Dark of the Moon by Rachel Hawthorne Page B

that.”
    “I know,” I said, all teasing aside. “If my mom doesn’t have any answers, if during the next full moon nothing happens…I’ll out myself. Leave the society.”
    “I don’t think you have to go that far. There’s bound to be something you can do. Man the computers or something.”
    “Lindsey, I’ve been preparing my entire life to be a warrior. I never wanted anything as much as I wanted to be a wolf. It’s so hard to be here right now. Tonight when Connor shifted, I had this sense of wonder that he had the ability to transform into this glorious creature and at the same time I felt an overwhelming loss because I hadn’t yet experienced that. I’m tired of being just plain, dull Brittany.” I stopped there before I confessed that I understood where Bio-Chrome was coming from. They had to be like me, envying what they were not capable of achieving.
    I could tell that Lindsey was at a loss for words. What reassurances could she offer? Neither of us knew what was going on with me. I shoved myself to my feet. “Good night.”
    When I got to my room it was empty. I figured Kayla was either still watching the werewolf marathon or she and Lucas had sneaked out for a little personal time like Lindsey and Rafe had. My money was on the sneaking out. Ah, young love. Gag.
    But I wanted it, too.
    After getting ready for bed, I stared at the moonlight coming in through the window and studied the patterns it made on my legs. The full moon was gone, heading toward a new moon, a dark moon.
    I tried to imagine my skin tingling with the touch of the moonlight, the way it had tingled when Connor had touched it with his fingertips. His fingers were rough and callused from all the outdoor activity he engaged in, but they’d whispered across my back. I grew warm thinking about it, almost as warm as I’d grown when it had been happening. I tried to push him out of my mind.
    But when I fell asleep, as usual, he was there waiting for me in my dreams.

EIGHT
    The next morning when I went down to breakfast, I saw no sign of Connor. Since I wasn’t in a social mood, I took an empty table in the corner. I attacked my breakfast with a vengeance, so absorbed in it that I didn’t notice Lucas until he was sitting beside me.
    With an arched brow, my only acknowledgment of his presence, I drank down my black coffee, knowing I was going to have to have a session with teeth whitener soon. He seemed amused by my attitude.
    But when I set down my cup, he grew deadly serious. “We need to talk.”
    I shrugged. “So talk.”
    “Here probably isn’t the best place.”
    I glanced around. Some people were blatantly staring, the polite ones tried to hide their interest. I was probably just getting paranoid, but I felt as though they were all viewing me as the freak I was.
    “So where?” I asked, working not to let my discomfort make its way into my voice.
    We went to the rooftop. It was strangely liberating up there. When I looked out, all I could see was forest stretching toward the horizon and distant mountains.
    “Whenever I forget what it is we’re supposed to protect I come up here,” Lucas said with reverence. “I think about the summer solstice when our kind gathers here to celebrate our existence. I think about how fragile it is. How much we could lose if our existence becomes known.”
    So he shared the same concerns as the elders. Not surprising since one was his grandfather.
    “Like Kayla, Connor thinks maybe we should reveal our existence,” I told him.
    He smiled. “Yeah, I know. Maybe they’re right. But if they’re not, it’s not something we’d be able to undo.”
    The dilemma was similar to the struggle I was facing about whether I should talk with the elders. But without knowing exactly how they’d react, I’d be taking a chance of being relieved of my position as a Dark Guardian. Once I announced that I hadn’t shifted, Iwouldn’t be able to undo it.
    I sat on the edge of the short brick wall. “So