Read Online Moon Shadows by Nora Roberts - Free Book Online Page B

look how quickly they were healing. Yes, I was a very lucky girl.”
    â€œSimone.” He got up slowly to go to her, took her shoulders in gentle hands. “Was he HIV-positive? Did he have AIDS?”
    â€œNo. But you’re on the track. It’s about blood. I stayed in Europe, I went on to France. In a couple of weeks I felt better, better than I ever had in my life. A month after the attack, I was camping again. Alone. Thank God, alone. As the sun went down, I started to feel restless, hot and feverish. Too much energy. Nerves sparking under my skin. There was a tearing pain, like something was ripping me from the inside out. I felt it come, felt it claw through me, out of me. Becomeme. And I hunted, I smelled the flesh, the blood. Only a deer. I fed on it, and the kill was as thrilling as the feast.”
    â€œYou were hallucinating.”
    She pulled her hands free, couldn’t allow him to touch her now. “In the morning, I woke naked, covered in blood, over a mile from my camp. Curled up beside what was left of the deer. The next night was the same, and the night after, I tied myself to a tree. I went to a local doctor, told him something was wrong with me. He found nothing in the exam. I was healthy, but he’d do a blood test. Before he sent my blood off to the lab, he looked at a smear under the microscope. He was puzzled. Somehow the sample must have gotten contaminated. He couldn’t explain it. Couldn’t explain how there came to be canine blood cells along with human. It wasn’t possible, some sort of mistake.
    â€œI took the blood sample and left. Got back to the States. Took the sample to an American doctor. What the hell did some guy in France know? But the American doctor was just as puzzled, wanted to know where I’d gotten the sample. Who or what was it from? I got out, I ran. I read everything I could find about blood conditions, diseases, infections. And I thought about what had happened to me in the mountains, about the silver cross. I knew. I knew from the night when I changed, but how could I accept that? That Hollywood horror movie? I’d prove it was something else.”
    â€œSimone, let’s sit down. You need to sit down.”
    â€œNo.” She batted his hand away when he reached for her. “ Listen . A week before the next full moon, I rented a cabin. I bought chains, and a video camera, a tripod. When it was time, I set up the camera, shackled myself, and sat on the floor to wait. When it happened, I tried to fight it, but it was too strong. In the morning, I had the tape. I watched myself, watched it happen to me. I stayed there all three nights, afraid to go anywhere, see anyone. After the cycle, I went to the library, and found the name for what I was. Lycanthrope.”
    â€œSimone.” He took a long, quiet breath, and though she tried to turn away, his hands rubbed up and down her arms. “You were attacked, traumatized. You’ve turned the man intoa beast, a monster—because that’s what he was. A predator, but human. Lycanthropy is a psychological disorder.”
    â€œIt is if you think you turn into a wolf. If you do , it’s a physiological disorder. You don’t believe me.” She touched a hand to his cheek, knowing it might be the last time he would allow it. “I don’t expect you to. I’d be worried about you if you accepted all this on just my word.”
    â€œI believe you were attacked, and hurt, and forced to defend yourself. And the shock, the trauma of what happened to you, especially at such a vulnerable time of your life, caused severe emotional distress. I can help you. I want to help you.”
    â€œYou think I’m crazy,” she stated. “But you’re not leaving.”
    â€œI don’t think you’re crazy, I think you’re troubled. Why would I leave when being with you is what I want most?”
    â€œYou need to see. You needed to hear what