Read Online Once Upon a Haunted Moon (The Keeper Saga) by K.R. Thompson - Free Book Online Page A

“Please tell me you won.”
    She grinned.
    “Of course.”
    The white, two-story popped into view and I parked. Tori hopped out of the truck, and sent me a quick grin over the hood of the truck. “Thanks for the ride.”
    “Sure, no problem.” I watched as she made her way across the porch and planted some rather solid knocks on the front door. I knew Nikki wasn’t in the house, I could sense her coming around the side. I leaned against the front of the truck and waited.
    “Nicole Harmon, if you’re in there, you’d better come out!” she demanded, her voice dropping an octave with the last few words, as if daring to be contradicted. She glared at the closed door with her hands on her hips, then apparently thought better and dropped her hands, straightened her black leather jacket and fiddled absently with the shiny little metal buckles on the pockets, “Ok… please? ”
    “Well, since you put it that way,” Nikki said coming up behind her on the front steps with a huge grin on her face.
    She jumped, startled, and whirled around, her shining black hair (with blue streaks) fanned around her in a wide arc, glinting in the sun. Somehow she had managed to snag the broom from beside the door and was wielding it in front of her like a sword.
    I stifled the urge to burst out laughing.
    The girl on the porch stood with an expression so ferocious, that had I been anyone else, I would have been afraid. Muscles taut, she was ready to skewer any attacker with the soft part of Mrs. Harmon’s favorite broom.
    “Geez, Tori, did you want me to come out or not?” Nikki asked, quivering with the urge to laugh as she looked at her friend from around the straw fringe that waggled a few inches from her face.
    Tori lowered the broom, and set it aside, and (with a rather authoritative air) pointed a glossy-black painted nail, “Most people use the door, there, Mary Poppins. Since when do you just appear out of thin air? You scared the crap out of me, I could have hurt you!”
    I couldn’t hold it in any longer, as I looked at the sword/broom and the scowl planted firmly on her face. Her tough girl façade broke as Nikki laughed, too, and tackled her in a tight hug. I watched as they did a funny girl dance/hug thing, completely ignoring everything else around them.
    “I knew you’d missed me! If you’d actually ever answer your cell phone I wouldn’t have had to deck Molly Gunner and get suspended so I could come up here and check on you! You know I’ve sent you like a million text messages and called like a gazillion times. You’ve had me worried sick! Your best friend moves, no calls, no letters — no nothing! What gives, anyway?” She pulled back and demanded. A big chunk of blue hair fell into her eye. She brushed it back impatiently, and stood waiting for an answer, shoving her hands into the pockets of her jacket.
    It was in that instant, I sensed a wolf coming through the woods and toward us fast. I cleared my throat, trying to get Nikki’s attention.
    “Yeah, the cell towers don’t work up here. The mountains screw up the signal…” Nikki had started her lie easily, then broke off as she, too, realized someone was coming.
    Ed came barreling toward us, a charging, enormous cream-colored blur that stopped mere feet from the front porch, changing back to human directly in front of us all.
    I winced. “Actually, it’s the magic that screws up the signal.”

Chapter Ten

Brian
    “Something’s happened to him. He’s gone.”
    Ed opened his mouth, but it was Nikki who spoke.
    She didn’t sit, but rather dropped onto the porch steps as if her legs suddenly had forgotten how to support her.
    Ed gave her a barely perceptible nod and I felt a weight drop in my stomach. Ed shouldn’t have been the one to tell Nikki if something was wrong, it would have been…
    “Who’s gone?” I asked quietly, but I already knew the answer.
    “Adam.” Nikki whispered. Her eyes had a wild, vacant look in them, as if she were