Hare Moon Read Online Free PDF

herself in a small ball, protecting herself from the world.
    He opens his eyes, sees her.
    She inhales at the intensity of his gaze. Something inside her flutters, warms, spreads. He doesn’t say anything as he slips from underneath the covers, the thin sheet trailing over his chest and down across his hips.
    He’s wearing nothing. She swallows.
    Her voice is a panicked squeak. “Your brother—”
    “Is in the room next door. It looked vacant—dusty. Never used.”
    She nods her head. No one’s stayed in that room as long as she’s been here. He comes closer. She swallows again. She’s still not looking directly at him and he raises a finger.
    He starts at her thumb, trailing his touch around her wrist, up the inside of her arm and across her elbow. Along her upper arm, so that his knuckles brush against her bound breasts.
    She’s not sure what breathing is anymore. What heat is.
    His fingertips dance over her collarbone, slip just lightly under the hem of her tunic, over her chest. His skin is sleep-warm, his eyelids heavy.
    “My Tabby,” he says, lowering his face to where her neck meets her shoulder. Every part of her is alive and waiting for that first touch of lips to skin. When it happens she opens her mouth, her body unable to contain air any longer.
    He kisses the line of her jaw and along her cheekbone. Into her ear he murmurs, “My love.”
    She stands there, eyes closed, wound up so tight she expects his next touch will cause her to explode and end the world.
    She wants to raise her hand and touch him. To wrap her fingers around his muscles and feel them twitch. She wants to make him catch his breath. She wants to make him feel as full of need and desire as she does at this moment.
    His lips are just skimming hers. She breathes him into her and he breathesher into him and she wonders if anything can be more intimate than this: this sharing of breath that is life.
    He slips a hand behind her neck, into her hair, untangling her bun. His fingertips dig into her scalp and she can feel that he is wound tight, like her. That in the next moment he will pull her mouth to his and they’ll ignite. She’ll crack open and be nothing but pure light energy, her soul bursting into the world to burn with his.
    The scream is high-pitched and long, and so unexpected that it takes Tabitha and Patrick too many heartbeats to understand what’s happening.
    In the hallway roars a commotion and banging and then the door flies open. “Tabitha!” Ruth comes racing in, blood trailing down her arm. She’s too far into the room before she realizes what she’s barged in on. Before she sees the naked young man with his arms around Tabitha.
    Ruth pauses, and in that moment, a tiny body struggles out of the darkness at her. It’s Patrick’s brother, his lips dripping blood and his fingers digging into the Sister’s knee as he bites at her calf.
    Tabitha screams. Footsteps pound down the hallway, and before she can warn anyone away Ami careens into the room. Patrick’s brother switches targets, pawing at the newcomer.
    Ruth stands there sobbing and Ami dissolves into panic just as fast, trying to fling her body to dislodge the Unconsecrated child but managing only to tangle herself in her tunic. To allow him access to her ankle. More footsteps in the hallway. The boy drops Ami and looks straight at Tabitha. He stumbles toward her and Patrick rears back.
    Tabitha doesn’t think. She just acts. She snatches the boy by his arm, twisting him to keep his teeth from her. With all of her strength she flings him across the room. He slams into the wall and Patrick shouts.
    “Out!” Tabitha screams at everyone. Patrick tries to approach his brother, who lies crumpled on the floor, little mewling moans dribbling from his lips. The boy starts to crawl toward them, his fingernails shredding and snapping against the stone floor as he tries to gain traction.
    Tabitha pushes the two infected Sisters from the room and grabs Patrick’s