Luna
Fog hangs heavy and expectant in the woods surrounding the triplet’s house. There’s an eeriness to the sounds of crickets and frogs singing their dawn songs that sends chills rippling across my skin. A bird adds its piercing cry at random intervals. It stirs a sense of foreboding I can’t kick from my bloodstream. Someone wants me dead. But who? Why?
“Get on back in the house, Luna,” Warrick commands me, giving my bottom a little squeeze. We’re sitting on the porch swing while Callan stands on one of the support posts and Ethan sits on the step. “We’re going to kill whatever assholes posted this warning, but you need to be inside, out of harm’s way.”
I lean back on his knee, arms folded over my chest. “You said we were a pack. If you fight, I fight. It’s as simple as that.”
The triplets look back and forth between each other, sending their secret messages that I don’t understand, not having grown up with them.
“You listen here,” I say, not appreciating being kept out of a decision about myself. I’ve had enough of that to last a lifetime. “I’m not a puppy. I’m a full-grown wolf, same as y’all. They said you had to give me
up, which means this is my fight. If you want to fight by my side, I’m honored to have each and every one of you, but you can’t cut me out. I’m going to fight to stay here, and if you fight to keep me here, too, then I’ll just love y’all all the more for it.”
I chose Warrick tonight, but that doesn’t mean he’s the only one I love. I realized that when I lay thinking on it last night, trying to decide. I’m fighting to stay not just with Warrick but with all of them. And just because I chose him last night, that doesn’t mean I’ll choose him every night. But that’s a conversation for another time, when the smell of vampire isn’t drifting into the clearing in front of the house.
A branch snaps nearby, and Warrick straightens, already on alert. He makes a gesture with his hand, and Callan and Ethan nod.
Another crack snaps into the air.
Warrick slides me off his lap and stands, popping his knuckles and grinning. “It’s been too quiet lately, boys. Let’s go smash some skulls.” He heads down the steps, the others close on his heel. I follow, feeling more scared than brave, though I’m not about to let it show.
Outside, as dawn washes the darkness from the sky, several men emerge from the woods, carrying bats and metal bars.
Warrick grins wider. “Vampires,” he confirms in a low growl, since he probably thinks I don’t know the scent yet. “You know what to do,
boys.”
“Go for the heart or the head,” Ethan says. “Get some blood to make us stronger as we fight.” He spits on the ground and then punches his fist into his other palm.
“Baby girl,” Warrick says, glancing over his shoulder. “You stay behind me if you need to. I’ll be your cover. Whatever you do, stay safe.”
“I got this,” I say, puffing out my chest.
“Yeah, you do,” Callan says, chuckling and affectionately ruffling my hair. “We’ll get ’em, pet.”
“Let’s move,” Warrick says.
As one, my three men shift into wolves and race toward the vampires. I shift, too, but I pause for a moment, studying their attack. I’m not skilled in fighting anything but catfish and an occasional gator, and I don’t want to get myself killed or act without strategy and get the men killed. They fight as one, though their attack seems simple enough. They avoid the bats and bars, lunge for the male’s necks, and tear their heads off with their sharp teeth and powerful jaws.
Callan shifts back to human, seizes one of the bats, and swings it overhead, bringing it down on an injured male’s ribcage. “Here you go, Warrick. Eat your fill!”
The ribcage splits open with a sickening crunch. Blood spews from the opening. For every vampire they take down, a handful more appear. They leap onto Warrick’s back, moving so fast they’re a blur as they slash and bite, barrel into the wolves, and beat them with their metal weapons. One of them charges into Ethan and sends him tumbling across the clearing when he goes for the dead vampire’s heart. Seeming unfazed, Callan proceeds to the next downed vampire. Grabbing one of the metal bars from the ground, he plunges it straight through the guy’s heart with such force that blood and organ bits shoot into the air.
“This one’s mine,” he roars, thrusting his hand into the chest cavity and seizing the bloody heart. He tears it apart with his teeth. Another vampire rushes toward Callan, the bat in his hands at the ready.
I want to scream, “Look out!” but I’m in wolf form, so only a woof comes out. Callan spins my way and sees the guy coming in for an attack. In a blur, he shifts back to wolf and leaps at the vampire, knocking him to the ground.
I’m half their size as a wolf as well as a human, but I’m still bigger than the vampires. I lunge for one and clamp my teeth down on his throat, the way I see Warrick doing. I brace my paws against him, shake my head and rip out chunks his neck until he goes limp. He falls to the ground, and a sense of pride fills my chest. It feels good to be a part of this fight.
A force like a tree flying in a hurricane slams into my side, sending me sprawling. I howl and jump to my feet, swiping at the vampire. She grins and ducks aside when I charge her again. Then she leaps onto my back, her arms wrapping around my neck in a stranglehold. I howl, and a second later, Ethan lands beside us in a single bound and rips her from my back, sending her head rolling and her body sailing into the trees. I send him a silent thanks and dive for another vampire, ripping into her middle to take her out of the fight before killing her.