“I can get the doc to do it,” I protested as she led me out of the barn.
“He’s busy with Peter. And besides, where’s the fun in that?” She tugged me through the back door, past the bustle in the kitchen—where I was sure I heard Josh make an indecipherable comment to Matt and laugh—and through the house to a chair in the library before releasing me. “Now, strip.”
“I bet you say that to all the guys,” I said, stalling for time as I lowered myself to a sitting position. My butt still hurt.
“Off with it, or I’ll help.” She surveyed me with a raised eyebrow. “You so don’t want me to help.”
She’d come prepared, flourishing a small pair of scissors and forceps from a pocket. I sighed before removing my tee shirt.
“Go easy on me, okay?”
“Of course,” she said and got to work.
The cuts on my biceps and shoulders had almost healed. The head gash hurt when she removed the sutures, and a corner bled. She dabbed at it with a finger. “That one will heal when you change.”
“Changing heals you?”
“Depends on where the injury is. Your ribs will improve. Areas that stretch or alter can pull apart an existing cut. But your scalp wound should heal.”
“My legs and arms?”
She grimaced. “Not so much. You’ll bleed. Some might need re-stitching.”
The deepest slices on my forearms bled when she cut the sutures loose, but I thought they looked better, and the hunks of missing flesh had filled in. My scars from the parts already healed were impressive, though, twisted and pink against my tanned skin.
Sam bit her lip as she trailed a finger along a blemish, and my breath hitched. She glanced at me, her eyes dancing.
“Nice scar,” she said, and laughed. “Better than ink.”
Oh, God. Is this her idea of flirting? Give me strength.
“Okay, pants.” She bounced to her feet, gesturing to my legs.
“Look,” I said. “Hayek is in the barn. He can do them.”
“I’ll see you naked in another hour, anyway. What’s the big deal?”
“See, you think that’s helping, but it’s not.”
She did this thing with her eyes. Turns out Josh was right about Sam. I sighed, stood, and dropped my pants.
Because jeans pulled too tight over the cuts, I’d worn sweats. I held them bunched in front of me like a shield, a fact that kept Sam amused as she leaned over my thighs, scissors held ready.
“Hmm. These will be—unpleasant—during the change, I think. Hard to say for sure.” She got busy with the forceps and scissors.
By the time she’d finished, blood dripped down my legs.
“If you put your sweats back on, they’ll get wrecked,” she said.
I pulled them on, ignoring her. The blood seeped through in several places as I tugged my tee shirt on too.
She shrugged and left the library with a smile, and I followed, realizing I wore a similar expression. I had to admit, having no one worried about my first full moon reassured me. After what had happened with Dillon, Chris said it should go without a hitch, that I’d have no problems controlling my wulf. If only Peter woke up, I could relax and enjoy it. Or at least endure it. Whatever one does during one’s first full moon. As I watched Sam walk ahead, my gaze dropping below the castration zone, my fantasies ran wild. Until she turned and caught me.
Her eyes bored into mine, slid to my crotch and back to my face.
Message received. I grimaced and kept my focus above her head, just to prove I could.
* * *
To someone who has never felt the call of the full moon, it’s hard to describe, but I’ll do my best. It started as restlessness deep in my muscles and escalated to a crawling sensation beneath skin suddenly too tight for the flesh. My joints ached and my bones burned at the core, as though flames ate at the marrow. And my teeth kept emerging through my gums—I wiped away so much blood my hands became a gory mess.
I noticed everyone flexed their fingers, and we went barefoot, to allow our toes to do the same. We all needed to move, so we ended up in an impromptu soccer game. I suggested football, but apparently full-body tackling was not recommended this close to becoming a wulf. As we hoofed the ball, our voices took on an intensity mirrored in our bodies. It resulted in a fierce father-daughter fight between Matt and Sam that seemed to center on her sister becoming an enforcer, but I thought it could have been pre-moon jitters. Either way, the fight finished our game before the sun had set, leaving me with a pile of nervous energy. When Chris and Josh disappeared for a brief time, I understood.
I gave up pacing through Josh’s intricate gardens and headed into the barn to check on the doc and Peter. Doc Hayek stood in the aisle, stripped to his shorts, doing deep knee bends.
“Group sports aren’t my thing,” he said, straightening. “I get too cranky on the full moon.” The doc wasn’t a tall man, but he was ripped. Again, I wondered if there were overweight werewolves.
I considered Sam and Matt, still yelling it out on the lawn. Yeah, perhaps knee bends would have been wiser. I glanced into the cage. The door had been closed and locked, and I noticed that the IV and catheters had been stripped off Peter. He lay quiet on the cot. I scratched at my chest and wiped more blood from my lips. Outside, the sun sank below the horizon, and with a tingling deep in my bones, I sensed the moon.
Suddenly, everyone stood there with us: Sam and her dad, still glaring daggers at each other, Josh and Chris, the doc and me. They stripped in silence, piling their clothes against the wall. I followed suit, although I had to fight for the nonchalance the others took for granted.
Well, almost
