Whispers at Moonrise

Glancing down, she saw that blood oozed from the girl’s brow. The need to get her help pulsed through Kylie’s veins. She looked up again at the fog. The two different masses had taken shapes. Humanlike shapes.
    Don’t go.
    Kylie’s instinct to move the girl to safety swelled in her chest. To face the unknown alone was one thing. To do it with a bleeding girl in her care was another.
    “I have to,” Kylie answered, and turned to leave. She got only a few feet.
    Stay.
    There was something about the voice, a male voice. She glanced back over her shoulder; air caught in her chest.
    Her grandfather? Was that not him? Then Kylie saw the woman and recognized her as her grandmother’s sister. Tears filled Kylie’s eyes.
    She started to turn back but the girl in Kylie’s arms screamed. She looked down. The girl’s eyes shot open. Her dark blue irises stared up in bafflement and sent a bolt of familiarity rocketing through Kylie.
    But she had no time to ponder. The blood oozing down the face of the girl came down faster. Kylie’s instinct to get the girl to safety made her own blood sizzle. How badly was this stranger hurt?
    “Release me!” the girl ordered in a low growl, and tried to squirm free. “Release me!” she screamed again, and started to fight this time. Her strength told Kylie this was no human. Without Kylie’s protective powers, the girl would have easily won her freedom, but not now.
    “In a minute.”
    Kylie took flight—holding the squirming blue-eyed stranger close. I’m sorry. Kylie spoke the words in her head and prayed they would be heard by those she’d just left. She’d had no choice but to leave. Her need to protect bit down stronger than her own quest.
    *   *   *
    Clutching the screaming stranger in her arms, Kylie jumped over the barbed-wire fence. Once on Shadow Falls property, the silence in the woods seemed louder than the girl’s protests. Without warning, Kylie felt one, two, and then three whisks of air fly past her.
    Then Burnett, Della, and a large bird—Perry—appeared beside her, all three moving at Kylie’s pace.
    Kylie stopped running. So did the others. Tiny sparkling bubbles appeared beside Perry as he morphed back into human form.
    The three of them stared at Kylie, or rather, they stared at the screaming girl in Kylie’s arms.
    “Who is she?” Burnett asked.
    “Don’t know.” Kylie’s breaths came short, her mind on her grandfather and great-aunt. “She was running from—”
    “She’s a were,” Della interrupted. “I could smell her as soon as we passed.”
    The girl stopped struggling against Kylie’s hold. Her voice deepened as she met Kylie’s eyes. “Release me now! Or you will regret this with your dying breath.” She raised her head and glared at Della and then Burnett. “All of you will regret it!”
    Burnett spoke directly to Kylie’s package. “Give me your word that you will not run.”
    She glared at him.
    “If you do, I’ll catch you and I’ll be really pissed off.”
    “If you’re fast enough,” the girl quipped.
    “Oh, he’s fast enough.” Perry tossed in his two cents. “When he was fifteen, he chased down a shape-shifter in antelope form and kicked his antelope ass. There wasn’t enough of that animal left to make a rug.”
    “Fine,” the stranger bit out. “I won’t run.”
    Della moved in and stared at Perry. “You knew Burnett when he was fifteen and chasing antelopes?”
    Releasing the girl, Kylie’s gaze collided with the antelope ass kicker himself. His expression prepared her for what came next. “I thought I made it clear you were not to go into the woods.”
    Kylie nodded, but she refused to be reprimanded for doing what, for her, was as natural as breathing. “Someone was in danger.”
    “ You put yourself in danger.” His gaze shot back to the girl. “What were you running from?”
    “Fog.” The girl wiped away the blood that oozed from her forehead. “It chased me.”
    “Fog chased you?” Della snickered. “You smoking something?”
    “She’s telling the truth.” Kylie almost told them about her grandfather, but something compelled her to think first … speak later.
    “Who are you?” Burnett asked the girl.
    “Who are you ?” the girl countered.
    “Definitely were with that attitude,” Della muttered.
    Perry laughed, then waved at the girl. “You’re bleeding. It’s dangerous to bleed in front of vampires.”
    “Don’t worry,” Della said. “Were blood is