“Right.” I couldn’t help but laugh a little. “I’ll go out and get kindling.”
“What? Can’t blame an old guy for trying,’ he said, quirking an eyebrow.
I took Fuzz’s advice and went and got dressed. Then I threw on a parka and boots and went outside.
As I approached, Austin leaned against the wood pile, his coat abandoned. I could smell the salt on his skin, the heat of the work lingering, mixing with the scent of the freshly split firewood. He looked up when he heard my footsteps.
Before he could say anything, I wrapped my arms around his waist, hugging him to me. He bent his head to kiss my forehead, my neck. “You can never do that again,” he whispered. “You can never risk your life for something stupid.”
“Not turning into a wolf wasn’t something stupid.” I held on to him, neither one of us saying anything for a moment. Little clouds of breath rose between us. “I thought you wouldn’t ever really love me if I was like you. I guess I was wrong.”
He nodded. “Dead wrong.”
I squeezed him tighter. “It’s not that terrible so far. I mean, bad guys trying to shoot me isn’t my favorite thing, but I don’t think that happens all the time.”
“No.” He smiled.
“At least now I can understand you better. I mean, now that I’ve been through the change, at least I know what it’s like, what you’ve been going through...”
He leaned in and kissed me, a long, slow kiss that warmed me from toes to earlobes. I pulled away and looked into his amber eyes for a moment. He didn’t turn away from my gaze.
“I love you no matter what you are,” he whispered.
“And I forgive you,” I said quietly. “So it’s time you forgave yourself.”
He nodded and then kissed me again. There was a kind of acceptance that I sensed from him as his lips met mine, that he really did love me no matter what form I took. For the first time, I really believed it, and maybe that was because I could feel that he believed it. His lips pressed harder against mine, wanting, exploring.
I felt something in my body stir – a growl-y, wolf-y kind of a stirring. I jumped back. “Um...”
“Something wrong?”
I felt my cheeks were hot, my palms sweaty. “Um... not quite normal over here.”
Austin smiled, a twinkle in his eyes. “Oh, really?”
“I think I better go into the house,” I said, embarrassment growing. I started backing away.
“Remember the change doesn’t only happen at the full moon. It can occur when you get angered, or excited...” He gave me a cheeky wink.
I backed away a few more steps. “I do feel like I’m going to start shredding something over here.”
“In that case...” Austin took a few steps toward me.
I squealed and ran off toward the house. “No, no – I don’t want to turn right now. It’s snowing. I’ll be naked in the snow!”
But Austin was moving toward me, tossing his shirt on ground, hopping as he tried to untie and kick off his boots. I kept running toward the house, laughing. And then, in a flash of brown and a howl, Austin bolted past me, already a wolf.
It only took seconds for me to transform. As the layers of my shredded clothing fell away, so did the layers of worry about not being loved because of what I’d become. And then I was my new self, my wolf. I chased Austin into the woods, seeing joy in his gait and hearing happiness in his howl. And it almost felt right.
***
A lot changed for me in the cold mountains above Muldrazny that winter. A lot changed for us all. Rumors of what befell the three men who disappeared the night of the concert reverberated through Muldrazny. Maybe the residents suspected something, or maybe they didn’t. Fuzz and the others didn’t seem concerned about it. And once Eva was fully recuperated, things were back to normal around the castle. It was almost as if the night at the frozen waterfall never happened.
I had never seen Austin as happy as I did during the beginning of my werewolf life in Muldania that winter. For the first time since I’d known him, he seemed content to be with his family, content to be himself, wolf and all. And I think I was almost happy, too – even if I couldn’t be with my dad, who I missed so much. For now, I was laying low and sticking with the Bridges.
The relentless moonlight, which I had thought was only there to take away the safety, to infiltrate all the places I didn’t want exposed, had instead brought me a new kind of freedom and power. And, it brought me something I never expected in the wolves of Muldania – a family I could count on. No one, not the Seven Horsemen or anyone else, was going to take that away from me.
I was part of the pack. I was finally part of the moonlight.
* * *
About the Author
Heather Davis is the award-winning author of the novels Never Cry Werewolf, The Clearing, Wherever You Go, and the novella Sometimes by Moonlight. She lives and writes in the Pacific Northwest. You can find out more about her work, including future books in the Never Cry Werewolf series, at www.heatherdavisbooks.com
Always in Shadow: A Novella (Never Cry Werewolf) Page 11
