by Michele Hauf
If this was as good as they could ever have it, she could die a happy werewolf.
Tryst grabbed the wine bottle and sucked down half of it in a few swallows. He offered the bottle to her, and, sitting up, Lexi took a more ladylike swig.
“Wine, candlelight and my favorite woman,” he said. “This night is the best.”
“I can’t believe that.” Then she silently cursed herself for even saying that. She shouldn’t put down what they’d just shared, but seriously? She couldn’t be his best.
“The best,” he reiterated. “And only going to get better. Once more?” he whispered, his fingers toying with her achy wetness.
Lexi smiled with her entire body, twisting on the bed to open herself to anything and everything he had in mind. The male wolf needed to be sated on this night following the full moon, and she was no wolf to deny him.
“I like it when you do that,” she cooed. He slid his fingers inside her, his thumb remaining against her swollen center. “Mmm, like that. Harder, lover. Mark me.”
He buried his face against her neck and bit her softly, kissing, biting, nuzzling, sucking and tasting. All while his fingers found a new sweet spot within her that she hadn’t been aware of. She tucked her head against his and kissed the crown of his head. He was hers. If only for tonight.
“Come for me, lover,” he whispered at her ear. “Show me you love what I do to you.”
The orgasm took away her breath, and Lexi’s cry of joy suddenly segued into a wolfish howl. It startled her and Trystan. He jerked away from her, studying her eyes, and as he opened his mouth to say something, her body lunged forward.
Something was not right. Her hips felt as if they’d just…shifted. And her lungs squeezed inside her chest, but it wasn’t so much painful as…opening.
She grabbed Tryst’s arm and he yelped because she’d clamped down too tightly.
“Lexi?”
“I don’t know,” she gasped. Her spine moved. Actually moved. “What’s happening?”
Chapter 13
Her body transformed before his very eyes. His gorgeous princess was actually shifting to werewolf form. She said it had never happened before. So how could it now?
Had sex done it for her? Released her from whatever stasis her body had been in since puberty? Couldn’t have. She’d had sex before.
Tryst brushed the hair from his face and swung his legs over the side of the bed, but didn’t approach as Lexi’s body changed and her spine lengthened and sleek black fur grew from the pores on her arms, shoulders and legs. Her maw lengthened and teeth jutted in brilliant white daggers.
She must be freaking. Or maybe she was joyous? He was thrilled for her, but a little worried she wouldn’t take it well because they’d been having sex, and usually when a couple of wolves did so they either wolfed out before or after but never during the act.
Wow, he must have some kind of miracle power in his cock. Or his fingers, because he’d been getting her off with slick strokes when she began to shift.
When finally a gorgeous werewolf stood in the center of the cottage, claws gleaming and head tilting to take in her surroundings, Tryst decided to sit back and let her explore, take her own time and move where she wanted to. He didn’t fear her werewolf. At least, he didn’t think he should fear it.
On the other hand, this shape was new to her. There was no telling how she would react. How would her werewolf see him, an apparent man in were form? She should know him by scent if not appearance. He hoped.
Without a glance toward him, Lexi’s werewolf let out a long, triumphant howl. Then she darted toward the door and kicked it open, running out into the night.
“Not good. You can’t run through the village, Lexi. Shit!”
Tryst tugged up his jeans and, grabbing a blanket from the bed, took off after her, bare feet slipping on the icy steps. Spying her tracks, and relieved they led around back and toward the woods, he raced through the snow.
The werewolf was fast, and had much better traction on the slippery snow than Tryst did running barefoot. He must have tracked her through the forest for a half a league before coming upon a clearing that opened before an iced stream. A frozen falls gleamed with reflections of moonlight. Snow, ice and hoarfrost covered over all, gifting the space with an enchanted glimmer that felt sacred to him as he entered the quiet cove.
And there, standing before a huge, flat rock was Lexi, naked, now in were shape, huffing, her bare back to him. Moonlight crowned her tresses with a princess tiara of unfathomable light and surface darkness. Her skin, moistened with perspiration, glittered like snow. She lifted her head, sniffing the air. She’d sensed him.
Tryst stepped forward but did not want to crowd her because she could be out of sorts, or just plain stupefied by what had occurred. Turning, she spied him, and her expression looked panicked. Then she smiled, but the smile quickly dropped. A palm clutched at her belly. Her eyes pleaded with him. Panic, concern and confusion swept her face. And the smile returned. Genuine. So filled with joy.
“You did it,” he said softly. “Lexi, you shifted.”
She nodded positively and stretched out her arms to entreat him to her. He approached with the blanket and wrapped it about her shoulders, then kissed her forehead, her eyelids, her mouth. Nuzzling his body against her sweet, sexy heat, she felt twenty degrees warmer than he.
Here was home. Nothing felt more real than that right now.
“I shifted,” she declared in a stunned whisper. “I really did it. I transformed to werewolf. Did you see?”
“I did happen to notice that. You are a gorgeous werewolf, Lexi. So beautiful. And look.” He stroked a thumb over her rose-blushed cheek. “I knew I’d find your color. You absolutely glow, lover.”
“Really? Do you think so? Tryst! I just ran through the forest in werewolf shape! That’s the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to me!”
She performed a jumping leap of a hug and wrapped her legs about his hips. Her joy spread through his bones as he spun her about at the edge of the iced stream beneath the wondrous moonlight.
“I need to do it again,” she said, searching his eyes. “Shift to wolf this time. Do you think I can? I need to try. Oh, Tryst, can I try?”
“You can do whatever you want, lover. Your eyes.”
“What? What about them?”
He touched the edge of her eyelid. “They’re blue. Lexi, your eyes have shifted.”
“That’s the color they were before puberty. Oh, gods, it’s really happened.”
She kissed him deeply, clinging to his arms, his hips, becoming a part of him. Giving him home and trust and love and all the things he had dreamed to have. Were they all to be his? Now that she had shifted and found her color and— What was he thinking? This was her moment, not his.
Drawing back with a wicked smile on her face, she said, “You did this to me. It’s all your fault. You, making love to me, made me shift!”
“Well, maybe.” He wasn’t going to take the credit. It could have been any number of things that had flipped the switch in her brain and body, allowing her to shift. But he had been the guy who’d made her come. It had been quite an orgasm, too. “Okay, I’ll take some credit.”
“No man has ever been able to do it before. It’s you, I know it. We were meant for one another. Do you think? Oh, let’s shift together. I need to try to shift again to know that it’s real and not a fluke. Please?”
He cast a glance around the area, confirming it was about as safe from human eyes as possible. “Okay, but we return here so I can claim my clothes when we’re done, and then back to the cottage for you.”
“Yes!” She clapped gleefully and the blanket slipped to the ground.
Tryst pulled her against his body and ran his palm up her stomach to her breast. It was cool and firm and demanded a kiss. Dipping his head to her softness, he tasted her cool/hot sweetness, growling against her skin because she was so good, so right for him.
“Can we have sex as w
olves?” she asked with a gleeful glint to her pretty blue eyes.
His erection tightened against his jeans. “Hell yes. Wolf sex, were sex, werewolf sex. Anything you want, lover.”
“Then try to catch me if you can.” She scampered over to the huge rock, a naked winter sprite, and turned to wink at him. “So I just think about shifting and that’s how it works?”
He nodded, shrugging a hand through his hair. Man, he was proud of that woman. For years she had suffered the foul treatment of her fellow pack males, and had walked in her sister’s shadow, yet she’d never let it bring her down, and had risen above it all as Wulfsiege’s chatelaine. And now, for all her hard work, she had finally been rewarded.
He hoped it hadn’t been a fluke.
Lexi closed her eyes tightly, which he knew wasn’t necessary, but she’d get the hang of it—if the shift worked. He pressed crossed fingers to his lips and didn’t have to wait long.
Lexi’s body began to change, her bones shortening, and she crouched as her hair fell over her face while her hands and feet shifted to paws. It was a fast shift, one that most humans would barely notice. One minute they’d be looking at what they thought was a human, then within a blink, they’d see a wolf standing before them.
A dark-furred wolf with a sheen of silver fur tracing her belly and paws turned and looked at him. The wolf barked at Tryst—a challenge—then took off through the forest.
* * *
Back by the stream, Lexi came into were shape next to the blanket her lover had thoughtfully brought out for her. She wasn’t cold by any means. Her skin was warm and her muscles were deliciously taxed. She’d never be cold again. She had shifted both to werewolf and wolf shape. And she’d had sex with Tryst while they’d been wolves, and could remember that she had wanted to be taken by the red-furred wolf and had submitted to him in the forest.
Wrapping her arms about her shoulders, she hugged herself out of joy and then released a squeal when Tryst appeared out of the forest, loping forward. She bent and held out her hand and the wolf wandered right up to her and licked her fingers and face. His fur was thick and so soft. She hugged him and let him lick her skin.
And then his arms wrapped about her and his licks became kisses that found her mouth. He shifted to were form and the two made love again on the blanket beside the frozen falls.
They wandered back to the cottage, elated, hand in hand, the blanket tugged about her torso. Lexi knew Tryst had to walk back to Wulfsiege, because if anyone saw her return in the car with him in the passenger’s seat there’d be questions.
“I don’t think I can tell anyone,” she said as they sorted through the cottage, putting things in order in preparation to leave.
“They’ll guess if you don’t wear your sunglasses.” He kissed her, then pulled her over to the small vanity stand beside the bathroom door. “Your eyes are blue, lover. Like the sky on a cloudless day.”
She inspected her eyes and still couldn’t believe it. After all this time. “This is the color they were before that first abbreviated shift. They’re the color of my mother’s eyes.”
The enormity of what had occurred through the night hit her and tears spilled down her cheeks and slipped into an irrepressible smile.
“What’s wrong? Don’t cry, Lexi. It’s going to be okay.”
“I know it is. That’s why I’m crying. I’m just so happy. And I know that it could have never happened if it hadn’t been for you. Trystan, I love you.”
“I love you, too. I really do. I think I loved you the moment you took off your glasses and showed me who you really are.”
“We bonded out there by the stream. As wolves. I don’t remember much of it after I shifted, but I know we had sex.”
“That’s the way it works. Might be weird if we had total recall of it, but I know it was awesome. We’ll have to introduce our werewolves. That will be the ultimate bonding.”
“Tryst, do you know what that means? I’ve shifted. I can have a baby, if I want to. It’s just too incredible. It’s kind of hard taking it all in.”
“You’ll be walking cloud nine for days, and I’ll be looking up at you, cheering you on.” He slid on his shirt but, when he tried to button it, found all the buttons were missing. They’d been torn off during their hasty lovemaking.
Shrugging the shirt up, Lexi pressed a kiss to his chest. “You’re so good to me.”
“I want everything good for you. And us. Lexi, what are we going to do?”
She nuzzled against his chest, freckled across the shoulders, and clung to the ends of his hair. She knew what he was thinking. Her father would never allow Tryst to have a relationship with her because of his mixed heritage. The principal was going to freak when he discovered she had shifted because of having sex with Tryst. Was there a way to keep that a secret forever? It didn’t feel right to her, but until they could figure out how to handle this, she’d wear the sunglasses.
“Liam will have the plow fixed today,” he said. “The courtyard will be serviceable by afternoon, and most of the snow will have been cleared away from the castle. There won’t be any reason for me to stay after that. Though I would like to stay on until your father gets better, just to know for sure, and report his return to health to my father.”
“What about staying for me?”
“Lexi, I want that more than anything, but can I do that? Will your father allow it?”
“Challenge Sven to become scion.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry. But Liam said you were considering joining the pack. If you really mean it, then prove it to me.”
“I’d love to have a pack to call my own, but I’m torn between taking what I want and doing what is right for my family. My mother…I don’t know how she would handle me moving so far away. I would travel every weekend and visit her, but still. I haven’t told you about her condition. She’s good most days.”
“You said something about madness?”
He nodded. “She was buried alive for over two centuries by the guy who fathered my twin brother. A witch’s spell kept her alive and aware inside a glass coffin deep under Paris.”
“Oh, hell, that’s horrible. She was aware of everything?”
He nodded. “For two centuries. Put in there in 1785. Rhys, my dad, just found her twenty-seven years ago. She was pregnant before she was buried, and she gave birth to me and my brother nine months after she was found. So you can imagine her mind is not in tip-top shape. But most days she’s cool, so long as she drinks blood daily. She used to come after me when I was little. My father pulled me away from her fangs on more than a few occasions.”
She touched his chin and silently offered her understanding. She couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to have grown up with a mother like Viviane. Her mother had died when she was three, but she’d never missed her much because she hadn’t known her well.
“Would you ever consider moving to Paris?” he asked.
“And kill my father more swiftly than the poison that is killing him now?”
He tilted her chin up and in his eyes a deep concern steadied them on her gaze. “Liam mentioned something to me about poison. I didn’t want to bring it up earlier because you were, well, in a sexy mood.”
She kissed him. “Yes, poison. It’s a suspicion. His condition improved after an initial dose of the wolfsbane, and the next day it was like he’d been set back two steps. Like maybe someone increased the dose of poison that had been slowly killing him.”
“That makes sense. I wonder how we can check. It must be in his food.”
“But Lana has been bringing him his food…” Her heart stopped beating for a second. Lana? Could she… No. Never. Otherwise she would have never eaten the mashed potatoes and gotten sick herself.
But she was engaged to a wolf who had his sights set on scion—or even principal. “Sven?”
Tryst shook his head. “We need to test your father’s food. Fast.”
“Natalie can do it. She�
�s a witch, but also our resident doctor and herbalist. Yes, now that you’ve said that, I think it could be true. Sven is a loose cannon. And he’s been with the pack such a short time. I never have trusted him. I’ve got to get back. I don’t know how I’ll hide it.”
“Hide what?”
She snuggled into his embrace and kissed him. “Us. My having shifted. I’ve never felt so good. I’m so excited about this. I want to jump and shout and tell everyone. It’ll be a hard line to walk once back by my father’s side.”
“He’ll get better. We’ll make sure it happens.”
“With you by my side, I think it can happen.”
She kissed him quickly, and he stopped her from a hasty retreat with a long, lingering kiss that melted through her skin and made her bones liquid, as if she were shifting but so much sweeter.
“Whatever happens,” he said, “don’t forget that I love you. I would do anything for you, Lexi. And I will always do what I have to, to make things right for you. No matter what.”
Chapter 14
Lexi tried for discretion, asking the chef if, at any moment, he had ever left the food alone while tending the meals. The old wolf, who wore a scar along his neck, and who had never been overly friendly, gave a gruff shrug of his rounded shoulders. “I’m too busy slaving over your meals to have a moment to myself. Why do you ask?”
“Uh…” How to ask straight out about the poison, without mentioning the actual word? “My sister was sick yesterday and she thinks it was something she ate.”
The chef slammed a knife, blade down, on the butcher block, making Lexi jump. “You saying it was something I prepared that made her sick? I use the freshest and finest ingredients. My kitchen is spotless. I’ve never been accused of such a thing.”
His voice rose and Lexi tried to tamp down his anger with a placating hand between them, while she felt, more than heard, the other wolf enter the cafeteria and Sven’s voice boomed out, “What’s wrong, Jacques?”