by RJ Blain
It was the same way my father had sounded in the hours before I had run away from home, leaving New York behind me.
“Doesn’t look that way to me, doll. I’ve seen people die before, and she’s on her way out the door. If you wanted her alive, you wouldn’t be standing on her like that when it’s pretty obvious you’ve hurt her pretty bad.” Isabella laughed, and it was a happy sound. “Figured it’d happen to her one of these days, teasing so many men without putting out for any of them. Hell, I don’t think she’s ever taken one of the poor bastards she’s teased home with her, not even out of pity. Look, I like living. I’ll take you for a ride you’ll never forget, but in exchange, you’ll take me back to the city when you’re done with me. Forget her and come play with me.”
Rory jerked his foot off of me. I shifted my gaze to my friend, wondering if she was backhandedly trying to help me or if she genuinely didn’t care if I died.
The way she smiled, her attention focused entirely on Rory, told me all I needed to know. Her loyalty, such as it was, had come cheap enough.
It shouldn’t have surprised me in the slightest her friendship was just as easily sold when I outlived my usefulness. I should have blamed her, but I couldn’t bring myself to. After all, without me, she wouldn’t have been kidnapped in the first place.
“What’s your name, doll?” Isabella murmured, and she shifted on the couch, as restless as the men we danced for.
“Rory,” my ex replied. “Yours?”
“Isabella, but you can call me Isa, if you’d like. I promise I can do so much better than she ever could.”
I stared up at Rory, and his expression darkened. “I wouldn’t know. I gave her a year, and she wouldn’t have anything to do with sleeping with me.”
The widening of my friend’s eyes was subtle, although her gaze flicked to me before returning to Rory’s face. “As I said, she’s a tease. Shouldn’t be surprised she didn’t put out for her man. I assume you were her man?” Isabella laughed, and I marveled at how much scorn she managed to squeeze into what should have been a happy sound. “I feel for you.”
“She’s hard to get. Doesn’t just spread her legs for anyone,” Rory replied, and he nudged my side with his toe. “You are a pretty woman, Isabella, I’ll give you that much. You tempt me. You’ve seen what I can do, yet you’re offering?”
“Maybe I like playing with fire. Maybe I like the passion of a man capable of what you’ve done. Maybe I want to go home in the morning. She’s too stupid to live, but I’m not like her at all.”
Rory left me on the floor, striding to the couch in three graceful strides. When I had dated him, he had lacked polish. He had changed, shedding his rough exterior and hiding his ugliness behind a pretty face and well-made suit.
Maybe that’s how he had trapped me in the first place. When I had known him, I had always believed his outer shell made of ill-contained violence masked a better man. He had been my flame, and I had wanted to dig deeper to bring out another side of him.
Isabella was right; I was too stupid to live. The first of my mistakes had been to trust him. Putting so much faith in her had been my second.
They were perfect for each other, and I hoped when they eventually took others home with them, they felt the bitter bite of betrayal. I tried to sit up, but the pain in my chest and side flattened me, leaving me helpless on the floor. My breathing rattled, as though his foot had forced pieces of bone into my lungs.
Rory reached for Isabella, and she played him as she did every other lonely man seeking her attention for a night. It took one kiss for them to forget my presence. While they lost themselves in their passion, I found the strength and will to crawl out of the cabin despite my pain.
Night fell over the desert and stole away the sun’s heat, leaving me to freeze instead of burn. The moon was yet to rise, but a pale glimmer in the distance promised it would hang heavy in the sky soon enough. I sank to the ground, staring dully at the stars. So far from the city, their light was pure and strong, and I marveled at their vast number. The haze of the Milky Way curved from horizon to horizon.
Sharp pain stabbed through my chest, and my body trembled and twitched when I struggled to rise to my feet.
I knew I needed to get up. If I didn’t, I really would die. Tears of frustration, anger, and defeat burned my eyes. Las Vegas should have been far enough to put my father and Rory behind me. I couldn’t afford to go to the doctor to find out how badly he’d hurt me even if I did manage to make it out of the desert alive.
I could barely afford to feed myself. With Rory around, I would have to move again, assuming I found some way to escape.
My doubts weighed me down, and I stared dully at the sky. I had escaped the cabin while Isabella had spread her legs for Rory to survive. How far would she go to live?
Probably a lot further than I would.
“You made it pretty far,” Rory said from behind me. I twisted around.
Agony stabbed through my chest again, and bursts of white blinded me. My breath caught in my throat and robbed me of the ability to cry out. When the pain eased, I was lying on my side, shuddering in the aftermath.
Rory stood over me, his white shirt undone and wrinkled, and Isabella hovered beside him, staring down at me with a frown.
“Can’t keep your pants on, can you? Pitiful,” I hissed through clenched teeth. “You’ll find out what it’s like soon enough with her around.”
Isabella scowled. “You really will die if you keep talking like that. He’ll consider letting you go if you give him what he wants.”
If she really believed that, she was truly stupid. I didn’t have any hope of it, not for a moment. He had chased me from New York after three years; I believed his cold words far more than her feeble hope for freedom.
I wondered if she realized she had stepped into his trap just as I had.
“Maybe I’ll keep you both, take you home with me, and give you everything you could possibly want. I’ve changed, Sara. I’ve changed in more ways than you could possibly imagine.” Rory crouched at my side, seizing my chin. “All you have to do is ask it of me.”
I should have been torn on the matter, but the decision came easily. “Sorry, not interested.”
There were some choices I refused to have taken from me, and I wasn’t going to sacrifice my freedom for my life. I knew what he was capable of; if I survived, my face would scar from his blows.
Even if I got away from him, I didn’t know how badly he had hurt my chest. It hurt to breathe and I wheezed with every inhale.
“Don’t be like this, Sara,” he said, prodding me with his toe. “You could find out just how good of a man I can be instead of wasting your life being stubborn.”
“Just leave her,” Isabella muttered.
I forced myself to sit up. “You? A good man?”
A laugh tickled my throat, bubbled out of me, and despite the pain it caused, I couldn’t stop my mirth from escaping my lips.
Instead of the kick I expected, Rory pivoted to face Isabella. He reached for her, and she stepped into his arms. “You said you would do anything to live,” he said, his words rumbling in his chest.
“I did.”
“Do you mean it? If I let you live, you’ll be mine.” Rory laughed, released Isabella, and strode around her in a circle, examining her from head to toe. “You really are a beautiful woman.”
Dragging his toe against the ground, he drew a pattern around her, his steps almost a dance as he circled her round and round.
Despite the darkness, I could see Isabella’s blushed cheeks. My so-called friend turned her gaze to me. “You let this man go? You really are dumb.”
“Maybe if you cared about things other than sex and making a quick buck, you’d see him for the cheating bastard he is,” I replied, and while it hurt, I forced myself to stand. I swayed, but remained upright. Rory paused in his circling Isabella to stare at me. “I thought you were worth more than that.”
“Last chance, Sara. Apo
logize and beg for my forgiveness.”
“Keep dreaming, asshole,” I snapped. I spun before coming to a halt to stare into the darkness, too exhausted to even think of running although I wanted to. The full moon peeked over the horizon, and it cast a blood-red light over the parched ground. “You should have begged for mine three years ago when you still had a chance. You’re not worth it. You never were.”
“Sara, stop.” The command in Rory’s voice infuriated me into turning to face him. My chest throbbed to the beat of my heart. “I don’t want to have to kill you. I really don’t.”
“You’re such a liar.” That was Rory, through and through. How had I found him so charming so long ago? All I saw in him was the promise of violence I couldn’t escape.
After three years of running, I was tired.
A gleam of light in the corner of my eye drew my attention, and I turned. The blood-red moon rose over the distant hills, its light racing across the desert. Rory laughed, a wild, joyous sound.
I faced him in time to watch him grab Isabella and kiss her, pulling her body close to his. The moonlight stained them with crimson. They cried out and fell to the ground, their bodies twitching and convulsing.
Flesh made way for thick clumps of fur until nothing human remained of either one of them. Two wolves, taller in the shoulder than any dog I’d ever seen, stood where Rory and Isabella had been. When they bared their teeth at me in eerie silence, I saw my death reflected in their golden eyes.
They lunged, sinking their fangs into me. I fell beneath them, and the thirsting ground drank my blood.
I didn’t want to die, so I became a monster instead.
The how of it was lost to me, but when it was over, I wasn’t alone.
A wolf crawled in my head, howled through my mouth, and sang to the blood moon. We were a creature of the night, and it stained our fur black. The wolf—my wolf—breathed in the scent of blood—my blood—and her rage ignited. Her second cry was a scream for vengeance against the one who had betrayed me.
Through her eyes, I watched Isabella and Rory recoil, their muzzles dripping crimson.
Human eyes couldn’t see in the dark; wolf eyes struggled to distinguish colors. Together, my wolf and I were a perfect being, seeing all in the night. The male wolf was a brindled red and gold, and his mate was the unrefined and dull hues of our lesser cousins.
The wolf within me didn’t care for their names. All she cared about was tearing them apart as they had torn me. She sang to the moon that had birthed her and rejoiced in the thrill of the hunt. We were no longer the prey, and her eagerness washed through me, numbing me to everything but her need for blood—their blood.
She attacked, and their blood washed over my tongue, its sharp sweetness waking a hunger so intense it consumed me from within. The female died first, and the awareness of who—and what—she had once been horrified me.
When the wolf I shared a body with tore out the throat of the male, his death didn’t appease her.
One had been my friend.
One should have been far more than a friend.
She regarded the dead wolves at our paws and danced in their blood, tearing them apart so they couldn’t rise and attack us ever again. When they were dead beyond the moon’s salvation, she howled. Leaving the wolves to the scavengers, the wolf—my wolf—hunted for real prey.
I slept, and when I woke up, I was sprawled on the cabin floor. Blood caked me from head to toe, cracking where it had dried on my skin. The wolf still lurked within me, and her satisfaction strengthened as she noticed my attention focusing on her.
When I had needed her, she had come, and now that she had me, she wasn’t going to let me go. I shuddered, curling in a ball, but I couldn’t deny her existence. She howled in my head, and the memory of her slaughtering Isabella and Rory returned with chilling clarity.
The wolf—my wolf—had delighted in the kill, and she had offered their bodies to me as a gift. She was the price for my life, and she demanded my acknowledgment of her.
Another shudder rippled through me, and I stared at my bare legs, the memory of Rory and Isabella savaging me so fresh that the pain of it lingered in my bones. A sob built up in my chest, and I was aware of my wolf’s confusion.
When I had needed her, she had come, and she didn’t understand why I still hurt. My arms and legs had healed thanks to her and the power of the moon. Revenge was mine; a gift from her to me, and those who had tried to hunt us would never do so again. Such was the way of her world.
I somehow made it to the bathroom before I threw up. My tears blinded me, and fumbling my way into the shower, I washed away the evidence of the monster I had become. It didn’t help me forget.
In a numb daze, I searched the cabin for clothes. Finding a pair of sweats, I dressed and ventured out into the desert. Maybe if I left the cabin behind, I would wake up at home and everything would prove to be nothing more than a bad dream.
Chapter Four
My apartment was as I left it, but I found no comfort in its familiarity. I had no real memory of how I had gotten home; the walk through the desert had ended with me staggering through my door in the wee hours of the morning.
According to my answering machine, I had been gone for almost a week. My hope the wolf was a figment of my imagination died each and every time she stirred, waking emotions and desires I had never before endured in such strength.
She wanted to mate, and she found men—all men—interesting. I considered myself fortunate she hadn’t insisted on acting on any of her impulses yet. The nausea I had suffered since returning to the cabin had worsened, and my wolf worried. Apparently throwing up every ten minutes wasn’t natural in her world, and her worries for my health trumped her desires to mate with each and every man in sight.
The only evidence Rory had been to my apartment was the bouquet of red and white roses. Despite the passage of time, they were still in bloom. My tears returned, and in my desperation to make the roses disappear, I shredded them with my bare hands, dripping blood all over my bedroom carpet as their thorns tore through my skin. I flushed them down the toilet, broken steams and all.
I tried to clean away the stains on the carpet, but they refused to come out, leaving behind brown splotches as a morbid reminder of what I had done. Through it all, my wolf watched and waited for me to come to my senses so we could hunt for a mate.
Three days of hiding in my apartment did nothing to curb my wolf’s immediate need to mate. I doubted I would ever get used to having a wolf sharing my skin, especially not when she viewed men as potential mates, food, or both. She didn’t speak in words, but she had no scruples about letting me know who she wanted when I was stupid enough to leave home.
Her constant state of arousal left me shaking, sweating, and wondering how I’d make it through a Friday night shift without ending up in a stranger’s bed. No matter how low I turned the air conditioning, I boiled, which wasn’t helping me gather the courage to leave for the club.
I paced my bedroom, halting near the door to stare at one of the dark splotches on the tan carpet. If I called in sick again, I’d either lose my job or someone would come knocking to make sure I wasn’t dying from plague. What was I going to tell them? That my ex-boyfriend had chased me down from New York City, fucked my best friend, and turned her into a werewolf before hunting me down as a honeymoon snack?
No one would believe it.
No one would believe I had joined forces with a wolf in order to survive being eaten alive. Under the light of a blood moon, I had ripped my best friend to pieces before turning on Rory.
My wolf’s rage at Rory’s betrayal had consumed her, and she had delighted in his death. Wolves didn’t play with their prey, but she had enjoyed mauling his corpse and soaking her paws in his blood.
In yet another fit of rebellion, my stomach churned. I ran to the bathroom and threw up, shuddering at the memory of their blood in my mouth. My wolf wasn’t very impressed with me, but her disapproval of the countless
times I had vomited since the full moon was a far better than her lust.
If I didn’t want to end up as yet another prostitute in Vegas with countless STDs, I needed to convince my wolf she had to curb her instincts. Maybe I could at least persuade her to have higher standards.
Just any male, wolf or human, wasn’t good enough for me.
The heat of her desire ebbed, and for the first time since we had started sharing my body, she relented. Giddy with relief, I showered away the sweat and basked in the chill of my apartment. I went so far as to stand in front of the air conditioner until my teeth chattered.
With the clock ticking away and ten minutes left before I was late for my first day back at the club, I hurried to get dressed, wearing my red lace lingerie beneath my black vinyl bodysuit. I’d broil on the way to work, but men liked me sweaty with my skin glistening under the club’s hot lights. They especially liked the way I had to squirm and wiggle to escape the smothering confines of my suit, which clung to my every curve.
Maybe the extra effort would earn me better tips. I needed them.
The wolf didn’t understand why I wanted to attract males without mating with them. She didn’t understand the concept of money, either.
“I like men with dark hair,” I informed her in a hissed whisper, binding my blond and blue hair up in a messy bun. “Taller than me. Gentle hands. None of this blond-haired, blue-eyed beach boy bullshit.” Rory had ensured I’d never want another blond-haired man ever again. “No gym groupies—I don’t like feeling helpless in bed with a guy who can break me in half with his hands. Don’t even think of looking at any sleaze bags. Suits, wolf. If you’re going to try to get me in bed with some man, at least have some standards. No druggies, no gang members, no scum buckets. Got me? So help me, I’ll drown us both if you put me in bed with an abuser because all you can think about is sex. If you’re going to turn me into a brainless slut, you better pick men who can pay well, unless you want to starve.”