Chloe smiles. “Thanks.” God, I love it when she speaks instead of signs. I do appreciate thatshe can talk to me in that way. But her voice makes my blood spark.
I watch as she bites into the last marshmallow on the stick, her teeth flashing in the firelight. There’s a moment where Iimagine her tearing into flesh, where the melty sugar turns to white sinew, and the firelight almost looks like blood on her face.
I suck in my breath, heat flooding through my body.
Chloe finishes the marshmallow and peers up at me through the uneven light, and I feel a faint shift in her emotions. Arousal and confusion and that quivering trepidation, all wound together.
“Why’d you invite us camping?” she asks.
I freeze. How the hell am I going to explain the killing moon to her?
I’m saved, though. Over on the other side of the fire, Oliver yelps and yanks his marshmallow stick out of the fire, the end burning like a torch.
“Drop it in the fire!” Chloe shouts, jumping to her feet. Oliver wings the stick forward into the flames, and it sparks and sputters. She breathes out, and I try not to enjoy the spike of fear and adrenaline it caused in her.
“Why can’t I do this?” Oliver signs, his scowl clear in the firelight.
Chloe laughs. “You can’t put the marshmallowinthe fire, silly. Here, let me show you again.” She glances over at me, and I feel it, that tug toward me. But it’s only for a second, because then she’s on her feet, walking to the other side of the fire. The human side, I think numbly.
At least I got out of answering her question.
I settle back on my log and watch her with Oliver. Watch her thread the marshmallow on a fresh stick and place it in his hand, then show him how to hold it a few centimeters from the fire until the heat makes its surface crack with gold. Oliver grins, and their happiness is as warm and undeniable as the heat of the fire. It’s such a rare human emotion for me to experience. Usually, the only time I feel it is those seconds before I snatch it away.
But not tonight. The call of the killing moon has finally quieted, and I don’t see either of them as trespassers. Not with me here with them, out in the open, the firelight looping us together.
It’s all working exactly as I hoped.
It’sa little before midnight by the time Oliver falls asleep, crawling sleepily into his tent. Chloe zips it shut for him and then stands with her arms crossed over her chest, watching the entrance like she thinks he might burst out, screaming, the way campers here usually do.
The wind blows across the lake, making the fire gutter, and she turns toward me. For a minute, we just stare at each other.
Then she signs, “His parents left him alone. Did you know that?”
I tense up again. Then, sensing an opportunity, I nod. “It’s why I thought to invite him camping.” I’m certain she can see the lie in my hands.
Or maybe not. Her shoulders soften a little, and she walks around the fire and comes to sit beside me on the log, crossing her legs so she can lean forward and look into the flames.
“My friend says I shouldn’t trust you.” This, she speaks, breathing the words out like smoke.
Her friend is right, of course. Anyone who knows what I am would say the same thing. And yet I still brush my hand against her shoulder to get her attention. As soon as her big, luminous eyes fix on me, I say, “But here you are.”
Uncertainty flutters across Chloe’s face. “I didn’t want to leave Oliver alone.”
“I won’t hurt him.” I pause, watching the shadows move across her skin. “Or you.”
Chloe drinks me in. “My friend would say this is a trap.”
“Did you tell her about it?”
Chloe gives me a sly, slow smile. “No,” she says. “When Oliver showed up, I didn’t really think about it all. I just—” She breathes out. “I just wanted to see you again.”
For a second, it feels like the world comes to a standstill. This peninsula, these woods, Hanging Lake—they’ve been my entire world for years. For decades. And she just froze it in time.
“Why?” I ask, the movement small and uncertain.
Chloe trembles. “I don’t know.”
But I do. I can smell it on her. The arousal. The lust.
