A Cursed Moon: A Weird Girls Novella (A Penguin Special from Signet Eclipse) by Cecy Robson Read Free Book Online Page A

Bren,” Celia said quietly.
    I ignored her as the last few moments with my parents flashed in my mind. Her limp and lifeless body crushed beneath his unmoving form, me tugging on their arms, yelling at them to get up, to
breathe,
and begging them not to leave me. I even reminded my dad I had a baseball game. Didn’t occur to me my schooling and my life were over.
    “You okay?”
    I nodded, though it was a damn lie. “You know, Ceel, in my mind I pictured the three of us running through the woods in our beast forms straight into the welcoming embrace of our pack. One big, goddamn family of lupines, panting and wagging our asses off.” I laughed bitterly. “Shit. I was such a stupid kid. When they died . . .” I shook my head, a vain effort to wrench the memory of my parents’ bodies being loaded into the meat wagon, and cleared my throat for all the good it did me. “After they left me . . . I went to the pack, just like my dad told me to do. He was sure they’d take me in. I was one of them, he’d told me. But the anger my dad’s Elders held against him for abandoning them remained. They showed me the door and slammed it behind me. I really thought . . . thought they’d be there for me, you know? And my parents? I thought they’d make it—beat the odds and all that shit.” I bowed my head and stared hard at the counter. “Hell, Celia, I’ve never been more wrong in my life. Those ass-hats wouldn’t even give my folks a burial. I never got the chance to say good-bye.”
    I didn’t notice Celia move to my side until she curled her arms around mine and leaned her shoulder against my head. “The decision to
turn
your mother was wrong.” She stroked my arm when she felt me tense. “But it came from love, the love your mother had for you and your father. You may have swayed them in that direction—”
    “There was no swaying, I damn well pushed!”
    “Shhhh.” Celia’s voice grew quieter. “You only convinced your father because you loved your mother and because her torment hurt you as well. And in your mind, you weren’t risking your family, you were looking to expand it, to make it bigger and better.”
    I shrugged. “I guess. But it still doesn’t change shit. Bottom line, I was still left alone. Without parents and without pack.”
    “And still you survived.” She smiled and gave my arm another squeeze. “You’re one of the best people I know, Bren.”
    “Aw hell, Ceel, you need to get out and get to know more people.”
    She leaned against me but didn’t laugh at my comment like I would’ve liked. “I get now why you were a
lone
wolf for so long. I knew you must have had a good reason, but I never expected your father’s former Elders to be so cruel. I can’t believe they would abandon one of their own to fend for himself. You were just a little boy.”
    “What do you expect from pack
weres
? They’re all a bunch of stuck-up assholes.”
    She released me then and regarded me carefully. “Then why join them now after all these years, especially now that demon lords are targeting the
weres
for annihilation?”
    I reached for my sandwich again. Confessions of a werewolf obviously worked up an appetite. I took a huge chunk out of my sandwich and spoke while I chewed. “This isn’t about me, or my grudge toward my dad’s Elders. It’s about you.”
    Celia frowned. “Me?”
    “Yeah, you. Celia, you’re my real pack—you, Dan, your sisters. I had to join the
weres
to help take down the Tribe. I’m not letting them get away with what they did to you and your family.”
    Celia’s lips parted. “You joined Aric’s pack because of us?”
    “Why else would I have signed up for this Den shit? Because let me tell you, that ex-lover of yours is a ballbusting hard-ass. You wouldn’t believe the crap he expects me to do.”
    She watched me closely, I guess waiting for me to say more. I didn’t, though, and took another beer out the fridge. “Thank you,” she said quietly.
    I