Full Moon Hike - Julie Steimle (red queen free ebook .txt) 📗

to make me really hurt. I whipped back, my claws forming as my eyes glowed red in rage. Even the claws on my wings grew sharper as I batted him off with a swipe of my hand. He slashed at me, but with my imp reflexes he only nicked me. I grabbed his wrist, digging my nails into his arm.

He howled.

I then kicked him in the chest, jerking the rifle from the other man’s hands, tossing it into the dark where it fell among the shrubs.

Third one shot at me.

This time it grazed my arm, though he was aiming for my chest.

“You’re trying to kill me!” I shouted at him.

He cocked his gun for another shot. “That’s the idea, demon.”

I clenched my teeth and launched off the ground, going immediately invisible. He cursed something awful, jogging over to his friends to pull them up. One of them clenched his bleeding wrist. The other one staggered in the brush, groping for his lost rifle. I could smell the blood seeping from that one man’s arm, the blood also on my hands. It made me grow sick and hungry at the same time. And feeling so angry at them all, a deep-seated urge to just rip out their throats flooded over me like an enormous wave that could knock a surfer off her surfboard.

But as an experienced surfer, I knew how to let such waves pass over me, or to ride them out if necessary. And though I really, really wanted to get rid of those men, I sniffed out for Rick instead, hoping to smell his unusual blood to see if he was all right.

Popping out above the trees, I let the fresh air pass over me. That eased my demon urges and took the hunger out of my mind. Then I soared, listening to the imps. The men’s were shouting for them to burn the wolves out. One was telling them to shoot up at the sky to get me. But down below, I heard a werewolf’s imp tell him to sneak up and bite the men. It wasn’t Rick’s imp though. It was Mr. Deacon’s.

I flew invisible, searching for that wolf, listening to the imp struggle to give suggestions, as the wolf side of Mr. Deacon was more intent on catching a rabbit or a squirrel. Animals did not have imps. There was no reason for them to have them. The imp I saw with Mr. Deacon looked rather put out. When it saw me, it floated up near my shoulder.

“He’s so boring,” the imp said to me. “All that’s on his mind is lying low and catching his non-human kill. We would have so much more fun if he just bit a human once in a while, you know?”

I gave the imp a wan look and put my finger to my mouth.

Smirking at me, the imp said, “Oh…that’s right he can hear you. Can’t he?”

It then pinched me.

“Ow!” I swiped at it.

“Who’s there?” Mr. Deacon said in a wolfish voice. He looked around to search for Rick. “Son?”

I held my breath. The imp made faces at me, kicking me with its little feet. Swatting it, I smacked the imp back to its charge. It cursed at me, stomping its tiny feet as its tiny wings fluttered to hold it in the air. That was when Rick the wolf staggered into the area, panting hard while carrying a dead rabbit in his mouth. He dropped it down.

“There you are,” Mr. Deacon said and then turned his wolf head around. I could see that it looked somewhat human. “Eat up. I’ll go finish my hunt. I have a feeling those hunters are still looking for us.”

Rick lifted his wolf head and shook off some of the hair, panting hard. “I don’t know if I can handle another night of this, Dad. You have got to have those rangers find out where those men have been hiding. That lure they set out really messed with my sense of smell.”

Mr. Deacon nodded his wolfish head and sighed. “That’s their plan. I told you not to go after fresh blood.”

Giving a human roll of his eyes, Rick then let his face go back to that of a wolf and started to eat the rabbit. I looked away, sick to my stomach just watching him. At least they were only after rabbits.

Mr. Deacon’s imp was in my face once more. “What wrong with you? Why don’t you get them to do something fun?”

I grabbed the imp and shook it, hissing at it under my breath so Mr. Deacon and Rick would not hear me. “Why don’t you go and harass those hunters?”

The imp blinked at me as if I were suggesting a novel idea. “Like how?”

Rolling my eyes, I whispered. “I don’t know. Steal their bullets or something. Pull their shorts over their heads.”

With a wicked cackle, the imp flew off the moment I let it go. It was only few minutes later when I heard in the bushes all three hunters howling. I whipped around as the two werewolves turned and saw the three hunters leaping about to jerk their own boxer shorts off of their heads. Mr. Deacon darted back towards the campground. Rick scrambled with his half-eaten rabbit in his mouth to get away, but I landed on the ground staring at them, realizing that I had not heard the hunters’ imps at all as they had snuck up on us.

One cocked his gun the moment he got his shorts off of his head and immediately fired at the fleeing wolves.

Ok, he tried to fire. The rifle was without bullets so all it did was click with that mocking echo.

All of them tried to shoot, but none of the rifles were loaded. And when they tried to reload, their bullets were all gone. Lost.

I broke out into a laugh. It was just too funny. The imp actually did what I had suggested. It had never occurred to me before to tell them to do crazy things. I guess I never thought they loved to commit mischief as much as they loved to suggest it.

“She’s here!”

One swung out with his arm, trying to strike me. I was about three feet from him, just watching them try to get at me. With a small flap, I was up in the air and looked down over the top of them. Their imps were tossing their bullets around like confetti, carrying up the shorts again, considering putting them over the hunters’ heads though the imps looked to me waiting for a command. I shrugged and then said, “Do it again.”

Cackling, the imps all heaved the boxer shorts once more and brought them over the hunters’ heads, spilling out all their bullets until the men were screaming and staggering about with anger at me and everything else. By that time, I turned to see if Rick and Mr. Deacon had gone off.

I flew up high again to listen and smell for them, but all I could detect was the dull odor of human blood in a bandage. Like that lure for Rick, the smell of fresh human blood messed me up. All I could do in the end was fly back to camp and perch in the trees, waiting to see if Rick and Mr. Deacon had made it safely to the campground.

I waited for over two hours. Rick stumbled into camp as a boy, wiping off his face, which was wet from I don’t know what water he had found, and he grabbed a shirt from off a tree branch. He was still rather hairy, but at least he was no longer walking on all fours. He glanced back for his father but kept on going towards his lodge where, I noticed, his two bodyguards were waiting for him. The fact that they knew he was a werewolf was somewhat startling, but then I guess some people are willing to deal with anything for the right price. Mr. Deacon did not return at all until late the next morning. By that time I had fallen asleep, clinging to the tree.

Groggy Mornings

 

“Eve!” 

I my eyes opened and looked down below. Will was staring up at me with a frown that said he was not happy at all to find me outside in a tree.

“Mom and Dad are worried sick,” he said. “Get down here.”

Rolling off the branch, I let my wings catch me to ease me to the ground. Or at least that was the plan. I actually flapped and flopped, crashing down like a tired and dizzy bat. He ran over to me helping me up.

“For pity’s sake, what has gotten into you?” Will patted my wings to suggest that I retract them. “Are you all right?”

I tried to pull them in, but they ached, and it took more effort than normal. Rubbing my head, I shrugged. “I don’t know what all-right is anymore.”

He put his arm around me immediately. “Are you ok?”

Closing my eyes and opening them again to chase away the sleepiness, I then winced. All my joints ached. Never again would I sleep in a tree. It had been a bad idea.

“I’m just tired.”

Will frowned at me. “Just tired. If you were tired, you should have come home and gone to bed.”

I nodded. “I know. I was just trying to watch out for Rick. Those hunters were out there last night.”

Nodding at me, Will smirked. “I figured that’s what you were up to, but Eve, Rick has been dealing with hunters on his own for a while. And I don’t think Mr. Deacon wants you to mess around with him or his son.”

“I wasn’t messing around with him,” I snapped back.

But as we were walking to our cabin, I could already see one of Mr. Deacon’s bodyguards standing on the front porch with our father who did not look happy at all. Dad saw me and frowned deeper.

“Uh oh.” I halted where I was. “Am I in trouble?”

Will grabbed my arm and pulled to make me move forward. “Of course you are. You stayed out all night, messed with the private matters of a rich man…uh, person…and you basically have worried all of us sick.”

“I’m sorry.” I ducked my head down, dragging my feet.

When we reached the front doors of the cabin the bodyguard gave me one hard look and then turned from my father, walking away. My dad gazed at me and then beckoned me to go inside. I did so without any argument.

Once they closed the cabin door, my father spoke to me in a low voice. “Eve. You have disappointed me. Besides staying out way past your bedtime, you put yourself at risk with those hunters again. Their private affairs are not ours.”

“Dad! I couldn’t just let those hunters shoot Rick. He’s wounded!”

“And though I am usually for being a Good Samaritan, Mr. Deacon had already expressed that he wanted you to stay away from his son.” My father took me by my arms and held me so that I could not look away. “Eve, you need to understand, some people don’t want your help.”

“Is that what that man came to say?” I asked, not quite pulling from his grip, though I did try to