Page 83 of Taken by Moonlight

He looked me over and sighed. “I’m afraid for you, baby. I’m afraid of you being alone in the world with shifters who would mistreatyou.”

“But I’m not alone,” I murmured. “I’m withyou.”

Iwaited.

“Are you afraid? I would never put you in any danger,Peyton.”

“Of course I’m not scared. You’re withme.”

“You’re not even scaredofme?” He turned his cell phone over in his palm. “I’m not as eloquent as Alex, or as civilized asDante…”

I gave a little laugh. “Dante,civilized?”

He gave me a meaningful look. “Dante can turn on the charm when he needs to, because he has to tangle with the Council of Shifters and business associates. At times, you wouldn’t know he’s a wolf. Butme…”

Gabriel’s jaw tightened beneath his light brown beard. “I’m all wolf. With a bad rep. I’ve been in prison, Peyton, and done some badthings.”

My heart skipped a beat. Gabriel was the wildest of the trio. He slept at night at the bed’s edge as wolf, and sometimes I sensed he felt restricted while in human form. As if one night he’d turn into a wolf and bound away, never to return toskin.

“Everyone’s done things they’re not proud of, Gabriel. It doesn’t make you a bad person. Or a bad shifter. I know you’re not. I’ve seen you around the kids, and how gentle you are with them. You cherish life, and cherishthem.”

Gratitude filled his warm smile. “Thanks.” He squeezed myhand.

Then he got serious. “You need to know how to defend yourself against our kind, Peyton, especially from assholes like theBrowns.”

I thought of the knife back at the club that couldn’t even give a small paper cut. “True, that. But unless I go armed all the time with a shotgun, there’s not a lot I can do if a shifter catchesme.”

“Yes, there is. There’s a secret amongst werewolf alphas, one that Dante revealed to me andAlex.”

He leaned close. “We never tell humans because it gives them power over us and they could misuse it. But he instructed me to share it withyou.”

Secrets could be fun. Dangerous as well. I felt honored that they trusted me, and uneasy as well because it meant the boys saw our relationship in a different light than I did. Shifters seldom shared pack secrets withoutsiders.

“Why does he trust me?” Iasked.

Gabriel’s mouth tightened. “After what you did with Felicia, he knows you need to know this spell to protect yourself. Just incase.”

While Dante’s fierce protectiveness warmed me, it also made me uneasy. The alpha was drawing me in closer and closer to his world. My safeguard was my warped sense ofhumor.

“Does the spell involve fur and maybe sex?” Iasked.

He didn’t smile. “It’s a magickspell.”

“Oh.”

“Words can be magick,” he said slowly. “This one will stop us from shifting from human to wolf. You say the spell if you sense a shifter is going to attack you in wolfform. ”

Intrigued, I nodded. “All right. Tellme.”

“Morpheus Lupus VimVitae.”

It sounded like Latin. “What does itmean?”

“It’s a spell, roughly translated, that says, ‘Sleep wolf life force.’” Gabriel gave me an intent look. “This is real important, Peyton. You have to chant it, loudly, before the enemy shifts into wolfskin.”

Oh, sure. Piece of cake. I’d seen how fast an experienced wolf like Gabriel could shapeshift. “Is thatall?”

He frowned. “I mean it. Look for the signs, because if you wait too long, you’ll just piss himoff.”