Moon - New Moon Part 2

She whispered a prayer under her breath-a prayer to the Great Mother who had sometimes protected her, and sometimes not.

With shaking fingers, she cupped her hands around the wolf's head, stroking his cheeks, feeling the coldness of his skin beneath his fur as she gave him a direct order. "Change from wolf to man. Let me help you."

His lips moved and his body jerked.

She called on old powers that she had been afraid to use-with good reason. The moment she began to tune her thoughts to his, a great pounding started up inside her own skull.

The pain was Falcone's present to her. She struggled to break through the impediment he had placed in her mind, even as she fought the sickness rising in her throat.

At first, keeping her concentration on the wolf was almost impossible. But she fought to call on the skill that her teachers had helped her develop. Ignoring the pain, she forced her thoughts into the wolf's head and felt the substance of his mind, soggy with the poison seeping from the trap.

The poison sent out tendrils toward her, and she reared back in shock.

As her terror bubbled up, she pulled her hands away. Was this the real snare? This wolf, lying here on the ground. Had Falcone trapped him and laid him out for her to find-so that she would be caught in the same sticky mental fog that held him fast?

She could believe it, and she wanted to get up and run-as far away from the wolf and the trap as she could get.

But she stayed where she was and thrust the fear aside. Reaching for the wolf again, she forced herself back to the task.

"Change," she murmured. "Change to your human form. Do what you need to do."

In response to her words, he stirred on his bed of leaves, and she thought she caught strange syllables whispering in his mind. She didn't understand them, but she knew they must be part of his ritual of transformation. Not her ritual, but that didn't matter. He must use whatever worked for him.

Yet she knew the words were garbled in his thoughts, knew that he could barely put one syllable in front of the other.

Gritting her teeth, she helped him focus, forced him to stay with the task of changing from wolf to man, even as she sensed dark forces closing in around the two of them.

Under her hands, she felt the wolf's body shape begin to morph, and she moved her hands downward, sliding along his fur-covered body, skimming along his hip, avoiding the male part of him as she reached for the place where the metal jaws held his leg fast.

Thrusting aside her own fear, she fought to keep her focus-her concentration on the task that she must accomplish-even when it felt like the cells of her brain were going to explode.

She sensed the crucial moment approaching. If she failed now, they were likely both doomed.

CHAPTER THREE.

THE WOLF'S MUSCLES jerked as his skin flowed under Rinna's fingertips like heavy syrup flowing from a bottle.

She had made this transformation herself many times, but she had never felt the change take another living creature. It was a strange sensation, and she battled not to pull her hand away, because she must keep in close contact with him if she was going to act at the crucial instant.

In the fluid seconds when the cells of his body were neither wolf nor man, she jerked his leg out of the trap.

He screamed in pain, as the change rolled relentlessly on, transforming him from one form to another. They tumbled together into a pile of leaves, a tangle of arms and legs and other body parts. Flesh to flesh, his naked chest pressed to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, his s.e.x scrunched against her middle.

That intimate contact was too much for her. She gasped and thrust him away from her so violently that he fell backward onto the leaves, then lay sprawled on his back, gasping.

He had been a handsome wolf. He was a compelling man, with dark hair, nicely shaped lips, a blade of a nose and an appealing mat of hair on his chest.

In her mind, she pictured him reaching out one of his strong arms and pulling her to him, then reversing their positions and covering her body with his. But that was only an evil fantasy. He only lay where he was in the leaves, the breath sawing in and out of his lungs and his strong face contorted by pain, and she knew with a stab of remorse that she had hurt him by slamming him away with such force.

But she simply hadn't been able to deal with the sensation of his skin pressed to hers. Not when she felt his hard muscles and corded arms. He was naked, and her gaze was drawn to his groin. His p.e.n.i.s was large. She imagined it growing hard and stabbing into her. Hurting her. Bending her to his will in the way that men had tamed women since the dawn of time.

She pulled herself away from the disturbing image. He wasn't going to overpower her. Not while he was fighting for his life.

When he turned his head toward her, the confusion in his eyes tore at her.

"I... I didn't mean to hurt you," she whispered.

"You saved me," he answered in a voice that told her that the pain in his leg still clawed at him.

The words and his effort to speak reminded her of where they were. In the forest, far from shelter and still in danger. Falcone would send men to bring her back, and she must be somewhere else when they arrived.

Again, she was tempted to leave this stranger and run. She had gotten him out of the savage trap. He could fend for himself.

Even as she told herself that story, she knew it was a lie. Focusing on his leg, she saw his mangled flesh. She had freed him from the metal jaws, but he was in no shape to defend himself-or even run away.

"We have to get out of here," she said.

He pushed himself up, but sat where he was, dragging in drafts of air. "I have to rest."

"Later."

The thought of touching him again made her throat close, but she did it anyway, crawling toward him and slinging an arm around his shoulder, urging him to get up.

"Come on. We must leave."

"Who are you?"

"Rinna."

"Logan," he answered, then looked back to where the snare had held him fast. "What was that thing?"

"A trap. For shape-s.h.i.+fters."

She watched him take that in, watched his brow wrinkle. "Why?"

"We can talk about it later. We have to get away from this place-now."

He pushed himself to a sitting position and winced. "I... don't think I can stand on this leg."

"You have to. The man who set the trap will kill you."

"Why?"

"He'll be angry when he figures out he didn't catch me."

She gave Logan a minute to rest, then moved her arm under his, pulling him up.