he arrived. For all he knew, he had called them in the lonely hours when the moon hung full in the sky. They were his companions, the only ones who didn't judge him. He'd awoken many times among them. Rising naked in the cold light of dawn in his glaring human form. But they accepted him, either way, man or beast, which was more than his own kind would do.
They would kill him if they knew. He would be talked about, publicized, and crucified. His parents would suffer even more than they already had. Rick wouldn't allow that to happen. They'd lost two sons to that hunting expedition. At least the two they knew and loved.
Once, he wouldn't have given the strange woman he'd seen in town a second thought; now the beast within him said he must. He would wait awhile, see if she disappeared as mysteriously as she had appeared; if she didn't, he'd be forced to do something about her.
Part 3 Chapter Six
Stephanie stared up at the moon. Although it was no longer full, she thought it had never shone more brightly, or been more mesmerizing. In the distance, a mournful howl floated to her on the wind. The sound tugged at her heart?made loneliness bubble up inside her.
She hadn't seen Rick in two days, but he'd crept into her thoughts often. Mostly during the darkest hours of night. The time when she felt lost. Cut off from the world. The time when she longed for companionship, for the feel of strong arms wrapped around her?the touch of flesh against flesh, and the sound of another heart pounding in unison with her own.
Her attraction to the man was purely physical. At least she had believed so in the beginning. But in the past two days, the attraction had transformed itself into something else. Something beyond her comprehension. When she thought of him, desire, the hot pulsating kind, rose up inside her.
He came to her in dreams, his eyes aglow with passion. She tossed and turned in her sleeping bag, only to wake clutching air and moaning his name. In those moments of midnight madness, Stephanie fought the urge to go to him. She wanted to creep into the night, into his house, and into his bed.
A twig snapped and she glanced toward the sound, hoping that thinking of the man had conjured him before her. But it wasn't Rick who stood staring at her from the bushes, the dying embers of the campfire casting his face in an eerie glow. It was the woman she'd seen in town.
"You must kill him," she croaked. "Take his life to save your own."
Stephanie jumped up, more frightened by the woman's instructions than by her hideous appearance. "What do you want?" she whispered. "Who are you?"
"A seer," she answered, moving from the bushes. "A saver of souls. You are in danger. I see what you cannot see. What he cannot hide behind a handsome face." The hag pointed at her again. "You must send him to hell where he belongs!"
The woman was obviously crazy, and she had the kind of face that nightmares were made of. Stephanie wouldn't hang around to find out if the woman was dangerous. She took off into the woods.
"Do not run to him! He is not what you think he is! Come back and listen to me!" the woman shouted after her, but Stephanie wasn't about to take instructions from a crazy person.
She raced into the night, running faster than she'd ever been able to run, her heart pounding in her chest. She leaped over fallen logs, ducked beneath low branches, and ran smack into a tree. Or she thought it was a tree until a pair of arms closed around her. A scream rose in her throat.
"Stephanie? What are you doing?"
Her scream turned into a relieved sob. "Rick. I was frightened. That old woman, she came to my campsite."
"The one from town?"
She nodded, pressing closer to him. The steady beat of his heart beneath her ear comforted her, and the solid strength of his arms made her feel safe.
"What did she want?" Rick asked.
Shivering from the aftereffects of her scare, she answered, "I'm not sure. She didn't make any sense. She said I have to kill someone to save myself. She said she could see beneath his face or something. It was horrible."
His arms tightened around her. His heartbeat increased a measure. "Whom did she say you have to kill? Whose face can she see