Indeed, it will be our mutual pleasure,whispered my great aunt.Oh, and do not forget to leave your panties off and pull up your skirt to sit on the seat bare-bottomed. We have a long road ahead of us to Roissy, and I have a lot of catching up to do.

There was a breath of sensual laughter through my thoughts and I shivered as my nipples hardened in reaction.

Snow Moon.

Unusual Appet.i.tes.

Also for Dughal.

The werewolf watched the ponderous steel-colored clouds in the sky. Stepping from his battered red jeep, the werewolf lifted his nose delicately sifting the air for her fragrance.

She wasn't here.s.h.i.t. This was the third week in a row he'd sought her out at the clubGothic Noire, and she wasn't here.

Night would be falling in an hour, but the snow-laden clouds washed everything with a muted gray light that defied the coming darkness. From the scent that floated on the breeze, there would be snow tonight. There was going to be a lot of snow, and soon.

The rising wind broke a small hole in the clouds and he glimpsed the waxing moon floating in the encroaching twilight. It was more than half full with a bright shimmering ring of light encircling it. A Snow Moon, he'd heard it called. The hole in the clouds closed, hiding the moon away.

Closing his eyes, he concentrated, shutting out the odors of rubber, metal and gasoline as he stood amongst all the cars crammed in the parking lot. He closed his mind to all other human scents except for the perfume he sought; baby-powder and woman, his woman. His steps brought him to where her vehicle had been parked. An old Mazda sat in the s.p.a.ce, but her pick-up truck had sat here, briefly and not too long ago.

Ah, a trace,he thought. The scent was an hour old but she had been here, then left. His brows dipped in thought.I guess it's time to hunt the old-fashioned way.A warm flush of antic.i.p.ation raced through him. He was finally going to see Heather again. Tonight.

He strode back to his jeep and shrugged out of his leather duster, then peeled off his T-shirt. The air was below freezing, but only the nip of the wind-chill registered. Sitting in the driver's seat, he pulled off his boots and socks. Yanking the thong from his hair, the loosened waves slid down his muscular back, but did nothing to keep the frostiness of the wind from his flesh.

He closed and locked the jeep, stashing the key behind the front tire. Naked but for his leather pants, he looked sharply about with eyes that saw better in the dark than in daylight. There was no one watching, not even a car on the street driving by.Good.

On the hardened soles of his bare feet, he jogged to a stand of trees and bushes in the next parking lot and hunkered down. Searching within, he felt for the sleeping power humming just below the surface. It uncurled from the base of his skull and swept over him in a wave of warmth and fierce joy. He felt the stretch and pull of muscle and sinew as his body shimmered from one moment to the next into another form.

A large rangy wolf in full winter coat of gray and white trotted out from the bushes. Nose to the pavement, the wolf cast about the parking lot for the trail he sought. To the wolf's nose, far more sensitive than in his man-form, the trace of the female's perfume became as clear and bright as neon. Head lifting, the wolf set off in a ground-eating lope to follow the aroma from the side of the road, tracking her scent by the vehicle she was driving. Time became meaningless in the now of wolf-thought.

Under the harsh light of the meat department in the grocery store, Heather found herself entranced by the sweet smell of blood and raw flesh. She swallowed as her mouth watered from the scent even as her thoughts twisted away from her body's sensual reaction. Want, hunger and desire all fought for dominance. Her mind flinched away as she realized that her panties were getting wet with eagerness even as her stomach cramped with appet.i.te.

She stared unblinkingly at the plastic-wrapped ten pound beef eye roast on the refrigerated shelf before her. With trembling fingers, she shoved her long, silver blonde ponytail off her shoulder. Hunger clawed at her belly as she reached out with both hands to pick up the heavy piece of meat.

"Outta my way, I'm takin' that," said a rough masculine voice.

The rancid stink of sour beer breath washed over her. Heather saw a gnarled hand reach for her prize.

Glancing over her shoulder Heather saw an older, rough-looking man wearing a stained ball-cap and a battered coat, gripping a grocery cart loaded with snacks and beer. Her lips pulled away from her teeth, a snarl boiling up from her as she eyed the threat to her food.

"Mine!" she snapped, barely able to speak. Lunging, she s.n.a.t.c.hed the chilled meat from the shelf, then turned away to hunch possessively around it. From slitted eyes, she watched the man s.n.a.t.c.h his hand back in alarm.

"I want that for my family, b.i.t.c.h!" he snapped, baring his own blackened teeth. She could smell the rot on his breath from where she stood. He stepped away from his cart and took a menacing step toward her.

A deep animal growl rumbled from Heather's chest. She gripped the roast hard, her fingers digging deeply through the plastic and into chilled flesh. If he tried to take her meat from her, she would...I will bite him.The thought shocked her, and pleased her.

"I think the little lady wants it for herself, mister," a familiar masculine voice spoke calmly from behind Heather. "Why don't you have this other one on the shelf?"

Heather whirled to face the new threat, teeth bared, a growl still rumbling. She snapped briefly out of her feral haze, staring in astonishment.

"It's okay, Princess, no one's going to take your food." The werewolf smiled as he watched Heather's blue eyes widen in recognition.

Heather was forced to tilt her head back to look at him. It was her seducer from the Goth club. He towered over her, two steps away, green eyes merry with humor. His long raven hair, pulled back in a tail, hung over his shoulder rakishly. A long, black leather coat swept the tops of his weather-beaten boots. His personal aroma of worn leather from his duster, soap and potent male musk rolled over her in a wave, and she took an unconscious step closer to him.

A powerful surge of memory tinged with l.u.s.t washed over Heather. Images and sensations crashed through her mind of his hands on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, his flesh buried within her, screaming as she came in his arms. She choked from the visceral strength.

Wait a minute...I'm p.i.s.sed at him. He abandoned me at the club without telling me his name!She cautiously stepped back. She watched as his eyes narrowed slightly as he breathed in.He's smelling me!

The werewolf noted her perfume of well-worn flannel, baby powder, soap and aroused female. He was obscenely happy to discover that she didn't carry the odor of another male. She had f.u.c.ked no one since their wild coupling upstairs at the Goth club.

However, she had not gone back to the club, and succeeded in avoiding him for weeks. Finally his need to see her again had driven him to hunt her down. He'd been dumbfounded when he had trailed her scent today to the parking lot of a grocery store in his own territory; he lived only a few miles away. then he noted a familiar undercurrent of musk and blood, a scent as familiar as his own.

"Who asked you? s.h.i.t for brains!" interrupted the grizzled man. "Hey, you stupid b.i.t.c.h, I said, I wanted that one for my family!"

The werewolf felt a whisper of power in the air. He watched in dismay as Heather's blue eyes abruptly bled into green, and suddenly blazed golden with inhuman feral fury.Well, s.h.i.t, he thought.I think I may have f.u.c.ked up.

Heather snapped around to look back at the older man, and tensed to attack. She could feel the hair on the back of her neck and the down on her arms rising.One more step and he's dead meat. Her lips pulled hard back from teeth that were starting to ache. She felt a flare of heat at the base of her skull, then a bolt of fire raced down her spine.

The drunk raised his fist. "You want some of me, b.i.t.c.h?"

The werewolf raised his brow.Where the h.e.l.l is this guy's instinct for survival? Briefly, he entertained thoughts on letting Heather take a hunk out of the brainless drunk. It might do the old lush a world of good to have a limb amputated by someone half his size. He sighed.Thenagain, I really don't need another idiot toting a shotgun full of silver in my territory. Hmm, decisions, decisions...

The werewolf took a step closer to the drunk. "I said, this one is hers." The werewolf's voice, though reasonable, deepened to a ba.s.s rumble. "You can have the other." He leveled his gaze at the old man, squaring his shoulders and standing his full height. The power of imminent change poured off of his skin, whispering around him like a cloak. He felt the shimmer of power and knew that the depth of his eyes had flared the gold of the beast within. He stared down at the older man with a slight smile, then took a single threatening step.

With some satisfaction, the werewolf watched the man freeze in place. Eyes wide, the drunk's mouth fell open and his face blanched to a sickly gray. The sour sweat stench of fear wafted from him.

Hmm, I guess the idiot does have some idea of the danger he's in,the werewolf mused cheerfully.

The grizzled man swallowed hard, s.n.a.t.c.hed the other roast off the shelf and threw it into his wagon. The wheels of his cart squealed as he fled down an aisle.

He turned back to Heather. "Are you okay?" the werewolf asked. She was staring at him with wide golden eyes that should have been deep blue. To his astonishment, tears trickled from her orbs in silence as she hugged the huge roast to her chest, fingers still digging into the meat.

"I...I don't understand what's happening to me," she sniffed, wiping her cheeks on the sleeve of her flannel shirt. "I'm normally a lot nicer than this but I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to bite him for trying to take the roast. I could have let him have it and taken the other one myself," she rambled. Then, her voice dropped to a snarl. "But I just couldn't do it."

"It's okay, Princess," he said softly. "Here, let me help you with that." Gently he pried the roast from her fingers. Strangely enough, Heather let him take her hard-won prize. "Princess," the werewolf said very gently, "how long have you been feeling like this?" He watched as her sapphire blue eyes flared golden briefly, with the fire of the beast. "How long have you been needing to eat meat?" he pressed quietly.

"I dunno. I've been eating a lot of hamburger and steak lately..." Her voice trailed off. She'd been eating a lot of hamburger and steak every night for the past week and a half. Sometimes s.n.a.t.c.hing it from the microwave while it sat thawing, not even waiting until it was warm, sometimes twice in a night. She watched, as he appeared to be looking for something in her face and smiling in a sad kind of way.

"And I...I'm so hungry all the time, and for weird stuff," she sniffled. Heather had no idea why she was telling him anything. He'd f.u.c.ked her in front of a bunch of people at the club, then left her to ride home with her roommate.

Taking a quick look around and seeing no one in the vicinity, the werewolf knelt and pulled out a long sharp blade from his boot. After peeling some of the plastic from the end of the roast, he carved a chunk off, handing it to Heather. Furtively, he re-wrapped the meat, wiped the blade on his sleeve, folded it and tucked it back into his boot.

The hunk was gone before Heather realized she'd even tasted it. She flinched.Oh, gross! Why am I doing this? Her brow furrowed as she realized that she was still hungry.

Kneeling before her, he peered deeply into her eyes as he handed her back the rest of the roast. "Princess, we need to talk. Let's go pay for your snack."

Heather dragged her heels, but followed him to the checkout cradling her roast.

The werewolf led Heather out to the grocery store parking lot, to where his jeep was sandwiched between a minivan and a battered station wagon.G.o.d, how the h.e.l.l do I start this conversation? he thought as he helped Heather climb into his parked jeep. He climbed into the driver's seat, his keys heavy in his pocket.

"Let me see that," he asked, holding his hand out for her grocery bag. Heather pa.s.sed it to him. In a smooth motion, he pulled out his boot-knife. He unwrapped the roast from the plastic again, then carved hunks off the roast. He pa.s.sed them to Heather, who devoured them, barely chewing in her haste to feed her hunger.

Through his windshield, the werewolf watched the heavy steel gray sky pressing down. Only a few hours had pa.s.sed since he had trailed her scent from the club to the grocery store. The freezing wind rattled the flimsy doors. Full night had fallen, and the snow would be coming at any time.

"Princess, where's your coat?" he asked casually as he continued to carve.

"I didn't wear one," she answered between bites. She was perfectly comfortable in her light flannel shirt and jeans. She took the hunk of meat in her hand and put the whole thing in her mouth.

"It's below freezing outside and you didn't wear your coat?"

She chewed thoughtfully, then swallowed. "It doesn't feel like it's below freezing. I don't feel cold at all, but the wind is a little chilly."

The werewolf sighed.She isn't noticing the cold and she's chewing bites of raw roast as though it's a cupcake. He winced. He was not looking forward to this conversation.

I need to tell her what's happening to her, and that it's my fault.His sire had warned him that this kind of thing happened on occasion. Guilt was not something he was used to, but it was definitely guilt he felt. d.a.m.n, this is going to be hard.

"Princess, I have something to tell you. It's about me, and about you."

It took about twenty minutes to explain. She listened in total silence, eating the entire time. He thought it went rather well. She wasn't screaming.

"Do you have a name?" Heather licked some of the beef blood from her fingertips.

"Huh?" he asked, confused by the change in the subject. He had become lost in the way she delicately licked each finger, then her palm with her tongue. When she popped her fingers into her luscious mouth to suck them clean, he felt himself harden violently. I can think of a much better use for that tongue.

"A name? Do you have a name?" Heather persisted. She turned her cobalt eyes to his.

"Uh, yeah, it's Rafe DuForet." He focused on her face and frowned. "Are you paying attention to anything I'm telling you?"

"So, Rafe," she said, tasting his name on her lips. "Basically, you are telling me that I'm turning into a werewolf? Like you?" Heather was smiling as she downed the hunk of eye-roast she'd been holding. "That's silly, there's no such thing."

"The reason you are craving and eating raw red meat-" he began as he handed her the last hunk of what used to be a ten-pound chunk of beef, "-is because your body is preparing for its first change. You need to eat because the change takes a lot out of you. If you don't eat enough ahead of time, you'll eat the first piece of meat you see. Even if it's walking around with a school book-bag over its shoulder, or sitting in your living room changing channels."

"And you're saying that I'm a werewolf because you...because we f.u.c.ked?"

"When I, ah, took you-" He was trying to avoid the word f.u.c.k; he could see a dangerous gleam of gold building in her eyes. "-our auras, souls, energies, whatever, overlapped and it triggered your nature. You were what we call dormant, kinda like a recessive gene. I was so close to changing right then and there that my, uh, power shoved you out of dormancy, and now you're headed for your first change."

Heather could feel an uncontrollable anger starting to boil up. What was weird was that she could also feel a warm pool of heat dampening her panties. She couldn't seem to make up her mind if she wanted to hit him or kiss him.

The scent of her growing excitement was rolling over him in waves. He shifted in his seat, but he just couldn't get comfortable. "I'm guessing that one of your parents or grandparents was a were. Did one of your relatives take off one day and disappear?"

Heather's eyes went wide and her cheeks paled. He winced.s.h.i.t, looks like I hit the nail on the head.

"Uh, yeah." She turned to look out the Jeep's windshield. "My Dad drove off on his bike, an Indian motorcycle like yours, when I was little."

"It was probably him."

"He used to have a leather bomber jacket with a big wolf painted on the back." Her voice cracked and she sniffed. "He used to take me for rides on his bike."

"Hey, hey, Princess," he whispered softly, then wiped a tear from her cheek. "I'm there too, okay? Only it was my Mom who took off on me." He squeezed her hand in comfort and she smiled tremulously, squeezing him back.

"So I'm gonna change into a werewolf at the next full moon?" Heather's eyes were wide. She swallowed the last of the beef and watched as Rafe tossed the plastic out the window of the parked jeep.

"No, in the next day or so." Glancing at the sky, Rafe saw the first flakes of snow starting to whisper out of the glowing clouds. "The full moon is more than a week away, and something else entirely."

Heather frowned. "So we don't change with the full moon?"

"Well, yeah we do, but it's different." Rafe cringed.Oh, f.u.c.k, how the h.e.l.l do I explain the effects of the full moon to her?That little talk is not going to be pretty. "Anyway, once you've made your first change you'll be able to control it, pretty much. The stuff you've seen in the movies isn't true, not about silver and not about the change."

"So what am I supposed to do now?" Heather licked the last of the beef blood from her lips and leaned toward him as she stared at his lips. She had decided that she definitely wanted to kiss him. She wanted to touch all that dark hair, curl her fingers in it and hold him firmly to her mouth while she tasted him.

Rafe suddenly realized that the perfume of her female musk was growing decidedly stronger. Something was making her hot. He felt himself growing uncomfortably hard in reaction to her feminine perfume.

Breathing deeply, Heather realized that she could smell the aroma of a salty-sweet something that seemed familiar. Heather looked down and noticed the considerable bulge in Rafe's pants. The scent was coming from him. From his pants. A vivid sensual memory jolted her. His hot c.u.m pouring into her writhing body, as his rich scent perfumed the air around them. The pungent scent had been on her own skin for days after he had taken her in the upstairs room of the club.

Rick's brain turned to mush as she looked pointedly down at his painfully tight crotch. There was no hiding his interest or hers. Although the windows were wide open, her rich female scent seemed to fill the jeep to overflowing. His eyes focused on her mouth. Her tongue swept across the tender fullness of her lips. There was a definite lambent gold swamping out the blue in her eyes, matching the heat he knew was rising in his own gaze.

"Rafe?" she said softly.

"Yeah?" Turning in his seat, he breathed in deeply. The smell of beef blood and aroused female was overpowering. He leaned toward her with a creak of old leather from his coat; his mouth barely inches away from hers. From the corner of his eye, he could see that snow had started to fall from the sky in earnest, dusting the parked cars with silver, like Heather's hair.

"So, what do I do now?" she asked again.

"What do you do now?" he mumbled, swallowing hard and focusing on her tender lips. "Now you kiss me." With a lunge, he seized the back of her head and pulled her toward his mouth. Heather met him halfway, her hands closing powerfully on his forearms.

He angled his mouth over hers and her soft lips parted, letting him in. Their tongues met and stroked each other. He could taste the beef she'd been eating. His tongue explored her warmth, then brushed her teeth where sharp little incisors made themselves known. She was a h.e.l.l of a lot closer to her change than he'd thought.

s.h.i.t! s.h.i.t! s.h.i.t!Rafe broke the kiss, his vision barely in focus from his l.u.s.t. He wanted nothing more than to pull her onto his lap and pull her clothes off.

"Oh, no, you don't," Heather growled in frustration. With quick and determined motions, she shoved him back against his door, pulled the belt on his leather pants open, then undid his fly.