New Moon Summer (Seasons of the Moon) by SM Reine Page A

all summer to convert it into a sanctuary for the other werewolves who had survived.
    Then they were supposed to live happily ever after.
    Right?
    Three months later.
    Rylie sat on the side of the bed, struggling to hold back tears as Seth packed for college. He had been putting it off for weeks, but he had to move into the dorms that weekend; there was no more time to delay.
    He didn’t have much to take—Seth was leaving his guns behind, so he only had a few outfits and the spiked plugs he kept in his pierced ear.
    “I’ll call you as soon as I have my new address,” he said, stuffing a pair of jeans into his backpack. Wind chimes sang softly outside their open window. “We can write letters to each other again. It’s going to be fun.”
    Fun? Rylie bit her bottom lip and picked at her thumbnail. How could being hundreds of miles away from her boyfriend considered fun ?
    He caught her expression and dropped to his knees in front of her.
    “Oh, come on, Rylie. Don’t cry.”
    “I just don’t think I can do this without you.”
    Seth kissed her. His lips tasted salty.
    He cupped her face in both of his hands and pressed their foreheads together. “You’re Alpha, Rylie. You don’t need me to control all of the werewolves. You can do it alone.”
    “But I don’t want to do it alone.”
    “Abel will help you,” Seth said.
    She sniffled. “Abel isn’t you .”
    “Yeah. He’s not. And don’t you forget that.” He flashed his lopsided smile. “You’re going to be okay. I promise.”
    What was the point in arguing with him? He was leaving for college whether Rylie liked it or not, and she would have to finish off her last two years of high school responsible for two dozen werewolves—alone.
    “I love you,” she said.
    His lingering kiss was all the response she needed.
    Abel took his brother to the airport. It was a long drive into the city, and they didn’t talk much. They hadn’t really talked at all since they worked together to kill their own mother.
    It felt strange, knowing that Eleanor wasn’t out there anymore. After haunting them for so long—trying to kill Rylie, keeping Seth under her trailer, and stabbing Abel—he wasn’t quite ready to believe the nightmare was over.
    He worried, just a little, that saying her name out loud might bring her ghost back.
    They parked in the airport garage.
    Seth sat in the passenger’s seat of the Chevy Chevelle, backpack in his lap, and didn’t move. A long silence stretched between them.
    When two minutes passed without Seth getting out of the car, Abel’s lips spread into a forced grin. “You want me to walk you through security, bro? Need me to hold your hand?”
    “You’ll look after Rylie, right?” Seth asked.
    Abel blinked. “That’s the deal, isn’t it? I look after the ranch while she does school and homework. She handles the changes on the full and new moons. We already worked this out.”
    “But you’re not going to look after her too closely.”
    Seth’s expression was deadly serious. Abel’s shoulders tensed.
    They studied each other from across the car. They might as well have been separated by a chasm.
    “I’ll look after her,” Abel said finally.
    “All right.”
    They shook hands.
    Seth climbed out and went to catch his plane.
    Rylie was sitting on the back step when Abel returned to the ranch. She twisted twine around the stems of dried leaves to form an autumn bouquet, and he stopped at the bottom of the hill to watch. She was absorbed in her arrangement and didn’t seem to realize she was being watched.
    She had changed since they returned from Gray Mountain. Not physically—she had the same almost-white hair, skinny legs, and heart-shaped face. But there was a new aura about her. Abel couldn’t help thinking that she was haloed by a powerful energy. The Alpha spirit.
    Abel was supposed to look after his brother’s beautiful, sweet, deadly werewolf girlfriend for two years until she graduated high school—as long