Unfortunately the next day was a Saturday, so I awoke with a bit of melancholy, knowing I wouldn't see Brandon in class. I could only imagine how Brandon would be feeling today, given his struggle with us last night. I called and texted him obsessively but didn't get a response. I got dressed and hurriedly drove to his house, but it didn't appear that anyone was home. I knocked on his guesthouse door and the main house door, but no one answered. Even Apollo wasn't barking.
I wondered if his entire family had picked up and left town. Or did Brandon flee the area or not come home and they were out looking for him? I was worried. My mind was overcome with worst-case scenarios.
When I got home, "Fly Me to the Moon" began to play. I scrambled for my cell phone.
"Brandon?" I asked, breathless. "Are you okay?"
"Celeste?" a man's voice answered.
"Dr. Maddox?"
"Yes. I wanted to call you and say thank you for your help last night. You are braver than I am."
"Uh . . . you are welcome."
"And I think the medical profession would be lucky to have you, though I'm not sure how many patients will struggle like my son did last night."
"Where is Brandon?" I asked, worried.
"He's right here."
I breathed a huge sigh of relief.
"I just wanted to talk to you first," he continued.
"I appreciate your help, Dr. Maddox, and I'm sure Brandon does, too."
I heard a pause and another voice in the background. "Celeste," Brandon said into the phone.
"Brandon, are you okay?" I asked anxiously.
"Yes," he said. "Now that I am talking to you."
I melted hearing the comfort of his sexy voice. "How are you feeling?"
"A little moody, but I know a cure for that. It's seeing you."
I smiled into the phone.
"Meet me at Willow Park tonight?" he asked softly.
"Of course!"
"We'll have a real date," he said. "This time without my father."
I hummed, sang, and whistled the whole way to the park. It was going to be a date to remember. It was the third day of the full moon. It was the last day in this cycle that Brandon would turn into werewolf form. And if we were lucky and his father could make an antidote, then this might be the last time I saw him in werewolf form forever.
That said, Dr. Meadows's words still haunted me. But if Brandon was really dangerous, wouldn't he have bitten me already? Last night, he could have bitten me or his father - and with all his anger, he still hadn't. That's not who Brandon was as a human or as a werewolf. He was kind and generous and ultimately so magnetic that the thought of being apart from him made me physically upset.
I carried a basket with a picnic dinner for us - a baguette sandwich with layers of roast beef, along with two sodas and chocolate cupcakes I'd made and topped with plastic wolves. I'd tied a pink scarf around the handle of the basket to add a little flirty romantic flare. I wanted to bring something special for my hot carnivore. I headed out early, just before sunset, so I could set the scene in the woods before he arrived.
As I drove through the twisting roads, I noticed a car following me into the parking lot. I caught sight of it in my rearview mirror. It was a familiar Beemer. Nash had followed me.
I got out of my car in a huff.
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
"I was going to ask you the same thing."
"Nash. You can't follow me everywhere."
"Celeste, I can't let you put yourself in danger."
"I'm not in danger."
"The full moon will be out soon. Please, come with me." He grasped my arm.
"No, Nash."
"Then I'm going to have to tell Ivy and Abby - "
"No, Nash. I want to tell them. They are my friends. The truth needs to come from me."
"Then you admit it. He's really a werewolf!" Nash seemed shocked by my statement.
"No - I admit that I'm dating him. And I'm happy to tell them." I'd been keeping Brandon's and my romantic relationship a secret for Brandon's sake - so he wouldn't be more tormented at school if Nash proclaimed he'd seen the Westsider's transformation. But the part about Brandon truly being a werewolf - I wasn't planning on telling anyone about that.
"It is a full moon tonight and it's almost dark, Celeste," he said. "I'm really asking you as your friend - come back with me."
"And I'm asking you, as your friend, to let me go."
"Celeste - we don't have to get back together - " he said. "It's not about that anymore. It's about you. Please. I don't want you to get hurt."
Nash was as sincere as I'd ever seen him. This was different from when he had tried to charm me to get another kiss. He was really pleading with me not to go - for my sake, not his.
"I can't just stand here and watch you walk into a darkened place to meet a werewolf," he said. "Are you insane?"
Perhaps I was, if Brandon had been like what people might expect a werewolf to be. Dr. Maddox, Dr. Meadows, and Nash were concerned for my safety. So why was I so sure Brandon would be different? Maybe I'd been so blinded by love that I couldn't see the forest through the wolves.
I paused. For a moment I really reflected. Nash was my friend, my first crush. A guy I'd known for years. He was happy and handsome and well liked. Brandon was an outsider, a guy whose father was now afraid of him, and a werewolf. It wasn't very logical, but I knew I had to follow my heart - and that would lead me into the woods.
I turned away from Nash and made my way to the end of the asphalt before he stopped me.
"You are just going to walk into this forest alone?" he asked.
I didn't reply. He already knew the answer.
He peered in my basket - noticing the contents.
"Are these the things a werewolf eats?" he asked, the sun setting behind him. "What if it's you he's planning to eat for dinner?"
A deer shot out from the woods a few yards away from us. It stopped along a wooded brush near our cars.
"See?" I said. "It's beautiful out here."
"Yes. But you should be enjoying it with me, not some circus freak."
"But you never wanted to do these things," I charged.
"I do now," Nash said sincerely. "And I want to do them with you."
He stepped in front of me, blocking me from going any farther toward the woods, and then I noticed a pair of gray eyes a few feet behind him.
I raised my hand to him. "Uh . . . you need to stay still."
Nash and I were between a wolf and his prey.
"Don't tell me how I should behave," he said angrily.
"Nash, I'm serious." I spoke softly, my voice quavering. "There is something behind you."
"Are you pranking me?"
I shook my head with fear.
"What is it?" he asked.
"A wolf," I whispered.
"Now I know you're pranking!"
He swung around so quickly that he startled the wolf. It growled low and fierce. Nash gasped and, in the motion, twisted and lost his footing. He stumbled.
The wolf must have thought Nash was attacking. The animal sprang forward and within a heartbeat had taken Nash's arm in its mouth.
Nash yelled a horrible, gut-wrenching yell.
I screamed and dropped the basket.
Nash tried to kick the wild wolf away, but it kept its jaws clamped on his arm.
I screamed again as I searched the area for a branch or anything to help.
Just then I heard another howl from the woods.
The wolf's ears perked up, and he released Nash. Nash yanked his arm away and stepped back from the wolf.
The wolf stared at Nash and growled as Brandon raced out of the woods and jumped between Nash and the wild wolf.
Brandon stared at the wolf with such fierce intensity that the wild animal retreated in fear, backing away slowly before turning and loping off into the woods.
I was very relieved but still scared, and tears streamed down my face.
"Are you okay?" Brandon asked me, resting his hands on my shoulders and looking at me squarely. His gray eyes stared down at me. I could barely nod my head.
"But he's not," I said, pointing to Nash.
Brandon noticed blood dripping from Nash's arm and ran to the basket. He untied the scarf from the wicker handle and handed it to me.
"I thought that thing was going to kill me," Nash said, in shock.
"You're all right now," I said, trembling. "It's over."
I tied my silk scarf around Nash's arm, just like I'd done to Brandon in the wintry woods. The pink scarf was quickly dotted bloodred.
Nash was clearly shaken. The things he feared most in life - wolves - had attacked him. Maybe he had a sense about them all his life. Legend's Run was known for a wolf population, but Nash wasn't a hunter, and before this school year, we hadn't seen any up close and personal. I always found his fear to be odd, but it was one of the things that made Nash vulnerable.
I rubbed Nash's back as he was, understandably, still visibly shaken.
"It's okay, man," Brandon said. "You'll be okay."
"I can't believe you look so different," Nash said. "You look like a wolf yourself."
Brandon cracked a smile, exposing two sharp lycan fangs.
"You'd better drive him to the hospital," Brandon instructed.
Brandon didn't have time to kiss me good-bye before he disappeared into the woods. His gray eyes shone through the edge of the woods as I drove Nash out of the park.
Instead of spending a romantic date with Brandon in the woods, I hung out with Nash and his family at the hospital while he got his wounded arm stitched.
Though the handsome jock might never admit it, I knew he was grateful to Brandon for saving him from the wolf.
Nash was tested for rabies, and the doctors said we would know within a few hours if he was infected. But it wasn't rabies that gave me cause for concern. I thought that Nash might be safe because he didn't have the werewolf blood that Mr. Worthington had talked about having in his own ancestry running through him.
Or did he?
