by Mandy Rosko
Shelley tried to get her body to move. She lifted her head, trying to keep Michael in her vision, as though if she could see him that would somehow keep him safe.
She blinked away the dizziness, summoned as much strength as she could from her sleepy limbs, and crawled forward. That crazy woman wanted to kill them. What Shelley could do to help, she wasn’t sure, but there was no way she was going to hide.
Shelley crawled out the door and onto the little porch. She pushed herself to her knees, grabbing onto the wooden rail to keep her balance. Whatever that psycho bitch’s teeth had put into her system was wearing off. Probably because it hadn’t been in her neck for long. Either way, she could see the fight clearly.
It was gruesome. Like watching a pair of snarling, fighting bulldogs. And that’s what it nearly was. Even though their bodies moved quickly, each one trying to best the other, Shelley could see the hair growing out of Michael’s face, his eyes turning gold and wild.
No. That wasn’t a good thing. When he was the wolf, he was something different altogether. He had no memories of being the wolf, so was it safe to assume that the wolf had no memories of being a man? If he changed, he’d be at a disadvantage, for only a few seconds, but it would be enough.
“Don’t change!” Shelley screamed, her voice strong in her panic.
Michael landed a strong punch in the vampire’s face, sending her back into the trees. He looked at Shelley, his face partially wolf, like the Wolf-Man from the old black-and-white movie. Then he ran to her.
Her hands went to his hair-covered cheeks. His went to her chain. Wrapping both hands around the metal, he pulled, yanking the links apart with an easy snap, like the metal was made of tinfoil, freeing her.
“Run.” His voice was barely human. He pointed to the truck, as though telling her to get inside and drive away.
She couldn’t leave him like this, couldn’t even if she wanted to because her legs were still working off whatever was inside her. “No, you need me here, to keep you human. Don’t let her get to you. Stay in control. Beat her and we’ll leave.”
She smoothed a hand over his brow, the skin returning to normal as she caressed him.
Pearl flew like a jet from off to the side, body-slamming him into his truck with a metallic crunch. The thing toppled to its passenger side as though it were a toy. A toy that made a loud crash of breaking glass and bending metal that kicked up a lot of dirt. Shelley screamed.
Pearl stood above her, purple bat-like wings stretched out behind her, her nails as long as rulers, pointed like spikes and dripping with some kind of pink venom.
She stepped toward Shelley with one of those nails stretched out. “His transformation is required if I am to have the silver pelt.”
Shelley tried to scramble back, but her legs were still shaky.
“Please don’t,” Shelley begged, hating herself for it but unable to get up and run. She was never very courageous. She could barely even act out the emotion in the movies she played in.
“If putting down his human brings out the monster, then that is my mission.”
Pearl reached her hand out to grab her, and then her body jerked and she went stiff. Her mouth opened and blood dripped from between her lips, a dark circle spread in the middle of her chest, staining the white skull on her tank top red.
The vampire looked over her shoulder. Michael was there, fully human, and he’d stabbed her through her shoulder blades with a long dagger.
Her mouth gaped open at him as he tossed her to the ground. The dagger in his hand glistened with her blood. He raised it again as though he meant to stab her in the throat, but he held his hand steady. “Now you listen to me. The only reason I don’t kill you now is because I don’t want to defeat you by stabbing you in the back. But if you ever come near my pack, my mate, or myself ever again, I’ll get you any way I can take you. Then I’ll hunt down your father and brothers and sisters personally. My pelt is my own and not for that fat bloodsucker to wear. Understand?”
Shelley didn’t know how the vampire managed to survive the wound she had already received, probably an undead thing, but the woman nodded. Fear glistened in her wide, mismatched eyes.
“Good. Now get the fuck off my property before I put this in your heart.” Michael pointed with the blade toward the trees.
Pearl got up, still clutching her bleeding chest. Through her trembling she sent a nasty glare over her shoulder as she spread her wings and leapt into the dark sky.
Shelley breathed a shaky sigh as the woman became a dot in the distance and disappeared into the black clouds. Then it all came on her, and she couldn’t hold it back, so she put her hand over her eyes to try and hide her tears. She didn’t even want to touch her neck where that woman had bitten and kissed her. She was going to have to wear another bandage to match the one on the other side of her neck.
Michael was on his knees with his arms around her in an instant, gathering her close, crushing her to his chest. “Don’t cry, baby, please. I’m so sorry. You’ll never see her again.”
She wanted to stop, but she couldn’t. Her tears just kept right on coming, and her throat kept making that lousy sound that was something between a sob and a hiccup.
After a few minutes of petting and kissing her hair, Michael left her, for just a second it seemed, before coming back. He scooped her up and held her as though she would crumble like dust.
Shelley wiped and opened her eyes when he settled her down on a cushioned seat, wrapping something around her with a click.
She looked down and knew where he’d gone. To set the truck in its proper position. He’d placed her inside and put her seat belt on. The window on her side was completely smashed out. Now he was climbing into the driver’s side.
“Where are we going?” Shelley asked as he started the engine, wishing her voice wasn’t so shaky.
He didn’t spare her a glance, just clutched the steering wheel with white knuckles as he pulled away from the cabin. Shelley was impressed the thing was still in working condition. “I thought she couldn’t find me out here, otherwise I would have let you go the second I knew you were mine. I never would have put you in harm’s way like that.” He shook his head at himself and clutched the wheel so tight it looked in danger of popping right out.
“It was my blood that led her here,” she said, toeing the bandage on her foot.
“She already knew I was in the area.” His lips thinned. “Careless. I was careless. She must have tracked my letters, or maybe I was seen by one of her servants in town.”
He kept right on talking, apologizing and listing all the ways he could have been found in the middle of the woods, but Shelley barely heard him as he drove down the narrow dirt road, headlights leading the way through the trees.
A bolt of dread struck her. He still hadn’t answered her question.
“Where are we going?” she asked again.
He still wouldn’t look at her. Shelley’s dread intensified.
“I’m taking you back to your original campsite. I assume your car will still be there. It hasn’t been long.”
“To…get my things, right?”
He pressed his lips together. She watched his Adam’s apple bob deeply as he swallowed.
“You’re sending me away,” she said, tears rising again. “But I thought—”
“You are my mate. You’ll always be mine, but there’s a good chance Pearl will return regardless of my warning. When she does, I don’t want her using you to get to me like that,” he said. “I’ll go back to my pack and tell them what happened. I’ll command them to watch over you, keep you safe, but you won’t ever see them.”
“Will I ever see you?” Billion-dollar question.
“No.”
Shelley let her tears fall. She turned away from him and curled into her seat. Mate or no mate, he was sending her off after she had just discovered what they really were to each other, after they’d had sex in his bed. She felt like a one-night stand.
The tr
uck jerked to a stop, and Michael was beside her. He tried putting his arms around her, but she shrugged him off and pushed him away
“You’re not a one-night stand to me. Don’t think that.” His voice was firm.
Oh, right. She’d forgotten about the whole mind reading thing too.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Read my mind. You’re not allowed to do that if you’re dumping me.”
“I’m not dumping you.” She heard the sad sigh in his voice.
She spun on him. “Then what do you call this?”
“I call it keeping you safe.”
“But it won’t keep me safe!” she yelled. “You just said you’re going to have some people watching me. If I ever see someone following me, how will I know if they work for you or that woman? I’ll never feel safe if I’m on my own. I never felt safe to begin with anyway.”
He opened his mouth, but she cut him off. “I’ve lived in the public’s eye for a year now, but even with everyone watching me, taking pictures, I still had a stalker.”
Michael’s jaw tightened. Already she could see the wheels in his head turning, planning to hunt the guy down and make him ever regret looking at her. “Were you hurt?”
She shook her head. “No, but I could’ve been. I never knew he was watching me until after he was caught. A neighbor walking her dogs saw him lurking on my property one night. He’d been watching me for over a month. He had pictures of me at his house. Some of them were Photoshopped to look like he was in them with me.”
She allowed a few seconds for Michael to absorb her words. She felt his anger sliding away and knew she was getting through.
“Let me stay with you. I can go with you to your pack. If anyone has to watch me, I want it to be you.”
He rubbed his palms over his face. “What about your life? Your family? If you come with me, you have to know you’ll be leaving them behind.”
He was right about that. Her parents were too eager to see her in the spotlight, and there couldn’t be reporters with cameras sneaking around a group of werewolves. It would ruin the whole secrecy thing. And even if she left it all behind, there was still a chance that people would recognize her. She would have to change her name and dye her hair.
Shelley Hunter. Brunette. No. Redheaded fiery writer. That sounded kind of nice. She’d call Mindy and tell her she wasn’t going to sign onto those movies, that she was done. And her parents, well, they’d be upset, but eventually they’d get over it. And after enough time had passed, after she was no longer in the magazines and in movies for a while, people would forget her. Her name, what she looked like. She could start writing novels. She could be normal.
As normal as could be for a woman living with a werewolf.
“I don’t want to live in the spotlight anymore. I never wanted that.” She touched his face, pulled him closer until they were so close she could be kissing him. “I’ll leave it all behind and never look back. I either disappear with you, or I disappear if that vampire finds me. I’d prefer to be with you.”
His resolve was entirely broken but for a single remaining thread. The one that was left behind to make one hundred percent certain that she knew what she was asking for.
Shelley nearly smiled. She could get used to this whole mind-reading thing.
He licked his lips, trying to avoid eye contact, but she wouldn’t let him. “There’ll be others like me, most of who are as unpredictable in their transformations as me. You’re my mate, and they’ll smell that even in their wolf forms. You’ll be safe, and they will protect you if I tell them to. But it will be different from what you’re used to.”
She did smile this time. “Your transformations are a lot more predictable than you think. I’ll bet anything that when we met, you changed into a wolf because you smelled me or something. And the second time, I bit you, made you bleed. The third time…” She trailed off with a smile.
He returned it.
“They won’t scare me,” she promised, even though she was certain it actually would be scary. But she would get used to it if they were anything like what Michael said they were. “As for being different, well, I’ve got enough money for the both of us, and we can share it with your pack, too.”
He put his hands up, backing off her very fast. “Whoa, whoa, what’s this about money? I never said anything about money.”
He hadn’t? Wasn’t that what the whole different comment was about? Then there was the little cabin…
He shook his head. “Being with you would be so confusing if I couldn’t read your mind. I have my own money. I told you that before. I’m master of my pack. That back there,” Michael jerked his thumb behind him, indicating the cabin that was no longer in sight, “was just where I was hiding. I have my own house, a nice one, and so do my pack mates. We don’t live in the cities or anything, but we’re definitely not forest dwellers either. The vampire king heard about my silver coat, wanted it, and sent Pearl to collect it. No one was hurt the first time she’d tried, so I left the pack in the care of a trusted friend and disappeared before someone was.”
She swallowed. “And now?”
He sighed. “Now, everything has changed. It changed the second I realized what you were.”
“Really?” Shelley asked.
He nodded. “You wanted to leave, but I didn’t want to let you go. You wouldn’t have come back. But if I send you away now that Pearl’s seen you, I’ll have to go back and get some people to watch you. If I do what I want and keep you, take you from your family, everything you’ve ever known, I’ll have to go back anyway so you can be with my family. Where it will be safer.”
He knew the answer, but guilt radiated from him.
She pressed her lips to his mouth, trying to take that guilt away with a kiss, caressing his scratchy cheeks and hair to soothe away his hard decision.
She knew what he should do. He never should have left his pack to begin with. If the word pack was anything like how she’d pictured it, it was a group of people who were loyal and loved Michael very much. Especially if he was their leader.
He never should have left them. With or without her, she wanted him to go back to them and stay with them. Where there were lots of people. Where he could be safe from that vampire princess cunt.
Michael chuckled. “Even your mind is filthy.”
She pulled his mouth back onto hers. She didn’t care. No one was going to be skinning the fur from Michael on her watch. Shelley happened to like his fur right where it was, thank you very much.
She stopped their kiss to look at him, grinning as she felt the distant haze inside his head. “I’d like to meet your family.”
He put his hands over hers and sighed. “I said I’d never let you go, didn’t I?”
She smiled brightly. She’d won. She didn’t know if the joy she felt was hers or his, but it didn’t matter. Maybe it was both of theirs. “I think I remember you saying something like that.” When she was busy having the greatest sex of her life.
“Then let’s go.”
The truck started up again, and wearing nothing but the T-shirt of her werewolf mate, Shelley Star vanished into the night with him.
THE END
www.rizzorosko.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mandy Rosko lives and works in Ottawa, Ontario, is a romance junkie, a lousy web designer, and is working hard to improve the craft of creating an actual plot. She one day hopes to stop mooching off her big brother for cheap rent.
You can visit her website for some free reads at rizzorosko.com
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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