by Harris, Meg
THE WOLF MOON
by Meg Harris
© copyright 2012, Meg Harris
Cover design by LFD Designs for Authors, © copyright 2012
All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, character, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Chapter One
Whenever the moon rose, he itched.
Graeme Fenrir scratched irritably at his chest and glared up at the moon as if it were a personal foe. It wasn’t even half full, but he knew from experience that the itching would get progressively worse as the moon waxed. By the time the moon was full, two weeks from now, it would be almost unbearable.
He’d been suffering with this problem for three months now, and yesterday he’d finally gotten annoyed enough about it to ask his friend John Braden, who happened to be a family practitioner, if there was such a thing as a moonlight allergy. John had just laughed at the idea.
But John wasn’t the one who was being driven slowly crazy by the itching. Maybe Graeme wasn’t allergic to moonlight—but he was damn well allergic to something.
He sighed, and lowered his gaze from the moon to the dark woods behind his house. He was standing on his deck in his house, in the small town of Lupine Rapids, and just beyond the back boundary of his yard, the woods stretched out, shadowy and inviting.
He shook his head wryly at the thought. There was nothing particularly inviting about dark, dense woods. If he left the house and walked into them, he’d probably break a leg falling over a log.
And yet, somehow… the forest called to him.
The restlessness that had been growing inside him lately swelled, until he couldn’t fight the impulse any longer. Slowly, he paced down the steps of his deck and walked across his large backyard. As he reached the boundary of the woods, he hesitated for just a moment, and then plunged into the trees.
It really wasn’t that dark, he thought as his eyes adjusted. He could see with surprising clarity. For that, he supposed he could thank the moon. He walked through the woods, finding paths through the old-growth trees and the thick underbrush easily, as if he were walking by instinct.
Far away, he heard a long, eerie howl. A prickle ran down his spine, and the hairs on the back of his neck rose. Wolf, he thought, even though he knew there hadn’t been wolves in this region for decades. It had to be a coyote, or maybe just someone’s dog.
But the howl rose again, long and quavering, and the hair on his arms rose, too.
It occurred to him that he was going to get lost in the woods, but he couldn’t seem to stop walking. Somehow walking helped with the itchiness, as well as with the restlessness that had plagued him lately.
He suspected part of what was bothering him was grief. His grandfather, his namesake, had moved in with him a year ago, after suffering a stroke, and Graeme had devoted much of his time to caring for him. But his granddad had passed away a few months before, and Graeme found himself missing the frail old man a great deal.
Which explained the restlessness, but not the itching.
He went on, and before long he’d walked a half mile or more.
He sensed her before he saw her. He came to a halt, and sniffed the air. Which was ridiculous, because he wasn’t a dog. And yet… he could smell someone, and what was more, he knew the someone was a female.
“Who’s there?” he demanded.
She seemed to melt out of the underbrush, materializing right in front of him like a magical forest creature. She was lovely, moon-pale hair falling halfway down her back, midnight-dark eyes gazing at him. Her body was clad in nothing but moonlight and shadows.
He gaped at her, wondering if he’d stumbled into a Wiccan ritual, or a nudist campground.
“Um…” he said, less than intelligently.
Her voice was soft. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
He couldn’t seem to stop gaping. “I… uh, hello. I’m sorry if I… intruded…”
“Not at all.” She took a step toward him. He thought he should probably back away, but he couldn’t seem to move. “I told you, I’ve been waiting. I knew you would come to me eventually.”
She took another step toward him, and her hands lifted, pressing against his chest. He noticed something gleaming on one of her fingers—a silvery ring inset with a small dark stone. But he was less interested in her jewelry than in the touch of her hands. Even through his dark green t-shirt, it felt like she’d scorched him. His skin began to itch fiercely.
“You feel it, don’t you?” Her hands trailed down his chest. “The burning of the moon.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” His voice sounded gravelly and hoarse to his own ears. He could feel the blood rushing through his veins, pooling in his groin. Well, that wasn’t surprising. She was naked, after all, and there was no denying that she was beautiful. But she was a complete and utter stranger, and there was absolutely no way that he was going to…
“Let me see it.” She lifted her hand to his throat, tugging on the necklace he wore. It had belonged to the elder Graeme Fenrir, and since the old man had died, he’d taken to wearing it all the time, as a sort of tribute. It was a simple enough piece of jewelry, a silver pendant hammered into the shape of a dagger, or perhaps a fang, inset with a tiny chip of sapphire, the same shade his grandfather’s eyes had been—and the same color as his own eyes, for that matter. It hung around his neck, suspended from a black satin cord. He wasn’t sure how she’d known it was there, though, hidden as it had been beneath his t-shirt.
“It belonged to my granddad,” he told her, trying to ignore the light brush of her fingers against his throat.
“Yes,” she said softly, fingering the pendant. “It’s been… altered. Some of the magic has been lost. That’s why you can’t effect the transformation.”
He had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. Nor did he care very much. He was entirely focused on her. Her skin looked soft and satiny in the dappled moonlight, her silvery hair seemed to glow with a light of its own, and up close she smelled more female than ever. A fragrance clung to her, a scent of musk and flowers and…
Well, sex.
He became aware that he had a hard-on. A pretty fierce one, actually. He could feel his cock throbbing, straining against his jeans.
She dropped the pendant, and let her hands slide downward. She pushed up his t-shirt and let her palms caress his chest, and an involuntary groan escaped him. Where she touched him directly, he discovered, his skin no longer itched. Instead, his nerves flared with heat beneath her questing fingers.
“Yes,” she said softly. “The moonlight burns you, and only this can soothe the pain.”
“I… I don’t…”
He meant to say, I don’t even know you. Or perhaps, I don’t have sex with strange naked women I meet in the woods. Or simply, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. But none of those words made it out of his mouth, because she bent forward and pressed her lips to his chest.
Pleasure shot through every nerve in his body, powerful, irresistible. The itch was forgotten in the rush of heat that flooded him.
“This will help ease the burning,” she whispered, brushing kisses over his chest. “But you cannot achieve the transformation. Not yet. Not until the moon is full. The magic in your pendant is not strong enough.”
He had no idea what she was talking about. Magic and transformations sounded like so much nonsense to him. But he didn’t say so. He didn’t say anything, because he couldn
’t speak. Her mouth felt wonderful against his skin, the gentle touch of her lips offering him glorious relief, and he leaned his head back and moaned at the moon as her mouth moved lower, across his abdomen.
“I know how you feel,” she whispered against his skin. “I lost my mate a year ago, and I burn, too. But I haven’t been able to find a suitable man. At least, I hadn’t… until I saw you.”
Her lips were beneath his navel now, brushing over the thin strip of dark hair there, and his cock throbbed with a terrible need. She was a nameless stranger to him, and yet the touch of her mouth and hands felt so right, as if he’d been waiting for it for months. Waiting for her for months.
Her hands unfastened his jeans, and his erection sprang free, so hard and eager that he flushed with embarrassment. But she didn’t seem at all surprised or taken aback by his clear physical hunger. She went to her knees in front of him, pulled his cock down a bit, and—
He yelled.
He couldn’t help himself. He didn’t do this kind of thing with strangers, particularly not very strange women wandering around naked in the woods. And yet he couldn’t hold back his helpless cry of pleasure. The sensation of her hot mouth as it took the swollen, wet head of his cock inside was almost too much to bear. It was so intense it was nearly painful, and yet he craved more.
She gave it to him. Her mouth slid down the thick shaft of his cock, taking more of him inside easily, her tongue caressing him from beneath, and his hips started to move with no guidance from him. She felt like satin, smooth and hot—so very, very hot— and he couldn’t stop himself from fucking her mouth.
A corner of his mind knew that this was very strange behavior for him. In fact, he’d been acting rather strangely all night, ever since he’d given in to his restlessness and headed off into the forest. His senses had seemed clearer—he’d been able to see in the dark, he’d been able to scent her—and now his body felt her touch more intensely than he’d ever felt anything before.
He was vaguely aware that he was still crying out, sobbing wordlessly, and that his hands had captured her head. He’d dug his fingers into her luxuriant silver hair, and that wasn’t the way he usually treated women when they did this for him, but he just couldn’t bear for her to stop. The pleasure was so intense, the craving for more stimulation so powerful, and the aching tension in his balls demanded release.
Heat built in him, swelling until he thought he might burst into flames, and then it rushed out of him with shocking suddenness, in a long, scalding explosion of rapture. He was far beyond shock, too far gone to care about the strangeness of this encounter. He was coming, coming down a beautiful stranger’s throat, in long spasms of incredible rapture. He thought he might be screaming again, but didn’t really give a damn. The sensation was glorious, an ecstasy far beyond anything he’d ever experienced, and he had no control over his own reactions.
When the last spasms had faded, she released him, and he fell to the litter of leaves on the forest floor, gasping for breath. The world was dark for long moments. But when he could focus again, he looked around for her.
She was gone.
Chapter Two
She’d been looking for him for months.
The next night, Rhea Silverthorn stood in her back yard, gazing up at the moon. She’d been exiled from the Ring for a year now, ever since Bryce had died. All because of Arthur.
At the thought of Arthur, the little hairs on the back of her neck rose, and she uttered an involuntary growl deep in her throat. There were nights—oh, so many nights— when she longed to go into the woods and hunt him down like the animal he was. He’d killed Bryce, and then…
Well, he deserved to die.
But she wasn’t a murderer, so she consciously lowered her hackles, and thought instead of the man she’d encountered in the woods last night. Even before she’d seen his pendant, she’d known who he was. She’d loved and admired the elder Graeme, who’d been nicknamed Gray, and she saw something of the old man in his grandson. Something fierce and strong. Something proud and resolute.
Something indomitable.
Gray had led the Ring for long years, led them with wisdom and kindness. But as he grew stiff with age, he’d turned over the leadership to Bryce, her mate. Bryce had followed in Gray’s path, ruling with a gentle paw, loved and respected by the entire Ring.
But scarcely two years later, after Gray had a stroke and left the Ring forever, Arthur had challenged Bryce for the leadership, and had won. And then he had insisted they follow the old laws.
It was his right as leader to do so. It had even been his right to challenge and kill Bryce—though it pained her to admit it. By Ring law, it was permissible. Primitive and savage, but permissible.
But that didn’t stop her from hating him.
She looked down at the ornate silver ring, set with a small black onyx, on her left hand. She could never remove the ring, but she’d done her best to forget it was there. She’d walked away from that life after Bryce had died, and never looked back. She missed her best friend Faelen, but otherwise she’d hardly regretted turning her back on the Ring… until now. Now the forest was calling to her, as it had not called in many a moon.
She didn’t try to resist the call. She stripped off her clothes, leaving them in a crumpled, careless heap on her patio, and loped into the trees.
*****
Graeme was sprawled out in front of his seventy-inch television, trying to focus on X-Men, and failing miserably. His skin itched, just as it had last night before she touched him. It itched even more, really, though whether that was because of the way she’d touched him, or because of the waxing moon, he wasn’t certain.
The irritating sensation was, he noticed, worst around his neck and chest, where the pendant rested against his skin. He’d noticed that before, and had given thought to removing the pendant, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to. It had belonged to his granddad, and it was pretty much all he had left of him. The elder Graeme had worn it till the day he’d died, and Graeme had put it on as a symbol of the love and respect he’d felt for the old man. He never wanted to take it off.
At last he picked up the remote and turned off the TV, right in the middle of a heartfelt speech from Patrick Stewart. He couldn’t concentrate. He just couldn’t.
All he could seem to think about was the moon.
And her.
Last night, he’d felt as if the forest was calling him. Now he felt that call again, but the sensation was magnified by his vivid memory of last night’s events.
He remembered it all clearly, and yet he couldn’t quite believe it. A naked stranger had knelt at his feet and… and… well, he’d let her.
He’d been way out of control, and he couldn’t quite explain that. He wasn’t exactly a playboy, but he was a decent-looking guy who’d never had trouble finding sexual partners. He had sex on a reasonably frequent basis, so it wasn’t like he’d been desperate for physical relief. At least, he shouldn’t have been.
But he’d never reacted to a woman, even a gorgeous, nude one, so strongly in his life. It was as if she’d been a wood nymph or a forest sprite, rather than a flesh-and-blood human.
He remembered her strange talk of magic and transformations, and another prickle of unease ran down his spine. But he pushed the feeling away. Of course she wasn’t a nymph—though if she made a practice of running around the area going down on strange men, she might just be a nympho. But then again, maybe he was the nympho here. God knew he hadn’t tried very hard to say no.
In fact, he really wanted to say yes again.
He sighed, and leaned his head back against the sofa cushions. You’re being ridiculous, he told himself. Even if he were to go out into the forest again, there was no way on earth he’d find her. The woods behind his house were part of a state park. It was vast, stretching on for miles, and even if she happened to be lurking in the forest again, there was no chance he’d ever find her.
He didn’t even know her name, and he co
uld hardly make inquiries in town. I’m looking for a woman with silver hair who likes to wander around naked in the forest and give men blow jobs. Seen her? No? Well, thanks anyway…
No, he thought, rather glumly. He’d never see her again.
And it was too bad, because she’d given him the best orgasm of his life.
He sighed, thinking about it. It had been unbelievably intense. It had been spectacular. He remembered her mouth, soft and gentle and soothing, and yet demanding everything from him… and he’d been more than willing to give her everything…
It dawned on him that his jeans were too tight again. Damn it. He growled, annoyed with himself.
But maybe it was stupid to berate himself. Of course he was fantasizing about last night. What guy wouldn’t?
The shades that covered his back windows were pulled, in an effort to keep out the moonlight, so he had perfect privacy. He undid his jeans, just as she’d done last night, and his cock sprang free. It was flushed a dark pink, and already pulsing with eagerness. He wrapped his hand around himself and shut his eyes, imagining her mouth on him—caressing his chest and his abdomen, and then her pink lips parting, taking him inside, sucking…
He groaned, his hand pumping hard and fast. He was so hard it almost hurt, and the head of his cock was already dripping with moisture. He lifted his other hand and began to swirl a finger through the copious precome, sending himself even higher. His head dropped back and his spine arched.
Oh, yes, I’m coming, I’m coming—
Except he wasn’t, and he couldn’t quite understand that, because he was as hard as he’d ever been in his lifetime. He jerked his hand harder, driving toward release, but it didn’t seem to be happening. No matter how hard he pumped, he just got harder and more desperate.
He sobbed and gasped and jacked himself even faster, but to no avail.
At last he let himself go and fell back against the couch, almost snarling with frustration. He’d never had this happen before. Sure, every now and then he wasn’t all that interested, just like any guy—but God knew he was interested right now. More than interested—frantic. He’d never needed release so badly, and yet been unable to find it.
