Seduced by the Moon

by Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

  She couldn’t get up.

  She wasn’t alone out here, her senses told her. The scent of the figure standing beside her was one she now recognized. Wolf scent, similar to Gavin’s.

  “Hush now. It will hear you.” Jenna’s thigh, covered by soft faded jeans, was a comfort of sorts against Skylar’s quaking left shoulder.

  By it, did Jenna mean the moon?

  Skylar coughed, and blood came up. So did something else. The sound Jenna wanted her to suppress emerged as a growl of twisted torment, a throaty rendition of Gavin’s earlier wolfish protests. He’d been in pain, she now understood. His shifting damaged him in some way, and she shared that pain.

  Searing stabs of it slammed into her with a force so hard, she stopped breathing. Nasty, electrical, nearly heart-stopping, this new form of agony rushed in to take her down.

  This was happening. Jenna hadn’t lied. Gavin hadn’t lied. Given that the story, or as much of it as anyone could comprehend, was true, there had to be a way of fighting back. She would have to be better than the hurting, fragile weakling she appeared to be. Especially if it wasn’t just any old werewolf virus ruling her DNA. She might be part demon. Something far more dangerous…

  Though the full meaning of that freaky status eluded her, Skylar figured that, as the offspring of a wolf god, the chances of the Blackout killing her were slim and odds for survival better than average. The rewiring of her body surely presented nothing more than an obstacle to be mastered. Or so she hoped.

  Moonlight flowed over her, and whatever lay nestled inside her paid attention to that. In an attempt to get out, the thing in her gut pummeled her insides until she doubled over with both hands on the ground.

  She stared with horror as her fingers sprouted claws, one by one, each of them springing to life faster than the previous one, with pain that was twice as excruciating. Her breath came in agitated fits, her air supply insufficient for any creature, including those tainted with wolf or demon blood.

  There was a popping sound near the base of her skull, quickly followed by another. Skylar hissed with each new torment. Between quakes, her spinal column moved as vertebrae began to lengthen and spread apart.

  “Can…do…this.”

  “Yes,” Jenna encouraged, though her voice sounded strained. “You can.”

  Skylar glanced up to find Jenna’s attention on the trees and her body rigid with anxiety. Aware of the tension in the air, Skylar pushed her way to her feet, using her hands to claw her way up through the moonlight. Barely upright, she stood, unable to straighten beneath the weight of her body’s insufferable demand to change from its human shape into something else.

  She managed to lift her head. And there it was, just out of sight—the thing she’d almost seen on the mountain before Gavin had blocked it from view. The thing Gavin had tried so hard to protect her from. This was the bad guy.

  Her arm felt heavy when she raised it, though that arm looked much the same as usual. An unnatural sliding sensation in her hip sockets left her feeling sicker, yet she breathed better when upright.

  Her wrist came away red when she swiped at her mouth. Blood, from biting her tongue. But the fact that she was standing seemed to be a miracle, and Jenna’s concentrated alertness forced her to get a grip.

  A new shadow flowed across the path between the trees, getting larger as it neared. Lightning fast, that shadow, merely a blur, reached the edge of the driveway and hurried on to vault the fence.

  Jenna didn’t stir from her guarded pose. Skylar bit back a scream as that shadow barreled into her. With only a growl of introduction, the shadow became a beast whose thick body pushed her back and up the steps. So scared her ears rang, Skylar fought hard to remain conscious.

  She shouted. No sound came out. Her throat seized, squeezing off a howl. Her hands, hanging at her sides, were pinned by the moving mass of muscle, rendering her beginner’s claws useless in the face of such a quick attack.

  She was through the door and against the wall inside the cabin, trying not to faint, alarmed by the captivity and wondering why Jenna hadn’t made one single move in her defense.

  It was then Skylar recognized the scent and feel of the beast holding her against the warm stone wall and realized why Jenna hadn’t responded. The werewolf beside her wasn’t the cause of the trouble ripping through the moonlight. This was Gavin, here with her.

  Gavin, the werewolf.

  He was huge, angry. His muscles moved like liquid over his tall frame as he growled softly with his face close to hers. She looked right into his blue eyes and found Gavin there.

  After making sure she could stand on her own, he said silently, I guess there are no more secrets. He brushed her face with his in a tender, loving gesture before rushing back outside.

  She was coming unglued. Sanity no longer ruled here, Skylar thought, scraping the wall with a swipe of her claws. The world was in serious trouble…because, with no distinct boundaries in place to protect reality, nightmares were taking over.

  *

  Gavin joined the female Were standing as silent as a sentinel in the cabin’s front yard, gazing at the trees. She’d obviously sensed trouble brewing without his having to tell her what he’d seen out there. It took him a minute to remember she could read his thoughts.

  Not normal, he sent to her. Not sure what it is or where it came from.

  It followed you? The she-wolf, still in human form, didn’t speak out loud.

  Other way around. It headed this way and I followed.

  Can you describe what you saw to me?

  Gavin shook his head, unwilling to explain. Met it before. He raised his claws. Gave me these.

  The she-wolf acknowledged that by briefly closing her eyes. When she reopened them, she turned to face him. Aggressive? she asked.

  Monstrous. Yet it could have hurt me again tonight, twice, and didn’t. Why?

  The she-wolf named Jenna appeared to contemplate that. She threw a glance over her shoulder at the cabin. Disliking the implication of that look, Gavin shuddered.

  Maybe it won’t hurt us, he suggested, worried. Because we’re what we are, the thing must realize it’s the bane of our existence, but also a relative.

  So, what does that leave to spark its interest here? the she-wolf asked. Or who?

  Gavin knew damn well who that left. He’d known for some time. The creature had acted strangely tonight when Skylar was on the mountain, its aggressive behavior seemingly at half strength. That beast must have recognized Skylar’s scent on Gavin’s skin when it sniffed at him quizzically, taken a liking to that scent.

  Fresh blood, Gavin thought. But there goes my theory of Weres being off-limits to Weres, since Skylar isn’t…

  Human, the she-wolf finished for him.

  He waved his claws at the cabin. Will she ever forgive me for that? For making her a monster, like me?

  You are not to blame, I promise.

  Gavin took that remark in with another skip in his pulse. The she-wolf shook her pretty head as if to ward off arguments and confirm this as fact.

  Nevertheless, he couldn’t be sure, couldn’t see how Skylar’s wolf would make an appearance without him putting it there. The guilt over that would kill him eventually if the abomination on this mountain didn’t get to him first.

  It will fight us for reasons we don’t understand, he sent to the other Were, who again gazed thoughtfully at the cabin. He added, So I hope to hell you’re stronger than you look. With two of us in the way, we might have a ghost of a chance of preventing that thing from getting what it wants.

  The next look she gave him was appraising.

  I didn’t even see it coming, he confessed. And we both know Skylar won’t stay inside for long.

  Taking a step toward the fence, the she-wolf said solemnly, I know what this is.

  She didn’t say what that was, though, and this she-wolf’s thoughts weren’t so easy to read. Some kind of barrier stood guard over her Otherness, allowing her to project the image of
being human, even when in the moonlight and stressed.

  Where did this woman come from? Why should he trust her?

  Why the hell wasn’t she shifting right now?

  As I see it, I’m all you’ve got, was her response.

  And she was right. What other option did he have for protecting Skylar from a monster’s sudden interest?

  He was about to tell the she-wolf that, but didn’t get it out. At the fence, her body stilled. With a flick of her head to toss back her hair, she raised her face to the moonlight. Chin lifted, lips parted, she unbuttoned her bronze-colored blouse, slipped her arms free of the silk sleeves, and dropped the shirt. The damn thing fluttered to the ground in slow-motion.

  She wore nothing underneath. Naked from the waist up, and with her taut back to Gavin, she kept her focus on the heavens as she reached for the waistband of her pants.

  Chapter 29

  Skylar stumbled to the open doorway. Panting from the strain of downplaying the pain racking her body, she leaned hard against the door frame with her gaze riveted to a fantastical sight she wasn’t entirely sure could be real.

  Jenna stood by the fence, completely naked. Her hair was loose now, and radiant in the moonlight. No underwear or tan lines marred the sleek, wiry, silhouette. Her arms were raised, her head thrown back as if she embraced the moonlight and actually welcomed its shape-shifting treachery.

  Seconds passed, barely enough time to register that sight, before the sound came of flesh sliding over flesh. The unmistakably sickening pop of bones breaking followed, and then all of Jenna’s body parts fluidly made the leap from human to werewolf in unison. In seconds, Jenna simply flowed into her other form, growling just once to externalize the discomfort.

  Skylar held what breath she managed to take in. Viewing Jenna’s transformation caused a responding reaction in her own body, which had been fighting hard indoors to retain its human origins.

  Tugged forward as if by a magnet, her feet soundlessly hit the porch floorboards. Although she didn’t get far, both werewolves in the yard turned to look at her.

  It was astounding to see them both wolfed up in their alternate shapes. But something loomed in the periphery beyond them—the same dark, dense presence she’d met on the mountain. In her memory she saw its outline, felt its weight.

  This required immediate attention, though her focus veered back to the yard where in a truly frightening new rendition of a nightmare, wolf Jenna dropped to her haunches, opened her mouth and howled.

  The sound that echoed in the clearing was twice as loud inside Skylar’s head. Somehow she recognized this as a multileveled call that was equally an invitation and a warning. Loud, frightening, that howl seemed more terrible than anything Skylar had ever heard.

  Her own mouth opened to let out a cry of protest, though the cry didn’t happen. Instead, she repeated the sound Jenna made, and her human vocal cords churned out a rolling, growling sound that joined the echo of the other one in the crystal-clear, pure mountain air.

  Unconsciously, she moved down the steps and into the yard where moonlight—her enemy, antagonist, torturer—slapped her in the face with a sharp, silvery sting painful enough to make her head fly back, and then immediately, savagely, flowed over a stretch of her bare throat.

  A set of hands tore at her shoulders, their claws digging grooves in her flesh. Except this time Skylar wanted no protection, no coddling or signs of personal weakness making her insides heave. She wrenched herself away from Gavin’s grip. Standing tall, fending him off with a shake of her head, Skylar waited for whatever would happen next.

  The overwhelming pain of several minutes ago didn’t make a comeback, yet her claws were there when she looked. She began to heat up inside, her temperature soaring to a combustible degree.

  Squirming in clothes that felt way too tight and restrictive, she had a sudden burning desire to be free of all the things binding her to her human outline. She wanted to let go and get this over with. Yet her legs remained her legs, their shape familiar and encased in denim. The brush of her hair against the back of her neck produced the usual tickle.

  What the hell? Did a werewolf have to strip to achieve a full-body transformation?

  Skylar.

  Gavin’s anxiety piled on to her own.

  “No. Gavin, please. I have to find out what this is like, and what I am.”

  Bad timing, Skylar. We’re not alone.

  She gave the trees a sideways glance. “Let it come.”

  This beast isn’t like us. It’s more dangerous.

  She threw a wary glance to Jenna, now a streamlined rust-colored werewolf with a serious edge, and said, “As dangerous as my mother?”

  Jenna’s wolfish eyes tracked Skylar in a predatory manner, but no medicated dart gun or syringe glistened in her hand. Gavin was in the dark here about the details. He didn’t know what Jenna had revealed about her mother.

  He bumped her shoulder to get her attention. It’s bad. Trust me on this.

  Again, Skylar looked to the she-wolf crouching by the fence. “What is it?” she asked Jenna, pretty damn calmly for the craziness of the situation they faced and the panting, staccato voice she’d spoken with.

  They were werewolves, for God’s sake. Not just people. Three werewolves stood in this yard. Well, two and a half at the moment since only her claws proved her affiliation with the clan.

  The world had just gone to hell. That thought was seconded by a great howl that answered hers from the shadows beneath the trees.

  *

  Gavin’s automatic response to the sound crashing through the night was to challenge it with a gruff growl tinged with its own hint of darkness.

  Behind him, Skylar uttered a gasp of startled surprise. Near the fence, Jenna, the she-wolf, straightened with her head tilted to one side.

  The air moved, though the wind had died. Silence gripped the night.

  You said you know about it. He directed this thought to the she-wolf, as well as the idea that he was almost as dangerous as anything else that might turn up in the next few minutes. Is Skylar right? This beast wants revenge for something only it knows about?

  Receiving no reply, he cursed the gaps in his knowledge.

  “What does it want now?” Skylar asked in a voice way too steady for a human about to confront the monster they all knew was coming.

  Us, he answered, not sure Skylar could hear him through thought.

  You, Jenna corrected with a glance to Skylar. You asked for the truth, Skylar, so let’s be clear about this one thing. I think it’s come for you.

  Gavin heard Skylar’s teeth snap shut and looked to his beautiful young lover. Even now, his unbridled obsession for Skylar made him want to take her to the ground where he could ease the physical cravings for her that were setting him on fire.

  His body hummed with a desire for her made ten times worse by the wolf in him easily recognizing its mate in her. Though she only wielded a set of claws so far and exhibited no other outward signs of an upcoming shift, he sensed the wolf beating at her core, realized that wolf wanted to be free.

  Damn it, didn’t they all?

  He knew he could tug that wolf of hers into being if he chose. Pull it from her with a whisper. Coax it out with a hand on her face. But with the fetid breath of a monster so close by, he knew better than to touch her in any way that might bring more harm.

  Skylar stood in the moonlight without swaying. Her face remained ashen, though it glistened with a coat of silver light originating from high above their heads. Her hands were frozen in a raised position, showing off ten lethal claws.

  Her gaze moved to him, connecting with his gaze and producing waves of adrenaline that kicked his heart into overdrive. She was thinking she’d be ready for this, yet she had so much to learn.

  Here, the she-wolf, suddenly announced. Look.

  Reluctantly, regretfully, Gavin tore his attention from Skylar, his gut knotting. Following the she-wolf’s focus, he found the eyes in the dark that
were observing everything in the yard. Those eyes shone with a reddish glow across the short distance between the cabin and the path up the mountain.

  He’d seen those eyes up close, firsthand, and thanked the heavens they weren’t getting any closer. Boldly, Gavin strode to the gate, where Jenna joined him. Separately, they paced the fence line, their muscles tense and their senses on full alert.

  It was Skylar who made the next sound that broke the awkward, loaded silence. She called out to the awful gleam of those eyes, “If you killed him, and he’s gone, what more do you need?”

  Her voice, full of the fear they all felt, carried. As if it were an invitation too tempting to ignore, the monster Gavin had hunted, chased and thought of with hatred every damn day since the first time he’d encountered it, stepped forward, though not quite clear of the trees.

  Its pressurizing effect on the atmosphere reached them in the yard like a bad wind blowing through. Skylar groaned out a whispered “Oh.”

  The she-wolf, a few paces to Gavin’s left, hopped over the fence. Though she didn’t go to meet the devil, Gavin considered how brave this Jenna was to close the distance to those trees by even a few measly feet. Although he would have joined her, Skylar’s labored breathing, coming in audible starts and stops behind him, kept him from leaving her.

  There was no peace to be had with those beastly eyes glaring back at them from the dark. No sense of comfort in his close proximity to the cabin. If he swept Skylar inside again, Jenna might make a stand on her own.

  Then again, if they all made it inside, the beast that very likely broken free of the silver cage in the shed would easily tear through a closed wooden door.

  I can’t picture it, he said. No human could have captured and trapped this thing. It’s too damn powerful.

  Jenna didn’t argue or allow her attention to drift. Her concentration possessed an energy all its own.

  Skylar made another sound that raised the hair on his arms and made him turn to partially face her. The sound was a word. Smell.

  With no idea how she could be withholding her shift since beams of moonlight bounced off her in silver sparks—the same moonlight that pelted him and left him voiceless—Gavin thought, Don’t breathe in that bastard’s foul stench.