Red Rose Moon (Seasons of the Moon) by SM Reine Read Free Book Online Page A

pulse didn’t slow again.
    Her chin tipped down so that she could focus her one clear eye on him. The look she gave Abel was pure venom. “Who?” she asked, hatred dripping from that one word. “Seth?”
    “Me,” Abel said. His heart skipped a beat again, but it wasn’t with fear this time.
    Eleanor’s eyes slid shut, and a shudder rippled through her broken body.
    She had spent her entire adult life trying to wipe out werewolves to fulfill her husband’s legacy. She knew as well as Abel did what her grandchild would be like.
    “It doesn’t matter anyway. Cain’s going to kill her,” she said, but she sounded worried. “He won’t let that devil spawn walk the Earth.”
    The knife hung at her side. She hadn’t moved to stab him again.
    Abel tried to catch her gaze, hoping she would hear him. Really hear him. And he prayed that she still had enough of a brain to understand. “You got to have wondered why he let her live at the cabin. Why not kill her when he had the chance?”
    Eleanor leaned closer. The hole on her upper chest was glistening, and he realized that there were maggots squirming inside the dried flesh. Abel’s stomach flipped. “Cain let her live because he was saving her for me. To bring me back.”
    “He let her live because he smelled that she’s pregnant. He had seen her mating with me. He wants to bring the werewolf species back—and he wants them to be pure.” Abel spat out the last word.
    He could practically see the cogs turning in Eleanor’s head as she considered his claims. He saw the instant that she realized he was speaking the truth.
    “Every fruit born from my womb is a piece of useless garbage,” Eleanor said. “Failures. All of you.” There was a strange, hollow tenor to her voice. Like she was repeating something that had been recorded before, instead of speaking something new.
    Abel hadn’t expected his news to make her love him in the way that she never had before, but it still didn’t feel good to hear those words from her shriveled lips.
    “Mom,” he whispered.
    Eleanor lifted the knife again. He tensed.
    But she brought it down on the ropes, cutting his wrists free.
    “Run, boy,” Eleanor said.
    “What are you doing?” he asked, rubbing his raw wrists.
    “You promise me something,” Eleanor said in a low voice, quiet enough that Cain wouldn’t be able to hear it inside the mobile home. “Promise me that if I let you go, you demons are done. That you’ll die out.”
    Abel frowned. “That was always the plan. Ever since that night on the mountain.”
    “Good,” she said, her dry voice rattling in her chest. “So run. My other son has betrayed me, lied to me, and he’s going to answer for his sins.”
    Eleanor cut Abel’s ankles free as well. He got to his feet, and she didn’t stand. He wasn’t sure that she could.
    He gazed longingly at the empty fields bathed in moonlight. The white swells were so tantalizing—freedom, just a few steps away. All he had to do was start running.
    He took a step, and then stopped. Looked back at his mother’s corpse.
    Abel’s heart ached. “I can take you with me,” he said. “I can find someone to fix you. It’s got to be possible.”
    She sneered. “Run!”
    The arrangements were complete, and Cain was just hours from victory.
    He reclined on the floor of the mobile home’s empty living room, hands folded over his stomach and eyes closed. The walls were covered in maps, reports of Rylie’s movements, pictures of the Gresham Ranch. He even had a few photos of the wedding decorations that had been set up earlier in the day.
    Eleanor had taught him her Process for tracking prey, and his eyes were everywhere. Even now, his men were watching the Greshams.
    But Cain was resting, and enjoying the anticipation.
    Trying to organize a movement wasn’t easy, yet he had claimed dozens of men as his own—men who bore the mark of the Apple, but would listen to everything he told them. Now, after so many months of