Inking the Wolf: A wolf shifter paranormal romance (Wolves of Crookshollow Book 3)

by Steffanie Holmes

  “Hey, Pete.”

  “Hey, Bianca. Sorry to hear about the shop. I hope they get the wankers who did it.”

  “Me, too.” I winced as my chest tightened. “Can I get a delivery up to The Prim?”

  “Sure thing. Do you and Robbie want your usual?”

  Another sharp pain jabbed into my chest. I sucked in a breath, willing myself not to break down. I kept my voice even. “No, it’s just me tonight, so you can hold the Meatsplosion with the extra BBQ sauce. Just hit me with a double Hawaiian, and an extra order of those lemon pepper wedges.”

  “You want sour cream with the wedges?”

  “Sure. You only live once, right?” A tear spilled down my cheek. Pete continued with my order regardless, as if ordering pizza for one was the most natural thing in the world, and not a sign that I’d lost the only person I’d ever really cared about. I garbled my way through my credit card number, and hung up with a promise from Pete that he’d arrive within a half hour.

  I leaned back in the chair, raising the glass to my lips. As I tipped the liquid down my throat, a shadow in the corner moved. I darted around, and noticed a silhouette in the doorway, the outline of a person’s head drawn by the bright moon.

  My blood turned cold. Someone’s in my house.

  It’s okay. It’s probably just Serenity coming home, or some other artist wanting to crash at Prim. The website does say, “Open all hours.”

  “Hey,” I called into the darkness. “Don’t just lurk in the shadows. Let me get a good look at you.”

  “As you wish,” a familiar voice simpered back. The figure took a step forward, her face falling under the warm glow of my lamp. I relaxed when I recognised Serenity. “Hello, Bianca.”

  “Oh, hey.” I gestured to the sofa opposite me. “I thought you had gone out. How did you get in here?”

  “Oh, the door was open. I thought that was your policy here at The Prim – anyone is welcome.” She took another step towards me, an odd, lopsided grin spread across her face. She had her hands clasped behind her back, like some cheeky kid about to present his mother with a live lizard he’d found in the garden.

  “Well, since you’re back, come on down and have a drink with me.” I held up the bottle. “Are you still in town for anything in particular? I know we discussed some more ink but with my shop destroyed, I won’t be able to take any bookings until I’ve got the okay to go back to work. Which given some personal setbacks, might be some time yet.”

  “Oh, I’m afraid you won’t be going back.” Serenity grinned wider, stepping right in front of me, so she loomed over me the way my mother did when I’d done something naughty. She whipped her hands from behind her.

  The lamplight caught the glint of a long, sharp kitchen knife.

  A nervous itch blocked my throat, and I choked out a weird, strangled laugh. “What’s that for?”

  “It’s for you, Bianca.”

  “I’m sorry?” I tried to inch around her, but she shuffled closer, her gaze never leaving mine. “You’re trying to give me a knife? That’s nice, I guess, but I’m not exactly a master chef—”

  “You still don’t recognise me, do you?” Anger flashed in her eyes. “I can’t say I’m surprised. For all your big talk about being different, you never cared about anyone but yourself.”

  I stared at her face, willing the features to knit together in a memory, to connect the dots to the familiar feeling I’d had from her since the moment she arrived. And suddenly … it clicked. I remembered where I knew her from.

  “Sally Smith,” I moaned, my lip trembling. Sally Smith, the mousy girl in my high school class with no friends, a girl I’d taken pity on at a party once and snogged in a cupboard. A girl who I’d “dated” for about a week before Mother caught us together and chased her away and I’d been sent off to get reprogrammed by the nuns and then got distracted by a hot football player at another school and never talked to her again.

  But if this really is Sally Smith, what is she doing here, in my house, with a knife? Why did she have a new name and pretend to be a reporter?

  “You do remember.” Sally’s lip curled back. “I am touched. Of course, I’ve had a bit of a makeover since high school. New name, a bit of work done, a new outlook on life. A great job, where I have freaks like you yapping at my heels for just a bit of attention. Now, I get to be the person who decides what’s cool. I can’t tell you how much fun it’s been to watch you the last couple of weeks, knowing you didn’t have a clue who I was.”

  “But why? I don't understand why you pretended—”

  “I didn’t pretend anything. My name is Serenity now. I had it legally changed. If you’d confronted me about my identity, I wouldn’t have denied it. I was just waiting to see how long it took you to recognise me.”

  “Well, colour me impressed,” I choked out.

  “This isn’t really a joking matter. Now, hand over your phone.”

  “Sally, I—”

  “I don’t want to hear what you have to say, Bianca. You never once listened to me, you never took the time to care about me. I worshipped you in high school. I thought you were fucking perfection in Docs. But you were just as bad as those snotty bitches you hated so much. You let me get close to you … I confided my deepest secrets, my darkest fears. I opened up in a way I never had before. You gave me the courage I needed to consider coming out of the closet. But then, you crushed me. I wasn’t alternative enough for you, so you let your mother terrify me and then discarded me without a single thought. Do you think I’d just forget that?”

  “No, I didn’t know—”

  “Of course you didn’t know. You didn’t even think to ask how I felt. It was always about you, you, you. Now you’ll see how it feels to be betrayed. How it cuts you, right here.” She mimed jabbing the tip of the blade right into my chest. I shrunk away. “Phone, if you please. Next time I won’t ask so nicely.”

  Numb with shock, I handed over my phone. I expected her to smash it, but instead, Sally held it up to her face, expertly texting with one hand while keeping the knife – and her eyes – trained on me.

  “What are you doing?”

  She flipped the phone around, showing me the text she’d just sent Robbie. A text telling him to come over, that I needed him.

  My heart sank to my knees. Please, don’t bring him into this. “Why do you want Robbie?”

  “You mean you haven’t put it all together yet?” Sally laughed. “It doesn’t surprise me. You always thought you were so clever. But you’re really nothing special. Not like me. People don’t notice me, because I blend into the background. You haven’t noticed me following you for the last week, and your boyfriend didn’t notice me standing right in the hallway while he changed into a werewolf the other night. But it doesn’t matter, because I got the whole thing on video.”

  Shit.

  “I’m going to be the first person to break the story that werewolves are real. I’ll be giving a harrowing eyewitness account of how I went to visit my old girlfriend, Bianca Sinclair. And how I was just in time to witness her being torn to pieces by her ex-boyfriend, who had transformed into a vicious werewolf and who was also probably responsible for several recent animal attacks around the Crookshollow Forest area.”

  “Sally, you can’t—”

  She grinned, shuffling closer, that knife raised to her shoulder, ready to strike. “I’m about to become the most infamous journalist in England, probably the world. And you’re going to help me do it. After everything you did to me, it seems only fair that you could give me this.”

  “If you want me dead, you’re going to have to stab me. Robbie would never lay a hand on me. You’ll never get him to kill me.”

  “I don’t have to.” She whipped out her own phone, and swiped the screen a couple of times. Robbie’s voice echoed through the room, high-pitched and tinny through the tiny speakers. “… on the full moon, I’m a wild beast. I operate completely on instinct. For a wolf, instinct is tied up with scent. And r
ight now, my instincts are screaming that Rolf is my rival, and anything with his scent on it is a direct challenge to me. For example, if I smelled you wearing clothes that had Rolf’s scent on them, in my wolf form, I’d think you betrayed me, and I’d probably attack you …”

  “You’ve been spying on us.” I remembered Robbie’s paranoia about Rolf, that he was sending me flowers and watching me. I’d thought he was just trying to get me to throw Rolf out, but it was Sally all along. And the person who wrecked my shop … that must’ve been her, too. “You destroyed Resurrection Ink.”

  Sally clapped, her grin exploding across her face as she broke into terrifying giggles. “Well done! Ten points! Yes, I’ve been following you ever since you sent the press release about The Prim to my boss. I was just going to write a gloriously unflattering piece about this place and destroy you that way, before your business could even get off the ground. But then your boyfriend transformed into a werewolf in the middle of the party, and I got an even better idea. Why not destroy you and break the story of my life at the same time?”

  “But you said in your piece that it was just special effects.” Keep her talking. You can find a way out of this. I inched my way along the sofa, my eyes fixed on the gleaming blade. If I could shuffle her around, maybe I could run for the door before she had a chance to catch me. The heavy table lamp sat on the table between us. If I could grab it, maybe I could knock her out …

  As slowly as I could, I shifted my weight to my back foot, ready to spring into action.

  “Of course. I wasn’t about to give your place that kind of free publicity. I’m not here to help you by bringing a horde of werewolf hunters down upon your doorstep. No, I need to break this in a way that will give you just as much pain as you gave me. And you’ve given me the perfect excuse—”

  I lunged for the door. My shin slammed against the coffee table, sending it flying. A cascade of magazines and empty absinthe glasses cascaded to the floor. I grabbed the lamp and hurled it at Sally. It hit her in the chest, sending her flying back.

  My fingers grasped the door doorframe. I swung myself into the hall, scrambling for the front door. Run run run—

  Something hit me in the side, knocking the wind out of me. My right leg collapsed, and I fell heavily, banging my knee on the hardwood floor. My hip ached, like someone had punched me. I rolled over and turned around, and saw a wide grin spread over Sally’s face as she yanked the knife from my hip.

  She stabbed me.

  A pool of blood spread across my leggings, staining the fabric a deep pink. As soon as the blood registered, the pain came – a great sweeping tide that flowed through my body, driving out all breath and thought. It was as though the knife had twisted right inside of me, and wriggled its way through my veins.

  “No!” I grabbed at my hip, trying to stop the bleeding. Blood soaked through my fingers. Panic rose inside me. I’m bleeding. I’m going to die.

  Sally’s face faded, wobbling into the wallpaper behind her head. Dull roses and grinning portraits spun around me. The panic rose up, overwhelming the last vestiges of rational thought. I tried to crawl away, but I had no idea what direction I was moving in.

  Another punch hit my shoulder. Dully, I realised she’d stabbed me again. She slashed at my head, and I pulled back just s the knife darted in front of my eye. Something stung my temple, and my vision blurred with red.

  I toppled backward, my head bouncing on the carpet. The last thing I heard was a thud of the door hitting the wall, or maybe it was my body as it slammed into the ground. Then the whole world wobbled again, and went black.

  34

  Robbie

  I bounded across The Prim’s front garden, my paws slamming into the damp earth. Panic seized my chest, making my breathing shallow.

  My inner wolf’s rage propelled me forward. Rolf’s smell rolled around me, a putrid stench emanating off the house and gardens. Rolf, if you’ve hurt Bianca, I’m going to tear your heart out.

  Another smell mingled in with it. The scent of blood. I poured on speed.

  Behind me, Caleb’s paws pounded against the drive, his hot breath panting in my ear. As soon as Anna had told me what was in that text message, I was ready to bound over to The Prim. But Anna had told me to wait. She called Caleb back from the forest. He was ready to kill me, but then I explained through the call what had happened, and he sprang into action. Even if I was no longer part of the pack, Bianca still was.

  A car screeched to a halt on the drive, narrowly missing us. I dived out of the way, in time to see Ryan and Marcus leap from the back. Anna sat behind the wheel, waving at us to move.

  The front door was open a crack. I fell against it, my heavy paws crunching against the wood. The door crashed open, slamming against the wall, and I scrambled into the hall.

  What I saw turned my wolf blood to ice.

  Bianca lay on the floor in a pool of blood. Her eyes stared at the ceiling, wide and glazed. One whole side of her face as drenched in blood, and more blood pooled from deep wounds on her shoulder and hip. The journalist from the London Underground blog stood over her, a knife raised high above her head, and an expression of wild glee in her eyes.

  Everywhere, all over the walls, scrawled across the balustrade, seeped into the carpet, was Rolf’s putrid smell, curling toward me in thick tendrils, driving my rage to the breaking point. Bianca’s body had been covered with a shirt that looked suspiciously like it belonged to Rolf.

  My teeth grated. My stomach rumbled. The blood blurred in my vision, until all I could see was red, red, red. The red of the vengeance I wanted for this betrayal.

  Get control, Robbie. Rolf’s not here. He and Bianca aren’t together. It’s her. It’s Serenity. You have to get her away from Bianca.

  But my wolf wouldn’t listen. My thoughts fell into a dim, disjointed cloud, torn away by the force of my fury. I tried to pull my body back, away from Bianca, but instead, I crept forward, my head low, my teeth bared.

  Your mate is seeped in your rival’s scent. She has betrayed you. They both must be punished.

  Serenity looked up when I rushed in, her eyes meeting mine with measured calm. “I’m so glad you could make it, Robbie. Please, take it from here. I know you must be hungry for justice. You can smell your rival all over this room. I’ve seem them together, Rolf and Bianca, fucking like animals.”

  The blood pulsed in my veins, the fury fighting to take control. I glanced down at Bianca’s face, trying to see the woman I loved. But all that I could see was red red red.

  She betrayed me. I growled out my anger, digging my claws into the hardwood floor. She must die.

  Something slammed into my side, knocking me over. I tried to scramble to my feet, but a paw pinned my shoulder. Caleb. I snapped my teeth in his face, missing him by an inch.

  Let me go! I screamed inside my head as I struggled against him. I pulled one leg free and swiped him across the face. Caleb howled as I drew blood, his claws flying at me but missing me by inches. Another animal slammed into me, sending us hurtling across the floor. Ryan pinned my arm again, sinking his claws into my flesh.

  I wrenched my body around, trying to shake him off. But he held firm, his claws driving deeper into my skin. I howled again, flinging my body back to slam him against the wall. Marcus leapt onto my back, snarling into my ear.

  Don’t do this, Robbie. We’re your friends. We’re trying to help you.

  You’re all on his side. You let this happen. You all betrayed me. I sank my teeth into Marcus’ shoulder. He screeched, scrabbling to free himself from my grasp. I lifted him from the floor and shook him roughly, tossing his body aside. I dragged my body, laden now with both Caleb and Ryan, closer to Bianca.

  “Oh man, this is brilliant,” Serenity breathed, her phone following my every move.

  My foot landed in something wet. I lifted it to my face. Blood. Bianca’s blood. I’ll spill it all for your betrayal.

  Robbie, you have to fight it, Caleb’s voice landed in my hea
d. You are more than your instincts. You’re everything to Bianca. You have to fight this, for her.

  I have to kill her! With a heave, I dragged my body closer. I no longer felt the teeth and claws in my body. My veins ran hot with the fury that would see my task done. I pulled myself forward another inch, so I was right beside Bianca’s head. Her neck lolled to the side, her eyes glassy, her pale skin streaked with blood.

  Serenity stepped back, gesturing to Bianca’s prone body with one hand, while the other held her phone right in my face. “She’s a horrible, filthy slut, Robbie. She must be punished.”

  Robbie, fight it. Remember who you are. Remember everything you’ve fought for.

  I reached down, sniffing the rug, my stomach twisting as Rolf smell invaded my nostrils. I licked the blood, tasting its acerbic flavour on my tongue. My stomach rumbled. My teeth itched for the sweet, fresh meat.

  Robbie, come back. You have to fight it.

  Bianca’s glassy eyes stared up at me. Blood speckled her cheekbones, and stained her favourite Ramones shirt. I bent down, my jaws wide, ready to tear her flesh from her bones.

  I gasped as memories flooded me, forcing themselves through the red rage in my mind. Bianca tossing her head back as she laughed at something I’d said, Bianca and I sharing pizza and beer by the fireplace, Bianca and I at the altar, our hands entwined, Bianca riding my cock inside the tiny attic bedroom.

  Her blood stung my tongue. Anger welled up inside me, but I couldn’t remember why. I stared hard at her face, trying to see the slut who fucked my greatest rival.

  Instead, all I saw was the woman I loved.

  Bianca’s eyes stared unblinking, her chest no longer rising with breath. The pool of blood around her body stretched right to the edges of the enormous hall rug. And that woman had done this to her.

  I turned my head, my eyes meeting Serenity’s. You’ve taken her from me. She was my mate. I waited so long for her, and now she’s gone, and you did this.