The Call of the Moon

by Kristy Breckenridge

  Nothing. She saw absolutely nothing. Yet she could hear somewhere off nearby, Fenrir yelling out. “You need to stop him. Help him tame!” And it was at that moment, she noticed the creature slowly coming into view, moving out there in slow tantalyzing steps. The creature, whom Faye presumed to be a part of Roy, was in a stance with Fenrir. Occasionally, it’s long claws would swipe out, as if meaning to wipe Fenrir completely out, and she was sure that could very well be a possibility.

  Another swipe came, but this one caused a loud whimper to escape from her lips. Her hand came up to her mouth, as if to silence herself, but no doubt, that beast heard her and it’s gazed whipped around to her direction. With a very noticeable and loud growl, it charged after her. All she could do was take a quick step back, but she heard the crash to the door. This alone made her jump, and she fell backwards to the floor in shock.

  Oh god, oh god, oh god.

  Crash after crash could be heard against the door, and it had her shaking uncontrollably in fear, as her back leaned against something, she was not entirely sure what that something was. It could have been books for all she cared.

  There was a rustling sound of something out there, almost sounding as if there were two sets of growls, but then there was silence shortly thereafter.

  All that could be heard was her pulse sounding in her ear, and her harsh breaths leaving her lips. What had she just seen?

  She had just seen a beast. A beast that looked like it’d jumped straight out of a horror movie. A beast that she was all too familiar with, because in a way, they were her favorite kind.

  A werewolf?

  She wanted to smack herself at how stupid that thought was. Werewolves didn’t exist. And sure, she was used to reading about the kind that shifted into an - on all fours - dog.

  How could these things exist in her world? And why was she just now finding out about them, after all this time? Truth be told, she wanted to be happy and excited about it. Oh she got the excitement, but not necessarily in a good way, but she just could not find this to be a happy moment.

  Roy was a beast.

  Did they know about this before? Was this the kind of thing that Fenrir was hiding from her all this time? The thing that he refused to talk to her about? The thing, that Sam said he would tell her about once they got settled in?

  Well, they were settled in, and she got her wish, but not in the way she had been hoping. Hell, all this time, she thought that Sam, or Fen, were supposed witches, or something that more easy going. Not big bad wolves.

  Wolves…

  Were they all wolves?

  The sudden realization actually frightened her.

  “It’s a form of…bond.” She recalled what Fenrir had said to her, the night that he showed up at her doorstep. The night that all of this started. That was just two nights ago. Yet it felt like ages, after all of this.

  Suddenly the door opened, making her jump. She had been in deep thought so badly, that everything right now seemed to make her jump. Looking up at the door, she saw Fenrir there. He stopped, and looked down at her as well, but his look was nothing compared to her own. His seemed angry.

  “You were told get away from the door.” Stooping down, he grabbed her by the arm, forcing her to stand. “And now we have a door to fix, because you just couldn’t help yourself, huh?” The way he spoke, dripped with venom and sarcasm, as he proceeded to move her through the living room and down the hall. She knew where he was making her go, and that was to the bedroom. “Now you stay in here. I have some things I need to take care of.”

  “That was-” Faye swallowed hard, standing there in the doorway. “-he was.” She was lost for words, that was for damn sure. In fact, she wasn’t even sure how to word it because it sounded so…ridiculous.

  “What was he Faye?” He stepped further into the room, causing her to step back. But he stopped before taking another step in, and shook his head. “You know what? I actually don’t want to know. I want you to forget what you saw, and never bring up this matter again.”

  She snorted in a sarcastic manner, now gaping at him with shock. “Forget?” Her arms slid around herself, in a protective manner. “How the hell am I supposed to forget? He turned into this…thing.”

  “Well. He wouldn’t have turned into this thing if you weren’t doing something you weren’t supposed to. On top of that you hit him. What kind of reaction did you expect?!” Now he was raising his voice, and it actually made her shutter and recoil in fear. She took another step back away from him, because his actions actually reminded her of Roy, and how he was just moments before all of this went down.

  “I was using my phone to tell my friend that I was alright. Because I was supposed to show up for work today!” Both of her arms came down to her sides, and her hands balled up into fists, angrily.

  He stepped forward just one single step. “You weren’t supposed to be on your phone, because we can’t have people knowing what we are doing, where we are, and why.”

  “Well you probably should have planned that more better then huh?!” She pointed at him. “Everybody has phones. Did it ever occur to you to check my bags or something? No?”

  “We didn’t think about all of that, because there was so much shit going on. Shit you don’t-”

  “Understand right?” She finished his sentence again, just like she had earlier, when he was actually nice to her. “There’s a lot of things I don’t understand.” She looked at the bedroom window. There were no blinds. No curtains. The entire house was sort of like that, as if it were all about the earthiness. “Like, why your buddy out there turned into this…” She thought for a moment, but not really, because she knew exactly what she wanted to call him. “A werewolf.”

  He was silent, and stared at her as if he wanted her to go on.

  “Roy is a fucking werewolf. Something, that I didn’t even think existed.” There went two curse words in one single day. There was only one other time that she dropped the f-bomb, and that was through a dare in high school. You could really say that Faye Reynolds was a “good girl”.

  She was silent for a moment, because something else struck her. A thought, that she’d no doubt had a dozen times since what she saw. “Are you all…like that?”

  He was quick to answer. “Honestly? I don’t think it fuckin’ matters what we are. What fucking matters is that we all get this shit done, you keep your fucking mouth shut, and let us get that shit done.”

  Standing there, she looked at him in a hurt manner. His words did bite, no doubt, and she sort of hated how fragile her feelings were. Truth be told, she’d never really been the strong woman. No, in a romance novel, she’d make the weak damsel in distress.

  No fucking doubt about that.

  “I thought that werewolves were-” she was silent again, as she appeared to be deep in thought. She did a lot of that. This was definitely a lot to take in!

  “You thought werewolves were what?” He chuckled, but it wasn’t in a friendly manner, no, this was sarcastic and just straight up mean. “You thought that we were the cuddly, furry little animals that are implicated in your fucking sex books?”

  She blushed at that. “They aren’t sex boo-”

  “Because we aren’t. Oh no no baby, we are not.” He still had that sarcastic, evil grin on his face. The Fenrir she’d known just moments ago, who appeared to be actually interested in what she was reading, was no longer there. He was somebody else. Somebody she didn’t want to know. And she should have seen it, because he was a total ass about her even after they’d met. He stood there, and his smile faltered to a more serious, angered expression. “Our beasts are designed to kill. That’s all that we see. We aren’t some fantasy fairy tale honey, we are the real deal.”

  Faye stood there with a look of defeat written on her facial features. How else was she supposed to take such news? Sure, she’d heard of his particular kind in movies, and maybe other books, but even their descriptions didn’t completely measure up to what Roy had looked like. Roy
was…scary.

  Absolutely fucking scary.

  He didn’t look like the Van Helsing werewolves, and he was worse looking than American Werewolves in London. There was just nothing that she could compare Roy’s beast to.

  And why would she? Because this was reality, and that was fiction. “So you admit, that you are…just like Roy?” Her voice was weak, and gentle, and definitely not hard and loud like it was a moment ago when she was obviously upset.

  He was silent.

  She got her answer. “Roy is the one who killed the livestock, back at home….”

  “No.” He blatantly answered. “That was me. And I can do a whole lot worse.”

  Okay, so that was shocking. So Fenrir was just as dangerous. He was dangerous, and scary and yet…so sexy. Why would she think that, after all the hurtful things he’d said to her. And after seeing Roy shift into that beast…she was just damn stupid. Damn damn damn stupid. “Then why wont you just kill me?” She nodded her head, now giving her own form of sarcastic smile. “Right? Why wont you just kill me? Whatever it is about this rash, it’s obviously making things really damn hard on you right now, so why not just make it all go away? You could do that so fast-”

  “Because I can’t fucking kill you!” He was shaking his head as if what all she said did not even matter. “None of us can. If you die then…” He paused. “If you die, then I will die.”

  That made a brow raise upon her forehead. “What?”

  “This-” He hissed, and opened his palm to show her. Seeing it now, she could tell how much different it had become since the night she’d met him personally. The tattoo looking design was becoming more prominent. It almost looked to be in the shape of a sun, but not entirely. “This is why. Because this, belongs with that.” He closed that palm and pointed at the direction of her own rash.

  She just stood there, staring like a total idiot.

  He ran his fingers nervously through his hair. “And worst of all, I’m supposed to be mated in two weeks. But I can’t.” He glared at Faye. “Because I have to deal with my other mate.”

  Mate?

  “She will never be my real mate, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be happy with that.”

  “Wait. I’m confused.” She shook her head. “What does…any of this have to do with me?”

  He gave her a dull stare, as if she were supposed to be smart enough to understand all of this, yet he spoke in “riddles” or at least that is what it seemed like. She didn’t understand a goddamn thing about all of this. “You are my mate. You aren’t supposed to be my mate.” Anger seemed to be boiling within him again. He really did have a collection of mood swings. “My mate is supposed to be wolf. Not…human.”

  The way he said human, made her feel like being someone normal was just a total inconvenience. “And what is so wrong about being human?”

  “I’m supposed to mate. Are you fucking kidding me? You really asked that stupid question?”

  “I’m just trying to understand all of this.”

  He walked over to the window, casually, and peered out of it, as if he had a lot on his mind. Sure, he did. But so did she. “All of us wolves are fated with a mate. This basically means, we are designed to eventually have a mate, that is chosen by fate. It’s never been…” He swallowed hard. “it’s never been until now that a human was chosen for a wolf.” He shook his head. “It’s not supposed to be like that. It never was supposed to be like that. We can’t have half-lings running around because that could kill off our kind eventually, in the long run.”

  He paused again, before continuing. “When we find our mate, our instincts of mating kick in. It’s…hard to describe.” He looked over at her then. “We are animals. That is what we do. And it calms down after a while, but in the beginning, it hits you like a bulldozer, especially the males, but yet…the females have their own…issues.” The way he sounded, he sounded like some sort of crazy hormonal teenager. “But we have never experienced a human encounter like this before. And from the looks of it, you do not have the same problems that I have.”

  Good news is, he seemed to be more calm now. Not as angry. Most importantly though, he was telling her everything that she needed to know. “And because you are not wolf, you do not desire what I desire. What us wolves naturally desire. And on top of that, because you are human, you are a disgrace.”

  Geez, did he have to sound so mean about that?

  “Such a disgrace, that I could never just, bring you to my pack and introduce you like I could a wolf. Because your kind have killed our kind. We were hunted for…thousands of years, until half a century ago.” He eyed her with longing - and not necessarily with lust, like she’d seen a few times already, but with sadness. As if he truly did hate himself for how he appeared to be. “You would bring danger to our kind. And no doubt, our kind would bring danger to you.”

  “So…what does this have to do with the mark?”

  He walked over to her then, slow and lethal - almost like a big cat would when hunting it’s prey, only this was…definitely no cat. “The mark was my claim on you.” He stopped merely inches from her. She had to crane her neck just to look up at him, and she felt his fingers brush along the front of her shirt, just under her breast. There was no doubt that alone, created a slight shiver to wash over her. “And when two wolves come together as one, our mark would become one as well.” As if giving her more than just a hint at what he meant, his hand wrapped firmly over that mark. The action caused her left breast to lift gently, but it also made her step back some, because of the pressure. Funny thing, there was absolutely no pain there. In fact, it felt…refreshing in a way, even though it was only through her shirt. “The mating process would be complete, and we would officially belong to one another.”

  He pressed forward, and the action caused her to step further back. Soon enough, her back was pressed up against the tall wooden chest of drawers. “Sounds like marriage.” She mumbled softly, never taking her eyes off of his face.

  He suddenly became still, and his face was now serious. “In a way it is. Our form of marriage. And I could never have that with my mate.”

  He was seriously confusing, and he must have read that on her face because he corrected himself. “You are my mate. Yet, before I found you, I’ve been with someone else, who I am already engaged with.”

  Shit….she thought.

  “But you…kissed me…”

  He chuckled then, sarcastic all over again. “It’s because of the bond. It’s hard to help myself. It would be the same for you, if you were…well…wolf.” Another chuckle, and it was actually starting to disgust her. “But also because I wanted you to give into doing this for me.”

  That was why he’d kissed her?

  He had that smart look on his face again, as he stepped back finally.

  “You may drive me wild right now. But if you were any normal human being, you would not be my type.” He nodded in a matter of fact way. “I only feel this way, because of this inconvenience.”

  That made her heart feel like it had just dropped. Who would have thunk it? The first time she actually felt, attracted to, and her first kiss…it was all a lie? It was all just a big misunderstanding? It wasn’t real? And it would have never happened if she wasn’t such an inconvenience….

  “Just so you know, Roy is fine.” Sam interrupted the two of them, by coming to the bedroom door. As if he could clearly sense the emotions swirling around them in the room, he was silent for a very long moment. He didn’t even seem to care that Faye was there at all. Hell, he didn’t even give shit about anything that happened earlier. All Faye could do was stare at Fenrir with disbelief. She was hurt, there was no doubt about that. It was obvious, Fenrir hated her, and that there was nothing she could do to change that.

  A throat cleared, and it came from none other than Roy himself. “Just thought I’d say, I managed to not kill anything.”

  Faye stepped off to the side, and over the window, where she felt a more sense of comfort.
Her arms slid around her frame, comfortably and protectively. Funny thing was, she didn’t care that Roy was there. Even more funnier, she wasn’t frightened of him. She was more frightened of the fact that Fenrir could be so damn heartless. So cold. So, not caring of someone’s feelings other than his own.

  Hell, she was beginning to wonder if he even cared about himself.

  Fenrir’s presence practically vanished. His warmth, his harsh emotions…it was like it completely disappeared. He had exited the room, and she could see Roy’s large frame leaving with him. Sam, however, stayed back. “Faye?” She heard him speak.

  She was looking out the window. Suddenly she missed being back at home. It was Spring time there, where else, it was fall here. A ton of leaves collected along the ground, and would blow in circles occasionally, by the wind. They were all a vast different array of colors. Any other time, this would be her favorite season…but now she just felt empty. Nothing interested her right now. Nothing at all. And the sudden realization made a tear slip from her eye and trail down her dry cheek. And as if Sam realized it, he was already coming over towards her. What was it about Sam? Why was Fen nothing like his brother? “Please.” She finally whispered, and looked over at him. Her voice was gentle and soft, not wanting any more confrontation. None, whatsoever. “I just want to be alone.”