I gasped and spun back to face him. “You can fly?”
He rolled his eyes. “I flew in a plane. You are a terrible drunk.”
“And you're a terrible lay.” I meant to say date, but I had sex on the brain. This sugar was some good stuff. It had completely destroyed my filter and my inhibitions. “I don't like you, and you are so not my type, but I'd fuck you. Just as long as we're clear that we hate each other.”
I thought I saw a smile tickle his lips. “Good to know. Get in the car.”
He opened my door, grabbed the top of my head, and shoved me in like a police officer shoving a perp into his car.
He shut the door behind me and I ran my hands over the soft, supple leather of the seats and the dash. The car smelled new and I leaned forward to breath it in just as Axel shoved his over-sized body into the driver's seat. “You puke in here, you're paying for it to be cleaned.”
I leaned back. “I'm not actually drunk, you know.”
“Right,” he said with that stupid, smug smirk I absolutely did not want to lick off his stupid, smug face.
He leaned toward me and my breath caught in anticipation. I hated him, but I really wanted to kiss him. I closed my eyes and waited. His big warm arm wrapped around my upper body, but pulled away far too soon. I opened my eyes to see him buckling my seat belt.
He chuckled to himself and started the car.
“Where are we going?”
“I know a place,” he said. “We're going to work that sugar out of your system.”
Was he purposely speaking in innuendo or was I just so horny everything sounded sexy?
I fiddled with the radio dial, trying to find my station. Why couldn't I find it? Oh, right, the dial was set to AM. I flipped over to FM and found my station in short order. Axel looked over at me, surprise clear on his face. “You like metal?”
I rolled my eyes. “Have you never watched one of my fights?” I always walked into an arena to the beat of a screaming heavy metal song.
“I don't watch fights, they popularize violence.”
“O-kay. Didn't realize you took this pacifism thing so seriously.”
“I do,” he said. “My wolf doesn't. It's easier if I avoid anything that makes my wolf antsy for a fight.”
Axel was zipping down the interstate and in and out of traffic more like a city dweller than a dude who never left the mountainside.
“You've been here before?”
“A few times,” he said. “As alpha, I have to travel from time to time, and the council meetings are usually in LA or New York. You'd be surprised how many wolves live in LA. People here tend to assume anything odd they see is either for a movie or some costume designer's prank.”
“Really? Are there werewolves living in other big cities like this?”
“Some,” he said. “They tend to live in smaller packs in the city, or they're alphas who prefer to live on their own.”
“Wow,” I said, absentmindedly running my pointer finger over his thigh. He didn't seem to notice, so I didn't stop. “So werewolves and harpies exist, any other supernatural creatures?”
“Uh-huh,” he said, his voice a bit gruff. He looked down pointedly at his lap and I realized I was caressing his crotch. Were his cheeks actually red?
“Is that bothering you?”
He growled, gripped my wrist, and dropped my hand back in my lap. “You are never allowed to have sugar again.”
“You don't like my hands on you?” I asked in a mock-hurt voice. I knew he liked my hands on him, I'd felt indisputable proof of that.
“When your hands are on me next time, I don't want you to be able to blame it on the sugar.”
“Like that'll ever happen,” I said, my happy high vanishing like a rabbit from a hat. Mm mm, rabbit. Somehow, my stomach rumbled with hunger again. And for rabbit? There must have been some good stuff in that sugar, like LSD. I glanced out the window as Axel veered off an exit ramp. We were leaving the city? Why were we leaving the city? Sick dread curled in my gut. What did I even really know about Axel? Nothing good. “Where are you taking me?”
“Somewhere you can be free,” Axel said, all calm-like.
Somewhere I could be free? Wasn't that serial killer talk for dead? “You're going to kill me, aren't you?”
He glanced over at me, but he was frowning. Had I figured it out? Oh, my god, I didn't want to die. I was too young and buff to die. I had my whole fucking life in front of me. My skin itched and that nervous energy from earlier returned one hundred times stronger.
“Julie? Calm down.”
“I'll do whatever you want, just don't kill me.”
His eyebrows quirked up. “Whatever I want?”
A lone tear slipped from my left eye. This was it. This was the way I was going to die.
“Shit, Julie, I'm just kidding.” His gaze bobbed from the road to me and back again. He looked sort of like a bobble head. I giggled.
“You look like a bobble head,” I said.
“Oh, good. Happy Julie is back.”
He didn't sound happy about that and he should sound happy about that. I was delightful. He must really hate me if he couldn't see how delightful I was. He'd probably do just about anything to get rid to me, including driving to an abandoned field behind an abandoned supermarket. My dread returned a hundred-fold as we passed the deserted store. He was really going to kill me. “I need to get out of here,” I said, my breath caught in my throat.
“Just calm down, okay. I'm not going to hurt you. If you were sober you'd realize that.”
“No,” I said. “I just need to…Just let me out of here.”
My body shivered and I felt my jaw start to change. Axel looked over. “Damn it. Do not shift in this car. Do you understand me? Do. Not. Shift. In. This. car.”
He was using that alpha voice again, but it only made me more determined to escape. I didn't fight the change. Being a wolf would make me stronger and…Oh, crap. I'd forgotten to unbuckle my seat belt before I shifted. I was bigger as a wolf, so big my clothes had just torn off, but the seatbelt was tight and pressed right against my throat. I couldn't breathe. I was going to die. Killed by a seatbelt. How fucking embarrassing.
Human Julie probably could have reasoned that she was unlikely to die by seatbelt, but wolf Julie was a tad more highly strung.
The car door opened and Axel was there, hands in the air. “I'm not going to hurt you, I'm just going to unbuckle your seatbelt.” He reached in and pushed the button and I was free. I leapt from the car and squared off against him, except I couldn't remember why I needed to fight him. My mind felt clear and rational. This was Axel. If he'd wanted to kill me, he could have done it twenty times over already.
He just stood there, hands in the air. “Are you sober now, Julie?”
I nodded.
“Do you think you could change back to human?”
“Naked,” I yipped.
He grunted and pulled his shirt over his head in that way hot guys do, by gripping it behind his neck and pulling up. Even as a wolf, I found him unreasonably sexy.
He threw the shirt at my wolfy feet and spun to face the car. “Shift and put that on.”
I did as he asked. The shirt fell to about mid-thigh and was the sort of thing I'd wear as pajamas. The cotton was soft and worn and it smelled like Axel. He definitely wasn't getting his shirt back.
I returned to the car, only to see that wolf Julie had scratched the hell out of the seat, the dashboard, and the tint on the window. “Sorry about the car,” I said. “But if you'd just told me where we were going I wouldn't have freaked out.”
Axel was already in the driver's seat, gripping the wheel tight. “You call that an apology?”
“I call that the truth. I may not have been totally in my right mind, but when a girl asks a man she barely knows where he's taking her, he should just fucking answer with a location.”
He sighed like I was the difficult one. “We're going to a farm. One of the council members lives ther
e with his family. His wife and kids don't know he's a wolf, so you need to stay in the car and out of sight.”
“Seriously? How can his family not know he's a wolf? Aren't his kids wolves?”
“Step-kids,” he said. “Darius sees the wolf genes as a curse. One he doesn't want to risk passing on to his kids. If we're lucky, we won't even see him, but if we do, I need you to keep quiet and as still as possible. He's not a bad guy but he's not going to like that Jeremiah turned you.”
He started the car and pulled back onto the street. “This sounds like a colossally bad idea,” I said. “Why don't we go somewhere else?”
“Because you need to run somewhere we can count on you not being seen.” He turned on his signal and started down a long, paved driveway. “He's one of the more reasonable council members, believe it or not.”
I wasn't really listening any more. I was peering out the window into the darkness. There was a full moon, but I could see as well as if it were full daylight. “This wolf vision is wild,” I said.
“That's already kicked in? I've never seen a wolf evolve as quickly as you.”
“Have you seen a lot of turned wolves?”
“Five or six. Two of them didn't even make it through their first shift.”
“Think maybe you should have told me that before I tried to shift?”
“Then you'd have been afraid, and fear makes the shift riskier.”
He parked in front of a small, ranch-style house and shut off the engine. We sat in the darkness and waited. Axel pulled out his phone and tapped at it, before shaking his head and sighing. “This day just keeps getting better.”
“What's going on?”
“His wife and kids are out of town, visiting relatives. He wants to meet you.”
“You told him about me?”
“Didn't have to,” he said. “The gossip vine with wolves is faster than email.”
“Grapevine,” I said.
He paused with his door open. “Huh?”
“It's grapevine, not gossip vine.”
He screwed up his face in confusion. “What do grapes have to do with gossip?”
“I don't know. I didn't invent the phrase, I'm just telling you what it is.”
“Well, it's stupid,” he said. “Gossip vine makes a hell of a lot more sense.”
I got of the car with a sigh and followed him to the house. Ordinarily, I'd be embarrassed about my outfit, but my humiliation quotient for the day was pretty much dry.
The front door opened and a middle-aged man in a suit stepped out. He had a scar running from his right eye to his jaw and a hard expression. He was also clean-shaven and his hair was neatly trimmed. Huh. Not all werewolves were of the mountain man variety.
“Please, come in,” he said. We walked into his foyer and he offered me a manicured hand. “I'm Darius Worthington. Axel tells me you were recently turned?”
“Yes. Julie Jacobs. It's nice to meet you.”
Darius nodded. “I've seen some of your fights. Please, have a seat in the living room.” We followed him into a carpeted room with popcorn ceilings and furniture that could have come right out of the 1980s. I sat on the couch next to Axel. I may have still been feeling the residual effects of the sugar, but Darius made me more than a little nervous.
Axel told Darius the story of my turning and the man sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “The council will want to punish Jeremiah, of course, but I suspect it will be mostly for show. He was protecting himself.” He looked to me. “Can you explain why you reacted in such an extreme manner.”
I swallowed hard to hold back the urge to tell him to go fuck himself. “You spend your life as a woman and tell me you wouldn't have lashed out if a man grabbed you in the dark.”
Darius frowned and narrowed his eyes, but he didn't argue. “Krista, too, will have to be punished. She shouldn't have allowed her cousin to run around the town unsupervised.”
“I don't suppose I could dole out the punishments?” Axel asked.
Darius sighed as though he really felt bad, but I didn't sense true empathy from him. “The council will insist on making an example of them to deter anyone else from being so careless.”
“What are you going to do to Krista?” I asked.
Darius turned his attention to me, his expression revealing no sympathy. “It won't be what I do, it will be what the council decides.”
I turned to Axel, expecting him to smirk or glare, but his expression was kind, understanding. “They won't hurt her,” he said. “The most they will do is restrict her travel permissions or put her under house arrest.”
I nodded, grateful to him. “Okay.” I turned back to Darius. “It really was my fault. Krista had sent me a text warning me to stay inside and I didn't see it. Jeremiah…He didn't really do anything wrong. He grabbed me, but I may have overreacted. He used words that are a trigger for me.”
Darius waved a hand, done with the conversation. “The council will decide.” He turned back to Axel. “Has she shifted?”
“She has and she managed to maintain control,” Axel said. “She wants to return to her life in LA.”
“That is out of the question,” Darius said. “She must go back to your pack. You are now responsible for her.”
“I understand,” Axel said. I opened my mouth to protest, but he put a heavy hand on my thigh and squeezed. When I looked at his face, I saw compassion and kindness. “She would like a few days to tie up some loose ends here. I will be by her side the entire time, of course.”
Darius studied us. I'd noticed Axel had told Darius nothing about my ability to ignore his alpha voice or my second shift. It made me think Axel was on my side. It was the only thing that kept me from opening my big mouth. “If anything happens,” Darius said. “You will be held fully responsible by the council. She's too much in the public eye to keep our secret if we're not careful.”
“I understand,” Axel said.
“Wait,” I said. “What does that mean?”
Darius swung his head slowly to me, his narrow face pinched, clearly resenting my interruption. I'd been dealing with men who didn't think I should have a voice or a seat at the table my whole career. They didn't intimidate me and neither did Darius. “I'm sure Axel can fill you in.” He stood. “If that is all—”
“I want you to tell me.” I needed to know what was at stake and I trusted Darius not to spare my feelings.
Darius looked over at Axel as though he expected him to intervene and save him from my intrusive questions. Axel crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his seat. I was inordinately grateful to him for siding with me, even though it was clear he respected Darius.
Darius glared at Axel, his expression hard, and swung his head back to me. “Revealing our existence to humans is punishable by death. Your cousin Krista should be put to death for inviting you to the village without making sure you wouldn't be exposed to the wolves. She would have been if Axel hadn't explained that she'd informed him of your arrival and had simply gotten the date wrong.” I forced myself not to show any shock at that revelation. Axel had vouched for Krista? “If you reveal your true nature to a human in any way, Axel will pay for your crime. He will be put to death and you will be stalled.”
“Stalled?”
Darius rolled his eyes heavenward as though searching for assistance. “You will have an operation to insure you are never able to shift again.”
“That's possible?”
“Possible, but intensely painful. Most wolves don't survive the procedure with their sanity intact.”
Well, then. Guess I wouldn't be telling Shelly about my recent change.
“I will see you to the door,” Darius said. “Enjoy your run.”
***
“Thank you for covering for Krista,” I said. We were back in Axel's car and headed back to the city. I felt calmer, the nervous energy quieted. The run had been amazing, had felt like flying and an hour-long laugh session all in one. It was pure freedom from bounda
ries and humanity, a sort of intense communing with nature. I may even have eaten a rabbit.
“She's mine,” he said. “I look out for her.”
“Oh.” I was unwilling to analyze my sense of disappointment. “She didn't mention she was seeing anyone.” She also hadn't mentioned she was a werewolf, but that seemed significantly less important at the moment.
“Seeing anyone?” He glanced over at me. The horizon was pink, the sun just starting to rise, but I felt more alive and awake than I ever had before. He smirked. “No, she's not. What I meant is that she's part of my pack. I look out for my pack. I don't sleep with them. I go elsewhere for that kind of release.”
“Oh?” My emotions were on a roller coaster. Relief that he wasn't seeing Krista, then disappointment that he wasn't going to sleep with me because I was now part of his pack. Not that I liked him or wanted a relationship with him. I couldn't stand him. “Where?” And I was a nosy, nosy person. I had no shame.
His smile widened and I felt things, dangerous, delicious things. “Humans, usually. Occasionally an alpha from another pack. I'm too dominant to have sex with anyone in my pack, it would be taking advantage of someone who couldn't tell me no.”
“Clarissa didn't seem to have a problem talking back to you.”
“Clarissa is probably strong enough to handle me, but I've never been attracted to her and I'm certain she's never been attracted to me.”
“I'm strong enough to handle you,” I said, just thinking out loud. “Though maybe it wouldn't be right, since I can almost out-alpha you.”
He snorted. “You didn't come close to out-alpha-ing me.”
“You were half-way out of my apartment.”
“I was being polite. You clearly didn't want me there.”
“Take me to get some ice cream right now,” I said, using my deep alpha voice.
He checked his mirrors and changed lanes before he caught himself. To my surprise, he laughed. “Fine. We're pretty close to evenly matched.” He glanced over, his smile warm. “Want to go back to your place and do the horizontal mambo.”
I laughed. “The horizontal mambo? Are you a time-traveling werewolf? Because I think your lines are stuck in the '80s.”
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