The Savage Grace: A Dark Divine Novel Read Online Free Page B

Gabriel and my father what I’d realized. The boys followed after me. “In my dreams, I keep reliving a memory where Daniel keeps telling me that my moonstone will help me stay human. But what if he’s really trying to tell me that a moonstone is what he needs to turn him back into a human?”
    Could it really be that easy? Why hadn’t gabriel thought of it before me?
    My hand went instinctively to my neck again to clasp my moonstone pendant—the thing that could save Daniel—and once again I was caught by surprise that it wasn’t there.
    “No!” I practically howled and stopped in my tracks. I should have known there was no easy answer.
    Every moonstone I’d ever known to exist had now been destroyed.
    Unless…
    I closed my eyes and thought through every moment of that dream about Daniel and me in the Garden of Angels: the sketchbook. Daniel’s tender kiss on my skin. His warm fingers lingering on my moonstone pendant. The pendant that was half the stone Daniel used to wear before it had been broken by…
    The beautiful image of Daniel in my head suddenly shifted to one of my most horrible memories—the night Jude fell to the werewolf curse. The night he infected me and almost succeeded in killing Daniel. Jude had pursued us on to the roof of the parish. He’d confronted Daniel, but Daniel had refused to fight. Anxiety ached in my muscles as I remembered the way Daniel had removed his moonstone necklace—the only thing keeping him from going wolf in the light of the full moon—and offered it to Jude. Begged him to take the stone.
    I remembered how for a second it looked like Jude was going to take the moonstone, like all was going to be well. As I watched the memory replay in my head, I knew what was going to happen. I remembered the way I’d screamed when Jude took the stone and pitched it from the roof of the parish, and it disappeared into the dark void beyond the roof.…
    And then it all clicked. My eyes popped open. I knew exactly what my dreams had been trying to tell me.
    Half a moonstone!
    “Daniel was only able to find half the moonstone that Jude threw from that roof … and I might just know where to find the other half.”

Chapter Three
H OPE S TONE
    FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, OUTSIDE THE PARISH
    I stood in the cold, dead grass in the churchyard near the willow tree where Daniel and I used to share occasional picnics after Sunday service. Dad and Gabriel sat on the parish steps. The five boys stood behind me—they’d insisted on coming along, which was good since I was going to need all the help I could get. No doubt they were all wondering why I’d been staring up at the roof of the parish for the last few minutes like a total loon. Only one member of our little group was still missing, and I was taking advantage of what time I had left to gather my thoughts before I shared my revelation with the others.
    I heard the screech of brakes in the parking lot. I could smell April’s pear-scented perfume as soon as she got out of the car—along with another mixture of scents, like maple, donuts, and … bacon?
    “What’s the big emergency?” she asked as she came up to me. Her voice sounded oddly chipper for six thirty a.m. on a Saturday.
    I took my eyes off the parish’s roof for a second to glance at her. I’d given the others only a ten-minute warning to meet me. Dad had creases on his face like he’d fallen asleep at his desk in the parish’s office with only a book for a pillow. Gabriel was just as bleary-eyed, but April looked like she was headed out to the Megaplex in Apple Valley on a Friday night with perfectly placed curls, jewelry, makeup, and an outfit that looked like it was straight off a mannequin at the Gap. I, on the other hand, was still clad in my red pajama pants and shirt under my jacket.
    I gave her one more quick glance and noticed the paper bag from the Day’s Market Bakery sticking out of her large pink purse. The mixture of smells suddenly made sense, and if I had