Silver Moon (A Women of Wolf's Point Novel) by Catherine Lundoff Page A

we can read between the lines.” Shelly was frowning now and there was a newspaper in her hand. “What happened out there?”
    Becca flinched when she saw the headline, “Suspect in boy’s kidnapping attacked, killed by wild animals.” For an instant, she was back on the mountain, covered with blood that glowed in the moonlight. A voice that didn’t sound like hers forced the words out. “I’m sorry. But I had to. He had the little boy. And a knife. He kept stabbing me and I just wanted to stop him and save the kid.”
    “Do you understand why wolves usually travel in packs?” Shelly’s tone had a weight to it that made it sound like the fate of the world hung on Becca’s answer.
    “Well, they’re like dogs. They like the company, I guess, and someone to have their backs. And you’re saying that I shouldn’t have gone off alone.” Becca scowled. “It’s not like I knew this was going to happen, you know. Come to think of it, when Lizzie took me up to see those cave paintings, none of those paintings showed women-wolves in packs. They were all by themselves. You’d think they would have painted them with a pack if it was that important.”
    “Let’s stick with the idea of what a pack does for the moment,” Shelly said firmly. “You’re right, you shouldn’t have gone off like that. The Pack is there to help you manage changing, as much as to watch your back the rest of the time. You know you could have just as easily endangered an innocent bystander, don’t you?”
    “No!” Becca started, hands braced against the arms of the chair. She could feel her face flush, feel the blood thrum under her skin. She could smell the other women in the room and almost, but not quite, feel the changes start in her body. “I knew not to hurt the boy. Even as a wolf, I knew! I did what you did with Erin, Shelly. I changed partway and carried him down the mountain.”
    There was dead silence in the room as both Shelly and Erin stared back at her. Now that she’d stopped crying, she could see how tired Shelly looked, how uncomfortable Erin’s cast appeared to be, hanging like a weight off her shoulder. Yet here she was whining about her own troubles.
    Of course, they weren’t looking at her like her complaining was the biggest problem. No, this was the kind of astonishment that would have greeted the announcement that she was able to turn into a wolf during the full moon, if she’d said it outside this room. She wondered what she’d done that was so weird.
    Erin glanced from Shelly back to Becca. Her tone was very careful as she asked, “You were able to control your change when you were in Mountainview, Becca. Are you sure?”
    “I think I’d remember something like that, don’t you? I got out into the woods and I could feel myself start to change, just like at the Club. I fought it as hard as I could. I barely managed to get my clothes off and hidden before it happened.” Becca shook her head as if to clear her memories.
    “It’s pretty unusual to change more than once in a month, but it happens sometimes. It’s generally a new wolf thing: you’re more sensitive to the magic when it first starts happening.” Shelly sounded like a schoolteacher, her voice soothing, calling Becca back to the present. “What happened when you found them?”
    “Well, like I said, he went for me. He stabbed me a couple of times and it hurt like hell. We fought and I won. Then I made myself change partway so I could pick up the kid. I lost a lot of blood during the fight. But at least the whole Change thing seems to speed up healing. That’s something at least. Think we could use it to fix the hot flashes too?” Becca was pretty pleased with herself for thinking that one up. Maybe the trip to the cave had been useful after all, if it inspired this kind of thinking.
    Shelly was still frowning at her. Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea after all. “But how’d you do it? What were you thinking about