Shadow on the Moon (22 page)

Damn! They were only hunting
wolves, not Jack the Ripper. Why couldn't he get that through their heads. He
despised the look of fear he saw on their faces, despised it thoroughly and
wished he had a way to wipe it off.

But when the commander suggested
they bivouac at the clearing where Kowalski met his maker, Schumacher knew his
crew couldn't spend a single night in that godforsaken place without bolting.
So, for their sakes, he'd convinced the commander that a meadow near the spot
of the abandoned Fish and Game van was more accessible. They could go by road,
then fan out in pairs and search that entire hellhole of a mountain, acre by
acre.

"Do we really need the
bazooka?" called out Rutherford, who was leaning against his already
packed van, looking cool and composed.

"You read the M.E.'s
report," retorted the captain.

"Seems to fall into the better
safe than sorry' category, if you ask me."

"I didn't." Schumacher
accompanied this with a baleful stare. In return, Rutherford grinned knowingly.
The captain turned away.

"Move it, folks. We've got
wolves to hunt down before sunset! Move it! Move it!" The loading went
faster than he'd hoped, although slower than he'd demanded, and soon all was in
readiness.

He turned to his unit, ready to wax
eloquent about duty, and saw leaden resignation in their eyes. For just an
instant his voice failed him. A moment later he got it back.

"Get some steel in those
backbones," he bellowed, hoping to wipe out their fears with the mere
force of his words. "It's just a pack of dumb animals. Keep your chins up,
your eyes sharp, your weapons loaded. Now, let's go!"

He tromped to his motor home, which
traditionally led such a party, and started it. Sometimes being captain was a
burden, but it was his job and he would do it.

With quivering hand, he engaged the
gears and started leading his convoy up the mountain.

* *
*

Dana shivered violently inside the
fire-warmed cabin, her skin a mass of goosebumps. But not from cold. No, not
from cold. Her blood boiled from a lust she'd never known, a heat that coursed
between her legs.

Morgan pressed his body so tightly
to hers that even air couldn't pass between them, but still he wasn't close
enough. Eyes shut, she arched her neck, ran her hands across the smooth, steely
muscles of his arms and shoulders. Quickly at first, then slowly, languorously,
wanting to feel each ridge of his biceps. They seemed to swell beneath her
touch in the same way his deep groans swelled in her ears.

She'd never known such hunger.
There was a need inside her that demanded fulfilling She took his lips, nibbled
upon the fullness of the lower, thrust her tongue inside and tasted him.

Passion flowed between them like
the milk and honey of Nirvana. His teeth were sharp against her tongue; one
careless bite could—

Danger! Oh, yes, so dangerous. And
thrilling! To open her moist secret place, pull him in and tighten around his
hot erection, let him probe and thrust above her weak and willing body.

This was the most thrilling of all.

Although reluctant to cause even a
small separation between their bodies, she was eager to remove their clothing.
Still holding his lips, she reached between them and tugged at the fastenings
of his jeans.

Morgan moaned, both from pain and
from delight. Alchemization had started. His bones felt torn apart, his joints
burned, made worse by his attempts to hold it back. This was not how he'd
intended to reveal himself, and his fear for Dana curled within his passion,
creating intensely mixed and pleasurable sensations.

She trembled like a frightened
lamb, yet he knew she did not fear him. Her need seeped into the small spaces
her hands were creating between their bodies, spaces that cried to be filled.
But his bones were alchemizing faster now. Soon his teeth would change and hair
would grow, covering him completely. This was not the time, not here in broad
daylight where he'd be revealed in all his horror. He must pull away, pull away
pull away.

With a jerk, he grabbed her hands.

"We need to talk, Dana."

"Talk?" she asked, with a
breathless giggle. "Now?"

"Yes, now." It pained him
terribly, but he rolled away, brought his feet around and put them on the
floor. His back was to Dana, but he heard her heavy breath, tried to block it
out. With weak legs, he rose and padded barefoot to the fireplace, where he
added a log to the flames.

The cabin was uncustomarily filled
with dogs. Zeus and Odin were sniffing at the pantry shelves. Persephone lolled
under the dining table, while Fenris and Aphrodite tussled quietly beside the
fireplace. Through the cabin door, which they'd left ajar in their haste,
Morgan could see Shakti and Freya milling around.

Garments lay strewn all over the
cabin's wood floor. A dingy gray wad of nylon here, another there. Boots and
socks and gloves. The red and green of plaid flannel, the soft blue of Dana's
camp shirt.

Even as he glanced at the results
of their passion, his body changes began to ebb. It pained his soul, but he'd
made the right decision.

"Why?" Her voice
trembled. Morgan turned, almost afraid to look at her.

She was gazing up from beneath her
dark lashes, and a sudden shock electrified Morgan's body. Could she see into
his heart with those torrid and discerning eyes? Did she recognize the beast
inside him?

Dana's mind whirled in confusion as
she met Morgan's suddenly widened eyes. He stood, legs spread, in front of the
hearth, the poker still in his hand. Without his shirt, she saw he was slimmer
and more sinuous than his lumberjack clothing had suggested; but had he been
less than that, she wouldn't have found his body any less glorious.

Was she only imagining than regret
she saw? And if he felt it, why had he stopped? A million jumbled questions
filled her mind, but somehow she felt at a loss for words.

"What is so important we have
to talk now?" she finally asked, plucking at the waffled fabric of her
twisted undershirt.

He put down the poker and walked
back to the daybed, sitting down beside her. She leaned against his shoulder,
and felt his muscles quiver beneath her cheek.

"What?" she breathed
insistently.

He kissed her forehead, easing her
painful feelings of rejection.

"Would you stay here with me,
Dana?"

The question sent her bolting
upright. Swinging her legs, she brought her feet to the floor, leaned forward,
and grabbed the metal frame of the bed with both hands.

 
"Here?" She looked around wildly,
heart suddenly pounding as she faced an unbearable choice. "Here?"
she squeaked again.

Morgan sighed and lowered his head
to his hands. "I guess you've given your answer."

"Oh, Morgan. I don't–
Something . . ." She stroked the bare skin above the line of his beard,
wishing she felt differently. "Something's not right up here. I can't
explain it, but I feel it." She tapped her heart.

"This is my home," he
said sadly, lifting his head back up. "You love the wilderness. Why isn't
this place as good as any where else?"

The pain that so touched her heart
had returned to his eyes. Suddenly feeling chilled, she got up and went to
retrieve her camp shirt. As she put it on,
The Lycanthropy Reader
came
into her line of vision. She walked over to the bedside table, picked it up,
and clutched it to her breasts.

"Do you believe in werewolves,
Morgan?"

"Werewolves!" A startled
expression crossed his face. "Isn't that a bit of a non sequitur?"

"This book is yours, isn't
it?"

"A kooky friend gave it to
me." He glanced away momentarily. Then, in a faraway tone, he added,
"A long time ago."

"Yeah," she said.
"Well, it's beginning to seem pretty current to me."

Abruptly, she sat beside him,
looked earnestly into his eyes, all the while tapping the book's cover.
"The thing that attacked me I know this sounds nutty, but, Morgan, it
looked just like the creature this book describes."

"Come on, Dana," he said,
after a brief hesitation. "Your imagination's running away with you. You
had a run-in with a bear—or possibly it was an angry Indian. But a
werewolf?"

"I know, I know." So many
things were still unexplained. And for the first time, she realized that Morgan
had never displayed any deep alarm about her attack. Oh, he'd been concerned
enough about her injury, but had never once suggested tracking down her
assailant or reporting it to the authorities. Was it possible that Morgan was
part of it all?

She shook her head hard, trying to
knock the cobwebs loose. It ached dully, and their snowball fight had
aggravated her shoulder, which now throbbed like the devil.

"Evil," she whispered,
half afraid the very word would summon whatever attacked her.

"What did you say?"

"Something evil lives in Ebony
Canyon." This time she spoke more firmly. Then she knew what her next
words would be, and even thinking about them broke her heart into a thousand
pieces. "I don't understand it, but I do know I can't stay here any
longer."

Morgan shot to his feet and
glowered down at her.

"First you're sure there are
wolves here. Of course, they haven't killed anyone. Then, because you saw some
Indians with a sheep, you think maybe they are killing people. Or maybe the
Indians themselves are doing it. Now it's werewolves. What's going on? You know
better. For Christ's sake, you're a biologist!"

Dana looked at Morgan in dismay,
knowing his reaction stemmed more from hurt than from anger. She also knew he
asked the impossible. Stay in Ebony Canyon?

She couldn't.

Something clanked in the kitchen.
Morgan turned and saw Aphrodite with her paws on the stove, nosing the stewpot.
He felt a huge wave of relief at the interruption, and when he ordered the dog
to get down his voice held more praise than reprimand.

"I, uh, I'll take the dogs
back to the kennel," he said. "They're already getting into
mischief." As if to illustrate his point, one of the dogs yelped.
Immediately afterward, the shovel fell across the open doorway and clattered
onto the porch.

Dana nodded, her eyes containing
the same relief Morgan had felt about the opportunity to delay this
conversation for just a little longer.

He dressed quickly, called the dogs
together, and led them back to the kennels. During the trip his mind was
consumed with his dilemma.

Should he tell Dana the truth?

His response had been pure
knee-jerk, he knew that. But the subject of werewolves had come out of the
blue, was so unexpected, he'd had no time to reflect.

Should he tell her?

He wanted to turn around now, take
her in his arms, and spill out the whole horrible truth. But what if she viewed
his confession the same way she viewed the canyon?

Evil, she'd said. Evil.

Wasn't that also true of him?

* *
*

Dana was still sitting, turning
The
Lycanthropy Reader
over and over in her hands, when Morgan reentered the
cabin. He stood in the open door a minute, regarding her intently, then turned
and began moving about the clothes-littered room. First he picked up the
jumpsuits, then her boots and gloves.

It wasn't until Morgan's hand was
poised above the doorknob of his room that Dana realized what he was doing. She
felt the shock to the soles of her cold, bare feet.

"Are you going to lock up my
things again?" she asked, over a faint tremor in her lower lip.

In typical Morgan fashion, he
didn't answer right away.

"Well! Are you?"

He nodded slowly, sending a strand
of hair into his eyes. "For your own good."

"For my—my own good!" Oh
God, her voice was trembling. She took a deep breath. "Who the hell are
you to decide what's good for me?"

"The man who loves you."

"You love me?" Dana felt
a burst of joy that was immediately smothered by the reality of the moment.
"But you're keeping me a prisoner. That's not love."

Her accusation sent a spear right
into Morgan's heart. This, he thought, was a new and deeper experience of pain.
Was this what love meant? Exposing oneself to agonies so intense you might
never recover? He'd survived all the other barbs from fate, had almost found
peace with his curse, had even learned to deal with Lily. But love?

Could he survive that?

"I thought . . ." He
faltered for a second. "I thought after . . . Well, I'd hoped you would
stay. I see now you can't, and I'm afraid you'll leave impulsively. That's too
dangerous, Dana."

Her shimmering eyes widened.
"Does that mean you aren't taking me down in the morning?"

The spear went deeper. Morgan
swallowed a pained sigh. "You still want to go, even knowing I love
you?"

"Please try to
understand."

"You'll come back?"

She nodded furiously, but he saw
doubt in her eyes.

He'd hoped, prayed, that his
declaration of love would evoke a similar one from her, and had held on to that
hope on his walk back from the kennels. But it hadn't.

Now he knew he couldn't risk
telling the truth. She might flee in terror, and as much as he wanted to
believe he was thinking only of her safety, he couldn't deceive himself. If she
left before the full moon, she'd take his only chance for redemption with her.
He couldn't let her go.

A stifled sob hiccupped in her
chest, broke loose. A tear rolled down her cheek.

"Don't cry, Dana." Morgan
moved to her, reached out and blotted off the tear. Another followed and
spilled over his thumb. "Please . . . I'll take you in the morning. Soon
as the sun rises. I promise."

He gazed into her eyes, saw
disbelief, and knew it was deserved. When the sun rose, he'd find another
justification for delay.