Moon Shy

by Victoria Blisse

  She sat looking at his poor, battered body, and tears coursed down her face. He’d ended up like that protecting her. And even though he was a hairy, bloodthirsty beast, she owed it to him to help him.

  Finally, she got up and ran to the door. She opened it and flew down the corridor to Lowell’s office. She picked up the standard first aid kit from the bottom drawer then raced to the toilet next door. She emptied the ugly, cheap vase of fake flowers and filled it with water.

  Then she walked back to the storeroom, verbally berating herself for her stupidity the whole way. She carefully tiptoed around the bloodied body that had been Miss Conall—no beast could survive those wounds—and put the water down beside Lowell. She took out the bandages and cotton wool from the first aid kit and began to bathe his wounds.

  She was surprised to find they weren’t so bad beneath the dried blood, but then all the werewolf stories had them healing super quickly. Maybe that was happening here with Lowell. She tried not to think about him waking up in his beast form as she tenderly washed the blood from his matted fur.

  She worked for ages, cleaning him, checking every now and then that his strong heart was still beating. Once she was certain he was not bleeding to death, she lay down with her head on his newly healed side and closed her eyes. She was soothed to sleep by the beating of his heart.

  * * * *

  Whenever Lowell woke from a full moon, it took him time to remember who and what he was. As he came around, he felt the cold floor beneath his naked body, and he became aware of something warm resting against his chest. He stretched a little and winced. He ached all over and not just from the change.

  As he lay there, the events of the previous evening unfolded in his mind, and he opened his eyes. He was still in the storeroom. Jenny’s ropes were discarded on the floor. Where was she? He moved and looked down. The warm weight on his chest was Jenny.

  “Hey,” she smiled up at him, “you’re awake, then.”

  He nodded and moved to sit up as she did the same. He looked around the room. Miss Conall was nowhere to be seen.

  “I know. I worried about that, too. But I guess she blinked out of existence with the sunrise,” Jenny said. “I’m pretty certain she was definitely dead.” She shuddered then, and a tear splashed down her cheek.

  “I’m so sorry,” Lowell said. He was overcome with pain, regret and fear. Fear of what was to come.

  “We’ll talk in a bit, Lowell, we will. But first, we need to tidy up and get you into some clothes. People will be arriving soon.”

  Lowell nodded. No one ever came down to the basement, but it was better to be safe than sorry. He carried the ropes to his room as Jenny took the vase of bloody water to the bathroom to empty it. Lowell stashed the rope in his rucksack after he took out the spare garments he’d brought with him. Clean shirt and trousers, just in case something happened to his other clothes.

  He went back to the storeroom with some cleaning supplies and swept up the remnants of his old clothes. He put Miss Conall’s neatly folded suit into a bin bag and disposed of it.

  “Well, I should go home. I’ve been fired,” Jenny said as he walked back into his office.

  “I’ve got my job, but I can’t sit in here, today. Can I come with you?”

  Jenny sighed then nodded. “We do need to talk.”

  “Yeah,” Lowell agreed.

  They walked together, but Lowell felt as if they were a hundred miles apart. He was amazed she could even look at him now she knew what he was. He didn’t know why she’d stayed with him, but he hoped that maybe it meant they would be able to sort this out.

  It was only a short journey to Jenny’s small flat. She went into the kitchen part of the room to brew up, and Lowell sat on the sofa in the living area.

  “Mum always says a cup of tea is perfect for dealing with all emergencies.”

  She handed him a brightly coloured mug then took her own and sat at the other end of the sofa.

  “I guess we should talk,” Lowell sighed, cupping the hot brew in his hands.

  “Yes. I guess so. What are you?”

  “Most of the time, I’m a man. I’m Lowell. But when the full moon comes out to play, I become a werewolf. An evil, disgusting beast.”

  “And when were you going to disclose this little fact to me?”

  “Well, I was hoping never,” Lowell admitted with a sigh. “I was hoping to keep it a secret.”

  “How the hell do you keep a monthly, bloody rampage a secret?” She shook her head and put her cup down on the floor beside her.

  “When the full moon is out, I lock myself in my cellar. I have shackles in the walls and a very thick door that I lock with several bolts every time. I do not rampage. I sit in my cellar, and I endure the horror of that one night, then I carry on with life as usual.”

  “Oh,” Jenny said. “I wondered why the door under the stairs was locked at your place.”

  “Yeah, I try to keep that whole, nasty business a secret.”

  “Well, how long have you been a…well, you know.”

  She was uncomfortable. Lowell understood that feeling very well.

  “I’ve been like this for five years, now. I was turned in my very last year of university.”

  “You went to Uni?” She seemed shocked.

  “Yeah, I did. Mostly to hang out with the gang I’d been with since secondary school and to play all the different sports. I didn’t actually do much work,” Lowell replied with a wistful grin. “I went off to a big football competition we were in, we’d come top of the local heat. Anyway, after the final match, we were celebrating kinda hard for the win, and I found myself outside, being violently sick all by myself.

  “I heard the most blood-chilling howl, and I think I must have fainted from fright or passed out from booze. I woke up in the morning in the dewy grass, and I had this row of deep scratches and bruises on my chest and back that looked like a huge jaw mark. I managed to get myself up and dressed and on the coach back, but the weird thing was the cuts healed in a little over a day. I just put it down to some bad beer and thought I must have been hallucinating.

  “Then the next full moon hit. I was staying in student digs on a floor with all the old gang. I ripped apart from limb to limb four of my very good friends. I didn’t realise it at the time, but when I woke up naked and in the university grounds, I ran back quickly, cursing them for their practical joke. But as I walked into my room, I noticed red stuff oozing from under the bathroom door. I went in and discovered my then girlfriend torn to shreds and spread around the whole room. I threw up in the sink, but then I don’t really remember what I did. I was in shock.

  “I was inconsolable. And when I found three others from the gang in the same state, I started to put things together. I thought it had been a dream, but the weird aches in my body and the dark stuff under my nails suggested it was the truth.

  “I panicked, rang the police and handed myself in. They didn’t take me seriously. They thought I was in shock. There was no way I could have inflicted the injuries, it was a wild animal attack, they told me. They thought the act of discovering them had driven me temporarily insane.

  “I knew it was me, though. I knew what I was, and I quit university. I couldn’t stay so close to so many people, not when I was such a monster. I moved here to this house and basically lived like a hermit for a few months while what little money I had lasted. I made the shackles in the basement and established my monthly routine. I stayed away from people. I shopped online, so I only had the delivery person to see. I did not leave the house at all in those first few months.”

  “You must have been so lonely,” Jenny interjected.

  “I was, and I deserved it. I’d always had the gang around me, but I’d killed them without thought. I didn’t want to hurt another soul, so I stayed here. I even contemplated suicide one time, but I didn’t have the balls to do it. I would have stayed in this house forever if my cash hadn’t run out. I needed a job, and that’s how I ended up in the b
asement of Demonet.”

  “So tonight was your first kill since your first full moon?”

  “Yeah. And even though the bitch deserved it, I feel bad about it. She was everything I never, ever want to be. She’d embraced her werewolf nature. I could never ever do that, never. I could never run with her, because I don’t run in the moonlight, I hide from it.”

  “Lowell, why didn’t you kill me?”

  It was the big question, and he had known she would ask it.

  “Honestly, Jenny, I don’t really know. When the werewolf takes me over, I work on instinct. I don’t think, I feel. I don’t know what it was about your scent, but from the moment I smelled you, I knew I had to protect you. I didn’t know who you were or what you were, even. I just knew I had to stop the bitch from reaching you. And thank God, I did.”

  “You got knocked about pretty bad,” she said.

  Lowell couldn’t tell if it was sympathy or just stating a fact.

  “Yeah, well, I won in the end. She was pretty strong, though, and I’ve never fought another werewolf before. Hell, the only contact with my kind I’ve ever had was some random rampaging beast that had a nibble on me.”

  “I am not sure I can get my head around this, Lowell.” Her voice caught, and she took a long, shuddering breath. “I have always liked you, and the last few weeks we’ve had together have been a dream come true.”

  “For me, too,” he interjected quickly, moving in his seat to be closer to her. “I’ve never been so happy before in all my life.”

  She simply nodded, then she looked at him, directly into his eyes for the first time in the whole conversation.

  “I want to be with you, Lowell, I do. But you’re dangerous. What would happen if you ever got loose? You’re not just a man, you’re a…a…werewolf.”

  “I am, Jenny, I am,” he sighed. “And I am dangerous. I should leave, now, before I hurt you any more.”

  He moved to stand up, tears pooling just behind his eyes, his whole body aching with loss.

  “No,” she yelled, and her hand shot out and grabbed him around the arm. “Don’t go.”

  He laid his hand over hers. “Jenny, I can’t do this.” The tears hiding behind his eyes started to mist up his vision. “I want to stay with you. I want to stay with you forever, but I am a monster, and I can’t endanger you any longer. I’m destined to be alone for the rest of my life. At least I’ll have memories of you now—” He wanted to say more, but her lips hit his and cut off his sentence.

  The tears he’d been holding back flooded down his cheeks and mingled with hers as they kissed. He felt and tasted her sobs. He wanted to take away her pain, her fear. He wanted to make her happy again. He tried so hard to do that with his kisses.

  “I can’t lose you,” she gasped the moment their lips parted for a second. “Don’t leave me, Lowell, don’t leave.”

  “But Jenny, I’m a monster.” The tears streaked his cheeks, and he wiped a hand across his eyes to dash away the new ones threatening to break forth. “I don’t deserve happiness, I don’t deserve to be with you. But I want it. I want you.”

  “Lowell, you’ve not hurt a person in five years. For most of the year you’re a sweet, gentle, handsome man. I don’t have to see you on the nights when you’re something else. Just because you turn into a beast once a month, it does not make you a monster.” She moved her hand from his arm to cup his cheek and to gently make him look at her.

  “I don’t want to hurt you, Jenny. I don’t want to take the risk.”

  “If we’d not taken risks, we wouldn’t have had the last month of pure, fucking joy. Don’t make excuses.”

  “But Jenny.” His breath shuddered from his body. “You deserve better. You deserve a lover who can be with you every day and night without fear. You don’t deserve a loser like me.”

  “I don’t care what I deserve, Lowell, you silly, silly man. I want you. I need you. Dear God, Lowell, I love you.”

  The words hung in the air as the revelation hit. Love. She loved him. It was a miracle. He’d thought himself unlovable, he’d resigned himself to a life alone and away from everyone, but here was this beautiful girl, stroking his face as tears slipped down his cheeks and professing to love him, knowing full well exactly what he was.

  “I love you, too, Jenny, and I don’t want to lose you.”

  “You don’t have to. We can work something out.”

  He looked into her eyes and knew he had to take the risk. His life would not be liveable without her.

  “We can try, right? But you must promise to come nowhere near me on the full moon.”

  “Oh, now that’s an easy thing to promise.” She chuckled and slid her hand to his chest, patting him there. “I love you dearly, Lowell, but I can do without witnessing your ‘monthly problem’ from here on in.”

  “Promise me, Jenny. Please, just promise me you’ll stay away from me when you need to.”

  “I promise, Lowell, I promise.”

  Their lips met again, and the energetic kiss helped crush any fears Lowell had. They could do it, of course they could. It might prove tough at times, but it would be easier than having to keep the whole thing secret. It was as if a weight had lifted off him. He’d not really realised before how much of a strain keeping it all to himself had been, but now he’d shared, he felt lighter than he had in years. He was amazed how something so good could have come out of such a horrific situation.

  “Come with me.” Jenny smiled and pulled on his hand.

  “Where are we going?” Lowell asked, knowing full well where. She only had two rooms in her flat, the other being the bedroom.

  Chapter Seven

  “Don’t ask questions,” Jenny replied with a cheeky wink. “Just follow.”

  It had been the most bizarre, scary and wonderful twenty-four hours of her life. She’d been threatened by a psychotic woman who turned into a crazed werewolf and rescued by her boyfriend who was also a werewolf. As horrified as she’d been, she hadn’t run away after all that. And she had amazed herself by inviting him back to her home.

  What a story he’d told her, what a sad time he’d had since his chance encounter with a werewolf. It wasn’t long before the horror of what he changed into was forgotten and replaced by a dull ache of sadness for his lonely lifestyle. It didn’t matter, she discovered, what Lowell was once during a full moon. The only thing that mattered was their love for one another.

  When she got him into her bedroom, she pulled him onto the bed with her.

  “Oh, so this was your plan.” He grinned as she wrapped her arms around him. “You’re going to have your wicked way with me.”

  “Oh, yes, that’s just it. I want you, Lowell, and I want you right now.”

  They came together with passion and tender caresses. Clothes seemed to melt away, leaving them nude, hot skin against hot skin. Jenny kissed him all over, admiring the miracle which was his fully healed and no longer hair-covered body. She pressed her lips to every last inch of him as if she were checking that he was, in fact, completely changed back.

  Once she had tortured him with the loving softness of her mouth, he took her by surprise and rolled her onto her back. He was above her, and he kissed her fiercely as he wrapped himself around her protectively.

  She enjoyed the nip of his teeth at her neck and the playful tracing of his lips over her chest. He feasted there, massaging one breast as he sucked and nibbled the other then swapping. Over and over he did it until her mind and body were both dizzy with desire.

  “Protection,” Lowell panted as he lifted his lips from her skin.

  She nodded as he lifted up, giving her room to roll to her side and lean over to the bedside cupboard. She pulled a condom from the little drawer and passed it to him. She watched as he ripped open the packet.

  Jenny was so turned on, she felt painfully bereft as his body no longer touched hers. So, as he unwrapped the condom, she ran her fingers down to her wet cunt and started to rub at her aching clit.

&
nbsp; Lowell moaned and watched her for a moment, his eyes following the movement of her long finger as it rubbed then dipped down inside of her to pick up more of her own juices to help aid her masturbation. He didn’t watch for long. Moments later, he was rolling on the condom, and as she gasped and bucked below him, he began to feed his hard, sheathed cock into her.

  They were together, joined intimately as one. She still had one finger pressed against her clit, and her other hand reached around Lowell and clung to him as he violently fucked her. There was no tenderness, now, just the raw passion of a man receiving a second chance. She wanted this passion, she needed this heated joining, and she moaned his name as the constant pressure on her clit caused her body to shake in orgasm.

  Lowell felt Jenny contract, her body shake as she came all over his pounding cock. He couldn’t hold it in any longer, he was overwhelmed not only by the sheer joy of being inside her, fucking her, but by the love and forgiveness she’d just shown him.

  “I love you,” he groaned as his orgasm built.

  “I love you, too.” She pulled him tighter into her embrace.

  He continued to chant, “I love you, I love you, I love you,” until the last repetition faded into a long, orgasmic groan of pleasure.

  As they lay side by side, Lowell could not believe how happy he was. It seemed unthinkable so much good could have come out of such a horrific and terror-filled incident. He was still trying to understand why she could still love him after what she’d discovered. Lowell rolled to his side and laid an arm across her stomach.

  “Oh, hey, I was just drifting off, then,” she giggled and rolled over to face him.

  “Sorry, I should let you sleep. It’s been a long day.”

  “Oh, no, no. Never apologise for touching me.” She smiled. “It’s good, really good.”

  “Oh, yes. Touching you is amazing,” he said, jokily squeezing her breast.

  She giggled and playfully slapped at his hand. “Sheesh, you werewolves are never satisfied, are you?”

  He smiled. “I think it’s the man in me that longs so much for your flesh, Jenny, not the wolf.”