He assumed right. Noah disappeared again down the hallway, and Sydney started for her clothes. But then she stopped. He thought she was some prissy little vampire princess who couldn’t handle public nudity. He was one hundred percent right about that, but once the stubbornness took hold, the logic went away, and she’d be damned if she’d prove him right.
She let out a growl and said, “Screw it.”
11
Noah was surprised when he didn’t immediately shift under the full moon. It was the first opportunity he’d had to test how he reacted to a regular full moon on an empty stomach. The blood moon had only been for the first night. Tonight it was a regular yellowish-white light hanging in the sky.
With Sydney having fed and weakening him, he’d been sure he would change to his wolf form. But he hadn’t. The moon urged him to, tempting and teasing him with the warmth that felt like sunlight. The wind whispered to him to run and hunt. He smelled and heard rabbits scurrying away in the fields.
Milo waited for him outside the bedroom window.
“Hey, I’m sorry if I interrupted something in there,” he said, now sheepish about the rock throwing.
“You didn’t. I would have ignored you.”
The beta chuckled uncomfortably. “I just wanted to let you know we found a lake to bathe in if you want to get Sydney—”
“Let me stop you there. There is no way Sydney will be up for public bathing.”
“Somebody talking about me?”
Noah spun to find his mate without a stitch of clothing, an impish grin on her face.
“Hey Sydney, there’s a lake about a mile south of here if you want to clean up,” Milo said.
“Oh yes, that sounds wonderful.”
He arched a brow at Noah as Sydney blurred in the direction he pointed. “I think you underestimate her,” he said.
“I had to make everybody leave so we could…” Noah waved his hands around, not sure how to phrase it. He didn’t want to be crass about his mate, but he also didn’t want to sound like some romantic sap, either.
Milo clapped Noah on the back. “She’s all right. We like her. I didn’t think the pack would go along with a vampire as part of an alpha pair, but I’ve been wrong before. I also let it slip that she was the princess. I think that helped. You coming to the lake?”
“I’m going to hunt something first.”
The beta nodded, then shifted and ran in the direction Sydney had blurred.
It was a testament to how strong Noah’s instincts were about these wolves that he wasn’t even slightly worried about Sydney being alone with them. He knew they wouldn’t attack her. He also knew she could outrun them now, and given how strong she’d gotten with his blood, he had no doubt she could hold her own. Wolves were agile, but they didn’t come close to the way a vampire could blur so fast they became a solid band of energy, barely detectable as a unique person-shape.
Noah breathed in the night air and closed his eyes. He focused on the night sounds, the smell of the rabbits nearby, and allowed the shift to come over him. He felt his soul pulled out of his body. It hovered there a moment, then jumped back into the wolf form.
He chased rabbits in the field, unsure if he chased them for dinner or fun. Their tiny heartbeats were so quick as they ran and hopped to escape claws and sharp teeth. Finally, he stopped toying with them and killed and ate several in succession.
When he felt satisfied, he sprinted the mile down to the lake. Sydney splashed in the water, laughing and shrieking while wolves swam near her. Even the beta had kept his wolf form, and Noah thought he knew why. In the wolf form, she wouldn’t be a temptation. They wouldn’t want to do things that Noah would rip them apart for. In the wolf form, only other werewolves inspired their desire. It was the same even with Noah. Although she was his mate, when he was the wolf, his mind went to a different zone. It was all hunting and playing and guarding. In those moments he was her protector and friend, not her lover.
It was sometimes hard to maintain a semblance of human-like thoughts while he was the wolf. Right now, the thing that guaranteed Sydney’s safety from the other wolves was Noah’s mark on her throat. It left a scent the wolves could pick up. It marked her as pack. Friend. Non-food.
He shifted to his human form and joined her in the water. She turned shy when he reached her, but he just kissed his mark on her throat.
“You okay out here?”
“I’m fine. I can’t believe I’m in a lake with a pack of wolves and not getting eaten up.”
Milo shifted back to his human form. “I’m going to head back and rest.”
“Sure,” Noah said, “You had a long day.” He turned to Sydney. “Do you want to go back?”
“Gross, no. That farmhouse is terrible. I don’t want to step foot inside it until I absolutely have to.”
He laughed.
After a while, the pack got out of the lake and made their way back to the farmhouse. Sydney blurred past them. She was already dressed and sitting on the front porch when they got back. Little show off. Most of the wolves seemed to feel the same as she did about the farmhouse, as they spent the rest of the night under the full moon, too.
Noah laid with Sydney in the middle of a field, staring up at the stars. He tried not to let it show how much this affected him. It wasn’t that he was never outside when he’d been held captive, but he’d been outside in a yard far too small for a wolf’s tastes, with giant high-security fences around the perimeter. Here they had miles and miles of openness and freedom.
“I could live here,” Noah said.
She punched him in the arm. “You could live anywhere. And also, oh hell no.”
He laughed. “I don’t mean the house. I mean the land.”
“You could live at the train station. You could live here. You can probably live in Cary Town, too. You seem crazy versatile like that.”
“It’s true, it doesn’t take much to make me happy. Just you and a place to run.”
He nodded off curled beside her and didn’t wake until the sun was in the sky. At first, he panicked, but then he felt their bond. Of course she hadn’t combusted in the sun. The others never would have allowed it, even with Noah passed out.
He found her in the closet she’d slept in the day before. Noah shifted again and curled back up with her to wait for the sun to go down.
Noah woke when Sydney did.
“I think the sun’s up. I can kind of feel it,” she said.
Noah shifted and stretched. “I’ll check.” He slipped out of the closet. The sun blazed in the sky.
He popped his head back in. “I can’t believe you can be awake now. The sun has about an hour yet before it’s safe.”
She grumbled. “I want to get on the road and go home. It’s so stupid that I’m waking up when I can’t go anywhere.”
“Once we settle some place safer, it’ll be different. We’ll make it sun-proof so when you wake you don’t have to hide.”
“Have you thought about what kind of place we might live in?” she asked, from the shadows.
“I thought I’d consult you on that. You know more about the area now than I do.”