The Willing (17 page)

Suddenly it was crystal clear to me: I
had to make myself invaluable to this cold mans’ future plans, but
how? There was only one way I could think of, and it made me shiver
with disgust. I had done a lot of sickening things in my
life—killed my lover, seduced a married man, killed a priest,
devoured human flesh, planned to destroy an entire subspecies—but
even this felt like it bordered on insanity.

Making Ranier crave me so intensely
that he would demand me kept alive—at least until Micah was safely
in my arms—would take skill and more than a little nerve…and maybe
some antacids.

His sharp voice called me back to the
current moment. “We will leave after the betrayer moon.”

I looked around. We had made it to his
garden without me even taking note of walking through the expansive
hallways and through sitting rooms. Everything seemed to be
exploding into bloom, colors everywhere. All I could do was echo
his words.

“The betrayer moon?” I asked,
puzzled.

“Bah, the ignorance of you Americans.
What is the word for this phenomenon?” He seemed lost in thought
for a moment before giving up. He pointed to the sky, where
currently the bright sun shone overhead. “It occurs when there is a
second moon in a single month. We will have the betrayer moon next
week. The Change will be the most painful of your short life so
far,” he added, almost gleefully. “Your muscles will stretch and
tear as they never have, forced to Change again so soon after the
last moon’s cycle.”

“Oh shit,” I murmured. “The blue
moon.”

Suddenly his hands found my shoulders
and crawled up my neck, sending ghostly tingles down my spine. “I
am glad you see the significance. It is why we call it by its
ancient name of ‘Betrayer.’ None of us enjoy its actions. But you
will learn to conquer the pain or die trying, young one.” His teeth
nipped my sensitive flesh, and I swallowed heavily. “We all pay the
price of the damned, and you are no exception.”

His hands moved from my shoulders, to
my neck, to my breasts, and as much as I wanted to push him away, I
knew this could be the only way I would save my child. I let his
lips and teeth test the limits of my flesh that day.

Shasta

It was just us girls that night:
Delilah, Rachel, Lenora, and me. It was one in the morning, and the
kids were in bed. I was enjoying the feeling of being with my
friends again after being away so long. Delilah and Rachel
chattered back and forth about Rachel’s latest interior designing
contract. Lenora was mixing whisky into cups of blood for all of
us. We were going to toast and celebrate my recruitment efforts.
For once, the celebrations were for me. It was such a nice
feeling.

I was the only one who noticed when she
completely stopped and stared off into the distance. I got up and
walked over to her.

“Lenora? What’s wrong?” I took the cup
that she absently held in midair.

Her face became animated with a look of
horror. “Everything’s changed.” She turned to Rachel and Delilah,
who had risen from the table at her outburst. “We’ve got to move.
We’ve got to get to Mexico.”

“Lenora,” Delilah began. “It’s the
middle of the night, sweetie. We don’t have our passports, and how
are we going to get there?”

“Those things don’t matter!” Lenora
said frantically. “If we don’t get down there, we’ll lose him.
We’ll lose little Micah.”

Rachel pursed her lips. “But what about
all of this? Here?”

Lenora turned to me, her eyes alighting
on my face as if she were just seeing me for the first time. All
the bitterness over Rachel’s rejection of me and acceptance of
Emily, every single shard of anger I felt over always being the
last of everyone’s concern and being treated like a child, and the
loneliness I had created in my own mind melted when she turned to
me.

“Shasta?” she said, her lip quivering
slightly. “Can you do this, young one? Are you willing to take this
risk?”

Suddenly, the world was blue. Not the
mellow blue of an ocean, but cold, clear blue of Luka’s eyes. It
was only for a split second, but it brought back all the anger and
the hurt I had been living these past few months while I traveled,
alone, to gather the Children here. They loved me. They are the
ones who are standing beside me now. Lenora is the one who summoned
us and gave us a purpose. Gave me a purpose. I was so overwhelmed
with emotion that I almost choked on the words as I said
them.

“
Of course. I will destroy
them for you, Lenora. For all of us. The Children will never starve
again. I swear it.”

If you enjoyed this work,
please check out the first novel of the series,
The Reluctant
, and the follow
up,
The Betrayed
.