Defiance at Werewolf Keep (Werewolf Keep Trilogy) Read Online Free PDF Page B

she was a child had she heard such a steady thud beating beneath her ear. Memories of those long nights suddenly filled her mind. Nights when pain had wracked her body and driven her to the edge of sanity. During those nights, the only comfort to be found was being rocked in her mother’s arms, listening to that steady heartbeat as it anchored her to life and kept her from giving up.
    But now, as the world beyond that comfort slowly pressed in on her, she knew that this heartbeat didn’t anchor her to life. Instead, it weighed her down. It pulled her, kicking and struggling to the very depths of despair.
    They had told her that she was a werewolf. Not in so many words, but that was the implication. If she was bitten by a werewolf then she was now a werewolf , too. At the time of the full moon she would turn into an ugly, demonic beast and attack innocent people.
    She was better off with a bullet in her head.
    'Lass, you canna hide from this. You need to talk to me, to us, so you can understand what you have to contend with,' said the body beneath her. She heard the voice as a deep rumble beneath her ear. It was the Scotsman, of course. She had known it the moment she awoke. Who else could make her feel as safe as a child in her mother’s arms? His brogue was more evident than it had been when they first met. It seemed to get that way when his emotions were roused.
    'Might there be a mistake? Might I not be i nfected?' She mumbled her question hopelessly, knowing there was no mistake.
    'Unlikely , lass. You have the symptoms. It's the only condition that makes you healthier because you have it. And you ken you are healthier?'
    She nodded her head against his chest. 'But I don't want to hurt anyone. I could never do such a thing,' she whispered.
    'Donna fash youself, lass, you willna hurt a soul. They donna let us. That's why the Sanctuary is so important. It protects us from ourselves, as well as others.'
    ' You say us. Does that mean you’re a werewolf, too?'
    'Aye lass, for ni’ on ten years. For me, it’s ne’er been a burden. I was always a bit of a beast before. I can accept my nature more than most. The more civilized the man or woman, the harder it is to accept the animal within. I saw many a beast on the battlefields of the Crimea, and they were just ordinary men. We who are infected just experience that side of our nature more completely.'
    'I do n’t think I had a beast inside me...before this.'
    'Inste ad of imagining a monster like the one in your nightmare, see yours as a playful kitten. Cats and puppies are beasts, too.'
    For a moment , Lily contemplated that idea. Could she identify kittenish qualities within herself? She certainly felt like a kitten at that moment, curled up on Will’s warm lap, languid and content. Did her werewolf have to be a craven beast that tore others to pieces?
    'Have you killed anyone?' she asked, running her hand down the soft fabric of his shirt. She could feel the steel beneath, as chest muscles flexed at her touch. What had driven her to such inappropriate behaviour? She had never before touched another person in this way. Not even her parents.
    'Aye, I've killed my share. But none since I turned. I was spared that by the Captain and ‘Ron. They found me shortly before my first full moon, having been on Claire’s trail for some months.
    ‘ She’d attacked a couple of people during that full moon, but I was the only one who survived. I came upon her tearing into a drunk, on my way home from a fight. I drove her off and I doona even think she broke my skin. But some of her slobber must have got into one of my open wounds from my bout. We weren’t sure if I was infected until I turned the first full moon after.’
    ‘How could you have driven such a beast away? In my dreams it is huge and fierce,’ she managed to get out , as she breathed in his pleasing male scent.
    ‘The beasts are scavengers, not predators. That's why so many were created by the war. They roamed