What’s happening?
Dark powerful energy exploded along my limbs.
Niles clamped down on my leg, his teeth sinking into me. I screamed as pain ripped through my calf.
He bit deeper, and I screamed again as instinct simultaneously took over.
I lurched forward and grabbed ahold of Jayden’s arm, which had become a front leg. It was still fleshy but covered with coarse hair. With my other hand, I reached for Niles’s paw. I curled my fingers tightly around both as the power within me became stronger and stronger.
“What the hell?” Jayden said. He hadn’t fully finished shifting, and his voice sounded guttural and thick, barely human.
Zach lunged at me, but I kicked him in the neck in a surprisingly fast move. He yelped and fell back.
My new power grew and grew, swirling within my core, and my grip on the rogues tightened.
Niles yelped, and Jayden fell to his knees. My fingers dug into them more.
Teeth bared, Zach advanced again, but then he paused. His massive head swung back and forth to look at his two friends, wariness showing in his bloodred eyes. Both of his friends screamed and convulsed in agony.
Zach shrank to the ground, his tail between his legs. In a flash of movement, he twirled around and ran. The last thing I saw was his bushy tail disappearing into the trees.
I kept my grip on Jayden and Niles and slowly came to my feet. They continued to writhe in pain as I instinctively called upon the new dark power.
I had no idea what was happening, and it felt like I wasn’t in control of my body. Fear consumed me, but that emotion was there then gone, instinct claiming me.
Push it out. Push your power into them with everything you have!
The silent instructions came from deep within my mind, like an intrinsic, dormant consciousness had sprung to life.
I closed my eyes and did as the voice instructed. In a way, the darkness felt similar to my healing powers, when I burned all of the diseases away from sick clients until the light burst from my fingertips.
Except this new power wasn’t light.
And I wasn’t ridding myself of someone’s disease.
Instead, I was harnessing the cold darkness inside me and pushing it into them.
The energy shot from my fingertips and exploded into Jayden and Niles. Blinding red light flew from my hands. Both of them screamed, the sound between that of an animal and a human.
I felt it when they died.
I felt the energy crush their bones, mince their muscle fibers, and squeeze their hearts into pulverized flesh. Both of them fell slack in my hands before falling into heaps on the ground as the pulsing red light subsided from my hands.
Panting, I stared at the carnage in front of me—the death, the decay, the smell. Oh my god, the smell!
My knees gave out, and I fell to the ground.
What just happened? My breathing increased, my chest feeling as though it would explode. Inside me, the cold darkness subsided, but it stayed low in my belly, not returning to whatever cavern it had emerged from.
What’s happening?
I held my hands up in the moonlight, staring at them as if they were foreign objects I couldn’t identify, but all that stared back were small hands, each with five fingers.
Yet they were hands that didn’t feel like mine.
I had no idea what the swirling darkness inside me was, but something had just unleashed—something beyond my control.
I stared again at the two dead bodies on the ground, one partially shifted. Oh god! Oh god! Oh god!
Terror coiled around my belly like a deadly python, my jaw dropping as the implications of what had just happened set in. I’d just killed two people. Me. A healer, a giver of life, had just killed.
“What did I just do?” I whispered and curled up in a ball on the ground between the dead werewolves.
A shout sounded in the distance. Someone was calling my name. Logan.
My hands shook so badly that I dug my fingers into my thighs to stop their trembling.
“Daria!” His frantic cry came again.
“Over here!” Even though the words flowed from my lips, the voice didn’t sound like mine. It sounded hoarse, panicked, like the words had come from a person I no longer knew.
A person who killed.
Logan, Cecile, and Mike burst from the forest into the clearing. They were on the other side, at least a hundred yards away, yet Logan’s eyes glowed. Even from the distance, I could see them. They were like two dim headlights. When he spotted me, he turned into a blur, leaving Cecile and Mike behind.
One minute, he was across the clearing, and the next minute, he was hauling me against him so hard that I thought he would crush me.
“Daria! Oh shit, Daria!” He cradled my face in his hands, tilting my chin upward. Bright eyes, stormy with panic, gazed down at me.
The dark power rushed up the second he touched me. Panic seized me, and I scrambled to get out of his arms as he said in a rush, “Thank God you’re okay. Mike said I’d contacted you, but I didn’t. I thought the worst. I thought—”
“Logan, you need to let me go! I could—”
But it was like he didn’t hear me. His entire body stiffened, his nostrils flaring. His head whipped to face the wolves. In a lightning-fast move, he released me and stood over the dead werewolves, or what was left of them.
I breathed a sigh of relief. As soon as his touch disappeared, the dark power calmed. I hadn’t hurt Logan. I hadn’t hurt him.
But as soon as that relief came so did the ramifications of what could have happened if he hadn’t let go. Oh my god … I could have hurt him. I could have killed him!
But Logan remained oblivious to all that was spiraling inside me like a cyclone.
“Rogues,” he said, his attention on the dead werewolves as his hands tightened into fists.
“Yes,” was all I could manage. Rogues that I killed with my bare hands.
Blood had poured from Jayden and Niles, red rivers trailing down their ears, nostrils, mouths, and the corners of their eyes. And their bodies looked like a giant had taken them within his fists and crushed every bone inside them. They resembled rubbery, gelatinous masses, limp on the ground.
Logan scanned the clearing, taking in the scene. The moonlight played across his ruggedly handsome features. With each second that passed, his breath came faster as his jaw locked more.
“What happened?” he finally asked. His words sounded calm, in control, despite the chaos that littered the clearing.
Labored breathing caught my attention. Cecile and Mike stumbled to our sides, having finally caught up with Logan.
“Oh my goodness!” Cecile exclaimed when she saw the dead werewolves.
Mike pulled his hat off, his jaw dropping.
When Cecile looked back at me, her gaze widened. “Daria, you’re bleeding!”
Blood flowed from the werewolf bite around my calf. Funnily enough, I hadn’t felt it. Adrenaline still pounded through my veins.
“Dammit!” Logan ripped his shirt off, and in a blurred move, was back at my side, pressing it to my leg. “They bit you?” Barely controlled rage filled his tone.
I pulled away from him and held the shirt tightly to my wound, trembling. Yes, they bit me, then I killed them. I’m a killer. I’m supposed to be a healer, but now I’m a killer.
The brightness around Logan’s irises grew.
I began to shake in earnest then. Violent shudders wracked my body as the cold dark power roiled in my belly. Whatever had been unleashed inside me during the attack hadn’t gone away. If anything, it had grown. I felt its power, its strength, and I had no idea what it was.
Logan inched closer but seemed to sense my anxiety and didn’t touch me. “Daria, you’re safe now. Nobody’s going to hurt you.” He softened his tone. “Can you tell me what happened?”
I took a deep quivering breath. My hands still shook. My stomach still heaved. Logan’s ripped shirt fluttered like a leaf in
my hands. “I don’t know. I killed them. Somehow, with this new power inside me.” I shook more, my entire body vibrating. “I’m a murderer. Oh my god, I’m a murderer!”
“Shh.” Cecile came to my side.
Logan crouched down, too, while Cecile tried to soothe me without touching me and igniting my light, yet despite their concern, I’d never felt more alone.
“What new power?” Logan asked.
At the same time, Cecile asked, “What are rogues?”
Logan’s attention stayed on me when he answered Cecile. He seemed to be assessing the rest of my body for injuries. “Rogues are werewolves that have left the community to set out on their own. We’re pack creatures by nature, and we’re not meant to live alone. When we do, we change. All rogues are murderous.” His nostrils flared again. “But these have a smell to them I can’t identify. They don’t smell like normal rogue werewolves. They carry an undercurrent of decay and…” He leaned down and sniffed more. “Sulfur.”
Cecile and Mike shared concerned looks, and the clenching in Logan’s jaw continued.
My gaze darted to Jayden and Niles, but I quickly looked away as nausea threatened to empty my stomach.
“Let’s get her out of here.” Cecile pushed to stand. “We need to get her to a doctor.”
“I can treat the wound, but we should get her back to the bus. I’ll carry her.” Logan reached for me tentatively, treating me like a scared animal that might bolt at any moment. That barely controlled rage still filled his eyes, but his tone stayed soothing. “Dar, I’m going to pick you up. All right? It’s just me. Nobody’s going to hurt you anymore. You’re safe now.”
I scurried away so fast that burning pain shot up my calf. “No, Logan! You can’t touch me!” The dark power rolled within me, all along my limbs. It wasn’t locked away, not like my light. Instead, the darkness rushed upward the more my fear grew, just as violently as before.
Logan stopped advancing, but he, Cecile, and Mike shared more concerned looks, obviously having no understanding of what had happened to me. Hell, even I didn’t know, but at the moment, the darkness threatened to rise up inside me again.
Cecile’s tone turned soothing. “Honey, we need to go back to the bus and—” She looked at Logan. “Then what do we do?”
Logan whipped his cell phone out. “I’ll handle this. I need to call this in anyway, and we’ll need a cleanup crew for them.” His jaw clenched tightly when he eyed the rogues.
After he finished his call, which consisted of a few terse sentences, Logan slipped his phone back into his pocket then undid his belt. “Daria?” His tone became gentle again, that deep, soothing rumble. “I need to cinch this around your leg to stop the bleeding.” In the moonlight, his chiseled chest rose and fell heavily with every breath he took. Despite his calm demeanor, I could tell that inside, he was anything but calm.
“I’ll do it.” I grabbed the belt from him, careful to not touch him, before tightening it around my calf and hissing when it stung. The puncture wounds went deep, but I could probably still walk.
The light around Logan’s irises grew, but he didn’t argue when I awkwardly rose from the ground and began hobbling. The three of them followed.
“Which way?” I asked when I realized I had no idea how to get back to the bus.
Logan stepped forward, his tone soft. “This way. Just follow me, babe.”
I fell into step beside him as Cecile and Mike brought up the rear. The two of them spoke quietly, falling back and putting distance between us, but I still overheard their conversation.
“Thank goodness we set out looking for her as soon as Logan showed up. If we hadn’t—”
“It’s okay, Cece. We found her in time, and she’s safe. Although from the looks of it back there, she didn’t need our help.”
“But was that Jayden? It looked like Jayden, I mean kind of. His face was so distorted. And does that mean he attacked her?”
I swallowed sharply, hurried forward, and did my best to tune them out. Already, horrifying images of the three rogues attacking me threatened to overwhelm me, and the power in my belly grew again at a frightening pace.
No! Stay down! Please stay down!
I was thankful that Logan didn’t press me for any more details or say anything on the walk back, but he did continually look at me, worry etched so deeply in his face it was as if an artist had sculpted his features in fear. All the while, the new dark power swirled around inside me like angry clouds threatening to unleash a storm.
But as much as the power scared me, I also knew that if it hadn’t sprung forth from wherever it resided, at that very moment, I would be dead.
As scary as it was, it had saved me.
Chapter 6
Despite the air being cool, Logan didn’t seem to mind being shirtless. His scent fluttered to me as I limped back to the bus.
Normally, his toned muscles and alluring sandalwood fragrance would have had me drifting closer to him, but at the moment, all I felt was sick.
Touching him could mean his death.
When my home finally came into view, Logan’s gaze slid over my leg. “We’ll need to clean that,” he said in that gentle voice again. “Werewolf bites are nasty, but since you’re a supernatural, you’ll probably be fine. Still … we should clean it.”
“Will I turn into a werewolf now since I’ve been bitten?”
“No. Only men can be werewolves. You’ll be fine.”
“But if I were a man, would I turn into a werewolf? That’s what all the movies say, that if a werewolf bites you, you become one.”
“Yes, a bite from a mature werewolf can turn someone, but it’s not that easy. There’s a process, and a quick bite to your leg won’t do it.”
I wanted to ask more, anything to distract myself from what had happened, but when we reached the bus, Logan hopped up the stairs. He turned, offering me his hand.
“I’ll manage.” I grabbed the railing. “And Logan, I can’t explain what happened to me, but you can’t touch me. I’m serious. You can’t. This new power inside me, it could kill you.”
I was vaguely aware that I sounded hysterical.
A deep groove settled between Logan’s eyes, but his tone remained calm. “Okay, I won’t touch you. I promise. Let me get the couch ready for you. Can you get up the stairs?”
“Yes.” I hobbled up the steps awkwardly as he made room for me on the sofa.
The sound of Mike and Cecile approaching the bus reached my ears. They’d fallen far behind us, obviously sensing that close contact with anyone would freak me out, but hearing their voices made me bustle forward.
When I plopped down on the couch unceremoniously, Logan crouched at my side.
I took in his exquisite features. More than anything, I wanted to lay my palm across his cheek and touch my lips to his. A deep ache over the fact that he waited so close yet felt so far away grew in my belly.
I still hadn’t properly touched him, and everything about him looked so familiar: his broad shoulders, square jaw, chocolate-brown eyes, and dark hair. His scent kept drifting my way, too, that sandalwood scent I loved so much.
Yet even though I’d spent the past week dreaming of seeing him again, it had never been under such circumstances, and I’d certainly never been terrified of touching him.
A shrill laugh bubbled up my throat. Only an hour ago, I’d been eagerly awaiting his return.
But now…
I trembled again.
The groove between his eyes deepened. “The SF cleanup crew is on its way, and even though I’m guessing you don’t want to talk about what happened back there with strangers, there are going to be a lot of questions. This incident will likely open an investigation. Whatever happened and the way you killed them…” He shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Nervous energy filled my body. The dark power responded, as if knowing I was thinking about it. It swirled and rolled in my belly like an unborn child. I hastily rearranged myself o
n the couch, hissing when I jarred my leg.
Logan’s frown grew just as Cecile and Mike climbed aboard the bus.
“Oh good! You’re sitting down!” Cecile bustled ahead of Mike to my side.
“Can one of you get the first aid kit?” Logan asked.
“I’ll grab it.” Mike brushed past us, heading to the bathroom at the back of the bus. The old door in the back squeaked open as Mike dug around in the cabinet for the kit.
Cecile busied herself, too, hurrying to the kitchen while mumbling something about getting warm water to wash my wound.
Logan stayed crouched at my side, his jaw locked while that heavy frown marred his chiseled features.
I sighed. “Go ahead. I know you want to ask questions. It’s okay, really.”
He opened his mouth but hesitated before asking, “Did you really kill them by yourself?”
“Yes.” A pit formed in my stomach. I’d killed two people. Granted, they were trying to kill me, but I’d never killed anyone before. I’m a killer now. I’m a killer. My breath hitched.
“Daria? Stay with me. They were rogues. Two rogues. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it.”
“There weren’t two. There were three.”
“What?” Logan jumped up.
The bustling at the back of the bus stopped. Mike stood near Cecile in the kitchen, the first aid kit in his hands forgotten, while Cecile held a pot of steaming liquid. Both wore startled expressions.
“Where’s the third one?” Logan asked, already assessing the dark park outside the windows.
“Zach ran off.”
“Zach? You knew him?”
“I knew all of them. It was Jayden and his two friends.”
Logan kneeled back at my side, tension oozing from his shoulders like malevolent energy. His gaze continually darted to the windows while he intermittently sniffed the air. “Are you telling me the guy at the grocery store who hit on you is the rogue who attacked you?”
I tightly laced my hands together so he wouldn’t see me shaking. All I managed was a nod.
“But I thought he was a … potential mate.” Those last two words seemed to pain him.
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