Darkmoon (#5) (The Cain Chronicles) Read online

  Abel shoved Seth away and stood. Rylie jumped between them, hands extended. She was shorter than both of them—barely an obstacle.

  Seth stepped forward. “What were you doing to Rylie?”

  “We weren’t doing anything, you insecure little prick,” Abel said.

  “He was helping me,” Rylie said, shoving Seth when he tried to step around her. She was incredibly strong for her size.

  Rylie’s imploring voice was the only thing that could cut through the red haze of anger. Seth stopped trying to get at his brother and looked down at her. “Helping you?”

  “I have too much energy now that I can’t change,” Rylie said. “I had to put it somewhere, so Abel let me change him. And I feel so much better.”

  The intended calming effect of her words was ruined when her face suddenly crumpled. She grabbed her belly and groaned.

  “What is it?” Abel asked, stepping forward.

  Seth shot him a venomous look as he took Rylie’s shoulders. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

  She sucked in a hard gasp. “I think—I think I’m having a contraction.”

  “A contraction? You mean, a labor contraction?”

  “I don’t know,” she whimpered.

  Abel reached for her hand, but Seth shoved him away. “Don’t even think about it,” Seth said.

  Anger twisted Abel’s features. “Fine. I can see when I’m not wanted.”

  He stormed away, cutting a path through the snow, bare skin steaming. “Abel—” Rylie began, but another contraction interrupted her. She doubled over. Only Seth’s grip kept her on her feet.

  “We have to get you to Stephanie,” he said, scooping an arm underneath her legs to lift her from the snow. “And fast.”

  SIX

  The Siblings

  Rylie had always assumed that turning into a werewolf would be the most painful experience of her life. As of this morning, that was still true. But contractions were pretty close competition.

  Every time another one hit, her abs clenched, her vision blurred, her ears rang, and she tasted iron on her tongue. It wasn’t just her womb getting tight. Her whole body was along for the ride, and it was so much worse than she expected.

  Fortunately, it also didn’t last very long. The worst of them were over by the time Seth carried her back to the house, and once she lay down, they stopped entirely.

  Stephanie joined them in less than an hour.

  “Where in the world did you get that?” Seth asked, staring at the cart that Stephanie wheeled into Rylie’s bedroom.

  The doctor pulled it alongside the bed and plugged a power cord into the wall. “I got it from the hospital.” At Rylie’s look of confusion, she explained, “This is an ultrasound machine. I received it just yesterday.”

  “I thought we were going to a clinic to do this.”

  “We were, but I couldn’t arrange for a private room without an ultrasound technician present, so I told Scott to buy a used machine. Remove your jeans. I’m going to use a lot of conducting gel, and it stains fabric.”

  Rylie wiggled her pants down her hips. They had already been unzipped, since she hadn’t been able to button any of her pants for weeks. “Isn’t that kind of equipment expensive?” she asked, blushing as she revealed a pair of white panties with a bow on the hem. They were her most comfortable pair, and she had only been wearing them so she could sleep without the hem digging into her stomach. She hadn’t planned on anyone seeing them.

  “Immensely expensive,” Stephanie said.

  “I’m surprised Scott bought one.” Rylie kicked her pants off.

  “I didn’t give him a choice. He owes us a hell of a lot more than an ultrasound machine after what he did for Cain. Lay down.”

  Rylie stretched out in bed again. Even when she was flat on her back, her stomach was getting big enough that she couldn’t see her toes. Seth gazed at her with a look that was somewhere between possessiveness and fear, like he wasn’t sure what he thought about her pregnancy yet.

  Stephanie turned the machine on and positioned it beside the bed. “How are you feeling now?”

  “I haven’t had any contractions for about twenty minutes.”

  “Good. What were you doing when they started?”

  Rylie glanced at Seth, but his eyes were fixed on the blank monitor. “Seth and Abel were fighting,” she said.

  Stephanie made a noncommittal noise. “I checked my old medical school textbooks on obstetrics before coming over. If they were irregular, and changing positions reduced the intensity, then they were almost certainly Braxton-Hicks. They’re practice contractions to help your body prepare for the real thing.”

  “They felt awfully convincing for practice contractions.”

  “Hmm. Well, let’s take a look. We might be able to make out the baby’s gender today.” She squirted cold gel onto Rylie’s stomach. “This is an old machine, so detail won’t be very good. You won’t be picking out Uncle Bob’s nose just yet.”

  “Or Grandma Eleanor’s crazy eyes,” Seth muttered. It wasn’t really funny, but Rylie still giggled nervously. “Do we have the blood work back yet?”

  “Most of it, and everything looks normal. But I had to send the vial for paternity testing to a special lab, and the results have been delayed. Let’s see what else I can find.”

  Stephanie pressed the wand to Rylie’s stomach and slid it across her skin, eyes focused on the monitor. The screen was turned so that only the doctor could look at it.

  Rylie held still, unsure if she was allowed to breathe or move during the scan. Seth’s hand squeezed hers tightly, and she didn’t shake him off. She was too scared to be angry.

  The silence stretched long.

  “Hmm,” Stephanie said.

  “That’s a good ‘hmm,’ right?” Seth asked, squeezing Rylie’s hand harder.

  “Not quite.”

  Oh God, Rylie was going to pass out. “What’s wrong? Is it furry? Does it have four legs?” She was speaking too fast, and her words tumbled over each other.

  “Actually, yes,” Stephanie said, and Seth paled. “I do see four legs. I also don’t see much other detail, but that’s because you’re not as far along as I expected. Let me show you what I mean.”

  She rotated the monitor. Rylie couldn’t make any sense of the blurry image on the screen. It looked like a big gray cloud, with two black circles in the middle.

  “What is that?” she asked.

  “This is a placenta,” Stephanie said, pressing a button to make the image freeze. She pointed at a thin line. “That’s a spine. This dot is a heartbeat. We should be able to hear that, too.” She unfroze the image, repositioned the wand in a way that made the image swirl and blur, and turned a dial.

  A steady thumping filled the room. It was way too fast, like a humming bird heart.

  She moved the wand again. The thumping faded and then returned.

  “I’m finding the heartbeat in two places,” Stephanie said. “I think I also see a second placenta, and a second spine. So…yes, definitely four legs, four hands, two skulls…”

  Rylie stared at her blankly, but Seth sucked in a hard breath.

  “What? What does that mean? Is it a mutant?” she asked.

  “No,” Seth said. “It means that we’re having twins.”

  Levi returned while Rylie and Gwyn were looking at the printouts from the ultrasound. Rylie heard his car pull up outside the kitchen window, but his voice was too soft for Rylie to understand what he was saying to Pyper. She didn’t care anyway. Even the sound of Levi’s approach couldn’t make her feel any worse than she already did.

  Stephanie had managed to capture a great picture of both babies. They looked kind of like gummy bears.

  “Twins,” Gwyn said, all but trembling with excitement.

  “Twins,” Rylie repeated, dropping her head onto the table. Her forehead thunked against the wood.

  There was coffee brewing even though neither of them drank it anymore. Stephanie had officially
banned all caffeine in the wake of the contractions, and it wouldn’t do much good for a zombie, either. But the smell should have been comforting.

  It wasn’t.

  “Oh, pumpkin.” Aunt Gwyn rubbed her arm. “It’s not going to be that bad.”

  “It is going to be that bad,” she said into the table. “I’ve never even babysat for an infant before. And now I’m going to have two of them, and they’re going to be werewolves, and I am in so far over my head.”

  “But look at them.” Gwyn’s voice was filled with warmth. “They’re all cozy in there. Your daddy would—”

  “I don’t care what my daddy would think. He’s not here to help me!” Rylie snapped, glaring at her aunt.

  Gwyn’s hand stilled. “Don’t use that tone with me. Being scared is no reason to disrespect his memory.”

  “Scared? I am so much more than scared, Aunt Gwyn. What am I going to do?”

  “You’re going to deal with it,” she said matter-of-factly. “And I’m not going to listen to melodramatic whining on the subject. You’re allowed to be intimidated. That’s normal. But there’s a lot of terrible things in this world, many of which we’ve seen firsthand, and two wonderful little babies are not among those terrible things. You hear me?”

  “Easy for you to say,” Rylie muttered.

  Gwyn grabbed a mug of coffee, warming her hands on the outside without drinking. “You won’t have to deal with this alone, babe. I’m with you every step of the way.”

  Seth had said something like that, too. It hadn’t been comforting then, and it wasn’t comforting now.

  Levi pushed through the back door, stomping mud and slush on Gwyn’s clean linoleum. Rylie was glad for the distraction. She flipped the ultrasound pictures face-down on the table.

  “Where have you been?” she asked.

  “I was picking up the new werewolf from the airport.” Levi peeled off his boots. “Abel was probably too busy getting drunk to do it himself.”

  He ambled toward the living room, and Rylie sniffed the air as he passed. “Why do you smell like Tate’s aftershave?”

  “So Bekah told you.”

  “She didn’t tell me anything.” Rylie turned in her chair to face him. “How did you run into Tate while going to the airport?”

  “Why do you care? You ate his mom.”

  Rylie shoved her chair back to stand, but before she could speak, Stephanie elbowed past Levi to enter the room. “What’s going on here?” she asked.

  “Werewolf pissing contest,” Gwyn said.

  Levi glared. “I’m glad you think it’s funny.”

  He moved to leave, but Stephanie grabbed his arm. She was a tall woman, so she could look him straight in the eye. “I don’t care about werewolf pack Alpha nonsense,” she said. “You’re not allowed to get into fights with Rylie anymore. This is a health issue. You have to set aside your pettiness for the sake of her babies.”

  His eyes widened. “Babies?”

  “Whatever issues you have, they can wait,” Stephanie went on, ignoring his question. “She needs to rest.”

  “Then it sounds like she’s not in good enough shape to be Alpha anymore, does it?” Levi asked, shooting a look at Rylie before storming out of the room.

  Rylie moved to follow him, but Stephanie blocked her. “Get out of my way,” Rylie said. “He’s challenging my dominance!”

  “And you’re hardly in a position to fight back. As your doctor, I forbid it.” Stephanie washed her hands at the sink, dried them on a towel, and grabbed her jacket off the back of a chair. “You’re officially off Alpha duty. If that means letting Levi have the pack, then let him have it.”

  “But—”

  “No buts. I’m serious.” Stephanie jerked her jacket closed, gave Rylie a stern look, and marched out the back door.

  “No,” Rylie said, even though there was nobody left for her to argue with. “He can’t have my pack.”

  “Stephanie’s right, babe. This isn’t the time to be fighting with anyone.” Aunt Gwyn lifted the mug to her lips without drinking, as if relishing the smell. “But there’s an Alpha male wandering around who can.”

  Rylie bit her lip and flipped over the scans again. Stephanie had taken several pictures, including one that was meant to show the babies’ faces. They were too blurry to tell if either of them actually had noses and mouths, much less whether they resembled Seth or Abel.

  Gwyn was right. Abel would be happy to fight Levi.

  “I think he’s gone,” Rylie said. “He got in a fight with Seth this morning.”

  “Then you know what you have to do if you want to keep your pack.” Her aunt stood and emptied her coffee into the sink. “Get him back.”

  Rylie found Seth near the gate at the bottom of the hill. She opened her mouth to call for him, but stopped when she realized that he was deep in conversation with a stranger.

  She approached them cautiously, one hand on her stomach as if she could protect her babies by touching them. This stranger was tall and muscular with eyes like shards of sapphire and hair to his shoulders. His skin was the kind of tan that came from spending long hours in the sun. He was almost as big as Abel, and looked like a cross between a biker and a bodybuilder.

  He also smelled like wolf.

  Her hackles lifted at the sight of him. She let out a growl before she could stop herself.

  The sound made both men look over at her. “So this is Rylie, I take it,” said the new werewolf. He had a deep, rolling Southern accent that sounded like melted chocolate. She barely heard him. There was something extremely dominant about the new wolf, and her inner Alpha was rising to the challenge.

  “This is Rylie,” Seth confirmed. The new man lowered his eyes, hunched his shoulders, and slowly dropped to one knee. It was a submissive posture, meant to appease her. It worked. Her fists relaxed, and Seth took her hand. “His name’s Brody. I told you he was going to join us a few weeks ago. Remember?”

  She took several deep, calming breaths before responding. Her fingernails ached, which was a bad sign. Those were usually the first things to go when she wolfed out. “I forgot about that. Is he…safe?”

  “There are no odd tattoos.”

  Brody glanced up at Seth without standing. “I’ve got more than a few tats.” Rylie’s gaze dropped to his hands. Sleeves covered his arms, but she could see tribal patterns all the way onto his knuckles.

  “But nothing bloody,” Seth said, referring to the bleeding apple tattoos that all of Cain’s followers wore.

  Rylie nodded and checked her fingernails. They were secure. “It’s good you got here safely,” she said, forcing herself to smile. Gwyn would smack her upside the head if she didn’t display appropriate manners to a guest. “Especially considering how everything’s been since the senator got assassinated. What were you two talking about down here?”

  “We were making arrangements,” Seth said. “Brody has special skills we can use.”

  “Special skills?”

  It was Brody who responded. “My background is in personal security. Bodyguardin’, to be precise. I’ve been asked to keep you safe, ma’am.”

  She was torn between shock at the idea of a bodyguard and confusion at having someone ten years her senior calling her “ma’am.” Seth caught her confused expression and gave her a gentle hug. “I can’t always be here to protect you, Rylie. As long as we’re dealing with all of this unrest, I’d feel a lot better knowing there’s someone to watch your back.”

  “A bodyguard? But I don’t want a bodyguard.”

  Brody stood slowly—no sudden movements. “I assure you, I am very discreet.”

  “Seth? Can we talk?” Her voice was a full octave higher than usual.

  They stepped a few feet away, and Brody politely turned his back. It was more for show than anything else. Werewolves had great hearing, and they would have had to be on opposite sides of the property in order to really speak privately.

  “What’s wrong?” Seth asked.


  “I wouldn’t need a bodyguard if you’d just let Abel protect me,” she hissed through clenched teeth. “I don’t want some strange guy following me around!”

  “Rylie—”

  She jabbed him in the chest with a finger. “I want you, and I want Abel. That’s it. And I’m really going to need Abel if I want to stop Levi’s new megalomaniac streak. Abel has to take over as Alpha.”

  “But Abel left.”

  “Because you attacked him!”

  “Can you blame me? I’ve been putting up with him for years.”

  “You’ll have to deal with a few more months,” Rylie said. “Fix this. Go find your brother and bring him back. Now.” She glanced at Brody over Seth’s shoulder and saw that he was still facing the other way. “And I am not taking a bodyguard!”

  She whirled and stomped up the snowy path to the house without waiting to see if Seth obeyed.

  SEVEN

  Come Back to Me

  Abel got all the way into town before he really thought about what he was doing. He had walked away from Seth and Rylie blinded by rage and the urge to protect Rylie from his brother, which didn’t even make any sense. She wasn’t in danger from Seth.

  He just didn’t want to share her anymore.

  Abel had dressed in clothes that he kept in the trunk of the Chevelle—a loose t-shirt, jeans, and steel-toed boots—and immediately gone into town. He was still fuming after the twenty minute drive. And it was only then that he realized he had left Rylie behind while she was having contractions, and probably needed him.

  “Hell,” he muttered, pulling the Chevelle into the grocery store parking lot. He didn’t want to buy anything; it just happened to be the easiest place to get out of traffic. Abel had no idea where to go after that.

  Part of him wanted to turn around and check on Rylie. But an equally large part of him was much too angry at Seth.

  “He’ll take care of her,” he growled under his breath, hands clenched tight on the steering wheel.