Moon Shadows by Nora Roberts

he remembered that he’d nearly unlocked the cage. “And it’s far from the first scratch I’ve had in the line of duty. You should’ve seen the chunk this toy poodle took out of me my first year in practice.”
    â€œIt’s not a joke.”
    â€œWho’s joking?” He shoved up his other sleeve, pointed to the mark just under his elbow. “Look at that scar. Little son of a bitch had teeth like a shark.”
    â€œYou turned your back on me.”
    â€œIt.” He’d decided it was best all around to make that distinction clear. “Yes, I did. My mistake. But between Amico, and my own catlike reflexes, all I got was a couple of scratches.”
    â€œGouges.”
    â€œSemantics. Either way, no permanent damage, right?”
    It was a question, and one she was sure he’d wrestled with for hours. Alone. “No. It takes a bite. Teeth into flesh, saliva and blood. This will hurt.” She examined the wounds—four long gashes—and decided she couldn’t doctor it any better than he had. Foolish of her to think otherwise. “It’ll probably scar.”
    â€œJust add it to my collection.”
    â€œIt could have been much, much worse.”
    â€œI’m aware.”
    â€œNo, you’re not. And that’s my fault.” She turned away, going to the kitchen door to fling it open. Autumn mists made the trees look as though they were floating in a low-riding river. Winter, she thought, creeping closer.
    â€œI wouldn’t have killed you. I knew, from the minute I saw you, I knew what . . . and I should’ve told you. What’s in me is primal. And blood—to hunt and feed—isn’t the only primal need. I wouldn’t have killed you,” she repeated, and turned back to him. “I would have changed you. I would have made you like me. I wanted that.”
    He rose himself, walked to the stove for more coffee. She could see she’d shaken him, given him something to consider that hadn’t crossed his mind. “You think telling me that is going to have me heading out the door?”
    â€œNo. You have feelings for me, and you’re invested in this now. But you can’t trust me.”
    â€œRight on one and two, wrong on three.” He set the mug down with an impatient snap. “I can’t imagine what you’ve been through, what you cope with every hour of every day. It’s beyond imagining. I’ve watched you, I’ve watched the tapes, and I’m looking at you right now wondering if I have half the guts you do. Primal, you said. It’s primal, and its instincts are to survive, to feed, to mate. It’s not to blame for that, and neither are you.”
    â€œI should’ve told you.”
    â€œYou just did. Things are moving fast between us,” he said before she could speak. “But the fact is we haven’t been in this situation very long. This very intense and strange situation. I haven’t told you I once had a one-night stand with a woman for no other reason than she was there. Actually, it didn’t qualify as a night, just a couple hours of serious banging. I didn’t care about her, forgot her name the next morning. It was primal. Going to hold it against me?”
    â€œMen are pigs. Everyone knows that.” She stepped to him. “I’ve never loved anyone before. I don’t know what to do about it.”
    â€œWe’ll figure it out along the way.” He leaned down to brush his lips with hers, then sank in, held on when her arms came around him hard. “We’ll figure it all out. We’ve got four weeks before the next full moon. Let’s see where it takes us.”
    Hope hurt, but how could she tell him?
    â€œI’ve got to get back to my place, clean up, get to work.” He kissed her again before easing away. “But I’ll be back, right after office hours. I’ll bring