Page 42 of Blood Moon

Together, we gave life to immortality.

Your blood, my blood, our blood.

Article VI, Lost Letters from Aadan the First

There was no promise of safety between these four walls.

My dorm felt like an echo chamber, reverberating my nightmare back to me.

I paced and paced, chewing on this new realization.

Vampires. Bloodsuckers. Demons from Hell.

They were the entire reason the werewolves settled in Timber Plains to begin with.

The book listed them as the Nosferatu, with an irresistible beauty and an endless thirst for blood.

I slipped on my shoes and checked the time. It was a little past ten in the evening. With that, I grabbed my things and entered the brisk, dark night.

Apart from the laughter of two students nearby, the university felt out of place.

An eeriness tied itself around the nearly naked branches, pushing the dead leaves to the ground.

With it, a smell of musk and ash. A piece of paper tangled in the wind, catching on the edge of an iron bench, and the lack of warm bodies urged me to look over my shoulder as I walked toward the rose garden, a small area located on the edge of Hester Hall.

I folded my arms across my chest as a means of security, and knowing what I knew now, I wouldn’t ordinarily find myself in the darkened night alone, but I wanted to try something.

A gust of cold air pushed my hair away from my shoulders. “Julian,” I said quietly, but the night breeze chewed at his name and swallowed it. “ Julian? ” I said again, only now, I felt asinine.

I was realizing that he’d probably left campus after our conversation earlier. The likelihood of Julian having duties more essential than being a college student made sense, and it felt a little egotistical to think that, perhaps, he’d stick around because of me.

I grumbled, considered ripping a petal from a rose to manage my anger and accept the fact that I’d be cooped up in my dorm, with the blinds closed tight and the sound of the TV turned up so I wouldn’t feel so deserted.

But on the way back to Hester Hall, I froze in my path. Walking beneath the pale moonlight with a crooked smirk plastered on his face was Julian Santos.

At the sight of him, I was breathless, unable to move from where I’d embedded myself.

He’d come. I didn’t expect him to. To some extent, I was unsure why I wanted him to come.

I knew some of it was the loneliness—the inability to sit with this new information, knowing I couldn’t tell a soul.

Some of it was pure curiosity. He was a man that could shapeshift into a wolf whenever he wanted, and I knew him.

I could talk to him. But most of it was the simple fact that Julian and I had never been cordial with each other—and now that the door was open, I felt this gravitational pull toward him.

A feeling that was nauseating until he was a few feet away. Then, all of it subsided.

Julian tucked his hands into the pockets of his cotton shorts and looked down at me with a mesmerizing stare. I tore my gaze away. “You called?” he said, his voice raspy, and I inspected the university logo printed in the center of his long-sleeved shirt while I collected myself.

“I didn’t expect you to come,” I said, still avoiding eye contact. It was a half-truth. I’d hoped he’d come. I’d hoped it would work, but I couldn’t be certain.

Julian moved a step closer, and I could hear the twisting of a smile cutting at his words.

“You didn’t?” he said, catching my lie. “Not too long ago, you were annoyed to be in my presence.” It wasn’t that I wasn’t annoyed; it was that I was less annoyed. Progress.

“So were you,” I reminded, wishing I sounded quippier.

“I guess some things change,” he said, another step closer.

“So does that mean we’re friends?” It was then that I glanced up.

And there engraved in his face was this look that tugged at my insides.

It was divine and mischievous. A bitter kind of splendor.

Who was I becoming when I looked at him?

And this friend thing … he’d brought it up again.

“I don’t know what it means,” I said honestly. “I don’t know what any of this means.”

Julian stepped past me, his arm brushing gently against mine, and he sat on a concrete bench that faced the roses. I joined him, wrapping my arms around my center, and we both stared ahead.

In our line of sight, past the rose bushes, there were no buildings. Only parking lot and road. Further out, a tangle of trees wrapped in nightfall. Beneath them, wild grass that opened into a forest.

And then it was us.

I looked at Julian watching the night, and I wanted to tell him that I was lonely, that all my friends had other things to do. That I was scared. That I was confused. That my entire universe was warping and bending to the folklore of this town.

But I didn’t.

Julian had a point when he asked whether we were friends or not. It wasn’t that we couldn’t be friends, but to no degree had he ever seemed like he wanted to be friends with me until recently. Our history together was intentionally bleak.

“Be honest, okay? Why do you want to be my friend?”

Julian kept his gaze forward. “What do you mean?” he asked, and there was caution there. I felt like he knew what I meant, but still, he wanted to hear me say it.

“I think you’re very aware,” I started, pressing my palms into the bench.

“I can still see the way you looked at me when I got on campus—like the idea of me being alive was repulsive. And then came all the warnings. You told me I shouldn’t be here.

It wasn’t safe for me.” I swallowed, not wanting to say the rest, but I did anyway.

“You said that you hated me … that my existence was miserable,” I pointed out, and Julian looked to the ground.

“All of a sudden, a switch flipped, and here we are now.” I took a breath.

“What I need from you is the truth … of all the people here on campus, why isn’t it safe for me?

” I knew it wasn’t just the animal attacks—there was something else, something Rena was terrified of, too.

“I …” Julian said, and then he stopped, examining me with this god-awful look in his eyes. A look I was unfortunately already too familiar with: He was contemplating if I could handle it, and I hated how he doubted me.

My jaw tightened. “Just say it, Julian. Tell me why it’s not safe for me here, on this campus.

Tell me there’s a reason for every warning.

For everything you’ve put me through. You wanted me to forgive you, and I’m here now, asking you to give me a reason to.

” The words came out abruptly and spluttered.

In my head, I pleaded with Julian. I begged him. I needed to know.

He looked away, a callous gust following him. “It’s your blood, Mira.”

My face squished in misunderstanding. “ What? ” I said, as if I hadn’t heard him—because what did he mean by that?

“You, your blood, your family’s blood … it has a certain scent that makes you game to people like me.” As if my world couldn’t get any more confusing, here it was, spinning out of control with no safety belt.

“A scent that’s different from others?” I asked, and what Julian had said earlier dawned on me. At lunch today, he’d mentioned I smelled different, but I hadn’t considered it could be detrimental to me. “Game, as in hunting? ” I probed, my stomach turning.

Julian nodded once. “Yes, Mira, as in hunting. It’s why it isn’t safe for you here, on this campus. At any turn, you could be hunted, killed, hung up as a trophy. You are a prize to those like me.”

I felt the dizziness again, along with an inexplicable pain in my fingers that made them throb. “I … I … I …” I started and then stopped, at a loss for words. “But you said this place—these grounds,” I corrected, “were sacred. That wars couldn’t be waged here.” I said it in a gasp.

“Wars between wolves,” he explained. “Not against hunting.”

My heartbeat was so loud in my ears, I didn’t catch “ I don’t understand ” before it slipped from my mouth.

I gripped at the rough edges of the concrete bench to keep myself from toppling over.

My face burned. I was to be hunted. To be killed.

My whole life, I had ever feared anything with Bobby as a sheriff …

I gulped. Wait …

I touched the pendant. A bloodline older than werewolves would be human.

Humans had to have been around long before a possible mutation of any paranormal being.

Therefore, my family, whom I knew nothing about, could be part of an ancient bloodline.

One that was coveted to those like Julian. It was why they’d need protection.

As for what side of the bloodline … it couldn’t have been Bobby’s family because if he knew, for a second, that I would be put in danger by going to college, he’d have had a much harder time letting me leave—adult or not. But he’d insisted I go.

“Why now?” I demanded, turning to Julian.

“I’ve been alive, in this area, for eighteen years.

I’ve never felt like there was a threat.

Wouldn’t I know? Wouldn’t there have been signs?

” And as soon as I said it, answers came tumbling in.

The wolves that had been in my backyard the day Rena left; they’d probably been looking for me.

Bobby’s findings … everything made sense now.

Rena wasn’t working with the werewolves, she was fighting them to protect me.

If it was our blood that was the problem, then maybe she had hoped to draw them away.

Maybe that was why she couldn’t return. She’d be tracked.

My breath stuttered as pressure built behind my eyes. Perhaps it was why she’d left so suddenly. Why, in her letter, she stated there were important matters Bobby and I needed to know—matters she couldn’t detail in writing. And that’s why … that’s why she sent the necklace. A ward. Protection.

I spoke again, biting down to keep the tears from coming. “If my blood has a scent that’s enticing, then why haven’t you …” The rest of the sentence refused to come. My heart tremored. “Why haven’t you hurt me?” I thought again of all the times we were alone, of every chance he’d had.

“Because I don’t want to kill you,” Julian said, an unshaking promise in his eyes, like his soul was trying to enfold itself around my own.

And in the gleaming starlight, I believed him, even if against reason. He’d been trying to inform me, and when he couldn’t outright say it, he’d found a way. It was a way of protecting me, but now, I was terrified of all the monsters that did, indeed , want me dead.

And my dream. The vampires. It was a revelation that converted me into fragments of myself. “Julian, you said the legends were real, and if that’s true … the part in the story that mentions vampires … are they also real?”

There was a tightness in his throat. “Yes,” he agreed, and his voice seemed to melt into the evening air.

I pressed my head into my hands as I exhaled deeply, my nostrils flaring.

I didn’t want to know any of this anymore.

It was too much, and I wanted to give it all back.

It was one thing, discovering that Julian was a werewolf, but it was an entirely different thing to learn that vampires existed and that I was being hunted.

How much time did I have left? How could I protect myself?

How would I escape something as dire as this?

“ Mirabella, ” Julian whispered, but I couldn’t respond. There were vampires. There were werewolves. There were witches—real witches, powerful ones. What else was there? “ Mira, ” Julian said again, and he touched my arm.

I sat up, pushed my hair behind my ears. “Are the vampires hunting me, too?” I asked, biting the tip of my thumb. I had to know.

When he removed his hand from my arm, I already knew.

“It’s my blood, isn’t it?” I said, and I rocked back and forth, trying to come up with a plan … a plan. It was so hysterical, I could laugh. I was no match against immortals, even if I wanted to believe that I was.

Julian shook his head. “They’re not attracted to the scent of your blood in the same way the wolves are. That I know for certain.”

“Have you seen them here?” I pleaded.

“Yes, but they’ve been ceased.”

I choked on my next breath, coughing. Ceased? The wolves and the vampires were enemies; the book had stated they were seen in conflict with each other, but vampires had been here, perhaps feet away from me. “Tell me when.”

“The day you fell in the woods, one was tracking you. I took it out before it caused harm.” I felt a tremble in my body that wouldn’t give. That hiker with the strange eyes … A gasp. That beautiful woman outside the football game …

I held a hand to my chest, stiffened with a visceral terror. It was unbelievable the way Death sought after me.

Julian peered behind his shoulder cautiously, and it made me wonder if he heard anything in the trees.

The campus had grown empty since we’d sat down.

Condensation painted the sidewalks, and thin fog slid past the lampposts and grazed the rooftops.

The indication that there could be any other supernatural being on these grounds made me physically ill.

“We should go inside,” he uttered. I didn’t question him. I stood, and he did the same.

“Can we go to your dorm?” I asked, staring into the glowing building that my room resided in, beside that deep, dark forest. I had no intention of going anywhere alone.

Julian’s eyes brightened, and a smirk appeared on his face. A very mischievous one.

I scoffed, nudged him. “It’s not like that,” I said, rolling my eyes. His smile broke some of the tension, and I released a breath. “My friends are gone, and—”

“And you don’t want to be alone. I get it.”

“You sure you don’t read minds?”

“Bells, don’t stroke my ego like that.”

I grinned, slid past him. “ Please, ” I said, walking ahead. “You’re sick.”

“Do you even know where you’re going?” Julian called out.

I kept going, though I wasn’t planning to get too far away—only enough to make him hurry.

He caught up to me in a matter of seconds, bringing a chuckle with him. “So then, friends?” he asked, and I could feel the heat of his body striding next to mine. I glanced up to his pristine smile, that perfect jawline, his flowy hair.

“Maybe,” I said. Maybe.