Page 60 of Midnight Moon
I swallowed, then forced myself to inhale. Less than a foot separated us, and I felt his proximity keenly. “No, it didn’t touch me.”
I turned my gaze to the fallen animal, unnerved by the way Asher’s attention made me feel. “Did you have to kill it?”
“Yes.” Violence coated the single syllable.
“Why?” He could have tried to scare it off before ending the wolf’s life.
“Would you rather I let it maul you?”
“Of course not.” My eyes traveled back to Asher’s, determined to ignore the strange sensations his attention continued to elicit within me.
There must be something seriously wrong with me. Who let themselves get hot and bothered in this type of situation?
“Why did you tell it to submit?”
Surprise flickered over Asher’s expression. He watched me for a few seconds, then asked, “Do you truly not know?”
Obviously not. “Know what?”
Asher stared at me for another moment, then gestured to the animal. “Smell it.”
“What?”
“Smell it,” he repeated. “Tell me what you notice.”
Though I found the order odd, I complied. Sidestepping Asher, conscious not to brush against him, I approached the fallen animal.
Kneeling beside it, I once again noted how large the animal was compared to the wolves native to this area. It truly was as large as a shifter.
I tapped into my shifter senses and inhaled through my nostrils. At first, I only smelled the musty forest floor. I focused my sense on the animal. Its rancid breath assailed me, making my eyes water. I picked up the familiar scent of fur and wilderness. Nothing stood out to me.
But then, ever so faint, I smelled the essence of a human—and it wasn’t from me or Asher…
Wide-eyed, I whipped my neck around and stared at Asher in shock. “It’s a shifter!”
I could hardly believe it. I’d looked into the animal’s eyes before its attack. There was no consciousness behind its animalistic gaze. I was sure of it.
Asher crossed his arms and nodded. “A rabid shifter, to be exact.”
I gasped and my heart thumped. “A rabid shifter,” I breathed. “Are you sure?”
“One hundred percent,” he replied.
I sat back on my heels, staring blankly at the fallen shifter. Rabid shifters were not natural shifters. They were humans who turned into a wolf shifter through the bite of a naturally-born shifter—be it accidental or intentional.
As the word rabid implies, the converted shifters were violent and incapable of rational thought. They lost all sense of humanity when changed, essentially becoming wolves without the natural instincts of the majestic animals.
Needless to say, it was against every pack’s law to bite a human. In the past, before the sorcerers used their spells to seclude us from human populations, accidental bites were more common as shifters were forced to protect themselves from hunters. Or so I read.
Nowadays, conversions were nonexistent since our communities lived in near isolation from the human race.
At least, that’s what I’d believed…
The creature in front of me said otherwise.
“How is this possible?” I whispered in disbelief. “How did someone accidentally bite a human?”
“I believe the question you should be asking is: who would unleash this beast into Badlands’ territory?”
