kissed-by-moonlight by Rakhibul hasan (ebook reader for pc .TXT) 📕

what look was on my face, but it seemed to please him to no end. Amber eyes still trained on me, and darkening by the minute, he stretched the kinks out of his arms, and I purred like a kitten at the play of strength beneath skin.

 

The small space felt too hot, as if there wasn’t enough air in it for the both of us, and I found myself shifting in clothes that suddenly felt too tight. He watched me until something caught his attention beyond the elevator and I dragged myself from the fog of dirty thoughts I’d been trapped in to use my own senses as well. It took me longer to notice, but eventually it came to me.

 

Like faint music, the howling rose and fell on a cresting wave. Filling the air and making it shiver. We were nearly to the ground floor, and the closer we came, the louder the howling became until it echoed in the limited boundaries of the elevator. I watched him as his head fell back and his eyes closed, body tensing as he absorbed the sound. Drinking it in and letting it ride over his skin until the edges of him began to grow soft and dark around the edges. As if the voices of the other wolves were enough to make leave his human form behind.

 

I looked at the panel above the doors in slowly rising panic.

 

The seventh floor. Six more and those doors would open again, and once again I’d be face to face with God knows what.

 

“It’s all right,” he said again. I looked back at him and realized that my breathing had grown heavy. “The specters are gone,” he soothed.

 

“How do you know?”

 

His chin lifted to indicate the howling beyond. “They told me.” He smiled. “Singing of their victory.”

 

I sighed, relief making me slump against the wall at my back.

 

“Go team,” I said weakly, and he chuckled. But just as quickly as it had started, his amusement abruptly died. His eyes widened and he glared down at me as if finally realizing something awful.

 

“You’re human,” he told me. Like it was some big surprise.

 

I nodded. “Sure am. And you’re a werewolf.”

 

He lifted his shoulder in a half shrug, “Eh. I guess you could call it that.”

 

“Wait-What?”

 

“The pack can’t control themselves very well on full moon nights. Especially around humans,” he said musingly.

 

For a moment I was still caught on the idea of him not technically being a werewolf, but then what he said finally sunk in.

 

“What are you saying?” My voice sounded breathless. No wonder. As soon as I thought I’d crawled out of the frying pan, he threw me into the fire.

 

“I’m saying that they’re going to try and rip you apart.”

 

That was around the time I started hyperventilating.

 

“Calm down,” he laughed, reaching down to grab me by the shirt collar and pulling me to my feet. “I’ll fix it.” Shoving me against the wall, he stepped into me and lowered his head, voice rumbling like thunder. “Make it all better.” Nose brushing against my neck, he breathed me in. The same way he’d done all those weeks ago after getting me out of jail.

 

Then his mouth was on me, teeth nipping at my bottom lip and his hands fisting in my hair as he jerked my head back. His knee slid between my legs, pressing upwards until I could feel the heat of him pressing hot and firm through my jeans. His erection pressed against my other thigh and my lips parted on a moan at the feel of him.

 

Then his tongue was there, stroking, thrusting, forcing me to participate in a dance that left me reeling. His hands traveled down, nails running lightly over my throat and along my breasts, my nipples hardening beneath my shirt. I shifted against him, restless and desperate and those hands became claws. Not beastly claws, but man claws that ripped at my clothes, pulled me apart, and left my skin shaking and bare beneath the air.

 

Gabriel pulled away from my mouth, only to sink his teeth into my neck. I cried out and my vision went dark, the walls of my sex pulsing, throbbing. All I felt were hunger and need, and I desperately clutched my fingers into his hair and held him close. His mouth a hot, wet cave against my skin, teeth sending pulsing shots of pleasure through my body until the strength in my legs gave out and all I could do was sob.

 

Then that sound again.

 

Intrusive this time.

 

A cheery little ding, and then the doors were opening.

 

I looked over Gabriel’s shoulders into a sea of darkness. Trapped within that darkness like hundreds of stars, were glowing yellow eyes. The pack sat in the rafters, on desks and tables, crouched in the railings of the floor above, and watched from every corner of the huge lobby.

 

It was a sea of fur, black, brown gray, white; they filled every inch of the room. Some were still human true, still dressed in their tactical gear and brandishing their guns as if they were claws and teeth, but the rest had long since given in to the beast inside of them. As soon as they saw us, the howling ceased. Then the grumbling started, angry little yips and barks that made the hair on my arms stand on end.

 

Gabriel wrapped his hand around the back of my neck and his voice was a warning growl against the shell of my ear.

 

“Keep your head down, and don’t. Make. A. Sound.”

 

It was almost too much: the change from panic to lust, to fear all over again. It took me a shaking moment to get my legs working again, and I had to swallow several times before I nodded in agreement. I wanted to fix my clothes, cover myself where Gabriel had pulled my clothes away, but he didn’t give me a chance. I let him lead the way from the elevator. When it looked as if I would hesitate, his hand tightened almost painfully on the back of my neck and he jerked me forward to stand beside him.

 

Once clear of the elevator we stood there, silent before the pack as their rage continued to crest around us. They crowded closer and closer, snarling and snapping their jaws as if desperate to take a chunk out of the human in their midst. But despite their frenzy, as soon as Gabriel began to move past them they parted like Moses with the Red Sea. From the corner of my eye, I saw

 

the large beasts look between Gabriel and I, cringing away when they made eye contact with the man at my side only to raise their hackles as soon as they turned their attention to me.

 

Numb, I did my best to keep up with him, too frightened to move any faster and unable to lag behind. The wolves came at me, sniffing and snapping at my ankles and fingers when they thought Gabriel wasn’t looking. But no matter how close they came, they never made contact. In fact, as soon as most of them were within sniffing distance they shook their heads in confusion and shied away.

 

I heard multiple noses working, getting a whiff of me and drawing my scent and Gabriel’s in deep. They were so worked up that I’d expected them to rip me away from Gabriel at any moment. But whether it was his hand on my neck, or the scent of him on my body, they made no move to take their aggression to the next stage.

 

We were halfway across the room, halfway to the front door and freedom, when all of that changed.

 

I’d done a pretty good job of avoiding eye contact with the animals around me, but then I felt something cold and wet brush against my upper arm. I turned my head with a start, and standing beside me, nose on my arm and eyes on my face, was one of the wolves. I’m sure he was only curious about me, but as soon as my eyes met his some sort of hunting instinct must have been set off, because in the next instant his jaws were snapping around my arm, teeth sinking deep and skin tearing while I screamed and struggled in his grip.

 

The heat of Gabriel’s hand disappeared from the back of my neck and then he was there, his fingers dipping between the animal’s jaws and prying them apart until I could pull my arm loose. Only he didn’t stop pulling once I was free. Cold rage suffused his features, sending the amber to swell and drown out the white of his eyes. He paled, and his lips drew back from lengthening teeth, canines snapping as the muscles in his arms and shoulders worked. He ripped the bottom half of the wolf’s jaw apart and threw the bloody part into the inner depths of the room, grinning madly when the part of the pack it had landed amongst fell upon it with hungry yips.

 

The wolf he’d mangled collapsed at his feet, paws clawing the air as its pain filled cries joined the cacophony. My arm had grown numb, and I reached over with my still working hand to touch the wound with gentle fingers. I stared down at the blood that coated my hand and felt the world shift ominously beneath my feet. I wanted to pass out, I probably needed to pass out, but I had something else to worry about now. The wolves surrounding me caught the scent of my blood and it seemed to overpower whatever protection Gabriel’s lingering odor had leant me.

 

Their heads lowered as one, their eyes grew heated and hungry, and their ears went flat. They stalked me, more and more of them separating me from Gabriel. My mind went blank, and I clutched my bleeding arm against my abdomen as if I could protect myself from the bloodthirsty

 

mass. My eyes practically flew from one wolf to the other, and I found myself turning, turning, turning, trying to keep them all in sight as they surrounded me and failing miserably.

 

I looked over at Gabriel, and he must have seen what I was about to do written all over my face, because the last of the animal bled away and concern filled his eyes.

 

“Don’t—”

 

But it was too late; I turned on my heel and ran.

 

They practically tripped over themselves coming after me. The entire room moved like one giant beast, a beast with a single goal and purpose in mind. I never would have made it to the front door if Gabriel hadn’t done something. I probably wouldn’t have cleared three feet, but he made a sound. Part human, part animal, a growling roar that stopped every wolf in the room in its tracks, claws scrambling uselessly on the hardwood as they fought for traction.

 

I’d almost made it to the door when one of the men in the room brought me down. I struggled, feet scrambling and fingers clawing at the face above me until I drew blood and he jerked from me with a hiss of pain. His fingers tangled in the necklace around my neck, and I sobbed, half convinced I was well and truly caught. Then the chain snapped, necklace coming away in the man’s fist and I was away. Getting to my feet and running.

 

I ran, and ran, and ran, and when I finally burst through the doors of Lumière Corporation the lonely rise of Gabriel Evans’s howl was the only sound to accompany my mad flight into the night.

 

“I live for the hunt. Fear makes the meat taste sweet.”

 

—Juliet Baker

 

 

 

Chapter Ten

 

 

 

 

 

I didn’t know where else to go, so I headed for home. Back to my cheap, bullet-ridden apartment with my stuffed animals and empty refrigerator. It wasn’t even 11:00 p.m., so there were plenty of people to stare at me as I made my way through the city streets. I’d lost one of my shoes back at L.C. and all too