Moonglow by Kristen Callihan Page A

difference. A lycan,” he said, raising his voice, for the blasted woman had opened her mouth again—as curious as a pup, this one—“has control. He turns at will.”
    “So stories of the full moon and all of that…”
    He laughed shortly. “Doesn’t turn us. Mother Moon does, however, intensify our strength. The brighter she glows in the night, the stronger we are. And we are weakest on the new moon, when the sky is utterly devoid of her silver rays.”
    “Why? What is it about the moon’s rays that give you strength?”
    “I don’t know.”
    She frowned the way a child might, as though put out for not getting the answer she wanted, and a strange, aching sensation spread within his chest.
    Damn if she didn’t remind Ian of himself. Before he had lost heart. When he had tackled life with lusty abandon, and frank curiosity. But there was a look that clouded her eyes, as if something was killing her natural vivaciousness, like a frost creeping along tender spring grass. As if she too were slowly giving up the struggle. He found himself wanting to banish that look, perhaps save in her what he couldn’t save in himself.
    He almost laughed. Ian was no one’s savior, and no one wanted him to be. He shook himself out of such fanciful thoughts and gave her his best schoolmaster expression.
    “Look, we don’t know how we started, why we live this endless life, or from where we came. It’s all speculation. But the closest our elders can figure, it has to do with reincarnation. Once we were wolves. Over several lifetimes, our spirits evolved and we became men, but the wolf spirit lived on as well. Think of it as a soul divided.”
    “Two souls in one body?”
    “Precisely. So wolf and man are at odds.” He spread his hands out in supplication. “Man wants to be in control and so does the wolf. A lycan is a being in which the man’s soul is in control but the wolf’s soul alters his makeup to create an immortal capable of using the strengths of both. Man may call upon the wolf, shift into a hybrid of wolf and man, gaining extra strength and speed, but man is always in control.”
    She sat back with a little huff. “Seems hardly fair to the wolf trapped inside of you. Surely, he wants his time in the sun?”
    His beast whined, agreeing, and Ian pushed against it. Discomfort and irritation coiled within. “Had the wolf his way, the wolf would remain so, the man’s body shifting fully to wolf and his soul fading into the background, never to return.”
    “How can you be sure?”
    “Because,” he hissed, “it has always been so. Have you any idea how many of my brethren I’ve seen lost to the wolf? None came back.”
    “Perhaps it is because the wolf has had to fight for his right to be free. Perhaps if it were given a turn…” His wolf paced within him, making his bones ache, surely lighting his eyes if Daisy’s paling expression were any indication. She closed her mouth abruptly.
    He took a sip of her ale and felt the fangs that had threatened to grow recede. “D’ye think any man wants to risk his soul to test the generosity of his wolf by fully shifting?”
    “No.” She trailed her nail along a groove in the wood. “I suppose not.”
    “I give him what I can,” Ian said. “I let him run far andlong each night.” His conscience and his wolf chided that this was not precisely true but was a recent occurrence. Ian swallowed down his guilt. “It is essential that I keep control.”
    She didn’t seem frightened anymore but curious. “And if you fully lose control, that is the werewolf of which you speak?”
    “Yes. The wolf is in control but he is not a normal wolf. He is bigger, much bigger, his head at the height of my shoulder.”
    Daisy’s blue eyes went as round as saucers. “Yes, exactly.”
    “And he is damaged. Rage and unpredictability rule him. A
were
often kills because it feels compelled.” At this, Ian lowered his head. “It isn’t the wolf but the man, yearning to return,