by Isa Hunt
I'd come into the bar later, to see if I could talk to her there, but Jake had come again, and this time he'd laid down some charm, getting her to trust him. I knew he was setting her up for the kill, and I suspected that he would try something tonight. He and his master were desperate for her blood, and it meant nothing for them to take her life in the process of obtaining it.
There was no way in hell I was going to let them take it, though. I was here on a mission, and as the alpha of my pack, it was my responsibility to save Kelly – not just for her sake, but for the sake of all wolf shifters. And pretty much all other shifters too.
I knew that what I was going to tell Kelly would blow her mind six ways from Sunday. She wasn't going to like the truth about who she really was . . . about what she really was. And I'd been trying to figure out a way to break the news to her gently, to approach her in a way that wouldn't make her feel like she'd lost her mind – but now that Jake had made his move, I had been forced to play my hand.
I had followed her home from work. And then, then I'd seen Jake, and I had known. This was the moment. This was it.
She had followed him into the darkness of the alley, and now she had only seconds to live – unless I could save her. I threw my black coat off and in a split second changed forms from man to wolf. I felt the call of the wild racing through my veins and felt a dire hunger gnawing at my belly: the hunger for blood.
With a growl I charged into the alley, sprinting at full speed. With my wolf eyes I could see clearly through the dark, and I could smell vividly the two scents of the people in the alley, scents that were so different from each other: one, the scent of a gorgeous, innocent young woman in the prime of her life, the other the foul, rank stink of a murderous thug.
Kelly screamed as she backed up against the wall of the alley, with Jake closing in on her, his huge hunting knife gripped in his hand, poised to strike – and that's what I aimed for as I launched myself into a flying leap.
Jake only just had time to turn to look at me with an expression of shock on his bearded face before I smashed into him. I clamped down on his forearm with my powerful jaws, snarling with fury as my razor-sharp teeth ripped into his flesh, and the momentum of my sprinting leap brought us both crashing to the ground.
“Benoit, you son of a bitch!” he growled as we thrashed and wrestled. “I'll rip your mutt head off!”
He punched me with a heavy hand in the side of my head, trying to get me to let go of his arm so that he could use the knife, but I did not relinquish my grasp. Next to us, Kelly screamed. I needed to yell out to her, to get her to run, to run as fast as she could and escape, but of course in my wolf form I couldn't talk. There was only one way I could get the message to her, and that would mean a huge risk to myself. Any advantage I had in the fight against this huge man would be gone if I transformed back into my human form now. There was no other way, though, and Kelly's life was too important to risk. If I had to die to save her, so be it.
I changed – and Kelly screamed again, because in place of a snarling wolf, writhing on the ground with Jake, there was now – well, me. Naked.
“Run, Kelly!” I roared hoarsely, gripping Jake's huge forearm in a jiu-jitsu lock. “Run, run!”
“What the hell?” she screamed. “What's, what's going on? Who—”
“Just run!” I roared. “Go! GO!”
She nodded, too shocked to do anything else, and took off at a sprint. Jake hit me with a vicious left hook, and the force of the heavy blow whipped my head to the side. I fell off him, stunned and groaning, and he scrambled to get on top of me.
“After I cut your heart out, you filthy street mutt,” he snarled, “I'll catch the bitch and cut hers out too! You're about to die for nothing, asshole.”
As he raised his knife above his head to strike the killing blow, however, I changed again, and in a millisecond I was once again a wolf. I lunged upwards for his throat, snapping my jaws around it. He roared with pain and fell back, dropping the knife. I bit with all my might and felt my teeth puncturing his throat, but he managed to plant both of his feet on my midsection and kick me off of him before I could finish him off.
He scrambled to his feet, coughing and gripping his throat, which was now bleeding heavily, turned and sprinted away.
I changed hurriedly back into my human form.
“That's right, coward!” I roared after him. “Run! Run, and don't come back!”
Now that he was out of the picture – temporarily, at least – I had to catch Kelly. Things had reached the boiling point now, and her life was in mortal danger. I dashed across the road, put on my long coat again, and sprinted off in the direction she had run.
Her only hope, even though she didn't know it yet, was that I could catch her in time. And it was my only hope too . . . and maybe the only hope of all of my kind.
I ran like I had never run before, praying that she hadn't managed to escape.
CHAPTER 6 – KELLY
I'm not crazy . . . I'm not crazy . . . I'm not crazy . . .
This was the thought that kept running through my mind as if my brain was stuck in some sort of loop, as I sprinted away. I hadn't suddenly lost my mind, had I? Except, how could I explain what I had just seen in any other way? People didn't change into wolves! It was impossible! It was just . . . it couldn't happen. It simply couldn't. Someone had to have slipped something into my water or something. Either that or I was, despite the mantra I kept repeating to myself, completely nuts.
I'm not crazy . . . I'm not crazy . . .
I was in a state of shock, and as the initial adrenaline boost started to wear off, a great weariness began to overtake me, and my sprint slowed to a run, and then to a jog, and then, finally, to a slow stagger.
Even though I hadn't had a drop to drink all night I felt like I had just slammed a whole bottle of tequila and chased it down with a whole bottle of vodka. My head was swimming, my vision blurred at the edges, and my legs felt like they were made of jelly: weak, wobbly noodles, unable to support my weight.
In my blind flight of panic, I had dashed into a sketchy part of town I wasn't familiar with, and now I found myself in an alley again. Luckily, this time I seemed to be alone. I looked up and down the alley to make sure that there really was nobody else in here. I leaned against a wall, and slowly slid down until I was sitting in a slump on the dirty ground.
“What the fuck just happened . . . ” I murmured to myself. “I didn't just see a wolf turn into a man, I know I didn't . . . But . . . I did! That's what I saw. Right in front of me, clear as day. It felt so real, but it . . . It can't be real. It can't be.
The evening had started out kinda freaky with being chased by a wolf, and it had gotten worse when I'd seen my mysterious stalker in the bar, waiting for me . . . and now it had turned into a downright nightmare, with that huge guy Jake trying to kill me, and then having a freakin' werewolf or something rescue me. I'd had some crazy nights in my life, but this one took the cake for sure.
I wondered what I should do. I was now in a sketchy part of town, alone, with a wolf and some sort of psycho murderer both after me. I had no car, no weapons, no way to protect myself.
To say that it was a shitty situation that I found myself in was putting things way too mildly.
“What am I gonna do?” I muttered to myself, massaging my temples with my shaking fingers. “What the hell am I gonna do?”
“Kelly.”
The voice, tinted with a foreign accent, made me look up with surprise – and what immediately followed this surprise was a sense of shock, and fear: it was the stalker. The werewolf. The guy who had saved me.
Just because he had saved me from that crazy psycho Jake, didn't mean that I could trust him, though.
Without the hood I'd always seen him in before, I was finally able to get a decent look at him. The first thing I noticed about this guy was that he was handsome – very handsome. Jeez, maybe if I'd seen him up close before, I would have actually given him the time
of day instead of running away from him. It sounded like a cliché, but he looked like a male model. Not the beefy kind you see gracing the covers of fitness and strength magazines, but rather the kind you see parading the latest fashions on a runway: lean but strong, angular, with piercing light green eyes that were almost a shade of yellow, strong cheekbones and an impossibly square jaw. Medium length sandy blond hair was swept back over his head. He was still wearing the long black coat, but the top was open, and I could see his smooth, tanned skin, stretched tight over perfectly sculpted muscles on a body that didn't seem to have an ounce of fat on it. He looked to be around my age, maybe a couple years older.
As attractive as he was, I was still incredibly freaked out about all of this, and this guy had been stalking me, and that in itself made me distrustful of his intentions.
“Who the hell are you?” I snapped. “And what do you want with me?”
“It's understandable that you're upset right now. What you saw tonight must have been very scary.”
His accent sounded distinctly French. I had to admit, it gave his deep, gravelly voice even more charm.
Jeez, no! Snap out of it, Kelly! You can't start swooning over some creepy stalker who may or may not be a freakin' werewolf. Even if his looks and accent are getting things a little damp somewhere . . .
“You're damn right it was scary! Now answer my questions. Who are you, and what do you want with me?”
He stepped toward me, extending a hand to me.
“You need to come with me. We don't have much time to waste. You are in great danger.”
“Back off!” I snapped, backpedaling away from his hand. “I'm not going anywhere with you. I don't even know who you are. You tell me what's going on, you tell me right now!”
He sighed and shook his head.
“Listen, when you're safe there will be plenty of times to explain things. Right now we don't have time, right now we need to move. Please, just come with me.”
“Not until you tell me who you are.”
He huffed with exasperation and grimaced, but nodded.
“Fine. I am Benoit Delacroix. I have been sent here to help you, to protect you from some very evil people who want you dead.”
“Evil people? Who want me dead? This is crazy. I'm nobody! Who the hell would want to kill me?”
He sighed.
“There's a lot you don't know, Kelly. And like I said, when we are somewhere safe, I'll explain everything to you. But right now, we just don't have time to talk.”
“I want to go home. I just want to go home and forget about all of this . . . I just want to . . . ”
I could feel it – tears stinging at the corners of my eyes, and a sob welling up in my throat. I didn't want to be that girl – but damn, it was hard not to just start bawling at a moment like this.
“I understand that,” he said, his tone becoming more gentle, “but you need to understand that you're in grave danger right now. And I'm sorry, but you can't go home. That's the first place the enemy will look for you. You saw what Jake was going to do to you. You know what the consequences will be if they get hold of you. Please Kelly, just come with me.”
Everything was so crazy, so overwhelming right now. I really had no idea what to do – but I did know that some crazy guy had tried to kill me earlier. There was no denying that. And if what this Benoit guy was saying was true, these psychos wouldn't stop until they got me. But who the hell were they? Why did they want me dead? I was a nobody, a small-town bartender who had never hurt anyone in my life.
“Kelly, please. We have to go right now.”
His tone was more insistent now, and I could sense the urgency in his words. I figured I had no choice but to trust him because as crazy as it was to go with this guy, it would be crazier to try to get away from these psychos on my own.
“One more question,” I said as I got up.
“Fine, but make it quick, please.”
“You're a werewolf, aren't you?”
He looked at me, and his striking eyes suddenly seemed to glow in the dark. He flashed a strange smile at me and nodded.
“I guess you could call me one, yes. Now come on, let's go.”
I couldn't believe what I was hearing . . . but I had seen the evidence of it with my own eyes. I couldn't even speak right now, I was so freaked out. So I simply nodded, my mouth hanging wide open with shock, and then followed the werewolf as he took off into the shadows.
CHAPTER 7 – KELLY
“Look,” I said as I walked briskly behind Benoit, at a pace that was almost a run, “could you at least tell me where we're going?”
“First, to my car,” he said. “Then we're going to drive on down to the next town, and get a motel room. It's been a long night for both of us, and we both need some rest before the next leg of the journey.”
“Next leg of the journey?” I gasped. “What journey? I never said I was gonna go on some freakin' journey with you!”
“You have no choice,” he said grimly. “Like I said, you're in a lot of danger. We can't afford to waste any more time, and we have to get as far away from this town as possible.”
“But, but . . . my job! My friends! My stuff! My life!” I protested.
Well, fine, my job sucked, and the friends I had here could be counted on the fingers of one hand, and my life here didn't exactly amount to very much at all – but it was my life, the only life I knew.
“I'm sorry, but you're going to have to leave all of that behind,” he said bluntly. “Your life as you know it is now over.”
I stopped dead on the sidewalk and folded my arms across my chest.
“No,” I said firmly. “Just . . . no!”
He turned around and glared at me.
“We don't have time for this, Kelly,” he said. “Just accept that things are going to be very, very different from now on and that your life is going to change in . . . well, a lot of ways. Now come on, I've parked two blocks from here. The sun's going to be up soon, and we need to get moving before it's light.”
“Why, are you gonna turn to ashes when the sun's rays hit you or something?” I snapped.
“I'm not a vampire,” he said coldly. “The sun has no effect on me. It does, however, make us easier to spot than if we travel under cover of darkness. So seriously, let's get going.”
I sighed and shook my head.
“Fine.”
My tone was one of defiance, but I was feeling like I was barely able to keep the fear that was eating away at my insides at bay. My hands were shaking, my knees felt weak and I was on the verge of bursting into tears. It was all I could do to hold myself together at this point.
Benoit took off at a quick pace, and I almost had to run to keep up with him. Finally, we got onto a side street, and there, parked under a street light, was a gleaming black Porsche sports car. Whatever else I could say about this guy, at least he seemed to have good taste in cars.
“That's it,” he said, taking a remote out of his coat pocket and unlocking it. “Get in.”
“Quite the gentleman, huh? I thought you were gonna open the door for me,” I said sarcastically.
“I don't need to,” he said with a cheeky smile as he pressed another button on the remote, which opened the vehicle's doors.
It was pretty cool, actually. I couldn't deny that.
I climbed into the car and flopped down into the passenger seat, which was very comfortable and spacious. As I did, all of the weariness and exhaustion seemed to hit me at once, like a freakin' wrecking ball, and it was all I could do to keep my eyes open. I wanted to pass out so bad though – but I couldn't. I wouldn't. Not in some stranger's car, not with even knowing where we were going. I forced myself to keep my eyes open.
Benoit climbed into the car, and with a soft hiss, the doors closed. Now I really was trapped. Still, what else could I do? Take my chances walking around on my own with a knife-wielding psycho out to get me?
“You can relax now,” he said, his tone more gen
tle. “You're safe now, at least for the moment.”
And that was when I saw it, something I had maybe missed before – but something that was definitely gleaming in his bright eyes – attraction. This guy, this stalker, this werewolf or whatever he was, was looking at me with the unmistakable glimmer of attraction in his eyes. And as I noticed this, I couldn't help feeling a hot surge of attraction rushing through my own body as well. Still, I wasn't about to let my guard down, not at this moment.
“I'm not planning on relaxing anytime soon, buddy,” I said defiantly. “Not until I'm . . . ”
I trailed off there. I had been about to say “safe again”, but with a sinking feeling, I realized that I actually had no idea when I would be safe again. I was entering a world of uncertainty and danger here, and who knew when – or if – I would get out of it.
“You will be safe again, soon,” he said softly as if reading my mind. “I promise you that. I won't let anyone hurt you, Kelly. Nobody is going to lay even a finger on you, not on my watch. Now please, just trust me. We're going to drive for about an hour, so just relax and get a little bit of sleep. You've had a rough evening, and you could do with a little rest.”
Despite the circumstances, and despite everything that had happened thus far, there was something about Benoit's eyes that just made me feel like I could trust him. The kind of look in his eyes when he was looking at me wasn't a look that could be faked, not even by the most skilled of liars. And in spite of everything thus far, I found myself feeling a sense of trust and safety around this man – or werewolf, or whatever he was.
“Thank you,” I murmured. “I still have a lot of questions about all of this, and—”
“And I'll explain everything when we don't need to worry about armed men coming to kill us,” he said. “So just lie back and get some rest.”
“I'm just gonna rest my eyes for a second,” I murmured as I leaned back in the plush seat. “Just for a . . . ”
