Under the Crescent Moon

Chapter 13

Tara’s POV

The wolf looks at me as if it is unsure whether I will stay or go. I don’t blame it, since I’m uncertain myself. I really want to spend time with Devon, but I’m still really scared.

I call to my dad, who comes back for only a moment to reassure me that everything is fine. Then he leaves me again. And I’m left with my choice. Do I conquer my fear in order to go spend the night with Devon and whatever else that might entail? Or go sleep on top of rocks, lonely, and call myself all sorts of stupid names for being too afraid, but safe. Or as safe as anyone ever is on this silly rock we call earth, as it spins at an alarming rate through the universe.

The wolf makes a hesitant step in my direction, and I back up a step. Then the wolf backs up a step. I stay where I am. After a few minutes he lowers his head like he’s sad. I feel a little bad, but this wolf is seriously huge and frightening!

Then it’s like he’s given up hope. He takes one more sad look at me, then starts to slowly walk away into the darkness.

“Wait!” I say, and take a couple steps towards him. “Don’t go!”

He looks at me, almost hopeful, but doesn’t come any nearer to me. I take another hesitant step, and If a wolf could look happy, he seems to be.

“You promise you’re not going to bite me?” I ask, and he looks almost as if he rolled his eyes at me. So I guess he understands me, even in his wolf form. “Because you still look really big and dangerous to me.”

He then lays down on the ground, watching me carefully, making me come to him. It took a few more minutes to talk myself into walking up to the wolf and touching him. His fur is surprisingly soft. His tail starts to thump the ground in happiness like a dog, and I laugh.

“So you want me to climb on your back?” I ask, still unsure of the plan. He nods as if he understands me. “Alright then, don’t go fast! And you promise not to bite me!”

He rolls his eyes again as if to say “of course!”, and I climb on. He’s not nearly as big as a horse, but he seems to have no trouble at all carrying me, as I throw my arms around his neck so I don’t fall off. He runs gingerly through the dark forest, but at a surprisingly fast clip. Less than half an hour goes by, and we are standing together just outside his home.

He patiently waits for me to get off his back and get my bearings before he shifts back into Devon. A very naked Devon, with the body of a renaissance statue. Who instantly starts kissing me, and telling me how proud he was of me. Then he’s saying how cute I am when I blush, making me turn even redder!

“So, my little soul mate! What do you want to do with me until morning?” Devon says, sounding very sexy. I can feel the hardness of his erection pressed up against me. A couple of ideas come to mind, but while I had managed to conquer my fear of Devon’s wolf, I wasn’t sure that I was ready to go all the way with a man. Or a wolf man. And I wasn’t on any sort of birth control, so that was going to have to be a big fat no for now, anyway. Which I remind him about.

“Oh, I think we can find plenty of fun things to do that don’t all require birth control.” Devon says in such a way that I was more than eager to find out what he meant.

“Like what?”

“Come with me and find out!” He says, taking my hand and leading me inside the huge building. We head straight for a huge industrial style kitchen, where Devon opens up a huge freezer and takes out a tub of ice cream, then he pulls some whipped cream and toppings out of the refrigerator, and then grabs a couple bowls and spoons out of their various locations.

“Shifting takes a lot of energy,” he explains. “And I’ll bet you wouldn’t mind a bowl of ice cream. Just to be companionable.”

“Of course!” I say, as if that were the only reason I would eat it. Truth was, I barely ate half of my dinner. I was actually quite hungry. He grabs a banana from a fruit bowl, and adds slices of that to the bowls of ice cream as well, claiming that the potassium and magnesium in the bananas are good for the muscles.

We sit on stools at the work table to eat our treat, and now that most of his “manliness” is out of sight, I’m feeling slightly more at ease. Although Devon walks around the place naked as if it’s no big deal, and I honestly enjoy the view to a point, it just feels weird. I mean, what if someone sees us? Won’t they think it’s weird if They see us walking around in the nude? And which is worse, just one of us being nude, or both of us in the buff? I suppose werewolves might have some different code of conduct than humans do. I’ll have to ask dad soon about that, since it seems he’d have some knowledge on the subject.

After the bowls of ice cream are empty, Devon tosses all the dirty dishes into the sink, and leads me once more to the top floor, stopping just outside the alpha suite.

“Will you be comfortable sharing the alpha suite with my family for the night? Or should we go back to my place, which doesn’t have any furniture?” He asks me.

“I’ve been camping the last 5 nights.” I remind him. “At least we’d be sleeping on soft carpet rather than rocks and twigs!”

“Well, come in anyway and help me grab some bedding.” He suggests, and I follow him in, to find his sister Gabby and her friend Savannah sitting in the living room, which is an exact mirror image of the apartment I’d been in earlier in the day.

“I thought you’d be at that party with Summer and Carla.” Devon says, after they both greet him. Savannah takes a long appreciative look at Devon, and I have a sudden urge to scratch her eyes clean out of the sockets!

“Charlie and Lana had promised lots of alcohol for their party, but their folks got wind of it and wouldn’t allow it.” Gabby explains.

“It was boring,” Savannah adds, as she gets off the couch and comes close enough that she starts touching Devon’s chest appreciatively, while Devon attempts to evade her unsuccessfully. “I thought I’d come up here and find something else fun to do.”

I definitely don’t like the emphasis Savannah put on the word “do”. And apparently I start growling in anger, because she looks over at me with a smirk.

“What’s the matter, little human? Don’t have any claws?” Savannah practically crows in delight. “Devon needs a real Luna, not some pathetic human chick with no claws, and no boobs!”

And that is the moment when I attacked. Savannah is correct, I don’t have sharp claws or fangs like she does, but I’ve been kickboxing for years, and she never saw it coming. I gave her everything I had. Then Troy suddenly burst into the room and was grabbing Savannah and pulling her out of the apartment, while Devon picked me up while I wanted nothing more than to continue punishing that slutty b***h. He dragged me down the hall to his bedroom, where I continued to struggle against him for another minute or so. Devon was laughing his ass off, and I soon joined him in his mirth.

“Oh my goddess,” he said once he finally caught his breath. “You are so AMAZING! Serves Savannah right to be put in her place by her future Luna! I’m positive she’s going to be sporting a couple bruises in the morning.”

We began kissing, which by now we had begun to become relative experts at compared to our first kiss just yesterday afternoon. It felt as if that disappointing disaster of a kiss had happened a long time ago now.

The next thing I know, Devon is removing my clothes and laying me down on his bed, which was good because I had been feeling like my knees would give out on me. He seemed delighted to find I wasn’t wearing a bra or panties, which I had opted not to wear after changing out of my damp swimsuit, since I figured I was just heading to the tent, to sleep. I had no notion of these nocturnal wanderings.

I begin to feel a bit shy and try to cover myself, but Devon is telling me that I’m beautiful.

“I intend to count every one of the freckles on your body some day!” He claims, “but first I have to discover where they are all hidden!”

And then he begins to worship my untouched body, in ways I had only dreamt about.