Whispers at Moonrise (37 page)

“Damn!” Jonathon yelled, pulling Kylie’s gaze from Lucas. “You cut yourself.” Jonathon was holding Helen’s hand; blood oozed from his grip.

Helen, looking a bit squeamish, had a bloody apple in her other hand and a bloody knife sitting in her lap. “It’s okay.” Her words lacked confidence. “It’s not bad. Is it?”

Jonathon released his hold on her hand to look at it. His eyes grew bright, no doubt because of the blood, but even more apparent was his concern for Helen. “You need stitches,” he said.

Helen looked up at Kylie. “Can you just fix it?”

Kylie’s breath caught. It had been a while since she’d thought about her healing powers. And the few times she’d thought about them, she remembered those powers had failed Ellie. Kylie had failed Ellie.

“I … don’t know if I can.” She looked into Helen’s eyes, saw her pain, but a lump of fear formed in Kylie’s stomach right alongside the two slices of pizza. “I couldn’t dreamscape when I was vampire; I probably can’t heal as a fae.”

“But faes are known for their healing,” Helen reminded her.

“Oh, yeah.” Kylie let go of a breath that shuddered on its escape from her lips. “What if I mess up?” She could still recall how devastated she’d been when she hadn’t been able to bring Ellie back from the dead. Looking at her hands, she remembered how her palms had been coated with the girl’s blood.

“You won’t,” Helen said with complete confidence.

Looking up, Kylie remembered how Helen had helped her by checking out her brain to see if she had a tumor the first week she’d been at camp. Helen had helped Kylie, and she couldn’t say no.

She stood and moved over to the chair next to Helen. The shy and trusting girl held out her bleeding palm. Breathing in, Kylie recalled that she had to think healing thoughts. Amazingly, her hands suddenly felt hot. She gently ran her fingertip over the wound. Her touch created a tiny wake around the pooled blood on Helen’s palm.

Fearing failure, Kylie put her whole palm over the wound. Hesitating to check to see if she’d done it, she suddenly realized that the entire lunch room had gone silent. Not a sound echoed in the large room.

Cutting her eyes up briefly, she realized everyone stared. Everyone!
Freaking great!

Helen lifted her hand away and brought it in front of her face. Wiping the blood away with her other hand, a shy smile lifted her lips.

“You did it,” Helen whispered, sounding as self-conscious as Kylie at all the unwanted attention.

Kylie leaned in. “Why is everyone staring?”

Helen made a funny face and came closer. “Because you’re glowing.”

“Glowing?” Kylie asked.

Helen nodded.

Kylie noticed that light did seem to emanate from her skin. “Shit!”

“No shit!” said Della. “You look like a firefly. This is so freaking cool!”

More like
not
cool! Kylie thought.

Holiday walked over, eyes rounded, and bafflement coming off her in waves.

Kylie stared up at her, mortified. “Make it stop. Please. Pleeeassse.”

Chapter Thirty-two

“Where are you going?” Della asked when Kylie stepped out of her bedroom an hour later with her hair and teeth brushed, and—thank God—no longer glowing.

She almost told Della she didn’t have to report to her anymore, but decided she’d probably ask Della the same thing if she were leaving the cabin.

“I’m going to meet Lucas,” Kylie said.

Della titled her head to listen to her heartbeat.

“I’m not lying,” Kylie said.

“I know. I heard,” Della said. “Have fun. And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“Gosh,” Kylie teased, trying not to be grumpy. “That leaves my options wide open.”

Della grinned. “But if you come home glowing, I’ll know what you did.”

“Not funny,” Kylie said, and meant it. Then she took off.

Thankfully, she’d stopped glowing about ten minutes after she’d healed Helen. Out of sheer desperation, she’d asked Holiday, “Why did that happen? It never happened before when I healed someone.”

Holiday’s shrug and “I don’t know” didn’t surprise Kylie. But it was just one more thing that had Kylie taking her grandfather’s warning more seriously. What if these crazy things continued? Right now, it was just the supernaturals who considered her a freak of nature. What would happen if she did something like this in front of regular humans?

Running down the path, hoping the feel of the wind in her hair would take the edge off her mood, she made it to the office in no time. The sound of a few people still lingering in the dining hall filled the night. Before anyone saw her, she cut around to the back of the office. The second she saw Lucas waiting for her by the tree, her frustration vanished.

She ran toward him and he snagged her up and pulled her to him. His arms wrapped around her waist. His thumbs slipped under the hem of her tank top to touch her bare skin. The kiss was sweet and warm. When he pulled back and smiled, she knew what he was thinking.

“Don’t mention it,” she said, feeling another “glowing” joke coming on.

“I’m just jealous.”

“Jealous?” she asked, thinking she’d been wrong. “Of what?”

“I want to be the only thing that makes you glow.”

She thumped her hand on his wide chest. “I’m telling you just like I told Della and Miranda. It’s not funny.”

“You looked beautiful.” Honesty flowed from his comment. “Like an angel.”

She frowned. “I don’t want to be an angel. I want to be a regular supernatural.”

“Okay, I won’t talk about it anymore. I’ll just kiss you instead.”

And what a kiss it was. Hotter, sweeter, and more mind-numbing than ever. When he pulled back, she heard his pulse humming, a natural seduction mechanism for weres, and she wasn’t above being seduced by it. She was lost in the sound.

“It must be close to the full moon again.” She smiled up at the heat in his eyes, knowing her eyes held the same.

“Yeah.” He inhaled as if trying to get oxygen into his brain. “You are driving me crazy. Sometimes, I just want…” He took a step back. “Let’s try talking for a while.”

She grinned. “I kind of like driving you crazy.”

“That’s mean.” He pointed a finger in her face, but his tone rang humorous.

Not really mean, Kylie thought. It wasn’t as if she’d planned anything to happen tonight. But if it did … Right then, she recalled Holiday’s words of wisdom about boys, or rather sex.
When you do make that decision, it’s a decision you make rationally and not one you just let happen. You understand the difference?

Kylie did understand the difference. Problem was, it was easier to let it happen than to plan it. Planning it meant talking about it. And that would be embarrassing.

She inhaled sharply with a sudden realization. If she couldn’t talk about it, she shouldn’t do it—because unless she wanted to go through what Sara did with her pregnancy scare, it was essential that they talk about it.

“What is it?” Lucas asked.

She opened her mouth to answer—to talk about it—but closed her lips just as quickly. They could talk about it later. Later, but, for certain, before anything happened.

“Nothing.” Her voice sounded like a frog ready to croak.

He studied her face. “You’re almost glowing again.”

“Crap!” She held out her arms and studied them in a panic.

He chuckled. “No, you’re just blushing. Where did you slip off to in your head?” He tapped a finger to her temple and with her fae gifts, she felt the passion ooze from him.

“Nowhere,” she lied. “Let’s just … talk.”
But not about sex.
Because obviously, she wasn’t ready to have that conversation.

He studied her as if he didn’t believe her, then reached for her hand and laced his fingers into hers. His palm felt warm, but not nearly as warm as it had when she’d been a vampire.

“Okay. Let’s talk.” They sat down on the soft ground, under the alcove of the tree. “Why don’t you tell me how you got out of being shadowed? It doesn’t sound like Burnett just to ease up on something like that.”

“He didn’t want to. But I…” She recalled the strange feeling she’d gotten when she’d stood up to Burnett and Holiday. As if the power of persuasion was … a real power. Then again, maybe it was. “I persuaded him.”

“How? He’s not easy to persuade.”

“I … sort of threatened I might leave.”

“Leave?” Concern filled his blue eyes. “You were just bullshitting him, right?”

Mostly, but I’m beginning to worry.
She almost told him that, but decided she didn’t want to get into that particular conversation with Lucas, not when they had so little time together, so she just nodded. “I agreed not to go into the woods, and to tell them before I went to see my grandfather again.”

“What?” His super-charged werewolf protectiveness spilled out of him. “Burnett’s going to let you go see your grandfather again? Alone?”

She nodded. “As long as it doesn’t appear too dangerous.”

“How are you going to know if it’s dangerous?” He shook his head, his dark hair scattered across his brow. “Don’t go until I come back.” He cupped her chin in his hand. “Promise me.”

“Come back from where?” she asked.

His frown tightened. “My dad again. This time I’m going to have to spend some time there. A week or more.”

She tried to wrap her head around what he said. “But school starts tomorrow.”

“Yeah.” Sarcasm flowed from him. “But my dad doesn’t see getting an education as being important.”

“Can’t you just tell him no? That you’ll come to see him during parent weekend?”

“I wish,” he said.

“But why for so long?” Suddenly she couldn’t help but wonder if Fredericka planned on going with him.

He touched her cheek. “He’s being insistent, Kylie. He gets something in his head and he won’t let it go. I’m sorry.”

The sincerity in his apology filled her chest. Sincerity and … guilt. For what?

He brushed her hair behind her ear. “You know I have to do this to get on the Council. I wouldn’t do any of this if it wasn’t for that. And … when it’s over, it’s over.”

“What’s over? What does he want you to do?”

“He just … He’s crazy and I have to go along with him for now. Please … just understand for a little longer. In less than a month, the Council will make their choice. A month is all I need and then I don’t have to go along with his plans.”

“What plans?” She felt a touch of resentment swell inside her. “I hate your secrets.”

“I know,” he said. “I hate them, too. But you have to trust me on this.”

For some crazy reason, when he said
trust,
she sensed he meant something … more. More as in … “Is Fredericka going?”

“No,” he said. “Just me.”

“Not even Clara?” she asked, still confused about the emotions she read in him.

“No. She might come for a while but not stay.” He pulled her against him and they just sat there for the longest time not talking. Her heart hurt for him because she sensed how much he really didn’t want to go, didn’t want to do whatever it was his father had planned. But he was going and was probably doing it—whatever it was. And he felt guilty about doing it, too. Why?

“Will you call me?” she finally asked.

“I’ll try, but if he’s monitoring my calls, I can’t be caught…”

“Talking to me,” she finished for him.

He exhaled and she knew it was the truth before he answered. “I don’t like it.”

Neither did she. Not even a little bit.

A second passed and then he said, “You didn’t promise me that you won’t go see your grandfather until I get back.”

“I can’t promise,” she said, aggravated that he wanted promises and answers from her, but still held so much back. “I’ll do what I have to do.” And he’d just have accept it, as she was trying to accept what he’d told her, or rather what he hadn’t told her.

*   *   *

Monday morning, the first-day-of-school jitters at Shadow Falls didn’t feel any different from all Kylie’s first-day jitters. She was both excited and anxious about being forced into a room full of people who seemed to know some secret to life, a secret she didn’t have.

In spite of knowing what she was, and being surrounded by other supernaturals, she still felt like the outsider—the floater, floating to one group and then another, and not really belonging anywhere.

No doubt she’d follow Della and Miranda and socialize with whoever they hung out with, and their friends wouldn’t reject Kylie, but she wouldn’t get that sense of belonging. Just as it had been in her old school. Only difference was that she would have been with Sara, another misfit.

While putting on her makeup, Kylie thought about Sara. They hadn’t talked in weeks but Kylie would change that later. While she accepted they had changed and probably didn’t have nearly as much in common as they once had, Sara was still … Sara. And today, Kylie missed her more than ever.

The morning air had a touch of fall to it. Deciding what to wear, and how to wear her hair, had taken way more time than it should have. She hadn’t thought she’d even care, since Lucas wasn’t here, but the vibe had been contagious as Miranda and Della had worked to get themselves picture perfect.

Kylie hadn’t dressed up for anyone. Yet when Derek looked over from the fae breakfast table, his eyes told her she looked pretty. She found herself smiling and then that smile vanished and she started missing Lucas.

After breakfast, they had Meet Your Campmate hour. Kylie drew Nikki’s name, the new shape-shifter, the girl Miranda accused of having a crush on Perry. Kylie had worried that the new camper would pepper her with questions about the glowing episode, but nope. All Nikki wanted to talk about was Perry. Miranda had been right. The girl had a serious thing for Perry. Not that Kylie suspected Perry would play along. Nevertheless, before the hour ended, Kylie had nicely mentioned that Perry was already otherwise committed.

The girl had nicely ignored her, too.

The hour hadn’t ended when Kylie debated what, if anything, she’d tell Miranda. Jealousy was an ugly emotion. Kylie was lucky that Fredericka hadn’t gone with Lucas to his dad’s place, or she’d have been battling the green-eyed emotion herself.