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

I shook my head and bit my lip as I fought back another wave of tears. “I can’t be like this.”


His touch was tender as he stroked a hand down my face. “You already are. Taking the easy way out just isn’t your style. If you want to stay here to die, then I’m staying with you.”

Alarm sang through me. “No! Just get out of here, Kale. This is my choice.”

“Yeah, well, it’s mine too.”

I groaned and rolled away, turning my back to him. Maybe he would just go away. But as dawn drew closer, Kale stayed.

“Are you really going to make me watch you die?” he asked. “I think you’re better than this. In fact, I know you are. The Alexa I know and love would never give in so easily.”

I said nothing, choosing to stare at the 1973 etched into the headstone in front of me. Everything in me demanded that I flee the sun before it could roast me. I’d seen a vampire die that way, and it had been ugly. We were quickly running out of time. Doubt crept in. Fear was not far behind.

“All right,” he announced. “You’re forcing me to do this. As appealing as dying together is, I’d much rather exist another night with you instead. I hope you’ll thank me later.”

Without giving me a chance to protest, Kale lifted me in his arms. My claws slid across the stone, unable to get a grip. I was confused and afraid, an emotional wreck. Rather than fight him, I settled in to his embrace, resting my head against his shoulder.

As he carried me from the graveyard, back to the land of the living, I clung to him as if he were the only life preserver in an ocean of pain. I felt safe. In Kale I found the solace that my soul so desperately needed.

Epilogue

Arys

The soft scratch of my pencil against the paper usually brought me satisfaction. As I watched the image come to life on the page before me, I remembered why I’d given up this form of self-expression.

A dragon sneered up at me, a mocking gleam in its reptilian eyes. Every feather on its wings was drawn with precision and detail. It was one of my best. I hated it.

Three nights since Alexa rose. Five since I had killed her.

“Come on, Arys. You can’t just sit here feeling sorry for yourself. Let’s go out.” Jenner wandered about my living room, bored and impatient. Though I had wronged him greatly in the past, the fact that he was still here spoke volumes as to his ability to forgive.

“Go without me. Shaz will go with you.” I volunteered the wolf pup who sat on my couch frowning at his cell phone. “Oh, and I am not feeling sorry for myself. I’m choosing to lay low and reflect rather than act out by doing something rash.”

Shaz and Jenner shared a look. I ignored it, knowing what they were thinking. I also knew that they were wrong.

“If you don’t hunt soon you’re going to snap,” Jenner warned with a knowing look. He had seen me at my worst, something I didn’t need to be reminded of.

“What you need to do,” Shaz interjected, “is go bring Alexa home. Or I will.”

“No you won’t.” I didn’t look up from my sketchpad. “You will leave Alexa right where she is. If you force her to do anything before she’s ready, you’re just going to drive her further away.”

Tossing his phone down on the coffee table, Shaz shot me a dark glare that I didn’t have to see in order to feel. It was one of many such looks he’d given me over the last few nights.

“I don’t know how you can sit on your ass and do nothing while she’s with him. That’s not where she belongs.” The angry vibe emanating from Shaz was raw and predatory. If he knew how much it tempted me, he might have toned it down a little.

“No, it isn’t. But it’s where she wants to be right now. This is a difficult time for her, pup. Try to be understanding.” It was a conversation we’d had repeatedly since the night Alexa awoke and ran out of The Wicked Kiss as if the devil himself chased her.

That’s how she’d looked at me too. Like I was the greatest evil she’d ever laid eyes on. I wanted only to help her, and she saw only the monster who had delighted in every blissful second of her death. And I had.

Hurting Alexa was never something I enjoyed. That wasn’t what it was about. It was about the moment with a victim when we are one. When everything they are becomes a part of everything I am. It’s the brief but poignant moment where there is no way of knowing where they end and I begin. That is what I always desired when it came to Alexa. The need to consume her so fully, in a way that no other ever could. Being her twin flame should have been enough. But for me, a vampire, it wasn’t. I had to have it all.

Then I did. And it was spectacular. She was mine in every way, and it drove her straight into Kale Sinclair’s arms. Now she was his.