After Twilight

by Christine Feehan Amanda Ashley

  When he remained silent, she glanced up. He mumbled, "I can't," then looked away.

  "Oh, I'm sorry," she said, realizing she'd gotten too personal again.

  Rick wiped his mouth with a napkin. "Hugh's here. Do you mind if I talk to him?"

  She glanced behind her and saw the sheriff conversing with Betty. "No. Go ahead. I'll wash my hands and freshen up, then meet you at the door."

  He grabbed the bill, slid across the seat, and waited for her to rise. Conversation stopped at each booth or table they passed. Stephanie felt self-conscious. She nodded at the sheriff when they reached the man, then proceeded to the restroom. Once inside, she washed her hands and splashed her face with cool water.

  She found herself primping before the mirror, which wasn't at all like her. Stephanie knew she was pretty, in a natural, no-fuss sort of way. Her job didn't allow her to waste time with makeup or hot rollers. That was the bad thing about camping out. No electricity. Of course, it had never bothered her much before. But then, she'd never had a single, handsome man living near her campsite before, either.

  Frowning over her silly primping, she threw the paper towel in the wastebasket and left the restroom. Rick stood at the register talking to Betty.

  "Sure you can't stop by later tonight and look at my Sugar, Rick? Her appetite hasn't been at all good lately."

  "You know I don't practice on small animals. You'll have to take her—"

  "But Sugar doesn't like that old vet," Betty interrupted, her plump red lips forming a pout. "And it's so far over there."

  He dug in his back pocket for his wallet. "Sugar doesn't like me either, remember?"

  Stephanie stepped up to the register. "Who's Sugar?"

  "My poodle," Betty answered, frowning over the interruption. "I wanted Rick to come over tonight and have a look at her, but I forgot, she pitches a fit anytime she comes within sniffing distance of him. He's the reason we've all had to take to penning up our pets."

  "You should keep them penned up anyway," Rick said. "Confinement stops the spread of disease and keeps them from getting run over."

  "I suppose you're right about that," she admitted. "Well, don't be such a stranger."

  "Keep the change," he said, ushering Stephanie outside.

  "Why don't dogs like you?" she immediately asked, finding that strange since Rick was a veterinarian.

  He looked a little embarrassed. "They just don't."

  "But that's odd, isn't it? Haven't you ever had to practice on small animals?"

  He nodded. "There's the drugstore. You can get film and anything else you need. I'm going for a haircut."

  Although it pleased her that he'd taken her suggestion to heart, Stephanie wouldn't be put off. "Well, haven't you?"

  Rick sighed. "I used to practice on small animals when I lived in the city. I can only assume that dogs no longer like me because they smell wolf on me."

  She drew up short. "What?"

  "My shoes," he specified. "Tromp around a forest inhabited by wolves and you're bound to pick up their scent on your shoes. Spoor and things."

  "Oh." She wrinkled her nose. "I suppose you're right. I hadn't thought of that. How'd it go with the sheriff?"

  He shrugged. "Okay. He said he'd speak to the farmers, but he also said to tell you to be careful. Some might listen and some might not."

  "I guess it's a start," she said.

  "Do you mind shopping alone while I get a haircut?"

  The idea wasn't too pleasing since she was a stranger in town and evidently not highly regarded, but Stephanie answered, "No problem."

  "I'll meet you back at your Jeep."

  With a nod, Stephanie veered off toward the drugstore. She received a chilly reception from the owner after she entered, but ignored the balding older man. Stephanie picked up a few rolls of film, strolled the aisles until something caught her eye. She smiled and plucked a bottle of her favorite shampoo from the shelves. Since she didn't know how long it would take Rick to get a haircut, she lingered over the magazine section and chose a mystery novel from the limited selection of books.

  The man running the cash register didn't thaw a fraction toward her, even though she'd spent more money than she intended, maybe unconsciously trying to win him over. She took her sack and headed back outside. The barbershop was just up the street, but Stephanie decided to wait at her Jeep. She headed toward the vehicle. A woman stepped from the alley beside the drugstore.

  The woman's appearance startled Stephanie. She had long, tangled hair and wore ragged clothing. Her face was a mask of wrinkles. She lifted a bony finger and pointed.

  "Beware of the wolf," she croaked.

  Stephanie glanced behind her, unsure if the woman was speaking to her, and also to make certain there wasn't anything frightening standing behind her. There was no wolf. Only Rick walking toward her. She turned back. The woman had disappeared. Stephanie scanned the streets, searching for the woman. When she didn't find her, she stepped into the alleyway. It was deserted.

  Rick held the shampoo bottle beneath his nose. He took a deep breath, then sighed with pleasure. He smiled, recalling how Stephanie had pulled it from the sack once she'd brought him home. A gift, she had teased, so he wouldn't have to sniff her. He wouldn't use the shampoo on his now shorter hair, but he liked having her scent floating around the room.

  His smile faded when he recalled something he hadn't liked. Stephanie had said an old woman stepped from the alley and warned her to beware of the wolf. He'd thought she might be seeing things until they spotted the old woman later, hobbling down the road.

  He hadn't seen her before, but she'd stopped as they passed, staring at him with eyes too knowing. Rick had turned his head to look at her, and she'd lifted a bony finger, pointing at him accusingly. Did she know? How could she? And who was she? His immediate feelings on the matter were that she'd come from a county fair in one of the neighboring towns. She looked like a gypsy, a fortune-teller. The road she'd been traveling only veered off to one place—a broken-down shack up in the mountains that had long been abandoned.

  If this woman knew what lurked beneath the façade of his human flesh, she was dangerous. He didn't want his curse exposed to the world. His parents had suffered enough; he wouldn't bring this down on their heads, as well.

  He didn't like to recall the turn of events that had forever changed their lives, and his. He'd gone to Canada on a hunting trip with his older brother, Jason. Rick wasn't a hunter, but Jason had laid a guilt trip on him about how little time they spent together. Rick wished the trip had been an instance when he'd remained self-absorbed, instead of giving in. Then he and Jason would not have fallen into the nightmare.

  They were drinking beer and bragging about women that night in front of the campfire. Jason had excused himself, muttering he had to see a man about a dog. Rick sat quietly for a moment, enjoying the silence of the wilderness and the popping of the fire. A short time later, he'd heard his brother's calls for help.

  He'd grabbed his rifle and charged through the foliage. Rick stumbled upon a scene he would never forget. A huge wolf had his brother down, its powerful jaws wrapped around his throat. Rick lifted the rifle and shot at the animal, missing because he was no marksman.

  Then the animal had come at him. Rick barely managed to lift the rifle when the wolf sunk its teeth into the flesh of his thigh. He'd shot the animal in the back at close range. The wolf yelped and fell to the ground. Dragging his injured leg, Rick rushed to his brother's side. It had been too late. Jason was dead. Even though he knew, Rick removed his jacket and wrapped it around Jason's throat, hoping he was wrong.

  He'd carried him to their vehicle, thrown him in the backseat, and raced for the nearest town. The rest seemed like a blur. Because he'd lost a lot of blood from the gaping wound in his leg, he passed out at the hospital. He'd awakened in a room, tubes running from his arms, with the recollection that something had gone horribly wrong tugging at his conscience.

  His brother had, in fact,
been dead upon arrival at the hospital, he learned later. He'd taken him home in a casket. Or at least he thought he had. The loss of his brother had blunted his emotions. He hadn't even noticed that the wound in his leg healed at an impossible rate. Then the changes started. The restlessness. The sleepless nights. His infatuation with the moon. A need for raw meat. He'd never believed that werewolves truly existed.

  Not until he realized he had become one. He'd wake in the morning to find dirt beneath his fingernails, sometimes blood on his hands and the taste of it in his mouth. The newspaper had started reporting accounts of a wolf roaming the streets of the city. He tried to convince himself it was impossible—a man could not assume the shape of an animal—but deep down, he knew it was possible, and that he was such a man.

  Rick brought trembling hands to his head, burying his face. He didn't want to think about when he had come to accept the curse that fate had dealt him—the day his dead brother had paid him a visit. Rick had almost died of shock. He'd thought he might be hallucinating, had prayed he was dreaming, even though he was overjoyed to see his only brother again. But he hadn't been dreaming. It took seeing Jason to convince him that what he suffered was also real.

  Jason was a werewolf. He wasn't in the casket Rick had flown home with. Confused and delirious, his brother had escaped the hospital. Rick later figured the hospital didn't want to admit they'd lost a body, so they'd played along with a hoax. But Jason soon learned what he'd become, and convinced Rick that he shared the same curse. His brother told him he would return to Canada, find the wolf that had bitten them, and kill it. Only then would they both be free. That had been three years ago. Jason had obviously not found the wolf.

  He wondered if his brother had lost sight of the human within him, and now ran wild in the Canadian wilderness. Rick had a lot of questions he wanted answered. He'd done research, of course, but one claim disputed another, and he didn't know what to believe. If the curse could truly only be broken by killing the werewolf that had bitten him, he feared it would haunt him for the rest of his life. Finding that one particular wolf in the wilds of Canada would be like searching for a needle in a haystack.

  An ad for a country vet had caught his attention one day. A secluded mountain town nestled against the rugged mountains of Montana sounded like a good place for him.

  The wolves came shortly after he arrived. For all he knew, he had called them in the lonely hours when the moon hung full in the sky. They were his companions, the only ones who didn't judge him. He'd awoken many times among them. Rising naked in the cold light of dawn in his glaring human form. But they accepted him, either way, man or beast, which was more than his own kind would do.

  They would kill him if they knew. He would be talked about, publicized, and crucified. His parents would suffer even more than they already had. Rick wouldn't allow that to happen. They'd lost two sons to that hunting expedition. At least the two they knew and loved.

  Once, he wouldn't have given the strange woman he'd seen in town a second thought; now the beast within him said he must. He would wait awhile, see if she disappeared as mysteriously as she had appeared; if she didn't, he'd be forced to do something about her.

  Chapter Six

  Stephanie stared up at the moon. Although it was no longer full, she thought it had never shone more brightly, or been more mesmerizing. In the distance, a mournful howl floated to her on the wind. The sound tugged at her heart—made loneliness bubble up inside her.

  She hadn't seen Rick in two days, but he'd crept into her thoughts often. Mostly during the darkest hours of night. The time when she felt lost. Cut off from the world. The time when she longed for companionship, for the feel of strong arms wrapped around her—the touch of flesh against flesh, and the sound of another heart pounding in unison with her own.

  Her attraction to the man was purely physical. At least she had believed so in the beginning. But in the past two days, the attraction had transformed itself into something else. Something beyond her comprehension. When she thought of him, desire, the hot pulsating kind, rose up inside her.

  He came to her in dreams, his eyes aglow with passion. She tossed and turned in her sleeping bag, only to wake clutching air and moaning his name. In those moments of midnight madness, Stephanie fought the urge to go to him. She wanted to creep into the night, into his house, and into his bed.

  A twig snapped and she glanced toward the sound, hoping that thinking of the man had conjured him before her. But it wasn't Rick who stood staring at her from the bushes, the dying embers of the campfire casting his face in an eerie glow. It was the woman she'd seen in town.

  "You must kill him," she croaked. "Take his life to save your own."

  Stephanie jumped up, more frightened by the woman's instructions than by her hideous appearance. "What do you want?" she whispered. "Who are you?"

  "A seer," she answered, moving from the bushes. "A saver of souls. You are in danger. I see what you cannot see. What he cannot hide behind a handsome face." The hag pointed at her again. "You must send him to hell where he belongs!"

  The woman was obviously crazy, and she had the kind of face that nightmares were made of. Stephanie wouldn't hang around to find out if the woman was dangerous. She took off into the woods.

  "Do not run to him! He is not what you think he is! Come back and listen to me!" the woman shouted after her, but Stephanie wasn't about to take instructions from a crazy person.

  She raced into the night, running faster than she'd ever been able to run, her heart pounding in her chest. She leaped over fallen logs, ducked beneath low branches, and ran smack into a tree. Or she thought it was a tree until a pair of arms closed around her. A scream rose in her throat.

  "Stephanie? What are you doing?"

  Her scream turned into a relieved sob. "Rick. I was frightened. That old woman, she came to my campsite."

  "The one from town?"

  She nodded, pressing closer to him. The steady beat of his heart beneath her ear comforted her, and the solid strength of his arms made her feel safe.

  "What did she want?" Rick asked.

  Shivering from the aftereffects of her scare, she answered, "I'm not sure. She didn't make any sense. She said I have to kill someone to save myself. She said she could see beneath his face or something. It was horrible."

  His arms tightened around her. His heartbeat increased a measure. "Whom did she say you have to kill? Whose face can she see beneath?"

  "I don't know," she answered, a little of her fear subsiding now that Rick held her. "And I didn't stick around to find out."

  The tenseness she felt in him faded. He sighed. "She probably is crazy. Probably harmless, too. Maybe she just wanted something to eat."

  "She could have just asked. She didn't have to scare me half to death."

  His hand moved up and down her back. "I'll see if she's still there. Go to the cabin and wait."

  "Don't leave me." She didn't want to be left alone, and she didn't want to worry about him while he was gone. "Let's wait awhile. I'm sure she'll move on or raid my food supply."

  "I don't mind," he assured her.

  "I do," she responded.

  They stood, arms wrapped around one another in the night. Stephanie glanced up at him. His face was close; his lips within touching distance were he to bend a little and she to rise up to meet him. Suddenly, she became very aware of his body, the way they fit against one another perfectly.

  The sensible thing to do would be to break away from him, return to his cabin, and make silly small talk while they waited. She didn't feel like talking. The nights she'd spent dreaming of him, longing for his touch, caught up with her.

  "We should go inside. You're trembling."

  It wasn't the cold that made her tremble, but a fight with her own morality. She wasn't the type who believed in casual sex with a stranger. In fact, she didn't believe in having sex for the sole purpose of pleasure. Emotions should be involved—respect, mutual caring, most importantly, love.
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br />   She didn't know Rick well enough to feel any of those things for him, but she felt desire. This man, this stranger, had awakened her on a level beyond normal consciousness. He had slipped into the darkest recesses of her mind. A place where there was no right or wrong, but only need—a burning hunger that must be fed.

  Maintaining reason was like clutching air. She had no control over her limbs, felt as if an invisible force propelled her mouth toward his. His lips felt warm, firm… and unresponsive. She pulled back to look at him.

  "You don't know me," he said, his voice low and husky.

  "I know I want you," she countered, surprising herself.

  He glanced away as if he couldn't stand to look at her. "You're not making this any easier."

  "No. I'm not," she agreed, then turned his face toward hers and kissed him again. With a groan of defeat, he surrendered. He claimed her lips without a hint of gentleness. Rather than being frightened by the intensity of his ardor, she reveled in the taste, smell, and feel of him. Her fingers clutched his thick hair.

  His hands slid down her back, pulled her hips up firmly against him. Her breath caught in her throat at the solid proof of his desire for her, but again, she felt no fear of him, or shame over her own behavior, only a desperate need to feed the hunger he stirred within.

  When he pulled away again, she moaned in frustration. He took her hand and led her toward the cabin. She went willingly, running to keep up with his long strides. As soon as they were inside, he slammed the door and pinned her against the sturdy wooden frame, his body pressing into hers. He kissed her like a man starved for human contact, making love to her with his mouth, teasing and nipping at her lips, probing inside with his tongue.

  She couldn't breathe, felt as if she were on fire, consumed by a passion beyond her control. Her breasts ached with a need to be held, and lower, she throbbed with another need, one stronger than common sense, one that eclipsed the deeply embedded morals she'd once possessed.