Read Alpha Moon (The Cain Chronicles) (Seasons of the Moon) for Free Online Page B

warm, safe presence wrapped against her back. He lifted his head to look at the window that they had jumped through. The Union men weren’t there yet—but it still wasn’t safe to stand around.
    He butted his head into her hands, harder this time. She knew he was telling her to finish changing, or get back on.
    More gunfire. Bullets pinged into the pavement around them.
    She leaped onto his back, and they ran.

FIVE

    WHAT HAD JUST happened didn’t really sink in for Rylie until they bought new clothes for Abel at the corner store and checked into a motel. It was a few blocks away from the airport—close enough to reach on foot, but not so close that the Union would find them with an easy sweep. The door to the room had three locks. Rylie engaged them all.
    She closed the windows, stepped back from the door. Then she started shaking. It began in her fingers before spreading to the rest of her body. She tried to sit on the edge of the bed and missed.
    “Oh God,” she whispered.
    Abel sat beside Rylie, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “Hey,” he said. That was it. It was probably better that he didn’t try to give her any words of comfort—anything encouraging he tried to say would be a lie.
    She clutched his shirt. “My mom was due to arrive at a C gate. I ran through the C gates. What if she got off the plane when the Union was chasing me? What if she realizes I’m a werewolf?”
    He didn’t respond.
    In the silence, her mind raced, replaying the events of the morning over again. Hearing that awful scream from the demon— Why didn’t I run when he screamed? —and the way that the demon had looked at her, mouthing, “Help me.” Like they were together in this, somehow, when he was some horrible hellbeast that made her think sinful thoughts, and she was just a victim of a werewolf bite.
    She wasn’t a demon. She didn’t deserve to be chased by men with guns.
    It wasn’t the first time that the Union had come after her, but the other times had seemed different. Last time, it had been a personal grudge. This time, they only came at her because of a stupid law. The one that said preternatural entities weren’t permitted to travel without proper paperwork.
    Rylie’s very existence was illegal now. Her life would never be normal again.
    Hot tears rolled down her cheeks. The shaking grew worse. And Abel just sat there, silent and watchful, but doing nothing to help. “I didn’t even do anything wrong,” she said. “I wasn’t planning to fly. I didn’t need the paperwork.”
    “Yeah,” Abel said.
    That was it? Yeah ? Seth would have had something more comforting to say than that. Whatever he said was always right, in every situation. Rylie would have killed to have Seth there with her.
    “I told you not to follow me,” Rylie said, wiping her cheeks dry. “I told you to stay home.”
    “I was gonna hang back. Not going to get in the way of your mom or anything. Anyway, you already admitted you were wrong to try to leave me at home. Good thing I was there, or you’d be arrested or dead or something.”
    “But you could have been arrested, too. What would the pack have done if both of the Alphas were in custody?”
    Abel shrugged. “Run off with Levi? I don’t know, and who the fuck cares?”
    “I care,” Rylie said. “The pack would care.”
    “I care about you ,” he said.
    She ignored him. “Now what are we going to do? They’ll be looking for me. And my mom… Oh, no, my mom doesn’t even have a ride home!”
    “She’ll be fine. I’m getting the car and we’re leaving.”
    “But—”
    He cut her off by grabbing her wrists tightly. His hands were so big that they completely engulfed hers. “There are cameras at the airport, Rylie. They’ve got your picture. They’re gonna match you to some database somewhere, mark you off as a ‘werewolf,’ and come looking for your papers.”
    “We don’t have papers,” she said. “We haven’t registered.”
    “Exactly. We need to