Chapter 18

Several hours later and the sun was beginning to drop, as the two of them silently made their way back to the house.

“How did it feel?” she finally asked as her voice throbbed with suppressed emotions, the image of him burned forever in her mind – the image of Matt in all his glory.

Matt sighed and shook his head in the fading light. “I’d forgotten the pull of the power, that feeling of strength and energy.”

“Have you never felt the call of the moon – in all these years did you never once feel the temptation?” Trudy asked curiously.

“It’s one of the reasons that I run so much – it takes the edge off my energies and dims the influence of the moon.”

“But still...”

“What?” he asked as he drew to a halt. “What did you see; what did I do?”

She reached up and touched his cheek. “I saw what I always see with you. The man the morals the strength ... but tonight I saw you free – free in a way that I only ever saw once before.”

He caught her hand on his cheek and kissed her palm, breathing in the scent and warmth of her, trying to drag back those long-forgotten memories – trying to remember the raw anguish his wolf had felt when first released after all these years.

“I so wish that we could be, what we were then!” he muttered hoarsely.

“As do I!” Trudy whispered tearfully.

They parted ways in the hallway, Matt went up to the room that Seline had had prepared for him, and Trudy to see Seline in her study.

His room was one of the few that had its own bathroom, and Matt made good use of the shower as he allowed the hot running water to wash away the grime, and to ease his tight aching muscles.

He had not brought many clothes with him, just the weekender bag that he kept packed in his boot, for just this sort of unexpected occurrence.

He did not have much with him but the clothes that he had were of good quality, and the muted formal colours suited his usual personality and the image that he was forced to portray.

At the bottom of his bag though was a pair of faded, worn jeans, and a cream-coloured cotton shirt.

In a rare fit of impatience with his lot in life, he pulled the casual clothes out and quickly dressed.

Trudy was just coming out of Seline’s study as Matt strode down the stairs and she stopped and simply gaped.

The cream shirt really set off his dark masculinity, but the casual denim gave him an all-new kind of raw sex appeal, and the most endearing part of it was that he was totally oblivious of this fact.

At first, he did not see the way the older girls responded to this new sensual Matt, how they all went weak at the knees at the sight of him.

It was with secret amusement that Trudy watched their gut reaction and total slavish adoration for him that they were quickly developing.

Even Marcie and Seline both went wide eyed, and slack lipped at he stalked his way through the house checking windows and doors.

It seemed that wherever he went four of the girls suddenly needed to be in that room too.

“There they are locked good and tight,” he declared with smug satisfaction as he stepped down from the ladder. “Those top windows seem small but some of those guys were slight enough to attempt one or two of them.”

He turned around casually, and his eyebrows shot up in surprise as he faced several bright-eyed young women, all with their attention fixed solely on him.

For the first time he registered the scent of pheromones in the air, and as realisation hit, he stepped back against the ladder.

They were like a pack after their prey, and that prey he saw was him!

Two of the girls sat forward, and slowly came to their feet. Never taking their smouldering eyes from him, they began to close in...

“Matt! There you are!”

The spell broke as quickly as it had formed, and the girls dropped back down as the colour stained their cheeks.

Trudy strode across the room and reached up with bright twinkling eyes to kiss him full on the mouth, clearly stamping her claim on him.

She gave his hand a reassuring squeeze before turning to the women.

“Marcie says that your chores are waiting to be done still.” She told them brightly.

She gazed up at him, as the girls reluctantly began to file out.

“Sandra, please could you close the door after you,” Trudy kept her gaze on Matt, but the door closing sealed them into their own private cocoon suddenly.

She stood back with a sigh, and Matt followed her and looked at her with open confusion.

“What the hell just happened?” he growled.

Trudy looked at him with exasperation tinged with pity.

“You do realise that you are probably the first male in those girls lives who had treated them with any sort of respect or even kindness and care?”

“Well, I guess...?”

“You were like a kindly uncle in your business suits, and your ... old man work clothes...”

He stepped back in offence. “My old work slacks are suitable for crawling around attics and across roofs, but they were not old man clothes!”

“If you say so,” she sighed patting his hand. “Any way since you shifted, you seem to have re-found your vigour, and ... she looked him over with feminine approval. “And your choice of clothing seems to have also done a shift for the better.”

Matt actually felt the heat in his cheeks, he had never thought of himself as attractive to females. His role for the council had always meant that most feared him and kept their distance especially the females of their kind.

His needs were to intimidate and browbeat wherever he went, and to indulge in any form of relationship, would have undermined that.

Oh, women had often been offered for the duration of his visit, as a ‘social gift’, and to refuse would be seen as an insult to the host. Besides he had needs like any other, and to indulge once in while had not just been satisfying to himself – he had always made sure of that.

Now though as Trudy eyed him up so possessively, and the way those girls had watched his movements!

Trudy had watched as the emotions flickered across his face, in a way that she knew only she could read. She grinned suddenly and reached up to gently stroke his jawline. “Poor baby,” she murmured, her vibrant eyes locked onto his. “Don’t worry my love, I will protect you!”