Free Loving Lucius (Werescape) by Skhye Moncrief

got my palms beneath my shoulders and tried to push up from the dry dust.
     
    Lucius knelt, with his glowing Wolf gaze locked upon me.
     
    A stare that weighed me down more than gravity.
     
    "What are you hiding, Elise?"
     
    Something completely disconcerting twisted in my gut under his heightened censure. What can I say? If I told him what I am, would it matter? The knowledge does nothing but plague me. It brought three enormous aliens to Sherry's bedside too. Nothing good came from that. Only fear. I have loads of fear already. Confessing to a person who hates me will only cause more problems. "Nothing I know can change anything," I softly replied, staring down at the hem of his bloused camouflage pants.
     
    Well, except my chance at a normal life. And that's what I want. Just as normal a life a person could grasp AEI. One with touching. Yes. And a comforting hand to hold. To touch. What's wrong with me having those things?
     
    He grated his teeth for a second.
     
    I could hear the sound of teeth grinding against teeth.
     
    "Then tell me about this nothing you know because something made your heart thrash out a warning before you fell flat on your face."
     
    "Gods-damn-it, Tacitus," Marcus hissed, "make him leave her alone."
     
    "Let it go, Marcus," Sherry's big Shifter calmly warned. "She's acting strangely. He has every right to question her."
     
    But why question me? What good will it do? I can't tell them the truth--a truth that only implicates my young sister in the process. Even upon threat of death. Violet will suffer. I can't be the cause of her pain. I focused on the splotched greens of the fabric stretched over his bent knee and got my own knees beneath me.
     
    His glare bore through me as I rose to my feet, him rising simultaneously.
     
    I tried to turn away. Stepping sideways to find someplace to hide from the heat of his stare. But his wide camouflaged impenetrable mass kept cutting me off. Why? What had I done other than breathe?
     
    "Start talking, Elise," he warned, his jaw squared with determination.
     
    "I haven't done anything wrong." I sucked in a breath and met his glare. "Why are you doing this? I'm the one being forced from my home, from everything I know, into the wilderness."
     
    He only blinked.
     
    Unaffected.
     
    "Please, Lucius," Violet begged. "Elise wouldn't hurt anyone."
     
    ****
     
    Protect , Wolf snarled and clawed at my ribcage.
     
    Oddly, as if the pain would still my tongue. Make me grab Elise's humbled form and pet her until she calmed. Like I could concentrate on anything other than Wolf's demands!
     
    The world slipped away while I towered over her cornered and defensive-yet-seductive curves.
     
    And Violet's mind-numbing words echoed in my mind.
     
    Shit. Deep down inside, down in the darkest part of me, something screamed I'd made a fatal mistake. That there's no going back and undoing the damage I'd done. That I had to apologize to Elise for terrifying her.
     
    Hell. How when something is still wrong here? Terribly wrong. And if I betray anyone, my family or my friends, I betray humanity. Because the Gods-damned aliens want us all dead. This is more than aliens wanting Shifter mated pairs. Something is wrong here.
     
    But a little voice whispered somewhere so far back inside my head. Something so brutally true. Something so obvious…She is what they're after.
     
    Protect mine , Wolf roared.
     
    Elise flinched at the sound.
     
    "It's alright, Lucius," Violet called.
     
    What else could the girl say to change things? I slid my gaze to the little one who stood clutching her hands together like pious Christians I'd seen in old artwork from Bibles.
     
    Not a good sign when we were all better off the more distance we kept between ourselves and Prophets or Believers.
     
    She blinked those dark gray eyes at me. "Healers don't hurt people either."
     
    Mouthy Red clasped a palm over her own mouth a step away from Violet's innocent expression.
     
    Staring