Unleash The Moon (The Preternaturals Book 6) (20 page)

Noah would play in the sun during the day with his
friends, but he’d always be right there next to her after
sunset.

He snorted in reply. Soon after, the power of the
sun claimed the last of her energy for the day.

When Sydney woke, Noah was still curled around her
snoring and twitching, deep in a dream. He’d no doubt become as
nocturnal as she was from the way they’d scheduled his sleep and
active times during his captivity.

She stayed in the dark closet, afraid the sun might
still be up. After several minutes, she poked Noah in the side. He
growled, nipped her lightly, then laid back down.

Sydney jabbed him harder. “Noah, wake up. I need you
to check and see if the sun is down yet.” Like she wanted to stay
in this awful closet a minute longer than was necessary.

He grew more alert and went to check things out. A
few minutes later, a naked Noah stood with the closet door
open.

“
It’s safe.
Sun’s down.”

Well, she could see that now with the door open.

He helped her up. She hated this closet. It had a
weird smell she couldn’t decipher and didn’t want to think too much
about. She worried some dead thing was buried beneath piles of
moth-eaten clothing in the corner.

It had been deserted for ages, and she hated the
idea of mice and other assorted creatures crawling over her as she
slept. Only one more night until the moon would begin to wane, then
hopefully she’d be sleeping for the rest of her days in a nice
normal bed.

Sydney licked her lips at the sight of him. “When
will the pack be here?”

“
They’re here
already. They’re on the other end of the house.”

It was wise that they’d stayed so far from her and
Noah. She couldn’t imagine he’d be very sane and rational if he
scented or sensed someone near his mate when she was so
vulnerable.

“
Can they hear
us?”

“
Probably.”

“
Oh.” There went
that idea.

But Noah didn’t seem as upset by the potential for
eavesdropping as she did. “They’ll get over it,” he said.

“
But… I don’t
think…”

His eyes flashed gold. “You’ll get over it, too.
Besides, you need to feed.”

Noah had removed most of her clothing when she put a
hand over his. “I can’t with them in here.”

Annoyance flitted over his features, and he
disappeared down the hallway. Sydney didn’t care. Let him pout if
that was how he was going to be about it. He might be just fine
screwing with a bunch of people within hearing range, but she
wasn’t. She wasn’t even sure if her aversion was normal for a
vampire. It definitely wasn’t for a wolf.

He returned several minutes later. “They’re gone. I
told them to go outside and hunt without me. They’ll be too
pre-occupied running to care what we’re doing in here.”

She was still irritated, but when he pulled her
against him and his warm body pressed against hers, her irritation
started to melt. As he trailed kisses down the side of her throat
and over her breasts, it melted a bit more. And when he pushed her
back on that awful old bed whose history she didn’t even want to
guess about, she didn’t care anymore.

Noah nudged her legs apart, and she gasped when he
drove into her. He stilled, cradling her in his arms. “Am I hurting
you?”

“
No, I’m okay.
You’re just so warm, it’s always a shock.”

“
Eh, a few
hundred years, you’ll be fine,” he joked.

Sydney giggled. When he got within range of her
fangs, he nuzzled the mark he’d left on her throat. She turned her
head and bit over the claim she’d left on him. A growl erupted from
his throat.

She smiled against his skin. This time when she fed,
she tasted something new. Contentment. Happiness. Love. When he
reached orgasm, the taste of his blood grew richer, and it
triggered her own release.

Afterward, they laid tangled together, neither eager
to go anywhere.

“
The old train
station was a lot nicer,” Noah commented.

“
Yeah, well you
were the one who just
had
to do it now.”

Noah rolled his eyes, and got up. “You would have
fed and jumped me like a crazy animal. You know you would
have.”

Sydney took in the view as he turned away and
stretched. That perfect olive skin, muscles rippling as he moved.
Yeah, she would have.

The only thing that marred his perfection was that
stupid black number tattooed into his upper arm.

“
I’m so angry
those monsters put a number on you, like you were some thing they
were tagging and keeping in a box.”

“
I
was
some thing
they were tagging and keeping in a box,” he said, staring out the
window. The moon suddenly moved out from behind the clouds and Noah
leapt out of the way of the light.

“
Are you okay?”
she asked.

“
Yeah. I’m just
not sure if I’ll shift when the moon hits me if I haven’t eaten
first. It’s still a full moon. I have less control right
now.”

“
No. I mean…
from everything.”

He glanced down at the number on his arm. “Sydney,
if you’re talking about this, I’d planned to cover it with another
tattoo when I got out. Most pack leaders have one, anyway.”

Sydney hadn’t realized at the time that Shira’s
snake tattoo held any significance beyond her just wanting to look
like a bad ass. But none of the other wolves had any tattoos that
she’d noticed.

“
Only an alpha
can have tattoos on their arms. It’s how visiting wolves know
immediately who’s in charge. It’s been a tradition in wolf packs
for hundreds of years.”

“
If you’d always
planned to get a tattoo to cover the number, does that mean you
always planned to lead a pack?”

Noah shrugged. “I figured I could get away with it
in my dad’s pack. It’s not like he’d kill me for it, and he’d
understand why I did it. And if I couldn’t handle living with them
without being in charge, I thought I could just be a lone wolf. I
assumed that might happen, anyway. The tattoo thing is a pack law
in most packs. If you’re not in a pack, it’s not an issue. In the
end it means a wolf that becomes an alpha either has to stay an
alpha, die in a challenge fight, or become a lone wolf. Once you
take on that mantle of leadership, you can’t ever follow inside
another pack again. It’s a big responsibility.”

A rock hit the window. “Get dressed and meet me
outside,” Noah said. He’d shifted to alpha mode. She didn’t much
care for him barking orders at her, but he was under too much
pressure to start a petty fight right now.

And yet… “So you can run around like that but I
can’t?” Sydney asked.

“
Or be naked. I
don’t care. I assumed that would be an issue for
you.”

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.”

Chapter Eleven

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.