She stared at him. The moonlight couldnt catch her plush, dark fur but it glimmered in her pale eyes.
Shoo, he said.
She charged.
He was hampered by the towering bulk of his human body while she was smooth and quick in her four-pawed drive. Her teeth caught his jeans again, higher on his thigh this time, too close for comfort. Denim ripped with a sound like laughter, and a gust of cool night air wafted across his privates before she danced back.
Dammit, Mer!
She darted forward again, but this time he was ready. As she came at him, he juked and caught her by her scruff and the thick base of her tail. She was a bit of a thing, especially for wolf-kind, and he was big for any man. He hefted her weight easily.
She yelped as her paws left the ground, but mercilessly, he tossed her into the stock tank he kept filled for the ranchers and pleasure riders who stopped for drinks.
The splash was mighty, but not nearly as impressive as the snarling.
He stood with his hands on his hips. Oh shucks, he had infuriated the beast.
She launched out of the tank with her back paws braced on the steel rim. He had just enough time to admire the wild ice shine in her eyes before she hit him square in the chest.
He went over backward like an axed pine tree, one arm curling protectively around her wet fur. Gah, his stupid body wouldnt let her fall even though she was the one at fault.
He lay in the gravel, staring up at the moon, while she scrambled to her feet, her front paws braced on either side of him. She shook, sending a cloud of damp diamonds in all directions. The scent of herpine duff and warm spices and secret shadow placesmade his breath catch.
That and her back paw in his crotch.
He sat up to heave her off his chest. Forget it, Merrilee. Im not interested
She snagged the hem of his T-shirt in her teeth and sprang over him, skimming the fabric inside out over his head.
He swiped at her, but she was off and running, his shirt between her teeth and her tail between her legs.
Which was a load of horseshit. She wasnt afraid of him or anybody. But she should be. That was his favorite shirt.
Chapter 2
She ran. It felt good to run with her kill in her teeth and the bright moon on her back. And Beck was behind her, which made running even better.
Weaving between the blackjack pines, she chanced a glance back. He would need a moment to recover from the unsettling transformation of the verita luna, when the beast was dominant, but she knew he was fastThere! That brindled flash between the trees was Becks rich brown hair streaked with sun-bleached locks and a bit of gray at the temples from being so damned honorable.
She thrashed her head from side to side, slinging the T-shirt through the pine needles. He called the shirt a classic. Most of the band members featured on the front had died of overdoses decades ago.
Which was still more recent than the decade Beck occupied in his head.
She had sensed his irritation when she talked about her job. In his 1950s mind, he probably believed she should stay home. Probably thought she should turn over her pack lands to him. With a belly roll while she was at it.
Although sometimes it might be nice to share the burden...
No. Her pack expected more from her.
A hundred years ago, her ancestress had defied wolf-kind patriarchy to kill the abusive Alpha who had battered the pack and founded a place for werelings with their own unique ways. But championing such a sanctuary required a leader tough enough to hold hidebound traditions at bay while still holding the pack together, a precarious balance upon which rested their independence. To each female Alpha since came the same warning: Be strong always.
She thrashed the T-shirt again as if it had questioned her vow.
From behind her, a low, deep roll like thunder vibrated in her bones. For half a heartbeat, she wondered if Becks inner beast still had the upper hand. Or paw, as it were. But it was rare that the verita luna, the Second Truth, completely eclipsed the more human aspect. Werelings spent most of their childhoods in their upright forms, learning the intricacies of the human world and human control, before puberty made the shiftand the passions of the beastinevitable.
Of all werelings to succumb to the il-luna, it would not be Beck Villanova. From his strictly traditional upbringing, right down to a stint in the army, he was the perfectly controlled Alpha. Shed had to practically bite him to get him to shift. She shook her head at her own flight of nerves. Beck would never let his beastly side rule unopposed.
Although sometimes she fantasized about the possibility.
The whiff of his manly sweat was ripe in her nostrils from the T-shirt hed worked in all night. The bite of whiskey and the smoky scent of bacon were heady enough, but the hints of leather, musk and books also made her senses whirl.
Books? Had he been out running even once in the time shed been in New York? No wonder he was so slow
With a roar, a large shape dropped to the path in front of her. She tried to dodge, but he clamped his teeth on the T-shirt. Since she refused to let go, her momentum whipped her around. Her paws left the ground and she was airborne. Which reminded her, she owed him for dunk-tanking her.
When she opened her jaws, she went flying. She landed in a poof of pine needles and lay still. Wait for it...
Becks presence loomed in her awareness, though her eyes were closed. Wait for it...
He whined softly, even more softly than the whisper of worn cotton as he dropped the T-shirt.
Instantly, she scrabbled up, seized the T-shirt and fled.
Through the treesweaving, dodging, their twinned shadows dark as ravens skimming across the earth, silvery under the moonup to the ridgeline, higher yet to where the trees thinned and the moonlight thickened and the town was just an old campfire of cool, yellowing embers below them.
In a small clearing, lush with early-summer grasses, she slowed. She expected him to pounce, but instead he kept pace just behind.
She trotted in a circle to face him, finally letting the prize fall between them.
Beck was magnificent, even for wolf-kind. He sacrificed none of his immense size to the change. If anything, his heavy ruff and luxurious tail tipped with silver made him seem even larger in the verita luna.
His eyes were the same molten gold though. Not exactly the same, of course. A werelings eyes always seemed brighter, as if some tarnish of the human flesh was scoured away in the Second Truth. Despite the flattening effects of the moonlight, the gold gleamed at her with a purity that made her shuffle her paws uncomfortably in the long grass.
She didnt want to stare into his eyes. She hadnt lured him all the way out here to deal in truthsfirst, second or any other number.
She tilted back her head to stare up at the moon and breathed out a long sigh as she shifted. Her bones ached and her skin felt seared by terrible sunburn as she made the change. She reared up onto her back legsno, her only pair of legs now as she shifted back to her human fleshso she could stand over him.
But when her vision cleared, Beck was standing too, big and naked.
Shocked, she took a faltering step back. Not because he was nakedshed stolen his T-shirt, after allbut that he had shifted so close to her. The verita luna was a dangerous moment: when a wereling was vulnerable and exposed, the beast might attack, unconstrained by any even vaguely human command.
Again, she fleetingly wondered about his discipline. She swept him with a glance, wincing as she always did at the sight of the brutal swirl of scars and burns that wrapped the lower half of his torso. If he hadnt had a werelings vigor, the IED would have meant his death, not merely his discharge. But except for that reminder of his time in the army, he seemed to be in satisfactoryokay, exemplaryshape. Certainly he would not have been able to achieve his present upright...um, very upright...state if hed passed into il-luna.
He stood balanced lightly on the balls of his feet, as if he thought she might run again and hed have to keep chasing her in this form.
His other balls were hard and tight, she could see from here. They knew she was done running.
She took a step toward him, the grass caressing her bare ankles, and he eased back to his heels.
So youre ready to be caught. His tone was calm enough she wasnt sure if he meant it as a question or an idle comment.
Or a warning.
She paused. Consider it payment for the beer.
I said I was done playing.
She lifted her chin, letting the night breeze finger the locks of hair around her face and tighten her nipples into almost painful peaks. Showing him what he was missing. Since when do you give up so easily?
Since I realized youre never going to let me farther in.
Skimming her hands down her hips, she framed the tidy triangle of dark hair, resting her thumbs on the points of her hips. She bit back a triumphant smile as his gold eyes brightened, following the gesture. This has always been far enough for you, hasnt it?
Slowly, as if with great difficulty, he lifted his gaze. When I first got back from overseas, yes. Not anymore.
A draught of doubt, colder than the night wind, iced her skin. Well, shed gotten what she wanted from him anyway: some good beer, an itch scratched, a few insights into how a powerful male Alpha handled his pack.
Fine. She spun on her heel.
And finally he pounced.
With one hand, much stronger than the breeze and almost as hot as the slumbering sun, he swept the hair from the back of her neck. He leaned down to bite her nape as his free hand came around her to cup her breast. He rolled the peak between his thumb and finger, drawing a moan from her trapped halfway between a sigh and a howl.
Ah, hell, babe, you run and I cant stop myself from chasing. His murmur against her skin was cool on her dampened flesh as he kissed a line across her carotid, raising a shiver from her.
Chase? Ignoring the endearmentshe wasnt that much younger than he wasshe tilted her head to give him more access to her throat. I had to practically drag you out here by the scruff of your neck.
By the neck of my shirt.
Your scruffy shirt.
Its a classic.
She groaned again, not in pleasure this time. We shouldve stayed in the verita luna so I wouldnt have to hear this again.