Once in a Full Moon(37)

Brandon continued to stare at me intensely, as if he wasn’t sure what had just happened himself.

“Brandon! You look like a werewolf!”

His expression was sullen. He examined his arms and felt his stubble and goatee.

Brandon glared at me with the frailty of a human and the intensity of an animal.

I inched away. I was frightened and freaked out. Why was he acting this way? A moment ago, I’d been on the other end of his irresistible lips. And now he was acting like a creature I’d never seen before.

I was afraid of him—of the situation—of being alone in the woods. The same person who’d saved me from a pack of wolves was now staring at me with their steady gray eyes.

Unsure of what he’d do next, I didn’t break his mesmerizing gaze. I gently and quietly took a giant step backward. Unfortunately, my boot landed on a branch instead of solid ground. It cracked underneath my pressure, causing my foot to slip and I fell down.

When I looked up, Brandon was standing over me.

“No—” I cried, putting my hand out.

I was frightened and began to shake. He looked like he could rip me to shreds. But Brandon appeared confused by my fear. His intense expression softened as if he was as surprised as I was at his strange condition.

Suddenly he retreated into the shadows and disappeared.

In the distance, I heard a fierce howl, like that of a lone wolf.





Chapter Fourteen

Sweet Dreams



I didn’t believe what I had just seen. Brandon turning into a werewolf? In the back of my mind, I kept thinking about the kiss. But how could that turn him into a werewolf? When he heroically saved me from the pack of wolves and was bitten, it was a full moon. But it couldn’t be. . . . There had to be some rational explanation. Every magician had a secret, and Brandon must have had one, too.

Or perhaps I was dreaming.

I wasn’t about to remain alone in the woods, in a dream or not, on the lonely hilltop by his house.

I grabbed Brandon’s shirt and darted out of the woods. I ran as fast as I could to my car. I didn’t look back until I was safely locked inside.

If this were truly a dream, then I wouldn’t have Brandon’s shirt when I woke up in the morning. Unfortunately, that meant our magical kiss would have been a fantasy, too.

I was too shaken up to return to the basketball game. No amount of gossip or giggles with the girls could take my mind off of what I’d just witnessed or distract me from the most passionate kiss I’d ever had.

I managed to pull out of Brandon’s driveway and onto the narrow road. With every turn and flash of my headlights in the lonely woods, I was terrified that some creature would jump out of the trees.

I tried to breathe slowly as I drove, convincing myself there had to be a rational explanation. It wasn’t that Brandon had changed—it was me. The shadows of the moonlight distorted my view of his normally good-looking features and transformed them into wildly animalistic ones. Before we’d kissed, I’d distracted myself with thoughts of Dr. Meadows’s prediction—Beware of a kiss under the full moon. It will change your life forever—and it toyed with my mind. And the other explanation—I’d been studying werewolves and it plagued my thoughts. How could I have seen him any other way? I’d been eating and breathing werewolf folklore, so it was only natural for it to have infiltrated my mind. The moon was full, we were in a darkened wood where wolves can lurk, and Brandon had been bitten. I’m sure I just mixed it all together, under the intoxication of finally having the kiss I’d been dying to receive. Maybe I’d felt guilty about my feelings for Brandon—and all the complications they would cause—and this was my way of projecting them.

But there was one thing that I couldn’t explain away. The kiss. It was as magical as any transformation. Its power left an impact on me like a meteoroid hitting the earth.

I replayed the conversation I’d had with Dr. Meadows. She’d predicted all the events that happened—every decision that I made on my own—things that she had nothing to do with. But there was one thing she couldn’t predict—me falling in love.

When I was safely home, I called and texted Brandon. But there was no response. As I paced in my room all night, my phone was silent. I dusted the dirt off of Brandon’s shirt. It still smelled like him. I neatly folded it and put it on the nightstand. One thing was for sure: If I’d been dreaming, I’d know my werewolf essay was going to my head.

I awoke with a start. I’d just had the best dream ever. It was so clear. Brandon had kissed me in the woods behind his house. It was so passionate and intense it felt like it was happening now. I closed my eyes, not wanting to shake off the dream. I remembered more—Brandon took off his shirt, displaying his ripped chest . . . and then he began turning into a . . .