Child of the Moon

I leaned over the railing. There was no doubt I felt a weird attraction to this leech, one that I had never felt before. I supposed it was you felt when you find your bloodmate, but he’s a vampire. He couldn’t be a bloodmate, they’re too bloodthirsty.

What was I supposed to do now? What was I doing here? For the first time in my second life, I didn’t have a place to go, a lead to follow, a demon to kill. And I felt so incredibly lost… But relaxed at the same time. No worries about being killed here. No single pack of wolves or vampires could smell me through the stench of all the blood of vampires and shifters.

I felt the presence of someone else outside, and I knew exactly who it was. The mindcaster I had seemed to have fallen for.

“Mindcaster?” he asked, seeming to care.

“Terms for creatures with your power from my world,” I answered.

He nodded, glancing at my tail and ears. I looked up at him, my ears flat on my head from self-consciousness. I noticed again how much of a wreck he looked.
“What… what happened to Bella?” I asked tentatively.

Edward sighed deeply, leaning up against the railing with me, eyes focused on some point in the distance.

“Victoria- a vampire who was trying to avenge her mate, whom I killed- tried to kill Bella with this newborn-army she built.” I knew this already. The pack had filled me in on everything that had happened because of Bella.

“Then she found our hiding place up on the mountain. Bella cut herself so that Victoria and Riley- on of her newborns- would be distracted. But she was incredibly stupid, and they were faster than she thought. They attacked her and almost sucked her dry…” He glanced over at me as I swayed on the spot, trying to get rid of the mental picture in my head.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” I said softly, gripping the railing again. “Go on.”

He raised his eyebrows, but continued. “I thought she was dead. Then, she had been my sole reason for living. So I… I tried to kill myself,” there was a long pause. “But then my family came. Carlisle said he could save Bella. So he took her here and flushed all her blood out with new blood so she wouldn’t become a vampire. Her body didn’t reject the new blood, and so she’s still alive.”

There was another long silence. “But…?” I asked, knowing there was more.

“I know it’s terrible,” Edward started. “But I felt slightly… disappointed that she wasn’t dead. Once I saw sense, I knew that she shouldn’t be my sole reason for existence, and that the foundation of our relationship is that she smells so good to me, and that I’m good looking to her and a vampire.”

I nodded. It made sense.

“So, what’s your name? No one seems to know except Alice, who refuses to tell us.”

“Accalia. But if I meet your human friend, she can call me Houri.” He looked at me quizzically.

“My wolfish name is Accalia, but that can’t be spoken by mortals. So my human name is Houri, which I’m pretty sure was my name in my first life.”

He nodded, taking in the new information. If only he knew everything about my world… It was pretty crazy compared to this.

“What’s it like?” he asked, turning to look at me.

I turned and gazed into his gold eyes for a long moment. “Lonely. I haven’t had any interaction with humans in years. I left my pack even before that, and it wasn’t much better with them. I see warlocks occasionally, but all they’re concerned with is business and money. And everyone else I come in contact with, I'm usually out to kill them,” I laughed shakily. I mean, that was why I had come here.

He laughed at my nervousness. “You’re not the typical werewolf you know. The wolves at the reservation aren’t-”

Real werewolves? I thought to him purposefully.

He glanced over at me with raised eyebrows.

“They’re shape shifters,” I clarified, and he nodded.

“But I was going to say not as excepting as you.”

I shrugged. “You guys are nothing compared to the vamps that I hunt. They all go crazy from bloodlust and are on killing sprees all of their second lives. If there weren't wolf packs to balance them out, humanity would have been extinct a hundred years ago.”

“But still. You’re race is made to hate us. You must be a remarkable girl to be able to even talk to us.”

I looked into his eyes and smiled. But before we could share any more heartfelt moments, a human girl stumbled outside. She looked awful.

“Edward!” she gasped, making her way over to us.

“I thought… I thought you had left me again,” she said, pushing herself between us and forcing herself into Edwards arms.

I glanced around awkwardly when the girl finally noticed me.

“Who are you?” she asked, not accusingly, but perfectly confused. She was probably wondering how I was with the Cullens on a sunny day like this.
“Houri. A werewolf,” I told her, looking her up and down.

“Oh. Okay. Not from La Push, right?” I shook my head.

“Didn’t think so. I didn’t know that there were other wolf packs…”

“Bella,” Edward said rather sharply, although she didn’t seem to catch that. “You need to rest. You almost died earlier today.”

“I feel fine, I’m fine. You don’t need to worry about me,” the girl huffed. I had to hide my laughter at this girl’s stupidity… that she thought he was worrying about her when he really just wanted to get rid of her.

The next moment one of the vampires rushed out, her eyes focused on the girl.
“Bella! You shouldn’t be out here!” she said, and was forcing herself in between me and Bella, and ushered her inside again. I couldn’t help but feel, once they had left, that the space between us was too big.

At that moment, Edward moved over closer to me. “Carlisle still wants to talk to you, you know. Although I’ve found out everything he wanted to know.”

At that moment I realized how stupid I’ve been. I told this leech everything, and he used my idiotic feelings to his advantage. He came here to get all the information out me he could. I narrowed my eyes at him as my tail swished side to side, my ears flat on my skull.

He turned and looked at me in the eye.

“That wasn’t why I came out here to talk to you,” he said softly. “I came because I wanted to get to know-”

“Yeah right,” I snarled. I knew I couldn’t trust the goddamned leeches. So these may be more sophisticated than the ones I know, but they were just as bad. If not worse. I started making my way past him, not glancing in his direction as soon as he started speaking again, almost pleading with me.

“Really, Accalia, I wasn’t trying to get you to tell me anything, I-” I cut him off again as I spun around to face him.

“Save. It.” When he opened his mouth to speak again, I let out a growl from deep within my throat; a sound that only a wolf could make.

He held his hands in the air in surrender, and then gestured me into the house without a word.