Page 61 of Blood Moon
Additionally, we’d been alone multiple times. We’d beenintimate, 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 mewhatI thought he was, notwho. 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’reallreal.”
“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.
CHAPTER30
Even the strongest man can’t stop destiny.
A will has always found a way.
Article I, Lost Letters from Aadan the First
The thicket made the university feel as if it didn’t exist. Frigid air tingled our skin, the temperature a few degrees lower beneath the covering of leaves, but where there was a split in the trees, sunlight pierced through, small pools of light brightening the hidden path.
