Page 83 of The Hunting Moon
Still no recognition, but at least the wolf doesn’t retreat as Winnie rests her forehead against his. He is cold to the touch, his breaths so quiet now she can no longer hear them.
Far in the distance, a harpy laughs.
The wolf opens his other eye, and for a brief flicker of time—a liminal beat between pulsing aortic valves—Winnie thinks that maybe,maybethe wolf finally understands who she is. Just as she finally understands him.
Then his eyes shut, closing off the nightmare, the boy, the life of him, and Winnie knows she needs to move. She retreats, cold air sweeping between them as she flips her backpack around to her front. “Jay,” she murmurs, digging out the vial of melusine blood. The liquid is so clear, so viscous, it looks empty in this darkness. “I need you to drink this.”
No response, no reaction, so Winnie copies what he did to her two nights ago. She uncorks the vial with her teeth and then presses the glass to his mouth—a wolf mouth with fangs that shimmer beneath the moon.
A single drop slides between the left canine and first premolar.Just one sip,Winnie thinks—that was all he gave to her, so she stops as soon as she thinks it has poured in. Then she presses his lips closed and…
She waits, breath held until she sees his enormous throat work as if swallowing. Then she waits a few beats longer for the magic to take effect. The wolf’s eyes trail open, his pupils find her face, and the gray irises briefly brighten as if lit by stars from within.
Then, before Winnie can stop him or make any movement at all, the wolf snaps out and takes the vial from her grasp. The entire thing vanishes into his mouth. Glass crunches and grinds.
Seconds later, he has eaten the entire thing.
And yet nothing happens after that. It’s like a watched pot that never boils—the wound doesn’t seem to heal no matter how long Winnie stares at it. There’s movement in the wolf’s body. His muscles ripple. His legs straighten. But the arrows remain lodged in his abdomen, and when he tries to rise…
He collapses right away.
One of the bolts snaps. And all six dig in deeper—Winnie can see them now. Each one that the Wednesdays lodged into him. Blood seeps and slithers onto the forest floor. Jay’s eyes loll shut again. His broken breaths puff with fog.
And Winnie doesn’t know what to do. The melusine blood was supposed to work. He wassupposedto heal from a single sip. A whole vial? He should be sprinting away from her at top speed.
Winnie yanks open her backpack again. What does she have left? What can she possibly use? All she still possesses are harpy gastroliths and ground phoenix feather. While sure, the phoenix feather can act as a stimulant, there’s also a pretty high risk ofexploding someone’s heartwith it. Plus, what good is a stimulant if you’re still bleeding to death and everything in the forest wants to kill you?
And as for the gastroliths, fiery explosions definitely won’t help anyone.
There is still that other vial, though,her brain reminds her, and Winnie claws it into the light. The red glass looks black in this darkness and just as empty as it did in Grayson’s office. She could open it. She could risk removing the cork and see if there’s anything inside.
She is about to do that—to pop off the cork and pray there isn’t a deadly gas within that kills them both instantly—when a voice cuts across the tiny island like a guillotine:
“Winnie.”
Winnie knows who it is right away, just as she knows the sound of a compound bow being drawn. She swallows once. Then she gently sets the vial to the ground, pushes to her feet, and turns to face her aunt.
CHAPTER43
Rachel stands at the edge of the island, her boots in the rill while water trickles around them. It is too shallow to even cover the leather; a mere reflection of moonlight to crystallize the rock.
“Winnie,” Rachel repeats. Her compound bow is aimed directly at her niece’s head. “Step aside and let me deal with the wolf.”
“No.”
“You don’t have any leverage here.”
I have all the leverage actually,Winnie thinks as she wets her lips and searches for some clear exit she can sprint toward with a weakened wolf… But there’s nothing. Rachel can easily outrun them—or easily shoot them down.
Although she won’t. At least not the shooting part.
Probably.
Winnie decides to test her theory, fastening her gaze on Rachel. “If you want to shoot the wolf, you have to shoot me first.”
“I don’t want to shoot either of you,” Rachel snaps. “But if Jay is the werewolf, then he needs to be dealt with.”
Jay.Aunt Rachel just saidJay.Winnie feels all the blood leave her body. It is the opposite of an adrenaline spike. This is death calmly taking hold. This is a head rolling off the guillotine into a basket. “Jay?” She struggles to get his name out. “Why… did you call him that?”
