Forever Werewolf: Forever WerewolfMoon Kissed (Harlequin Nocturne)

by Michele Hauf

  With but a thought, her body began to shift. It was so easy she laughed as her bones and muscles moved, and the laughter echoed across the snow cover and segued into an abrupt yip as her wolf voiced the remnants of her frustrated anger.

  Dashing north, she headed toward the forest, along the fresh powder that had packed in on top of the snow moved during the avalanche. Every scent and sound was amplified, honed by her senses, to a fine symphony of the world.

  Her paws took the slope with ease, and she tracked the forest edge for many leagues, not scenting the witch. Perhaps she’d missed her?

  Suddenly the ground shifted. The wolf yelped as snow began to flow in waves beneath her feet, and she was toppled to her side, her four legs flailing and tail twisting in an attempt to right herself as she was moved along with the massive amounts of snow.

  Chapter 16

  Tryst strained against the manacles secured to the dungeon wall. He’d heard it. A dull, thudding thump that could only be another avalanche. His heart fell to his gut. Ears perked, he listened for noise, anything, calls from above that would assure him the castle inhabitants were safe, but his sensory abilities were muffled within the stone walls.

  Damn it! He needed to be free. And right now, if the pack was dealing with another avalanche, they wouldn’t have time to worry about him. Which was a good thing.

  Dare he make an escape? It was the coward’s way. Yet he’d been falsely accused and had every right to his freedom.

  The door to the dungeon creaked open and footsteps shuffled hastily down the stairs. Liam clanked the keys against the manacle.

  “Another avalanche?”

  “Yes.” Liam released Tryst’s wrist. “Lana said she saw Lexi head out for a run.”

  “What?”

  “She’s missing. Possibly buried beneath the snow. So are some of the pack. I’m going to head the search for the men. You need to go after the princess.”

  “Where was she?”

  “Lana says east of Wulfsiege, where the avalanche originated, on the same slope as the original occurred. Also, Sven is going off on how you’re to blame for the weather, as well as poisoning the principal, so avoid him if you want a chance to help Lexi.”

  The last manacle fell away from his wrist and Tryst slapped Liam across the back. “You have a team to help you?”

  “I do. And having watched you the first time I know what to do. I’ve got it under control.”

  “Is the principal safe?”

  “Yes, though he is very weak. Go! If you don’t find her I’ll hold myself responsible for allowing that bastard Sven to chain you up in the first place.”

  “Thanks, man. I’ll bring her back.”

  They raced up the stairs and Tryst headed for his room to pull on pack boots, snow pants and a coat. He grabbed a ski pole from a storage locker in the hallway and snapped off the basket. Racing out into the hallway, he headed toward Lexi’s room, because he knew she would have gone out the back door.

  He ran right into Sven.

  The Nord drew back his arm, loading his fist and—Tryst dodged the fist and came up with a right hook beneath Sven’s jaw. The idiot wolf’s head jacked back on his neck, his eyes rolled backward, and he fell against the wall, crumbling into a heap. Out cold.

  “That’s just the beginning, asshole.”

  Tryst leaped over the wolf’s prone body and raced through Lexi’s room. The outer door was open. She must have been in some kind of mood to leave it that way.

  The air hit his face like one of Sven’s fists. The bitter cold must register below zero. He couldn’t believe Lexi had gone out for a run, but then, elated with her new ability to shift, it had probably been just the thing to chase her mind from all the trouble lately.

  Hell, where could she be? He studied the grounds outside her room and found many boot prints. It took a while to find the right kind of tracks, but he did locate wolf paw prints and scented her. He tracked after them in were form because he needed to stay this way so he wouldn’t arrive at her side naked and without the proper tools to dig her out.

  “Please don’t let her be buried,” he muttered, choking down his rising fear. “She has to be safe. I don’t want to live without you, Lexi.”

  He knew the danger of something so unassuming as snow. A wall of it could level trees, move cars and crush buildings. And take lives.

  He muttered prayers to God because his father had taught him there was a supreme being, and even though werewolves tended to not have an organized religion, they were spiritual and honored nature. Tryst believed in karma so he had to wonder what Lexi had done to bring this upon herself. What had he done?

  By coming together had they pissed off the karma gods? Everything between them had seemed so right. Sure, no one in the pack wanted them to be together. Could that be it? The ignorance of others had brought this upon them?

  No, it had to be something wider, more vile. The poisoning of Principal Connor had to be the reason for all the bad things that had been happening at Wulfsiege.

  He added prayers for any other wolves who had been buried, and that Liam and his team would find them quickly.

  Focusing, Tryst paused at the edge of the moved snow. It looked as if a spray of white, lumpy frosting had scattered across a smooth confection. He sniffed and closed his eyes, sensing a heartbeat nearby. A rabbit? No, a gray fox darted across the snow. Yet he still sensed the heartbeat, and knew it was familiar.

  “Lexi?”

  A moan swung him around. There, at the edge of the tree line, he saw the hand. The fingers wiggled.

  Dodging for what he knew was his lover, Tryst began to dig and uncovered black hair and snow that was soaked with blood. “Oh, Lexi, no. Please be okay.”

  A broken branch lay against her side. She’d been stabbed, but where?

  Slowly, and methodically, he uncovered her body, scraping away the icy snow, stopping halfway to take off his coat and lay it over her torso because she was naked. She must have shifted after the avalanche. When a wolf is wounded in werewolf or wolf form, it comes back to were form without volition.

  “Princess, oh, my lover. Please, say something.”

  He brushed the snow from her cheeks and when he thought to lift her head, instead he leaned in and kissed her forehead. She could have broken bones, and if her neck had been hurt he risked causing further damage by moving her too much. Her skin was cold against his lips.

  Blood pulsed from a wound at her shoulder and he pressed his palm over it. Hot and oozing, the smell of it tickled his nose. The odor was so strong, and particular.

  “Lexi!”

  She couldn’t be dead. He’d just found the woman with whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life. Karma wouldn’t do that to him. It just could not.

  Blood pulsed from the wound. He wasn’t up on arteries and veins, but suspected something like that must have been damaged. The branch must have acted as a blade, cutting deep beneath her skin. He slapped his palm over the wound, remembering to put pressure on a wound, but he couldn’t recall why or where he’d heard that.

  Drops of blood spattered the air, and he swiped the hair from his face. Dashing out his tongue he tasted his lover’s blood, sweet and hot on his tongue. He swallowed. What kind of thought had that been? Sweet blood? Awful to think such a thing at this moment.

  Bending, he kissed her cold mouth, leaving his lips there, hoping to bring some warmth to her. He bracketed her face, pressing his warm palms over her cheeks. “Come back to me, Lexi. Don’t leave me.”

  He breathed into her mouth, not attempting resuscitation—her breath came softly. She was alive and breathing. He kissed her face all over, slowly, methodically, determined to bring warmth to her skin, while he continued to apply pressure over the wound. Lying on top of her would warm her skin, so he did that, gently, stretching along her body until he rested the length of her.

  Kisses to her jaw tasted blood and he swept his mouth down her neck and close to the wound, licking the hot blood.
r />   Tasting it.

  She belonged to him. His sweet broken princess had become whole in his arms last night. Nothing could take her away from him now. He would stop the bleeding, he had to.

  He pressed his lips to the wound. And something inside him moaned…with pleasure.

  Chapter 17

  Lexi came to with a moan, but her lungs felt crushed and all she could do was wince and murmur. She sat against a tree trunk. The sky was dark. Moonlight jeweled across the wickedly deceptive snow. Wrapped about her shoulders and torso, she found Tryst’s coat. She didn’t know it from sight but rather from his scent. She tugged the coat tightly to her naked body, realizing she didn’t feel cold, only achy. Somewhere she smelled blood, and assumed it must be her own.

  An avalanche had struck when she’d been in wolf form. She’d always known a wolf’s body reverted when wounded, but was surprised it worked automatically.

  She felt broken everywhere, but sensed of all her injuries, none was too severe. Her shoulder screamed with pain, yet that, too, didn’t feel life threatening. Though to crane her neck aside, she saw that’s where the blood scent came from.

  Five feet away sat Tryst, back to her, his head down. A mound of snow had been piled beside her. He must have dug her up from the snow. Her rescuing knight. He would always be there for her. He couldn’t have come into her life at a better time. Certainly, a trying time, but she would not survive it without him, she felt sure.

  She cleared her throat and he whipped his head around.

  “Lexi. You’re awake. Thank the gods. You’re going to be okay. The wound stopped bleeding. After…” He turned away from her.

  She sensed something graver than her being slammed to the ground by a wall of snow was going on inside his brain. Why wouldn’t he come to her?

  He lifted his hands to reveal they were covered with blood. Her blood? Hell, she must have really been hurt. She wanted to beg him to come to her, but her throat burned and all she could do was gasp.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I… This shouldn’t have happened.”

  No man could prevent acts of nature. But Lexi knew, if possible, Tryst would have stood before the wall of snow and held out his arms if it would have kept her safe. It was her fault for going out on her own when she should have stayed in and tried harder to see her father. Sven’s audacity had made her so angry.

  Father. She needed to get to him. He wasn’t safe if Sven had assumed control. And what about Natalie? If she had been anywhere in the area when the avalanche had struck, she could be buried, as well.

  “Natalie?”

  “What’s that?”

  “The witch. She may have been out here.”

  He shook his head. “I sense no other beating hearts, Lexi. Are you sure?”

  She shook her head. She hadn’t sensed her while out running, so she hoped the witch had already headed back to the castle before the disaster struck.

  “Help me back,” she managed. “To Wulfsiege.”

  Tryst crept across the snow to her side. It was no small exaggeration to say he was covered with her blood. It was all over his shirt and neck and smeared on his cheeks and hands. He held out his hands before her as if to offer an explanation for something she didn’t have the strength to figure out.

  “What is it?” she asked. “Hold me?”

  He moved in but then shook his head. “Your blood.”

  “I’ll be fine. I can feel the wound is already healing.”

  “It shouldn’t have healed so quickly. Not without my…”

  “Tryst, what is it?”

  He bowed his head to the ground near her thigh and she felt his hair at her fingertips and clutched for it. Why wouldn’t he touch her? She needed him to touch her.

  He began to shake his head.

  “Tryst, you’re freaking me out. I’m wounded, but I’ll heal.”

  “You will. You’re strong. But the wound on your shoulder was deep. Had to have torn an artery.” He looked up at her. Tears streaked through the blood on his cheeks. “It got in my mouth. Your blood.”

  “I can see that. You’re coated with it. Use some snow to wash it off. I’m going to be okay, Tryst. Look. I can sit up. I think I can even walk on my own if you help me to stand.”

  “Lexi.” His stare drilled into hers and she waited for him as if awaiting another wall of devastating snow. “It got in my mouth, and I tasted it.” He looked aside. His Adam’s apple bobbed with a swallow. A sigh fogged in the air before his face. “And I wanted more.”

  She opened her mouth but couldn’t enunciate the words that banged against her tongue. Vampire. His mother is a vampire. His father is half-breed. Tryst thought he was full-blood werewolf? Impossible. She had never believed it, had thought he was fooling himself. Had his parents’ lies deluded him?

  “I drank your blood, Lexi. And I think my saliva closed your wound and made it heal faster. Just like a…”

  “Tryst, it’s okay—”

  “It’s not okay, Lexi. It will never be okay. I’m a fucking half-breed.” He stood and kicked the snow with a pack boot, then let out a shout and beat the air with a fist. “Damn it! This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  Lexi swallowed. Now she saw the blood on his chin, staining his neck, as if it had poured from his mouth. A werewolf would never consider such a heinous act. Drink blood for survival, or worse, for pleasure? Sacrilege.

  “But that doesn’t matter right now.” He gestured with a curt slash of both hands before him. A decisive move. “I have to get you back to Wulfsiege.”

  He started to lift her and she pressed her fingers to his lips. “It’s okay, Trystan, I love you.”

  “We won’t talk about this. Not now. Your safety is all that matters.”

  And he lifted her into his arms and began the treacherous march back to the castle without saying another word to her.

  * * *

  “Don’t go to the keep. Just take me to my room,” Lexi said as Tryst climbed the outside stairs up to the castle.

  “You need medical attention. There are doctors in the keep.”

  “Bring Natalie to my room. Tryst, they’ll see my eyes.”

  Hell. He’d forgotten about that. Another secret to keep. But the biggest secret of all had just been revealed. Something he’d never believed could happen to him. Never. He’d known from birth he was full-blooded werewolf. Rhys had made him believe that. His mother had often lamented his lacking vampiric tendencies. Had it all been carefully constructed lies?

  He could still taste Lexi’s blood in his mouth, and it was not an awful taste. And that thought slammed him like a wrecking ball to the gut.

  Was he half vampire?

  He couldn’t be a damn longtooth. He was full-blooded werewolf.

  Kind of shot that to hell by slurping up your lover’s blood, eh?

  Karma really was a bitch.

  “Tryst, please.”

  He did not veer from his path to the keep. “You can tell them it was the avalanche. It did something and now you can shift. That’s a great explanation. Like maybe it shifted the bones in your body and then the shift came naturally to you. Then you never have to tell them you were sleeping with me.”

  “But I don’t care anymore. I want to tell the world I love you and that you’re my lover and that you were the man who made me whole.”

  He winced. He hadn’t done that. It had been a fluke. Had to be. If he was half vampire, no way could he entice an unshifted werewolf to fully shift. Just didn’t make any sense.

  He was an outsider. Always had been, always would be.

  He stopped in the hallway that turned toward the keep, and she protested, shuffling out of his grip to stand. “I will always do what is right for you, Lexi.”

  “And setting me aside when I most need you to hold me is right?” She shook her head. “That was wrong to say. I’m sorry.”

  “You need a doctor to look at the wound and make sure it isn’t infected. And I need to find Liam. Others were buri
ed in the avalanche.”

  “Oh, hell, I didn’t even think of that. Yes, you need to help them. You shouldn’t worry about me.”

  He caught her head between his palms. “Don’t apologize for asking me for what you want. I just—hell, I told you I drank your blood. Doesn’t that blow your mind?”

  She winced. “I don’t want to think about it too much.”

  “Yeah? Well, I need to put some distance between us right now because the smell of the blood on your skin? It’s driving me crazy. And the fact it’s driving me crazy is so off-the-chart insane I don’t know how to deal with it.”

  “Oh. Yes. I didn’t think of that. Yes, help me to the keep. How will you know about…?”

  The unspoken entreaty regarding his true nature. Werewolf and vampire? Was he like his father, one side controlled by the other? She wanted to know, to have answers, but knew that it had all happened so quickly Tryst couldn’t even have the answers.

  “I don’t know anything,” he said sharply. “But I do know I need to wash this blood off me right now.”

  They arrived at the keep and he delivered her to a cot and made sure the doctor they’d had flown in attended her immediately. Natalie was there, and Lexi called her to her side. Tryst refused triage, explaining it wasn’t his blood, and quickly escaped the confining walls of the keep and snuck to his room without running head-on into Sven the Idiot.

  Tearing away his shirt as he entered the room, he raced into the bathroom and splashed water over his chest and face to clean off Lexi’s all-too-enticing blood. It spattered the vanity and mirror and he tried to wipe it away but only ended up making a mess. Shucking off his pants, he dropped the denim to the floor. The red covered his skin as if a mutant disease trying to soak into his pores. It looked and felt like the worst kind of horror movie he had seen.