Free In a Dark Embrace by Simone Bern Page A

arrived he made no move to pick it up.
    “Should we go for a walk?” Jeremy asked after she paid.
    “Definitely.”
    They tossed her leather jacket into Jeremy’s SUV and then walked down the long wooden pier. The sun was setting out over the water in brilliant pinks and faded orange. They stopped to appreciate the view and Lee leaned back against Jeremy. He put his arms around her and she felt blissfully happy for moment. She loved the ocean and this beach was a particular favorite. Not that the beach itself was great. Spanish Banks was nicer. But she liked the way the street hugged the shore and was filled with lively restaurants, coffee shops and ice-cream stands.
    One of Jeremy’s hands slipped under the edge of her t-shirt. It made a pleasant pool of warmth on her belly and started just the faintest tingle down below. He made no move to caress her however and she was glad. They needed to spend time together, to talk without the distraction of their insane physical chemistry.
    By unspoken agreement they strolled back down the pier and turned right. The pier intersected a walking path that ran for a good mile in either direction. She came here for her late-night outings sometimes.
    Lee held Jeremy’s hand and marveled at how nice it felt sharing this place with him. They talked lightly about summertime pleasures. She found out that they both liked to go camping but not in the busy parks and commercial campgrounds where everyone was jammed in like sardines. There were forest service sites off the beaten track that hardly anyone used. The facilities were limited to smelly, cobweb-laden pit toilets but she could put up with that in order to get away from the crowds.
    They wandered down to the beach and sat on a log. Jeremy started tossing pebbles into the water. The rocks flew a hundred yards or more without any apparent effort on his part.
    “Did you go camping a lot as a child?” she asked.
    “Sort of.”
    “How sort of?”
    “We’d drive out into the wilderness and change. Spend a few days as wolves. Hunt, run, sleep curled up under a tree somewhere.”
    “That sounds like fun.”
    “It was. My dad’s a fun guy…sometimes.”
    “Only sometimes?” She could feel his mixture of love and something else, perhaps fear.
    “He can be a bit…rough. Not a lot of sympathy for anyone or anything. Werewolves are like that. Show a weakness and they go for the throat. Even with family.”
    She shot him a look. Did he even realize what he’d just said? “Are you…like that?”
    “Of course. I’m a werewolf, aren’t I?” He turned and caught her looking at him. A hard little smile twisted his lips. “Good thing you haven’t got a lot of weaknesses.”
    Lee didn’t say anything for a moment. She wasn’t about to argue with him. He’d learn soon enough that she had her wounds. She wondered what he would do then. She also wondered how she would react. “Do you really think it’s a natural part of being what you are to attack when someone exposes vulnerability? Real wolves protect the weaker members of the pack, don’t they?”
    “I suppose they do. The cubs, the omegas. But they can be brutally cruel as well. If any female other than the alpha has cubs they’ll kill them. Limited resources can’t be wasted on an inferior litter.”
    “Is attacking weakness a survival trait…or a consequence of being raised without a mother?”
    He shot her a sideways glance. “Being a counselor, Lee?”
    She shrugged. “It’s what I am.”
    He changed the subject. “You said you had cousins with your gifts. Are there many real witches then?”
    “No. We’re the only family in western Canada. There’s another family in Quebec, a couple in Ontario, four families in the Maritimes and at least a dozen that I know of down in California—that’s kind of the hotspot for witches in North America. Europe is more dense with witches, it’s where we came from after all, but I haven’t had much contact with them. Of