Chapter 20: Chapter 20

Just talk to him, she ordered herself. If it's Adrian, he can hear you. "Adrian …" What were you supposed to say when the guy you were with turned into a giant freaking wolf. "Can you be normal again, please?" It was worth a shot.

The wolf whined a little and let out a huff. He laid down and the air shimmered once more, fur rippling like his skin had just moments ago. The wolf disappeared and in his place lay Adrian, panting, sweating, but fully clothed, and fully human. He stood and met her eyes.

"So," Andrea said. "You're a werewolf."

Andrea nodded. "And so are you."

Andrea flipped. Adrian eased himself into a chair as she sputtered across from him. Changing like that exhausted him, and he would love nothing more than to curl up in his bed for the next week. But he owed it to her to let her know what had happened. The full moon would be in less than a week and he needed to know she would be safe.

"You're crazy," she was saying. "That's not possible. How on Earth would it even be? I've never turned into a wolf in my life."

Adrian reached across the table and grabbed her hand. He could feel her pulse stutter and slow. Her breathing calmed and she paused, looking at him. "It's my fault," he admitted, but he didn't let go of her hand. Even with the confession, she didn't pull away.

She covered his hand with her own, tracing circles around one of his knuckles. "How? I'm not saying I believe you, but how?"

Adrian had no idea how to play this. He had never heard of a person being turned like this, and usually, anyone who was turned ended up finding a pack after their first full moon.

So he decided to simply tell the truth. "From when I bit you. It was completely on accident," he added the last quickly. "I think there's something about you." He couldn't tell her about the mating urge.

That would be too much. "You felt something too, right?

Her hand convulsed around his. "A bit like being hit by a freight train? Is that part of this werewolf thing?"

She seemed to take it better than he could have expected. Though part of that had to be the contact. Whatever this thing was between them, he would thank it for now. "You were sick the

last couple of days." It wasn't a question, but she nodded.

"It's like an infection, it passes through a bite, though usually when we're in our wolf forms. And then the person who was bitten gets a

fever, they fall into a coma-like sleep, and a day or so later awake as nothing happened."

"So the flu turned me into a werewolf?" Sarcasm dripped.

"When someone's attacked, they don't usually know anything went wrong. Or that they're no longer uncut--no longer a normal human. Until the full moon."

"Let me guess," she said, "Then they go furry and eat the family dog?"

But Adrian didn't smile. The full moon defined everything of a werewolf's existence. Life revolved around it if only to mitigate the damage. "It's the only night we can't change."

Andrea didn't say anything so he kept talking. "The short version is: a long time ago the first werewolves were cursed to act like beasts under the full moon. They only figured out that they could turn into actual beasts some time later. Then they figured out they could pass the curse on to others. And so now, thousands of years later, you have people like me…And you."

"Like beasts?"

"Fighting, fucking, the fun stuff. It's like being drunk almost."

Though it had been so long since Adrian had been drunk he wasn't sure of the comparison. But it seemed to be the way anyone else would explain it. "And it's going to happen to me?" Adrian let go of his hand and he could feel her pulse speed up once more. "I have a new life here. I can't be a freaking werewolf. I hate wolves, I'm not

one!" She paced along her side of the table, tracing a hand along the back of each chair.

"Your life doesn't have to change," he said. "Well, not that much." She seemed to start believing she was a werewolf, so he pressed forward. "You'll need to protect yourself on the night of the full moon, assimilate yourself to the pack…"

"…And bow before some dude who has fashioned himself an alpha due to a poor understanding of how wolf society functions?" She snapped, eyes flashing. Adrian shrugged, trying to hide his smile.

"There is a small tribute paid to the alpha, yes. But

few people bow." Expression fled her face and she narrowed her eyes at him. "It's you. Of course, it is." She pulled her chair back from the table and sat back down, holding her head in her hands.

"What the hell have I gotten myself into."

Someone knocked at the door and Adrian called for them to come in when Andrea's head snapped up. "It's Murray," he said and grabbed her license from his pocket, handing it over to her.

"He'll take you back to your car." Some expression he couldn't read spread across Andrea's face but drifted away before he could begin to process it. "We'll keep you safe, show you how to be what you are. It doesn't suck, I promise."

Murray stood in the kitchen, halfway between them at the other end of the table. Andrea looked at him, "You were there that night, you helped me to my car."

Something ugly flared inside Adrian when she took a step toward the other man. But he held himself back. If he tried to be near her now that heat could flare up between them once more, and she might surrender to it. But she would hate him afterward, and the thought of that made him snarl.

"Murray a member of the pack," he simply said.

Murray led her out without further trouble, leaving Adrian alone in the house once more. He didn't know what to do with himself, or what to do next.