September Moon (Alexa O'Brien, Huntress #8)

“She died with the amulet on. If Lena knew what she was doing when she made that thing, then yeah, Alexa should still have her wolf. Don’t worry, pup. She’ll still love you either way.”


My eyes popped open, and I sat up slowly. A dim lamp lit the room. Harley’s room. I was at The Wicked Kiss. In my current state, I couldn’t make much of that. Aside from an inner sense of disappointment, it didn’t mean much to me.

My vision was impeccable. The wolf had given me superior eyesight, but it paled compared to how I now saw. It was like stepping into the light for the first time after wandering around in the dark. There were no words for how detailed and pure everything was. From the cracks in the ceiling to the fibers of the carpet, it all was richer and more complex than I’d ever noticed before.

With a vague curiosity, I slid my tongue over the tiny but deadly fangs in my mouth. They were much smaller than I was used to.

No conscious thought commanded my mental state. In a state of strange observation, I merely took in my surroundings, thinking and feeling nothing.

I wore the same clothes I’d had on when Arys killed me. It felt like two days ago though I wasn’t certain. The dragon on my forearm looked especially black against my alabaster skin. I studied it for a moment and shrugged.

“I still can’t believe you did it.” There was judgment in Shaz’s voice from beyond the door. “You loved it. Didn’t you?”

A sense of detached surprise drifted through me when I lightly tossed the blankets aside and they slapped against the wall as if I’d hurled them in violence. Weird.

“Do you really want an answer to that?” came Arys’s mysterious reply.

There was silence for a minute. The door opened and the two of them entered. They stopped dead in the doorway at finding me sitting up in bed.

I stared at them, uncertain and suspicious. They were familiar to me somehow. I knew that. But in that moment, I could only think in terms of instinctive feelings. The new dark, undead entity dominated.

“Lex?” Shaz barely breathed my name. Wide-eyed and speechless, he stared in disbelief.

The sound of his mortal heartbeat reverberated in my ears. His blood smelled wild and earthy. It called to me, and nothing else mattered. I needed it.

I sprang off the bed and cleared the room in a bound. The speed with which I moved was impossibly inhuman. It was invigorating, bringing me a gleeful victory when I easily took Shaz down beneath me.

Kneeling on his chest, I pinned him down and went for his throat. With a low growl, he flung an arm up to block me. My attack was vicious as I retaliated, fighting to get to that fount of hot, pumping scarlet nectar.

Suddenly I was airborne. I flew into the hallway, head over feet before smacking the wall and rolling into the middle of the hall. Feeling no pain, I was up and ready to face my attacker.

Arys stood in the doorway to Harley’s room. He shoved Shaz behind him and faced me with hands crackling with power. There was a melancholy element to him. It confused me in my predatory state.

Our eyes met and I froze. I knew him. Something deep inside me recognized him as mine, and yet all I could think about when I looked at him was death. He was the one. He was the one who killed me.

“Alexa?” He took a tentative step toward me. “I can help you through this, but you have to trust me.”

A snarl bubbled up in my throat. Arys’s memories echoed inside me. He had killed me, and he had loved it.

All at once the remnants of who I was swam to the surface. I was immediately overcome by a torrent of emotion. It was intensified, imbued with an abyss-like passion that outweighed any feelings I’d ever had before. I wanted to cry, scream, and dissolve into hysterical laughter all at the same time.

Arys took another step toward me, his hands held up in surrender. “It’ll be ok. I promise you, my wolf. Let me help you.”

“Help me?” I repeated, not recognizing my own voice. “You did this to me. You knew what would happen, and you did it anyway.”

I backed away, unable to understand why I should trust him. It just didn’t compute amid the sudden confusion and mental distress.

“There will be time to talk about that later. Right now we need to calm your bloodlust before you run amok and terrorize the city. You know me, Alexa. All of me. You know you can trust me.” Holding a hand out toward me, Arys pleaded with his eyes for understanding.

The hallway hummed with the intriguing energy of vampires. Like an intricate, fascinating song, it played through me, a beautiful piece of music that resonated in every fiber of my being. It was no longer merely something I felt from outside of me, but something that lived within.

Arys didn’t give me a choice. He continued toward me, and I reacted. The power went out from me with no real thought to guide it. My intent was to ward him off and that’s what it did.