Page 53 of Fire on the Moon

He felt as though razor wire were twisting in his guts. But he said only, “The moment I held you in my arms on the beach, I felt . . . connected to you.”

She snorted. “Tell me again about men in your family bonding with their life partner.”

He raised one shoulder. “I suppose it’s to make sure that we find . . .” He almost said mates. “Wives.”

Maybe she caught the slight hesitation, but his only option was to continue. “The Druid gift from the gods is ancient. I imagine that in ages past . . .” He stopped, then forced himself to say, “Werewolf men were pretty savage.”

Her only response was a clenching of her teeth.

“We’re housebroken now.” When she didn’t respond to the joke, he went on, “Every werewolf is an Alpha male, the head of his own pack. Until recently, they didn’t get along with each other, but we’ve learned to work together. Several of us are Decorah Security agents.”

“You’re holding something back,” she bit out. Then with sudden insight she asked, “Do you say some kind of chant to change into a wolf?”

“Yes. An appeal to the Druid gods.”

“Like the other night. Only I stopped you?”

“Yes.”

“Can I hear it?”

He gave her a hard look. “Only if you want to be sitting across from a wolf.”

“No. Tell me what else I don’t want to hear.”

He sighed. “There were some . . . bad aspects to our reality. The trait is sex linked, so only male babies lived. And when a youth went through puberty, he’d have to change to wolf form for the first time. About half of them died.”

Her look of horror made him go on quickly, “My cousin Ross is married to a geneticist. She solved the problem of the girl babies. She figured out how to save them, although so far none of them has acquired the ability to change shape.”

Again he left the words hanging between them.

“What the hell do you want me to say?” he challenged.

“I don’t know. No, okay, wait—do I have free will? Can I walk away from you, if I want?”

“I don’t know.” Maybe she could do it. And if she did, it might kill him.

They sat in silence for several more minutes. Finally she asked, “If you’d had the gun, would you have shot the panther?”

“The idea of killing it made me sick. I might have shot into the air to frighten it. Without the gun, I hoped the wolf could scare it off because I wasn’t in any condition to fight.”

Once more, she didn’t respond.

His body felt leaden. It was almost too much effort to keep sitting at the table. Adding to the weight pressing down on him was the knowledge of just what a mess he’d made.

Finally, he simply couldn’t cope with the effort of staying upright in the chair. “I’ve had a rough day and night,” he said. Before she could say the same he turned and headed for his cabin, struggling to stay on his feet. He almost tripped on the stairs and only managed to stay upright by grabbing the railing. It wasn’t just that he’d reached the limit of his physical resources, it was the knowledge that he’d probably driven away the woman who was his mate.

Could a werewolf recover from that? He had no way of knowing. It was another nasty topic that the clan didn’t discuss.

He kept a tight grip on the railing, as much to keep his balance as to anchor himself to reality. When he reached his cabin, he drew the curtain and stopped beside the bunk. Swaying slightly on his feet he pulled off his shirt and tossed it onto the end of the bed. He left his pants on and eased himself onto the bunk, being careful not to put any pressure on his wounded arm.

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