Harvest Moon (10 page)

It was a black and silver model that caught her eye
each time she passed one. In total, she thought she saw three of the same make,
but the place was so busy that it was hard to keep track who was carrying what.
Men were passing guns back and forth to compare makes and models, and every
time a gun changed hands, Dawn would catch Jim watching warily. He couldn’t
tell them to put the guns away without losing their business while they were in
Goosemont, but that didn’t make any of them any less concerned about having
loaded guns in the bar.

But it was the black and silver one that kept drawing
her eye. As she put a tray of food down, another caught her attention, and even
though he looked half in the bag, the hunter it must have belonged to took
notice.

“She’s a beaut, ain’t she?” a skinny man with a shaggy
beard and deep set eyes said as he slung it over the chair. “Winchester
seventy, the extreme weather edition.”

“Can I see it?” Dawn asked as a weird recognition
washed over her.

“Darlin’,” the man who had to be pushing fifty said
with a yellowed smile, “you can see all of my rifles, if ya ask nice.” With
that, he tugged at his crotch and gave her a sickening wink, but Dawn ignored
it.

“Hey,” a voice cut in from another table. Dawn might
have been able to ignore the advances of the old hunter, but that didn’t mean
another person couldn’t. The next table over was filled with younger guys, pups
to the more experienced hunters. They were all looking at the older man with
intent in their eyes, but Dawn didn’t need their help.

“It’s fine,” she told them. “We’re just having a
little fun.”

“You sure?” one of the younger men asked. He had a
baby face, with soft cheeks and bright blue eyes. He didn’t look a day over
fifteen, but she could tell that he was big and strong and looking to defend
what he thought was a damsel in distress.

“Totally,” Dawn assured him. “We’re just talking,
right?” she said to the slightly inebriated older hunter who had, admittedly,
crossed a bit of a line.

“Yeah,” he said as he licked his lips. “Talking.”

“So, can I see the gun?” Dawn asked again.

“Sure,” the man said as he handed over the prize.

By that point, all eyes in the joint were on Dawn. The
quickly defused argument was still enough to hush the bar, but she was beyond
caring. There was something so familiar about having that particular gun in her
hands. Its sleek body, its weight, it all brought her back to a time long ago.

Even in a bar full of drunk men, when she closed her
eyes and held the gun up, she was a child again. It was the same gun her father
had taught her to shoot with all those years ago. It was both familiar and
cold, yet it warmed in her hands as she let herself fall back into her
memories.

“Whoa there, doll.” A voice pierced through her memory
and brought her back to reality. “Careful there, that bitch is loaded.”

“Sorry,” Dawn said as she handed the gun back over.
“It’s a nice rifle.”

“Sure is,” the man said, but Dawn was done listening.
Without looking back, she moved back behind the bar with Jim and poured herself
a pint.

“I guess I owe Gabe fifty bucks,” Jim laughed while
Dawn took a big gulp of the heady beer.

“Eh, I’ll bring him a beer,” Dawn said. “I’m sure
he’ll call it even.”

“Yeah,” Jim laughed. “Not like I don’t give you two
enough free booze as it is.”

It was nice to see Jim happy again. The stress of the
last few days seemed to age him by a decade, but one night of good business had
turned back the hands of time, at least a little.

Just as Dawn was about to finish her pint, the front
door of the bar swung open. For a second, her heart fluttered and skipped a
beat. A tall man, broad shouldered with sandy hair walked in. What really
caught her eye was the faded green jacket he wore, and for a second she was
elated and nervous all at once that Agent Nash was back.

But as the man stepped inside, she realized it wasn’t
him. It was just another hunter who happened to be wearing a similar jacket.
Nash had yet to make an appearance, and she couldn’t hide her disappointment at
that.

“You okay?” Jim asked, somehow sensing her deflation.

“Fine,” she lied. “Just tired.”

“Well, when it dies down some, head home,” Jim said.
“I’m sure Gabe and I can handle the stragglers.”

It was a nice thought, but never came to fruition.
Dawn was there for the long haul and was serving drinks until almost two in the
morning, well past Jim’s usual last call. The hunters really were thirsty, but
their drunken tips and wads of cash made up for her sore feet, her aching back,
and for the fact that a couple had decided they could get away with pinching
her butt as she served them.

“Oh, Dawnie!” Jim said as he counted up the last of
the money at the end of the night. “Oh, this is a good day, a good day indeed.”

“Glad to hear it,” she said with a feigned smile. Her
entire body ached and she was tired, so very tired. The money could only act as
a Band-Aid for that ache.

“Oh sweetie,” Jim said as he looked up from the
register. “It’s late, head home and Gabe and I will close the place up. You
look beat.”

“Thanks,” she said with a half-hearted smile. Normally
she would have insisted on staying to help, but she was exhausted. All she
wanted was her bed and about twenty-four hours of sleep.

The trucks and SUVs that the hunters had driven up in
were long gone. At two in the morning, the streets of Goosemont were empty. Not
a sound pierced through the inky blackness of the cloudy night.

Shit
, she thought to herself as she walked down
the abandoned street. Part of her wished she’d waited until Gabe and Jim were
done cleaning up. Walking home alone wasn’t her best choice, but she hadn’t
realized it until she was already outside and on her way home.

A bigger part of her wished she’d called Kevin Nash before
she’d left the bar. He always made her feel safe, even if it was against her
better judgement. But it was two in the morning, and he was probably long
asleep. Besides, she couldn’t just expect him to come running whenever she felt
nervous or scared.

As she walked, she tugged her plaid jacket closer
around herself. The night was cold and eerily quiet, but it took Dawn a couple
blocks before she realized that it was not only quiet, but deadly silent.

Not a sound could be heard. No birds were chirping, no
coyotes howling to each other in the night. No cars were moving down the
distant highway. There was nothing to break the all-consuming silence, and it
was starting to send chills down Dawn’s spine.

“It’s okay,” she said to herself, more to break the
silence than anything else. “It’s two in the morning, everything is asleep.”

From an alleyway, a soft rustling picked up and made
her jump. She wanted to believe it was just raccoons again, but she still
forced herself to look.

Down the alley, she saw the figure of a man that she
couldn’t quite make out. As the clouds covering the yellow-orange moon began to
slip away, the shape became clearer, darker, and she almost called out to the
man who was standing there, but her voice caught in her throat.

Run,
her mind told her.
Run!

Her feet were plastered to the ground. She couldn’t
move, couldn’t flee. She could only watch as the man began to change.

The man was no longer a man. Dawn watched, frozen in
fear, as his body shifted and changed and became something new. The moon
slipped away again, but even without its light, she could see the creature’s
shape.

It’s a wolf
, she realized, but her feet were
stuck in place. She could only watch, terrified, as the animal began to move
toward her.

Fear kept her rooted in place, but her mind pleaded
with her to run. Her feet refused to obey, but as the wolf let out a low,
guttural growl, somehow the spell was broken. Her feet were her own again, and
they began to move.

Deep inside, she knew she couldn’t outrun the animal.
Behind her, she could already hear its large paws as they raced across the
road, its claws clicking with every step. Still, she ran. She ran just as hard
as she had that night in Central Park, but this time it wasn’t an overweight
man in his pajamas chasing her. It was a wolf, and it was out for blood.

It was steps behind her now. She knew that without
looking. One leap and it would be on her, but she didn’t give up. She’d been
running for years, and she began to wonder if she would die running.

It was sick, but she couldn’t help herself. The image
was so ironic, so stupid, that a choked laugh that was half a sob left her
lips, but it was cut short when a second figure came into view not fifty feet
ahead.

No,
her mind groaned. One wolf, maybe she had a
chance against, but a second? She was doomed, she knew that now, but she kept
running all the same.

“Dawn,” a familiar voice called to her from up ahead.
“Dawn, get down!
Now!
”

It wasn’t another wolf come to attack her. It was
Agent Nash, come to save her. She saw him raise his gun, and though her
instincts told her the last thing she should do was stop and let herself drop
to the ground as easy prey for the wolf, her mind finally took control and she
did as he commanded.

She dropped hard to the gravel street. She’d been
running so fast that simply stopping wasn’t an option, instead she skidded and
fell, her plaid jacket providing very little protection from the hard and stony
ground beneath her.

Her own pain and fear shattered as she heard Nash fire
a shot. From behind her, she could hear the animal as it screamed in pain, but
she couldn’t see it. She was on her belly and too scared to look back. The wolf
might still be there, prowling over her and ready to gobble her up if she dared
look upon it.

Another shot rang out, but Dawn heard it hit the
ground as the wolf’s paws pounded the street. She only looked up in time to see
Agent Nash rushing toward her, gun still drawn.

“Did it bite you?” he asked her, his intense gaze
boring into her.

“No.” She shook her head as she struggled to right
herself. “No, I don’t think it touched me.”

“Good,” he said as he helped her to her feet.

He moved to leave, but her fingers caught his green
jacket and forced him to stop.

“Please,” she said, her panic and fear making her eyes
glassy with tears. “Don’t leave me. You can’t... I can’t...”

“I have to put it down,” Nash said as he looked off in
the distance, but her short delay was enough to give the wolf time to flee into
the darkness. “I only winged it. It’ll still be out there, but it’ll be slow. I
can track it.”

“Please,” Dawn repeated. “I... I...”

His eyes caught hers again, and she watched as they
softened. “Okay,” he said as he looped a strong arm around her waist to steady
her. “Let’s get you home and cleaned up.”

“What was that thing?” she asked as they made their
way toward her house.

“A wolf,” the agent said, but Dawn refused to believe
that. She wanted to question him then, but more than that, she wanted to be in the
safety of her own home.

“Okay, here we go,” he said as he helped her up the
steps of her porch. Dawn fished in her pocket for her keys and handed them to
Nash. Her fingers were shaking too much to be of any use, and again, she let
the federal agent into her home.

Gently, he helped her to the couch where she sat and
pulled off her plaid jacket to reveal two long scrapes down her left arm where
she broke her fall. While she watched, Nash moved to her kitchen and opened the
cupboard with the whiskey bottle and retrieved it. He knew exactly what he was
doing and where to look for the glasses before he poured two drinks and brought
them back over to where Dawn waited on the couch.

“That wasn’t a wolf.” Dawn shook her head as she
accepted the drink. “Not really. Was it?”

Nash didn’t answer her right away. He only tossed back
his drink before he went and grabbed the bottle from the kitchen, along with a
cloth from the counter.

“Please,” she said. “Kevin, what was that thing?”

“Take off your shirt,” he said, his voice low and
flat.

She startled, spilling her own cup a little. “What?”

“You need to take off your shirt,” he said again. “I
need to make sure you weren’t bit. Sometimes shock makes you block stuff out.”

“Kevin?” she questioned as she shuffled back on the
couch.

“Please,” he said. “Just do as I ask and I’ll explain
everything.

“Fine,” she relented. Meekly, she turned away from him
to maintain some of her modesty while she pulled her shirt over her head. She
was left wearing only her now ripped jeans and her black bra, but somehow, she
didn’t feel as exposed as she expected.

The agent’s hands went to her blonde hair and lifted
it just enough to ensure her back was free of cuts or bites. He was gentle as
he looked her arms over, his eyes resting on the scrapes before he moved on.

“Jeans, too?” she asked, knowing what he needed of
her.

He nodded, and Dawn undid her jeans and let them fall
to the floor. More scrapes from the fall could be found there, but nothing more
than that.

When she was certain he was satisfied with his
inspection, Dawn reached for her shirt again, but he stopped her.

“Kevin?” she asked again, unsure what he was doing.

“You’re hurt,” he said. “Those scrapes need to be
disinfected. And my name isn’t Kevin.”

Somehow, she knew that bombshell was coming. With
everything that had happened that night, it was the least of her surprises, and
she didn’t fight him on it. Instead, she only sat and watched as he poured some
of the whiskey onto the cloth.

“My name isn’t Kevin Nash,” he told her as he worked.
“You almost had me with the comment about the wrestler when we first met. My
real name is Jason Byrnes.”

“You aren’t FBI, are you?” she asked him, but her
question was cut off with a hiss as he pressed the damp cloth to the smaller
scrape on her knee.

“No,” he confirmed.

“I knew you weren’t like other cops,” she mused to
herself as the sting subsided.

“I’m not a cop,” he said as he put more whiskey on the
cloth. “I’m a hunter.”

“You’re nothing like any of the hunters I’ve ever met,”
Dawn said and bit down as he pressed more whiskey into her wounds.

“Not that kind,” he said. “Not really. The bedtime
stories you heard as a kid, the ones about wicked witches, vampires,
werewolves? It’s all true. Not entirely like the fairy tales, of course, but
they’re a good place to start.”

“Werewolves, vampires, monsters?” Dawn remarked. “And
here I thought people were bad enough on their own.”

The man she had known as Kevin Nash nodded as he
gently wiped away the alcohol dripping down her pale skin. “They can be.”

“So it’s a werewolf,” Dawn said, not sure she wanted
to believe it, but she’d seen the creature change with her own eyes. Somehow,
it just seemed too crazy not to be true.

“That was my hunch,” he answered. “That, or given the
location, a wendigo.”

“Jason...” Dawn said, his name foreign on her tongue.

“Please,” he stopped her. “Call me Jase. Everyone
does.”

“Jase,” she corrected herself, and somehow it felt
right. “How did you get started? With all this, I mean.”

“It was about six years ago,” he said. “I was
twenty-three and just finishing up my degree. I was walking home from a bar one
night and saw this gorgeous woman getting beat up by what I thought were two
guys. I stepped in and got my ass handed to me. That was my first encounter with
vampires, and with Addy.”

“Addy?” Dawn asked, clenching her teeth as the whiskey
touched her cuts again.

“Adelaide,” Jase said. “My old partner. Here I was,
twenty-three and thinking I was going to step in, save her from a couple of
douchebags, and she’d beg me to take her home. Turns out she saved my life and
fixed me up. She must have seen some potential in me, since she taught me to
hunt.”

“And did you...?” Dawn struggled to ask, but she
didn’t want to seem jealous over a dead woman.

“Sleep together?” Jase said with a laugh. “No, Addy’s
a lesbian. Was, I guess. Really, it was the perfect partnership. No jealousy,
just two friends traveling and hunting. I thought it would stay like that
forever. I wanted it to.

“She was actually about to give it up, though,” he
continued. “Was tired of it. She’d met a nice girl, and we were going to go our
separate ways after our last hunt. We were on the trail of a wolf pack, and
we’d taken down the alpha. Too bad we didn’t see his mate. She got the drop on
us. Addy didn’t make it.”

“I’m sorry,” Dawn said, too uncertain to say anything
else.

“Well, it is what it is,” Jase said, though the hurt
was obvious in his voice. “I have to say, most people, they hear about monsters
and ghouls and go running for the hills or think I should be locked up, not
that we tell many people. You seem relatively cool with all this.”

“I’ve seen a lot of bad,” Dawn said with a shrug, but
it only made her scrapes hurt all over again. “Maybe it’s better if some of
that bad is really monsters. Or,” she laughed, “maybe I’m in shock, and
tomorrow I’ll wake up screaming.”

“I doubt that,” Jase said as he put the cap back on
the whiskey. Dawn watched over her shoulder as he set the bottle at his feet.
She thought he was about to leave, but instead, his hands found her shoulders
again. Gently, he slid his rough palms down her bare arms, and she let herself
shiver at his touch.

She thought it would end there, a gentle caress to
reassure her that everything would be all right, but then his lips met the skin
of her shoulder and kissed her there.

Maybe it was the alcohol, or maybe it was the
adrenaline, she couldn’t be sure, but Dawn turned to face him. For a moment,
Jase’s eyes searched hers for a sign of resistance, but there was none to find.
Instead, she leaned into him, and let her lips meet his.

For everything that had happened, or in spite of it,
she let herself kiss him. In that moment, she didn’t care that he’d given her a
fake name, that he’d posed as an FBI agent and deceived her. He’d saved her, and
no man had ever done that for her before.

His lips were softer than she expected, yet his
fingers were scratchy and rough on her skin. She let herself surrender to his
embrace, and she parted her lips for his tongue as he began to explore her
mouth. Every ounce of her body demanded more, and she wove her fingers through
his soft, sandy hair as their kiss deepened.

As if driven by sudden uncertainty, Jase pulled
himself back from her. “Dawn, I...” he said, but stopped himself. “Fuck it,” he
growled as he pulled her into his arms and ignited their kiss once more.

From there, Jase’s lips trailed down her neck and
across the bare skin of her chest. His kisses were full of need, and Dawn’s
moans urged him to continue with every caress of his fingers.

“Please,” she moaned. “I need you.”

That was all it took for Jase to pull her up in his
strong, muscular arms. Easily, he carried her toward the bedroom, their kisses
only intensifying until he tossed her onto the bed.

Dawn watched as Jase began to undress himself. He was
still wearing that faded green jacket, and she waited with anticipation
coursing through her veins as he removed it. She’d already seen him once
without his shirt, but it had been innocent and completely platonic. This time
was different. This time was filled with passion, need, and desire, and she
didn’t want to wait any longer.

Finally, he pulled off the plain white t-shirt he’d
been wearing and cast it aside. The muscles of his chest, arms, and abs were flexed
as he stood over her, and Dawn drank him in with her eyes.

He didn’t make her wait long for him to join her on
the bed. His lips were on hers once more, and she never wanted them to part.
Dawn didn’t know what part of him she wanted to explore first, and instead, she
ran her delicate fingers all over him as he began to kiss down between her
breasts.

“This has to go,” he purred at her. His fingers looped
under her arched back and found the clasp of her bra. Easily, he unhooked it
and pulled it down her slender arms, revealing more of her body to him.

Something in Dawn’s mind preached modesty, but she
didn’t want to hear it. She wanted Jase, and when his lips met the bud of her
nipple, she was beyond caring about anything else. He seemed to know exactly
what her body needed, and he gave it to her in spades.

Between her legs, Dawn could feel the stiffening of
Jase’s cock through his jeans. It only served to stoke the fire building up
inside her, and soon Dawn was begging for more.

“I want you inside me,” she whispered in Jase’s ear,
and for a flash, his eyes met hers. They seemed an impossibly bright green, but
there was a smile on his lips as he moved his kisses down lower and lower until
his lips and fingers were at the top of her cotton panties.

There was no words needed then. Dawn simply lifted her
hips and let him slide off the last remaining bit of her clothing. She was
totally exposed to him, and too excited to think about anything else. All she
needed now was for him to be as naked as her.