Read Online Taken by Moonlight by Dorothy McFalls - Free Book Online Page A

instinct,” Dimitri said. “Our future may not be what we expected or even what we want it to be. We may have to change our ways and rethink what Misha’s vision was really telling us. We may all have to take our places in the human world. And the first change that will take place will be a very human and very proper marriage between me and my mate.”
    He rubbed Lia’s back, soothing her.
    There was a light scratch at the parlor door. The room fell silent as an elderly butler shuffled into the room. With a loud voice that suggested he was more than half deaf, he announced the arrival of the Earl and Countess of Hawthorn.
    “They have arrived sooner than I’d expected,” Dimitri murmured. “They must have traveled at top speed all night.”
    Lia pulled back with surprise as her parents entered this den of angry wolves. “You used me to get to them?” she asked the room, distancing herself from Dimitri. “This was the plan all along, wasn’t it?”
    “Things have changed,” Dimitri said but didn’t get the chance to elaborate. The earl took one look at his daughter’s tearstained cheeks and Aunt Lettie’s bruised and scraped face and slammed his fist into Dimitri’s jaw.
    Dimitri dropped like a brick.
     
    * * * * *
     
    “If they truly have nowhere else to go, why can’t they live on our estate?” Dimitri heard a cultured feminine voice ask as he slowly regained consciousness. He must have been out for quite some time. Someone had moved him to the settee and put a damp cloth over his aching forehead. The earl had one bruising chop.
    He half opened one eye, surveying the situation before letting anyone know he was awake.
    “Papa,” Lia said. She had clearly taken command of the room. The wolves were watching her with rapt attention as she made a grand gesture with her slender hand. “I must know. Did you kill my parents?”
    The earl blanched and then sank down in the nearest chair. “When we were living in Russia, I was invited on a hunting expedition.” The others in the room growled. A few moved aggressively toward him. The earl held up his hands. “The hunters had told me we’d be tracking wolves that had been terrorizing a nearby village. For a week, we tracked a pair of them. We were getting close. We could tell by the fresh tracks. One morning, the leader of the hunters went out to scout the area with three others. We heard the shots. When we came running, we saw that they’d killed a pair of wolves. But the baby that was with them— you —still lived. They wanted to shoot you, kill you. But you were human, not a wolf. And they still wanted to kill you. I turned my blunderbuss on them and scooped you from the damp grass. From that moment on, you were my child.”
    Although tears sparkled in Lia’s eyes, her expression remained impassive. “Those wolves that were killed that day, they were my parents?”
    Dimitri felt a surge of pride at her courage. Perhaps Misha’s vision had been the truth after all. Perhaps Lia would bring back their pack’s strength. Her presence in his life had already made him a better wolf.
    “You knew all along what I was?” Lia asked, her voice surprisingly steady.
    Lia’s mother pressed her hands to her lips. The muscles in her father’s jaw tightened.
    “You are my daughter,” he said with fire in his eyes. “Regardless of your birth, you are the child of our hearts. You must believe that.”
    Lia nodded. But at the same time, her slender hands tightened into a pair of tight fists. Her gaze narrowed as she drew in a slow, deep breath. “But you knew when you took me that I was more wolf than human?”
    “We suspected that it was the case,” he admitted. “The villagers had told many tales about the wolf people that lived in the surrounding forest. And though there are many, many tales of children raised by wolves, logic told me that no ordinary wolf could keep a baby alive. Those lost children so often touted in legends, I suspect, are in truth the