Blood Moon, Original Version (Shifters #1) (4 page)

             
The danger of that thought was replaced with the fact that she could easily lose herself in this man, maybe even lose all sense of reality.

             
Maxine’s lip trembled as Nate’s mouth left hers. She had become intoxicated by him and needed his touch like an addiction to a drug.

             
Beneath him, she waited patiently and let out a small moan. He caressed the side of her face just as a tear rolled down her cheek escaping one of her eyes.

             
He wanted to give her what she wanted, to make her always feel protected and never allow her to feel fearful again.

             
He wanted her; he wanted to believe that it was possible that he could. But he knew the brother hood would never accept it. They both came from different worlds. The brother hood, the mission, all thoughts of reality rushed back to him. He had lost himself in this woman, making him forget the true reason and purpose of why he was here.

             
Still hovering just above Maxine’s mouth he stilled himself.

             
He had strayed from his mission, his duty. He had broken every law of the pack.

             
Maxine tried once more to bring his mouth down to hers without success. Her own reality began to return and warning bells began to ring danger in her brain. She had again been lost in the werewolf’s spell that he so easily cast on her every time she was near him.

             
Nate knew the woman had seen too much, was a liability to everything his kind stood for, worse, their own existence. She would bring this knowledge back with her to her own world. That very knowledge could endanger everything he had vowed to protect as leader of the brother hood of wolves.

             
He could not allow her to share her knowledge of them, the pack would never allow it or for her to live with the knowledge she now possessed.

             
Maxine began to shiver, not exactly from fear, but the idea of allowing herself to get close to the werewolf again. He fascinated her and excited her senses.

             
She began to move rhythmically under him, arching her body to meet his, she still wanted him.

             
Maxine wanted to rip off every piece of clothing that kept them apart. She needed him inside of her again, filling every part of her. She reached down to undo the button on his jeans. But he only pulled away from her as he pushed her hand away.

Chapter Thirteen

              Maxine felt rejected and unwanted. She laid there under him trying to look away and turn her attention elsewhere. There was no way to ignore him or what just happened. But that still didn’t mean that it almost had.

             
“You know what I am, don’t you? “He asked.

             
She could feel his eyes on her, looking at her, pressing her to answer him.

             
She kept her face turned away, trying to look and concentrate on anything but him. The torch on the ground was still burning. Enough light still poured from it to brighten the room enough for her to see, but even that forced reality to shoot back to her and remind her where she was.

             
How sleazy was she to just continue giving herself over to a man she barely knew. He wasn’t even a man, but something much more. He was a werewolf, something out of a horror story, and she had allowed him to have his way with her. Was this something she found to be a turn-on?

             
She still couldn’t bring herself to look at him. She was only glad that no one else was around to see how low she had become, how willing she was to just hand over herself for a little pleasure. Had she really become that desperate and needy?

             
“You know what I am, don’t you?” he repeated. There was no way of getting around the truth, she did know. Finally she acknowledged the question and nodded her head.

              But did she really believe what she had seen? Werewolves and vampires were figments of people’s imagination, weren’t they? She had only known of the stories through books and movies, but now she knew the truth… the world was not as it seemed. Even though she was still trying to get past the humiliation of being rejected by him, she forced herself to look at Nate.

             
“You really did change, you really are a werewolf?” she didn’t even have to ask the question, she knew what she had seen was the truth.

             
But the ordeal of what she had gone through tonight, could that be causing her to hallucinate, or some kind of an emotional break down? Was Nate even real? Was this man really indeed real and not some kind of figment of her imagination?

             
Nate had found himself wondering the same thing more than once during his long existence. People did not usually have to make a habit of asking themselves that question, but he was not like a lot of other people. His existence was of another world, one that others did not believe existed. Most people would never be able to wrap their mind around the prospect of werewolves. This was one of the main reasons his pack was so important to him, with them there was no reason to ask those questions. To them, it did not matter one way or the other. They lived their lives in secrecy and only did what they had to in order to survive. The pack was a family, a unity of brother hood, and his place was with the pack as their leader.

             
His life had been simple until now. Looking directly into the woman’s eyes, he knew that everything she had seen and gone through tonight was hard for her to comprehend.

             
Nate had never been attracted to someone like he was to Maxine, ever. He wasn’t like mere mortal men, he had never had the luxury to be, and he had never been given that choice with his life as a werewolf.

             
Still he had to find a way to cut all ties with this woman. She was a loose end, a distraction.

             
He held Maxine’s face gently in his hands prepared to do what he must. Bile urged its way up his throat just with the disgusting thought of it.

             
Maxine looked up at Nate not understanding his intentions. She had a lost look about her and shut her eyes. The feel of Nate’s hands on her flesh was comforting and warm. Werewolves were supposed to be scary and vile creatures, but Nate was nothing like that. She smiled and opened her eyes. “Thank you for saving me.” She whispered.

Chapter Fourteen

             
Nate pulled his hands away. “Why do you thank me?” Nate asked. His voice was gravelly and unsettling. Maxine turned away not sure how to take the sudden change in his voice.

             
Nate reached up and turned her face back to him. “Tell me why you feel so compelled to thank me.”

             
She couldn’t speak to him, not the way he was acting. Instead she looked beyond him towards the wall where a vampire had smashed her body up against earlier. Her stomach was tied in knots. The vampire had meant to kill her.

             
Nate caressed her cheek and turned her face up to his. “The vampires, you’re thinking of the attack. They have smelled you’re blood; they will not give up until they feed on it. You will never be free from them again; they will continue to hunt you down.”

             
“They want to kill me…” she murmured. But she knew he was speaking the truth, knew they would not give up until they had done just as he had said. Her problems had just gone from bad to worse; she flinched at the thought of it. She would need him to get out of this nightmare. “You have to save me.” She added.

             
“I can only promise to get you out of here.”

             
His look was stern and serious. It made her think that he did not care whether she lived or died. Perhaps being a werewolf meant that he had no compassion for someone that was not of his kind.

             
She reached her hand up to try and touch him. As her fingers barely caressed his skin, she stilled. Werewolf…and then she remembered what he truly was and how dangerous he could be.

             
Maybe knowing what he was and what he was capable of was for the best. It would allow her to understand the world she had stepped into.

             
Nate sensed the uncertainty she was feeling. He tensed his body and moved himself away from her.

             
“I don’t want to die, please help me live and survive this.” She spoke with urgency and desperation. She only felt safe knowing that he would protect her, to have him near made the fear a little easier to bear.

             
“I can’t promise you you’re life.” He stood and walked to the other side of the room. He cut himself off emotionally and physically from her, leaving Maxine lying on the cold hard stone floor.

             
Maxine felt naked and humiliated, she wished, almost wished the room was engulfed in darkness again so that he could not see her. With nowhere to go, she embraced her arms around herself and held tight in some way trying to find comfort.

             
He looked down at her. “You thought that what happened earlier between us meant something, didn’t you?”

             
She tried to look anywhere else but at him. She realized how foolhardy her situation had become. Her body began to shake as self-remorse washed over her; she brought her arms in tighter around herself.

             
“The vampire doesn’t want to drain you, they want to turn you. They could have killed you anytime they wanted to, but they didn’t.”  Nate looked towards the catacomb tunnels and then back at her. “They won’t let you go.”

             
“But you said that they wanted to kill me, why did you not tell me what was really going on?” not that being turned into a vampire was any better than being murdered.

             
“Everything I told you was the truth. Does it matter if I said that they wanted to kill you or wanted you’re blood to add to their line? Either way you look at it, becoming a vampire is the same as becoming the walking dead.” He replied.

             
She spun herself around facing him as she braced herself with both hands on the floor. “How am I supposed to trust you when one second you protect me with your life and the next second you’re telling me point blank that I’m about to die?”

             
Nate walked over to the torch and picked it up. With its light illuminating the whole room, he replied, “Sometime tonight you made one fatal error, you decided to trust me enough to get you out of here. I only said that I could try.”

             
The light illuminated the strong features of Nate’s face, twisting them into something horrible and frightening. Maxine pushed her body away from him with an urge to get up and run, but she knew she would never make it out with her life. “And I trusted you!” she barked back.

             
“That’s correct. You also trusted your life with a werewolf.”

Chapter Fifteen

             
“Does that go for all werewolves?” the fear that Nate had seen on her face was replaced with question and uncertainty. “Is that why you have continued protecting me when you could have let the vampires have me at any time?” Her voice held and unbelieving tone. She ran her hands over her arms as if cold had come over her. She stood and walked towards him now, her body gesture was clear in how she stood. Apprehension shown all over her, and Nate knew she wanted to run.

             
He hadn’t meant to make her believe that meant to do her harm. But if she were to believe that he did, if she feared him, run from him, then cutting her from his life would make it that much easier to complete his mission and return to the pack.

             
“Not all werewolves,” he finally replied. But he made sure to take care with his words not to give her any hope of a future between them.

             
“Not all werewolves?” she stepped back further away from him.

             
His words were hitting their mark. She was preparing to run; all trust in her eyes was gone. That’s what he wanted.

             
“And you? Are you going to kill me? Is that what you’re planning?” she asked. “Kill me because I know too much?” but she still had not run. Why? Why hadn’t she run from him like he was some kind of monster? Why was she still here?