Free Scarlet Heat (Born to Darkness) by Evangeline Anderson Page A

way up yet. And I wanted
to coax you in and get that awful trap off your paw.”
    “That’s another thing,” he said, frowning at me.
“I warned you that my Wolf might be dangerous to you—might see you as the enemy
or prey. You shouldn’t have risked letting me in.”
    “I had to,”
I said simply. “I’m a vet—or I was going to be, anyway, before Celeste came
along and turned me even though I didn’t want to be turned. I can’t stand to
see an animal in pain. I had to help you.”
    He gave me a grim look. “You’re lucky I didn’t
take your face off.”
    I gave him an arch little smile. “You were too
busy eating bacon—three packs of it.”
    “Three packs?” He stared at me in disbelief.
“You let me eat three packs of bacon?
Fuck, woman—my cholesterol is going to be through the roof.”
    I shrugged. “It was the only way to keep you busy
while I treated your paw. Besides, you didn’t strike me as the kind of guy who
worried about things like cholesterol. If you did, why would you have three
packs of bacon in your fridge in the first place?”
    “There was a sale at Publix,” he grumbled. “That
precooked stuff—it keeps forever.”
    “It does as long as you don’t turn into a huge
hairy wolf and gobble it up all at once,” I said solemnly, trying not to laugh.
    Victor looked at me and I could see his defenses
crumbling. Suddenly, he gave a snort of amusement. I pressed my hand over my
mouth but couldn’t hold back a giggle, which made him snort again. Before I
knew it, we were both nearly crying with laughter.
    “I don’t…don’t know why it’s so funny,” I gasped
at last, wiping my eyes. “But if you don’t eat bacon when you’re a wolf, what do you eat?”
    “Game mostly,” he said, shrugging. “Sometimes I
leave something out for myself—you know, in case I didn’t catch anything. But I
would never leave out that much bacon—I got no fucking self control when I’m
the wolf. I don’t know when to stop.”
    I shook my head. “That is so weird. You leave out
food for yourself?”
    “Yeah, well,” he said defensively. “Some nights
are better hunting than others. And all that running around in the woods works
up an appetite.”
    “No, no—I don’t mean weird in a bad way,” I said
hastily. “I just meant…the way you talk about your, uh, wolf—it’s almost like
it—he—is your pet. A pet that lives inside you, I guess, and only comes out at
night during the full moon.”
    “He’s more than a pet—he’s the other side of me.
And he comes out a lot more than that,” Victor growled. “He…sometimes I get
stuck in that form. As the wolf. That’s why I told you not to expect me back
anytime soon.”
    “So that’s why
you were able to stay a wolf even after the sun came up,” I said thoughtfully.
“I wondered about that. Can you turn any time you want?”
    He nodded. “Could do it right now if I wanted to.
But then I couldn’t guarantee when I would change back again. Probably tomorrow
morning. The sun being up helps some .”
    “Is that normal, I mean, for a were?” I asked,
before I thought about it.
    Victor’s eyes went abruptly hard.
    “I have…” He cleared his throat. “I have a
condition. Called Moon Sickness. That’s what enables me to turn whenever I
want, even in the daylight hours, and keeps me in the wolf form for longer than
usual.”
    I sensed I had hit a raw nerve.
    “I’m sorry,” I said apologetically. “I didn’t
mean to say you weren’t normal—of course you are. I’m the one who’s messed up.”
    “What are you talking about?” he asked, frowning.
“You seem fine to me.”
    “Oh, no,” I said emphatically. “I’m a terrible vampire. That’s why Celeste
hated me so much. She said I was the most hopeless person she’d ever turned.”
    “Well, it doesn’t sound like you much wanted to
be turned in the first place,” he pointed out. “It’s hard to be good at
something you hate. But you don’t seem like