Crossblood - Completed

Chapter 37

~Moon's POV~

"Wha...." Every limb has gone numb, my voice cracked and a dulling pain coursing the length of my arm. Eyes barely open I can only vaguely make out the interior of the green bedroom, the newly changed crisp satin sheets all too inviting in my time of confusion. "Where...why..." A firm hand grazes my bare chest before pushing my throbbing body back against the mattress, each attempt to sit upright canceled by Andrew.

"Moon," No. His tone is all too familiar, a dull ache in the back of his throat as he swallows nothing but air. A calloused palm falls against my shoulders before slipping to the scars painted across the pale canvas of my back. Andrew pushes me closer and with each inhale I drown a little deeper in his scent and the mind games of his cooling warmth. Please don't let it have happened again. Please. "do you remember what happened earlier?"

Earlier? Ignoring the distant pounding of my skull, I turn my head the slightest, night shining through the windows and blanketing us in a deep ocean blue. "Was I hurt?" I can't bring myself to examine the growing pain in my arm, to face a stranger's hand imprinted in my skin, a purple black reminder of a night that shouldn't of been. Already wetting with tears I pull my face closer into Andrew's maroon sweater, dampening the wool with each dew coated lash. Pulling the material between my teeth as I squeeze my lashes together until they become locked and intertwined, bound by some force between fear and the unknown.

"So you don't remember?" The blanket falls to my hips in rippling folds, the room overflowing with people pressed against the walls and cluttering the aging wood floors. Their stares rest on Andrew, a small phone pressed tight in his palm as he hands it to me, pressing play on the cracked and damaged screen before me.

"Should I?" My focus stays on the too bright light of the phone, the shaky camerawork revealing a poor quality forest, Mikayla's voice ringing out in an attempt to keep company. There's a rustle of leaves, a piercing scream before the screen turns black, lens face down in the snow. The hair coating my arms raises, muscles tighten and body flinches with each picture less noise, each growl and scream escaping Mikayla and her attacker.

"I don't get it..." But the picture returns, a lion and bear wrestling behind the house. The two exchange blows until the bear leaves and the lion nears the house, Mikayla backing against a corner until the injured beast draws near. Its nose twitches at the sight of her before it falls into her lap, a Shifter's mist submerging the creature until the only thing left is...

me.

With a deafening crack the phone breaks, paling fingers still curved as if the device hadn't slipped through the crevices. I can feel myself growing colder, a hollowness expanding from the core of my chest, branching and entangling around the length of each bone until I'm paralyzed with a fear of knowing, of understanding. The bed dips from Jesse's weight but the sensation feels distant, as if from two different places entirely.

He strokes each finger against my cheek, tracing the line of my jaw before cupping the space in his palm, tilting my head closer to his, close enough to see the eyelash lost on his cheek, the worry in his pupils and the creases around his mouth and brow. He leans himself closer until our noses touch and he shuts his eyes, resting his forehead against my own and pausing, breath warm against my lips and chilled skin, the humanoid heat of a werewolf thawing the frightened freeze of my skin.

"Moon," Jesse breaths against my skin, pulling back so our eyes meet in a clash of dulled color. "shifter's DNA only codes for one animal and that thing isn't it." There's pain in the creases of his eyes and the breath thawing the words from his too red lips as he bites back at the blood pulsing to the surface. "You're a dog not a lion but there's footage, there's proof that there's something more to your shifting." His fingers find their way to my hair, pulling the sweaty mass away from my eyes as he speaks, each word weighing against my bones and flesh until I'm drowning in his speech.