Page 140 of Blue Moon Mistress

Johnny shakes his head as the timer goes off in his hand. “It’s not that you’re predictable, it’s that he’s just as impatient as I am, he’s just better at hiding it.”

He goes to the oven, clattering with the pans and producing a warm and delicious smell that is so saturated with fall, it feels too decadent for lunch—even on a week when so many over-indulge.

The ephemera glass shifts in my periphery and I glance at it, seeing my mother’s tidy script.

Be careful with your wolves tomorrow night. I don’t want to have to kill them. But I will if they hurt you.

With a long sigh, I stand, letting Joshua hold onto my hand for as long as he can before I have to slip from his grip.

There’s only one way I can respond:

I love you too, mom.

Twenty-Four

It’s chilly,but I wait on the back porch with the guys anyway.

I’m not upset they don’t fully believe me when I say they won’t turn. Faith and hope are often outweighed by precaution. And I’m glad they like my home enough to not want to trash it.

But I’m not afraid they’re going to shift into ravenous beasts and run off to terrorize the countryside.

I sit in one of the wrought iron chairs beneath my kitchen window, and watch them. It’s as close as they’ll let me get.

Nerves and the chill have them shivering… and I know they’re only wearing clothes they don’t care about losing.

The sooner the sun sets, the better.

Johnny keeps looking at me like he wants to insist—for a fifth time—that I go inside and lock the doors.

Not happening.

Their respective wolves are gone. They’re the ones who will run in the light of the full moon and enjoy its magics in their fur.

Part of me hopes they eat one or two of Connor’s sheep. A nice lamb dinner witnessed by the old man might make him stop worrying about dogs when he should have been worried about wolves.

The pocket watch I set on the tiny table beside me ticks down the seconds as the dim glow of the porch light tries to make up for the one fading from the day, fighting against the silver glow.

I see them twitch, their skin flicker, and I know… now is the point where they would have shifted into the beasts that used to control them one night each month.

The last of the light disappears and I watch them as realization and relief take hold. They all watch each other carefully and I know at least one of them is worried they’ll get excited a moment before their bones start to break and reform.

When I stand and go to them, I manage not to say “I told you so…” but I definitely think it.

Chase’s hands clench and open like a cat testing their claws. He stares at his fingers and I hate that it’s been decades since he’s stayed in human form for this long.

“Hungry?” I ask, even though they just ate dinner.

As wolves, they would have fled into the forest, chasing and eating any small creature they could get their jaws on.

It’s Thomas who turns to me and in a startlingly quick move picks me up, his arms a tight grip around my legs. “Not for food.”

The others follow as he carries me inside, and by the time he’s laid me on the living room floor, the other three have their clothes off. They descend on me like the ravenous creatures they should be, and it takes a simple tug of the belt on my robe and there’s nothing between the five of us but air and need.

Each of them touches me as much as they can and it feels as if no part of my skin is uncovered as their mouths trace every inch of me.

No one fights, no one tries to steal me away or hoard me.

They love me like a pack. Like four men with one mind—one focus.

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