Page 76 of Wolf's Forbidden Curse

He sniffled and cleared his throat. “That’s nice of you to say. I’ll keep that in mind for the future. But for now, I think my brain is a little too fuzzy to have that conversation.” He furrowed his brow. “Did you say there’s a shifter community? Meaning there are a lot of other people in the world that are like Rory?”

“I think so, yeah.”

“And they’ve just been living amongst us humans all this time? Without any of us knowing it?”

“Some people know,” I corrected him. “But for the most part, if you’ve only seen them in human form, you would have no way of knowing they were anything else.”

He huffed his exhale. “Wow. That’s really weird to think about.”

I grinned. “It is. Weird, but kind of exciting too.”

He got up from the chair and shot me a dubious look. “Daphne, we have two very different ideas of what constitutes ‘exciting.’”

Rory returned later that afternoon with bags in tow. He unpacked some goodies he picked up from the store, hung my dry cleaning in the closet, and then cleaned the bathroom, all while I was taking a nap. When I woke up, the apartment was spotless, and he handed me a glass of wine.

“Wow, I could get used to this,” I said.

“Good, because I could too.” He smiled. “I’ll never get used to how beautiful that smile of yours is or how you take my breath away every time you say my name, but taking care of you—somehow, that feels like the most natural thing in the world to me.”

I hiccupped with sudden emotion. “Now look who’s taking my breath away.”

“I try my best. Sorry I took longer than I said I would. There was a long line at the market, and then I went to fill the tires up with some air and the machine was broken at one gas station, so I went to the other one. It was a whole mess.”

I laughed. “Sounds like it. I’m glad you made it through without too much trouble.”

“Me too.”

He sat down on the edge of the bed and I put the wine glass down on the table so that I could throw my arms around him. I breathed in his smell, closed my eyes for a moment, and sighed happily. “But I’m even more glad that you’re home now.”

He put his arm around my waist. “Same. What do you feel like doing tonight?”

“Hmm… I was thinking a whole lot of nothing. Maybe watch some TV and make out a little like we’re teenagers sneaking around. But other than that, I don’t really want to do a thing. I just want to spend time with you.”

Rory kissed the top of my head. “And I didn’t think I could love you any more than I already did. I was so, so wrong.”

CHAPTER 33

DAPHNE

One Year Later

After two weeks of nausea, the gift of my transformation was more welcome than ever before. As I’d learned early on in my journey of being a werewolf, my animal form was far stronger than my human form. Even if I was sick as could be, walking around like a zombie for days leading up to the full moon, the moment I shifted, I felt like I was invincible. It was one of the best feelings in the world, and now that I knew how to control my more violent tendencies, Rory had been joining me on my monthly gallops through the woods around town.

We hunted rabbits together, chased each other around, and sometimes rolled around in the grass together, seeing what it was like to connect as two beasts as well as two people.

It was amazing. And that month, more than ever before, I was so deeply grateful for the time we spent together. We went running in the early morning hours and ended up on the beach just as the sun began rising. There was no one around, so when I transformed back into a human involuntarily, Rory shifted back as well. He brought my naked body next to his, and we made love right there on the sand, with the cold water coming up from the tide and cooling our sweaty skin. Outside, I could be as loud as I wanted, so I screamed for Rory to push even deeper into me, and he obliged.

When it was over, I kept my legs wrapped around him for a moment, reveling in the feeling of the blood still rushing through his throbbing member while he remained inside of me. He bent over and kissed me on the mouth, then slid out and laid down on the sand beside me.

We both let out a heavy sigh and stared up at the lightening blue sky overhead. “I read that the sex starts to get stagnant in the relationship once two people have been together for a long time. So far, it’s only gotten better, I think.”

“I think so, too.” I rolled over and rested my head on his chest. “And I think that the thing about sex going downhill is about people who get married.”

“Ah? Well, either way, it’s not gonna happen to us.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it.”

He snuggled me in close with his arm, and we stayed like that for a while. We waited until we feared we might get caught by someone going for an early morning run along the water’s edge, then scampered back into the woods to look for our clothes. Once we were dressed and on our way back to the apartment, my phone buzzed. I had one new message from my sister.

---