Beast flinched as if I’d hit him.
The exertion of yelling sent me into a coughing fit. Beast brought a cup to my lips, and I inhaled a few sips of water. My stomach gurgled when the cool water hit it.
Touched by his gentleness, I continued with a softened tone. “You did this to me. And it was your secrets that got me here in the first place. But I’m not going to be blinded anymore.” I laced my words with steel, inflaming my scratched throat in the process.
He looked deeply into my eyes, his sorrow and pain naked before me. In a small, strangled voice he uttered, “Wasn’t nearly dying enough for one day? You’re lucky to have survived. Just leave it alone. I promise I’ll explain after you’ve rested.”
“No.” I plead with my eyes for him to understand. “If anything, almost dying only taught me life is too short for secrets.”
His eyes clouded with an emotion I couldn’t decipher. “What if the truth is too much to bear?”
Had he been withholding the truth to protect me? Well, that obviously didn’t work.
In a gentler voice, I tried a different tactic.
“Keeping secrets has only hurt me so far.” The pain from my wounds still pulsed through my body, reminding me how damaged I was. “If only you had told me about the full moon and your pack, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“It wasn’t just me.” Silver flashed through his brown eyes and his jaw flexed. “How am I to protect you when you disregard my rules and go running into the woods, alone, and without even your shoes? Why? Did you want to die?” His voice broke with emotion.
My heart lurched at the anguish in his voice, and my answer rolled off my tongue before I could stop it. “You were in so much pain. I thought you were dying. I had to find you.” The words sounded childish coming from my dry lips.
“The bond,” he spat under his breath. Then his head turned back toward mine, ever so slightly. His forehead wrinkled with worry.
“I didn’t realize,” he spoke, remorsefully. “I thought the full moon would change the bond enough that you wouldn’t feel anything. It lengthens on the full moon so I can run with my pack without bringing you along. Endangering you…” he snorted at the last. “Little good that did.” The disgust he felt for himself curled into his characteristic scowl.
Beast looked different somehow, and my blurred mind worked to make the connection. Slowly, it came to me. His face was less hairy, showing more of his golden tanned skin. He looked more human, like a man with a week’s worth of beard growth instead of the shaggy mat of facial hair I was used to seeing. My eyes trailed to his arms that looked almost normal with a light amount of dark hair sprinkled on his visible skin. Was this my beast, or had the pain finally robbed my sanity?
In a deflated voice he said, “Fine, we’ll try it your way.”
“No more secrets?” I asked through sharp breaths. Without his touch, the pain was hard to bear.
“No more secrets,” he responded solemnly. “But I warn you, the truth is a heavy burden. Be careful what you ask.”
Exhausted, I rested my head against the outside of the hard tub he’d propped me up against. My angry outburst took more energy than I had to spare right now.
Perceiving my fatigue, Beast said, “Let me get you in the tub, and I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
I nodded weakly, and without losing another second, Beast started cutting off my tattered jeans. I tried not to think about it and focused instead on a small painting of a ship tossed about in a turbulent sea. I flinched involuntarily every time the cold steel scissors touched my skin. And every time, Beast whispered his apologies.
Left in only my mortifying pink bra and matching panties, Beast held me in the crook of his arm and lowered me into the warm tub water. I gasped as the water stung my wounded leg, still covered in the leftover pieces of my blood soaked shirt that dried to my skin like glue during the day.
Beast swiftly pulled me back out, concern wrinkling his brow. As we hovered above the water, I tried not to dig my nails into his bare shoulders. I locked my jaw and gave him a quick nod. He hesitantly lowered me the rest of the way into the large tub. Water lapped over my sore body while hot needles rocketed through my wounds. I felt his muscles flex as if he was responding to my agony, too. Closing my eyes, I focused on the relief that would come when I was finally clean and all the scraps of clothing peeled from their encasement in crusty, hardened blood.
Sitting in a warm blanket of water, I gingerly scrubbed the grime away with a lavender loofah sponge he provided. Beast sat on the floor with his back against the outside of the tub, giving me what little privacy he could without leaving me alone.
“Beast?” I prompted the awaited conversation.
“All right,” he sighed, “on the full moon, I am wolf, unable to change into human form. The wolf has almost complete control of me. That’s why it took me so long to recognize you.” Taking a deep breath, he continued, “I gained enough control to protect you from me and my pack, but even that backfired.”
I looked at the slender cut on my index finger. I was surprised to see the pink line of a scar from where the cut had been only hours earlier. How had it healed so quickly? I felt his eyes on me and looked up to meet them. He was silent for several heartbeats before continuing.
I closed my eyes, willing away the haunting images of my nightmares. “Beast.” I peered at him. “Why didn’t the bite from the other wolf burn like yours did?”
“I am their alpha. The wolf that bit your leg wasn’t.” Sensing my confusion he elaborated further. “Only an alpha’s saliva is laced with the magical ability to change humans into wolves when the light of the full moon falls on the earth.” His voice was full of remorse as his sad eyes slid down to my finger, and he added, “It only takes one little scratch.”
“So that’s it. I’m turning wolf?” I swallowed the panic rising in my throat.
“Maybe.”
“What do you mean, maybe?” I asked. Wouldn’t he know? You’re either a wolf or you’re not.
“Tay, you have been infected, but we don’t know if you’ll…survive the change.” His voice was tight with ancient sadness.
Suddenly my stomach clenched so hard that I gasped as a fresh wave of pain raked my body. He didn’t know if I would survive? It was like both of my fears mashed into one, and I started to claw my way out of the tub in panic. I’d chosen to come back—to leave the safety of Uncle Stan—just to become a vicious animal or die again?
Arms wrapped around me, pulling me from the water, now pink with blood. I hardly noticed him wrapping a towel around me and my oozing leg before carrying me into his room. Held close to Beast’s chest, my world stabilized, but not my ragged breathing.
Stroking my wet locks of hair, Beast tried to soothe me. “Calm down, Tay. It will be okay. I’ll take care of you.”
He pulled the chain on an elegant lamp perched on the nightstand, chasing the shadows into the corners. Placing me on his gold and burgundy embroidered bed spread, I curled into a ball. Moments later, a fluffy white robe was draped over my shivering body. I didn’t know if I shivered out of shock or the cold, maybe both.
“Put your arm in here,” Beast said, as he helped guide my left hand into a sleeve. Carefully, he rolled me over and slid my other arm into the plush robe that enveloped me like a cloud, smelling of spring. My body relaxed into the yielding bed, and my breathing finally returned to normal. Large, capable hands unwrapped the towel around my calf before persuading me to roll onto my stomach. My eyelids drooped, and my head sank into the feather pillow.
Beast’s skilled hands teased tiny pieces of fabric from my wounded leg. Deep throbs radiated through my flesh and penetrated my bones. I gritted my teeth and clenched the blankets next to me to stop from screaming. Soon, Beast swathed my calf in a white linen bandage, rolled me on my back, and whisked the bloody towels away.
I sighed in relief and sagged into the mattress. I was almost asleep when the creak of metal hinges pulled me from my incoherent stat
e. Beast entered the dimly-lit room and started a small fire in the hearth near the foot of the bed. The warm aroma of pine smoke wafted through the air, along with the crackles of wood transforming into ash.
He strode over to me with a glass of water. Perched on the edge of the bed, his hand slid behind my neck and elevated my sleepy head enough to give me a deep drink. My stomach grumbled, reminding me I hadn’t eaten all day, but it was too tender for anything solid yet.
Beast guided my head back to the fluffy pillows, and I was again touched by this gentle side of him. Something swelled inside me, and I was afraid of what it meant. He wasn’t even human, not really. I couldn’t have feelings for a beast, a werewolf, the very vessel that stole my life from me.
Staring at Beast’s wavy, chocolate-brown hair, I was struck again by how youthful he looked. His shimmering, tan eyes held mine prisoner, and I couldn’t deny the feeling that they held years of wisdom as I gazed deeply into them.
“How old are you, Beast?” I blurted, in an effort to break the awkward spell.
His lips tugged into a frown as if this was one question he didn’t want to answer.
“Twenty-one,” he said tonelessly, like a well-rehearsed line.
“You’re lying,” I said without hesitation. “You took my mother seventeen years ago, remember?” I didn’t need to be a genius to see the numbers didn’t add up.
The flickering firelight only emphasized the sorrow in his eyes. Time passed at a crawl as I gazed back at him, wondering what could have caused him so much heartache. Exhaling an almost defeated sigh, he responded, “I was twenty-one when the change came upon me.”
He had avoided answering my question directly, so I tried again. “How old are you, now?” He couldn’t be the wolf from the legend. It just didn’t add up: southern charm, his brother, everything else.
“Old enough,” he said through pressed lips. He lifted a blanket over me, hiding my wrapped leg, so completely swaddled in a white bandage that it look mummified.
“No more secrets, remember.”
Turning from me, Beast stared out through the glass doors where moonlight streamed through in silver beams. The words came slowly as he replied, “I was born in the summer of 1923. I’ll be eighty-nine in June. Old even for an alpha werewolf,” he scoffed. “Most of us are killed young and violently.”
I swallowed in relief that my deduction of his origins was right, he wasn’t that horrible man from the legend. Yet, he was still older than anyone I knew. My grandma wasn’t even that old! If turning into a wolf froze your age, what would my mother look like when he finally let me see her? Would she look her actual age, thirty-six? Or would she still look as young as her picture hanging in Grandmas’ house? Never aging. A teenager forever, just like me?
The inescapable path I was now forced to walk scared me to death. There was still so much I didn’t know. What would life as a wolf be like? Would I remember being human? Would my sun be the moon forever? Would I even survive the change?
“When—” my voice cracked, and I had to clear it, “When will I change?”
As if my words physically propelled him from the room, Beast strode out the glass doors and into the night without a word. Had I offended him somehow?
Left to my thoughts, I stared at the wisps of white curtains fluttering in the night breeze. I watched him walk past the porch and onto the grass. He bent low for a moment before popping back up and striding quickly back to my side, hiding something behind his back.
“Tayla, I can’t give you back your human life, but I’ll do my best to let you live what you have left of it the way you choose.” And with that he handed me a magnificent rose. Even though I was bewildered by the gift, my fingers still curled around the thornless, emerald stem. Mesmerized, I couldn’t stop looking at the vibrantly crimson rose, glowing with swirling golden veins as if lit from within.
Beast spoke, startling me from my trance, “When my venom mixed with your blood and fell on the earth, this single rose sprouted. When the last petal falls, your time as a human will end. From the fullness of this rose, I’m guessing about a month.”
I couldn’t speak for several minutes while this information burrowed deep inside me, as strong as roots of a mighty oak sinking deep into the earth.
“Maybe being a wolf won’t be so bad. I’ll get to be human at night. It isn’t perfect, but—”
Beast stopped my words with a gentle finger to my lips, sending a shock through my system. How badly I wanted him to kiss me. I felt the power pulse from him, causing me to crave his potent touch even more. I shivered and pulled back.
“No, Tay. You have to be an alpha to draw enough power from your pack to turn human.”
The words hit me like an avalanche and all my thoughts were absorbed into the crimson rose. I would never be human again? A single tear leaked out of the corner of my eye and down my stunned face.
“Is there nothing to reverse what’s happening to me?” I choked.
He shook his head, and I felt my face fall in hopeless despair. I told Uncle Stan that I would live, but as a wolf? I wasn’t sure if I was strong enough for that. Time stretched on, in an unfeeling stupor, as I listened to our quiet breathing.
Then, Beast’s deep voice filled the room. “I might have found something in my studies recently. It was an entry referencing something about breaking free, a human, and finding true love, but the document was very old and most of it was decayed. I can’t be sure what it was referring to exactly. It might be nothing, but…” he trailed off.
“True love?” I wondered quietly, unwilling to believe. “It sounds more like a fairy tale answer than a possible solution.”
He just shrugged his shoulders and stood.
Finding true love in an isolated lodge would be difficult, since I was the only human here. I laughed bitterly. “How can I fall in love with a human if there are none around?”
Beast’s jaw flexed as if he fought a silent battle with himself. I didn’t have time to wonder about his stiff reaction because the words that came out of his mouth next stole my breath.
“I’ll allow you to go back to your aunt’s.” His voice was rough and strained.
My eyes popped wide. “You mean I can see them again? But what about—”
“I’ll still be with you, and we’ll have to be more careful as the full moon approaches again,” he said, cutting me off. “School is out of the question, but you could date if necessary.”
He spat the word ‘date’ as if it was dirty. I just stared at him, unsure I could believe this was real. I would see my family again? And Chel?
I was afraid to hope, to believe his words. “Really?”
“Yes,” he said.
No fight.
I’d been sure alcohol, ninja moves (that I didn’t have), and a lot of rope to hogtie him with was the only way I’d overpower Beast and see my family again. And now he was handing it to me. Just like that? No strings? My optimism stopped right there. There were strings—no, they were ropes the size of branches with my life dangled from the end of them. Time sawed at the ropes like a knife. If I didn’t find true love before the last petal fell, I’d be a wolf forever, or on a cheerier note, I’d be dead—again.
Right, no pressure.
But I was going to see my family again, and a small smile tugged at my lips.
“Sleep. We’ll make plans tomorrow.” He pulled another blanket over me and left the room, shutting the door behind him.
Shining hope replaced the depression that had slowly engulfed me moments ago, and tears of joy trickled down my cheeks. I felt light enough to fly, if only I had the feathered wings to soar the heavens. There was a chance to change what was happening to me, a chance to be free—to stay human. It was a slim chance, but I would make it work.
I had to. Uncle Stan was watching.
But more than that, he believed in me.
Faintly, I heard Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” on the grand piano wafting through the doors. The music wash
ed over me, like rolling waves swaying in the sea, lulling me into a hopeful tide pool of dreams.
THE END
Book 2: STAR CURSED is out now! Keep flipping pages for a preview.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Writing a novel is a massive group effort! And I had a great support team that I wish to thank:
My Heavenly Father, who gave me the talent and inspiration to write. My supportive husband and kids, who’ve had to deal with my creative highs and lows, not to mention all my “writing time.” A big hug and high-five. I couldn’t have asked for a better support group. Love you!
A mammoth applause to my extremely talented editor, Jessica Drollette, from Mystic Manuscripts LLC. She has expended countless hours reading and polishing my manuscript from the first draft to final product. Without her encouragement and mad skills, I might never have finished this novel. You’re the best!
A rock’n high five to my amazing cover artist, Katt Amaral! Thanks for putting so much time into my covers. They are absolutely stunning! Check out her other artwork here: https://www.facebook.com/DesignByKatt [email protected]
My parents who have always believed I could reach the stars if I dreamed big and worked hard enough. Especially, to my mother, who defused many panic attacks and lifted me when I was down.
Tanise, my long suffering spellchecker, who found my misspellings to be gut-clenching hilarious at times. Melonie and Michele, who pointed out holes in my backstory and asked great probing questions. Holly, who was like a second editor and caught some potentially disastrous mistakes. And a huge thank you to my models for Tayla and Beast. You guys rock! Yup, Brennan Winegar that’d be you.
To my first readers for their enthusiastic replies and helpful insights: Kaitlyn, Jennifer, Amber, Lori, Kylie, Sabrina, Mariann, Gena, Julie, John John, Lauren, Allison, Corinne, Tammy, Misty, Anna, Angela Kozik, and Tawnya Meyer.
And to all my fans, thank you! You make all the effort worth it.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Curse of the Beast Page 25