The Wolf Moon (an erotic paranormal romance) (The Wolf Ring) by Meg Harris Read Free Book Online Page A

claws at the end of his deformed
hands, and shuddered.
    He’d become a
monster. A freak. A mutant .
    But this
couldn’t really be happening. He struggled to push the animal part of his brain
away and bring his human logic to bear. This was impossible. Yes, Rhea had
talked about transformation more than once, but he barely knew her, and had no
real reason to trust her. It was clearly impossible that sex—even incredibly
intense, mind-blowing sex— had caused him to turn into a hairy monster with a
snout and long ears and fangs. This wasn’t a movie, and it wasn’t a comic book.
He was an ordinary man, not a mutant.
    Therefore, he
must have been drugged. It was the only explanation. She’d given him some sort
of hallucinogen, and suggested to him that he was going to transform, and thus
he was imagining he’d turned into… this. Whatever this was.
    What he was
experiencing could not possibly be real.
    The pain
couldn’t be real, either. But it felt real. Every lurching step sent a stab of agony through him. Every brush of
branches against his skin burned. Every whisper of the night beat against his
eardrums, intolerably loud.
    He wanted to
drop to the ground, curl into a ball, and wrap his
arms over his head. And that seemed like the most sensible thing to do. If he’d
been drugged, then following the woman who’d drugged him to whatever she’d
planned for him was the most foolish thing he could do. Lying down and letting
the drug clear his system would make far more sense.
    And yet he
couldn’t stop following her. In some strange way he didn’t quite understand,
he’d bonded with her. They were inextricably linked somehow.
    It’s just the drugs, he told
himself. But drugs or not, somehow he had no choice.
    He had to stay
with her.
    He was hers.

 
    *****

 
    Clouds gathered
in the sky, covering the brilliance of the moon, and the forest became too dark
even for Rhea’s enhanced human senses. She turned to Graeme and spoke gently.
    “Watch this.”
    He lowered his
head and stared at her. She concentrated, and her body shifted. A few seconds
later, she stood there, staring up at him. She knew what he saw—a silvery wolf
with dark brown eyes.
    His mouth fell
open in shock, and he staggered backward, making whimpering sounds. She knew he
was trying to talk, but was unable to do so with his elongated canine mouth.
She stepped forward and licked his hand reassuringly, wagging her tail.
    Slowly, he
relaxed, and his paw/hand rubbed awkwardly behind her ear, as if she were a
house dog. She wagged harder, trying to comfort him. Then she licked his hand
one more time, and turning, led him deeper into the forest.
    Rhea was almost
as frightened as he was. She’d left the Wolf Ring after Bryce died—after Bryce
had been killed—and hadn’t been back since. Most of the members of the Ring
were decent people, but the law said that none of them could interfere in a
fight, or stand up against the alpha who won his place fairly. And as a result…
    She remembered
watching Bryce battling for his life, snapping and snarling, struggling as a
larger wolf pinned him to the forest floor and…
    She pushed the
memories away. She’d left the Ring because by Wolf law—a law that was generally
considered obsolete, and which hadn’t been invoked in a hundred years—she
belonged to the wolf who’d killed her mate. Bryce had been the leader of the
Ring, but now Arthur led them.
    Rhea hadn’t been
willing to mate with Arthur, not with her mate lying dead on the ground, his
throat torn out by Arthur’s jaws. Arthur had given her two choices—to mate with
him, or to leave.
    She’d left.
    Since then,
she’d been an outcast from the Ring. In the forest, she’d avoided their territory,
and they hadn’t acknowledged her in human form. She saw the shame and sorrow in
their eyes when they passed her on the street, though, and she knew that none
of them wanted her ostracized. They were afraid, because Arthur was cruel, and
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