In The Shadow of The Moon Ch. 07

The backyard had once been a well tended garden. Victoria could see where the path had once wound through what now looked like a meadow. Nature had coaxed its way in, taking up the role of gardener. Now amongst your garden variety flowers, wild fruits and flowers sprung up everywhere. A large black berry tree hung fragrant in the back and patches of strawberries sprung up in small patches. Though she didn't know their names the flowers were beautiful. The variety of their petal shape and the blending of their aromas flourished in the air. As she stood still, the small creatures that had made the garden meadow their home, revealed themselves. Some as small movements in the grass and others stuck their heads out of burrows. Birds and bees set a low hum of background noise as they went about their daily business.

The love that had been poured into the space, still hung, dazzling, in the sun's rays. As she watched it shift and move, the light clouds shifted and the same rays she had watched shifted and covered her face. She closed her eyes and breathed it all in. Took the sunlight as deep into her body as she could and let it warm part's of her that had been cold for so long. It ate away at the chill that lingered around her lungs, for the moment breathing became easier. Even her headache slowed. She didn't want to leave this place. She dropped her arms to her side and flipped her palms forward, letting the sun warm them too.

The porch creaked, interrupting her thoughts. The clouds moved again and the sun's rays left. Her eyes were slow to open as if they had been glued. As she turned her muscles moved just as slow. He was leaning against a stoic looking rail post on the porch. Rugged and rustic he fit in with the overgrown wilderness of the cabin. As she contemplated him, she let her eyes track his minute movements. She took in his low slung jeans and loose t-shirt. Both articles of clothing incapable of hiding the power and muscles behind their close knit fibers. The closer she looked the more she felt the pull, the compulsion to walk and bury herself in his arms. Instead she starred. Took in his bare feet and tousled hair, pondering.

The flood of memories and emotions had been constant for the last seven hours and the resulting headache pulsed long slow and hard. She was tired again. With the admission, she felt her body sag beneath the weight of gravity. She was slow to move, but she finally made it to the stairs and plodded her way up, too sleepy to do anything other than get to a bed, a couch if necessary. All thinking could be saved for tomorrow. As she continued her trip into the house, Antony followed her throwing off heat just as the sun had outside.

**********

"Well someone woke up on the arrogant ass side of the bed this morning."

Antony laughed to himself. The last three days had been insightful. Though he had already known it, he and Victoria meshed in the right way. They clashed in the right way too. At least once each day they had this conversation. He did something she considered to be arrogant and proceeded to give him what's what. He closed the fridge and took in the image she presented. Her anger must have blinded her for she had stormed down in a matching sports bra and panty set shaking the clothes he had laid out on the bed for her to wear.

"Who in the hell told you, you could chose my clothes? Who the hell do you think you are? Where to you get off telling me what to wear? You will not dictate my life." There had been no pause in her tirade, her face vibrated with anger and with what he suspected was lack of oxygen as she forestalled her basic need to rip him a new one. Ending the whole thing by telling him exactly what he could do with the clothes he had picked out. She dropped them on the table and turned on her heel to return to the room, mumbling things about arrogant asses and that she had no intention of living with one for the rest of her life.

Antony had begun to find her temper very sexy and fighting with her always led to very tempting displays. For instance, after waking up again the first day she had gone to take a shower and come looking for her clothes, only to find they were not in the room she had unpacked them in, not in the room she had slept in. Storming into the master bedroom she begun to scream at him again, never noticing the ever slipping towel.

Yes, he had learned quite a bit about her buttons, which ones to push and when to push them. Learned her likes and dislikes. He liked the way her mind worked. He had been puzzling out some problems within the pack and struggling. He hadn't noticed her standing over his shoulder until she sat down beside and him and immediately began asking all the right questions and some wrong ones that only stemmed from a lack of knowledge about the pack. They debated and argued points; she forced him to shift his perspective. He did so stubbornly, but in the end it had lead him to an amicable solution for all involved parties. She saw sides of things that he couldn't see and vice versa.

She kicked his ass at scrabble and the racing game on his game console, which had surprised him. Still they had played cards and he had taken his revenge. Each day she became more and more like herself again. The disconnect between her memories and emotions fell away. The headaches had begun to fade and seemed to be more comfortable in her skin. She was a person again, no longer this incomplete shell.

An easy relationship had formed around her inevitable need for his comfort during the past few days. Though tentative, it blossomed. She still didn't talk much about what she remembered, kept her newly found memories and feelings locked within her murky depths. He finished his breakfast contemplating his knew found aggravation at his lack of connection with her mind. Mistress Sleepwell had forbidden him from tapping into her mind. The subtle influence of a probing mind could cause serious damage apparently. It had left Antony to means he hadn't had to use in years.

It had started off as tiring, trying discover her ticks, her tells. It didn't take him long to find the fun in it. When she lied, she ground her jaw as if the words left distasteful grains in her mouth. Whenever she thought hard she bit the edge of her tongue, holding it lightly between her front teeth. She was beautiful in all her aspects, but she constantly bucked under his influence. Whatever he told her to do she picked it to pieces before deciding whether or not to do it.

That was when she was being logical. Her impulsivity was too aggravating for words. It always reared its head at the most inconvenient times. She had disappeared deep into the woods two days ago. Didn't tell him where she was going and she had masked her trail. When he finally found, her two and a half hours later, she simply said she had the urge to be alone. Giving him no other explanation than that, she leapt off the falling log where she had been laying and went back to the cabin. When he had approached her about it, citing the risk to her safety, she had proceeded to berate him about his arrogance and how that was a risk to the safety of his manhood.

He couldn't help, but smile at the memory.

They were still getting acclimated to each other. The spell of happiness or openness had faded and he had to work at getting to know her, but he hadn't had to start from scratch.

With no real direct link to his current thoughts, his slid back into his memories of last night.

**********

The clap of thunder rattled the sturdy logs of the cabin. Lightening cast sinister shadows around the room. The familiar warm shape at his side was glaringly absent. In the second that it took him to register the fact, he had hopped up out of the bed and moved to the door. He followed the subtle trail that Victoria had left, down the stairs and out the back door. The back door screen wreaked havoc on his heightened eye sight. His eyes flickering maddeningly as he focused on Victoria. Occasionally the tight grid work of the screen super-imposed itself over the picture she made in the storm.

On silent feet he moved to the door and quietly pulled open the screen door. She was dancing in the rain, but such a simple statement did no justice to the movements she performed. No training bound the arching limbs, it was pure emotion. Her feet bare she slid through the wet ground leaping twisting her arms arching up towards the sky. Raindrops running rivulets down her body, captured the light of the lightening, illuminating her body. As though the storm was dictating her movements, each clap of thunder, each strike of lightening left her paused in some movement, some pose. The boisterous whisper of leaf against leaf, the subtle grating and clattering of twigs and branches and the steady undercurrent of swirling wind her music.

It was impossible not to fall prey to the emotions she evoked. One of confusion, loss, agony, and...release. Every move she made became more fluid, energy flying in the sky as her hair flipped her arms danced, her body moved. His thoughts were brought back to the first night at the compound, he had watched her dance. It had been powerful too, but this was cathartic. He watched as she gave herself over to the music and the movement. Watched as she cared not for her bare feet or her scantily clad body, she moved for the sake of moving, for the sake of being more than she was. She moved, because...because if she could move fast enough her spirit would take flight. Be unbound and move freely away from the pain of what she felt, of the thoughts she had thought, and be free to dance in the storm. To just dance.

Antony staggered back. Not knowing if she had reached to him, or he her, but she had poured that into him. His muscles quivered with the urge to join her, but he would not interrupt her prayer.

Prayer. The word slipped from his lips and fit so easily, felt so right. As the lightning struck many times in a row, her body arched, spun and leapt again. He closed his eyes and turned.

It had been a private moment, one he was honored to glimpse, but refused to interrupt or end. He let the screen door shut silently behind him, snagged a towel from a downstairs closet and laid it on the table next to the stairs.

He lay in bed, his head slowing down, but her illuminated body played out on his eye lids. She had been so exposed, so open. In her he had seen a little girl, one who didn't know how to be happy, but was desperate to learn, desperate to know how. It had been a deep ache that had resonated so deeply. His mind and thoughts drifted slower, sluggishly flowing through his head. He heard the door open, a silent shuffle of feet, and then the bed dipped. As she laid down he felt her cold hand hover at his back. She didn't touch him though, but he could feel her curled closely to his back. He rolled quickly over and tucked his arms underneath her, gathering her closely.

He bent and kissed her still damp head and let sleep consume him.

**********

She was willing to do anything, anything to stop the despair that had weighed so heavy on her soul. Including mate with him, despite all her reservations. He stared at his empty coffee cup. He had been unable to resist the temptation to listen in on her thoughts this morning. Her pure determination to try had been overwhelming. She had logically weighed the feelings he evoked in her to the past experience she had with mated pairs. As she had created mental pros/cons lists and pulled up memory after memory, he had noted how light her mind felt without the presence of dark magic. It had become so much easier to slip into her mind; he didn't feel like he was slogging through mud.

He pulled his eyes out of the mug and walked around the kitchen picking up dirty dishes. Her personality, the fear, the self doubt had been molded by the dark magic's presence. Without it her mind felt different. There was a child like quality in it's ability to believe in anything. Still her memories sapped away at that. She was like no other person, no other mind that he had touched before.

He shook off the daunting round of thoughts that his mind was heading towards and thought instead of his plans for today. He desired to show her his favorite part of the pack lands. She had been unwittingly sharing bits and pieces of herself and he felt as if he had been very quiet about his own bits and pieces.

He walked towards the stairs and yelled, "Well fine then, pick out something comfortable to wear, and we are going for a hike later on in the afternoon." He thought he heard the faintest scoff, but it could have been the wind outside.

**********

Victoria rubbed the inside of her thigh lightly. His choice of clothes probably would have been better. The shorts she had chosen were chaffing her thighs, but no matter he had to learn at sometime he would always get his way with her. The hike they had taken was beautiful. Her muscles tingling and stretching beneath her skin. There had been so much to climb and jump on and off of. She luxuriated in the feel of the exercise; it was almost as good as running. She had been so focused on the feeling in her muscles and the hum of the world around her that she had never noticed she had stopped following Antony. The chaffing had faded into the background succumbing easily to the melodious chirp of cicadas, the cacophonous sounds of pounding hooves, and the thunderous trickle of streams through the woods.

"I'd be careful, truffle."

Antony's voice barely registered in her mind. The boulders she leapt over rubbed deeply into the arches of her feet. In front of her there was a small cliff, but she could still see the grassy knoll.

"Truffle, stop."

"Victoria."

She planted her feet and took off running. The arm was quick and warm against her stomach and she landed against his chest, her breath gone.

"What is your problem, I could easily make that jump." she pushed herself hard off the ground and glared down at him.

Antony scowled back up at her, no remnant of his previous smile left. He stood quickly grabbing her arm firmly and pulling her to the side. He picked up a rock and through it at the ground where she had been prepared to jump from. As the rock landed the ground beneath it crumbled away.

Now that she actually looked she could see other places where the ground had fallen away. Antony turned and headed in the direction he had been going before. He hadn't really said anything; the scowl hadn't really left his face either. Victoria was quick to follow him. Keeping in step with him she followed closely behind. It was a few moments before either of them spoke again.

"Look I'm sorry I snapped at you. You were just trying to help me. I just don't like it when people do stuff like that."

"Like what? Save you from a lot of pain and discomfort. I'll try to keep that in mind next time."

She sighed he had every reason to be upset, but she didn't like feeling. Their connection was filling her up with guilt about what had happened when all she wanted to do was enjoy the scenery.

"Why do you keep calling me truffle? I am neither a mushroom nor a chocolate."

She tried to lighten the mood and she could just see the hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth.

He didn't answer right away, but as the finally, as they crested another rise, he spoke. "But you are my truffle, my chocolate truffle. Hard on the outside, soft and smooth on the inside. It takes a little work, but once the shell of yours is cracked, I always find a smoothly, gooey, melt in your mouth center."

Shiver hit her, pouring over her body from the middle of her scalp to the tips of her pinkie toes. When she was with him, her mind took up permanent residence in Dirtyville. Even if her mind had been in turmoil, her libido hadn't. The dreams she had about him these last few nights had made sleep worth it. Closing her eyes had been daunting until the first hot passionate embrace had occurred. Each night after the memories tortured her mind, after feelings of terror, hatred, and infuriation poured through her, after the sadness left her a dry husk, he would come.

Where she had been dry he would leave her wet, he would call up desire and passion. He would demand her response, coax every ounce of pleasure from her, before leaving her secure and warm wrapped in his body. Then she would awake to find her self draped across in exactly the same way. She always allowed herself to soak it in before rolling off him and out the door. She looked up at his back again, the smile still tugging at his lips.

"Not quite sure how I feel about that. I am assuming that there is nothing I can do about it; I will just have to get used to it?"

His smile grew bigger, but he didn't respond.

"So how did you know about the ground back there?"

The pause was minute. "When I was little, my brother's and sister's and I used to come up here all the time with my grandparents. After my grandma got better, they used this place as a little retreat and sometimes, well most of the time, we could convince them to bring us with them. One summer they were enjoying themselves in the bedroom and we all got tired of the noise, so we shifted and took off to explore. We were enjoying ourselves racing and the like. I was winning, but I wanted to leave them in the dust and I saw the same soft bit of grass that you did. Long story short, just like with the rock, the ground fell away and I was left with two cracked ribs, a broken arm, and a severely sprained ankle. We were wolves so I knew it would heal quickly, but it didn't stop it from hurting like hell."

Victoria walked quickly and pulled up alongside of him, keeping pace. They were quiet after the story and Victoria didn't really know what to say. The trees had begun to thin and sun was glinting through the gaps. Though she wanted to rush ahead, she didn't, she kept pace. They broke through the trees onto a flat cliff that looked out over gorgeous tree tops. It was spacious stretching to the horizon. She walked slowly over and sat down, stretching her feet out and over. Her heart was spinning and her stomach was free floating. She leaned over further looking down; Antony placed his hand lightly on her shoulder. She whipped her head around; he had set up a blanket. There were no cheesy baskets, just plates of tasty food, she moved over, slowly pulling her feet up.

**********

The food had been great. The sun was setting and Antony loved the way it set Victoria's skin alight. Her feet swung bare over the cliff, as she leaned back. Her breathing was slow and steady. They had talked for a long while, about his childhood, some of the antics she had gotten in to. She hadn't objected to how close he moved to her or when he started to rub her thigh. He liked the free flow of information; it was the effect of this place. His grandfather had taken his grandmother here, to help her heal. She didn't resist him or her emotions. She just let go. Antony liked being this close to her.

He leaned over and kissed her neck, softly. He felt her legs stop moving and her breathing hitched, but she didn't pull away. He slid closer placing his leg behind her back and kissed her again moving up and down before moving to her face. He could feel her eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks. He slid her closer settling her against him. He started to bite and nibble at her neck, loving her taste and smell, the erotic sound of her increased breathing. He let his hand slide slowly across her stomach only to feel it quiver. He liked her like this and he knew he was taking advantage of her openness, he couldn't resist it.

He couldn't get her close enough. He slid them both away from the cliffs edge and laid her down on the blanket. She was soft and supple beneath him, her eyes hazy and hesitant. He returned to his feast on her neck, enjoying the feather light gasps and moans that slipped past her with each strong pull and sharp nip. He kept his hand on her stomach, loving the quivers and shakes as she tensed. He stretched up to capture her lips, moving his hand up and away from her stomach. She gasped as his finger brushed the underside of her bra, just slipping under.