Full Moon (7 page)

“The first time we shift is supposed to have an element of romance about it. I don’t think I can settle for a guy holding my hand when I want him holding my body. I’d rather just go through it alone.”

“You could die.”

“Or maybe I’d liberate us from this archaic tradition.”

You only think it’s archaic because you don’t have a mate.
Personally, I didn’t want to go through it alone. I wanted the magic of the transformation and the wonder of bonding that followed.

“Anyway, I’ve got two weeks to decide what to do,” she said. “I’ll figure something out.”

She was back to sounding like the same defiant Brittany I knew. Everything would be okay. As I drifted off to sleep, I felt certain of it.

The night was dark. The moon had yet to rise. A slight breeze was blowing my hair around. Connor came up behind me, wrapped his arms around me, and kissed the nape of my neck. A tingle traveled down my spine. I leaned into him.

“Soon,” he whispered near my ear. “Very soon.”

I turned within the circle of his arms and welcomed his kiss. It was heated with passion. He skimmed his fingers up my bare arms, and wherever he touched, I felt scalded.

I heard crackling and popping. I grew so hot, I thought I would melt. Drawing back, I found myself staring into Rafe’s brown eyes, not Connor’s blue ones. Somehow, without me noticing, he’d changed. I could see him clearly now, because the trees surrounding us were ablaze, and great orange and red flames were leaping into the sky.

Ignoring the danger we were in, Rafe pulled me back into his arms and lowered his mouth to mine until we became the fire and were consumed….

I woke up breathing heavily and sweating. I scrambled out of my sleeping bag and stumbled from the tent, welcoming the feel of the cool night air against my face. I’d slept in my clothes, so all I was missing were my shoes, but I was accustomed to going barefoot so I wasn’t bothered by the ground beneath my bare feet.

Connor was standing near the fire. He took a step toward me. “You okay?”

Nodding jerkily, I started to comb my fingers through my hair and remembered that it was braided. Only in my dream had it been free. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just a bad dream.” Although not in the traditional sense of nightmares. I was more afraid of myself and the images I was conjuring than I was of any monsters.

Kayla had been sitting on a log. She got up and walked over. “You’re so pale. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Absolutely. Why don’t you go to sleep? I’ll finish your shift.”

“Lucas thought we’d pay more attention if—”

“I know. Weren’t keeping watch with our mate. Connor and I will behave.”

She glanced over at him. He nodded and jerked his head toward our tent. With a shrug, she smiled and patted my shoulder. “All right, then. Thanks.”

She disappeared into the tent.

Connor took my hand. “Come sit by the fire. You’ll feel better.”

I doubted that. “There was a fire in my dream. Everything around me was burning. Just hold me for a minute.”

I didn’t wait for him to give me an answer. I walked toward his outstretched arms, never doubting that he’d welcome me there. He’d been my rock forever.

I tilted my head back and gazed deeply into his blue eyes. I don’t know what he read on my face, but he dipped his head and kissed me.

The kiss resembled nothing in the dream. It was pleasant and sweet and warm. It was reliable. It was constant. It was real.

The kiss in the dream…it was just…well, it was just a dream.

Connor led me over to the log where Kayla had been sitting. Once I was settled on it, he crouched in front of me and tucked some stray strands behind my ear.

I swallowed hard. “The summer solstice, when you couldn’t find me…I was with Rafe.”

A sadness touched his eyes right before he said quietly, “I know.”

“You caught his scent on me.”

He nodded.

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“You’re either mine or you’re not. If you’re mine, I’ll fight to keep you. If you’re not…maybe I don’t want to know.”

I skimmed my fingers along his cheek. Unlike Rafe, he seldom had stubble. “Nothing happened. We just went for a ride on his bike. I needed to get away from the doom and gloom for a while.”

“That’s what Rafe said.”

“You confronted him?”

“Of course. Actually that’s what my dad and I disagreed on. He thought I should have challenged him.”

“That’s insane! You can’t kill him just because he took me for a ride.”

“Relax, Lindsey. I don’t have any plans to challenge him. I like to believe we’ve become a little more civilized over the years and can settle many of our differences in human form, not wolf.”

“But is that the reason he’s no longer part of our sherpa team?”

“No. The elders really are worried about Brittany. If she and Daniel don’t click, they’ll probably put someone else with us.”

I thought about telling him that she wasn’t feeling the connection with Daniel, but we still had a few days for things to change.

Suddenly the hairs on the nape of my neck prickled—and not in the nice way that they had in my dream.

“Connor, do you get the sense that we’re being watched?”

“Yes.”

My breathing slowed as I tried to figure out from which direction someone might be watching us.

Connor suddenly spun around. Two girls were peering out of their tent. They both released high-pitched giggles and ducked back inside.

Connor chuckled. “I don’t remember ever being that young and silly.”

“I don’t think it was them,” I said as I stood up. I turned in a slow circle, but the earlier sensation that I’d had was gone.

“They were all I picked up on.” Connor scented the air. “Nothing unusual.”

I couldn’t shake off the feeling that there had been someone else. “Lucas was probably right. We shouldn’t keep watch with someone we’d rather snuggle with or talk to.”

Connor grinned. “He is wise, our leader. You keep watch here. I’ll circle the camp.”

I knew he wasn’t going to find anything. Whoever it was had left. But it didn’t stop me from wondering who it had been and, more important, what that person wanted.

We trekked for two more days, leading the girls farther into the forest. There were parts of the national forest where few people traveled, where there was more wildlife and more danger, but we avoided those places and helped the girls and their troop leaders set up their final camp in a relatively safe place. After we finished ensuring that the camp was secure, we had plenty of daylight left, so we began preparing for our departure from the group. Brittany and Daniel would stay behind with them. Normally, we’d have just left one sherpa, but the elders had given orders to encourage Brittany to bond with Daniel.

I didn’t see it happening, but a few more days together couldn’t hurt.

“We’ll be back in plenty of time to have you at Wolford before the full moon,” Lucas said to Brittany.

“Whatever,” she responded, as though she was bored with the whole thing.

It was the most important night of our lives, and she acted like she couldn’t be bothered. Grabbing her arm, I dragged her away from the group.

“Hey!” she protested, jerking free of my grasp.

“Brittany, you’ve got to snap out of this. Daniel is trying—”

“There’s no connection. Zero. Zilch. He and I both know it. I’d rather go through it alone.”

“Just think of him as a lifeline. He could be there…just in case.”

“It can’t be as painful as the guys say. And if Lucas was just a distraction for Kayla—thank you very much but I can find my own distraction. I’ll be fine.”

I gave her a big hug. “We’ll both be fine,” I whispered and hoped it was true.

We were able to make better time without all the supplies we’d been lugging and because we weren’t herding more than a dozen rambunctious girls. We began to make our camp as sunset approached, and I realized that with any luck, we’d be back at the forest entrance by tomorrow night.

Lucas and Connor went off to capture a rabbit. Kayla was building a fire. I was restless.

“I’m going to go pick some blackberries,” I said to Kayla as I grabbed a small container.

She twisted around to look at me. “Are you sure you should go off by yourself?”

“I saw brambles in some of the thickets we passed. They aren’t far. I won’t be long.”

“Just be careful.”

“Always.”

I headed back in the direction from which we’d come. Funny thing was, the blackberries were farther away than I remembered, and they weren’t quite on the trail. I slid into the gulley and clambered up the other side where I could see berries peeking out through the thicket. Carefully avoiding the thorns, I plucked one and popped it into my mouth. Wild berries were always tastier than anything found in a store.

The container was half full—I am an optimist—when I became acutely aware of a presence and the hairs on my arms lifted. As slowly as possible, I peered around and that’s when I spotted it.

A mountain cougar.

“Nice kitty,” I whispered beneath my breath, knowing I was in trouble. If my scent was that of a human, maybe he’d move on. But we Shifters smell like wild animals.

He gave a deep, throaty
purrrr
and bared incisors that could tear flesh from bone. Cautiously I shifted my weight, prepared to leap into the brambles and hoping the thorns would serve as a deterrent. My mouth was so dry that I couldn’t have spit if my life depended on it. My heart was pounding so hard that I was surprised the others couldn’t hear my blood
whoosh-whooshing
between my ears.

I saw the cat’s muscles tense.

I leaped up and screamed just as he lunged.

A blur of movement knocked into the cat right before it slammed into me. I felt the heat of the bodies, the air rushing past with the force of the collision. I fell down and scrambled back, my gaze locked on the battle. I could see now that a wolf had attacked the cat. Not just any wolf. One I knew.

Rafe.

What was he doing here? And what if he lost this fight?

I got to my feet and took a step forward, a step back. I wanted to stop it. I didn’t want Rafe getting hurt. My heart was racing. I wanted to scream for help, but I couldn’t risk distracting him. My fists were closed so tightly that my nails were digging into my palms.

The cat’s shrieks rent the air, quickly followed by the wolf’s growls. They were locked in combat. Swiping at each other, snarling, burying their teeth into each other. I could see that Rafe was bleeding. I wanted to rush over to him, to help him. I wanted him safe. I wanted the cat gone.

The cougar finally broke free and raced into the thickness of the forest. The wolf took a step toward me and collapsed.

I raced over, sat on the ground, and put his head on my lap. He was bleeding near his shoulder and his hind-quarters. As he tried to lift his head, I pushed it back down, gently stroking his fur. “Shh, shh, just relax. You need to heal. You’ll be all right.”

Holding his gaze, I thought I’d never been so grateful for anyone’s arrival, but it was more than the fact that he’d saved me from a cougar attack. I was just so glad to see him. I wanted to know what he’d been doing, how he was doing. I had a hundred questions for him, but mostly I just wanted to hold him. He licked my bare knee, as though he wanted to communicate that he was feeling the same. I didn’t scold him for sneaking in a kiss.

I heard a twig snap and jerked my head up to see the guy who’d played pool with Brittany—Dallas—standing there.

“So what are you—the wolf whisperer?” he asked.

“I’m really trying not to freak out here,” Dallas said. “But this is just…it’s wild, man, it’s totally unbelievable. Werewolves. They exist.”

I hadn’t seen any point in trying to lie my way out of a situation that couldn’t get much worse. Rafe’s clothes had been in a heap on the forest floor—explain that. His gaping, bleeding wounds had healed right before Dallas’s eyes—again, explain that. I was holding a wolf in my lap and talking tenderly to him—yeah, normal people do that all the time.

So I’d led Dallas back to our camp. We’d been only a few minutes into the journey when Rafe had silently joined us in human form, fully clothed. Seeing him again like that was like a kick to the gut that almost made me giddy. I hadn’t realized that I’d actually
missed
him, probably a lot more than I should have. I had the sense that he’d missed me too when he silently handed me my container of blackberries. It was full, which meant he’d taken the time to pick some before catching up with us.

Now we were sitting beside the fire, where two rabbits were cooking. I wasn’t certain I’d be able to eat. Disaster seemed a heartbeat away.

“We prefer the term ‘shapeshifters,’” Lucas said. “Werewolf is so…Hollywood.”

“Didn’t mean to offend, but God. Mason kept talking about werewolves, and I just thought he was insane, that his brain power was too much for him. I mean, his IQ is off the charts.”

“You know Mason Keane?” I blurted.

“Hard not to when I work—
worked
—for Bio-Chrome.”

“‘Worked’?” Lucas repeated, suspicion in his voice.

“Yeah. I quit about ten days ago. Decided to take a long-overdue vacation. And—okay, I was curious. I wanted to discover for myself if you really existed.”

“And you decided to do that by following us?” Connor asked.

“Don’t sound so offended, man. He was following me.” He jerked his thumb toward Rafe. “Not that I ever spotted him or anything. It was just a sixth-sense kind of thing, you know?”

Yeah, I knew. So the odds were that when I had felt that sensation of being watched, it had been Dallas doing the watching. Or maybe it had been Rafe, slipping in to keep an eye on us.

“So why follow us?” Kayla asked.

“I’m a scientist. I need proof. So are all of you…” Dallas’s voice trailed off as he glanced around.

“If we tell you that, then we’ll have to kill you,” Rafe said, and I thought he was only half joking.

“Look, dude, I’m not here with evil intentions. Like I said, I just wanted proof. And I was trying to figure out if I could trust you. For all I knew, you’d get rabid and slobber.”

“And now you know we don’t,” Lucas said. “What’s it to you?”

Kayla put her hand over his. I wondered if she was aware that Lucas was trying to decide what to do with the human. Worst case scenario involved death, but I didn’t think we’d go there. We could take him to Wolford and let the elders deal with him. Or we could take our chances and just let him go. Who would believe him anyway?

“Look, I can feel the tension mounting so let’s all relax, okay? I’m on your side. I figured if you really existed I should tell you what I know. And if you didn’t exist, then I was working for some crazies and shouldn’t even bother to ask them for a job reference.”

“So what exactly do you know?” Connor asked.

“Right at the edge of the forest, just before you get to the part that’s designated national park land, there’s a wooded area that’s still private property. Last year Bio-Chrome started building a lab there. Seemed an odd choice, you know? Because it’s away from everything, in the middle of nowhere. Helicopters bring in our supplies. We live there; we work there. It’s almost a prison. To be honest with you, I wasn’t sure they were going to let me leave.

“Anyway, they’re very secretive about what’s going on at the facility. When I applied for the job, all I knew was that it involved studying what they were calling the ‘L-factor gene.’ Stupid me, I thought maybe it referred to love…something to help geeky guys get dates. I really had no clue. It wasn’t until I was working there that I discovered the
L
stood for
lycanthropy
. I thought it was a joke.”

He stared into the fire. Whether he was trying to determine what more to tell us or still dealing with the fact that we actually existed, I didn’t know.

“But Dr. Keane and Mason, they were so obsessed. They kept talking about how they wanted to capture a lycanthrope and study him. It sounded barbaric. I mean, if these beings did exist, locking them up would be taking away their rights. When I pointed that out, Mason said that lycanthropes weren’t human, so they didn’t have any rights. It just sounded so wrong.”

But sounded so much like Mason,
I thought. I glanced over at Kayla. She looked incredibly sad, and I knew it was because she didn’t understand why everyone didn’t accept our existence as gracefully as she had.

“Why didn’t you tell us all this the other night?” Lucas asked.

Dallas met his gaze. “I was going to, but the more I talked, the more the idea of werewolves—sorry, I mean ‘shapeshifters’—it just sounded so…out there.” He studied his hands again, the way he had at the Sly Fox: as though he could figure out how we did it.

“So you thought spying on us was a better solution?” Connor asked.

“Look, I’ve never done this James Bond stuff before, okay? So shoot me. Besides, I saw what he’s capable of.” He pointed at Rafe. “You could kill me, but I stepped forward and here I am.”

“Which brings us back to—exactly why are you here?” Lucas asked.

“I just thought you should know what they were planning.”

“You said the lab was near the national forest. Where exactly?”

“Far northeast corner.”

“Why don’t you show us?” Lucas asked.

“What? Like on a map?”

Lucas was wearing his
don’t-mess-with-me
expression. In it, I could see the ferocity that marked him as the leader of our pack. Judging by the way Dallas’s eyes widened slightly, I suspected he recognized it, too.

“I was thinking you could show us in person,” Lucas said.

“You don’t trust me,” Dallas said, his voice slightly petulant.

“Let’s just say we’ve dealt with Bio-Chrome before. The company is not exactly on our list as a friend of endangered species.”

Suddenly appearing very nervous, Dallas glanced around. “They’ve hired mercenaries to guard the place. They look like they’d kill their grandmothers if the price was right.”

“And you didn’t think that was worth mentioning earlier?” Rafe asked with a deadly calm that sent a shiver up my back, even though I knew he’d never hurt me. He was studiously avoiding looking at me—while I was having a hell of a time keeping my gaze from wandering over to him.

“I was getting around to it. Look, I’m being a good samaritan here. And I’m feeling very unappreciated.”

“You just have to show us the lab,” Lucas reassured him. “We may have some questions once we see it.”

Reluctantly, Dallas nodded. “Yeah, okay, I guess that makes sense. But listen, I took a room at the hotel in Tarrant. Left some of my stuff there. I want to pick it up before we head out, because once I show you the lab, I’m going to Canada.”

Everyone else was looking at Dallas as though he was the enemy while I was viewing him as one of the good guys. I hope I wasn’t being naive.

“You risked a lot to come and tell us about the lab,” I said softly.

“Like I said, what they’re doing…it’s not right.”

“We appreciate you coming forward,” Lucas said, but his voice had an
I-still-don’t-quite-trust-you
edge to it.

“Yeah,” Dallas mumbled. “Just hope it doesn’t get me killed.”

I hoped it didn’t get any of us killed.

Dallas had a little pup tent that he was going to set up, but Lucas convinced him to sleep in the guys’ tent instead. Not that he could have slipped away without us noticing, because we were taking turns keeping watch.

I was lying on my back in my tent. Rafe was watching things now. Then it would be Kayla. I hadn’t gotten a chance to talk with Rafe, to thank him for the blackberries—and for saving my life.

Very quietly and cautiously, I peeled back my sleeping bag, sat up, and tugged my shoes onto my feet.

“Where are you going?”

My heart leaped into my throat at Kayla’s question.

“Can’t sleep. I’m going to get some fresh air.”

“Look, Lindsey, it’s none of my business—”

“No, it’s not,” I interrupted, certain I knew where she was heading with this. And immediately I felt guilty with my impatience. “Look, I just…I need to be sure.”

I didn’t want to tell her about my dreams of Rafe or how thrilled I’d been to see him. Both of these things were wrong if I was committed to Connor. But I couldn’t deny that I felt an excitement when Rafe was near. Was it just because he was novel and Connor was familiar?