She smiled but it seemed forced. “Why would anyone believe you, Jacobs? What kind of proof do you actually have? And even if you do prove vamps are vicious, no one knows I'm anything other than human.”
I had nothing and she knew it. Fuck, I was going to lose her. “The truth?” I asked, because I was all out of convincing lies. “I'm desperate, Lil. I love Axel. He's domineering and huge and he has a town full of people he's responsible for, but I love him and I can't just stand around and let him die.”
Lila yawned. “This is deadly boring, Jacobs. I really should get back to my workout.”
“It could make you money,” I said, desperate.
“How?” she asked, sneering like I was ridiculous. Maybe I was, but I knew Lila had expensive tastes and she'd lost two sponsors the month before for starting a bar brawl over a pool game. She was competitive as hell and had the temper of a wild boar.
“Just imagine the possibilities,” I said. “Being a vampire will set you apart, make you interesting to everyone, even people who don't watch fights. You're the fighter who will live for eternity, who will be kicking ass for eternity. You won't need sponsors, you'll be so huge. I'll bet this could get you a movie deal.” I was totally talking out of my ass, but if I knew one thing about Lila, it was that she was insanely jealous of my acting career, short as it was.
Her sneer deepened, but I saw the calculation in her eyes. She was considering it. “Or everyone could hate me. I could get locked up by the government and become their favorite guinea pig.”
“That's the whole point of the reveal,” I said. “We do it our way, on our terms, and we make sure we're so damn famous and likable that no government or scientist will dare touch us.”
In the distance, someone shouted her name, but she didn't take her eyes off the phone. “Fine,” she said. “Just tell me where to be and when.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Where is Lila?” the production assistant asked for the third time. And, for the third time, I told her I had no clue. My agent had busted her butt to get me an interview on a late-night show on a major network. It had been twenty-four hours since Axel had left me and I'd spent the last twelve hours blowing up social media to get as many people as possible to watch the show. I needed it to happen that night, or it would be too late for Axel, too late for both of us.
“Damn it,” the production assistant muttered, pacing in front of me like a caged tiger. “You're on in two. I'm going to have to send you on alone, unless she shows up in the next thirty seconds.”
My hands fisted and I looked around for someone to punch, someone I could force to fix this. Shelly and Desiree were standing just a few feet away, chatting like old friends. I was so grateful to have them there, but-
“I'm here,” Lila said, popping up next to me. She looked drop-dead gorgeous in a slinky, gray dress that hugged her curves. “I needed the full beauty treatment for this, and it took forever.”
I want it acknowledged that I didn't kill her. I think I should get a medal for that. Never mind the fact that the production assistant shouted it was go time and waved us toward the stage. I should still get a medal.
The late show host, Jackson Morris, was a good-looking guy with just enough scruff and just enough of a beer gut to look like an everyman and not just another Hollywood beauty. He shook our hands and gestured for us to sit.
“Welcome, welcome,” he said. “I understand the two of you are here to talk about this video of Julie Jacobs going wolf and ripping a woman's head off?”
“Yes,” I said. “That's exactly—”
Jackson held up a finger. “Just a minute. We're showing the video.”
I pinched my lips shut and he grinned at me. “Unbelievable. Is this for real?”
“Actually,” I said. “It is real. I was bitten a few weeks ago and I am a werewolf.”
Jackson's eyes widened and he looked over his shoulder at his crew. I didn't know if he was looking for help or approval, but it didn't matter. I couldn't stop. I stood and dropped my dress. Something moved off to my left and I saw two security guards heading my way, their expressions intense. I dropped to all fours and shifted to wolf before they could get to me. They took a few steps back when I growled at them. It was a friendly growl, but I guess they weren't willing to take any chances. In the audience someone screamed. I looked over and saw several people fleeing the studio, while the rest of the audience just stared, stunned. I shifted back to human, pulled my dress back on, and sat down with a wide smile to let everyone know everything was okay.
Jackson grinned like a two-year-old at a birthday party with extra cake. Security was still standing close. I'd told him and his crew what I wanted to do, but I guess there's no preparing for that. They'd probably thought I was insane and were looking forward to outing me as a loony and a fake. Jackson smoothed down his jacket, took a few deep breaths, and pasted on a serious expression. Damn, he was good.
“Let me tell you, Julie Jacobs, I've always wanted to see you naked, but I'd never expected it would happen like that.”
“Neither did I,” I said. “But it feels like the most natural thing in the world to me, now.”
“You aren't going to rip my head off, are you?”
“No,” I said, ignoring Lila's snort. “I only attacked that woman because she wanted to hurt me and my friends. She was a vampire who'd gone…I'd guess you'd say she'd gone crazy. She was kidnapping me and my friends. We did what we had to do to protect ourselves.”
“Vampires, werewolves,” Jackson said. “I've got to say, this all sounds insane.”
“It's not as crazy as it sounds,” Lila said. “If you can zoom in on my mouth, I'll prove that I'm a vampire.” She waited until she got a thumbs up from the camera man, opened her mouth and popped out her sharp, pointy vampire teeth. They made a sickening crunch as they popped out, and my stomach roiled. She retracted her fangs and smiled at our host, while someone else screamed and more people fled. “What Julie says is true. Those vampires she killed were bad people. They were going to hurt her and she put them down. She did the right thing.”
“That's an amazing story,” Jackson said. “And the most unbelievable part…” He gestured between us, eyes wide with mock surprise, “Are you two actually friends now?”
Lila and I shared a blank look, possibly the only moment we'd ever felt the same thing at the same time. Lila recovered first. “Friends is taking it a bit far, Jackson. I'm helping Julie because—”
“Please,” Jackson said, his grin wide. “Tell me you two are still arch enemies, because I would pay good money to see a rematch. I mean, can you imagine?” he asked the audience. “A UFC fight between a werewolf and a vampire?”
The crowd cheered and hooted and hollered. I waited for them to settle down. “I'd love a rematch,” I said. “But I'm actually here to—”
“Did you hear that?” Jackson shouted. “You heard it here first folks, a rematch between Lioness and Julie Jacobs is on.”
“Actually, —” I tried to speak over the crowd's cheers, but no one was listening. The camera man yelled something and Jackson stood. He shook our hands and sent us away while the crowd cheered and the show cut to commercial. I tried to talk to Jackson, to ask for more time, but a security guard grabbed me and pushed me off. I could have taken the guy, but that kind of behavior wouldn't have gone far in cleaning up my reputation.
I rushed over to my agent. “You have to get me back on,” I said. “I didn't even get to talk about Axel.”
She sighed. “I had to offer them my first-born to get you on in the first place. And Lotty Reynolds is up next, there's no way they're going to let you cut into her time.”
“Calm down, Jules,” Shelly said. She wrapped an arm around my shoulders and Desiree pressed close on the other side. “You still have an enormous social media platform. Use it.”
“And use it fast,” Desiree said. “Unless that stunt you just pulled derails them, the council has ordered Axel's execution to happen at noon
tomorrow.”
My chest tightened and I found it suddenly hard to breathe. Black spots popped in my vision as panic overtook me. I couldn't lose him. I couldn't lose Axel.
“Calm down, sweetie,” Shelly said. “We can still save him. Don't give up, yet.”
“I need to get to a computer,” I said. “Now.” Which was easier to say then do, since we'd flown to New York for the taping and I didn't have a computer with me. “Do we know anyone in New York?”
Shelly sighed and her shoulders slumped. Then her eyes widened and she leapt to her feet and raced after Lila. “Lila. Lila, we need your help.”
***
“I know I'm going to regret this,” Lila said. She stuck a key in the door to her apartment and stepped inside. She flicked on lights as she walked in, revealing a tiny apartment. Much smaller than what I'd have imagined the Lioness would choose to live in, but it was in a modest building in a good neighborhood, so maybe she paid for location. “Computer's over there,” she said. “I'm going to bed. Don't make yourselves at home.”
That computer was all I saw and I made a beeline for it, ignoring the decor and details of her place. I sat down and logged into my twitter account. I stared at the screen. I had over a thousand notifications, but I didn't have time to look at any of them or get a feel for what the fans felt about me being a wolf. I needed to write a text to convince them that Axel was worth saving, that he was someone they should care about. I stared at the screen, but I couldn't express what I needed to say in two-hundred and forty characters. I needed more. I clicked over to Facebook. I started several times, typing words, trying to express why people should care about Axel. Nothing. I couldn't…I went to my Instagram page. Surely, I could…I didn't have my phone, but everything on it would have uploaded to the cloud. Maybe I had a picture of Axel, of the town, something…I didn't remember taking a picture, but maybe…I hit the cloud and came up empty on pictures of Axel, but I did have a video, a video of Axel working, his bare muscles flexing, shiny with sweat. He was glorious. I uploaded the video to Instagram, with a short note explaining he was my new beau, a very talented welder, and that I needed the video to go viral to prevent him from being punished for exposing werewolves to humans. I linked the video to my Facebook and Twitter accounts, but I wasn't happy to just sit around and wait to see if it worked.
For the next two hours, I immersed myself in social media. I answered questions and replied to comments. I told the story of how I'd been bitten. Shelly recorded me as I talked about Axel and explained how dire his circumstances were. I called Clarissa, who was unavailable, and then I called every number Max could get us for people in the pack town until I got someone. That someone happened to be a ninety-two-year-old with a hearing problem, but I wasn't going to complain.
As it turned out, the council was in Mule Creek, making sure no one escaped. They hadn't let the vampires in, yet, and I took that as a good sign. I asked the ninety-two-year-old to take pictures of Axel's work and send them to me. He didn't have any clue what I was talking about, but he must have found someone who did, because I got fifteen pictures twenty minutes later. I loaded them all onto Instagram, linking them to Twitter and Facebook, and then I made another video talking about Axel's talent. I did everything short of calling Darius out by name and, after two and a half hours, Desiree's phone rang. She answered, frowned, and handed it over to me.
“Darius,” I said. “It certainly took you long enough.”
“It's not Darius. It's your agent.” My agent, who was only a few years older than me and eager to make a name for herself, sounded like she'd swallowed a helium balloon that was trying to come back out.
I'd given her Desiree's phone number the first time I'd called her, earlier that day, so I didn't have to wonder how she'd found it. “What's up? I'm a little busy.”
“This won't take long,” she said. “Sports World wants to film a reality show about your life as a werewolf.”
I almost groaned aloud, but stopped myself, because, holy shit, this could solve everything. “I'll do it.”
“Listen, Jules,” she said. “This is just the first offer. Don't you want to wait and see if we can get something better? Everyone is going to want a piece of you, darling, and you shouldn't go cheap.”
“I'll take it,” I said. “If they can start filming and uploading now, I'm in.”
“Darling, that's not the way it works. There are contracts to sign and —”
“Consider it a teaser for the show, Marla. I need to get more attention on Axel. I need to get him away from the council before they kill him. I've done everything I can and I've heard nothing from them. I need something big and this reality show is it.”
“I think you're making a mistake, Jules. I mean this is your career. How well do you even know this guy?”
“I appreciate your advice, but this is my choice. Tell them the deal and get them here as soon as possible with a camera crew.”
She sighed. “I'll call you back as soon as I know something.”
I hung up and paced, considering my options. “Desiree,” I said. “I need to talk to Darius.”
She nodded and started tapping at her phone. After ten minutes of a lot of her shouting and cursing, she handed me the phone.
“Don't kill him,” I said before Darius could even say a word.
“It's cute what you're doing,” he said. “But for every social media post you've sent, we've posted ten comments contradicting your story. There's still enough doubt out there that if Axel disappears, it'll be like he never existed. You'll just be an anomaly, one that's forgotten in a matter of days.”
I hated what he was saying so much I almost missed the shake in his voice, the screechy pitch. He was worried. “Maybe,” I said. “But I've just signed on to a reality show, Darius. They're going to be following me around everywhere I go. You know where I'm going first?”
“It doesn't matter,” he said. “You think you've got pull? We've got people on the council who've buried nuisances ten times as famous as you. You're nothing.”
“I might be nothing, but the first place I'm going with my camera crew is your house, Darius. I'm going to talk to your wife and your kids and I'm going to tell them you're just like me. You're a werewolf. Except you're also a killer.”
“They won't believe you,” he said, but there was definite panic in his voice now. “You're just a washed-up fighter who's desperate for attention.”
“And you know what I'm going to do after the reality show ends, Darius? After the cameras are gone and you're all alone? I'm going to show up and I'm going to make you hurt in every way you've made Axel hurt and then I'm going to rip your head from your body. I'm going to find every council member who touched him and I'm going to make sure they die a slow and painful death.”
“You'll be dead before you step foot on my property.”
“I'm a trained fighter, Darius. And now I've got the strength, speed, and cunning of a wolf. I will rip you apart and dance in your blood.”
Desiree shuddered and Shelly slapped a hand to her mouth like she might be sick.
“One more thing,” I said, when Darius didn't answer. “Tell the council they only get one chance.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” he asked.
“They only get one chance to make a first impression with the humans. They can do it on their terms, and come out as the nice, sensible protectors of wolves and humans, or I can out them as the killers they are. You choose.”
“Fuck you,” he said. “Do you have any idea what I've done to protect this secret? And you think you can waltz in and destroy all my hard work, my sacrifices, to save a wolf who broke our laws, who deserves punishment?”
“Considering he broke your laws because he was protecting himself from vampires you were secretly assisting to overthrow us, I'd say his need for punishment is not at all clear cut.”
“You have no idea—”
“Call me,” I said. “If I get to you before I've gotten a ca
ll from you, I'm doing this my way.”
I hung up and looked at Desiree. “Has Max found out where they're holding Axel?”
“They've got him in Mule Creek,” she said. “In the jail.”
They wanted to kill him in front of his own pack, probably to remind them what would happen to them if they didn't submit to the vamps. I used her phone to call my agent back. “What did they say?” I asked.
“Darling,” she said, “it's the middle of the night and it's only been ten minutes.”
“And I know how bad they want to be the ones to get this reality show deal with me. What did they say?”
“They're working on it. They want to help you, darling, but they aren't magicians.”
I'd never pulled the diva card. I'd always been understanding and kind to agents and managers, coaches and staff, but I didn't have time to waste on understanding and kindness. “Tell them to have a camera crew in Aspens Whiten by eight AM this morning. If they can't do it, offer the reality show deal to someone who can. If there's no one to meet me in Aspens Whiten at eight, I'm out. There won't be a reality show, not with anyone.” And that would hurt her bottom line, because if I did a reality show, she'd get a cut.
“I'll try, darling.”
“Do more than try,” I said. “Make it happen. If you don't, Axel is dead.”
I hung up and looked at Desiree and Shelly. “I'm going back to Mule Creek to confront Darius and the council. This could go awesome, or it could go really, really bad. You don't have to come with me.”
“Are you kidding?” Desiree asked. “That council killed my husband. I'd love to see them get taken down a peg or six.”
I looked at Shelly. “I love you, babe,” she said. “But this isn't my fight.”
She was right and I didn't begrudge her choice for a moment. “Want me to get you a cab to the airport?”
“Naw,” she said. “Ally is flying in tonight and we're going to have a mini vacation in the city.”
“You so deserve it, sweetie,” I said. “I'm glad you're taking some time off.”
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