Marked by the Moon (Nightcreature 9)

“Animals don’t feel.”

He grabbed her by the chin again. “You’re wrong.”

Alex should have a huge bruise from when he’d wolf-handled her before. His touch should hurt, but it didn’t. She was already healing faster than humanly possible.

He let go of her with a flick of his wrist, as if he couldn’t bear to have his skin in contact with hers for one second longer than necessary—she knew the feeling—and walked away. Alex had to crane her neck to watch him disappear out the door.

“Hey!” she shouted, then paused. Would she be better or worse off if he left her behind?

The question became moot when he reappeared carrying an inert body, which he placed on the floor.

“Don’t worry.” He walked to the door again, drawing it closed behind him. “He’s a very bad man.”

As soon as he was gone, Alex fought to get loose in earnest.

He’d bitten her instead of killing her, then tied her down and left her in a room with a helpless human being. She had to pull free and run, then find a silver…anything and kill herself before she changed. Because as soon as she did, she’d need human blood, and there was some right here.

Her struggles only served to make her sweat. The room had no air-conditioning, no window. She pulled on the restraints so hard her wrists bled. The scent of blood, of man made her stomach growl.

Once bitten, a human shifts within twenty-four hours. Traditionally werewolves can only change between dusk and dawn—except that first time. Then it doesn’t matter—day or night, full moon or dark, new wolves become. They had no choice.

Suddenly the room vanished, and Alex ran through a dense forest. Warm sun cast dappled shadows through the branches. The cool air seemed to sparkle. The scent of pine surrounded her.

She burst from the trees onto a rolling plain. Here and there patches of snow shone electric white against just-sprung grass threaded with purple wildflowers. In the distance loomed piles of ice that appeared as high as a mountain.

A sense of freedom, of utter joy filled her. She wanted to run across this land forever. It was…

Home.

Except Alex had no home. She’d been born in Nebraska—not many mountains there, ice or any other. They were a little short on forests, too. And she hadn’t lived in one place for longer than a month since she was five.

She caught the scent of warm blood, of tasty meat, and turned tail—she had one—to return to the forest. Something flashed up ahead, crashing through the brush in terror.

Wham!

Alex fell back into her body, still lying on the cot in the horrendously hot, horribly small room. She wasn’t any closer to being released, but from the way her skin felt, too small to contain her, she was much closer to being inhuman.

“Collective consciousness,” she muttered. “God.”

Once a victim is infected, the lycanthropy virus changes him from human to beast. He begins to remember things that have happened to others—the thrill of the chase, the love of the kill, the taste of the blood.

“It’s coming,” Alex said in a voice that no longer resembled her own. Deeper, garbled, she’d heard the sound before.

From the mouths of the soon-to-be-furry.

The pain became more of an itch, a need to burst forth. Alex tried to fight that need but couldn’t. Her dark jeans and black blouse tore with a rending screech; her boots seemed to explode as her feet turned to paws.

Her nose ached; her teeth were too big for her mouth. Then suddenly that mouth became part of the nose, and those teeth felt just right.

The bonds restraining her popped. She writhed, contorted, snarled, moaned, and when she at last rolled to the floor, she was no longer human but a wolf.

Alex stared at her paws, covered with fur the same shade as her hair; she didn’t need a mirror to see that her own green eyes stared out of an animal’s face.

The world expanded—sounds sharp as the blade of a knife, smells so intense her mouth watered with desire; she could see every mote of dust tumbling through the air like snowflakes of silver and gold.

Hunger blazed, a pounding pulse in her head. If she didn’t eat soon, if she didn’t kill something, she thought she might go mad.

Then she saw him—there on the floor, trussed up and still. What was his name?