Free Harlequin Nocturne March 2016 Box Set by Megan Hart Page A

which she felt more of.
    She shoved him back onto the bed. Still kissing him, she pushed up his shirt, ran her hands up his sides. He jerked when she did, and that was when her fingers encountered the soft padding of gauze bandages.
    Head spinning, confused, Monica sat back. “Jordan? What...?”
    Oh God. Oh my God. She tried to stumble back, to get off him, but he’d again grabbed her tight. Panic flooded her.
    The smell of grass and dirt, the flash of red...the same as she’d seen in his eyes. She’d used her knife against the thing that had attacked her, and now here he was with wounds in the same place... She fought him, but he held her tight. His breath covered her face, and she closed her eyes instinctively, waiting for the press and sting of teeth, this time slashing her throat open instead of nibbling.
    â€œMonica, look at me.”
    â€œWhat the hell are you doing?” she cried. “What are you?”
    He let her go so fast she fell back, but they were still tangled together, so she had to fight her way free of him. Panting, dizzy, she backed up from the bed, trying to think about what she could use to defend herself against him, but all Jordan did was sit there.
    â€œWhat are you?” she asked again in a low, strangled voice.
    Jordan shook his head, shaggy dark hair falling over his eyes for a moment before he gave her a grim look. “Why don’t you tell me?”
    He’d seen the looks before. Disgust, fear. His parents had tried to shield him from most of it, but that hadn’t been much better. Isolated from friends and even family, Jordan’s high school years had been lonely and full of self-doubt. It had taken him years to learn how to keep the hungers at bay—for food, for sex, for violence. But he had, and damn it, he didn’t deserve to be treated like some kind of serial killer for something he couldn’t control.
    â€œI don’t know,” Monica said in answer to his question.
    He thought she meant to bolt, but for now she was staying still. Fists clenched. Every muscle tense. He could smell her anxiety, and it made his stomach hurt.
    â€œNo?” he asked, deliberately snide. “Here I thought that was your job.”
    Her eyes had been wide, but now they narrowed. “Are you the one...?”
    â€œNo!” Angry that she’d even think it for a second, Jordan got off the bed. It stung to see how she moved away from him, so wary. Her gaze flicked to the knife he’d laid on her dresser.
    He was on her before she got even two steps toward it. He could’ve hurt her if he’d tried, but he wasn’t trying. She didn’t struggle. She looked up at him instead.
    â€œYou attacked me,” she said.
    â€œI didn’t know it was you. It was a mistake.” The excuse sounded lame, but it was the truth. “I heard the peacocks screaming, the same as you. I thought I could find what was killing the animals. I thought I could...”
    â€œKill it? With your bare hands?” Beneath his fingers, Monica’s arms stiffened, and he let her go. She stepped back from him, but only a step.
    Jordan’s fingers curled, the tips pressing the faded scars on his palms. “I could’ve tried.”
    â€œThis is crazy. It’s crazy,” she repeated and continued almost as though she were talking to herself, “People don’t become things. It doesn’t happen. Lycanthropy is a mental disorder, sure, but it’s not...real. You can’t really be...”
    â€œI’m real,” Jordan said flatly and pushed past her toward the door, where he paused to look back at her. “I’ve got a fucked-up genetic disorder that makes it hard for me to control my impulses. It forces physical changes, and most of the time, I can stop them, but sometimes I can’t. Sometimes I don’t want to, like last night, when I was thinking I could finally get whatever’s killing the animals.