Blood Moon (2 page)

“No, Darby, I’m good. Vampires heal fast. How about you? I thought you…I mean…I’m so sorry, Darby.
 
Really sorry!”

“It’s okay, Blake. I probably would have thought I was dead too, if I had been in your shoes.”

Blake glanced at Rowan who was still trying not to make eye contact with him, and then he turned to Devon, who like his brother, had brown eyes, rather longish brown hair and a smile that could light up a room.
 
He wasn’t as tall as Blake, maybe just shy of six feet, but what he didn’t have in height, he made up for in speed and strength.
 
He, like Blake, was a software engineer.
 
This allowed them to work from just about anywhere, via their computers and the Internet. Blake hugged his brother and said, “Hey man. I’m sorry. I did some stupid stuff.”

Devon said, “Yeah, Blake. We need to have a long talk, you and I.”

“I know, I deserve whatever you throw at me too, but we’ll talk later, I promise.”

Devon and Darby both made eye contact with Rowan, trying to decipher whether they should stay and be a buffer for her, or leave them alone.
 
Rowan nodded, which they took to mean they should let them talk, so Devon led Darby back to the bedroom.

Rowan walked around the couch, setting her backpack down, and smelling roses on the table as she passed. She touched one delicately with her fingertips as she sat down. Rowan had grabbed Blake’s heart from their first meeting. Rowan was shorter than her sister, all of maybe five foot three.
 
Her wavy, strawberry blonde hair fell to her waist. It was her eyes, though, that mesmerized Blake, a blue more beautiful than that of the Caribbean sea.

Blake followed her saying, “I know the roses are a pretty lame way to say I’m sorry for what an idiot I’ve been, but everything else I could think of seemed just as lame.
 
They don’t make a card that can apologize for what I did, trust me I checked.”
 

He sat on the other couch, although still near her. He touched her hands that were now folded in her lap and continued, “I was scared and reacted badly, very badly, and then it became like an obsession that I couldn’t control.
 
When I think back now, I can’t believe I did what I did. It was like being possessed, but I can’t even use that as an excuse, because it was me doing the possessing, obsessing, whatever.
 

“I know it isn’t an excuse, but the only reference to werewolves I’ve had were the horror stories told to me by Uncle Dominic.
 
I freaked.
 
But when I got on the plane to Connecticut, I had time to think a bit.
 
That’s when I realized no matter what you turned into, it couldn’t be anything but sweet and wonderful.
 
I never left the airport in Connecticut. I jumped on the next flight back to San Francisco. I called the hospital in Colorado and they said that Darby had been discharged, so I knew you would be on your way home, so I waited here – for you.
 
I’m so sorry, Rowan. Can you forgive me?”

Tears ran down her face. “I’m not sure, Blake. I just don’t know. Why couldn’t you just talk to me about being scared? I was scared too, Blake. I needed you and you treated me like a leper. Something disgusting to discard because it wasn’t pretty and shiny or fun to play with anymore.”

“I know I did all those things, and I’m so sorry, Rowan, but know this, you never disgusted me. I was confused and idiotic, but nothing you did, or are, could ever disgust me. Please tell me we can fix this, Rowan. I want to make this right.”

“Not tonight – I’m exhausted. I’m sorry, Blake. I wish I could say everything is fine, but I just can’t, at least not yet. I wish you could have talked to me before you went off the deep end. I thought we were close enough that you would have come to me with your problems and we could have dealt with them together. But just so you know, I am relieved to see that you are okay – I was so worried. Thank you for the roses. They are beautiful. I just wish I had received them under different circumstances.”
 

She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek and said, “I’m sorry, Blake, I’m going to go to bed.” And she stood up, grabbed her stuff off the couch, and went into her bedroom and closed the door, leaving Blake sitting on the couch in the living room by himself surrounded with roses.

Blake sat there for a long while thinking before he headed home.
 
He hoped that talking with Devon would shed some light on just how badly he had messed things up.
 
Everyone in the house was exhausted. There would be no more talking this evening.
 
As he got up, Blake grabbed the books on werewolf folklore.
 
Since he wasn’t going to be talking to anyone, he might as well get some reading in.
 
He also grabbed the ancient leather tome that they had taken from Terrence Paine’s house.
 
Maybe he could find some insight into the lives of werewolves that would benefit Rowan.
 

Blake stayed up all night combing through the books, learning as much as he could.
 
It seemed there was as much misguided folklore about werewolves as there was about vampires. What he hadn’t expected was so many similarities in the two species.
 

In the eyes of humans, vampires had always played the role of dark, villainous killing creatures. It seemed to be the same with werewolves.
 
How could he have been so stupid? His uncle had told him horror stories about the violent act of barbarism he had seen as a young adult. Given the same circumstances, it could have been done by a vampire.
 

What many humans didn’t know was that there are two kinds of vampires - born vampires and made vampires.
 
Born vampires are born to two vampires parents, like a human baby. Born vampires drink blood once or twice a week, but not in great volume. Due to the vampire’s ability with mind control, most humans don’t know they’ve been bitten. Such little blood is taken, that the human doesn’t even feel weak. Blake and his brother refer to wounds they inflict as that of a bug bite, nothing at all like the destruction and havoc caused by a made vampire on a feeding binge.

Made or turned vampires were once humans that have been fed on by a vampire. The vampire then lets the human feed on it. This is a tricky procedure and many do not survive, but if the human-vampires do, they become incredibly blood-thirsty.
 
A made vampire must feed daily and in much larger volumes than does a born vampire. Often in their feeding they kill as a sort of frenzy happens.
 
They can’t stop when the frenzy starts, until there is no more blood. For this reason, it is almost impossible for them to live in a community of humans without being noticed. What most humans hear or see are the rampages of an untamed made vampire.
 
These rogues make the whole species pay for their recklessness.
 

What if all this time Uncle Dominic’s story was that of a rogue werewolf, who made the rest of their species pay the cost for his bad press? Blake thought.
No wonder Rowan wouldn’t talk to him.
 
How hypocritical can a vampire be?
 
Had he been insane these past two weeks? It certainly seemed so.

Uncle Dominic had always been someone Blake had admired.
 
After Blake and Devon had lost their father, Uncle Dominic had tried to fill those shoes.
 
He spoke often about how the boys should steer clear of werewolves.
He was a professor, for heavens sake – a man of science. How could he have been so wrong?
 
Hadn’t he researched it and seen how similar the races were?

Blake wasn’t sure how he was going to make this up to Rowan, but somehow he was going to try. He tried to sleep, but the visions of Rowan’s sad, disappointed face haunted him.

Chapter 2

Bree Nelson worked at Tommy McGee’s in Pescadero as a bar waitress. She walked out of the hot, stuffy bar at about 3:00 A.M. to head home.
 
She only lived a few blocks away so she always walked to and from work.
 
This had never bothered her before, until very recently when her brother and the neighbor kid had followed her home one night and just about scared the living daylights out of her.
 

She was walking along the downtown sidewalk of dark stores when she thought she heard footsteps behind her.
 
She spun quickly but didn’t see anything.
 
Maybe it had been in front of her, she thought.
 
The acoustics of the buildings played havoc with her hearing. She picked up her pace as she became more and more nervous.
 
She thought about how she’d spent all her life running up and down these streets with her brother, ducking in and out of doorways playing tag. She needed to get a hold of herself.
 
How silly she was being – there was nothing there. She took a deep breath and let it out in hopes of calming herself.

Only one more block to go and then she would be on her own street.
 
She thought she heard something again behind her, but refused to let her imagination get the better of her. The next thing she heard was what sounded like fingernails scratching on a chalkboard and all the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She turned this time, now walking backwards to see if she could see anything.
 
She turned back to go forward, when someone came up behind her – and then the lights went out everywhere.

Darby woke Friday morning in the usual way, with Harry standing on her chest meowing at her.
 
Wake up! I’m hungry! Hello!
It hurt to have a twenty-five-plus pound cat standing on you even if you hadn’t just had surgery.
 
Much to Harry’s dismay, Darby pushed him to the side and off the bed and snuggled in close to her sleeping vampire prince, Devon.
 
She kissed him ever so slightly hoping not to wake him, but it was not she that did the waking.
 
It was the discarded fur-ball that had been tossed to the floor who had decided if he couldn’t get her to feed him, he would go to the other side of the bed and stand on Devon’s chest.

“Good morning, Harry.
 
Hungry?” Devon said, giving him a pet on the head.
 
Harry replied with a squeaky meow. He smiled at Darby, stretched, and gave her a kiss.
 
“Good morning, Love. How are you feeling?”
 

“Good. No, great waking up with you. It’s a gazillion times better than waking up in a hospital.”

“I’ll bet.
 
Tell you what. I’ll go start a pot of coffee, and go get the paper and I’ll see you back here in a minute. And yes, Harry, I’ll feed you too,” he said, slipping his jeans on as he looked at the protesting cat.
 

“Thanks, Sweetie,” Darby said smiling at him as he walked into the kitchen. After a few minutes he came back with two cups and the paper. He sat with his back to the headboard of the bed.
 

“What section do you like to start with?” he asked.

“Front page usually.”

“Good, I like the local and sports first,” he said.

“Perfect.”

A few minutes passed when Devon interrupted the silence saying, “Listen to this – a woman from Pescadero went missing – that’s the next town over isn’t it?”

Darby replied, “Yes. What does it say?”

“A local woman from Pescadero was reported missing last night.
 
She was a bar waitress at Tommy McGee’s and had reportedly left work around 3:00, but she never arrived home.
 
Supposedly this is the second missing woman in a week’s time.
 
The first one was reported missing last Monday from La Honda.
 
She was last seen leaving work but never returned home either.”