinking, if he was aware of what I now knew. Did he think I was afraid? I wasn’t, and I was.

I’d wrestled with this idea in class, allowing myself the option to leave, to back out.

The thought grew aggressively in me. I had a choice.

But to choose to leave right as the world had split would be foolish.

Inexplicable as it was, I was certain Rena was tied to this somehow—the knots were too close together to not be spun from the same thread—and if I took this chance, swallowed that budding fear, I’d be one step closer to potentially understanding why she left, and another step closer to hopefully bringing her back.

As I stepped from the awning into the bright afternoon sun, I didn’t hear the voices of those congregating around me. Instead, I heard the birds singing from the highest branch and woodland creatures skittering from tree trunks as I ambled toward him, contemplating the decision I’d made.

I should be afraid of him. He was a monster, a grotesque beast.

Though, he didn’t appear as the bloodcurdling thing in my nightmares.

Julian, more than ever perhaps, was beautiful, charming even, as he sat beneath the wispy canopy of leaves.

Despite what I’d learned, he’d saved my life, so if he was this cold-blooded thing, he would have let me die. Or worse, he would have been the cause.

Additionally, we’d been alone multiple times. We’d been intimate , and even then, he hadn’t produced any claws, hadn’t shed his skin to rip apart my own, even while the moon was high and full and round.

I’m not afraid, I told myself. But apprehension still lingered.

Each stride forward caused Julian to sit upright all the more. He refused to break my stare. Astonished, I assumed. When I sat beside him, he closed the book.

“You came?”

I nodded.

“If you know … then why aren’t you afraid?”

There, at the base of my throat, was a slight tremor. “Because if you wanted to hurt me—wouldn’t you have done so already?”

Julian glanced away, focusing on those passing by. “But you know I’m dangerous, don’t you?”

I gripped the rounded edge of the bench, where my thigh met cool iron. “Yes, and this is my choice, Julian.”

A moment of silence before, “What do you think I am, Mira?”

My stomach knotted. I didn’t want to say it aloud in case I was wrong. My mouth quivered; my tongue stiffened. But he’d asked me what I thought he was, not who . It made my prediction that much more certain.

Julian whispered, “I need to hear you say it, so I know we’re on the same page.”

Though a bit wobbly, I opened my mouth to finally say, “Werewolf.”

A breath then, one that derived from both of us.

Julian closed his eyes momentarily, probably reveling with the fact that I knew, that we’d found a loophole around the word he couldn’t say.

When he’d adjusted to what I’d said, he looked to his hands.

I followed the glance, realizing the absence of his bandage.

I couldn’t even make out a scar. The cut on his face had disappeared, too.

I figured it was a werewolf effect. Healing at rapid rates must have been evolutionary, essential to survival.

“Mira, had you never considered that the legends of this town could be real?” Julian said, but I had tried to consider it; it was why I stole the book. “It’s here for a reason. What happened hundreds of years ago with Aadan. The pacts. The werewolves. They’re all real.”

“But how? How does it even work? Saying it doesn’t give it any more validity. These … this … it doesn’t feel like it should exist.”

There was a pull of hesitation in his face, between the lines on the edge of his eyes. Then he pulled his shoulders back. “I … I could show you. I think it would help.”

Show me? My eyes widened, and I refrained from dropping my jaw. “Don’t you need a full moon? Darkness?” And whatever else it was to make the transition possible.

Julian placed his book in his bag, stood. Behind us, a few feet away, was a line of trees, and between them was a barely visible dirt trail. “No, I just need space.” At that, I gasped. He could just control it all on his own? Blasphemy. But when I didn’t move, he came to a halt. “Are you coming?”

I looked to the dense trees and then back to him. “I don’t know …”

He sat back down. “Mira, I’m not going to hurt you, but I think if you were able to see … I think this would be easier to mitigate.”

“You said I shouldn’t trust you.”

“I know what I said, but I swear, I’m not going to hurt you.

” Julian stood again, reached out a hand to help me up.

Another look to the woods, and I still felt uncertain.

Another look at him, and my thoughts went hazy.

A stillness fell over me. I waited for something stranger than this to happen, but besides the sting I felt in my fingers, there was nothing.

He offered his hand again. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he pleaded. Then I heard the whisper he didn’t say: I’m safe. It was everything he swore he wasn’t.

But looking into his eyes, I just couldn’t help myself. So, I held hands with the monster, and I followed him into the woods.