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

Stronger than ever before, I threw Arys backward; he flipped over the small bistro table in the bedroom before hitting the floor. It had taken no effort on my part, sapping none of my strength.

I didn’t wait around for him to get up. Turning on a heel, I darted down the hallway toward freedom. The red glowing exit sign was suddenly before me as I cleared the entire length from one end to the other in seconds.

The door slammed open, and I was gone, shooting through the parking lot like a bullet from a gun. Right away I felt the coming sunrise. It was less than an hour off. Instinct warned me to be careful. There was no taunting the sun and living to tell the tale.

I ran down the street, darting across in front of traffic, ignoring the sound of horns blaring and drivers telling me off. Running north, I followed the erratic urge to flee, paying no mind to where I was actually headed. My legs moved like the wind carried me. There was no gasping for breath. It felt like a dream.

Then something did bring me to a halt. As I passed the university a few blocks from The Wicked Kiss, the scent of humans and the sound of voices drew me to the dorm parking lot.

Despite the early hour there were people just getting out of a vehicle. I didn’t pause to reconsider. There was no moment of tortured decision making. The bloodlust was in charge, and I was its slave.

They barely had time to scream. Two men and a woman, I was on them before they could react. The men went down fast and easy. Their blood sprayed, and I greedily consumed all that I could. The rush of their fear was perhaps the best part. Bittersweet and mesmerizing, it quenched a thirst I hadn’t known I had.

The woman ran. She made it to the next row of vehicles before I caught her. With wide eyes and an expression of pure horror, she begged for her life. Not a single word penetrated the blood-crazed force commanding me.

Jerking her close, I breathed deeply of her scent. So human and so tantalizing. My fangs slid into her vein with perfect precision. It was leaps and bounds better than using wolf fangs. I could get used to this.

Only when she lay dead at my feet did I come back to myself. Slowly, like surfacing from a deep sleep, I became aware of where I was. I stared at her bloody throat, wide eyes, and mouth frozen open in a silent scream. At first I felt nothing but confusion. Then the fog lifted from my brain, and what I’d just done sunk in.

“Oh my God.” I clapped a hand over my bloodstained mouth. This couldn’t be real. It just couldn’t be.

I backed away from the corpse, bumping into a nearby car, which set off the alarm. The lights began to flash, and the horn honked repeatedly. There was no time to linger. It would draw attention soon enough. I fled, continuing for several blocks. As I ran I asked myself if this was reality because if it was a horrible nightmare I really needed to wake up now.

When I reached Saint Joachim Catholic Cemetery I let myself stop. Amongst the headstones I felt a sense of safety. Everyone there was already dead; I couldn’t harm them.

I walked along the paths that wound between the trees. Fallen leaves crunched beneath my feet, the only sound to accompany my descent into madness. It was impossible to wrap my mind around it all, what had happened and what I was now. It just couldn’t be real.

But it was. Knowing that I’d been trapped inside myself while the bloodlust commanded my actions was terrifying. I could not be a prisoner inside my own body.

Slumping against a headstone, I lay down in the leaves and waited for sunrise. It was the only way out of this. What I had known of the bloodlust thus far had been nothing, a bare shred of what it really was. I couldn’t control a force like this.

I dissolved into hysterical tears. With clawed fingertips I held tight to the headstone, praying that death would be fast. The stone gave beneath the pressure of my grip. With such little effort, it crumbled. Perhaps the claws should have been comforting, a sign of the wolf that dwelled within. In that moment I could only focus on the taste of blood and the memory of how damn good it felt to spill it.

“I can’t do this,” I whispered to nobody. “I can’t do this.”

Dawn crept ever closer with each passing minute. It wasn’t suicide if you were already dead. Right?

The taste of honey in my mouth was sudden and sickly sweet. The overpowering scent of genuine leather accompanied it. Kale. His name drifted up into my thoughts, and I was sure it was a hallucination. Until he spoke.

“Aww, Alexa. How could Arys let this happen to you?” He knelt beside me and gently tried to pry my hands off the headstone. “Come on. We have to get you out of here before sunrise.”

“No.” I clung harder to the headstone, causing crumbs to flake off beneath my fingers. “Just let me die.”

“It’s hard at first. Actually, it’s always hard. But if anyone can handle it, it’s you.” Kale touched the side of my face, drawing my gaze to him. There was such sorrow in those beautiful brown and blue eyes.