Run: Beginnings by Michaela Adams Page A

she had seen, yet it was slowly changing. The snout was receding while the limbs grew longer. Natalie felt her pulse beating in her ears as she watched in silence the body of man slowly emerging from the shifting form. The body of a running man. Run! Natalie turned around and ran for all she was worth. She didn’t know who or what that was but she knew she didn’t want to find out.
                  Suddenly the large form closed in around her, wrapping a massive arm around her chest, bringing her down. Natalie screamed as she felt herself pulled down. But instead of landing on the cold ground, she landed on her back on top of her captor, the nameless form taking the brunt of the fall. Before she could try and scramble away, the heavy form rolled over, pinning Natalie onto the cold ground.
                  “Little rabbit.”
                  Natalie looked up, her eyes wide in shock, unable to believe she was hearing his voice. “Eric?” she croaked, too shaken to find relief in seeing someone familiar.
                  She was completely pinned under him, her face cradled between his warm hands. Although the ground was wet and cold, his body was like a furnace. She immediately felt her shivering body thawing against him. Looking up, she could see Eric searching her face. His expression was completely indiscernible. Natalie breathed slowly. Eric was the…form? He was the shifting wolf? What in the hell was he?
                  Eric brushed away some clinging hair from her forehead. “You’re not hurt,” he said, leaving room for a question.
                  Natalie gulped, unable to bring herself to respond.
                  Those well-molded lips twitched as he looked down, shaking his head a bit. “Well I guess this is one way to explain myself to you,” he said. “I had been hoping to do it in a less dramatic fashion though.”
                  Natalie’s eyes widened. “So…so…last night, this is what you meant? This is what you wanted me to know?” A wolf. He was a wolf. Werewolves only existed in horror movies yet here was someone she had just seen transform from animal to man right before her eyes.
                  Eric looked up, his face grave. “I wanted you to have the truth. I wanted you to know the whole me.”
                  Natalie looked up at him. Less in fear now and more in awed wonder. “Why?” she breathed.
                  Eric never broke his gaze. “Because when you finally came to me, I wanted you to have all of me. Just as I will have all of you.”
                  The humming of life surrounded them as they lay on the forest floor. With his body pressed so closely against her, she could not only feel his incredible heat but also the intimate thumping from within. His heart.
                  “When I come to you?” she whispered.
                  Eric nodded. “Freely and willingly,” he said. Brushing his thumbs across her cheeks, he looked down at her with a kind of infinite tenderness that made Natalie’s eyes suddenly burn with tears. “Will you be mine, little rabbit?”
                  Natalie closed her eyes and nodded, wrapping her arms around his neck, bringing him closer to her. Exhaustion and relief only heightened her thrilling happiness. “Yes, yes,” she said. Releasing her hold, she smiled up at him. “I will—”
                  Eric, face darkened with delighted lust, swooped down to capture her lips in a possessive kiss. No longer feeling the cold or the dirt, Natalie threw herself into the kiss, willingly falling into the drugging haze of his mouth.
                  His hands ran down her curvy body, finding their way down her sweater. Yanking the thick material up, Eric exposed her full and creamy breasts into the night air. Plunging his tongue into her mouth,