Page 58 of Isabel and the Werewolf Beast

“That is very unusual. Vampires usually kill us, not heal us.”

“It was unusual circumstances we met in.”

“So, you think these vampires won’t kill us now?”

“I didn’t say that.” My fingers rubbed my forehead because being away from Isabel made everything in my body hurt. “I don’t think they’ll kill me. As for anyone else, I’m not sure they’d offer the same leniency. They seem set in their way of killing werewolves, but we don’t understand why. Do you?”

“Why they kill us?”

“Yes.”

“What does it matter why?” he sneered. “They’re our enemy. We have to protect ourselves from them.”

“But why?” I roared, then checked my rage. “Why are they our enemy? It doesn’t seem right that they would kill us for no reason.”

Barth scratched his head then his fingers trailed down to his beard. “I don’t know. We’ve always avoided them and stuck together. They don’t bother us when we’re in our packs.”

“Strength in numbers I suppose.”

Asher stepped beside me. “Now we have numbers. A family.”

Family? I didn’t know what that was apart from him. What it should feel like or look like. How did one act in a family? Besides Asher, I’d had no one to care about before Isabel. My heart pounded faster each second I was away from her.

“What do you comprehend about mates?” I asked.

“A werewolf mate is sacred. When we find a woman we want for our mate, then we mark her for all to see.” Barth sat on a log and ushered me to sit with him.

I sat on the scratchy bark of the fallen log, and Asher sat on the other side of me and leaned forward enraptured by his newfound family.

“How do you mark them?”

Barth flashed his teeth. “We half shift and bite them on the back of the neck.”

“That’s it?”

“Yep. The cool part is that our bite mark glows under the light of the moon. Especially good for us nocturnal creatures.”

“Does the woman bite us back?”

He snorted. “No.”

“How do I shift at will and not be subjected to the influence of the full moon?”

“The full moon battle takes many years to perfect. Some never do. As for shifting at will, it’s about tapping into your inner animal and the power they give us. The thing that makes us a werewolf. Accept the animal and the animal becomes you so you can flow between the shapes with ease.” He waved the teenager over. “Fabian, show him what I mean.”

The gangly teenager patted his chest as though he was a large, muscular man and shifted into his half-shape.

“He’s a natural-born werewolf, so it comes easier to him, but he still had to accept his inner animal.”

The boy shifted again into a big gray wolf. A moment later he shifted back to human form.

“I can shift that quickly?”

“Yes.” Barth tapped my chest with his hand. “Accept in here.”

His fingers caught on the moonstone necklace and he held it up to the moonlight.

“Did the one you want as a mate give you this?”

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