Blood Moon (Alpha Wolf Academy Book 3) Read online

  When I didn’t automatically take her hand, she reached down and grabbed mine. The moment my hand left the tree trunk, my world began to spin again. I wobbled and threw out my hands.

  “Okay,” Rory said with another giggle. “You sit here and rest. I’ll find Bash for you.” She looked out at the people dancing around the bonfire. “And maybe dance a bit. Bye.” She elongated the final “e” as she danced away.

  I blinked after her, wondering how I was going to move ever again. A laugh bubbled up and slipped through my lips at the thought. The sound of my laugh, so loud inside my head, startled me. My heart pounded violently in my chest, slamming into my ribs so that it felt like a marching band was alive and competing for gold inside me. I grasped at my jacket and tugged it away from my skin as panic began to rise from my gut into my throat.

  “Hey.” Bash appeared out of nowhere and knelt in front of me. “Hey, look at me. That’s right. Breathe.” He reached out and took my fingers, unfurling them from my chest and placing them firmly back on the stump. “There, feel that? You’re not going anywhere.”

  I stared at him in wonder. “How?” I couldn’t seem to finish the question with words. My mind swam with unintelligible thoughts and emotions.

  “I felt you,” he explained, moving to take Rory’s abandoned seat. “Here.” He handed me a bottle of water. “Drink it all and you’ll start feeling better in no time.”

  I obeyed because it was the only thing I could do. Free choice or thought was out of the question for the next little while, at least. My eyelids fluttered shut for a moment, then popped back open when that set my world sharply on its axis again. “Whoa!” I exclaimed with a chuckle. “Did you feel that?”

  Bash nodded and reached up to brush his thumb over my cheek. “Yeah, I felt it.”

  His hand felt nice on my skin, so I leaned into his palm and hummed contentedly. “I love you,” I murmured, turning my face to inhale his scent. “You’re so good to me. Connor wasn’t good to me. No, he hurt me so bad. In here.” I lifted my other hand to my heart and tapped.

  Words tumbled from my lips like frothy water over a waterfall. It felt so good to finally be able to talk about it with Bash, with the man I loved. I smiled into his palm and spilled my heart at his feet.

  “I thought I knew what love was, did you know that?” I lifted my head to look into his emerald depths. “I love your eyes.”

  Bash watched me intently, focused only on me. It was amazing being the center of his world, but he was the center of mine, so it was right. My head flopped forward, too heavy to stay up, and he gathered me into his arms.

  “I like it here,” I murmured softly with a sleepy smile. “You smell good, and look good, and you’re really good at sex.” My brain lit up as I remembered our interlude early. “Remember that thing you did to me this morning?” When he didn’t respond immediately, I started to recap and felt his chest began to rise and fall. “Are you laughing at me?”

  “Oh, Elena,” Bash’s voice rumbled through his chest into my heart. “You are without a doubt the most amazing woman I’ve ever met. My world shifted when you walked into me.”

  I made a dismissive sound. “You mean when you bumped into me and gave me a concussion?” I giggled, remembering the way he’d looked through my knocked head.

  “Yeah,” he brushed a hand over my hair. “So,” he said slowly, tilting my face up to look at him. “I don’t need to worry about Connor?”

  My eyes went wide, and I shook my head, pulling back to stare at him. “No,” I said, then heard my own voice echo too loudly in my head. “He’s just Connor, but you’re you.” I nodded because that explained exactly what I was feeling. There was no comparison for me.

  He looked at me, into me, eyes narrowing just the tiniest bit. I let my hand float up to his gorgeous face to trace the sharp lines of his jaw, the stubble on his cheek, delectable curve of his full lips. My eyes focused in on those lips now.

  I nibbled them. I couldn’t help it, it was inevitable. They were the most perfect lips in existence, and they were mine.

  “Mine,” I murmured like a purr against his mouth. His lips turned up in a smile.

  “We should get you moving around a little,” Bash said, pulling those lips away as he tugged me to my feet.

  I swayed and laughed with pure joy when I tilted forward into his strong arms. “Whoops!” I giggled and wrapped my arms around his neck. “Guess you’ll just have to hold me up.” I shot him my sexiest bedroom eyes then blinked wildly when an eyelash blurred my vision. “Ow.”

  Bash’s hands moved to my shoulders and righted me. “Here,” he said softly, using his forefinger and thumb to widen my eyes slightly. He leaned in and puffed a breath of air straight into my eye before I realized what was happening.

  “Ughhh,” I wrenched back and stumbled but caught myself on a tree. I blinked rapidly, trying to wet my now dry eye, and realized the intrusive eyelash was no longer there. “Oh,” I said, wiping rogue tears from my cheek. “Thanks.”

  “You, my dear, are soused.” Bash pulled me into his side and wrapped his arm around my shoulders, making me feel safe and petite. For someone who’d been 5’10” tall since my tenth birthday, that was a pretty impressive feat, so I snuggled deeper into his embrace and enjoyed it as we strolled around the field.

  We’d stopped briefly to chat with several groups of Bash’s friends when something interesting caught my attention. My head had stopped spinning sometime around the second lap of the party, so it was easier to focus now.

  “Who’s that?” I asked, nudging Bash to get his attention. Subtly or, what I hoped was subtly, I nodded toward the far end of the field where a group of students were dancing. Rory had her head thrown back and her arms in the air and was undulating in a very Dirty Dancing type move that had my eyebrow quirking up.

  I’d never seen her dance that way before, even with Darius, even in the few other times we’d imbibed too much and gotten wild. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought she was flirting.

  “Who are we talking about?” Bash asked, turning to follow the direction I was staring.

  I suddenly remembered with startling clarity that Darius was one of Bash’s best friends and that Rory was supposed to be madly in love with him. I shot out a hand, cupped his chin, and surged forward with a kiss meant to wipe any and all questions from his mind.

  It worked. His body moved closer and his hands clutched at my clothes, trying to grab more. I poured every ounce of lust I’d felt all day long into the kiss, losing myself in the process, and came up gasping for air a minute later.

  Bash gaped down at me as his chest rose and fell. “Old Ones,” he muttered, swiping a hand through his hair. “You’re feeling better.”

  I smirked, feeling the raw feminine power my sex had mastered ages ago. “I’d feel a hell of a lot better if…” my words stopped dead in my throat, and I felt the blood drain from my face.

  “Elena?” Bash grasped my arms and looked around wildly. “What’s wrong?”

  I couldn’t speak. All I could do was stare into the face of the girl I’d let die on the ice in the middle of a frozen pond in the Idaho wilderness.

  The girl Rory was dancing with was supposed to be dead.

  Chapter 5

  Adeline?

  A bitter taste filled my mouth as I stared, unable to break my gaze from the girl’s fall of dark hair or the beautiful copper skin that made her look kissed by the moon. She’d have dark eyes, I knew, eyes that had gone glassy and blank as I’d raced away from her bleeding body.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, praying it was just a nightmare. “You’re not real,” I murmured, taking shaky breaths in, and letting them out in a deliberately slow push. “You’re not real. I’m alright. You’re not real.” I opened my eyes and bit back a cry of grief.

  “Elena,” Bash turned my head to face him, forcing me to break my gaze and look at him. “What’s happening? Talk to me. It’s all jumbled in there.” His fingertips grazed my forehead
then moved down to press over my heart. “Who’s not real.”

  I stared up at him. He was real, I told myself. Bash was here and real and mine. The ground beneath my feet was real. The chill of the night air on my skin was real. Whoever Rory was dancing with, it wasn’t Adeline; she was dead.

  I steeled myself and looked again.

  Adeline swayed to the music, rocking her hips side to side as Rory moved around her, eyes closed, completely oblivious to the fact that she was dancing with a ghost. My throat went painfully dry as I watched and waited for the world to right itself, but it didn’t.

  “That’s Adeline,” I whispered, leaning into Bash because my legs felt as if they wouldn’t hold my weight much longer.

  “Who?” Bash looked across the field and saw them. His body stiffened as he saw Rory, saw the look on her face, the way she moved closer to my ghost, and understood. “What…” he trailed off as he realized who she was with. “Holy fuck.” His eyes went wide. “No,” Bash turned and took my shoulders. “Elena, no, that’s not Adeline. Look at me.”

  I looked at him. His face blurred for a moment then went back to normal.

  “That’s not Adeline,” he repeated. Bash reached for my hand and gripped it tight. “She’s gone.”

  “Then who is she?” I said on a breathy gasp, trying to focus on his reassurance. He’d known Adeline, had taken classes with her, and he knew exactly what had happened out on the ice over Winter break.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted and tugged me into his arms. “Let’s go find out.”

  I nodded, knowing the nightmare wouldn’t end if I didn’t face it head on. “Okay.” I stepped forward then stopped and looked up at him. “Don’t give Rory a hard time. She and Darius are…” I trailed off, not wanting to say too much but needing to defend my girl.

  His jaw clenched and, for a moment, I thought he’d take up Darius’ side right here and now. He was fiercely loyal to his friends and family; it was one of the things that I loved most about him. He took a steadying breath and unclenched his jaw. “Okay,” he murmured, nodding sharply. “But you know this is going to crush him.”

  “I know,” I said with a sigh. “It’s hurting her, too.”

  “Doesn’t look like it,” he grumbled.

  I looked and had to admit that Bash was right. Rory was glowing. She was undulating to the rhythm of the music, her smile radiant, her gaze locked on the ghost of Adeline.

  She looked infatuated.

  I swallowed and hoped my bestie knew what she was doing.

  Bash linked his hand through mine as we crossed the field. I leaned on him even though I felt a lot steadier now. Although, the closer we got to the girl, the more my knees trembled and the more his grasp tightened.

  Adeline’s ghost noticed us first and stopped moving, stopped looking at Rory, stopped breathing. Our gazes met and recognition flared.

  “Elena?” Her voice came out breathy and unsteady.

  I recognized it immediately and gasped out, “Adeline?”

  She blinked, long and slow, and I saw grief flood her dark eyes as she glanced away.

  Rory twirled and grinned at me then noticed Bash and ground to a halt. Her lips fell open and she looked as if she were about to start apologizing, but then something shifted in her eyes and she snapped her lips shut. She turned away from his judgmental glare and looked back and forth between me and her dance partner. “Hey! Elena, this is Addison. Addison, this is my best friend, Elena.”

  “I know who she is,” the girl said softly in a whisper that was almost drowned out by the music.

  Rory frowned and looked back and forth again, her eyes narrowing as she felt the tension between us. “What’s going on? Do you guys know each other?”

  Her name raced over and over through my mind. Addison. Addison. Not Adeline. Addison. I couldn’t seem to break my gaze away from hers.

  “Adeline was my sister,” the girl said, louder this time.

  “What?” Rory shook her head, obviously trying to piece it all together. “Adeline, as in…” her head twisted sharply towards me. “Adeline from the crash?” Her hand shot out and grabbed my forearm as realization dawned across her face. Her previously radiant flush paled now as she turned to look at Addison.

  No one spoke and the tension grew as seconds ticked by. Finally, unable to stand it anymore, I gestured towards the woods. “Let’s go talk, in private.”

  Bash stayed by my side as we left the crowd and moved into the quiet provided by the thick evergreens. His fingers squeezed mine and through our bond he sent reassurances that helped my muscles relax.

  When we’d cleared the party and the music, I stopped and turned to face Addison. She stood apart from us and looked unsure. Rory stood in the middle, her body language torn between the girl she’d just met and me. I frowned and took in the flush that was back on her cheeks, the way her fingers fluttered as she tried to keep her hands by her sides. Everything about her seemed to want to go to Addison. It was like she needed to touch her to settle.

  My eyes went wide and darted between Rory and Addison as wonder filled my chest with aching for them both, but I held my thoughts back in case I was wrong. Besides, I thought, lifting my gaze to Addison, it wasn’t exactly a great time to ask my best friend if she’d just found her soul mate.

  “Adeline didn’t say anything about having a sister,” I said, taking in every detail of her face and form. If there was a difference between them, I didn’t see it. “Are you twins?”

  Addison shook her head then lifted her gaze upward, blinking several times to clear the sheen of tears from her eyes. “No,” she said, sniffing, when she got herself under control. “She’s my big sister.” She closed her eyes and whispered, “Was my big sister.”

  A lump formed in my throat and pushed like jagged ice against my windpipe, making it hard to fill my lungs. A flash of memory, of Adeline’s body lying on the snow with her life blood spreading out as I raced away, unable to save her, filled my mind. Bash inched closer and squeezed my hand to ground me.

  “I was there,” the words stumbled from my lips before I thought to say them. It was the truth, wasn’t it? I was there when Adeline died, when one of Viktor’s mercenaries shot her from the tree line because I’d led us out into the open, thinking we’d had enough of a lead to be safe. “It was my fault…” I let the words hang between us and lowered my gaze, ashamed to look her in the eye.

  “No, it wasn’t,” Addison said sharply, wrenching my gaze from the ground to her face. “Ms. Morgan told me everything.” Her hand darted out and grabbed my forearm tightly. “She said you’d take the blame. She said you’d try to shoulder everything. I can see she’s right.” Addison shook her head and pity flooded her dark eyes. “Elena, it’s not your fault. None of this is your fault.”

  The urge to spill my guts at her feet, to admit my culpability in all of this, my connection to the psychopath that had brought all of this shit to our doorstep, nearly overwhelmed me. I opened my mouth and the words formed of their own volition, shoving to the tip of my tongue.

  Then Rory was there, stepping forward and linking her hand with the one not held by Bash. I glanced at her and offered an uncertain smile. Her look of reassurance and trust made my chest ache. I squeezed my eyes shut and let the tears come.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whispered through uneven breaths. “We thought we were safe. We thought…” I shook my head, unable to explain.

  My head swam with confusion. I didn’t know how much of the story had been shared with Addison, how much she knew of what had brought down the plane. She’d talked to Ms. Morgan, she’d said, but that didn’t mean she was on the inside of this unstable, life-destroying secret that was tearing me and my friends apart.

  Addison stepped forward and reached forward. Without hesitation, I released Rory’s and Bash’s hands and took hers. They were always there for me when I needed their strength. It was the least I could do to offer Adeline’s sister the same.

  I took her into m
y arms and felt the strength of her. Like her sister, she was tall and willowy, but looks were apparently deceiving. She was strong, of body and mind, from what I was sensing, and she would be alright. I felt her strength move through our combined limbs into me, like a wave of forgiveness for Adeline’s death. With every ounce of relief in me, I grabbed on and let the hope wash the darkness away.

  There was so much darkness in me now, I thought, releasing her with a soft smile. For a girl who’d grown up on the banks of Newfoundland, in the sun and saltwater air, I’d come a long way… down. I knew many would say the opposite, that my newly revealed circumstances meant I’d come up in the world. After all, I was a part of The Sisterhood now, a friend and ally of the Alpha family, a student at Alpha Wolf Academy. I was a far cry from the Elena I’d always known and that was terrifying.

  “She seemed nice,” Bash murmured as we watched Rory and Addison stroll away. His eyes narrowed as Rory’s hand skimmed against Addison’s and their fingers linked. A low growl started in his chest and rumbled out.

  I swiveled to stand in front of him and planted a palm over his chest, feeling the vibrations of anger and frustration there. I knew that all he could see was betrayal of his best friend, not the pain behind the scenes, so I stayed calm and kept my voice pitched low. “Calm your wolf,” I said, raising my other hand to his cheek to draw his gaze down. When he looked down at me, I saw the flickers of wildness in his emerald eyes and swallowed down a surprising wave of lust.

  Inappropriate given what just happened, I berated myself silently.

  “Bash,” I said, focusing his attention. “Do me a favor, will you? Look at them.” I gestured towards the two girls, who couldn’t keep their eyes off each other. “What do you see?”

  He grumbled something unintelligible then muttered, “They look happy.” He looked down at me with a frown. “She’s cheating on Darius. How am I supposed to be okay with this?”

  I shook my head. “You’re not and he won’t be either, none of them will, but just look.” I took his jaw in my hand and turned his head. “Watch their body language. What do you see?” I held my breath, hoping someone who’d experienced the miracle of the mate bond would be able to see it in others.