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Rill chuckles. “You do that. Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate this place. It’s giving me and Liz some peace, but I got my plans in order. You should all do the same.”
“That’s nonsense,” dismisses Marcus. “You’re a fool, and you don’t understand the Order.”
“The Order’s not gonna protect you from the pigeons and their guns,” says Rill, taking a big bite of his meat. “A weak alpha like you won’t last long.” He motions with his fork around the room—where Beth, Cleo, and Oli are loitering around, pretending not to listen. “And all these betas are as good as dead.”
Dead?
I stagger to my feet. Objections ring around me, alarmed and loud, but all I can think about is Hetty.
Her scent.
Her heat.
The beating of her heart.
Dead?
“Noah, what are you doing?” Mother snaps through my haze. “Sit down.”
I burst out a loud, unintelligible cry. Like a wounded animal, I stagger forward and pull Rill up by the collar. He’s so surprised that he doesn’t initially react, and I take full advantage of it.
Because finally, I have the opportunity to do what I’ve wanted to since I met him.
I punch him in the face.
16
Blood Moon
Hetty
It can’t be that late—maybe nine o’clock—but it feels much later.
It’s so hot in the kitchen, and there are too many thoughts bouncing around in my mind. It’s left me exhausted, like I’ve lived a thousand lives since this morning.
When the dinner guests arrived, I stayed in the kitchen with Nancy as Isolde instructed me. But when Cleo and Beth streamed into the dining room holding the huge platters of food I’d arranged, I hovered outside the kitchen, hoping to get a glimpse of the party.
I saw Noah’s back, sitting ramrod straight in his chair and Isolde next to him, taking a huge, gulping drink of wine. She looked up at me briefly, her eyes narrowing before the door slammed shut, leaving me alone.
Walking back to the kitchen, slumped and dejected, I consider checking on Gran again.
I’ve snuck down to check on her at least five times since this afternoon. But as the sun set, the basement became so dark that I could barely see my hand in front of my face. So, each time I visited her, I lowered my head to her breast, holding my breath as I waited for the slight rise and fall of her chest and the gentle whistle of oxygen going in and out of her lungs.
Whatever Isolde gave her was strong because I’ve never known her to sleep this heavily. She’s the type to jump out of bed and rouse the other girls as soon as the first sliver of dirty sunlight peeks through the bedroom window.
Ultimately, instead of looking in on Gran again, I decide I need some air.
“Do you mind if I go outside for a while, Nancy?” I call to the older beta, whose leaning against the far counter, staring at her nails blankly.
“No problem, dearie,” she answers, but I’m already slipping out the kitchen door.
A kitchen garden lines this side of the house, and the space surrounding it is more a large yard than a garden—there are a couple of boxwood and hydrangea bushes in the distance and a few poplar trees popping out of the evenly cut carpet of grass.
As soon as I step outside, I feel as though I’m taking my first real breath of the day. Sucking in oxygen like I’m parched, and the air is cold water, I stand there for a few minutes listening to the high-pitched song of the crickets and cicadas in the distance. Without thinking, I eventually sit on the doorstep and slip off my shoes and socks.
Leaving the kitchen door and my shoes behind, my feet sink pleasantly into the soft grass, and I greedily breathe in more air, the scent of freshly cut grass growing stronger the deeper I walk into the yard.
I walk until I’m standing next to the wide trunk of a lone poplar tree. Through the branches, I can see the fathomless, starry sky and eerie, orange-colored moon floating above me.
