Page 62 of In the Light of the Moon

“I don’t know!” Her hands shook, and my eyes watched another splash of suds hit a counter near her calf, “You’ve been acting funny since the first night I spent here. Like… I’m made of glass or you’re dancing around me. It makes me feel like something’s wrong.”

My throat gave a dry click as I swallowed. I didn’t… I didn’t know that she had noticed anything amiss. With her easy smiles and reassurances, I’d thought my worries were my own. Had I missed a sign? I thought I’d gotten better at reading the cues. Scents were always easier, but her cherry sweetness had always remained present. If anything else came up, it was so fleeting that I had just attributed it to the regular fluctuation of emotions. Now, though, her scent turned into a torrent of different notes, and I was losing track.

“I—I,” I clenched the rag in my hand as I tried to fight for the words to say. I’d been rehearsing them in my head for days, but they seemed to fly out of my brain, now.

“Are you upset with me about something? Did I do something wrong?”

I lurched forward, careful to not step in the wet spots on the floor, and grabbed her arms. She was in another one of my sweatshirts, and my own scent mixed with hers relaxed me enough to find something, anything, to reassure her, “No, Sylvie. You’ve donenothingwrong. I just…” Was I really about to do this? “I… there is—something.”

She sucked in a breath but remained silent, and I was doing this, wasn’t I? She deserved to know. Especially if she could be affected in the way I was afraid of. But also because I knew that I couldn’t be like my mother. Hiding this large part of herself to placate her so-called partner.

“I’m, uh…”

She clenched her eyes closed and seemed to be bracing herself. I’d never had to tell a human before, never having gotten close enough to one where it was needed. My past relationships with other Wolves, though, had gone just as terribly as I feared my revelation would push this one.

I took a long breath, drawing in as much of her scent as I could in case this was the last time. When I finished, I exhaled,“I’m not human. I can… change. Shift. Into a wolf,” because calling myself a werewolf sounded fucking ridiculous.

Sylvie’s eyes flew open, and her shoulders sagged, “Oh,” and the word had a slight upward inflection.

What doesthatmean?I was staring at her, eyes tracing frantically over her face, and when I focused on the furrowed wrinkle of her brow, my stomach began to plummet. My hands slid off of her arms, and I started to take a despairing step back.

She followed after me, pulling my hands into her own, “No, Orion, I just—” she let out a wobbly laugh, and I stared back, confused at the quick shift of her emotions “—I thought you were about to break up with me. I’m relieved.”

I flinched in her grasp, head shaking, “Gods, Sylvie, of course not.”

She took a deep breath, squeezing my hands on her inhale then relaxing her palms on the exhale, “Okay,” and then she smiled. She lifted her chin, face warm and loving, and I felt all of my worries leave in a rush.

Sylvie reached up to run a thumb over my lip, and I sniffed the air, sensing nothing now other than relief and love from her. In that moment, I felt so absurd for worrying about this. Just like everything, my mate understood.

I bent down, lips nearing hers for a kiss, but the hair on the back of my neck reacted before my other senses caught up. My head lurched to the side, toward the noise that had startled me, and Sylvie froze at my reaction.

A growl started at the base of my chest, and I couldn’t hide it from her. I let my senses fully slip to the forefront, scent and hearing picking up on a group walking right up tomyhouse. Onmyterritory.

Just because they saw the entire town, the entire forest, as theirs, it didn’t make it so. Their thinly veiled threats were one thing, even attacking me to the point that I limped to the firstplace I could find. The night Sylvie found me was still a foggy blur, but her soft, kind eyes and fresh cherry scent had made me calm. The tartness of her fear was what completely snapped me out of it.

She was starting to smell like that now, and it made me take a deep breath, remembering what I must’ve looked like to her. I unclenched my jaw, relaxing my bared teeth, and tried to parse through the possible reasons they’d be coming here.

My father’s cabin was surrounded by the trees, and for a moment, I hoped that they were just passing through.

But then their voices continued growing nearer, and there were steps coming up the stone pathway leading to my door.

The instinct to protect my home and the female that was mine was like white hot fire in my chest. I turned back to Sylvie and took her face in my hands. Her round, beautiful eyes were wide with concern, and the fear in her scent rose.

I kissed her hard, and she let me. Her hands grasped my forearms. “Stay here, Sylvie. Don’t come outside,” I said once I pulled away, holding her stare so I was sure she saw the seriousness in my face.

She didn’t speak, but she twitched a nod, wild hair swaying.

They would certainly smell her, but I wanted to eliminate any other chance of them being around her.

I stalked to the door and flung it open before he could knock. “Leave,” I demanded.

There were four, two of which I recognized as the ones who attacked me. The third, I knew all too well.

I closed the door behind me and walked to the top of the short stack of wooden steps that led to their little posse. Graham’s dominant scent of Pack Leader had already made me half-shift, claws and fangs drawing to protect what was mine.

He stood at the center of the group, shoulders back and tall, and bigger than his pack members in every way. “We just wantedto talk, Orion. See if you’d changed your mind,” Graham smirked when I gave another snarl. I’d barely suppressed the urge to hunt him down and rip his throat out after Sylvie told me that he’d been accosting her, even after I’d claimed her. Now he wanted to posture and antagonize me?

I moved forward and descended a step. The arrogant pup that stood on Graham’s left shot him a look, but none of them moved otherwise. It was one thing to have the evidence of their entitlement all over my land, and it was quite another to have them nearly knocking at my door. My self-preserving reasons for not attacking the Antler Pointe Pack were starting to make less and less sense. My Wolf instincts were already taking me over.

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