He grabbed her wrist and forced it down. “I know about werewolves because I hunt werewolves.”
Her chest tightened and her breath began to come in gasps. As he looked into her eyes, his eyes devoid of any of the love she thought she’d seen there in the past, he twisted her wrist and sent even more pain up her arm.
She whimpered, her wolf hoping that submitting to the dominant force would make him stop hurting her. Instead, the whimper only encouraged him. He shoved his other hand up under the bottom of her tank top, sending the itching and burning across her stomach.
She looked to the door. If she could get out, she could run to the cabin just down the road where her brother lived. They had been ‘infected’ by werewolves on the same night, and they’d been living in the cabins since.
Seeing her distraction, Liam pulled violently on her arm. As she flew forward, she knocked the bottle of wine to the floor, shattering it. She hit the floor soon after, groaning. When she started to call out, he rubbed more silver powder on her back. She squirmed and whined, her back searing.
“Do not think about escaping. It makes me angry.”
“I love you,” she sobbed. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“Because you are a disgusting abomination.” He put his foot on her back when she tried to get up, forcing her back to the floor. “What you are is not right, Phoebe. Not clean. You are no longer human and do not belong in this world. I will help you find release from what you are.”
“I was bitten! It’s not my fault.”
“That is where you are wrong.” He knelt down next to her, rubbing his hands together as if he were washing them. Then he pushed her onto her back. “It became your fault when you did not end your life after infection.”
His words stilled her despite the pain. Guilty? For living? For not killing herself?
“David!” she screamed.
That call for help earned her a stinging slap across her face.
“You and your kind do not belong here, and so help me, you will be eradicated.”
“But I didn’t do anything!”
He slapped her again and then straddled her hips, bending so his hot breath hit her face. She turned her face away, but he grabbed it and forced her to look at him. He showed her a thick vial full of what could only be more silver powder, and she began to sob.
“Beg,” he said. “Beg to be pure again.”
“Please!” she’d cried. “Please. I can be better. I can be pure. I don’t want to be a werewolf. I swear I don’t!”
He grasped her hair and pulled her face closer to his. “Beg for my love.”
“Please,” she said between sobs. “I love you.”
He smiled. “You will find peace, Phoebe. I will be the one to give it to you. You will not have to live as an abomination anymore.”
He ripped her shirt open and then began to pour silver powder over her while she screamed.
Suddenly the front door burst open and her brother David ran in. Liam had made the mistake of underestimating the hearing of a werewolf, even in human form, and lowered his arm in surprise.
That was all Phoebe needed. She grabbed his wrist and bit down as hard as she could. He groaned, drawing something silver from his waist with his free hand while trying to shake her off.
David slammed into him, knocking him off her. Liam had dropped his weapon – a silver crossbow bolt – and she rolled out of the way. David and Liam fought on the floor, a chaotic flurry of punches, kicks and groans. She slid back to sit against the wall, looking around for a weapon.
Liam kicked David off him, sending David into the table. David stood and brushed himself off, the look on his face telling her he was going to turn into a wolf. He stood barefoot and shirtless. Liam had already recovered, pulling something from inside his jacket.
David needed more time.
She jumped on Liam from behind and pulled his hair. He howled as she scratched and bit wherever she could. Grabbing a lock of her hair, he pulled until her grip on him loosened. Then he shoved her away.
“Run!” David yelled, his voice already muddled and deeper with the change.
Liam sneered. “A whole family of filth!”
Phoebe froze, unsure. She couldn’t just leave David.
So quickly that she barely managed to move, Liam pulled out another bolt and threw it at her. It glanced her side but blood still quickly welled from the wound.
“Run!”
Phoebe cried.
She had run. She’d obeyed her brother and changed as she’d run for her life into the woods. Completing her transformation gave her more energy and lessened the pain of her wounds, but she still ran to the nearest stream and jumped in, attempting to free herself of the last remains of silver powder.
The urge to run further welled up in her, but that was the human fear. David, her brother, was the only pack she’d ever known, and she wouldn’t abandon him to Liam.
She’d never been a very brave person so she counted on that, assuming that Liam would not expect her to go back to the cabin. But by the time she got there, Liam had already gone.
David’s still warm body had been left – perhaps for her to find – on the floor of the lounge, half on the overturned couch. He’d reverted to his naked human form, but blood still covered much of his skin. The wolf knew immediately that he no longer lived. Her human mind began to work and caught the shine of the silver bolt in his chest.
The wolf almost began to howl in mourning before the human took over and reverted back to her human form. As a human, she dug her fingernails into her palms and tried to bite back the sobs. She couldn’t let herself mourn. She had to survive. David had died so she would survive.
She’d gathered what clothes and food she could carry and then what her brother had in his cabin. With what she had and David’s secret stash of emergency money, she’d taken his car and set off. She stopped at any ATM she could find to drain her savings for more cash as she drove.
For months she’d run from town to town, staying in motels and always leaving when she got the least feeling that Liam had gotten near. Somehow, he always did. Echo Falls had been her paradise in some way she couldn’t quite put her finger on, and she’d stayed. She hadn’t sensed him and stupidly began to believe she never would.
Of course he’d found her again. It had only been a matter of time.
Her phone rang, breaking her out of her thoughts. A couple more hours had passed. She had to get ready. If she could get herself to move.
Her wolf didn’t hold grudges for those months. Her wolf forgave her for denying her for so long. And now, the wolf comforted her. The wolf gave her the strength to sit up, wipe the tears from her face and check her phone.
Aidan had called. The memories of last night’s conversation left an empty feeling in her chest now tinged with fear for his life. She pressed her phone to her chest and sighed.
For now, she would have to say goodbye.
She looked at the time on her phone. She had just enough time to shower, dress, store knives where she could and try to think up some sort of plan before meeting Liam.
Great.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Phoebe ran her thumb along the rim of her mug, her coffee long having gone cold. Liam should have arrived nearly half an hour ago, his absence a sure sign he wanted her nerves strung tight. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction, keeping her face carefully blank of emotion. Her hands betrayed her, though, shaking slightly before she wrapped them around the mug. She shifted slightly, taking comfort from the feel of the knives strapped to her ankle under her jeans, her wrist under her jacket and at the base of her spine. She’d had to rig the sheaths so they would stay on her limbs, but that had been easy enough with thick shoelaces strung through the belt holes on the sheaths. Thankfully the weather cooperated enough to make it so her jeans and long-sleeved jacket weren’t out of place.
Knives weren’t much of a plan, but at least they were something. She’d naively thought th
at bravery would somehow magically open up a plan in her mind to take Liam. Blissfully blank, she’d abandoned trying to think of anything complex in favor of weaponry. For now it would have to do.
She looked around the half-empty café, the place a little too chic and modern to be completely comfortable. At least he hadn’t asked her to meet him at Sophie’s, though she had been surprised he hadn’t. He would have loved seeing her squirm and lie if she saw anyone familiar – especially Elle or Aidan. Aidan hadn’t called again, likely angry she hadn’t returned his first call. Good. She couldn’t talk to him when she was in the middle of trying to save his life and his pack.
The weight of responsibility settled in on her shoulders and she scowled at her mug.
Liam walked into the café without looking around and went straight to the counter to order. He looked casual, normal even. No one would guess that he’d murdered four people in this town in the past month, including a well-known, well-liked police officer. No one could see that the woman he would sit down to chat with had concealed weapons because she knew he would murder her, too, the moment he wanted to.
With his order set and paid for, he walked over to her booth and sat down.
He’d been watching her. She shivered.
He studied her and she him, her fear waning slightly at his appearance. He looked tired. His usually well-manicured face looked distinctly disheveled. His short, sandy blonde hair stuck out at odd angles and one or two days of facial hair (she didn’t know for sure as he’d always been clean shaven before) had grown on his face. Dark half-moons under his eyes betrayed many late nights.
For the first time, he looked overworked and overtired, and it did nothing good for her nerves.
She clenched her jaw but kept her gaze locked on his. Her heart slammed in her chest as flashes of memories threatened to overwhelm her again.
“Phoebe.” He reached out to grasp her hands and she pulled hers back, putting them under the table. The corner of his mouth jerked up in the beginning of a smirk. “Are you worried about contaminating me?”
“You’d be lucky to be made a werewolf,” she snarled and then pursed her lips, surprised at her bravery. Or insanity.
He didn’t seem surprised by her brazenness or even insulted. In fact, if she were to pick any emotion for his expression, he seemed pleased. He nodded.
“I see your condition has gotten worse.”
Memories flashed again in her mind’s eye, and the wolf came forward to give her strength. The wolf did not consider Liam a dominant force. Not anymore. Not with a pack to support her. She knew him only as the killer of pack mates and thus an enemy of the worst kind. Phoebe’s complicated ‘can’t be a pack member until Liam is taken care of’ didn’t mean anything to her wolf. She just wanted Liam out of her territory.
“Your brother was worse than you, but I can see the family resemblance. Especially when you snarl like he did before I killed him.”
She stiffened and the wolf again gave her steadiness. Her roiling stomach and pounding head somehow seemed slightly less with the wolf’s strength inside her. The strength, the skill and, this time, the knowledge of how to take him down. She would do this.
He cocked his head to one side. “Did you know your eyes go yellow when you start to lose control? You were not that weak when we were together. I gave you strength. Soon you will lose control, Phoebe, and you will begin to kill.”
You’re one to talk, she thought.
“No denials?”
She bowed her head and took a few calming breaths. In a strange way, he was right; she would lose control and try to kill him if she didn’t calm herself. For now, she needed him to believe that she felt as small and afraid of him as always. His underestimating her could be the only real advantage she had against him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice just above a whisper.
He studied her for a few moments. When he spoke next, his voice had changed from pleasant small talk to a darker, threatening tone.
“Good girl. I admire your ability to try to grow a backbone in such a short time, but I do not have time for your spurts of misguided bravery.” He leaned toward her. “The last time we spoke, you begged me to let you live and swore to me that you did not want your illness. It is an illness, Phoebe. And here, in this city, we have an incredible opportunity.”
Her head shot up. An opportunity? Of all the possible things she’d thought of happening during this chat, a proposal of an opportunity wasn’t one of them. Still, perhaps this could turn out to be another advantage.
“What do you mean?” she asked and then bit her bottom lip.
He sat back and stared at her, a muscle beside his left eye ticking. “Echo Falls has been left to breed the illness in the population for too long. We had never heard of it before now. But you led me here, Phoebe, and I think it was your destiny to do so. You led me here so I can cleanse this place. Here I will make history.”
She grabbed her coffee, preparing to throw it in his glory-obsessed face before thinking better of it. She calmed herself and let go.
Suddenly, he grabbed her hand before she could pull it back under the table.
“You will help me,” he said, his lips twisting into a demented smile. “I have seen you with the alpha male. I have seen the way you look at him like the little mutt you are. You can deliver him to me. After I have killed him, killing the rest will be easy.”
She couldn’t control her reactions enough to keep the shock and anger off her face. He spoke as if he had done this very same thing – destroying entire packs – before. He had a system that called for killing off the alpha male and sending the pack into chaos before picking off the rest of them. And he had seen her with Aidan, looking at him and kissing him. She might as well have put a big ‘alpha male’ sticker on his forehead, for all the good denying it would do her now.
“I am giving you a chance to redeem yourself!” He squeezed her hand painfully, making her squirm. “A chance to make up for the demon you have become.”
She licked her lips. “Redeem myself. You’ll let me live?”
“That is not completely up to me to decide, but you will have a much better chance of living if you help me rather than get in my way.”
She looked down at her coffee. How should I play this? Go along with it and give the pack some warning or just try to run?
Running had always been her answer in the past, but this time she didn’t know if her running would do enough to lure him away. The prospect of ‘cleansing’ Echo Falls practically had him salivating and past experience told her he could find her any time he wanted.
He sighed, tapping his fingertips on the table.
“I do not need you to do this. I already know all the filth here and will kill them. I am giving you this opportunity to prove that you might be worth saving.”
She shivered at his easy way of talking about killing an entire group of people.
“They are all dead either way. You simply get to decide if their deaths are quick or not.” He reached in his pocket and then placed a card on the table. “You have one day to decide.” He leaned close to her. “If I even begin to wonder if you have betrayed me, I will make sure you regret it.”
He stood up and left, brushing past the waitress bringing out his order.
A full five minutes passed before she stopped playing the short conversation over and over in her mind. She couldn’t get her hands to stop shaking, but at least she had some good news. He hadn’t used any silver powder or anything like that on her. In fact, he hadn’t even been wearing any silver, which was strange for him. He usually had at least a silver ring on. He had also given her time, time she desperately needed if she had any chance of taking care of him herself.
‘Taking care of him.’ She snorted. What a very gentle way of saying she wanted to kill him. Because that is what it would come down to in the end. He would never stop hunting. The police couldn’t do anything either, except hold him for a while and try to charge him fo
r the murders. Not that they likely would. Still, if she needed more time, the police would be an option.
One day. Why did he give me one day? Is it some sort of test? She frowned and then looked up. A test, or maybe not time for her at all. Maybe he needed the time. He looked more worn out than she’d ever seen him, so maybe.
Her second advantage.
She had one day to lure him into some sort of trap, a trap that didn’t involve anyone but her. If any of the pack got involved, she wouldn’t forgive herself if anyone got hurt. She couldn’t do that to them.
She needed two things: a trap and for the pack to stay away from her.
Great.
She looked at the card he’d left on the table. Completely blank except for a phone number. No doubt he wanted her to call before her time ran out.
Shoving the card in her pocket, she walked out of the café. She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling Liam’s gaze crawling over her skin. She didn’t bother looking around for him; even tired he would never be so sloppy. Breathing deeply, she willed her mind to form a plan that even Liam would never see coming.
Her phone rang and she took it out of her pocket. Aidan again, no doubt wanting to talk about Liam. She bit her bottom lip, her fingers itching to answer. An older couple gave her strange looks as she stood there, staring at her ringing phone.
She shoved the phone back in her pocket while her wolf whimpered.
It’s for the best. Just a little while longer.
“Phoebe!”
She jumped and nearly fell over at the sound of her name called from so close. Spinning around, she saw Elle with Charlotte in her arms, both looking happy to see her. When Elle saw her face, though, her expression immediately changed to concern.
Phoebe looked at the pair and then her eyes widened when she looked at Charlotte a second time. Crap! Charlotte!
Liam would no doubt take into account that this was yet another time when she had met up with Elle and Charlotte. If he decided they were close friends, he would have no problem with using a child if he needed to.
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