Free Shadow of the Wolf by Anastacia Kelley Page A

with anyone.  Only his dad had known what he was going to go through.  It might do him a world of good to share it with Serenitee.
         “This curse, the werewolf curse, has touched every man in my family.  But it has affected the women of their lives te rribly, also.  Each Van Holden man had tried some new treatment to help them live out some semblance of a normal life.  They, too, wanted a wife, children and a home to call their own.  I’m sure it would’ve been better if they had had girls but it doesn’t work that way.  My ancestors did have girls but they also had a lot of boys that would keep the Van Holden name alive.  They were to pass down the family name. 
         “Unfortunately, they also passed down the werewolf curse.  I could only go as far back in my family tree as I could.  The last man with the curse that I know of was Joseph Van Holden, the man who actually founded Holden, Alabama.  I know there are others.  I just haven’t found them yet.
         “ When I was born, everything seemed normal to me.  What did I know of family curses?  I noticed a change in my body when puberty hit.  I was quiet about it until my dad came to me one day and explained what was going on.  It was nothing like the puberty you see in normal boys.  Everything I experienced, from sexual urges to hair, was magnified.  My dad taught me how to calm them enough to where I could control them.  When that stopped being effective, I had to start using small amounts of tincture.  I didn’t need much but as I got older, I had to increase the dosage.  The last thing my dad helped me with was how to grow Monkshood and use them for injections.  He died not long after in a painful death.”
         Serenitee swallowed as hot tears fell.
         Trevor put his arm around her shoulder, trying his best to comfort her.  “Death isn’t what puts fear in my heart.”
         “What do you fear most?”
         “I’m scared that one day, animals won’t satisfy my hunger.  It scares the hell out of me that the wolf will move on to humans.  That will be the day I would beg for death.”  H stood up and began to pace.
         Serenitee got up as well.  “Please don’t say that.”
         “I have to!  This curse is hard to live with but when I began to feel close to someone, it feels like it gets worse”
         “How?”
         “Look at me!”  He grabbed her arms.  “I can’t control myself when I turn.  I kill innocent animals just to devour them.   I don’t want to taste your blood, Serenitee.”
         “You said you’ve n ever attacked or killed humans.” She reminded him.
         “I haven’t.  But I’ve never felt for any woman the way I feel for you.  You bring out powerful lust in me and that’s dangerous…….for you.  The fact that we’ve made love a number of times only heightens those feelings in me.  I’m just scared for you, Serenitee.  Mixing and mingling that lust with that animal hunger are hard to separate.  I don’t want you to die at my hands.”
         “There has got to be a cure, Trevor.” 
         He caught that hope flickering in her eyes and wished he could feel the same way.  “ If Joseph, and all the way down to my dad, couldn’t find out how to cure the beast, then what makes you think I can?”
         “Please, let me help you, Trevor.”
         “No one can help me,” he said with a defeatist tone.
         “You’re giving up?”
         “What am I supposed to do, Serenitee?  The Monkshood has stopped working completely.  I don’t know why I continue to make myself sick with the stuff if it’s useless.  And don’t even mention silver bullets.  That’s a total myth and a laughable one at that.  The only thing it would do would incapacitate me for a while.  That doesn’t mean that my curse would be broken.  But since I have no kids, I know it can stop with me.”
         Serenitee