Moonstruck

by Heather Young-Nichols

  As I watched, Orin and his father disappeared and two animals rolled into the woods.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “What… what was that?” I didn’t look away from where Orin disappeared once I could force myself to speak.

  My body trembled so hard that my teeth chattered together.

  What happened in front of me made no sense. It was like I didn’t really see it at all. The only logical explanation included one where my husband hadn’t turned into a large, hairy, beast.

  I didn’t know tears fell down my cheeks until I felt the wetness.

  Something touched my shoulder. A scream erupted from my chest and my entire body recoiled away. That something was only Orin’s mother but my body rejected the contact. I turned and ran back into the house.

  Inside, I scrambled to the other side of the living room to the fireplace and wrapped my hand around the poker.

  Pulling it to my chest, I slid to the floor in the corner and waited.

  “Stay away from me,” I said when his mother started toward me. I tried to sound strong but my voice wavered and I sounded like the terrified little girl I’d actually become.

  She stopped advancing toward me and crossed her arms. Her face softened from the stern line it’d been movements before.

  “I’m not going to hurt you, Elizabeth.”

  “What happened?” Tiny beads of sweat dotted my forehead. The makeup I’d taken such time to apply turned into a mask holding in heat. “Where’s Orin? What happened to Orin?”

  “He’ll be back, dear.” The woman moved forward.

  I jabbed the iron stick in my hand up, ready to defend myself. “Please, don’t hurt me.”

  “I just clearly said I wasn’t going to,” she snapped. “If it’ll make you feel better I’ll be in the kitchen. The boys will be hungry once they’re back.” She turned on her heel and disappeared from my sight.

  Time stood still for me while it kept moving for everyone else.

  I stayed on the floor, jammed into that little alcove with my legs tucked under my body. The air was stagnant, thick, and unforgiving. I wiped my face with the inside neckline of my dress several times to remove some sweat. The entire time I kept a death grip on the fire poker. My knuckles turned white and my fingers began to ache.

  And I waited.

  When I heard Orin and Antan thumping heavy footsteps up the porch, their voices quiet but strained, I pushed myself into the corner as far as I could. Then willed my body to melt into the crevice. A trick I’d learned as a child. If I made myself look small, people usually didn’t even notice me.

  “Where is she?” Orin asked but I didn’t see him with my eyes squeezed shut so tightly I wasn’t entirely sure they’d ever open again. No one answered. He found me anyway. He kneeled right in front of me. His body heat radiated over me before I ever saw him. “Lizzie,” he said and my body went rigid.

  Without thinking about it, I swung my weapon in front of me.

  “Lizzie,” he said again as he gently pried my fingers open, removed the poker, and tossed it aside. “I didn’t know they were coming.”

  “What the hell just happened?” I focused mostly on breathing. In and out to ensure I stayed alive.

  “How’s your arm?” he asked instead.

  I shook my head because until that moment I didn’t remember that I’d injured it in the kitchen.

  “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

  Orin helped me to my feet and led me up the stairs to our room. I don’t know why I let him bring me along. He guided me to sit on the bed then jogged into the bathroom and filled the sink with water and grabbed a cloth from the small closet in there.

  “I’ll do it,” I said, stopping him as he was about to dip the cloth into the water.

  He closed his eyes, the muscle in his jaw tightened then released as his teeth ground against each other.

  I couldn’t really tell whether he was relieved that I spoke to him or upset that I was going to clean my wound myself thereby not letting him take care of me.

  “It’s all right, I’d like to… ” Obviously the latter.

  “Your mother said you’d be hungry. Go down and eat. I’ll clean up.” I watched him move around the room but had yet looked directly at him. If he noticed, he didn’t say anything.

  Instead, Orin nodded and walked slowly to the door. He paused but I gave no indication that I wanted him to stay so he left the room.

  Once he left the room, for the first time in my new life, I locked it behind him.

  In the bathroom, I locked the door that led to the hall before getting to work on my arm.

  The open wound stung when the cold cloth touched it. Once it was clean, I gave it a thorough look and found it wasn’t much more than a scratch. I wouldn’t need a doctor.

  After I took care of my arm, I washed my face and neck and brushed my hair which made me look a little more human. Then I laid on the bed while my mind raced as I stared out the window. Leaves danced in the breeze as if the world was a normal place. That I hadn’t seen—whatever I’d just seen. My mind couldn’t wrap around it. I didn’t intend to fall asleep but those dancing leaves lulled me into a trance until the world darkened around me.

  When I opened my eyes, rays of sun streamed through the window at a noticeably different angle. I checked the clock on the nightstand and saw that three hours had passed while my head and heart tried to recover from the emotional exhaustion of what happened. Or of trying to figure out what happened.

  Even though I still felt completely off center, as if my entire world had been thrown off track, I knew I couldn’t wait any longer to face my husband.

  And his parents.

  My fingers trembled as I turned the key still hanging in the lock on the door and twisted the knob. After pulling it open slowly, I paused to listen for any sounds downstairs.

  The voices had stopped. An almost eerie calm had settled in the house as I made my way downstairs to find it empty. I began to wonder if I’d imagined it all or if they’d decided I was too much hassle.

  Then I caught a glimpse of dark hair peeking over the window sill. He wasn’t moving. Almost too still as I stood there watching.

  He sat there.

  The screen door creaked when I pushed it open then smacked back against the house when I let it go. Slowly, I walked over near him and dropped into the chair beside Orin.

  He held a bottle of beer, which was still illegal, with his fingertips turning it in circles on his knee. I didn’t remember there being any alcohol in the house so he must’ve kept it somewhere else. Prohibition may have ended the legal sale of alcohol but it did not end the sale of alcohol.

  “Are you all right?” he asked softly, his eyes on me.

  “My arm is fine. A scratch.” I had to assume he meant my injury. Anything more, I couldn’t handle.

  “Can I see it?”

  I laid my arm on the side of the chair. He ran his fingers around the area, barely touching my skin.

  “It’s just a scratch,” I said again as I pulled it back and clasped my hands in front of me. “Are your parents… ”

  “Gone,” he cut me off, “for now, anyway.”

  “What did I see, Orin?”

  “My secret.” He put the bottle down on the table between us then slid to the edge of his seat dropping his elbows onto his knees. He looked as exhausted as I felt. And somehow a little older.

  “That’s what you’ve been hiding? The reason you didn’t want to marry me?”

  “I wanted to marry you but I didn’t think I should. I couldn’t tell you, Elizabeth.?” He turned in his chair toward me. “I would have but I don’t want you to be part of that world.”

  “What did I even see?” Because I honestly still didn’t know. “Please tell me because I’m not even sure anymore.”

  He sighed before rubbing his hands down his face twice and taking a deep breath. “My family is different from most. We come from Lithuania—”

  “You weren’t born in Bost
on?” Panic filled my body. Maybe I didn’t really know him at all. The thought brought my already volatile stomach to the brink.

  “I was but my family came here from Lithuania. They adopted the last name Vilkatas because of what they were. What we are.”

  “You turned into a… a… ”

  “Vilkatas translates to wolfman.”

  I sucked in a huge breath like I’d been without for too long and maybe I had been holding it because I started to feel lightheaded. So I blew the air out slowly then took another, somewhat smaller, one.

  “Are you all right, Elizabeth? I mean honestly all right? This can’t be easy which is why I never wanted to tell you.”

  “I have about a million questions.” I swallowed hard having no idea where I’d even start.

  “I’ll answer all of them.” His dark eyes pled with me. It was the first time since meeting him that he looked anything less than certain. He could be worried that I’d tell someone. I never would but he wouldn’t know that.

  “Is that why you sometimes go into the woods naked?”

  “Yes, it’s better to get it out of my system on purpose than for something like today to happen.”

  I took that to mean that anger had filled him and that afternoon had been unintentional. Which meant he could control it. He’d been controlling it. For me.

  “Your parents hate me.” As if that really mattered but I had to say it and it was the normal human part of the day.

  “They don’t. If anything they’re angry with me.”

  “You? Why?”

  “I’m supposed to choose a mate like us.”

  “So, your wife is supposed to be… ”

  “Yes.”

  We fell silent again.

  Once again my mind raced with questions that I didn’t really want the answers to. May not be able to handle the answers to.

  He squirmed in his seat the way any man would if he was nervous but Orin didn’t get nervous. Or at least I’d never seen it. Orin had always been sure, deliberate, strong, and never worried about anything even when confronted with the direst situations. Nothing unbalanced him.

  His confidence made me feel weak and I’d everything I could not to feel that way since leaving my father’s house.

  “Lizzie, are you… staying with me?”

  “I can’t go anywhere else.”

  His face hardened. “I don’t want you to stay because you have no choice. If you need to leave, I’ll take care of you. You’ll have money for whatever you need. You can go anywhere you choose. I’d hate it but I won’t stop you. I’ll take care of you.”

  I hadn’t meant it like that. No, I didn’t have anywhere to go if I left other than my father’s house. He’d take me back in because he’d have to but there would be severe consequences. I meant I couldn’t go anywhere else because I loved him.

  We both needed a break from all of this.

  “If we have children, will I give birth to puppies?” The words tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them. I wanted to alleviate some of the stress.

  His cheeks rose, his body barked with laughter that refused to be contained. “What?”

  “With all our nights together, pregnancy is a very real possibility but if I’ll have puppies I think I should know ahead of time.”

  He rose from his seat and picked me up out of the chair then wrapping his arms tightly around my torso. Air just barely entered my lungs as my feet dangled a foot above the porch.

  “You funny girl.” His breath caressed my neck sprouting goosebumps over my entire body. “First, we’re as careful as we can be so I don’t the chance is as high as you think.” Even now I blushed at the way he spoke of our sex life and the precautions we took. Right after we were married, Orin, illegally, purchased me a diaphragm. It’d been horribly embarrassing because he had to explain how to use it. Rubbers were actually legal so he didn’t have to go through shady channels to get them but I still got uncomfortable talking about it.

  “Secondly,” he continued, “If that happens, you’d have a healthy baby who might at some point become very hairy.”

  We both laughed loudly at the picture he’d created of an extremely hairy human baby.

  The front door opened and closed behind us. Orin seemed more relaxed about everything that had happened and he led me into the house where we found his parents standing shoulder to shoulder. They were tall like him with similar coloring—dark hair and eyes. His mother may have been the tallest woman I’d ever seen in person.

  “This is my wife, Elizabeth,” he said when we stopped before them. “You didn’t get a chance to meet her before.” He kept my hand tightly in his own.

  I hadn’t received open-armed hugs or any of the things I’d hoped might happen when I met his parents. His parents nodded and Orin squeezed my hand to reassure me.

  “Perhaps we should talk more over dinner,” his mother said. “We have a lot to discuss.”

  His mother moved to the kitchen and began to set things on the counter as she made dinner. Her words weren’t an offer anyone could turn down. She’d seemed used to taking over every situation and I didn’t feel strong enough to challenge it.

  As soon as she began cooking, a wonderful aroma flowed from the kitchen and drew me in. I set the table, four full place settings, and Orin stayed with me.

  “That smell’s delicious,” I said, speaking for the first time since his parents arrived.

  “My mother is an amazing cook.” He placed a glass on the table, which I automatically moved to the right location. At least all of my training didn’t go to waste.

  As I headed back to the kitchen for more table settings, I overheard his parents speaking in hushed tones and I stopped short. I didn’t want to interrupt and shouldn’t eavesdrop but curiosity got the best of me and whether their conversation had anything to do with me.

  “Antan, we have to get through to him.”

  “I understand, Emilija, but it’s clear he loves the girl. It’s not going to be easy.”

  “Do you want your son to continue the line or not?” she snapped.

  “Of course I do.”

  I turned away quickly. I was wrong. I didn’t want to know what they had to say about me. The day already had my head spinning and anything more would have been too much. My shoulders ached, my head hurt, and I wanted to go to bed.

  Mrs. Vilkatas brought the food to the table.

  I only stomached small bites of the meat flavored with spices I’d never tasted before. The rest I pushed around my plate, a trick I perfected years ago. The Vilkatas’ had voracious appetites and cleared more than one plate each yet were trim and muscular. A byproduct of being wolf people perhaps.

  Once we finished, Orin and his father cleared the table while I kept staring at the table in front of me. His mother’s glare burrowed into me like she was seeing my soul but didn’t like what she found.

  “Tell me what this is all about,” Antan finally said while we had coffee.

  “Antan.” His mother sighed.

  I heard what she’d said when they thought they were alone in the kitchen. She wanted me out of Orin’s life as much as Antan did. Maybe she didn’t want to say it in front of me. Or maybe she thought they’d have a better chance of convincing their son if I wasn’t around.

  “No,” Antan snapped. “I refuse to hold my tongue. We have a right and a need to know about this situation.”

  Orin clenched his fists but gave no other reaction. He glared a warning at his father. A warning that would send most people running to safety yet had zero effect on his father.

  “What details would you like?” The words spat across the table sounding very unlike the man I’d come to know.

  “Orin, you must understand—”

  “No.” He jumped from the table. His parents followed. “There isn’t much I can tell you. I was on the trail. That trail led to her.”

  “What?” His mother snapped back as if someone slapped her in the face. “What do mean, it led to
her?”

  I remained seated and let this entire thing play out before me. I had no idea what they were talking about.

  “That can’t be. Have you ever heard of this happening?” his mother asked his father who only shook his head quickly. “We have to look into this. If it led to her then… we must leave immediately.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Vilkatas hugged their son and left without even a glance at me.

  In bed that night, I curled into a tiny ball on my side of the bed while Orin finished getting ready. Once he stood beside me, he wrapped his around my body and pulled me to him. He brushed my hair away so that he could kiss the spot where my neck meets my shoulder. I closed my eyes at first and allowed the warmth to course through me then smiled when I felt his erection pressing into me. He wanted to make love and if it was any other night, my clothes would’ve already been off.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked when I didn’t respond the way I usually did.

  “I’m tired. Can’t I be tired?” I snapped then sighed, annoyed with myself.

  “Of course you can.” Orin sat up and leaned against the headboard. “I know a lot happened today and I wish I could change that.”

  “What did you mean?” I asked.

  “Which part?”

  I sat upright beside him so that we could see each other in the dim light. “You said it led to me.”

  He sighed and swallowed.

  “We don’t normally fall in love the way regular people do. Somewhere each of us has a perfect mate and it’s up to us to find them. My journey led me to you. Imagine my surprise that first night to find that you are not one of us.”

  “I was supposed to be a… wolf?”

  “Yes,” he whispered.

  “How did you know I wasn’t?” I ran over that first meeting in my head trying to come up with anything unusual but it was completely normal.

  “We have a wonderful sense of smell.”

  “You can smell me?” I yelled out of surprise and disgust.

  Orin chuckled. “Yes. Everyone gives off a distinct smell and every species has a certain underlying fragrance.”