by C. J. Pinard
Dripping with sweat, I looked at the clock on my phone and saw that two hours had passed. Wow. It was nearing four a.m. at this point, and it kinda felt good that I’d spent the whole night by myself. Yeah, Sanja was there for a girls’ night, but the training usually included Evan and Karina, or me up at Wolfe Point with my brother, Ryder, and the rest of the pack.
Speaking of, I looked at the calendar and realized the full moon would be next weekend. Instead of going to Wolfe Point, I contemplated just staying home. Evan said he did it. He normally spent the three days in his basement. I didn’t have a basement—well, I did, but it was where I did laundry—but I could chill in my sixth-floor flat as the wolf-girl for a couple days. Right?
As I left the gym, I felt my mood lighten a little. On my drive back to my apartment, I took in the darkness and quiet of the city. Downtown Denver was absolutely dead this time of morning, and it was kind of cool. The sky was still dark, with a mass of stars overhead, and the cool, quietness of that time just before the world woke up and the rat-race started all over again. I took a deep, calming breath and drove the rest of the way to my apartment. My plan was to get a shower, eat something, and then hop into bed.
I parked my little dark-blue Volkswagen Jetta in a spot near the front and made my way to the building. As I climbed the stairs, I smiled to myself. The last twenty-four hours had been good. Friends, food, and serious bad-assery.
No sooner had I closed and locked the door, than I heard a knock at the door. Confused and unsure what could be going on, I pulled my dagger from it sheath and glanced through the peephole.
I sucked in a breath and then forgot to breathe again when I saw Kellan’s face peering back at me. A glance at his body showed me he was looking more casual than usual in dark blue jeans and a button-up green shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbow. I swallowed hard as I slowly disengaged the locks and pulled open the door. Unable to formulate any intelligible words, I said, “Why... uh, um, what are you doing... I mean, I wasn’t expecting—”
He cut me off with a laugh as he shook his head. “Just invite me in, little wolf, then I will explain.”
“Please come in, Kellan,” I said with a grin as I opened the door wide and ushered him in with a flourish.
He grinned at me as he stepped inside my place and looked around.
“Do you actually need an invitation—”
“No,” he replied quickly. “Myth. I’m a gentleman with manners, that’s why I asked.”
I chuckled and went over to my fridge and opened it. The way his eyes had raked over my body, wearing nothing but the sports bra and spandex capris, had told me otherwise. “Good to know. Would you like some water? Or, I have coffee, I guess...”
“I’m good, love,” he replied.
I cracked open a water bottle and drank it without breaking eye contact with him. His intense stare back at me made me almost choke on the water, but I managed to keep my composure—just barely.
When I’d had my fill, I set the bottle down and continued to look at him. I briefly chanced a glance down to replace the cap on the bottle, and was startled when I then looked up to find him six inches from my face.
I sucked in a breath when his hand reached up and cupped my jaw. Resisting a sigh, I blinked up into his blue eyes and my breath caught in my throat. When he wrapped his left arm around my backside and began drawing circles with his fingers against the exposed skin above my pants on my lower back, I may have gasped.
Kellan stared down at me for what felt like forever. Being the stubborn, obstinate girl I was, I held his stare and did not back down when his gaze grew so intense, I thought it would break me.
You can do this, Ayla. Hold your ground. He’s worth it.
When he finally spoke, I blew out a breath and grinned. “I’m going to kiss you, Ayla,” he whispered against my lips a split second before his crashed down onto mine.
Melting into him, I kissed him back, looping my arms around his neck and pressing my entire body wantonly against his. My excitement only escalated when, without breaking the kiss, he led me over to the bed, which sat at the far end of my studio apartment. He pulled back slightly once the backs of my knees hit the bed’s edge. He began peppering kisses across my face, along my jaw, and then down my neck, at which time I craned it back to allow him better access.
A slight moan slipped from my lips, at about the exact time I could swear Kellan growled in the back of his throat. I was so weak from what his lips were doing to me that my body turned to jelly and I fell backwards onto the bed. Kellan followed suit until I was spread-eagle—still fully dressed—on top of my comforter, with him on top, kissing me into oblivion. I wanted nothing more than for him to tear the garments from my body and worship me until we could no longer breathe.
“You are going to completely unravel me, Ayla St. John,” he whispered in my ear as his hands gripped my thighs and then moved up to my bare stomach, finally landing on my breasts.
“I can’t wait,” I groaned into his ear before nipping it with my teeth.
One of his hands left my chest to unbutton his shirt. His mouth found mine again, and as our tongues mingled, I put every doubtful thought out of my mind. This burning chemistry between Kellan and me had been simmering for quite some time, and it was past time I took him for a test drive.
Once Kellan had unfastened the last button and pressed his bare chest to mine, I reached up with both hands to drag the garment off his body. Unfortunately, the sound of keys jingling into my lock and the door opening had stopped that completely.
With both hands, I pushed him off me, and looked toward my front door.
Imagine my horror when I saw Ryder striding in through the door wearing his prison guard uniform... and a scowl I knew meant that I was in huge fucking trouble.
Chapter 19
Faster than the eye could see, Kellan had hopped off the bed and was now near the front door.
“What the fuck, Ayla? You have a vampire in here?” Ryder roared, trying to come near me, but was blocked by Kellan.
“Calm yourself, mate,” Kellan said, both hands pressed against Ryder’s chest.
“Get your goddamn hands off me!” Ryder said, pushing the vampire away with all his strength as his eyes flashed yellow.
Kellan barely moved, and then slammed into Ryder with all his might, causing him to land on his ass.
Crap.
I hopped off my bed and blitzed over to the duo, hoping to prevent a homicide.
“Stop!” I screamed, panicked and starting to feel sick. “Just stop!”
Ryder got up from the floor in a flash, barging into Kellan with a football-style tackle as both of them crashed to the floor.
Kellan was fast, but Ryder was strong, and between the growls and swear words, I couldn’t keep track of who was who so I could break it up.
Fists flew and teeth were bared, and after a minute or so, I drew my dagger from its sheath where it lay on the dining room table, and stabbed at the first one I could make contact with.
With a roar, Ryder stopped the punching and collapsed on the floor on his belly, reaching around and slowly withdrawing the dagger from his right shoulder.
He looked around and his eyes locked with mine. “Dammit, Ayla, you could have killed me!” he said, standing up breathing hard as the bloody wound in his shoulder began to heal.
Kellan wasn’t so lucky. He was still lying on the floor, clutching his chest. I looked down to see blood seeping from between his hands.
I gasped, and my gaze flicked up to Ryder. “Did you scratch him?”
Ryder threw the dagger to the ground, and he pressed his hand to the wound in his shoulder. “Fuck yeah, I did. Filthy vampire. What was he doing here anyway?”
My eyes immediately filled with tears, and I rushed over to Kellan. I looked down at the four bloody, gaping gashes in his chest, and then up to his pained face. “Is this going to kill you?”
A laugh from behind me had me turning around.
“No,
he’s not gonna die from a werewolf scratch while I’m in this form,” Ryder said. “He will be pretty, uh, uncomfortable for a couple days, though.”
I narrowed my eyes at Ryder. “You insensitive bastard.”
Ryder’s jaw was set firmly, and then bounced and bunched before he answered me. “Why do you care about a fuckin’ vampire? Come on, Ayla. One killed your brother...” He shook his head. “I never, in a million years, thought you’d be protecting one.”
“You don’t get a say in what I—”
Ryder cut me off. “Stop. Just stop. You obviously have a thing for this... creature. I came over here today to surprise you. I just came off a sixteen-hour overtime shift, and headed straight here to tell you I have an interview with the Justice Department next week about a position with that secret government agency... but you don’t care about that, do you? You want to commiserate with vampires and witches and hybrids and... God knows what else.”
I bristled at his words, and got up from where Kellan lay, knowing he was old enough to heal from a wolf scratch, regardless of how painful it might be.
I tried to soften my heart. “Ryder, I didn’t know. I’m happy for you. I know it’s your dream to work in bigtime law enforcement.”
He made a scoffing noise. “You don’t give two shits about me, Ayla. We haven’t really been together in weeks. You are busy killing vampires... and while you’re not doing that, you’re hunting them or hooking up with them, apparently.” He glanced at Kellan, who was beginning to sit up. He fixed his eyes on me once more. “I don’t feel like I have a place in your life anymore.”
When he raked a hand through his short hair, I was immediately reminiscent of the old days, where we would make out in his car, then go up to Wolfe Point, kissing and sometimes getting intimate before stripping naked and then turning into wolves once a month.
Confusion and nostalgia gripped me, and I felt sad when I looked at my first love. I took a step toward him, but he didn’t move; he just stood there and stared down at me once I was within touching distance. With my hands still at my side, I replied, “You will always have a place in my heart. I just feel like we’ve grown apart. It hurts me more than you will know... but...” I paused and looked down at the floor.
Ryder had softened a little, and he reached out his hand to grip mine. “But what?”
“I think we need to take some time apart,” I replied as I met his stare once more, the words snaking from my mouth like they had the many times I’d rehearsed them. But however much I had practiced these words, they still stung. To me, to him... it was the sad reality that he was moving in a completely different direction than I was. And it wasn’t just Kellan being here that made me confess. It was all the stuff that had been building up.
The soft, agreeable breakup I had been hoping for was shattered when Ryder’s face crumpled with grief and sadness, and then was quickly replaced with anger.
“You’re choosing a filthy vampire over me?” He glanced in Kellan’s direction.
I also flicked my gaze at Kellan, who had gotten up and was now leaning against a wall, his arms folded across his bloodied chest, pain coloring his eyes. “Filthy? Seriously, this coming from a bloody wolf—”
“I don’t think you understand what I mean,” I replied, cutting Kellan off before the situation escalated again.
Moving his gaze between Kellan and me, Ryder pursed his lips and then huffed. “I’m outta here. Have fun with your undead night crawler.”
“We aren’t undead...” Kellan said, followed by something else I couldn’t understand.
I ignored him again and followed Ryder to the door. He opened it and stormed into the hallway.
“Why are you following me, Ayla?” Ryder asked, his eyes full of pain and anger.
“I...” Unsure of what to say, I looked down at the ugly teal carpeting of the hallway. When I lifted my face back to Ryder, all I saw was his backside striding toward the elevators. He punched the button and stood there still, not saying a word.
Knowing he was needing some space, I didn’t go after him, I just stood there, feeling like the biggest asshole ever. And when the elevator doors opened, I whispered, “I will always love you, Ryder Robinson.”
With an agony-filled glance in my direction, Ryder’s eyes met mine, and then he stepped into the car, and disappeared from my view.
I felt like crying, but the tears wouldn’t come. I felt like I should be on my knees, sobbing for the loss, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Was it because I just didn’t feel it? Or had I been all cried out over all of the shit I had endured over the past year?
I wasn’t lying when I said I would always love him, because it was true. He had been my first love, but after five-plus years, people change.
With regret stirring in my gut, I turned to go back into my apartment. Kellan stood at the doorway, his eyes searching mine for some kind of response. I had nothing left to give, and I could tell he sensed that.
“The daylight is approaching soon, and I can see you need some time to process. So I leave you with a kiss“—he leaned down and pressed a chaste kiss to my temple—“and when I return, I promise to be the one you need to unload all your sorrows onto. Until then... sleep well, little wolf.”
He brushed my cheek with the back of his hand, and then he was gone, blitzing down the hallway to the stairwell.
My chest felt like it would explode with all the emotional bullshit I had been bombarded with the past twenty minutes. Not only was it way too much to process, it was downright exhausting. I closed and locked my door, and on my way to my bed, I picked up my bloody dagger from the floor. I then drew the heavy curtains to the windows, stripped off all my clothes, and set the weapon on my nightstand before pulling back the covers and falling into bed.
As I crawled under the covers, I curled up into a ball and squeezed my eyes closed, hoping that when I woke this evening, I would have some kind of clarity, because as of now, I was lost as hell.
I cried myself to sleep.
Some tough slayer I am.
“Well, that went over like a lead balloon,” I sighed into the phone as soon as I saw it was Sanja calling.
Silence.
I pulled the phone away from my ear and looked at it, then replaced it back against my head. “You there?”
“What does that even mean?” she finally responded.
“It’s a saying my mom used to use...” I stopped. “Never mind. I broke up with Ryder... I guess. It did not go well.”
I pushed the shopping cart down the aisle but didn’t really look too closely at the stuff I was supposed to be shopping for as I waited for her response.
“What do you mean, you guess?”
I sighed and stopped in front of the small selection of protein powders. “Well, Kellan came over, and we were about to, uh, get into things, and Ryder used his key to come in and kinda caught us. They got into a wicked fight. Kellan got scratched... it was a frickin’ mess.”
“Hooooly shit, woman. This is serious! Is Kellan all right?”
I picked up a large tub of chocolate protein powder and began to read the nutritional facts—something I had been doing lately. “Yes, he’s okay. I think. He seemed to be healing as he left my apartment this morning. He’s pretty old. I don’t think the scratch hurt him too bad.”
“Well, if Ryder was in his human form, it definitely won’t. If he had been the wolf, it might have not turned out so well for Kellan.”
I tossed the protein powder into my shopping cart and sighed. “I’m just so tired, Sanja. I just want a normal boyfriend I can hang with. Netflix and chill and all that.”
She laughed, the high-pitched tinkling coming through the phone. “Girl, I just don’t think a normal boyfriend is in the cards for you. Regardless, it seems they both work nights and sleep all day. But... that’s what you do yourself, right?”
“Yes—” I stopped when my phone chimed with a notification. I pulled it away from my ear to see I had a text comin
g through from Evan. “It is what I do. Look, I need to go, I’m at the store, and need to finish getting some toiletries and stuff.”
“I hear ya,” Sanja replied. “I got finals to study for. Keep that beautiful chin up, and please... keep me updated. I care about you.”
With a heavy sigh, and a smile on my lips, I replied, “I know. And I love you, too, girl.”
I ended the call and looked at my text from Evan: Got a job for you. Meet me in an hour at the Starbucks on Fifth and Rio Grande.
Smiling at his command, I quickly texted my reply: I’ll be there.
Hurrying around the store and picking up shampoo, soap, makeup, and other things (and the chocolate protein powder), I went to the checkout, paid for my items, and fast-walked home. I had to change for my big night.
Chapter 20
I was barely to the door of my building when I heard one of my neighbors talking animatedly to Tim, the security guard who sat at the desk in the lobby. I looked up to see the woman with her elbow on the desk, her other hand by her side, a grocery bag swinging from her fist.
“It totally woke me up!” she said, her voice too loud for indoors. “There was screaming and a lot of thuds. I thought they were going to come through the ceiling at me! I was about to call the police, but suddenly it stopped.”
Tim nodded, his shiny pale head gleaming under the light from the windows. He ran a hand over his gray and blond goatee. “Is that so? Did the sounds ever pick up again?”
The woman shook her head in the negative, her hair so shellacked to her head, the dark red locks didn’t even move. “No, it stopped, which is why I never called security.”
“Huh, well...”
