Page 78 of It's You
Damn you, hope.
I want my woman.
A little after midnight, the overwhelming urge to shift, or pull her inside again, was so all-consuming, he decided to take a run. He pulled on sweatpants and a T-shirt and slipped his phone in his back pocket. Forest running as a human couldn’t hold a candle to forest running as a Roug, but shifting fully while in a heightened emotional state was absolutely unthinkable. Theabsence of moonlight made it a pitch-black night, so he used his night sight, allowing his eyes to burn bright so that he could see in the darkness, but that was it.
When Jack shifted fully, aside from his burning eyes, long, sharp claws protracted from his fingertips. His lateral incisors, canines, and bicuspids all dropped like fangs from above, while his incisors and canines erupted and sharpened from below. His body thickened in muscle mass and height, giving him increased strength and speed. His feet widened and toughened into leather-like soles that could run comfortably over the rocks and branches of the uneven forest floor. His hearing, smell, and taste were far superior to a bloodhound’s. His skin was covered, almost everywhere, by a thick coat that receded when he shifted back to human form, with the exception of his hair and beard, which he groomed immediately after.
There were two types of shifting:Métamorphose CommuneandMétamorphose de Pleine Lune.In English, Common Shifting and Full Moon Shifting.
In both cases, the physical changes were about the same. For Jack, the biggest difference was in his ability to control himself.
During a Common Shift, when the moon was anything but full, his lust for flesh and blood was well-controlled. As long as he wasn’t heating up his blood with high emotion like anger or sorrow, his human impulses and moral code remained intact and could overwhelm the darker Roug impulses. He could use his night sight or even allow his claws to drop. He could shift fully if he wanted to Roug run. He needed to be sure he stayed under the radar, of course, but he could control himself almost completely during a Common Shift.
Not so during the Full Moon Shift, at which time his human moral compass was completely marginalized and his Roug urges came to the fore. Although Jack was able to satisfy his cravings on animal flesh and blood when he was locked away withoutother options, it would be difficult for him to resist a human kill if he found himself in a heavily populated human area. His lust for flesh and blood was all-consuming.
No shifting. No shifting. No shifting.His sneakered feet still ran swiftly, even for a human, helped by seeing the forest as clearly as if he were wearing night vision goggles. Especially tonight, immediately after aPleine Luneshift, Jack wouldn’t generally have any problem with rogue shifting, but his heart ached from losing Darcy, and he didn’t trust himself not to shift with such intense feelings feeding his darker side. The only factor that could possibly compromise a Common Shift, besides intense emotion, was the smell of human blood. If blood was involved, it increased the difficulty of his control. Which, of course, made him think of Phillip, Darcy’s college boyfriend.
When Jack saw Darcy at her cousin’s wedding two weeks ago, it wasn’t the first time he’d seen her in twenty years. In fact, Jack had seen Darcy many times over the years. He had just taken great pains to ensure Darcy never saw him.
Of all the places she had lived, his favorite was Boston, where she had attended graduate school and where she had a small studio apartment in a prewar building that had a fire escape outside her window. During Darcy’s high school years, he’d spent most of his time working for the council in the Northern Bloodlands, forbidden to see her or contact her in any way. It was for the best. At that time, Jack didn’t even have rudimentary control over his impulses, and being around her would have put her in danger. But by the time he turned twenty-five, thanks to Tombeur, he had mastered the basics of control. And although he still honored the decision that he should endeavor to forget her, the pull to see her, his curiosity to know her, became too great to ignore. In direct and flagrant disregard for Tombeur’s proviso that Jack try to forget Darcy, he decided he had to see her.
Much as he had in high school, he made an agreement with himself. If he could track her down, he could observe her. Watch over her for a few hours. Get a fix. He wouldn’t approach her or let himself be otherwise known to her. He just needed to see her.
Tracking her down hadn’t been difficult.
He’d been waitingin his truck in the back of the parking lot at Young’s Grocery for two days, hoping that Cassie Turner would turn up to do some shopping. As soon as he saw her, he hustled into the store, grabbed a basket, and “accidentally” bumped into her, offering an enthusiastic hello.
“Hey there, Mrs. Turner!”
“Well, hello,” she’d said, giving twenty-five-year-old Jack a perplexed, albeit friendly, smile.
“I knew your daughter, Darcy. We were at Carlisle High together, ma’am. We were in a play together.The Music Man.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” she’d murmured, still trying to place him. Suddenly, she beamed, pointing her index finger at Jack’s face. “Lloyd, wasn’t it? Lloyd Brenner?”
“See?” he’d exclaimed. “You remember me!”
Fifteen-year-old Amory rolled his eyes, throwing a case of Coke in the carriage and giving Jack a bored stare under reddish lashes. Jack stared at Amory’s green eyes for a moment, flinching. It was the closest he’d come to looking into Darcy’s in eight long years.
“Well, Lloyd. How are your folks? They moved back east, right?”
“They’re very well, ma’am. Back in Boston,” he added, hoping she hadn’t kept up with Brenners, whoever they were.
“That’s right. Boston!” Her eyes lit up. “Well, that is a coincidence. You must look up Darcy the next time you’re home visiting your parents!”
Bingo!
“Is Darcy in Boston? Good for her. How’s she doing?”
His heart rate had sped up at her name. Hell, his heart rate had sped up just standing near her mother and brother as it sharpened his memories of her eyes, her lips, her skin tone, and especially her scent.
“She is just doing great, Lloyd. She’s getting her master’s degree at Harvard.”
He could barely breathe but struggled to keep his face lightly and politely interested.
“Is that right? Musical comedy major?”
Cassie chuckled, shaking her head. “Oh, no. Botany. Plants and flowers. Can’t get that girl out of the woods.”
