Blood Moon (Moon Books) (4 page)

“Protect me?” All my crazy spy-royalty-assassin theories came flooding into my mind. I sighed and slowly sank with jello legs onto the old familiar the dock, tugging on his arm so he would sit next to me. I reached over and held his hand, comfort for both of us. I figured that the explanation, whatever it ended up being, wasn’t going to be short. I was more than ready to hear it.

“You do realize after all of the cryptic hinting you’re going to have to tell me what you do and what the hell you were protecting me from.”

He sighed. “I know. If we’re really going to do this you and me thing, I can’t keep it from you forever.” He paused shaking his head and laughing softly. “God I don’t know how to even start explaining this. It sounds crazy to me and I already know it’s true.”

“Noah, I believe you. Whatever it is. I just need to know.”

“You might want to hold off on that until you hear more. I guess I’ll get the big thing out of the way.” He looked at me with sad eyes and reached up to trace my jaw. His touch felt sad too, like he thought I would disappear.

“You remember all the stories about vampires and werewolves that my mom used to tell to scare us when we were kids?” I nodded. I’d always loved listening to his mother’s stories. She’d have made a great author. “Well, they’re not exactly stories. Not in the fictional sense anyway.”

My eyebrows knitted together. “What do you mean?”

“I mean they’re all true, Zack. Those stories of tracking down evil monsters were stories about us, my family. The Harpers are hunters. We’ve been doing it for hundreds of years.”

“Noah.” I gave him a ‘you can’t be serious’ look and started to get up.

He pulled on my arm. “Please don’t go. I’ve been trying to figure out a way to tell you all of this for three years. You started asking questions now just...hear me out. It’s only fair.”

“But, Noah, it’s impossible. You want me to believe that you’re like Van Helsing or something? C’mon! I’m from New York, not Transylvania!” He kept his hold on my arm, not letting me rise. He’d gotten really strong in the last few years!

“I told you you’d think I was crazy but I swear to God, I’m telling the truth. I can prove it and I will.” He cupped my face in his hand and looked at me. His eyes were nervous and worried, but I could see the truth there. If nothing else, it seemed like he believed what he was telling me. “Listen, if you still don’t believe me at the end of this then you can walk away. I just need the chance to explain myself to you.” He looked like he was close to tears.

Whether I believed him or not, I couldn’t turn my back. I still felt way too much for him.

“Okay, let’s operate under the assumption that I believe you. I want to believe you it’s just...well, you know. So tell me what happened three years ago.”

Noah put his forehead against mine for a second, then he drew back and continued, “I always knew there was something weird about my parents’ business trips, when I was left with Mrs. Clooney for weeks at a time, but until my eighteenth birthday even I didn’t know what they were doing.”

“Why then?”

“I guess because that’s when I technically became a man. That’s when I was supposed to join them.”

“You mean become a hunter?” I tried not to say it sarcastically. I almost succeeded.

“Yeah—the fucking Harper legacy. My parents sat me down that day and told me about our family. I would have had them carted off to an institution if they hadn’t shown me proof. Tons of it. They had photographs, contracts, research, journals back to the Middle Ages in Europe, letters, newspaper articles about ‘wild beasts.’ It was obvious they were telling the truth. When I asked why they were loading all this on me after so many years, they said it was time for me to join them.”

“But you didn’t want to,” I murmured.

“Of course not. I wanted to go to NYU with you. All I ever wanted was to be with you. I fought with them for weeks, Zack. I know you noticed there was something wrong. Then that night we kissed.” He paused smiling. “You have to already know that was the best night of my life. I’d wanted to tell you how I felt about you since we were kids. I thought you felt it too, but I could never tell for sure.”

I squeezed his hand in mine. “Obviously I did. I still do.” He brought my palm up to his mouth and rubbed his lips across it in a soft kiss. Any small part of me that hadn’t been melted by him already turned to liquid.

“You have no idea how happy that makes me, how happy it made me then too. I ran home that night ready to tell my parents to screw the Harpers and the stupid hunting legacy. I only wanted to be with you. I sat up all night practically floating off of my bed because I was so...euphoric. I spent hours trying to decide how I was going to tell you that I had been in love with you since, well, since practically forever.” He turned and smiled at me then sandwiching my hand between both of his. “I went to breakfast the next morning and confronted my family. I told them how I felt about you, that I wanted to be with you and not follow the tradition.” He stopped, looking out at the moon on the water.

“What did they say to you, Noah?” I needed to hear the rest of the story, all the way to the crazy end.

“They told me it didn’t matter if I joined them. That by being a Harper alone I was already a target and anyone who was close to me would be a target too. I wanted to protect you, Zack. My parents convinced me that pushing you away was the only way I could. They said that they felt awful, but that you weren’t equipped to deal with what we did. That it wasn’t fair to ask you to be a part of it.”

“So you pushed me away because you thought you had to protect me from...movie monsters?”

He sighed and tightened his grip on my hand, obviously not wanting me to bolt. “I told you, Zack. I can prove this is all true and I will. But there’s more.”

“More? How can there be?”

“I was a wreck after I said goodbye to you. I barely left my room for weeks. Finally my parents convinced me to go on a hunting trip with them. I guess they thought it would be good for me, get me involved with the family or whatever. Anyway, they were after some vampires in Boston, huge contract. You’d be amazed at what city officials will pay for something like that.” I looked at him with my mouth wide open.

“Anyway, by that point I didn’t care if I lived or died so I finally said yes. I went with them, supposedly just to watch and learn, but I was reckless.”

I held up my hand. “Wait a second. You went out on some government sanctioned vampire hunt?” I felt dizzy.

“Yeah, but I didn’t follow my parents’ directions very well. I snuck out looking for the vampires one night when they were working on a lead. Unfortunately, I got a little too lucky. My parents traced my path and caught up to me just as I stumbled on the vampires’ nest.” He took a deep breath. “That’s how they really died, Zack. You know how I said it was in a car crash? It wasn’t. My parents died trying to protect me from the vampires.”

“But you, uh, got away.”

“Well, not exactly.”

I knew before he even opened his mouth that I didn’t want to hear it. There was only one place this was going and it wasn’t good.

“I didn’t die, but I didn’t get away free and clear either. One of the vampires bit me.”

I sat stock still on the dock. I could almost feel the shockwaves from that last statement. “Noah, are you trying to tell me—”

“Yeah. I am.” He took a deep breath. “Zack, I’m a vampire.”

I was speechless for a second but then every little drop of incredulity that I had been feeling came pouring out at once in a huge wave. “Okay, you know what? I can’t do this. There’s just no way.”

It was just too crazy, too much, too impossible. There was no such thing as vampires, werewolves, or supernatural bounty hunters. My life had turned into Thursday night on the CW and I couldn’t handle it. I needed reality.

I jumped up, yanking my arm out of his and stomped down the dock towards the leafy trail.

Why couldn’t he just say he was afraid of being gay or that his parents didn’t want him seeing me anymore and he felt guilty because they died in some awful car crash before he could reconcile with them? Was it just so hard to admit that he’d been a chicken that he had to come up with some nuts-o story? I had to admit there was something weird going on with his family but monster hunting? Give me a fucking break.

I slapped angrily at the branches that seemed to be strangling me and tried not to picture the pain I saw on his face when I turned away.

It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t. There was no fucking way. Cause if it was then everything I knew to be reality was just some surface world that most of us existed in while supernatural forces battled beneath our noses constantly. If it was true, he’d been trying to protect me from everything that was beyond that thin film of reality. If it was true, than he really did love me and I had just walked away from him. The worst part, though, the part that was nearly unthinkable? If everything he’d said was true, than Noah Harper, the guy I always figured I’d love forever, was a vampire.

Summer Moon

If anything, it was even more impossible to fall asleep that night, than it had been the first night we’d gotten there. It had to be close to dawn before I started to feel my eyes get heavy.

I’d been so ready to forget the past. All it took was one look at his face and I just wanted to forgive him and move on. Why couldn’t it have been that easy? Why couldn’t he have hugged me and kissed me and said he made a huge mistake and he wanted us to be together? It was all I’d wanted since forever.

I squeezed my eyes shut. I needed to get some sleep. Maybe in the morning, which was coming awfully quickly, the whole thing would look different.

* * * *

It was nearly noon when I awoke to an impatient pounding on my door. I looked at my clock blearily. It took me a few seconds to remember why I had slept in so late, why I had been up most of the night thinking.

Noah.

Noah my almost-boyfriend who was a vampire and had to break up with me three years ago to protect me.

I groaned.

Who has shit like this to deal with? No one. That was the answer. No one did because it wasn’t real.

“Zack, get up!” Maya’s voice called from the other side of my door.

“I’ll be out in a minute, Maya,” I grumbled at her and headed for my still halfway packed bag to find my swimsuit. I wasn’t sure if I could handle a day of lake games after the night I’d had. “Go away for a little bit.”

“But I have something for you,” she taunted through the door. “It’s a no-ote. I found it on the doormat this morning.”

A note? Oh my god. Noah! She couldn’t read that!

I scrambled to the door, opened it, and yanked the tightly folded note out of her hand. It was taped shut on one side. I breathed a sigh of relief. I cut the tape open with my keys and opened the note with trembling hands. Just seeing his handwriting made my stomach melt.

Zack,

I guess it was too much for you to believe me just because I asked you to. I probably wouldn’t have believed any of it either, so I can’t really blame you, but it hurt all the same to watch you walk away. It hurt a lot. It made me feel even worse about what happened three years ago because I know how it feels now. I’m so sorry.

Anyway, I told you last night that I can prove that all of this is true. I promise I can. Please give me a chance to try. I’ve missed you so much and I know that I don’t deserve to have you back as a friend or anything more but...well I can only ask. So this is me asking.

Meet me at the dock tonight at ten. I’ll prove to you that I’m telling the truth and maybe then you’ll believe that I was only trying to protect you all along. If you don’t come, I’ll leave you alone from now on. At least I’ll try to. Please come. I need you...well honestly I more than need you but I don’t want to say it in a stupid note. Anyway please come. I know I said it already but I don’t know what I’ll do if you don’t.

See you later (I hope).

—Noah

My heart leapt into my throat. That little piece of paper said nearly everything I’d been dreaming of hearing from him since the day he broke our friendship apart three years before. I wished it hadn’t come after that insane night we’d just had. I flopped down on my bed holding the note to my chest like a pubescent girl.

I still loved him. There was no doubt about it. And the note seemed to imply that he felt the same. Even with all the weirdness, the thought of him telling me he loved me made me all giddy. But there still was the weirdness. The unavoidable insane story he’d spun while he was holding my hand and looking at me with sincere eyes. I could still picture his face when he looked at me and said, ‘Zack, I’m a vampire.’ How was I supposed to believe that?

I wrestled with myself all day.

The hours kept ticking by and I wasn’t any closer to deciding what I believed. Every time I thought of Noah’s face, I still got that warm melting happiness in my stomach that I’d gotten for years every time I was near him. I waited for my gut to tell me that it was all wrong, that he was crazy or lying, but the feeling never came. I could just see his face, looking so truthful and unhappy. So hurt when I walked away.

I was overwhelmed.

What the hell was I supposed to do? If I went to him, then I was basically saying I believed him and that I was ready to let him prove to me that he was a vampire and not the Noah I’d loved for so many years. The implications of that were enough to set my head spinning. If I stayed away, well just the thought made me sick. I hadn’t even begun to get over him in the three years we’d been apart. What made me think another three years or ten or twenty would make any difference?

It was well before ten by the time I realized I had to give him a chance. For me as well as for him. I had to know once and for all if he was lying or crazy, or if the impossible had somehow happened. And I had to know for sure if he still loved me.