Between Moons (The Cursed Series Book 1)

by Lilly Cain

  “We should call the police.”

  “No! No, I don’t want them. I’m okay.”

  A small muscle jumped along his jaw. He rubbed his thumb over her collarbone through the blanket. “Why don’t you get cleaned up and dressed. I’ll keep watch. And then you can tell me what happened, okay?”

  He was treating her like she was wounded, or maybe as a child. It felt ridiculously good to listen to him, and to agree. She shivered. Silently, she picked up her bag and walked to the bathroom. Inside, she faced the shock of her appearance in the full length mirror behind the door. She gasped.

  There really was blood everywhere—in her hair, on her face. She dropped the blanket. Everywhere. What could David possibly imagine happened to her? That she’d been attacked? Raped? She’d told him wolves were chasing her and he hadn’t believed it. And then they’d stolen his car. Showed her who they were, or at least what. And she’d seen one face, one she wouldn’t forget.

  She turned away from her reflection. The scent of blood sickened her. She stepped into the shower and turned it on, only flinching once at the stinging cold. The water ran red at her feet. There were no scratches anywhere on her. No place for the blood to have come from but the change.

  They had literally ripped her human form from inside the wolf.

  She ached; the muscles in her legs and back and pretty much everywhere else throbbed with dull pain. The cold water wasn’t helping, so she shut it off and toweled herself dry. A few minutes later she was wrapped in a towel, but still in the bathroom. Going back out to the main room meant facing David and all his questions. What was she supposed to tell him? She’d seen his expression when she said it was wolves chasing them. He thought she’d lost her sanity. But if she avoided him much longer, his protective nature would kick in and he’d call the cops or so something similarly stupid, like assume the wolves were gone and go out to look at his damaged vehicle.

  She closed her eyes.

  Maybe it was over. Maybe, by pulling her from the wolf, they’d stopped her from changing again. But then why were they so intent on hurting her? They’d tried to kill her and David with the Jeep.

  She licked her lips. Other than tonight, she’d never tried to actively allow the change to take place. Did that have something to do with the attack? She stared at her hands, willing the nails to shift into claws, always the first sign that she was losing control and the change was coming. Nothing.

  Her heartbeat picked up. Could it really be over?

  A knock sounded on the door and she jumped.

  “Helen?” David’s voice carried a strong note of concern. “Are you okay in there?”

  She went to the door and opened it. David looked her over carefully from head to toe. His concern was sweet, if misguided.

  “Do you need some bandages? The first aid kit is in the kitchen. I can go get it for you.”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  He frowned. “Then where did all the blood come from, Helen?”

  She leaned against the door and sighed. “You wouldn’t believe me.”

  He shook his head, turned and walked away from her, back to the living room where he set the shotgun on the coffee table and took a seat on the sofa. He called out to her. “If you don’t explain this to me in five minutes, I’m calling the cops. And please, put some clothes on.”

  Heat flushed through her. She slammed the door shut, yanked out some clothes from her bag, and hurriedly dressed. No time to comb her hair. She was going to have to tell him something, but what?

  She rushed out to the living room and dropped into the recliner opposite the couch. He had his phone out, sitting beside the shotgun on the table. Yippee, a showdown.

  For a minute they sat there, staring at each other. Then he started to reach for the phone.

  “Okay, all right. Don’t call the police. But you really aren’t going to believe me.” Helen rushed through the words, but when he leaned back in the couch again, away from his cell, she stalled.

  “I’m listening.” His voice was deep. Neutral, with maybe a hint of concern. Well, who wouldn’t be concerned? He found her covered in blood, which he probably figured wasn’t hers, and then someone tried to run them down with his own vehicle. Helen fidgeted and bit her lip.

  He raised an eyebrow.

  She leaned forward and rested her forearms against her thighs. “You’re going to think I’ve lost my mind. Sometimes, I think it. It all started with the hospital project. There was this group of people…wanderers. Gypsies. They call themselves the Rom. From Romania, I guess. I’ve tried to research them, but there isn’t much. They didn’t own the land, or any rights to it. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “That old woman—”

  “Yes, that damn woman.” She looked up at him, caught the way he was staring at her, interested, concerned. As if he really cared. She swallowed hard. Why would he? “She did it. Bianca Donceanu. She’s a lawyer, apparently, but she’s something more to her people. They didn’t have a leg to stand on in court so she showed up at my company’s award ceremony and ruined me.”

  “She embarrassed you. But ruined?”

  Helen looked away. “She cursed me. Threw some sort of spell at me. I told you, she’s something more than a lawyer. They use the land as they travel across several states each year. But I took it and made it into something better than a campground. And they didn’t appreciate it.” She fell silent. The memory of blood splashing across her, all the company staring, the strange feeling that came with the witch’s words…

  “What do you mean, curse? And was it people from the Rom chasing you tonight?”

  Helen closed her eyes. This was the part where he’d not only call the cops, but call the medics to come with a nice white straightjacket. “I’m sure it was them. Why they were here tonight, and not before, I don’t know. The curse. It changes me. I have to leave, go somewhere where no one can see, and no one can get hurt. This is the third time. The moon becomes full, and I become a beast. A…wolf. A werewolf.”

  She looked at him. Yup, she’d lost him. He looked back at her with disbelief and worse, pity.

  “Helen, we have to call for help. You need help.”

  She stood, paced the room. “Really. Really? You saw them. They’re after me. I don’t know why, after months of being like this, but they were here last night and they did something. They…” She couldn’t find the words. “Something magic. It’s where the blood came from. From me, but not from my skin, not this skin…” She wasn’t making sense and she could see he believed she’d really lost it.

  “I twisted that fork, remember? I’m stronger now. Faster, and I can see and hear better. Smell better. But you think I’m nuts.”

  He stood and reached out to her but she paced away. “I think you are in trouble. Something is definitely going on, and those people did chase us, but a werewolf? No. You are not a beast of any kind.”

  Frustration ate at her. He made perfect sense. Stuff like this couldn’t be real. And yet it was. She’d been living it. She growled and the sound came out as animalistic as what she’d heard from the wolves in the woods.

  “I am a beast.” She held up her hands. The nails that had refused to shift earlier were blackening, lengthening as she watched. Her teeth felt longer, sharper. He had to know what she was, but showing him the change seemed horrible in reality. He would be repulsed at the shift, the way her bones cracked and moved, the way the fur sprouted from her skin and she became other. It could only be an ugly thing, unnatural. Unclean.

  Already her hands were changing, and the ache was becoming severe in her legs and arms. She dashed past him to the door, pushing him aside. He grunted in surprise and she made it to the door before he could see it all.

  “Helen, wait!”

  But she was gone, running as pain flashed through her body and the change took place, slower than normal, but unstoppable. What choice did she have but to run from him? Even if the wolves waited for her in the woods, it was better than being h
ere with a man who only wanted to help—a man she would surely hurt.

  8

  “What. The hell. Was. That?” David breathed. What had just happened? How could he possibly have seen what he had just seen? Helen Mathews, beautiful Helen, was in the process of becoming a werewolf.

  “No. No way.” David sat back down on the couch with a thump and stared at the open doorway.

  Long minutes ticked by while he tried to wrap his mind around everything he knew about Helen. She’d had an altercation with a strange woman at her promotion dinner. She’d gone missing every few weeks since it happened. She could bend a fork as easily as crashing a wad of paper. And her eyes were a color he’d only ever seen in one other place—in the wolf print on his bedroom wall.

  Something else he knew—someone had been chasing her. She was afraid; none of the fear coming from her tonight had been a lie. Now she was back out there, running in the woods because either she couldn’t handle him seeing her shift, or because she thought once she did, she might hurt him. Either way she had run to the same woods they’d escaped from only a couple of hours earlier. The people chasing them, wolves or not, could still be out there. He glanced at his watch. Twenty minutes past midnight. Jesus. He’d been sitting, visiting la-la land for more than an hour, while she’d been out there alone.

  He got up and after a moment’s hesitation grabbed the shotgun. He pocketed as many shells as he could and walked to the door. She still needed him. Maybe. She had been coated in blood earlier. While she’d said it was hers, what if it had been someone else’s? What if it had been from a victim, another person? But then what if it had been from a fight, self defense? They hadn’t gotten far enough to ask. He’d just assumed she was suffering from a mental breakdown, just as Sharon had on the one weekend he’d ignored her calls.

  Guilt. It would never leave him. And he wasn’t about to add the weight of more guilt now. He’d either stop Helen from hurting anyone, or stop anyone from hurting her. He strode out the door, shutting the screen behind him.

  Unlike before, clouds now obscured some of the light from the moon. A cool breeze wafted through the trees and scattered dried leaves, making soft skittering noises. The hair on the back of his neck lifted. “This is likely the stupidest thing you’ve ever done trying to help someone, Sherman. And there’ve been some doozies,” he muttered under his breath.

  He took a few steps into the trees and called her name. “Helen!”

  Nothing.

  Then, a long howl lifted into the night sky, a sound that rose and fell with a primordial eeriness that sent his heart thundering. No other voices joined the chorus, but one was quite enough.

  “Holy fuck…” he breathed. He stepped backward, out of the trees, carefully walking back into the tall grass clearing next to the cabin.

  When he backed up far enough to feel the edge of the wooden steps to the cabin behind him he stopped, loaded the gun. At the edge of the woods a form appeared. The clouds parted, and he stopped breathing.

  A wolf. A real wolf when such a thing hadn’t been seen on this mountain in his lifetime or his father’s. But was it a real wolf? The creature was huge and bright, its fur nearly white when he thought most wolves were gray.

  He swallowed hard. The wolf took a few steps into the clearing. It stared at him, ears perked forward. He stared back. Then, very carefully, without turning his back, he walked up the stairs to the cabin, went in and shut the door. Locked it. Leaned against it and tried to breathe.

  After a moment he went to the window. The wolf still watched, but now it was pacing forward. It reached the cabin, leaped to the top of the stairs, and then sat facing the woods. The woods, not him. It was even bigger than he’d thought. She was even bigger. He leaned his gun against the wall. He’d never even pointed it toward her. He knew who he faced.

  Who she was.

  And now she was standing guard on the cabin. He ran a hand through the back of his hair, felt the cold sweat there. Well, she could stand guard outside. He might know who she was, but she could stay on the other side of the door, thanks. Hard to say if she knew for sure who he was, when she was like this.

  He looked out the window again. She looked over her shoulder at him with those golden eyes. He’d been right. She was no beast. She was magnificent, a powerful creature of the night. Beautiful. Deadly?

  * * *

  The moon sank and the woods grew dark, but nothing stirred. The local wildlife kept themselves far from the cottage and the predator lounging on the porch. The other wolves didn’t return as she’d feared they might. And from inside the cottage? Nothing moved once David tended the fire for the night and settled himself on the couch. When the sun finally crept up on the horizon, Helen shifted again, her wolf withdrawing while her humanity returned.

  She shivered, naked on the porch. Her wolf side hadn’t wanted to leave, and she had to admit she felt distinctly vulnerable without the protection of claw and fang. At last she didn’t have to bang on the cabin door and beg David for her clothes. She’d left her SUV unlocked and thankfully, she kept a blanket folded on the back seat, along with a small pillow. She walked over, climbed inside, and locked the doors. Moments after she tucked the blanket around her, she sank into sleep.

  A sharp rapping on the window at her feet brought Helen awake. David stood outside the car, still dressed in yesterday’s clothes and still carrying the shotgun. Was a shotgun even any good against werewolves? Weren’t they only killed by silver bullets? She closed her eyes to think about that, and maybe sleep some more but he rapped on the window again.

  “Helen, come out. There’s breakfast.”

  His voice was gruff and he had the gun, but he wasn’t freaking out and he was asking her in. She gripped the blanket and sat up. His eyes widened, probably realizing she was naked under it, and he stepped away from the SUV and walked back to the cabin.

  Helen climbed out of her vehicle and stretched while making a rough toga with the car blanket. Last night’s events played through her mind. The way she’d accepted her change and let it happen, then the attack and the forced shift back to human. For a little while she’d not been able to change back and thinking about it, she had to admit to herself that she’d been half afraid what they had done to her had been permanent. But the wolves hadn’t come back, hadn’t attacked her. Had David seen them?

  Only one way to know. Plus, he knew her secret now. Was he going to tell anyone? Would anyone even believe him? The last thing she needed was to be locked up somewhere while someone tried to figure out what she was.

  She followed David to the cabin. For a moment she stood in the doorway and watched him as he plated up some beans, eggs and strange looking, round toast. Where had he gotten the food? Had she been so exhausted she missed him leaving? No, his Jeep was likely out of commission for the foreseeable future.

  He spotted her hesitating at the screen door. “Come in, I won’t bite.” He lifted his eyebrows. “And I expect you to behave and not bite, either.”

  A joke. The man managed to produce a full meal out of nothing and a joke after last night? She’d been right about him, he was strong.

  “I leave some dried supplies here, canned bread and powdered eggs and stuff, in the hunting packs in the bedroom closet in case we stay out overnight on a hunt. I haven’t taken anyone hunting in a while, but the stuff lasts for years. It’s not bad,” he added when she didn’t move, and he took a big bite.

  Her stomach grumbled and her mouth watered over the big pile of eggs on her plate. She walked in and took a seat at one of the stools beside the kitchen counter. He stayed on the other side, eating his breakfast while standing. He might be offering a meal, but he wasn’t totally comfortable with her yet. Who could blame him?

  She dug in, though she could feel his eyes on her, evaluating. It was awkward, eating with one hand while she kept a tight grip on the blanket with the other, but waiting for the food while she took the time to get dressed wasn’t happening. They ate silently, until she was dip
ping the last of her toast into cooling tea.

  David cleared his throat. “Tell me again how this happened. Make me believe I’m not crazy.”

  “You aren’t going to call the police? Or the Navy? Local witchdoctor?” She tried to joke, but it was a bit past her acting abilities.

  He shook his head. “No.” He didn’t have an ounce of humor in his tone.

  She bit her lip. She owed him for coming up here after her, and trying to help. For possibly putting himself in danger. She told him about the land deal, this time in detail, about how the Rom used it for their annual migration but owned none of it; how they claimed they’d had a centuries old deal with the government; how a woman who first appeared as a crisp professional lawyer showed up and threw blood on her as part of a curse.

  David poured her another cup of tea and a cup of coffee for himself when she faltered in the telling of her first change. The pain of it, the strangeness, the disbelief, and the damage she’d done to her apartment and to herself. Her neighbors had complained about the noise and about her having an animal. She’d left the next day to an old and empty campground she’d visited as a child, but the damage was done.

  She sipped the tea. He’d remembered she didn’t like coffee.

  She told him of the exponential increase in her strength, speed, senses. Her pain at the touch of silver. For a moment she wondered why she’d revealed that fact, but really couldn’t imagine him hurting her. Somehow, she’d wanted to trust him from the first moment she’d laid eyes on him, and that wasn’t like her at all. She told him that, too.

  “Why do you think that is?” he asked. He hadn’t asked much, just watched her and listened.

  Might as well go all in. She looked down at the empty plate until he took it away. Then she looked at her tea—anywhere but at him. This was not going to sound right. “It’s how you smell, I think.”