Kiss of the Winter Moon

by Amanda LeMay

  “I understand, believe me. I totally get it.” And I did. I really, really did.

  But seriously, Dain and his mom needed to have a heart-to-heart and clear up the past, sweep the freaking ghost of Rand out of this house, because if I heard one more thing about that sick sonofabitch, I might go dig the male up, do my damnedest to revive his ass, and kill him all over again.

  “Does my dad know about this?”

  “Yes. He knows everything. I dumped all of this on him the second time I saw him. I love him more than anything and I didn’t want all this shit coming out later on.” She wiped her face again then came back to the table, picked up her milk, and drank half the glass down. “Jessy, one thing you gotta understand about the sakana bond and mating, I knew Rand was bad the moment I met him, but because of our sakana bond, I couldn’t stop loving him. Not until he died and the little thread that held me to him was severed. And then, your dad and I found each other.”

  A shuddering breath escaped her as she wiped away the last of her tears. She turned and walked to the refrigerator, pulled open the door, and took out the leftover ham from breakfast and several blocks of cheese from the deli drawer and placed it all on the table. Opening a cupboard, she took out two large platters and set them on the table, and grabbed a couple of knives from the carving block.

  “Are we having a snack?” I asked as I sat back in my chair trying to relax. Every muscle in my body tense and knotted. I breathed in deep, grabbed a little piece of ham, and chewed it slowly, enjoying the salty-sweet goodness as it made my mouth water for more and helped clear my head.

  A little smile came to Maygan’s lips as she sniffled. “Only if you’re hungry.” She slit the plastic wrapper on a block of extra-sharp cheddar, peeled the entire wrapper away, and began slicing it up into cubes. “But really, this is for tonight. Full moon.” Her lips curled into a bigger smile. “And well, this is where I was going when I asked you if you had spent the full moon with a male.”

  “You were talking about food?”

  “Yes...and no.” She smiled, then sniffled again. “You’ll need it during the night. Cheese and meat and a few oranges. A pitcher of ice water, too.” She nodded at the other knife still lying on the table. I picked it and began carving slices off the ham.

  “Need it?”

  “I’m sure you’ve heard the stories of how completely insatiable some males can be during the full moon.”

  I nodded, because, oh yeah, I’d heard lots of stories.

  “The stories of hours and hours of unending lovemaking from moon rise until it sets again the next morning. The stories of unquenchable need and ravenous hunger that has absolutely nothing to do with food and everything to do with passion burning so damned hot that they can’t get close enough, can’t go deep enough, can’t fuck hard enough.”

  “Well...um...” Heat flashed in my cheeks as I blushed. “Yeah, I’ve heard quite a few of those stories,” I croaked out. I cleared my throat and took a drink of cold milk that didn’t do a thing to cool me down, because, damn...I could not wait to spend a night like that with Dain. “No one ever put it so eloquently, but yeah. I always thought they were just exaggerations.”

  Maygan popped a piece of cheese into her mouth and chewed while she shook her head slowly from side to side. A wicked little glint sparkled in her still wet eyes.

  “Those stories are true. All true.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  AFTER MAYGAN AND I finished up the platters of meat, cheese, and fruit for the coming night, I left her in the kitchen to ask the guys if they wanted a snack. With all the energy it took to keep getting back up on a horse that would rather kick your ass off, I was sure they’d worked up an appetite.

  I passed through the dining room into the living room toward the front doors. The crisp December breeze blew in through the screen door, carrying the odor of dirt and cows and horses along with the distinctive scent of three males as they all sat on the top step of the porch, facing out toward the vast open ranch.

  I opened my mouth to call out to them when I overheard Dain say, “Is it supposed to feel this way?”

  “How do you mean?” Dad asked.

  “Like part of my soul is tearing away and pouring into her every time we...” He hesitated and shook his head. “Well, ya know.”

  The other two males nodded and mumbled something I couldn’t make out.

  “And when she looks at me, just looks at me, it shreds me up inside. I can’t see how I’ll ever be worthy of her. Damn, that sounds so fucking lame, but...” He shook his head.

  Dad and Arnou nodded right along as if they understood completely.

  “And hell, after last night, if anything ever happened to her, I swear my heart would stop beating. I’d be...nothing.”

  I froze in place a few feet from the front door and blinked back sudden tears.

  I’d be...nothing.

  Sweet heavens above.

  If, after recognizing how much I love him now, how much I need him in my life, if I lost him, yeah, I would be nothing.

  Screw my plans. I’m not leaving.

  I was a fool to think the once-every-full-moon plan was ever going to work for me or Dain. Suggesting it to him would hurt him in ways I never wanted to hurt him.

  Arnou spoke up. “You fighting an overwhelming urge to mark her whenever she’s near?”

  Dain’s head bobbed up and down. “Does that ever pass?”

  “Nope.” Dad replied.

  “I feel like my wolf side is barely reined in. Like, I’m out of control. Like, every time I touch her, I’ll squeeze her so hard, I’ll break her.” Unmistakable concern painted Dain’s deep voice.

  “You won’t break her.”

  Hell, no! I wasn’t that delicate. And out of control? What was Dain talking about? Out of control? I’d never seen anyone more in control in my life.

  I looked up. Tears blurred my eyes. Still, I could make out every tense line of muscle on Dain’s broad back. That long, black braid of his hung down and touched the top of his belt. My hands itched to set it free and feel the silky strands across my skin.

  Dain sat up a little straighter and inhaled before he spoke again.

  “I worry. Every time my teeth get near her skin, I want to tear her flesh and taste her blood. It scares the shit out of me! And don’t bother telling me I won’t hurt her when I bite her, because I will, or we won’t be mated.”

  “What you’re going through right now, it’s all good.”

  Yeah, listen to my dad! He’s been through this. Twice. He should know. If he says it’s all good, it’s all good!

  But...I didn’t say that.

  Even though it was so wrong to stand there and listen, I couldn’t help it. I wouldn’t open my mouth. Wouldn’t walk away.

  “I’d question your bond to her if you didn’t feel this way,” Arnou said.

  “But I feel so damned...out of control.”

  “Obviously, you have greater control than you realize because you’re sitting here talking about it and not running off, tearing shit up. Again, that’s all good.”

  He does!

  You do!

  “Stop telling me it’s all good! It’s not good! I’m not good! I’m fucking dangerous!”

  No! You are NOT dangerous!

  “And she looks at me like I’m some kind of hero. I’m not. DJ saved her life, not me!”

  Was that what this was about? He thought he didn’t save me? I didn’t want to think about what would’ve happened if Dain hadn’t found me in time. DJ didn’t save me. He’d sent a freaking text!

  Dad gave Dain a one-arm hug around the shoulders. “If you haven’t noticed, Jessy has always looked at you like a hero. You just didn’t see it that way before. She isn’t going to look at you as anything less than her hero because someone developed a conscience and helped you save her life.”

  “But—”

  “Listen, son. Look at me.” Dain’s head turned in Dad’s direction and I hoped to hell he p
aid attention. “It’s hard to surrender to your inner beast. It’s hard to give in to the urge to hurt your mate. Hey, I’ve been there. But, you will bite her and it will be brutal and at that moment she’ll be more than willing to submit. I understand it’s a struggle to want and need someone else so badly it scares you to death. I also know it does not one lick of good to fight it. And, when the time comes, you will do what your natural instincts tell you to do.”

  Arnou leaned into Dain’s shoulder. “You may feel more like a wolf now than ever before, but right here,” Arnou moved his arm, pointed at Dain’s chest, “there’s a human heart and because you love her, the last thing in the world you will do is harm her.” Arnou moved away, turned to the side, and leaned his back against a post. “And that’s why it’s all good.”

  I stayed there, one hand over my mouth, tears spilling down my cheeks. Arnou glanced into the house. For a split second our eyes met, and he smiled. With a small shift of his eyes, he caught me. I was sure he would say something, but he didn’t. Maybe he believed I would announce myself, or I’d tiptoe back to the kitchen. Then again, maybe he thought I needed to hear Dain’s concerns. In any case, he didn’t give me away.

  “All males who find their sakana go through exactly what you’re going through. There’s this war of wills going on inside.” Dad pointed to Dain’s head, then to his chest. “Didn’t you ever wonder why most males are escorted to their mating ceremony?”

  “I thought it was a best-man kinda thing. Besides, you weren’t escorted.”

  “No, I wasn’t. But, it also wasn’t my first mating. Experience helped. I’d like to think it was also because I had a bit more maturity. Plus, your mom would have kicked my ass if I tried to pull any shit on her.”

  All three of the males laughed, but I could see Dad was serious. After all Maygan had been through in her life, my dad wanted to be the male she had always deserved, and walking into his mating ceremony all on his own would say a lot about his love for her.

  “I just keep thinking, I gotta do all this, hurt her.” Dain’s voice sounded tight, restrained. “Mate with her in front of a whole pack of witnesses.”

  I hadn’t really thought about that aspect of the ceremony and it didn’t seem to bother me. The pack I grew up in was so large, we had mating ceremonies quite often. We celebrated the Moon Dance as often as possible, which only happened about once every three or four years, and it wasn’t unusual at all for quite a few spectators to have sex right along with the Breeders. My whole pack had seen me naked. It was nothing. Modesty was not something I suffered from. It was more likely that Dain didn’t want other males to witness our consummation. Hell, he didn’t even want them to see me in a little, red dress.

  Dad looked out over the ranch, but I still caught every word he said. “When I told your mom about how hard this ceremony is for males, she said it sounded something like giving birth. The whole time she was in labor with you, all that ran through her mind was “what the hell was I thinking?” Once you came into the world and she laid her eyes on you, all that love filled her up, and all she could think was, “I’d give anything to do that again”. And that’s how I feel. I’d go through hell every damn day, if that’s what I had to do to be with her.”

  Arnou clapped his hand on Dain’s shoulder. “Once you see Jessy standing in that circle, everything else will disappear. It’ll just be the two of you.”

  With that comment, I found my feet and turned away to shuffle silently back toward the kitchen. Maygan would have to call them in because I needed a drink, and not just milk or coffee. I needed a couple of straight shots of liquid gold. Or silver. Whatever.

  Maygan rushed out of the kitchen, wiping her hands furiously on a towel.

  “I...I didn’t...I didn’t get a chance to call them in,” I stuttered as my hand still hovered over my mouth.

  “Never mind.”

  She grabbed my hand as she rushed past me and I did an about-face as we headed back for the front porch.

  “Dammit.” She tugged my hand to make me keep up. “It’s Christmas Day, for fuck’s sake. Why couldn’t they have waited until the day after?”

  “Who?”

  Then I smelled them.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  OH SHIT.

  Maygan and I stood on the porch as our males walked out to meet the fifteen or so wolves that appeared out of nowhere. At the front of the pack stood a massive wolf. Varying shades of dark and light golden brown threaded throughout his heavy winter coat, covering the upper half of his body and over the top of his face, blending into silvery white over his cheeks, jaw, and the lower half of his body.

  Gunner.

  The silver in Gunner’s hair stood out in his wolf features, on his muzzle and over his wise, intense dark lime green eyes. To his right and a step behind stood another wolf the same enormous size with almost the exact coloring—Ralph Bodolf.

  Dread settled low in my stomach. I had never attended a wolf tribunal, but I’d been told about them and seen the results. Wolf justice was swift and brutal and bloody, often deadly, and apparently, they didn’t take holidays off. Still, this seemed like it should be more formality than anything else. The evidence was plain—Bobby had issued a challenge, whether he knew it or not.

  Gunner’s huge head nodded toward the barn. Maygan and I stepped off the porch to stand between Dain, Dad, and Arnou as we all walked into the barn, the wolf pack following behind.

  “Whatever happens, do not shift.” Dain whispered urgently. “Do not shift.”

  “Why not?”

  “Female. Full moon.” My dad whispered from my other side. “You are not officially mated and as far as a few of these males are concerned, you are fair game.”

  “It would get bloody,” Arnou mumbled from the other side of Maygan. “Extremely bloody.”

  “But, what if—” I started.

  “No. No what-ifs.” Dain squeezed my hand. “No matter what, you do not shift.” He growled under his breath. “Promise me, Jessy.” His dark eyes flashed at mine. “Promise me.”

  “I promise.”

  And, dammit, thanks for scaring the living shit out of me!

  I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying it, and from the tone of Dain’s voice, I was pretty sure he was just as anxious as I was.

  Once inside the barn, we turned as the wolves filed in and made a semicircle in front of us. Lucky and the other two horses in the barn moved into the corners of their stalls, the farthest they could go from all the wolves invading their territory. Not one of the horses made a sound, as if the last thing they wanted was to attract any unwanted attention.

  In my peripheral vision, I noticed my dad and Arnou start slipping off their boots and socks. Shirts and pants were next. Dain followed suit and removed all of his clothing as well. It was a good thing I would be keeping my clothes on—my hands shook so badly, I didn’t think I’d be able to unbutton my blouse, much less my pants.

  I kept my gaze focused only on the huge, alpha wolf in front of me. Maygan and I were the only two still fully clothed when Gunner shifted into his human form.

  If I hadn’t been so freaking scared, I was sure my jaw would have hit the dirt floor.

  The breeze drifting into the barn filled the place to the rafters with Gunner’s smoky mesquite and leather scent. With only one small glance, there was no mistaking his Breeder heritage. The part of his anatomy that made him not only a Breeder, but also gained him a productive alpha-male status, lay long and thick between his legs, with his Breeder’s seam a clear indicator of his importance to the pack. He didn’t stand as tall as Arnou or even Dain, but he was bulky and heavy, with muscle in all the right places. Still, his lime green eyes set off his wise face and the short, silver hair that ran from his temples down to his ears seemed to sparkle in the overhead lights.

  Gunner ran his hands through the longer, dark brown hair on the top of his head. Every muscle in his body seemed to ripple with the small movement.

  His green ey
es landed on my sakana. “Dain.” Gunner’s deep voice echoed throughout the barn and every wolf stilled as they watched and listened. “Ralph told me what happened with Bobby Sanders and first, I want to tell you how sorry I am that you had to deal with the likes of him.” Gunner’s features softened when he looked at me. “Jessy, again, I am so damn sorry, girl.”

  I nodded and breathed in relief.

  “Dain, son, there are a couple of questions I need to ask.”

  Dain nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “Bobby Sanders issued a challenge. I read that on your phone, and you were well within you rights to put him down. With what Danby Junker has told me and my brother, Gilbert Witherby was guilty of planning to murder Jessy, once he and Bobby were done using her. So, from what I understand, even though these two humans were unarmed, with the few bodies they buried in that old barn, and all the others the Kerrvile Sheriffs are digging up out there off the Medina Highway, there is no question they were a deadly pair and would’ve killed Jessy without much thought.”

  I closed my eyes and sucked in a breath, exhaling slowly.

  “The first question I have is what to do with Danby? Charging him as an accomplice during a kidnapping will bring Jessy into court and the legal bullshit could take years. You need to understand I can’t let that happen. He swears to his god he didn’t kill anybody and that since he joined up with Bobby and Gilbert, he was never actually a witness to what those two idiots were doing, either. Of course, all the bodies will be checked as to approximate date and time of death, and from what Ralph saw and smelled, none were fresher than six or seven months. From what I picked up from my little hospital interview with Danby, he’s telling the truth there. Nevertheless, just looking at Danby and hearing his story of what Bobby and Gilbert put him through, along with what Jessy said happened in her presence, I’m thinking he’s been punished enough. But since Jessy is the victim here, what happens with Danby is completely up to her.”

  As I looked into Dain’s eyes, all I could think of was how many times DJ must have been tied down on those same hay bales, or tied up between those posts. Those fading bruises on his ribs and thighs made it clear how badly he’d been beaten in the past and why he put up with it, I still didn’t have a clue. There must have been something about the abusive sex that he enjoyed and had him coming back for more, because I didn’t think he had feared for his life until last night.