by Leia Stone
Suddenly Brock was there, looking fully like a hot naked man as he scooped me into his arms. Even in my half-dying state, I couldn’t help but notice the hard muscles on his body, the way everything fit just right. My glazed eyes even skimmed his junk. If these were my dying moments, then at least I’d gotten one last look.
When he stood with me in his arms, Molly aimed the shotgun at his head.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re taking her?” Molly’s voice was full of grit, and I decided right then she would be my new best friend—or at least my second-best friend. This girl had a huge pair of balls.
Brock growled. “I’m going to try to keep her from dying,” was all he said before he set off in a sprint.
His strong hand came up to pin my head to his chest, to keep it from jostling too much, when an overwhelming wave of dizziness hit me.
“What the fuck happened?” A voice joined Brock. “Is she human?”
My eyes couldn’t open anymore; they were too heavy. Everything was garbled, as if I were deep underwater.
“She’s a dud witch. Get Doc!” he barked.
I was too out of it to object to being called a dud, the word I usually hated.
Running footsteps.
“What about Nathan?” a new voice asked, this one grittier, more dominant.
“He knew the rules. Kill him,” Brock ordered.
Nathan? The guy who bit me? They were going to kill him for that? Shit. With every ounce of energy I could muster, I groaned. “No. Don’t… kill.”
I didn’t want some new wolf being put down on my account. I did wave a bag of burgers around the dark forest on a full moon. My decision-making skills were questionable at best.
Brock sighed, his warm breath coating my face. “Lock him in the barn. I’ll deal with him later.”
My face wasn’t working the way it was supposed to, so I smiled internally. He listened to me. We should start having regular sex. It was like I was drunk again.
‘You’re delusional,’ Cass confirmed. ‘Losing your mind. I have no idea what’s happening but I’m almost there.’
“Give her to me,” a firm female voice demanded.
I was deposited into another set of arms, and then someone’s nose was in my neck, sniffing long and hard.
“Why does she smell like she’s shifting?” the female asked.
“Fuck,” Brock snarled, and then everything went black.
7 It’s All Fun And Games Until You Get Bitten By A Werewolf
I’m in a nightmare, a very painful fucking nightmare, where my body isn’t my own.
There was no other reasonable explanation for the sensations sweeping through my body, making me desperate to break free of it.
It was as if an alien creature was swimming under my skin, looking for a place to pop out unannounced. Like in one of those horror movies where it makes you squirm just to look at the beating, pulsing mass, trying to break free of the poor fucker’s flesh.
Then came the part I’d probably never forget, not even if I lived as long as Gran had. Every. Single. Fucking. Bone in my body broke and shattered. I was sure of it, even in what was certain to be my delirious state. It sounded like chestnuts roasting over an open fire, only with none of that happy, sappy Christmas shit. I was a one-woman firecracker show, and I truly wished I were dead.
The searing pain rolling up and down my body was… torture. Maybe I’d already died and this was hell. That made a certain kind of sense. I’d been naughty plenty in life, though I didn’t exactly think I deserved hell. A good heart had to count for something, right?
I writhed and screamed, arching my body, but there was no escaping what was inside me. What had been inside me all along, as if a zipper along my skin had suddenly torn open, unleashing a beast that had been caged for the past twenty-four years.
Witch blood ran through my veins, which meant I was immune to the virus that turned ordinary humans into a werewolf after being bitten. Yet, in this out-of-my-mind state I was certain of only one thing.
I wasn’t a dud.
Never had been.
That was as big a lie as my entire life. I was something else, something new that I couldn’t yet identify, but I sure as hell was no dud. My neck burned like a motherfucker; it felt as if it were on fire, like my head was hanging from a single sinuous thread. Behind my forehead, an entire marching band drummed, and I hadn’t even had the pleasure of getting rip-roaring drunk.
I opened my eyes once, but all I managed to make out were bright lights and blurred shapes that more or less looked like people, maybe even a furry pink imp or two. Then the pain was too great, and I struggled to maintain consciousness while something tore through my body, intent on killing me, though making me beg for death first.
A whimper escaped me, and I felt hands on my arms in response. One set was probably Cass’; they were soft and fuzzy, but the other set was strong, and they held me tightly.
I writhed in agony, trying to claw at the place in my throat where the wolf had ripped me open, but my hands were quickly swept away, and pinned to my sides. The inability to thrash made everything worse.
Fuck that Nathan wolf. I should’ve let Brock kill him.
The burn seared, as if branding me, and bile rose in my throat. That double cheeseburger didn’t taste nearly as good coming back up. Finally giving in to the pain, I allowed the tears to stream down my cheeks.
I was strong, hell yes, but I wasn’t this strong. No one was this strong. This was like being torn to shreds, limb by limb, tissue from tissue, and then maybe, if I was lucky, put back together. Or maybe I’d be like Humpty Dumpty, who couldn’t be put back together again, and then I was royally screwed, and not in the fun way.
A wave of pain swelled at my neck, so intense that I clenched every muscle in my body against it. It raced down and across my body, which no longer felt like anything I recognized. I fought it so hard that I started panting.
In the end I lost the fight. I just wasn’t sure with what.
My consciousness drifted away to where, at least, there was no more pain. If I was dying, then so be it. Anything but this.
Gradually, I began to awake. It took a while for reality to hit—a grace period of sorts to prepare me for the motherfucking-hell-in-a-handbasket memory that I’d been attacked by a werewolf last night.
I groaned, thinking I heard something shuffle in the corner. That had me popping my eyelids open, and reaching for the gun I usually kept on the nightstand. Only this wasn’t my downtown loft. This wasn’t Gran’s cabin either.
“What the—?” I stopped. My throat was dry as the Sahara. “Where…?” I croaked. Where was I that had sheets with thread counts in the high millions?
I went to stretch and quickly aborted the mission. Every single muscle in my body ached, and not the I-just-started-a-new-workout kind of ache. This was like I was a survivor of the bubonic plague.
Footsteps pounded somewhere outside of the bedroom. Again I tried to find some sort of weapon to defend myself, just in case. The world of supernaturals had never been a safe one, and it seemed at the very least I had a pissed-off siren hunting me. I’d learned long ago that it paid to be paranoid and prepared.
But I couldn’t move. No, that wasn’t true at all. I could move, as long as I didn’t mind feeling like death in a doggie bag of flesh and bones.
‘Holy hell, Ev,’ Cass shouted in my mind, making me wince and try to pull away, only it was tough to pull away from a voice inside your head. ‘I’m coming.’
I hoped he wasn’t talking to me during one of his sexcapades, because with how I felt, I really could do without the image of my dear friend shaking it all loose.
Shouts joined the pounding footfalls outside the door, and then Cass and Molly catapulted into the room, out of breath.
Cass’ red-rimmed eyes were wide, as he brought a hand to his heaving chest. “Evie, oh thank goodness you’re okay.”
My memories from the night before were hazy, but I nodded. With a shaky hand, I re
ached up to stroke where the wolf had bitten me. My flesh was scarred but… healed.
“You scared the living daylights out of us,” Molly added.
“Yeah, well, sorry.” I cleared my throat. “Can I get some water?”
“Oh, yeah, sure.” Molly reached for the nightstand, and poured water from a crystalline pitcher, then handed me the glass. “Wait, let me help you sit up so you can drink better.” She returned the glass to the night table, propping pillows beneath me. There were enough pillows on this bed to make the Ritz jealous.
“Evie,” Cass called, drawing right next to me, and handing me the glass so Molly could use both hands to hold me.
They were treating me like a fragile baby. Normally I’d complain, but I didn’t say a word. I was extremely fatigued, and my muscles were weak. I tipped the cup back and drank the water, which was like heaven to my parched throat. Chugging it down, I extended my hand in the universal signal for more.
Cass kicked off his shiny gold astronaut boots, batted his wings a couple of times, while pulling the fluffy comforter askew, and landed on the bed. Padding across it, he plopped right next to me and grabbed my free hand. I had a prime view of his favorite matching gold Speedo and all the impy bits it struggled to contain, so I cast my gaze to the ceiling.
But my friend wasn’t having it. “Don’t you dare look away from me, Evie Black. Tell me everything.”
“What do you mean?” I huffed as I met his blazing black eyes.
His brow dipped in confusion. “What do you remember about last night?”
The imp looked concerned, beside himself really, and it made me nervous. What the hell happened last night? Other than the obvious?
Then the details of last night’s attack came back, flooding my mind. Nathan, the werewolf. My neck, nearly ripped in half. Brock jumping in to save me. Molly, a badass on the porch with a shotgun. And then pain, the worst pain ever.
“He bit me, then the alpha… I was in a lot of pain. I don’t really remember anything after that,” I admitted. I was witchborn. I should not have had that reaction.
“That damn wolf nearly chewed your whole head off,” Cass seethed, anger dripping from his voice. I knew that if I said the word, Cass would tear Nathan’s head from his body.
“It’s a good thing Gran wasn’t here to see this,” Cass went on, clearly distraught. It was one of his things; he wouldn’t shut up when he was nervous. “If she’d seen what we saw last night...” He whistled. “Well, it probably would’ve sent her to an early grave. I tell you, it was bad. It was so bad, girl, be glad you didn’t see yourself.”
“Uh, Cass?” Molly said, her eyes wide in warning.
“What?”
“She clearly doesn’t remember everything. Maybe we should, you know, ask her how she’s feeling, that kind of thing.”
My oldest friend looked at me with one raised eyebrow. “Do you really not remember all the crazy shit from last night?”
I slumped back into the pillows, frightened. “What do you mean? What crazy shit?” He didn’t answer right away and I really started to freak out, hard. “Cass, what happened to me?” My voice cracked as fear won.
Cass looked to Molly, clearly uncomfortable, and I pinned him with a glare that made my head hurt.
“What are you looking at her for? Tell me what the hell’s going on here!” I shouted, then winced at the pain it caused my body.
Cass, who never fidgeted, squirmed on his golden ass, his little pot belly jiggling as he did. What could be so terrible that would make him afraid to tell me, after all we’d been through together?
Oh my God. Was I werewolf?
I turned my attention to Molly. “What happened to me? Tell me, please. I’ll go crazy if you don’t tell me right now.”
“You nearly got your throat torn out by a werewolf.” Well, that was obvious. “Then the alpha wolf charged in to protect you.” She gestured, pouncing with her hands, totally animated, her face alight. “They tore at each other.” She bared her teeth and bent her fingers into claws, swiping left and right. “The black one was bleeding, and the alpha might’ve been about to rip his throat out for what he did to you, but that’s when I remembered the shotgun you left me, and hauled ass to get it. I shot a round into the air and they both stopped.”
I rolled my eyes internally. Was I going to be cursed with two motor-mouths for friends? “Breathe, Molly, breathe. I mean after that, what happened to me after? What’s the big deal here?”
She nodded, eyes feverish with excitement, and I realized right then that she was a supernatural junkie. She was Croft’s blood mistress not because she needed the money, or maybe she did, but that wasn’t the main reason. She was with him because vampires were one of the few supernatural races that had any need for humans. Molly was a supe groupie, which would explain how she’d find a werewolf attack exciting, and not terrifying like a normal human being.
They were scared to tell me something, and that definitely didn’t bode well. I could smell the fear coming off Cass in waves, one of my lame witch gifts.
I wiggled in the bed and noticed something. Fast as a flash, I lifted the covers. Yep, I was buck naked.
“It couldn’t be helped,” Molly explained, watching my every move. “Your clothes kind of... fell apart when you, uh”—she played with the hem of her shirt—“shifted.” After she dropped the bombshell, the tasteful eggshell walls of the bedroom suddenly held all her attention.
My eyes bulged, and I sat up straighter, wondering if I’d heard her correctly. I was really hoping I hadn’t. “What do you mean, shifted?”
Oh my God. I was a werewolf.
My pink friend sighed a long-suffering sigh, and brought a dramatic hand to his forehead, as if this were somehow about him, and all he’d been through while I was... shifting.
“Cass,” I warned, “you have exactly ten seconds to tell me what the hell is going on, before I traipse right out of this room to find my own answers. And I don’t give a rat’s ass who sees me naked.”
“Don’t worry. I think we’ll all survive the show,” Brock stated as he waltzed in the room with an entourage behind him.
My nostrils flared, but dammit, they pulled in the earthy scent of him, so I stopped breathing for a few seconds to compose myself. Molly scurried out of Brock’s way as he shot an annoyed look at Cass, sprawled out on the comforter.
The alpha stopped right next to the bed and peered down at me, his face a mask that concealed all emotion. I tightened the sheet around my naked body.
“What your friends were trying to tell you in the most roundabout way possible, is that you are in fact not a dud witch, and there’s no chance on this green earth you’re human.” Brock spoke without his usual restraint, and I sensed mild fascination in his voice.
“Spit it out already, wolf,” I growled. “Am I one of you?”
I didn’t have time for his games. I was freaking out right now. What would scare Cass so much that he was afraid to tell me?
“You’re a fox,” Brock answered bluntly.
“What? You mean I’m foxy, right? I get it. Wink, wink.” My sanity left the building with his comment. This had to be a joke. Cass was probably twisted enough to go along with a joke like this.
A tall, distinguished-looking woman, with more class than I’d ever have, stepped forward from behind the alpha. She looked down her perfect straight nose and assessed me. “Brock brought you to me last night. I’m the pack doctor, Sabine,” she offered.
Oh, so she’s on a first-name basis with Brock the Cock, is she? I shot the biggest cock in the room a glare, and the hint of a smirk tipped his mouth upward. Fucker. I scowled and his smirk grew bigger.
I glared at the lady as she spoke again, hoping for some real answers this time. “You were bitten on the neck by one of the pack’s new wolves. It was his first time shifting, and that’s when they’re always most ferocious. He nearly gnawed your head off.”
The hand Cass wasn’t holding flew to my neck for th
e second time, where I juggled the glass in my attempt to verify that my head was, indeed, still attached.
“But then you started shifting on my table,” she continued, as if what she was saying was completely normal. I guess for a doctor to werewolves, it would be. But not for me. I was starting to feel the itching need to check out of crazy town.
“You must be mistaken,” I replied, though the grim expressions, all except for Molly’s, suggested otherwise. My purple-haired friend just looked fascinated. Still, they couldn’t be right. There was no way I shifted.
“I know a shifter when I see one, trust me.” Sabine smiled, but it was clinical.
“I’m not a shifter. Promise.” I chuckled uncomfortably.
“Then how do you explain turning into a fox last night?” she asked.
I rolled my eyes. “Fox shifters aren’t even a thing. I would know, I’ve been hunting supes for a decade.”
And that’s when the elephant entered the room, sucking all air from my lungs.
Brock shoved a phone in my face with a video already playing. The image showed me lying on a medical bed. I was half naked, white as the moon, and covered in blood. But the longer I watched, the more my stomach dropped.
Rust-colored pelts of fur rippled down my arms, and I started to wail in pain. Brock muted the phone that instant as the whole room, including myself, flinched at the sound. Even muted, it was a horror show.
My body arched and writhed as Brock held my ankles, the doc held my shoulders, and Cass screamed while he held my face. Within a minute, I’d fully shifted into a two-foot tall fox, a sight that held the entire room captive.
I registered my own piercing violet eyes staring back at me—from the face of a fox—before Brock clicked a button and the phone went black.
My mouth dropped open. I shut it, then opened it again and tried to form words. What the ever-living fuck? In the end, I just sighed and closed my eyes.
Maybe if I fell asleep I’d wake up in a world where I hadn’t just seen myself shift into an animal that shouldn’t even exist.