Blue Moon: Blood Moon Trilogy #3 (36 page)

“I can’t believe it,” Layla offered breathlessly as she leaned back in her chair. Her eyes glistened with tears as she stroked her stomach. Behind her, Vince laid a hand on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze. She looked up at him. “If only we’d found her sooner.”

“You can’t blame yourself,” I told her. “With the barrier spell they’d used, there was no way we were going to locate that place if I hadn’t been taken. I wish this wasn’t a possibility, but all the evidence indicates it might very well be.”

I explained everything we found in the lab, and I recounted what I’d found the day of the murder before the cops showed up as well as earlier in the library.

“True, I picked up traces of the vampires, but it wasn’t nearly as strong as it would’ve been had there been even one in that room,” I continued. “Something wasn’t adding up.”

“I believe you,” a small voice said from the entry. I turned to find Colby there, hair limp, skin pale, arms crossed as she leaned against the doorframe. “I knew something was off with her.” Colby’s eyes met mine. “I should’ve said something sooner. I just…I thought what everyone else did—that she was suffering from some sort of post traumatic stress or something. I didn’t think she would—”

Zach rounded the table and pulled her into his arms as she broke down. Her sobs were muffled against his chest as he ran a hand over her head and back, trying to calm her. It wasn’t hard to see that she harbored some guilt about what happened. She probably thought that, because she shared a room with Cordelia, she should have seen the signs a little more clearly.

By that logic, though, I should have seen something was amiss before I broke her out and brought her back home…

The sounds of Cordelia’s screaming echoed through the house. No matter how hard we tried to block her out, it seemed like it was all we heard. I had gone down a couple of times to see if I could reason with her. I couldn’t. She was so reluctant to open up about anything, and the more she fought, the more I realized that the change into a hybrid might have actually wiped out every ounce of humanity she had as a wolf, just as Alistair had said it might.

Colby and Corbin weren’t able to handle the sound of their sister screaming from the pit…not that I could blame them. Having spent so much time getting to know the person I thought she was, it was hard for me to listen to, also. Instead of forcing them to stick around, I gave them instructions to take my parents to the airport and get them on a plane back home. I called ahead and spoke to Keaton and O’Malley, fabricating a story about how they’d decided at the last minute to come back and extend their vacation, having fallen in love with the mountains. I hated lying to them, but they couldn’t know the whole truth. Mom and Dad knew to keep everything they’d learned to themselves for everyone’s safety.

I asked Keaton and O’Malley to meet them at the airport and give them a ride home. I really wanted them there to make sure nothing happened to my parents again—not that they’d be able to stop them if it did, but I was hopeful that Bobby would be too preoccupied with finding his pet project to worry about my parents.

Last time she went missing, it was organized to happen that way, and I had played right into it. This time, we had taken her on our terms.

I said goodbye to my parents outside the manor, promising to update them as soon as everything was over. Mom was still hesitant to accept everything, and that was okay. I wasn’t going to rush her and scare her off.

Zach had gone with the two of them when I voiced my concern. I wouldn’t put them in danger like that. Alistair offered to go as well, now that the barrier spells were in place and fully functional. That made me feel better.

After they left, the rest of the Pack stayed gathered around the dining room table. Not an inch of the glossy wood finish could be seen as they started leafing through information inside the files we took from the coven’s research lab. We were learning a lot more than we’d anticipated about how they succeeded—it wasn’t just about DNA, but the timing had to be just right, depending on if it was wolf or parasite that was being changed. You couldn’t just merge our blood with theirs; if a vampire wanted to be made a hybrid, it had to be done on the night of a new moon, and for a wolf, the moon had to be full.

Not only were the specifics of the transformations different, but their appearances were too. Nick and I had already seen Cordelia’s hybrid transformation on the DVD we’d stumbled upon, but we were in the dark about what a vampire-based hybrid might look like. There had never been a documented case, as far as we could tell, anyway. As we read a little further, Cordelia’s two wolf forms were also explained: on the night of a full moon, a hybrid was at its strongest, meaning it would retain physical attributes of both races. She would be forced to shift, growing in size, her strength would increase far surpassing ours or even a vampires, and she would be more feral and harder to control. Every other time she shifted, she would take on wolf form, but be impervious to silver, and her speed would rival even the fastest vampire’s.

Research mode coupled with tonight’s impending full moon made me antsy, so Nick and I headed down to the basement. With the knowledge we now held about Cordelia’s strengths, I wasn’t sure the cage would hold her once she shifted, and if she did get out, would we be able to stop her? There was only an hour left until sundown, and I was going to dread every minute of it, when only a month ago, I looked forward to it.

We were just outside the door to the pit. My skin crawled with every ear-piercing shriek Cordelia released. It took me back to the way she’d scream when they removed her from her cell, my body reacting viscerally and wanting to rip something apart…

Until I forced myself to realize that it had all been an elaborate act. She’d played me back then, used me to see how far we could get—to get her into the manor under the guise of having been rescued. I came to realize that, with how calculated and precise their research notes were, that they didn’t make a lot of silly mistakes…like killing a key-holding vampire in their prisoner’s cell and then “forget” that there were keys that were left behind. No. I knew, without a shadow of doubt, that the keys were left on purpose. Bobby knew I would find them and try to escape after Cordelia had gained my trust and manipulated me into thinking she needed to be saved.

Yes, there had been a solid plan in place. One that tracked all the way back to Arizona.

Violent tremors rocked through my body as I reached for the door and ripped it open. It flew so hard and fast that it connected with the plaster wall with a solid
thwack
, cracking the pristine white finish.

“Brooke?” Nick called after me as I descended the stairs. “What are you doing?”

“Shutting her up, with any luck,” I muttered.

We’d just reached the bottom of the stairs when Nick grabbed me by the arm and stopped me. I caught a glimpse of Cordelia in my periphery, eyes narrowed and hair wild.

“You can’t kill her, and you know she’s not going to tell us anything.” Nick kept his voice low, trying to keep the conversation between us.

“He’s not wrong,” Cordelia practically sang.

I looked back at her, seeing a completely different person than the girl I thought I’d gotten to know when we were both held captive. She smirked, and I turned back to Nick. “Can you just…give me a few minutes alone with her?” Nick’s uncertainty was obvious in the way he looked at me and the waves of emotions that were rolling off him. “Just a few minutes. You don’t have to go far, and I don’t plan to let her out. I just…I need to be alone with her.”

With a despondent sigh, Nick kissed my forehead and went back upstairs. I waited until the heavy door closed behind him and had to take a moment before facing Cordelia, reminding myself that she wasn’t the sweet little girl who’d been in trouble; she was a ruthless killing machine who’d tricked me.

My anger slid back into place.

Cordelia was sitting on the bed as I approached, her hands placed delicately in her lap, and her face instantly transformed to the one I remembered had looked up to me like I was some kind of hero.

Her big hazel eyes stared up at me in an attempt to appear innocent and scared. That persona had been shattered the minute I watched her rip another werewolf apart on video.

I’d tried to deny it, but it was finally clear that she had used me to get back into the Pack so she could destroy us from the inside. I had no doubts that the girl she used to be was sweet and genuine, but the monster she had become only wore her face and used her memories to gain our trust. She wasn’t Cordelia anymore; she was Bobby’s protégé.

I knew she wouldn’t respond to me if I asked her about their plans; I had to find another way to get information out of her, had to find a way to get her to talk without realizing she was feeding me the information I sought…

Then it struck me like a bolt of a lightning: She might have been a hybrid, bound by her connection to Gianna and Bobby to keep their secrets, but she was still a teenager.

By nature, most teenagers typically only cared about one thing, and that was themselves. Given the opportunity, they would talk about themselves all day and night just to feed their narcissistic tendencies.

“How are you?” I asked, slipping into the guise of someone who actually cared.

Cordelia regarded me carefully, eyes narrowing as she gauged my mood. She must have realized that I couldn’t be fooled any longer, so she decided not to toy with me. “Feeling a bit trapped in this cage,” she finally replied.

I leaned on the table in the middle of the room and out of reach of the cage—I’d learned my lesson after what happened down here with Karl not too long ago, and I didn’t care to repeat that day. “I do apologize, but I hope you understand why I had to do it.”

Cordelia was now confused; I could sense it thickening the air.

“You know,” I began. “I’ve been thinking a lot about what Bobby said before we escaped.” Cordelia’s eyes locked on mine. “About turning me into one of you?”

“Good for you,” she snapped.

“What’s it like?” I asked. “The change…does it still hurt? I have to say that’s the worst part about this life…” I wasn’t lying; the pain one endured when changing was extremely difficult to deal with, but it was only a small price to pay in the big picture, and I was now at a place where I welcomed it…but she didn’t have to know that.

As I suspected, Cordelia’s expression brightened, and she stood up. She reached for the bars of the cage, only to be zapped by an invisible electric current that glowed blue when touched—another of Alistair’s barrier spells to keep Cordelia from trying to escape. I only hoped it would hold up once the sun went down.

“It’s incredible,” she said wistfully. “There’s this sense of freedom from it all—the pain is nonexistent, and you get all the benefits of the coven. The speed, agility…”

I tried to contain my revulsion as she carried on; the floodgates had officially been opened, and she spewed her words like vomit.

“The way Bobby tells it, Gianna was deeply fascinated by the idea of using twins as her test subjects. After years of failed attempts, she had figured out that the blood types just weren’t cohesive. That was when she started looking for subjects who were related to one another. You and your brother intrigued her, but sadly you got away that first night.”

I had to fight back my surprise at learning that my parents could have lost both of their children that night, and I was thankful, for the first time, for how that night turned out.

“How long have you been…free?” I asked carefully.

Cordelia smiled genuinely. “Just about four months. They had planned to wait until I was a little older, but when Bobby returned to tell me that Gianna had met her end, he was so blind with grief that he just couldn’t wait any longer.” Cordelia’s eyes went blank as though she were reliving the memory. “I remember being scared when he injected me with Gianna’s blood, and then I felt nothing…and it was glorious. For the first time in years of captivity, I finally felt free.

“When the transformation was a success, Bobby was elated. He knew he had to find you and bring you here so you could be a part of our coven.” I cringed as she recognized the coven over her pack. “Then he found out you were pregnant…that was a game changer. To be able to change the pup from birth and raise it to be the perfect little soldier…”

My hands flew to my belly, and I stood up off the table, suddenly fiercely protective of my unborn child. Cordelia caught a glimpse of my defiance, and she balked, instantly shutting down. It was like a large metal door slammed down between us.

Before either one of us could say another word, sirens started going off, the sound so shrill it almost deafened me. Cordelia didn’t seem too fazed by the sound, though, only smiling at me as she stood in place.  “Cavalry’s here,” she sneered. “Better make your choice, Brooke. You can either be on the winning team…or die with the rest of your worthless pack.” She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, nose turning up toward the ceiling. “Sun’s almost down. Tick tock…”