Moon Child (The Year of the Wolf #2) - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,94

extra from the Rocky Horror Show with all those slices and tears in her skin, but I had to pray Choi had a plan. Something that’d keep Lara safe while stopping Jana from pulling stupid moves on her.

Nerves hit me then as I watched him, praying that she wouldn’t notice, but Jana was so far gone that Todd could have flashed her and she wouldn’t have noticed. Her hands started shaking as she shrieked at me, “The Lindowiczs. They’re my clan.”

“Your clan?” Lara countered with confusion. “You’re not a shifter. I’d see that in you if you were.”

Her mouth tightened. “No. I’m not. But females lead the clan, and my mate is from a strong line, so his power is mine. They accepted me because of my trust fund and my gift, but I worked my way up, made them trust me. Now, I have a position. A place. You won’t take that from me.”

I scowled at that. “You purposely went to the people I spent my whole life avoiding? Are you crazy?” I screamed, hopping around with rage by now, because fuck, if she’d wanted to marry one of them so goddamn badly, she could have, and our father might have left us alone!

“No, I’m not crazy,” she snarled. “I’m very sane. I’m just protecting myself. Giving myself a future.”

“You keep saying that, but the only person who’s endangering your present is you,” was Lara’s sage retort.

Jana’s hands trembled at that, the one on the trigger, and the one she’d stacked under the gun to hold it steady. “No. I’m not. I’ve been waiting for this to happen. I knew it would, I knew it would,” she rambled.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I demanded.

Jana’s words were a whisper, loaded down with a terror that was genuine, as she repeated, “When she ascends to the moon and becomes the guardian of the past, your future will be no more.”

My brows rose at that. “Sorry to tell you this, Jana, but that sounds fucking crazy to me.”

“It isn’t,” Lara corrected, never taking her gaze from our other sister. “But it’s happened already, Jana. What are you going to do? Shoot me now you know?”

Jana’s head whipped from side to side. “No, it isn’t too late! I’d know if you’d ascended. I’d know,” she screamed.

“Apparently not, because you know shit. Just like always. You’d see the future, but it was never the whole picture, was it? You’d see a horse winning, but you’d never see that the horse might fall over and lose. You should have figured out by now that your visions weren’t infallible, because you’re not that talented. Your gift is true, strong, but it never took one thing into account.”

Jana trembled at that. “What?”

“Free will,” Lara breathed, and as she did, Choi shifted.

I’d never seen anything like it. He was sure as hell no wolf, but a kind of… My nose crinkled as I tried to figure out what the fuck I was looking at. It was big. Almost as large as a wolf, but its bones were smaller, a little daintier somehow. The snout was more pointed, and it was bright red with gold-tipped fur. More important than any of that?

The tails.

Yep, plural.

Not one, not even two. Not even five.

Nine.

Fucking nine.

I gaped at the sight, and so did Jana. Choi leaped forward, his intent clear, to bring her down, but as he went for her throat, as he started to tug it free from her skin, Jana had the last say.

She pulled the trigger.

And Lara’s screams would haunt me for the rest of my life.

Lara

“NO!”

The word seemed to reverberate around my head as I dealt with what my bitch sister had done, at what she’d—

Fuck, she couldn’t have just died, could she? No, that was too easy. Too kind.

She’d orchestrated her own ending, she’d brought it about, but why did she have to bring about the end of my mate too?

I scrabbled over to him, rushing and almost diving onto my knees as I turned him over. When I did, I saw the blood, saw the wound, and knew I had minutes with him.

Minutes.

Barely.

Would I die too?

The prospect of a world without him in it, though I’d only known him a couple of days, made that bearable. I didn’t want this, any of this, without him.

I had knowledge, so much of it in my head. Rolling around and around, over itself and under itself in my brain, ramming me and giving me a migraine that surpassed