I was there when my high school boyfriend became a werewolf. We didn’t know it at the time. At the time we were just trying to stay alive.

The sky above was cloudless and full of stars. The moon like a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Endless possibilities were ahead of us and we were going to find them all together.

One minute we were stumbling away from our friends and the fire they sat by. His arm around my waist and my hand in his back pocket, our mouths seeking one another. His body’s warmth a shield against the cold night.

Then the snapping of a twig and a rumble like thunder.

We stilled. The instinct of prey even though we’d never been prey before. My ears had never listened so closely. My muscles twitched, preparing for escape. I looked into the darkness, shadows casted long and dark by the bright flames of the fire.

I squeezed my eyes shut, wrestling the memory away. It was somewhere I didn’t like to go–the screaming and the blood, the painful snap of my arm.

When I opened them, he was there on my front porch–his hands deep in the pockets of worn and stained jeans. Nico Troisi. The one who disappeared. The one who never left my mind. The one true love of my life.

Dark circles gave his midnight eyes a haunted appearance. His cheek bones stood out stark against pale skin. Silver hair streaked his wild dark waves.

My heart already beat a quick rhythm against my ribs, but it skipped at his deep baritone voice, “Hi, Carly.”

Twenty-five years had passed since I’d heard my name on his lips. I’d mended my broken heart stitch by painful stitch. I’d fallen in love and married and divorced. I’d become an interior decorator and had children. I was a grown woman determined not to be defined by my trauma or the boy who’d left a mark too deep. Much like my arm that hadn’t healed correctly, I functioned but I hurt when it rained.

“Nico,” I whispered.

Under the course scruff on his neck, his Adam’s apple bobbed. “It’s back.”

Come back for more on Oct. 18th!

I usually write contemporary romance and you can download You and Me in Quarantine while you wait for the next installment.

In the meantime, enjoy other free reads at Something Wicked Steamy Romance, Female Indie Authors, Contemporary Romance and Melt Your Heart Out.