THE RIPENING (Dark Side of the Moon Book 1) (7 page)

              Great. One of them was claiming rights to her.

              After a moment of silence, both a smaller, sable-colored animal and a larger, shaggy gray one stepped forward to confront the lone challenger. Together they heckled and shoved at him; and though his build pronounced him the largest animal there by far, he didn't use that size to his advantage. He let himself be punished physically until finally a rough and violent scream escaped him and he lashed out at the sable-colored beast behind him, drawing blood with those lethal claws.

              With that, he turned to face Yuna, utterly fearsome in both his size and tone as he snarled, grabbing her about the waist to fling brutally over his shoulder and head back for the cover of the forest. Trembling violently in fear, the young woman tried not to hyperventilate as a mixture of sweat, blood and tears stained her face. She was too tired to struggle, and even if she did, the thing would probably rip her limb from limb.

              It wouldn't be long now.

              Sure enough, within minutes, the creature reached a relatively grassy clearing in the woods and dumped her on the damp moss abruptly. Yuna bit back a cry at the soreness of her limbs, covering her face with both hands. She didn't want to see it coming. Death on wicked, brutal wings was not the last thing she would witness in this world if she had anything to do with it. Tensing, she waited for the first tearing bite.

              It never came.

              After a full minute in which she was too frightened to even chance moving, slowly, the young woman peeked through her fingers and out into the clearing.

              It was utterly empty.

              The rain had finally stopped and a moon that was a single sliver short of being full, floated in and out of wisps of clouds, illuminating the ground below.

              She was alone.

              Yuna could hardly believe her good fortune. Slowly, the young woman stood on shaky legs to look quickly around her. Maybe it was playing games with her. Waiting for her to run off so that it could hunt her like a rabbit. She shuddered at the thought.

              Minutes passed.

              Had it really gone? Biting her lip, the young woman scanned the forest so fervently her neck grew sore. She had to run. Somewhere. Away from here. If she stayed in this clearing, she'd almost certainly perish.

              Torn, she hesitated for one last moment before turning on her heel and bolting in the direction that she knew to be opposite from the house, the bonfire, and the bevy of monsters out for her blood. She only made it about three steps before slamming into something unyielding, solid, and very large.

              “Yuna!” Before she'd opened her mouth to scream, the very last voice she'd expected to hear in that moment invaded her consciousness in a flood of warmth and familiarity. Her head jerked up to see a familiar pair of icy blue eyes glinting in the moonlight.

              “Luther!?”

              “Yuna.” His reply was firm, voice controlled and tight. Even as relief flooded her system at his mere presence, the young woman realized something was wrong in the way that he spoke. Even more so when he took her arms in a firm, almost painful grip. “What are you doing here?”

              “Luther!” she exclaimed, looking back over her shoulder as she searched for the creature who had left her only moments before. “We have to get out of here. There are things here, monsters- they're all gathered at that abandoned house over there and they're after me!”

              “Yuna.” The man in front of her had turned demanding, actually shaking her to recapture her attention. When she turned back to face him, his face was twisted into a look that she couldn't read. “How did you find this place? Why did you come here?”

              Suddenly affronted, the young woman pulled from his grip, glaring up at him. “I was looking for you. You left without a single word or explanation as to where you were going. After you fucked me, or don't you remember that part?”

              A long, chilling howl emitted from behind them and she tensed, immediately remembering the imminent danger. “But we can talk about that later. Luther, we have to leave. It's not safe here.”

              “Yuna, you have no idea what you've done.” Luther drew both hands, hard, over his face before looking down at her again, his expression a mixture of sorrow and fury. “I left because it was for your own good! You can't be here right now.”

              “Then let's run! Please, Luther!” Taking his hand, Yuna tugged at it, trying her hardest to move him. She could no more have moved a mountain when he planted his feet firm. Turning back to him, the young woman fairly screamed. “Luther, they'll kill us!”

              Any further words she might have had died in her throat, for the man staring down at her, the man whose hand she held tight, had bright yellow eyes and teeth like knives.

              She'd fainted.

              Of course she had. He was surprised it hadn't happened when Liam had brought her into the firelight- or indeed at the first sight of his brother in his canine form. But then again, she'd always been a tough one.

              Luther, for his part, was still reeling from her sudden appearance.

              The clan had been gathered around the fire, drawing strength from its heat; and after three days of intense preparation, his father had finally proclaimed him ready to receive the Alpha strain. In those three days, he'd emptied himself of all emotions, all claim he thought he might have had to the life he'd led before, and he'd begun to contemplate his new duties. Even Magnus had been impressed with his concentration, commenting that he'd never been completely certain that Luther would have the strength to leave the human world behind.

              On the eve of the full moon, after a lifetime of doubt, he'd finally been ready to take the weight of his duty upon his shoulders.

              And then came the intrusion.

              Of course it had been Liam who'd found her lurking on the edge of the estate. In his animal-state, Luther's younger brother was one of the least restrained. From the bruises and cuts marring Yuna's pale skin, it was obvious she'd been treated roughly. He had no idea how long Liam had had her out beyond the property before he'd finally gained the wits to drag her before the clan. While Luther knew that their human forms would have passed strict judgment on any intruder, their wolf forms fairly salivated at the thought of violence. Luther couldn't recall any of their numbers encountering anything more sophisticated than rabbits, deer, or the occasional bear when transformed, so he had no way of predicting how safe...or endangered Yuna might be.

              When he'd caught sight of her, battered, bruised, and utterly terrified before the flames, he hadn't hesitated. Despite all the hours he'd taken to convince himself that Yuna was better off without him, and that he could learn to see her as just another transient part of his existence, the pull to rescue her from his willful and dangerous brother had been the strongest impulse within him.

              He winced as he remembered how he'd struck out at Viola when she'd demanded that he leave Yuna on the ground. Of anyone present, he would have believed that his brother's mate would be most against any potential violence. Her behavior had stung.

              And so Luther had taken Yuna away from his clan, promising something that even he himself had no idea how to deliver upon.

              To deal with it.

              The young woman splayed on the grass beneath him stirred and Luther took a breath, trying to control his impulses. With the ripening so near, he was having difficulties containing his animal side. There was a deep-seated part of him that longed to rip and tear, to feel the silky sensation of running blood and to taste its coppery tang on the air.             

              But there was another part as well, a part that gazed down upon Yuna's lush, prone form, and wanted to dominate, to take, and to mark. Any possessive feelings he might have had for her outside the influence of the moon were multiplied ten-fold. She was his, and no one else's.

              How could he have come so close to forgetting?

              “Luther...?” Bright green eyes fluttered open as Yuna moaned her way back into consciousness. When full-awareness finally crept back into her gaze, her eyes widened as sheer terror filled them. “Oh, God, Luther. Your eyes...” She shut her own tightly as if to somehow refute what she saw.

              He hadn't wanted her to find out this way.

              Hell, he hadn't wanted her to ever find out, but now it was far too close to the ripening for him to hide what he was. The effort he'd taken to appear normal to her for even a few minutes was far too much to sustain for long. Now, he knew his eyes glowed with a predatory yellow light, his teeth had lengthened into canines far longer than any human's and his ears had elongated beneath a thin layer of auburn fur. “Yuna...” He tried, fighting to maintain the delicate balance of concentration that would keep the transformation from advancing further, “I'm sorry.”

              “You're one of them.” She was whispering under her breath, her eyes still shut tight. “Oh my God, you're going to kill me.”

              “Hush,” he responded fiercely to the accusation. The fact that she believed him capable of such a thing cut him to the quick. Certainly, she must be shocked at what he was, and the conditions surrounding her new discovery were less than ideal, but there were decades of history between them. His lifelong promise to never harm her had not changed. “You know that I would never.”

              “Oh, wouldn't you?” Her eyes suddenly blazed angrily as they snapped open once more. “You'd just make love to me, then leave me without a word! Oh yes, and LIE TO ME ABOUT YOUR ENTIRE LIFE.”

              She couldn't be serious.

              The woman was in an isolated forest among creatures who were capable of ripping her limb from limb and she was angry with him about hiding the truth from her?

              “Yuna, I couldn't have told you,” he returned insistently. “It was for your own safety. You've seen how we act when we're in our other forms...anyone for miles around is in danger. Why do you think we're here, so far away from humans?”

              “But you can control it,” she contradicted him. “You've changed back! ...Kind of.” Her eyes roved his decidedly primal face before she spoke again. “Why...didn't any of the others change? Who are they?” The young woman trailed off a moment before her face drained of all color.

              “They're your family, aren't they?”

              Shit.

              “It's not just you. Your entire family is like this.” The speed with which her face contorted as she connected the dots in her head was astounding. “You change every month.”

              “Yuna, listen to me,” he interjected. “The others didn't change back because they don't have as much control. Whatever you may think about me, or my ability to manipulate my form, the fact of the matter is that you are in extreme danger from the rest of my family. It's in our nature to ...hunt. To kill.”

As clever as Yuna was, she still had no way of fathoming what she'd stumbled into. “It's as you said: you must run from here. Get as far away as you can.”

              “But what about you?”

              Luther's eyes widened at her inquiry. What about him? She'd just discovered that he was a monster that roamed the woods, leeched in debauchery and destruction. Surely she couldn't be worried about him?

              “I'll be fine.” His reply was curt. He began to help her up, with every intention of somehow getting her back to her car and away from their ritual grounds.

              “That's not what I meant.” He was caught unaware when Yuna yanked from his grip, her expression hurt and angry. “What about your leaving me? You took everything out of your room. I couldn't reach you no matter how hard I tried. When are you coming back? We need to talk.”

              Her voice, her face, and all the years of hope and doubt that had built up in him since the moment he'd first seen her smile wracked him with a wave of guilt.

              “I'm not coming back, Yuna.”

              For a moment, the young woman just stared at him, her body language unreadable. When she spoke, she seemed to be choosing her words carefully. “What do you mean?”

              Luther exhaled hotly, raking hands through his hair. She was insane. Out of all the things to concentrate on, of all the things to want at that particular moment, she wanted reconciliation? She'd just walked into a nightmare, and she was still the same woman – one who never let a problem daunt her. How could he make her understand that there could be no future for them? His family would always pose a danger to her in their transformed states; indeed, in their human forms they barely liked to associate with her. Now that she knew their secret, she'd only be seen as a liability. She'd go from being tolerated to being hunted.

              The hunt had already started, for Christ sake.

              “Yuna, I'm a monster. My future isn't my own. I belong here, with my clan. I have responsibilities, duties...I couldn't possibly explain them to you here and now but I need you to trust me when I tell you that you are better off without me. You need to go.”  Luther tried to harden himself against the way her eyes glazed over with hurt.

              “So...” She took a deep breath, “You and I... us sleeping together? What was that?”

              “It was a mistake,” he asserted simply, his hands fisting at her sharp intake of breath.

              Luther watched Yuna's hands clench and smelled the salty tang of threatening tears. However, when she next met his gaze, her eyes bore into him, intense, and raw. “You ass,” she managed, dashing moisture fervently from her cheeks. “You don't get it, do you?”

              “Yuna.” At last, Luther finally allowed the slightest edge of his own desperation to color his words when he spoke. “Please. Go.”