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

our camp last night,” I cut in, knowing Rick was going to lie to my parents and make up some ridiculous story. They deserved better than that. “Those three hunters we saw yesterday at the rangers’ cabin were chasing after him. They shot him.”

My mother immediately went into her caretaker/nurse mode. Crouching down, she peered at Rick’s wounded leg, cooing over it. “Oh, you poor boy. We should take you to the medic cabin right away.”

But Rick’s ‘bodyguards’ cast me a look, still reaching to draw him away. “We’ll take him to his father. We have medical supplies in the main lodge. Perhaps you would all accompany us, as Mr. Deacon the second would appreciate thanking you in person.”

Our father nodded, though he shot me a glance that asked many questions.

Will tugged at Dad’s arm and nodded. “We really should go with them. Rick and Eve had a long chat last night that you ought to hear about, and I’m certain Mr. Deacon will have something to say as well.”

“Something to say?” our dad asked him.

Nodding, Will glanced back to me. “Eve saved our hide back there, Dad. Those hunters tried to push her off the cliff.”

“Push Eve off the cliff?” My dad then turned around and reached for me. I walked over, hefting up my pack in my arms. He glanced at the back of my torn shirt and sighed, wrapping his arm around my shoulders to whisper in my ear. “One of those men pushed you off the cliff?”

Shrugging, I then nodded. “It was good it was me, right?”

He shook his head with an intensely dark look in his normally bright eyes. “No. Eve. No. No one should push any of my children off a cliff. If I find that man—”

“Dad,” I stiffened, hearing him sound so furious. “I’m all right. Everyone is ok.”

“No, Eve,” he said as grave as I’ve ever heard him. “I’m not ok. You are all precious to me. You kids and your mother are all I really care about in this world. For anyone to even try to hurt you… I won’t allow it.”

I leaned in closer to him. Somehow I needed to hear that.

Mr. Deacon

 

The Deacons’ lodge was huge. To get to it one had pass by a stone fence with wrought iron gates. It was charming, not ominous as I would have expected a werewolf’s home to be like, but then Rick only was three generations into the legacy. He hobbled as his bodyguards helped him up the front steps and then guided us though the rustic front doors. Inside the main foyer of the lodge was too nice for the woods. More like a fancy hotel, though all of it was in wood, varnished and oiled. I expected it to take about fifty servants to clean daily.

“Now this is camping,” Travis murmured, gazing up at the wrought iron chandelier overhead that had fake candle lamps in it. They even flickered with special electric bulb inside each of them.

Will broke into a snicker.

However, Rick sighed, casting Travis a smirk. “Yeah. It really is over the top, huh?”

His bodyguards gave him a slight chiding look, but said nothing. One of them already went to get the master of the home.

“I think it’s lovely,” Dawn said, inching closer to him.

But Rick looked to me. “Eve, what do you think?”

I peered around once then shrugged. “Are all your houses like this?”

He laughed, grinning at me. “Nah. Our penthouse in New York is smaller and more business like. My mother was really into decorating and all this fancy wood stuff. You should see our mansion in Middleton Village. Even I get lost in it.”

My parents turned and stared at him. Will and the others glanced at each other, perhaps thinking our vacations would get really interesting, especially if Rick and I became friends. I didn’t like the idea of using him for his money. Though we had one thing in common, he seemed like a nice sort of person who really wasn’t all that pretentious.

“You said, your mother was. Has she…departed from this world?” my mother asked him.

Rick ducked his head and shook it. “No. My parents divorced. She discovered my father had been keeping a secret from her, and she couldn’t handle it when she found out.”

“And what kind of secret would that be?” my father asked, already sensing that something was up.

“Don’t pry.” My mother hissed at him.

But my father shook his head, gesturing to the stairs where an elegant man, slim, yet odd in the color and texture of his hair more like that of…well…a wolf came down. He practically ran over to Rick, embracing him.

“For heaven sakes, you’re all right.” He hugged Rick very tight, hardly noticing us at all. When he pulled back, he held Rick at arms length and said, “How are you? I heard you got shot. How did you get away?”

Clenching his teeth from the embrace, Rick pointed over to us, though mostly at me. “I ran into some helpful campers.”

“In the morning?” his father asked him, his tone full of meaning.

Rick shook his head. “No. It was well before midnight.”

“Oh heavens.” Rick’s father stood up, peering at us, not quite seeing me yet. “None of you got bit, did you?”

Will cleared his throat, glancing to Travis who just shrugged, though by that time the older Mr. Deacon was looking at me, as I did really stand out in our family of blondes.

Mr. Deacon stepped back. He pointed right at me. “It is daylight and you are standing here.”

I drew a breath, stepping from my father’s side. “Yes, sir. But I’m not what you think I am.”

“Hold it.” My father put himself between us. He looked to Mr. Deacon. “You didn’t ask what she was. What are you assuming about my daughter?”

“Your daughter?” Mr. Deacon now stared at my father then looked over the entire family, taking me in carefully before going back to my father’s face once more. “She is your child?”

“Adopted,” my mother said, looking to my father, Mr. Deacon and then me, growing more puzzled with each second. “Excuse me, but I thought we were here for some kind of, uh, thank you or something.”

Mr. Deacon nodded, yet he drew Rick as if he were trying to protect him from us. “Yes. I thank you for saving my son’s life, but uh, I have to ask. If none of you were bitten, and she is adopted, not of your blood, I have to ask why you took in my son before midnight when the moon was full, knowing what you must have obviously seen last night to be…frightening. If you are normal people.”

Rick and I both cringed. My brothers and sister gave me a look that said this conversation was truly all mine. Our father certainly looked to us, watching them defer to me, regarding Mr. Deacon more warily.

“I take it you two are not normal people,” my father said, reaching towards me to bring me back.

I jerked from his hold and turned to face Mr. Deacon. “Let’s quit dancing around the question. Yes, we saw that Rick was a werewolf. And yes, I am not a normal person….”

“Eve!”

“…But I’m not a vampire. I’m a vimp.”

Mr. Deacon froze up more, though. He yanked Rick entirely away from me now. “A vimp?”

“You know what a vimp is?” my father asked.

Mr. Deacon looked straight at him. “Of course I do! But do you?”

My father glanced at my mother who had drawn close to him after hearing that Rick was a werewolf. She looked then over to Will and Travis who shook their heads to say again they were fine. She then turned to Dawn who had folded her arms across her chest with a disappointed frown, watching Rick’s father puff up with hostility.

My dad said, “We have been informed what a vimp is.”

“Informed?” Mr. Deacon shook his head then gestured to the bodyguards in preparation to shove us out if he had to. “By a witch? Are you witches?”

“Of course not!” I shouted at him. Turning to Rick, I said, “Tell him what I told you.”

Rick turned to do so, but his father cut him off, pushing his son behind him. “You stay away from my son, you demon!”

“Hey!” My father yelled back, pulling me to stand with Dawn while getting between them. “You do not talk to my daughter like that! She is the sweetest, best kind of—”

“Then she’s pulled the wool over your eyes,” Mr. Deacon said, his eyes dark and wolfish. He practically bared his teeth. “That thing is a killing machine. You have no idea what you’ve brought into your family. If I were you I’d—”

My dad raised his fist. “Shut up! You don’t know Eve! If you weren’t so rich and could sue me, I’d deck you.”

“Dad!” I jumped up, my wings popping out on accident. Mr. Deacon jumped, making Rick also jump though he had slipped back between us and was trying to push his father away from my father also. I got in between them, facing my father. “Don’t pick a fight. He’s a werewolf too.”

My dad instantly recoiled, staring at both Rick and his father. He then turned on me. “You saved a werewolf?”

I rolled my eyes, slumping my shoulders. “Come on, Dad. This is an animal reserve. Besides, Rick is a nice guy. He didn’t try biting anybody.”

“Only because you were there,” my dad retorted.

Mom hid behind him now, though Will, Travis and Dawn passed commiserating glances to Rick who still struggled with his own father. Mr. Deacon watched us bicker with expressions of anger and confusion.

“No.” I drew back and pointed to Rick. “He’s a good guy. Come on, Dad. You see the good in everybody, or else you’d have been freaked about me too when my father dropped me in your lap. Werewolves are just misunderstood.”

“I thought they were just like vampires,” my dad said, still giving Mr. Deacon a dirty look.

“That is a common misconception,” Mr. Deacon replied, flattening his shirt that Rick had wrinkled trying to hold him back. He straightened up, regarding me with a disdainful eye.

My father pulled me close to him. “Did you ever consider that what you think about my daughter could be more of the same thing? A misconception?”

Pausing, Mr. Deacon thought a moment then shook his head slightly. “No. A vimp is not like a werewolf. You said you knew about them, but I don’t think you really understand what kind of creature you are holding there. That girl is a demon conjured from the blood of an innocent woman, created by witches that tore apart two demonic entities to create an assassin whose sole purpose in life is to slaughter seven chosen and holy people, though its lust for blood is in fact insatiable.”

My father squeezed me tighter. “I’ve heard all that before. But what you don’t seem to understand is that my daughter is not a monster that would kill anything, if most especially other people. You don’t even see her standing here in front of you. She saved your son.”

“She probably killed those hunters,” Mr. Deacon replied with seething bite. “Ate them without you looking.”

Shaking his head, my father led me physically back to the front doors. “I give