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  Carnal Moon

  Mel Teshco

  On the first night of each full moon, werewolves cannot resist the calling—the instinctual need to mate.

  Living a double life has never been difficult for Holly, but in her world, if her species is to survive, all she can look forward to is down-and-dirty, uninhibited sex with a different partner each month. She has never had reason to complain though. Until now.

  She’s fallen for Ricky Mandela, her hot, sexy, human lover. Holly can’t pretend she has a chance at a family and happily ever after. Those are human dreams. But she can’t give him up either. Will she have to lie and cheat to hold on to the man she loves?

  An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

  www.ellorascave.com

  Carnal Moon

  ISBN 9781419930300

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Carnal Moon Copyright © 2010 Mel Teshco

  Edited by Pamela Campbell

  Cover art by Syneca

  Electronic book publication October 2010

  The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/). Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  Carnal Moon

  Mel Teshco

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  BMW: Bayerische Motoren Werke Aktiengesellschaft

  Rolex: Rolex Watch U.S.A., Inc.

  Chapter One

  Lightning flickered behind the mountains to the West as ragged scraps of cloud fled toward the coast, unveiling a full moon. It shone brightly over the government reserve just north of Sydney, gilding eucalyptus trees in a wash of yellow and reflecting a primal glow in the tawny eyes of the beast that paced below.

  Holly Whyte paused and lifted her head, her nostrils dilating as she scented the breeze. She shivered, anticipation filling her blood. Male werewolf scent was much stronger now. He’d almost tracked her down.

  The urge to mate, to join as one beast, clawed at her belly and left her almost whining with lust. The animal within was simply too strong to resist on the first night of the full moon. Even so, Holly had tried, this time, to ignore the calling. It’d been three weeks now since Ricky Mandela, her human lover, had moved into her home. Three weeks for her to realize she’d fallen for him hard. She yearned now for them to share a committed relationship.

  And yet, here I am.

  A partnership with a human couldn’t possibly work. Not when she was compelled once every month to fuck the brains out of whatever male werewolf was roaming the area in an instinctual attempt to populate the species.

  Trouble was, when she eventually returned home to Ricky, she wouldn’t be able to hide the smell of sex, or her satiated exhaustion.

  In too short a time, Holly would find herself single again. Not that it had ever worried her before. But this time her chest ached at the thought. Breaking her lycan compulsion to mate was akin to stopping her involuntary change on the first night’s full moon.

  She shook her head, and her body followed, the ruff of her neck and thick fur along her body spraying a fine mist from the creek she’d crossed just minutes ago. She wasn’t going any farther. She waited expectantly, excited, but a little nervous too. Pursuing males were more often than not zealous with lust and impatient for release.

  Branches snapped and parted, and Holly’s pulse soared as her ears pricked, then flattened to her skull as she snarled warning.

  Hell. This wolf was big. Intimidating. And he meant business. His silver-gray eyes flashed as his tail arched high, his snout compressed.

  Pheromones thickened the air and sharpened acute need. The flex and bunch of his muscles revealed his impatience a split second before he surged toward her.

  She leapt forward, meeting him halfway, her teeth bared as she went straight for his throat. Canines sank past his thick brown-black pelt and through corded muscle and skin before drawing blood.

  The metallic tang filled her mouth, intoxicating as any drug. She whimpered even as he broke free and whipped around, the dominant male ruthless and barely restrained.

  His near shoulder rammed her hard and knocked her flying, and she thudded onto the dry-baked earth, air whooshing out of her lungs.

  Shit.

  She could do nothing but wait for the oxygen that finally wheezed back into her lungs. And the male, damn him to hell, prowled forward, completely aware of her plight.

  He was in his element, his prime,and she squirmed helplessly when his weight pressed her hard against the earth. Rotting vegetation and pungent eucalyptus filled her nostrils, quickly replaced by his raw male scent.

  Every cell demanded she rut with him, seek the satisfaction she craved. But she wouldn’t be an easy lay. She wanted foreplay…at least, the werewolf version of it.

  She faked collapse from oxygen deprivation, and as he shifted to snuffle her face with his wet nose, she made her move. Twisting free, she shot forward. Now she was in her element. Even as a lycan, she was swift, a fact that enhanced the chase, the rough and tumble.

  Hard and fast was the order of the day, especially for a male who knew he might have a rival to contend with, one who could challenge claim to sire future generations. But Holly could scent no other males as she used all the inherent agility and grace of the wolf to outrun and outmaneuver her counterpart.

  He was up for the game and closed in fast. The brewing storm crept upon them. Overhead, heavy black clouds concealed the moon and plunged everything into darkness. She knew that either of them could have changed back to human in that moment. Neither did. It seemed that this was a challenge he relished as well.

  Lightning split the sky and briefly illuminated the ground but Holly used her exceptional lycan sight as she jumped from a rotting log and belly flopped into the creek she’d earlier crossed. Her legs moving like pistons, she swam to the other side, scrabbling for purchase on the slippery bank even as he splashed in from behind.

  The adrenaline of the hunt, the chase, was fast dissolving. In some primeval part of her mind, Holly knew only the strongest, fleetest and most powerful lycan—one who could better her, master her—was worth mating.

  Having a future generation of smart, tough, fast werewolves was paramount.

  Heavy raindrops splattered the earth when the large male caught up and pinned her to the ground, his jaw clamped to her ruff.

  A lycan in lust was no gentleman.

  A menacing growl rumbled deep in his throat—the male making his intentions clear. He wasn’t to be messed with. Only when she willingly surrendered, staying passive beneath him, did his weight abruptly change, his form becoming lighter and more compact as paws became hands and his
lycan body became human.

  Holly felt the change come upon her immediately after and she tried to relax as she endured the pain. To resist was futile. Fighting the change made it almost intolerable. As with all lycans, she had little control when changing from human to beast as a full moon climbed the sky.

  When sexually aroused, and with fulfillment close, lycans invariably changed back into human form. None really understood why they became human again—fear of bestiality? Fewer cared. When hormones raced out of control, the instinct to mate took over all logic.

  Holly whined low in her throat, yielding quickly to the stranger and to her own change. There was little time to pacify the beast within. She needed to copulate, and she needed to now.

  Her fur abruptly withdrew into skin that contracted like vacuum wrap. Her bones shifted and popped, her skull growing even as her snout retracted.

  He was a master at change. The process had been all but over in seconds and hadn’t seemed to bother him one bit. Clearly he had grown immune to the torment of change.

  She sagged, hardly aware the hurting had gone and that she was human once more, until his fangs retreated, his bite became a kiss.

  Facedown, she moaned. Electric shivers pulsed through every nerve ending that his mouth touched. His tongue flicked her ear, his cock nudged between her thighs.

  Though human now, the need to mate was purely lycan.

  She didn’t want to interact, didn’t want talk to remind her of this guilty pleasure. And she certainly didn’t want the comfort of a soft bed to accomplish the union. He was a stranger to her, and a stranger he’d remain. Hell. She wanted it hard and fast, and she wanted it bad.

  Mud and leaves pressing to her brow and cheeks, her forearms slipping on wet clay and sodden leaves, she centered her weight and pushed back her hips. When his cock brushed the sensitive flesh of her pussy, she gasped at the exquisite sensation. Her whole body felt supercharged, on the edge of detonation.

  The satiny head of his cock parted her wide. And even above the noisy avalanche of rain, she heard his breath hiss as he thrust in hard, filling her all the way to the hilt.

  Oh yes!

  Her muscles stretched to accommodate his thick, long shaft, and then contracted when he took hold of her hips, pulling her against him to meet his fierce rhythm.

  She whimpered, feeling her control slip, but somehow she withheld orgasm. She didn’t want to end this heavenly bliss any time soon.

  The deluge roared around them, over them, the slap of skin-on-skin and their heavy breathing only just legible above the noise.

  Holly bit back a stark cry, teeth trapping her lower lip as she realized this—this—was exactly what she needed. Ricky was a fantastic lover, gentle and serious and aware of her pleasure with plenty of foreplay. But the lycan within sometimes needed more, wanted sex rough and gritty and no-holds-barred.

  Was it so wrong then, to have the best of both worlds? As suddenly as the thought entered her mind, her world shattered.

  She screamed. Her cunt clasped the savage strokes of his cock, bringing him into orgasm right along with her as his hot seed spilled deep inside, pulsing over and over.

  She collapsed onto the ground, and he followed, his cock still embedded. Burying her face in her crossed forearms, she let out a breath…and cried.

  Rain thrashed their naked bodies but she couldn’t blame its chill for making her heart like ice and freezing any lingering warmth after great sex.

  He nuzzled her neck, the sensation goose bumping her skin. Even so, she drew away, tears slipping hotly down her cheeks and merging with the rain already streaming down.

  The touch of his large hand gently tucking some hair behind her ear was oddly disturbing. She didn’t want this stranger’s compassion, was disinterested in the after-play of coupling with her thoughts already returning to Ricky.

  How could she explain where she’d been? Her belly tightened even before the man above her abruptly pulled out and pushed to his feet. His stare made her senses prickle and added to her anxiety.

  Please don’t talk. Don’t ask questions I don’t want to answer.

  Some males asked that she make contact with them in the off chance she’d fallen pregnant. Of course she’d agreed. They had invariably decided somewhere neutral to meet at a specified date—if pregnancy occurred. If a father wanted to see his child, she’d not stop him. But it had never happened.

  But now she wasn’t so sure what she’d do. Not when it could jeopardize any chance she had with her mortal lover. She screwed her eyes shut. It was callous to think she could pretend that any child from this joining, or future ones, could be passed off as Ricky’s own progeny.

  And yet the temptation was there, all the same. A big white lie within her reach. This two-and-a-half kids and the white picket fence deal.

  If a child had been made from this union, the baby would stay human until the first full moon of his or her fifteenth birthday. Plenty of time to live as a normal human family.

  She twisted around, relieved and disappointed all at once when she realized her werewolf lover had already gone, departed while she’d lain prone with her thoughts.

  Her body tingled with the aftershock of wild sex, and suddenly, perversely, she craved the unnamed lycan, wanted just one more fling with him before he disappeared, likely never to be seen again. It was werewolf custom for the males to seek a new mating ground each month. It improved their chances of impregnating at least one female for the year, and continuing the lycan line.

  She sighed, strangely morose. Empty. It wasn’t abnormal to feel a little bereft—an aftereffect from the climax high of a werewolf coupling. Still, she’d never felt this low.

  Clearly, thoughts of Ricky had tainted the mood.

  She stood, stretching cramped muscles before retracing her steps back to where she’d left her clothes beneath a flowering shrub, close to the highway and her parked car.

  Rain pelted her bare skin, a stiff wind snarling her long caramel hair before she finally retrieved her sodden, muddy clothes and pulled them on. She was shivering, her teeth chattering as she hurried to her sedan, relief filling her as she patted her jeans pocket to discover her car keys were safely inside.

  She needed to be home, where she could wipe this whole episode from her mind.

  Her thighs went weak as her womb contracted, reminding her just how very much she’d relished having sex with the unknown lycan, a man she hadn’t spoken to or even seen. She’d cried, yes. But she realized now that it’d been as much from joy as remorse.

  It had been liberating, sensual—screwing a stranger with no strings attached. No name, no face, to remember. Like it or not, she had to accept that as a werewolf, she’d be unfaithful to any mortal who became her lover.

  Ricky will be worried sick. She stomped on the accelerator. “I’m coming, honey.”

  When she’d arrived home earlier, after a long day at the university, Ricky had not yet returned from the law firm where he’d often stay late to catch up on work. She’d been relieved. After spending the day bottling up the knowledge that a full moon would soon grace the night sky, and knowing deep down that she’d not resist the need to hunt, to run, to mate, had torn at her soul.

  Despite an attraction to each other that bordered obsessive, she just couldn’t not be werewolf that night.

  She sighed, thoughts dissolving as she peered through the heavy rain, wishing she still had the advantage of lycan vision as the world outside blurred into white-gray. It was moments like these when she wished shifting back into human didn’t mean losing her lycan abilities—senses that gradually diluted until mortal characteristics were fully reasserted.

  In human form, a werewolf could pass her on the street and she’d never know they were the same species. And a good thing too. It would be dangerous, insane, for a male to learn of a female’s existence outside their once-monthly mating in neutral territory.

  She’d heard stories of more than one male in human form recognizing a human f
emale from a previous full moon tryst and secretly following her home. His alpha instincts kicking in, the male had turned aggressive, expecting exclusive rights.

  She shuddered. A scenario such as that was any female’s worst nightmare. No male had the right to breach her home, her den. It was her sanctuary, her hideout. Besides which, it was lycan birthright for the female to choose the males she mated, those she thought suitable to continue the genetic line.

  An aggressive male stalking a female’s every move could well arouse human suspicion—a big no-no for any sane member of the werewolf species. Only when a female lycanfell pregnant and didn’t need to mate with other males could she choose to stay exclusive with one. Even so, it was rare indeed for a wolf couple to desire such an arrangement.

  By the time Holly drove the two hours to her little home where, against her better judgment, Ricky had recently moved in, the pink smudge of dawn was just breaking the horizon.

  Damn, where had the time gone? It never ceased to amaze her how quickly the hours passed when playing the lycan reproductive waiting game.

  Ricky had fallen asleep with the bedroom light on—clearly losing the fight to wait up for her. She strode into the bedroom and took a peek at him. Her heart flip-flopped as she watched the rise and fall of his chest, one arm half-slung over his face and pushing a lock of chocolate-brown hair across his broad, intelligent brow.

  Damn he was beautiful…and smart…and caring. Little wonder she didn’t want to let him go. Her chest ached, her vision suddenly blurry. For the first time in her life she truly hated being a werewolf, hated the secrets, the dishonesty that came with it.

  In the en-suite bathroom she peeled off her grimy clothes and tossed them into the laundry basket. Naked before the full-length mirror, she studied her reflection and imagined herself through Ricky’s eyes.