Edie Spence [02] Moonshifted

by Cassie Alexander

  “What’s it like when it works, when you feel it?”

  I thought about it. “Those parts don’t happen as often as I might like.” The most recent one involved his uncle, on the pavement, but I didn’t think I would tell him that. Because sometimes you could do everything right, and it still didn’t turn out well. “When you see something that needs doing, and you know you’re the right one to do it, even if you’re scared—it’s good. There’s a lot of charting around those times, though. And sometimes being yelled at by drunks.”

  Lucas snorted. “My dad was a drunk.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I never was sure which came first, the alcohol, or the asshole. He did this to me.” Lucas stroked a finger along the dent on his nose. “Said if I changed into a wolf to heal it, he’d rip off my arm and beat me with it. I believed him.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Fifteen. He always preferred to fight me as a human. He said the wolf would know how to fight when the time came—it was the human half that needed training,” Lucas said, his voice an imitation of his father’s. “It took me years before I realized he did it so he’d be bigger than me for most of my life.”

  “That’s awful.”

  “Yeah, it was. I spent a lot of time in JV after that. He always waited until the day of the full moon to spring me. Thought he was punishing me. Little did he know, I preferred staying in jail.”

  “Lucas—” I set my coffee mug down on the ground and drew an equation in the air between us. “You’ve had a rough life, you don’t have an education, you’re not from here. And you’re going to lead the Deepest Snow wolf pack why again, exactly?”

  “I’m of age, and I’m the closest related male blood. It’s how our system works.” He shrugged. “I’m only holding the spot until Fenris Jr. comes of age. Believe me, I don’t want it.”

  “I just don’t see why you’re more competent than, say, Jorgen.”

  “He’s bitten. He doesn’t know what being a wolf is like. He’s still chained by what made him a man.”

  “Then why don’t you give them shots to cure him and the others? Or do they really all opt in?”

  Lucas gawked at me, then laughed. “I’m just imagining you interrogating my uncle. Jorgen would tell you his service to my family is an honor—he was bitten by the old man himself. And as for opting in—the world is full of paths, Edie.” He leaned forward, even with me, and his voice went rough, otherworldly, like the wolf was pushing through. “Sometimes you take one, and it gets you lost in the woods.”

  I sat very still, and for a moment I felt like a rabbit must feel when a hawk’s shadow crosses above. Then Lucas laughed and shook his head. “I’m teasing, of course.”

  “Of course,” I readily agreed. I held my mug out. “More coffee, please?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  I watched him as he walked back to his kitchen, barefoot on the tile floor. He poured more coffee, and I wondered how far I’d get if I flung it into his face and ran for the door. Consciously, I didn’t feel like I was in danger, but my subconscious had other opinions something fierce. Maybe it was the predator-and-prey thing I was picking up on—he the spider, I the fly.

  On his way back with my mug, his phone chirped from the kitchen table. He got the message, and brought the phone with him. “They’re done with your place now.” He handed the mug and the phone over at the same time, with the screen still lit. “So you can see they’re not telling me anything other than that.”

  I took the coffee and sipped it—he’d put in sugar and cream for me already, made it just the way I’d had it before. “For all I know, this could be an elaborate code.” I was only half teasing.

  “Don’t give my people so much credit. In the wild, a dumb wolf would starve or get killed. But as humans nine-tenths of the time, a higher percentage of us are able to bumble on day-to-day than you’d think.”

  “Well. Thanks for the coffee. I should probably be getting home now.”

  He frowned down at me. “Or you could just stay here tonight. It’d be easy for me to protect you here.”

  I looked around the confines of Lucas’s small living room. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “You still don’t trust me?”

  “I don’t know how I can. Sorry.”

  If he’d looked angry, I’d have been scared. Instead he seemed bemused, and he reached for his phone. “Fine. I’ll call you a cab. He’s one of ours—he can stay outside your apartment for the rest of the night.”

  His phone call sounded very real. He gave them an address and everything. I packed my stuff, after getting another trash bag for my stained clothing—maybe I should carry around trash bags just in case, at the rate I was going—and Minnie was still in the carrier, still growling her displeasure. After that, I didn’t know how long we had to kill until the cab arrived.

  “You’re still sure I can’t change your mind?” he asked when I was in the living room again, Minnie at my side. His eyes searched my face. “I promise no harm will come to you tonight.”

  “You just told me people wander off and get lost in dark woods. That makes it hard to believe you.”

  Lucas snorted and looked at the ground. “That was a mistake.”

  “Lucas, I want to believe you—which is probably why I should go.”

  I reached down and picked up my mug to carry it into the kitchen, and Minnie hissed behind me. I looked over, and she wasn’t looking at me—

  I turned around and Lucas was gone. In his place was a wolf as big as the couch. I stepped back. It took up so much space I felt like there was little room left to breathe. Not it—he. Lucas. His fur was the color of a worn penny, dull red, with streaks of gray. Minnie kept hissing.

  “Is frightening my cat really the best way to convince me?” I picked her up and set her on the couch, away from him. When I looked back, he was sitting on his haunches, watching me with copper eyes. He got down on all fours and stretched toward me, head low. He crept nearer, bowed down, until he was an arm’s length away. He kept looking, and I did my best not to move.

  He could have attacked. He would have won. But he kept coming closer until his wet nose almost touched my kneeling thigh.

  I reached one finger out, to trace the fine hairs on his muzzle the wrong direction. Lucas the wolf closed his eyes. Bolder, I stroked a path up to his eyebrow. The fur wasn’t soft, but tactilely different than I expected. Somewhere between bristles and fur, both thick and springy. I ran the palm of my hand down the back of his neck, pressed it into his fur, felt it give, and then the solid muscle hidden underneath.

  His head turned slowly to the side, and his teeth caught my wrist. His rough, warm tongue ran over my hand.

  There was a knock at the door. My ride.

  I pulled my hand away slowly, and he bit down a little more, pulling me toward him. His teeth were like the ends of blunt pens—not needle-sharp, but his jaw could crush my wrist and I would never chart again.

  Then he let me go.

  There was another knock at the door. Louder, insistent.

  “If the world is full of paths, why does yours have to be the one lined with puppies?”

  Lucas’s eyebrows, and lips, pulled up into a literally wolfish grin. He sat up and bit my bicep with his frightening-not-frightening teeth, and then licked at my throat. I closed my eyes and laughed and pushed him away, and found myself touching skin.

  “I’m a wolf, not a dog.” He was sitting on the floor very near me now, completely naked. My hands were on his chest, and I pulled them back with a yelp. “Are you really so frightened of me?”

  “No. But I should be. That’s the problem.”

  “Edie, I don’t want you to be afraid.” He was near enough that I could feel the heat radiating off him, feverish. He was beautiful, and I could see all of him now, his tattoos scrolling up and down both arms, his stomach lean, his cock hard.

  I’d spent the past few weeks angry, frustrated, overthinking thi
ngs, running scared. Here was something I could do that would be so simple, and feel so good, if I just let it. I was tired of fighting, I was lonely—and I was hungry. “I don’t want to be afraid either.”

  The door knocked one final, last time, and I could hear someone cursing behind it as they walked away. I didn’t jump up to follow.

  Lucas reached out for me, ran his hand into my wet hair, caught a fistful, and gently pulled. His eyes—they were still his wolf’s eyes, bright, searching my own, as he leaned in near and breathed deeply. His hand in my hair tightened, and he pulled away to look at me. His chest rose and fell, breathing hard, like he’d been fighting, and I felt the same sensation, mirrored in my own. I twisted my head and my wet hair slid through the fingers of his hand.

  “I can smell you,” he said, his voice deeper, more rough. “Still afraid—but curious. Ready.”

  I felt more naked than I had in the shower, even though I still had on clothes. “You’re not wrong,” I said, my voice low.

  “Once we start, this close to the moon—” he said, and I could see the tension flow through him. He was as hungry as I was, but he was still tempered with restraint. “There’s no going back.”

  I sighed and almost laughed at him. “Don’t worry. You can’t hurt me.”

  Then he fell on me, with a kiss.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Kissing was great and all, but—I kicked out of my sweatpants beneath him. He left my mouth to bend back and grabbed the ankles of them, dragging them off me, dropping me to the floor. My underwear were the next to go; he grabbed each hip and tore them free. The shirt I already had halfway off when he started to help, and I could feel his chest against mine, each touch hot like flame. He stopped and stared. I had those stupid girl thoughts that you can get when foreplay downshifts gears without warning—what if he didn’t like what he saw, what if he changed his mind about sex with me—but he was staring at the belt buckled around my waist. “What’s this?”

  “Don’t touch it—it’s silver.” I reached for it, to unfasten it myself. “It’ll burn you.”

  Lucas looked down at me, his cock still aching hard. Seeing it made me hurt deep inside, where I wanted it to be. He pushed my hands away from the buckle, lowered himself nearer to me, whispering against my neck. “Do you think I mind?”

  A sizzling sound, and the belt was free. He sat up. I was on my back in his living room, and he knelt beside me, the belt in his hand. He held the belt buckle like a badge, and touched it, cold, to both my nipples till they were hard. Stroked it down the center of me, using it to push my legs open, grinding its rough design against my clit, and then he held up his hand where it should have been burned, and I saw it heal, as if by magic, which I supposed it was. I reached for him then, for his cock. His lips parted as my fingers wrapped around his flesh, found it hot, and stroked up. A growl rumbled, from the wolf hidden in him, now not very deep inside.

  “I’m going to take you like I own you, Edie,” he said, and his eyes almost weren’t his own.

  “Just for tonight,” I amended, my hand sliding back down his cock. He laughed at my clarification—or maybe the fact that I thought I could clarify—and the wolf in him disappeared, leaving only Lucas behind.

  “On your knees,” he said, his face torn between smug and challenging. “That is, if you would be so kind as to agree.”

  “I think I can be convinced to go along.”

  I felt foolish on all fours, and wished that maybe for once I’d kept my mouth shut. He waited, and a second before I would have changed my mind and called everything off, he reached out and touched my back with his soft-rough hand. The touch startled me, disturbed me from my thoughts. When his hand trailed off me, after following the curves of my body, he reached up to start touching me again. He leaned in and rubbed his cheek against my side. I could feel the stubble scratch along my ribs, winding up in my armpit. I laughed. He bared his teeth and nipped me, the outside of my breast, the curve of my waist. His hands and arms kept flowing over me, from the nape of my neck, down my back, buttocks, the backs of my thighs. His mouth bit awkward places, sharp jolts of pain I didn’t expect. Sensations I couldn’t fight against or prepare for, smooth, rough, sharp, washing over me like waves. Keeping my eyes closed only added to the effect, and suddenly I was where I’d been before, only more so. I knew he was behind me now, his hands dipping beneath me to grab my breasts, rolling my nipples between fingers as he bit at my shoulders and neck, his chest hot against my back.

  All sane thoughts fled my mind. There was only now, and what I wanted, and how would I get there. I became a beast. I pushed back, my hips against his, and he growled, his mouth near my ear. I pushed back again and he moved with me, using a hand to angle his cock down. The head of him slid across me and I moaned. He held himself there, perilously close to what I wanted, playing himself against my folds. I whined then, an animal sound, frustrated, heavy, sore. The second I gave up, he pushed himself inside.

  It was like taking a hot spear. I cried out in surprise and triumph and he growled his ownership again. He pulled out of me, his hands clawing down my back, then shoved himself back in. Each stroke encompassed the length of him, so I could feel just how empty I would be when we were through, how full I was when he was deep inside. I made wild noises with each of his thrusts into me, I didn’t care.

  He leaned over and picked up the belt, flicking it down and around my neck. He held both ends like reins behind me. With each thrust forward, he pulled me back onto his cock. There was no physical pain, just leather chafing against my collarbones, no problems breathing. There was only the knowing that I’d been caught, the knowledge that he was riding me like the animal that I was.

  I reached one hand between my legs and felt the solidness of him there, sliding in and out of me. My fingers found myself and rubbed. I could feel my orgasm build. I was flush with blood, with weight, with raw need—I didn’t look back, I wasn’t sure who I’d see fucking me, him or his wolf. I didn’t want to know. All I wanted was to come.

  The belt pulled me back again and my hand and his cock—it lit a fuse on something deep inside. “Don’t stop,” I begged, and he only growled and fucked me harder.

  My orgasm rose and swelled and I could feel it coming and then it crashed over me, roiling through me. I cried out with each wave as it swept across me, pulling him deeper. I leaned back for even more of him, trying to keep us whole. His cock stiffened in me like an arrow, and then he growled long and low, giving quick short thrusts, until he was quiet, and I knew he was spent.

  The belt fell from my neck, and he slid out of me. I fell to the ground, and he collapsed beside me, panting, exhausted.

  He was all Lucas now, broken nose, short hair, eyes brown-red. He reached over to me and pulled me against him, roughly. I smiled at him. “And to think you thought tonight you wouldn’t have to wrestle.”

  He laughed, and kissed me again.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  He kept kissing me, and we weren’t even fucking anymore. I didn’t know what to do. As I lay beside him, his body was hot like a furnace, and the smell of sweat and sex filled the room. I pulled away from him, and he smiled at me. “Come on. If we sleep here, we’ll wind up sore.” Lucas stood and offered me his hand.

  “More sore,” I corrected him.

  Concern flashed in his eyes. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

  I stood up on my own without taking his hand. “Not in any way I minded at the time.” I picked my clothes up off the floor and pulled them on. “I’ll be in my room, thanks.”

  He tilted his head and looked at me. “Edie, what just happened?”

  I couldn’t explain it to him—I just needed some space, fast. I didn’t want to hope ever again. It wasn’t even about him, it was about how my life would probably be better if I never let anyone in. I grabbed Minnie’s cat carrier—she was asleep inside it, long since used to my conquests—walked quickly down the hall, and shut myself inside the room he’d given me. The
re were NASCAR posters on the walls. And the sheets on the bed were blue, with yellow stars and rocket ships. It felt like I was in the room of a child. I lay down on the bed and closed my eyes.

  Lucas knocked on the door. “Edie, are you okay?”

  “Can you just guard me from out there, please?” I asked through the door.

  I didn’t get an answer. After a few minutes of silence, there was one whine, then another. I waited and they didn’t stop.

  “Please, Lucas, stop.” There was the sound of scratching at the bottom of the door. “You’ll ruin the carpet.” The scratching continued. I gave up and opened the door.

  The wolf came into the room and bounded up onto the bed, the mattress springs groaning with his weight. He lay there, still, his head in his paws. He yawned a soundless question, stared at me, then closed his eyes. I waited, trying to figure out what I should do.

  I turned off the light and crawled into bed beside him. He stayed a wolf. Furry, warm, with hot moist breath. His tongue licked my neck, once. I wrapped my arms around his neck, buried my face in his fur, and cried.

  * * *

  When I woke up, sun was coming in through the plaid curtains, and there was a strange cat lying beside me, colored peach and gray. It opened one lazy eye. “Marguerite?” I guessed. The eye closed.

  The rest of the room wasn’t my room, and all of a sudden I remembered everything that’d happened the night before—before the sex, and my subsequent shutdown.

  I elbowed myself up to sitting. “Lucas?” He would want to talk this morning, and I would have to be nice about it.

  Marguerite woke up and licked a paw. I looked down, and Minnie was still sitting in her cat carrier, ruling her small roost. I got out of bed. I really needed a toothbrush, and not having showered after sex made me feel gross. I opened my bedroom door, wrapped a blanket around me like a robe, and made my way to the living room. “Lucas?”