by Amy Redwood
When he looked up, he met the creature’s gaze.
“Damn, you’re ugly,” he said.
The hyena-like creature sat on its haunches and let out a howl that sounded like laughter.
And not for the first time in his life, Seth wished he were more like his brother. But he only had the strength, not the gift. The guy had been strong before, but in his shifted form, however ugly, he was something else. Something much worse. Sweat slicked down Seth’s back and he crouched, picking up the table leg again. It felt as effective as a toothpick. He backed up against the wall, holding his only weapon in front of him.
The hyena almost pranced before him, making turns through the room.
Seth moved, trying to make it to the door. He never reached it. The attack came so fast, he didn’t even see it coming. Saliva dropped onto his face as the hyena towered above him. Shards of glass scraped and cut into his shoulder blades. Seth wondered why he was still alive.
His hands flared up but gripped nothing. The hyena was back to prancing through the room.
“You’re not a fucking cat, are you?”
Seth wondered how long the shifter intended to play with him before he went for the kill.
A movement in front of the window caught his attention.
A gray wolf loped through the window to land gracefully amidst the broken windowglass. The hyena froze, head cocked to one side as if to ponder what to do with the new arrival.
A ghost from the past, Seth thought. “Brother?” he whispered, knowing how foolish he was. His brother was dead. The wolf met his gaze and he sucked in his breath. The wolf’s coat was gray and smooth. Its body not as large as his brother’s had been. Not dark eyes, but warm gold. Not male but female.
The wolf returned his gaze calmly, and then shook her head, as if to clear her thoughts. A gesture he’d seen before. He exhaled, realization clicking into place, the final missing piece.
The room spiraled back into focus. Seth’s gaze wandered from the hyena to the wolf and back to the hyena. As powerfully built as the wolf was, she was a female and about sixty pounds lighter than the male. His heart lurched and panic crept up his spine.
“Get out of here,” he yelled, searching the floor for something to throw. Something that would make her leave and save herself. He hurled the table leg at her, giving up his only weapon. She ducked smartly, a look of outrage in her golden eyes.
“Leave,” he whispered, balling his hands.
A howl erupted from the hyena, the insane laughter scraping at Seth’s nerves. Candace’s head snapped around and she crouched, bared her fangs and leapt. The hyena met her halfway in the air, their bodies slamming into each other with deadly force.
Seth jumped up, screaming as his battered body erupted in pain. Cursing, he hurled himself forward, knowing how stupid and senseless it was, but he preferred to die while protecting Candace and not as the chew toy of a shifter.
The sickening-sharp sound of a snapping bone was unmistakable. The force of a dead body falling made the floor vibrate under his bare feet.
Seth fought down the feeling of his own inadequacy and slumped to the floor.
Candace had snapped the shifter’s neck. Just like that. Shivers ran over his skin, cold enveloping him as the rush of adrenaline that had kept him fired up left his body.
When he was able to speak, he said, “Hey, you,” feeling how a smile worked its way over his face. He couldn’t believe they were both alive. “Would you mind coming over to me?”
Muscles moving underneath her fur, she took a step away from the dead shifter toward him. When she settled next to him, he let out the breath he’d been holding. He sank his hand into her fur, her body wonderfully warm under his fingers. She laid her head across his legs, closing her eyes.
“My wolf girl,” he whispered, feeling how slowly but steadily his strength returned to his body. “You’re so beautiful.”
A tremor shook her and she lifted her head. When he met her golden gaze, he wondered what was wrong. Candace looked hurt and confused and, a heartbeat later, she’d vanished through the window and into the night.
* * * * *
I ran home in a mad dash, but not before taking my pile of clothes into my mouth. People on the street were probably still calling animal control, because of the large dog they had seen darting down 25th.
Shifting back, I let myself in through my open bedroom window. The missing bricks in the wall of the building made a good a makeshift ladder if one was strong enough, but I had scraped open my hands and knees as I climbed up.
My bedroom came as a shock—bed messed up, ropes left carelessly on the floor. I ran my fingertips over the wood, feeling the splinters. It looked as if he had just stood up, breaking my bed in the process. I’d thought perhaps a knot had come loose. But he’d used brute force.
I took clean jeans and a shirt from the dresser, slipped into them. My gaze hit the book next to the keyboard, the one I’d taken out from the library.
“Rome in Ashes,” I read.
My life, I thought, is in ashes too.
I gazed at Tim’s face inside the frame. He looked strangely distant, almost like a stranger, as if I had never known him at all.
A ripple went through me and I pulled my head up. I grabbed the keys from the desk, opened the small door leading downstairs and headed toward the basement.
* * * * *
Where else would she run except home?
Seth climbed up the building’s wall, her scent giving away she had taken the same route, and stepped inside her bedroom, taking a deep breath, feeling her scent wrap around his senses like a blanket. His gaze fell on the pile of bloodied clothes on the floor, the black notebook peeking out from beneath it. Candace was nowhere to be seen, but the quiet seemed treacherous. She was here somewhere, he was sure of it. Taking the book into his hands, he was tempted, for half a second, to leave again.
After all, he had everything he wanted now.
Then he placed the book on the desk and began searching for his wolf girl. The soft snick of a door reached his ears and he followed the sound. On the balls of his feet, he snuck down the stairs, her scent leading the way.
When he found her in a small storage room, smelling of sugar and cocoa and…gasoline, he tensed, suddenly sick to his stomach.
“Candace, no,” he said quietly, fearing to startle her, but also fearing if he didn’t speak up, she’d throw the torch made of what looked like a wooden chair leg with linen wrapped around it. The torch flickered in the darkness, throwing shadows against the walls.
Her shoulders hunched as if someone had slapped her hard.
“This is none of your business, hit man,” she said, and he was surprised how much insult she could pack into the word. “Leave.”
He made a silent step toward her that nevertheless had her swiveling around so fast her hair whipped around her face. He liked neither the strange glimmer in her eyes, nor the way her mouth twisted.
“Leave,” she said again, raising her hand so he had trouble seeing her features through the flames of the torch. “One step closer and you can burn as well.”
He shook his head. “I won’t let you kill yourself, Candace. I won’t allow it.”
She laughed, a sound that made him ball his hands when he heard the sadness that lingered in her tone. He wanted to wrap her into his arms and kiss her until she felt better. But he realized that her situation might just be too complicated to be solved by offering a calming kiss on the forehead.
“Why would I want to go through so much trouble just to kill myself,” she said, nodding at the carefully crafted torch and the room sprinkled with gasoline. “You almost killed me today yourself. Then this asshole beats the shit out of me before I pull the trigger on him. Not a sight I’m likely to forget soon. And that’s not even the worst.” She rubbed her fist over her mouth, a gesture he was sure was done unconsciously. “It’s not that I ever lacked nightmares.”
She’d killed a man tonight. No, she had
killed two. And she had done it for him.
No wonder she hated his guts.
She’d lowered her hand again and he found himself staring into her dark gaze. She looked haunted and hurt, and he wanted so much to help her so she could be carefree and happy and free of nightmares.
But he definitely couldn’t let her torch down the neighborhood, she’d be never able to forgive herself. He lifted his head, finding her gaze, remembering the terror and confusion that had rested in her eyes as a wolf.
“Candy, we both know you don’t want to do this.” Why did she want to do it? Was she trying to cash in on her insurance policy? Was she broke? He lifted his hands in a calming gesture and stepped toward her.
“Don’t you fucking dare start patronizing me.”
“Honey,” he said, “let me help—”
Fuck, he thought, as he saw her squinting at him with outrage. He shouldn’t have called her “honey”.
She flicked the torch over her shoulder.
The heat hit my face like a blazing punch. The torch had fallen to the ground in the farthest corner of the small storage room and flames licked at the wooden shelves that rose from the ground up all the way to the ceiling. Frozen, I stared as the flames spread to the finely woven linen bags emblazed with my shop’s logo. Hundreds of them lined the shelves, still in their cardboard boxes. I’d planned to give those bags away to my loyal customers. Now the flames started licking at them with gentle tongues.
My throat went tight and I coughed. The smoke curling in the air made it harder to breathe. I should get the fuck out of the house, but somehow my legs wouldn’t move. Seth had run off though. Clever guy. I’d have knocked him out cold if he’d tried to stop me. I glanced at the sprinklers. They wouldn’t come to the rescue; I’d taken care that they wouldn’t. Amazing what the inquiring mind could learn online.
I lifted my shirt away from my skin, sweat beading down my back. And still, I couldn’t move, watching how the flames spread.
Despite the flames, I grew cold, started to shiver. I was doing it all wrong, all wrong. My cold-blooded strategy, out the window. This fire wouldn’t fool any insurance. Like the people who used lighters, who set the gasoline on fire instead of letting it explode, I had made mistakes. Using a torch, what was I thinking? I’d read about it, read that this was why people got caught, got sent to jail.
Stupid, stupid me.
Maybe, I thought, he’d been right. Maybe I wanted to die. What was the point, anyway? Tim’s life ended, everything ends. Maybe I end here.
I took a step toward the flames.
The hissing sound of something made me jump, and when realization hit, hot fury grabbed hold of my body. I spun around, a growl in my throat, when an ironlike grip curled around my shoulder and squeezed. Nerve-numbing pain caught my breath and I turned my head, air whooshing out of my lungs, my gaze settling on Seth and the fire extinguisher in his hand, and then everything went black.
* * * * *
Cold needles pricked at my face, a roaring in my ears.
I licked my lips, trying to drag my eyelids open against a world full of pain, and swallowed a mouthful of water. Blindly I reached for the faucets, but hard hands clamped around my wrists, holding me in place.
“C-c-c-cold,” I said. “Stop it, stop.”
“Not yet,” I heard Seth’s rumble of a voice, “the shower will do you good.”
But the water hitting my face and slicking my clothes against my body turned a notch warmer. Eyes still closed, I blindly aimed a blow at Seth.
“There’s nothing like a cold shower,” he said, catching my wrist before I could hit him, “to bring you back to the living.”
“I wasn’t dead,” I said, flicking wet hair out of my face to seek his dark gaze. “You shouldn’t have touched me.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have,” he said, his hands still around my wrist. “But it’s all I want to do.” He stroked his hands up my arms and settled around my shoulders. “I won’t let you set fire to this place. It’s wrong, and in your heart you know it is.”
I wanted to hit him for speaking the truth, but my shoulders slumped, shame rising in me for what I had done. If he hadn’t stopped me…what if the fire had hurt other people? My body started trembling, hard, violent shivers that let my teeth clash together. Only a freak would do something like that, I thought, only a monster.
“How bad—” I swallowed. “How badly did I damage the basement?”
“Nothing a lick of paint won’t fix,” he said. “The shelves are ruined though. The smell of smoke is moderate. In this neighborhood, I doubt anyone alerts the fire brigade. What were you thinking, opening a shop in this desolate area?”
I groaned, having asked myself the same question more than once. He started massaging my shoulders, and I let out a sigh when he found my knotted muscles. The dead guy’s face flashed before my inner eyes. I clutched my stomach, fighting the nausea. Like an avalanche, images came pouring into my mind.
I licked over my lip, remembering how the hyena’s neck had snapped between my teeth. Another shifter, I thought. I’d killed another freak just like me. Killed him, because of Seth—a stranger. And what could I do?
Nothing, as usual.
I could do nothing as Tim died under my hands in the car wreck, nothing as Seth shot the man who was supposed to save me. I could do nothing. Not even cry.
Opening my mouth, I turned toward the water spray and rinsed my mouth. When I reached for the faucets, he didn’t stop me. Teeth chattering, I let out a sigh as the water turned hot. The shakes stopped as my body fought the scalding-hot spray from the showerhead, but I bit down on my teeth, enduring the searing pain the water created on my skin. I wanted to feel clean again, and if that meant I had to almost boil myself, so be it.
What was it Tim always said to me? I tried to conjure up his face in my mind. I blinked against the billowing steam rising in my bathroom. Seth had taken a step away from me, but he was still so close and I couldn’t remember what Tim had said…
Ah yes. You are a human, Candace.
Keeping my mind firmly locked on this thought, I all but burned my face off.
I’m human, I thought. Tonight was just a bad dream.
I shrugged out of my shirt and let the water hit my breasts and stomach. It still wasn’t enough. I had to wash away the stink of animal, wash away every disgusting memory of blood and the crack of bones between my teeth. I tried to peel off the pair of jeans.
“Shit.” My fingernail broke as I opened the zipper. “Shit,” I cursed again, the wet denim so tight against my legs it wouldn’t peel off.
“Let me,” he said, startling me. He tugged the wet fabric slowly but steadily over my hips and bottom. “Lift your foot,” he said, and I did, first one then the other until my jeans landed with a wet flop on the floor. “Better now?”
Blind eyed, I grabbed the loofah and worked it over my arms, brushing the hard spongelike material from my shoulders to my hands. Skin turning a violent shade of red, I wondered what it would take to make me feel clean and whole again. What it would take to make me feel less like a beast.
And no matter how hot the water, no matter how hard I brushed, the feeling of being wolf—the strange sense of smell, the taste of blood, stuck.
A heavy hand landed on my shoulder. “You’re breaking my heart, do you know that, sweetheart?”
“Why is that?” I asked, lifting my head and feeling his gaze as hot against my skin as the water.
“There is no need to punish yourself.” He reached out and ran his hand through a dripping strand of hair. “You did nothing wrong.”
“What do you know,” I whispered, “about how I feel? How it feels to be me, this freak.” You’re beautiful, he had said to me. My wolf girl. How dare he find beauty in a freak like me? With a flick of my hand, I switched the water off. “I’m sure you never get nightmares, you never wake up screaming because you dream of hunting and killing and the sound of things dying and the blood and the need—
”
“You never did anything wrong, Candace,” he said, holding me tight around the shoulders. “You cannot fight it. It’s your nature.”
His mouth brushed lightly against mine, a strange comfort. When he flicked his tongue against my bottom lip, I pressed my mouth into a thin line. How could I kiss him when I’d just killed someone? It wasn’t right, it wasn’t normal.
“Make it go away,” I whispered. “Make me forget.”
“I can’t do that,” he said, lifting his shoulders in a seemingly helpless shrug. “You are a wolf. Stop fighting it.”
“Make me forget,” I said again, surprised to hear the edge in my voice. “Make me feel human.” Reaching out, I grabbed a fistful of his shirt with one hand, and reached with my other between his legs. “You are hard,” I whispered, tracing a finger over the ridge of his erection.
“I’m hard because you’re a wolf, because you’re a girl, because you are you,” he growled, giving me a shove so I smacked my back against the shower tiles. “I’m not fucking you so you can forget that even for a second.”
Frustration and anger battled down the thrill his last words sent through me. I had killed for him, and he wouldn’t even try to make me forget the pain it caused me? “Make me come, make me come, hard, until I stop thinking.”
“No.”
“You owe me,” I said, and saw his head snap up, his jaw jutting out. I had him by the throat, had him square but not fair.
I backed away at the anger glinting in his dark eyes until my spine lined up against the tiles. His stomach muscles moved as he stripped off his shirt, zipped open his pants. I licked my lips as his erection sprang free. He kicked off his shoes, pants and briefs, stepped into the shower, turned on the water again. Turning his face into the spray, his hair turned darker, slicked against his head.
Seeking the heat of his mouth, I leaned forward. He turned his head, my lips landing against his jaw. I found no laughter in his eyes, no playfulness. I turned, pressed my cheek against the cool, wet tile. But I couldn’t look into his eyes, not when I had bullied him into the act and it so clearly showed on his face.
