P.S I'm a WOLF! (Paranormal Shifter Romance Book 1) Read online

  A wave of panic hit her, and she bolted upright. “What? What are you talking about? Why would we need to stop seeing each other?”

  Petra came into his mind and with a sigh, he sat up too, looking at her earnestly. “There are things about me that you don’t know. Terrible things… and because of those things, I cannot stay with you.”

  The panic in Janine was then mingled with fear and her eyes grew wide. “What things? What if they’re not as terrible as you imagine them to be? I think you should tell me what they are and let me be the judge of whether or not they are too terrible for us to stay together.”

  Kip shook his head. “No. First of all, you would never believe them and secondly, you would never accept them or me, for that matter. I’m just going to have to ask you to trust me on this. There’s no way around it. I just thought that you should know.”

  Janine grew frustrated, and he could sense it in every part of her. “At least try me! Don’t give up on me… on us so damn easily! How can you just throw us away like this so casually without even giving me a chance to decide for myself if these terrible things about you are worth losing you… worth losing us over!”

  Kip heard her words, her plea, and he considered it for a minute before reality came crashing back into his thoughts. Even if he did tell her that he was a werewolf and she actually believed it and accepted it, there was still no way that he could continue to be with her past a month more, because he would be marrying another woman, and that would be all there was to it. He saw no reason to reveal his true self to her when they only had a few short weeks left together anyway.

  “No.” He shook his head and gave her a sympathetic look, reaching his arms around her and drawing her near to him. “I’m so sorry. I wish I could but there’s nothing I can do to change it. I just wanted to let you know. I didn’t want to spring it on you. Besides, it really is better if you don’t know. It’s better if we just break up. I have no business being in a relationship with you anyway. You’re much too good for me.”

  Janine shook her head vehemently. “We are not breaking up!” she raised her voice passionately. “I won’t even hear you talk like that! We are not breaking up because I refuse to lose you! There is absolutely nothing that you could tell me about yourself that would put me off of you! I am in love with you, damn it, and I know that you’re in love with me too!”

  Her words ripped his heart out. He felt tears begin to sting his eyes as he saw tears hovering at the edge of her eyelashes, ready to fall.

  “It doesn’t change anything! It doesn’t matter!” He shook his head again, feeling as if everything inside of him was beginning to implode.

  She looked up at him and took his face in her hands, her eyes sharp on his. “It does matter! Try to deny it!”

  Kip felt as if part of his heart was dying. “I can’t,” he groaned quietly.

  “Then say it to me!” She demanded, her eyes locked on his. “Tell me that you love me!”

  Kip was completely lost in her. “I love you,” he said quietly. He meant it, and she knew it. She crushed her lips against his mouth and kissed him with a fervor that set them both on fire for one another again.

  As her body ached with need, she lifted her leg and moved herself over his lap while he was sitting up holding her. Still kissing him and holding him tightly as his hands moved urgently over her curves, she slowly sank her body down over his, bringing him inside of her again, crying out with pleasure as he filled her, and once more their desires and passions overtook them as they moved and loved with abandon for a long, long while.

  When they had both been weakened with their orgasms, and they were exhausted by their ardent lovemaking, they lay back against the soft feather pillows, feeling the boat rock them gently in the waves, and they fell asleep wrapped around one another.

  Kip woke up later as panic flashed through him. He had slept too long, much too long. His heart began to beat faster as his eyes started to dilate, and he rushed from their bed out of the cabin and up onto the deck.

  Janine felt him leave her, and she woke with a snap, seeing him run out of the cabin. She ran out behind him just as he stood stock still, staring hard at the full moon that was rising out of the east.

  “Kip? Kip what’s wrong?” she asked, taking a few steps toward him.

  He groaned deeply as his body began to transform, and he hated that he hadn’t realized; he hadn’t remembered what night it was, and he had been so wrapped up in her that he had taken her to a place where neither of them could leave. He had lost track of the time, lost track of the sun, and lost track of the big yellow moon on the one night that he had no choice in his transformation. On any other night and at any other time, the choice was his, but when the full moon rose, he was a slave to it, and he must obey it.

  Fur erupted along the back of his neck and down his spine as his tail began to grow, and his hands and feet shifted into paws. His face elongated into a snout, and his ears grew to sharp points above his head. His transformation took very little time, and Janine stood in horror and shock as she watched him change from the man she loved into an enormous, wild, dangerous beast.

  She screamed in terror, staring at the massive werewolf before her.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Kip lifted his head and howled at the moon once, and Janine screamed at the top of her lungs, her heart racing, her eyes wide. She had never imagined such a thing in her life, and she couldn’t believe that she was looking at it as if it was real. She was too stunned to try to determine if it was real or not. All she knew was that one minute she had been laying with her lover in their bed on a sailboat, and the next minute he was standing on the deck of the sailboat having been transformed into a huge wolf.

  Kip laid down on the deck and lowered his head between his paws, looking at her. He whined softly and wished that he could speak with her while in his wolf form. It was easy to speak to other wolves who were in their wolf form but not to humans. There was no way for him to communicate verbally with her, so he tried to reassure her through his actions. He thought that tame and mild might be the best way to do the trick.

  Janine wanted no part of it, no matter what his behavior was. She ran below deck and locked the door behind her, looking through the window of it at him as he whined some more at her and gave her pitiful puppy eyes.

  Her face disappeared from the window in the door, and he knew that he would not see her again until morning. They were both trapped on the sailboat until then. He couldn’t change back into a human form until the full moon had set and the sun rose, and she didn’t know how to sail a sailboat. They were well and truly stuck, and he bemoaned the fact that she had inadvertently discovered his most well-kept secret: that he was in fact a werewolf.

  Kip didn’t have any idea what he was going to say to her in the morning when the sun came up. He had thought that he would have another few weeks with her, they would have to break up, and then that would be that. He would be forced to marry Petra, and there would never be another time in his life when he would see Janine or need to talk with her. There was no reason for her to know about his shapeshifting lifestyle. He had never told her because there would never be a time when she would need to know or when she would discover it, and yet, there he was stuck on the deck of a sailboat with her in a hidden cove of a private island. The only upside to it was that his family owned the island, and no one was going to spot them or bother them during the night.

  The minutes turned to hours, and hours felt to Kip as if they might be dragging on forever. He couldn’t stand the thought that he had frightened her and that she was cowering inside of the cabin weeping and terrified. He knew that she must be undoubtedly confused and that there was not a thing he could do about it until morning. He hated that his wolf form had scared her so badly. He never wanted her to be afraid of him. He spent the night running scenarios through his head about what he might say to her when he could change back into his human form and how she might react to it. He realized that there wa
s an excellent chance that she wasn’t going to ever understand it or forgive him and that he had indeed spent his last night with her already. He fully understood that her seeing him transform might have very well broken them up and that they would not be spending their last month together before his wedding.

  All through the night, he thought and worried, and he waited a long, long while until the sun finally rose in the east, coloring the sky pink and giving rest to the great full moon. He stretched and moved around a little, having gotten a little stiff laying there in a still position and staring at the cabin door all night on the off chance that she might come around and open it, giving him the benefit of the doubt. He didn’t think that she would, but he wasn’t about to risk losing the chance to show her that he wasn’t going to harm her in his wolf form. She never opened the door, and he was finally able to go to it and knock on it, hoping against hope that she could be convinced to open it.

  A few eternal moments after he knocked, she came slowly and cautiously to the door. He could still smell her fear and the wonderful sweet scent that she had taken on not long after they had begun dating.

  Janine peered at him through the window with a furrowed brow and a fierce glare. He could see just how suspicious she was about opening the door, and he marked her hesitation.

  “Janine, it’s okay. It’s me. I promise you that everything is all right. Come on, open the door… please. I’ve definitely got some explaining to do. I know you must have a million questions, and I want to talk with you and answer those. Please… come on. Open the door, let’s talk and get this worked out. Okay? Come on baby. Please?” He raised his hands and set them on the door, knowing full well that with little effort at all he could push on the door and it would shatter at his feet, but he had no doubt that a show of brute strength and force wasn’t going to make anything better. He needed to get inside and talk to her.

  After a few more moments of careful consideration, she unlatched the door and slid it open, still glaring at him. She backed up until she reached the bed, and then she sat down. Kip could sense her distrust of him and her intense fear, and he came no further than just inside the door.

  “You must have questions. I would start explaining or talking, but I don’t know what’s going through your mind right now, so I don’t know what to tell you. Is there anything that you want to ask me? There must be. Come on Janine. Don’t be shy. Ask me anything that you like,” he encouraged her in a gentle tone as he sank down low and squatted on the floor before her, taking a submissive stance.

  It took Janine a minute, but somehow, she found her voice. “What in the hell are you?” she asked, confusion and pain written across her face.

  Kip nodded his head. “That’s actually a really good place to start. I’m a werewolf. I know you probably thought that there was no such thing, but that’s because we keep ourselves very well hidden from the general public. I don’t want to end up in some scientist’s lab or shanghaied by the government while they try to force me to do crazy military things for them or something like that. I’m rambling. I’m sorry. I haven’t ever actually had to explain this to anyone before. This is the first time I’ve ever transformed in front of a human, so it’s a little strange for me.”

  She slammed her hands down on the bed, and her eyes went wild. “Strange for you? Are you kidding me?”

  Kip sighed and nodded. “Okay, right. You have a solid point there. I just… I don’t know quite what to tell you about this. I’m a werewolf. I was born this way. I’m ah… I’m seventy-three years old. We live a long, long time, and we age very slowly, so the years don’t really show on us.”

  Janine blinked in shock. “You’re… you’re seventy-three years old? How…? How can that be?”

  “Werewolf,” he answered simply. “We typically live to be about three hundred years old, if we’re lucky.”

  “You must be kidding.” She shook her head and stared at him. “This isn’t real. There’s no way this can be real. I’ve been feeling really weird lately anyway, and now I know what it is. I’m going crazy or I’ve contracted some kind of funky bug or something. Am I in a coma and I’m imagining this? Is that what it is? That’s got to be what it is. There’s no way this is really happening.”

  Kip sighed and tilted his head in sympathy, knowing how hard it must be for her to accept. “Janine, it’s real. This is the thing I was talking about yesterday. When I said all those times that we shouldn’t be together, that I’m not good for you, that I’m more trouble than I’m worth… and last night, when I said we couldn’t stay together. This is why.” He didn’t want to tell her all of the reasons why they couldn’t be together; she was already hurting enough, and there was no point in hurting her further for no good reason. She didn’t need to know it. He sorely wished that she didn’t know about him being a werewolf.

  Janine leaned her elbows on her knees and pushed her fingertips against the temples of her head as she looked at him. “So, you’re a… a… werewolf,” she said quietly, and then she closed her eyes and shook her head. “This is ridiculous. I can’t even believe that I’m saying it. It’s crazy.”

  “Say it again. It’ll sound less weird if you say it again,” he offered helpfully.

  She dropped her hands from her temples and stared at him. “You’re a werewolf.” With a sigh and another shake of her head, she tried to absorb what she was strongly beginning to suspect was the truth. “You’re a werewolf, and you’re seventy-three years old.”

  “Yes,” he replied, relieved that she was slowly beginning to accept it.

  She considered him for a long, thought filled minute. “You said ‘we’ before. So… there are more of you? You’re not the only one?”

  He shook his head and smiled, glad to hear that she was growing curious about him. That was a sign that her mind was at least moving away from intense fear. “No, not at all. I’m part of a pack, and there are werewolf packs all over the world. My pack is like my family, we’re that close, but as far as blood family, I only have two family members left now. My grandfather and my uncle.”

  She shook her head a little, trying to get a grip on it all. “Wow.” She raised her eyebrows and drew in a long, deep breath. “I guess I see why you wouldn’t have told me this before. It’s not like you could drop it into idle conversation.” She studied him curiously then. “If you live so long, what do you die of?”

  Kip looked intently at her as he spoke. “We die of old age around three hundred, though some wolves have lived longer, and some have died younger, but that’s the median age. Also, we can die if silver is introduced into our systems. We have a lethal reaction to it.”

  “Silver.” She nodded her head, disbelief still gripping the edges of her mind. Then, something in the back of her memory snapped and she blinked, sitting up a little straighter. “Silver! So… when we went to the restaurant and you had your own golden flatware, that was because of the lethal reaction to silver?”

  “Yes. Exactly right,” he answered, trying not to smile at her progress.

  She narrowed her eyes a bit as she gazed at him. “Do you always change into a werewolf on the full moon?”

  He nodded. “Yes. On the full moon, we have no choice; we automatically change no matter what. There’s no way out of it for us, but any other time I can change at will. I can be human for as long as I want to, or I can be a wolf. The transformation doesn’t hurt too much, so it’s easy to do. I usually stay in human form, though sometimes I like to change into the wolf to go running through the mountains. They’re beautiful, and there’s nothing like a run through them.”

  She listened intently. “So, you said that you were born. Are all werewolves born? Is that like a natural species in our world?”

  “No,” he admitted with a note of sadness in his voice. “Most werewolves are bitten, though it’s not done in the wild way that Hollywood would have you believe. Most of the wolves who are bitten are brought into a pack after much consideration and careful screening. Then sometime
s, an offer is made to the human to give them the choice of becoming what I am, and sometimes the pack just decides on a human and chooses them to join, biting them whether the human wants it or not, though that’s pretty unusual. I’m a rare case. My mother and father were in their wolf shapes when they conceived me, and again when I was born, so I was literally born as a werewolf though I am half human. It is very rare for a werewolf to be born.”

  “So, you’re special.” She looked at him interestedly.

  He nodded, not wanting to add too much more to that part of his explanation.

  “If you live so long, how do you use the same name for all that time? Doesn’t the government catch up with you and say hey old man… you still look like you’re twenty-seven instead of seventy-three?” She was wondering about all the possible holes in what he was telling her, trying to find some way to make it untrue, though she was fully beginning to suspect that it was absolutely the truth.