Moonbound (Moonfate Serial Book 1) (3 page)

“Okay, okay, okay,” I mumble, half trying to placate him, half trying to gather my thoughts. Out of the corner of my eye I notice his phone has an alert for fifty-three unread text messages. Jesus, and I thought I had relationship phobia. Lawrence has got to start replying to his one-night stands or at least block them.

Lawrence, however, has something else on his mind. He kicks under the bed. “What's this?”

“What?” I run my hand through my bedhead of blonde curls. If my mate isn’t close, how did he come into my dream?

Lawrence reaches under the bed, pulling out the duffle. “This.”

At first I think he’s pointing at the nest of yellow Post-it notes lining the bag with bold Sharpie messages like, “Remember who killed them.” But then he moves aside a tank top to reveal the gun underneath.

Shit.

Lawrence frowns, picks up the gun, and turns it over in his hand with expert care. “At least you still have the safety on.” He does a good job of keeping the hurt out of his voice, but I can see it in the way his eyes turn down at the edges. With a guy as composed as Lawrence, even the whispers of gestures feel like screams.

He must be thinking about John. His first boyfriend died in a drive-by. I’m not the only one who’s lost someone, and me almost pointing a gun at him is the equivalent of him bringing a werewolf to dinner.

God, I’m an asshole.

“Jesus, Lawrence, I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

His long eyelashes flutter as he inhales and closes his eyes before gently laying the gun back down in the duffle bag. “Why did you buy it?”

“There have been more of them around lately,” I say.

“Mm.”

Watching the tight edges of his mouth, I decide I’m not going to keep anything from him. “My dream was different last night.”

His eyes open and he tilts his head, evaluating me. “How?”

“I saw…” I swallow, not wanting to say the words out loud, not wanting to make them real. ”I think I saw my mate.”

His eyebrows raise only a fraction of an inch, but for Lawrence that passes for astonishment. “And you woke up from the dream, saw me in the doorway, and…”

“Yeah.”

A wistful smile flashes across his face. “I'm flattered. All my work at the gym must be paying off. Let no one say a V-positive can’t look hot.”

I can't even summon a weak laugh. “I'm so, so sorry, Law.”

“It’s done.” His words aren’t a forgiveness, but the way he places his hand over mine and rubs it with his thumb is.

“Thanks,” I say, meaning it in a way most people don’t. We may not tell each other everything, but the things we do share, we share completely. Our friendship is made of these brief moments, perfect islands of intimacy in vast oceans of secrets.

His thumb pauses. “Just promise me you’ll be careful with it.”

“I will,” I say throatily. But I know that a gun is useless. Not when the real enemy isn’t my mate, but the feelings he wakes inside of me.

“Good.” Lawrence pats my hand one last time before standing up. “I’ve got an appointment at the doctor’s in an hour, and then I’m getting ready to shoot a wedding tomorrow.” He stretches, and I can count every bone in his ribcage through his semi-transparent orange tank top.

“How are you feeling?” I ask. Lawrence shouldn’t be taking the bus, but I can’t call him a cab. I spent everything on the damn gun.

“Perfectly fine.” He gives a too-open smile, his sharp white teeth contrasting with his dark skin and darker eyes. “Just a routine checkup.”

“Any, you know…issues?” I look down at my wide, bare feet. We don’t call his disease by its real name…vampirism. Being V-positive is perhaps the only label worse than werebeast or weremate.

“No.” His grin is gone, replaced by the same impassive expression.

Lawrence is either the most honest person I’ve ever met or the best liar. Then again, I try not to pry, even though we’ve been roommates and semi-vagabonds together since we met at that dirty McDonalds, both fed up with our situations, and ran away together on a whim.

“What are you doing today?”

“Probably getting dressed, then the dishes, then work.”

“You mean you’re going to check Tracker twenty million times and probably chew off the rest of your manicure before you finally throw on one of those black outfits.”

“That’s what I said.” I offer my signature facial expression: something between a smile and a pout. I call it a smout.

“Just don’t pick the harem pants this time. You’re too hot to look like a genie from the nineties, Artemis.”

“At least I don’t look like a hipster road sign.” I wonder if he chose to wear hazardous colors on purpose. Unless he gets regular blood transfusions, he’s deadly, so it kind of makes sense.

“Better a road sign than a burglar. If I dressed like you, I’d be arrested,” says Lawrence.

“You would drown in my clothes before you could even get out the door.”

He smiles at me with Zen condescension. “You’d save me.”

“I’ll always save you, Law,” I promise, going for melodramatic, but somehow ending up sounding sincere.

“I know.” He slips out the door.

I roll over to my nightstand and grab my charging laptop. It may be bright pink and scuffed around the edges, but it’s the best and oldest protection I have against weres. Far better than any gun.

The instant I touch my computer I feel more relaxed. The mystery of how my mate entered my dream without being nearby is a big one, but if growing up in the 2000s has taught me anything, it’s that mysteries don’t last long when confronted with the Internet. Books like
Beasts, Blood & Bonds
have nothing on that.

Chapter Four

The air mattress squeaks underneath me as I lean back into the wall and click the icon of howling wolf encircled by a red scope at the top of the screen. Then the computer screen turns bright white, filling with a map of the city of Rochester, New York, where I live. It looks normal, not a dot anywhere.

I zoom out a hundred miles until the blue of Lake Ontario consumes most of the top of the display and the Finger Lakes mar the green of upstate New York. They look more like claw scratches to me than fingers, but they’re not what scare me. Everything outside of the city swarms with red dots.

Holy crap. I knew there were a lot around yesterday, but now it looks like there’s a hundred—at least. Any one of them could be my mate.

If I listen to Tracker, then the only place that’s safe is where I am, but if I go by my dreams, then my mate has to be close by. It doesn’t make sense; Tracker’s never failed me before.

After three other campers found me in the woods with my parents’ bodies and called the police, no one listened to my side of the story. No matter how many times I told them that I had heard very human voices, they were adamant in classifying it as a bear attack. No one wanted to believe the werebeasts were back. Not after the territory wars of the eighteenth century.

Then Timothy Higgins claimed responsibility for my parents’ murders and transformed into a bear on national television. No one knows why. I probably never will. The Federal Bureau of Supernatural Investigation will never let Timothy speak to the public.

After he confessed, the government started experimenting with his DNA and within only a few years they had a foolproof genetic test for werebeasts. Then it was only a matter of time until they started implementing it and tagging anyone who didn’t pass. The ACLU complained for a while and others said that we should kill them all, but at the end of the day, the government didn’t do anything to werebeasts except track their locations and reinstate an old law that made shifting inside of high-population areas a capital crime.

The media has fractured into those intrigued by the werebeasts (it doesn't hurt that they’re all very buff men) and those openly distrustful of them, but there’s one thing they all agree on: their disdain for weremates.

The conservatives consider us sinful traitors to our species, and the liberals call us doormats with a furry fetish. I can’t imagine what would happen if any of them ever found out that Artemis Williams, darling orphan, bears the mark. They’d blame me for my parents’ death, no doubt.

I shake my head, not wanting to think about it, and scroll out farther, until the entirety of New York State fills the monitor. Then I click on a dot randomly.

After a second, the site transitions over to Tracker’s other function, a sort of social network called Tracker LITE whose ad costs support the real Tracker. And it gives the government more data to mine too.

Name: Cal Singh

Age: 27

Species: Tiger

Status: Mated

My fingers unclench. I hadn’t even noticed they’d been almost peeling the keys off the keyboard as I read.

I scroll through a couple more. Some of the names are familiar; there’s a werecoyote named John in Pittsford, a wereraven named Everett near Menden Ponds, but the closest one, right on the edge of downtown Rochester, is what looks like a werepufferfish named Cooper.

Wait, what?

A werepufferfish?

I double-click on the last one.

I know that weres can choose where and when they shift unless there’s no moon, and then they can’t change at all, but I still have a hard time imagining exactly how transforming into a fish would work. Does he do it in the swimming pool, or does he have his own personal fish tank?

I grin, picturing it.

My grin falters when his profile finishes loading and I see that he has a picture on it. He’s handsome. While his tanned face is round and his dark hair is spiky, any resemblance to his token animal ends there. He’s got that kind of sweet, slightly feminine look that parents trust and a smart, yellow polo shirt to complete the look. His profile, though, is pure assholery. A groan builds in my chest as I read it.

Dear humanity. My name is Cooper Dunham, and I’m a powerful sea creature. Google ‘pufferfish’ for more info on that. While I’m sure you’re all lining up to get a piece of this fin, I’d ask that you keep the queue orderly and limit yourself to messaging me only if you have a scaled matemark and an interest in becoming my little mermaid. Unless you like Reddit. All hotties who like Reddit and are capable sandwich makers are welcome. Cooper ‘Spiky Fish’ Dunham, out.

God, even the werepufferfish is a dominating bastard. I’m just about to log off in disgust when I see that one of the red dots on the fringes of the map is moving closer. And closer. And closer. A line traces its last location.

When I see the figure on the icon, my breath catches.

A wolf. And the only wolf I’ve seen so far.

My hand hovers over the track pad, debating whether to click. This wolf is over seventy miles away. He can’t be my mate. There’s no way he could’ve entered my dreams from that great a distance.

I click and am brought to a bare-bones profile.

Name: Orion North

Species: Wolf

Age: 27

Mate Status: Unspecified

Unlike Cooper, the asshole pufferfish, Orion’s profile has nothing more than the basics. Nothing about his mark. Not even a picture of his human form. But he does have something that Cooper didn’t—a small green circle next to his name.

He’s online.

Fuck.

The thought of it makes him feel closer. As if I can reach out and touch him. As if he can touch me. I should shut the window, but his mate status tempts me.

Unspecified.

Is he my mate? If he is, I can run from him. Leave the house to Lawrence for a while and then come back when I know he’s gone. I keep telling myself this lie as I navigate to the chat box and start to type, but I can feel the curiosity, fear, and desire already beginning to bubble up.

Because that’s the thing about running. At some point, you always want to turn around and see what you’re running from. Biting my lip, I stare at the small paragraph I just wrote.

Anonymous: Hello. Can I ask you a question? What does your matemark look like?

And then, before I can think too much about it, I hit send.

Chapter Five

The chat window stays blank. I hold my breath. One second, two seconds, three— A reply pops up and the air goes whooshing out of me.

Orion North: Hello there.

I shiver. That’s the exact same greeting the wolf used in my dream.
My fingers fly to the laptop screen, ready to close it, but I stop myself. No. Those two words aren’t that uncommon. My heavy breathing moves the laptop resting on my stomach up and down and I tell myself that I’m feeling so flushed because of the heat from my computer. Another message appears.

Orion North: What’s your mark, Anonymous?

Anonymous: A spiral of scales on my left shoulder.

I type out the lie carefully. I know that werefishes are a rare kind of werebeast, so it’s unlikely that he’ll know anyone who might be my fake self’s mate.