Free Blind Wolf by Aubrey Rose Page A

pumping through his system. He was ready to fight, ready to mate. The smell of blood filled his nostrils, and the sun was hot, too hot. He was dizzy, faint. He had to shift back now, or else—
    The snaps of his body shifting back to human form were familiar, but as he wiped the blood out of his eyes he could hear someone crying. He was naked, his pants on the ground where he had left them when he shifted, and he was covered in blood. The wolf on the ground breathed shallowly, whimpering.
    "Julia—"
    He held out his hands toward here and heard her choke back sobs. Her footsteps retreated from him slowly, her crying muffled by her hands.
    "Julia, please don't go—"
    " What just happened? " Her voice snapped shut on the words, and he felt a wave of terror and confusion sweep through the air toward him. Her terror. He wanted to put his arms around her and comfort her, but no. How could he assuage her fears when the thing she was afraid of was him ? Julia was scared of him; he was a monster.
    The blood was sticky on his hands, and though he heard the other wolf still breathing, the thought of another's blood on him made him shudder.
    "He'll be okay. I need to wash this off," he said, stumbling toward the water. Yes, water. He would be able to drink, to cool off. He would be able to forget. The steps toward the lake's edge took forever, and Julia followed him at a distance, the fear still coming off of her in intense bursts of emotion. He could almost see the fight now through her thoughts, the vision of two wolves floating through his mind. Two wolves snarling, biting, then blood, blood—
    He dropped onto his knees into ankle-deep water at the lake's edge and splashed his face. When the blood finally stopped overpowering his sense of smell, he turned back to Julia.
    "What the hell was that ?" she asked.
     
     

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
    Julia
    Julia kept an eye on the wounded wolf, but it soon became apparent that the animal was too wounded to walk anywhere, let alone attack again. She thought it would die for certain.
    Keeping her attention half on the wolf, she followed Damien to the edge of the water and watched as he washed himself clean. The water around him turned pink with blood but that soon disappeared. Still he washed, splashing his hair with water, until there was no trace left. Questions thrashed through Julia's mind and she could not help but blurt out the first thing that came into her head when Damien turned to her, still naked.
    ""What the hell was that ?"
    "The fight?" Damien asked. She noticed now that his leg was bleeding, but he did not seem to care.
    "Did I—was that real? Did I hallucinate that?" She half-hoped that she was crazy instead of...whatever that was.
    "It was real," Damien said. "Can I have my swimsuit?"
    Julia breathed steadily, walking back to where the suit had dropped from his body. She made sure to circle widely around the injured wolf, just in case. Damien waited patiently and held his hand out to take the swimsuit from her. She dropped it into his hand without letting their fingers touch. He pulled on the suit, unembarrassed, but when he turned to her, she saw the light flashing from his golden eyes.
    "Who are you?" she asked. She'd been scared before, but now that Damien was staring directly at her, blindly, she was completely unnerved. " What are you?
    "I told you, I have a genetic condition. I can shift...change into my other form," he said.
    "Into a wolf."
    "Yes."
    "You're a werewolf." Julia couldn't believe this.
    "Sort of," Damien said. "Yes. Not like in the stories."
    "What's that supposed to mean?"
    "I don't, like, eat humans. I don't shift when there's a full moon. Nothing like that."
    "I'm going insane," Julia said. She sat down on the sandy shore of the lake, her head in her hands. Either she was crazy or Damien was. And she didn't want to think about either option seriously.
    "You're not insane. I'm sorry." He walked over and sat next to her in the sand. Her eyes tracked his every