Moon Blood (COMPLETE)

Chapter Eleven: A Lack of Manners

He laid with her until the dawn rose, and his body shrank and contorted once again. Both as naked as the day they were born, he coiled around her and shivered in the morning dew.

"Ruby? Neil? God, I can smell you a mile away, boy. What happened?" Lilly and the other that had never given her name had loped up in their wolf form. Neil opened one eye, and attempted a growl, forgetting he wasn't in his lupine form. He held Ruby closer. "She's hurt," he murmured.

"I can see that. Come on then, let's get you home, the pair of you lovesick teens."

Neil awoke in a soft bed with stale smelling sheets. He jumped up, stomach empty and head spinning. Almost as an impulse, he looked down to check the status of his body; the sensation of being a human and being a wolf were starting to feel exactly the same.

Someone stirred beside him.

He jumped, and Ruby turned over, showing the large bandage wrapped around her chest, already soiled where the gash was hidden underneath. She breathed softly and smoothly before shifting her weight back onto her stomach. She was a restless sleeper, it seemed.

He leaned over her, his heart thumping, a growing excitement bubbling in his stomach that stretched right down to his legs. He inched closer. And closer.

And earned a pinch on his cheeks. He winced, and Ruby grinned at him.

"I don't need my olfactory to smell you, Lowell. You're about as subtle as an axe trying to hack through a girder."

"Hey, only James and David call me that."

She poked his nose. "Don't you owe me something?"

He did, and he plopped his head back on the pillow, turning to face her.

"I'm sorry for what I said. And thank you, for saving me from those people."

She smiled wryly. "They're the Masc clan. Four she-wolves that think this is their territory; in reality our clan have been here far longer." She scoffed. "No grace, no dignity to their methods either. They acted like horny savages."

"That's rich, coming from you."

"Speak for yourself." She jabbed him in the tummy with her finger, and they giggled. Neil looked at her, not unaware how close their lips were to touching.

"Wake up, lovebirds!" announced Lilly as she announced herself, throwing the door open and making Neil's heart nearly leap out of his throat. "Feeling better?"

"I've felt worse." Lying was likely totally useless around these women - not that he could lie convincingly anyway.

"You didn't eat before your transformation, did you? We warned you, but you seem like the stubborn type." She rumpled his head, which only earned her a disgruntled murmure of a protest and a swatting hand. It was soon replaced by a twitching nose as he sniffed cooking meat wafting from the hallway. Lilly smirked. "Luckily for you, Daisy's got some bacon sizzling downstairs."

His stomach answered for him. As he clutched it, Ruby exited the bed as soon as Lilly shut the door, not a stitch of clothing to her name. She stretched and Neil turned beet red. She rolled her eyes as she turned to see him almost burying his head back under the covers.

"You weren't this embarrassed last night."

"Can you please stop talking like we actually... did it?"

"What, sex?"

"We didn't! Please don't say it so loud."

Within milliseconds, he realised his mistake. A huge, mischievous grin cracked her face practically to her ears, and she wiggled her hips in a ludicrously suggestive manner. She inched closer, her hands all about her body.

It was all too much for the throbbing between Neil's legs. He hurled the blanket over himself and protected his head under his arms. But that would not stop Ruby, who he soon felt the weight of as she sat on his back. She rocked back and forth.

"Oh God, please don't do that."

"Sorry, Lowell, can't hear you under there. You'll have to come out and say it."

"I... I can't right now."

She laughed and rocked harder. He didn't want her to know how much he was enjoying it and let her win, so Neil chose to be stubborn, and tried to curl up into a ball.

"If I can't eat you, then I'll have to settle for the bacon frying in the kitchen. Come on, let's go eat." She'd already gone by the time Neil had poked his head out from the covers. He looked down; he still needed a few minutes.

*****

Daisy was one of those people that definitely did not look like she owned a delicate name like that: she was huge, like a hockey player, with broad shoulders and so bow legged that she'd never catch a pig in a passage. In truth, Neil was far too afraid to approach her, and they'd yet to exchange a word.

She seemed friendly enough as she offered him a mess tin with two streaks of greasy bacon and a pile of scrambled eggs. No cutlery though. Neil sat with his breakfast, waiting for some kind of social cue to start. When none came, he gave up and picked at it with his thumb and forefinger. It was by far the most refined etiquette at the table.

All three of them outright attacked the contents of their own mess tins. Egg soon decorated the table like edible confetti and grease was being used as lip gloss. The noises were by far the worst: Neil would never make finishing school, but he sat there with his mouth agape at their table manners. They paid him no notice, and he thought better than to question it.

"So," said Lilly, still masticating and smacking her lips, "now you know what happens when you go into season. Every she-wolf for ten miles is going to be able to locate you if you go out unprepared like that. We did warn you, but didn't exactly want to stop you."

"You wanted me to learn a lesson, right?" Neil was glum.

All three nodded in unison.

"But what about Ruby?"

She popped a mouthful of egg into her mouth, and shrugged. "It'll heal quicker than you think, so don't worry about me." She winked at him, and even with residue of her breakfast around her mouth, Neil couldn't help but blush.

"Is fast healing a perk I can expect too?"

Ruby leaned her chin on one hand, and nodded. "It happens to us all. The body changes irreversibly, for better and worse."

That last word left a heavy and unnerving weight in Neil's stomach, and it definitely wasn't down to the fried food. The moment ebbed, and passed, and his opportunity to question it passed with it.