Wild

by Meghan O'Brien

  She didn’t really expect Jac to do as she asked, so it wasn’t a surprise when Jac careened around the corner into the hallway. Her gun was in her hands and instantly she had it trained on Selene. “Eve, get away from it. I’ll handle this.”

  Selene exposed her fangs and grumbled low in her throat. She took a step closer to Jac, clearly unafraid of the gun. Eve could see Jac’s fingers tighten on the gun and her stomach bottomed out at the imminent violence that threatened to explode between the two people she cared about most. “Jac, put your gun down. Just give me a few minutes to get her into the bedroom and we can talk. Kevin Pike is dead. The wolf saved me.”

  Jac’s eyes narrowed and she licked her lips, adjusting her aim. “That’s not a wolf. It’s a goddamn monster.”

  Selene crouched and went still, ears held back against her head. She was getting ready to pounce, which would almost certainly draw gunfire. Terrified that the situation could turn deadly at any moment, Eve’s mouth went dry when Selene crept slightly closer to Jac. She could see the instant Jac decided to fire her weapon and immediately opened her mouth. “Selene, no! She came to help.” Frantic, she met Jac’s eyes. “That’s Selene, Jac. I promise to explain, but just don’t shoot her. She saved my life.”

  Darting her gaze between Eve and Selene, Jac hesitated, then lowered her gun. Selene didn’t back down, drawing another step closer. Jac took a nervous step backward. “Call it off, Eve. You don’t want me to shoot it, it needs to back the fuck up.”

  “Selene!” Eve spoke in a firm tone. “Come here now.”

  Selene froze in place, then turned around, dropping her head as she trotted back to Eve. When she got there she sat at Eve’s side, tall enough that her head easily came even with Eve’s shoulder. At the end of the hallway, Jac’s mouth was agape.

  “You can’t be serious,” Jac said. “About that thing being Selene.”

  “I’m dead serious.” Eve rested her hand on Selene’s back, stroking her fur gently. Selene leaned against her, nearly causing her to lose her balance. “Tonight is the full moon.”

  “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

  Eve shook her head then gestured at the massive creature at her side. “Do you have a more reasonable explanation for this?”

  Jac swallowed. “You’re bleeding pretty badly. Who cut you?”

  “Kevin Pike. Selene killed him to protect me.” Eve pointed at the room behind them. “He’s in there.”

  Exhaling, Jac waved Eve away. “Go. They’re sending cars here right now. Get her hidden before this place is crawling with cops. And make sure she stays hidden.” Jac lifted a trembling hand, patting her hair nervously. “Once they’re gone, you and I are going to have a long, serious talk.”

  “Okay.” Despite her obvious unease about Selene, Eve knew Jac would do everything she could to protect her secret tonight, if only because she could see how important it was to Eve. “Thank you, Jac.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. Just go.”

  “Come on, Selene.” Eve turned and jogged down the hallway, relieved when Selene followed without paying further attention to Jac. She led Selene to the master bedroom, ushering her inside as the sound of police sirens rose from outside. Then Eve shut the door behind them, completely and utterly exhausted. Selene stalked around the room, sniffing a trail along the floor. “You need to be very quiet, understand me?”

  Selene cocked her head to the side, then took a running leap and jumped onto the bed, which creaked under her weight. Fat droplets of blood splashed onto the comforter, compelling Eve forward to snap her fingers and point to the floor. “Off.”

  Obeying immediately, Selene crossed the room to sit attentively on the rug at her feet. Eve had to laugh. After all Selene’s concern that her full-moon wolf incarnation was a murderous, bloodthirsty beast, she really seemed quite docile. When she wasn’t in protection mode, at least. Eve theorized that her sheep-slaying had been the hard-wired instinct of a wild, juvenile wolf and not an indicator of purely evil intent.

  “I need to look at your wound,” Eve said, getting on her knees in front of Selene’s massive body. Confident now, she felt around in Selene’s thick fur, only slightly tentative about how she might react to pain. Despite Selene’s size and obvious disconnect from humanity, Eve felt as safe as ever in her presence. Moving around Selene to inspect her back, she exhaled in relief. “There’s an exit wound. It went clean through.”

  That was a good sign—so was the fact that Selene didn’t act like she was in pain. Also that the bleeding had already slowed to a trickle. Eve sensed that she would recover from her wound without issue, but she needed to clean the area to make sure it didn’t get infected. Dressing it properly would be a challenge.

  Eve went into the bathroom to find clean towels and disinfectant. She also found some gauze pads and tape, which would have to do. Shaking her head as she started cleaning Selene’s blood-soaked fur with a wet washcloth, Eve murmured, “You’re never going to believe this when you wake up tomorrow, darling. But if you’re in there right now, then listen to me—you are not a monster. You’re my hero. Okay?”

  Selene flinched as Eve dabbed disinfectant on her wound, growling low in the back of her throat. But she stayed perfectly still, lowering her head in submission.

  Overcome with warm affection, Eve threw her arms around the wolf’s neck and buried her face in silky silver fur. “I love you, Selene.”

  There was no response, of course—at least not in words.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Eve stayed in Selene’s bedroom for at least an hour and a half, listening to the sounds of police officers and technicians wandering through the house. It felt strange to hide away while the scene was documented and the body prepared for transport to the morgue, but Eve was confident that Jac had offered a reasonable explanation for her absence. Probably trauma, of which she’d suffered plenty.

  Selene snored loudly next to her. She’d fallen asleep at the foot of the mattress almost immediately after Eve bandaged her wound. Curled into a tight ball, her massive body still took up most of the bed. Eve stroked her absentmindedly, grateful for her presence. Despite seeing Kevin Pike’s corpse with her own eyes, Eve remained on edge, as though he might burst through the bedroom door at any moment.

  When Jac finally knocked on the door shortly after the house went quiet, the sudden noise made her jerk in surprise. Selene picked her head up and blinked sleepily at the door, but when Jac said, “It’s me. Jac,” Selene sighed and fell back against the bed, already closing her eyes again.

  “I’ll be right there.” Eve untangled herself from Selene, lifting an enormous paw from her thigh and gently laying it on the mattress. Selene cracked open her eyes and Eve flashed her palm, hoping she would understand. “Stay here, Selene. I’m just going to talk to Jac for a few minutes.”

  But when Eve walked to the door, Selene jumped off the bed and followed close behind. Eve raised an eyebrow at her but didn’t say anything. She had a feeling this was an argument she couldn’t win.

  Jac took an instinctive step back when Eve opened the door with Selene at her side. She lifted her hand, stopping short of touching Eve’s cheek. “Evie, your face.”

  “Oh.” Eve brought her fingertips to her jawline, wincing at the tacky, drying blood that she’d forgotten to wash away. Now that she’d had time to catch her breath, her injured hand was beginning to throb as well. She had been so concerned with Selene’s injury—and so worried about what Jac would do with Selene’s secret—that her own aches and pains had taken a backseat, until now. “I was so busy tending to Selene’s bullet wound that I forgot all about it.”

  Reluctantly dropping her gaze to Selene for the first time, Jac said, “Is she all right?”

  “She will be. The bullet went through her.”

  “She doesn’t need to go to the hospital?”

  “I don’t think so.” Eve touched Selene’s back, careful to avoid the newly cleaned exit wound. “We’ll see what happens when she be
comes human again, but she seems really strong.”

  “That’s good.” Jac cleared her throat and gestured at Eve’s face. “I think you’ll need stitches. Why don’t you leave Selene here and I’ll take you to the hospital?”

  No way was she leaving Selene tonight—Eve sensed she was the only thing keeping Selene inside the house. Even with her injured hand, she should be able to handle her own care. “That won’t be necessary. I’ll just find a needle and thread and sew it up myself.”

  Jac gave her a familiar look of uneasy admiration, something she usually reserved for when Eve made incredible forensic leaps based on evidence Jac found disgusting. “You’re hardcore, Eve Thomas. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.”

  “I’m not feeling all that hardcore at the moment. Just tired.”

  Glancing quickly at Selene, Jac slowly reached out to take Eve’s hand. “Let me help you clean up your face. Then you can play Frankenstein with yourself.”

  Pleased that Selene accepted Jac’s friendly contact without even a growl, Eve let Jac pull her into the guest bathroom. She settled against the counter as Jac wet a washcloth with warm water, then gently dabbed at her face. Tensing when Eve hissed in discomfort, Jac said, “He really did a number on you.”

  “He hit me a few times, cut me, then finally tried to choke me. That’s when Selene got loose.”

  Snorting, Jac said, “Bet he never knew what hit him.”

  Warmed at the reluctant affection in Jac’s voice, Eve said, “Timing is everything. I can’t believe he came after Selene tonight, of all nights. How did he slip past the detectives, anyway?”

  Jac tightened her jaw, clearly upset. “Pike must have known they were watching him. I guess he went upstairs to his apartment, turned out the lights, and the detectives assumed he went to sleep. Instead he broke into a neighboring apartment and climbed down a rope at the back of the building. We’re assuming he took a cab into the city.”

  Eve had no idea what had compelled Kevin Pike to choose tonight to make such a bold move, but the consequences of his decision were staggering. Not only did he sign his own death warrant, but he had enabled Eve to discover that Selene wasn’t half the mindless, murderous beast she thought she was. And, of course, he’d exposed Selene to Jac, at the very least.

  Shaking her head, Eve murmured, “I guess he tried to get into my apartment two weeks ago. Said he’d planned to rape me and cut my face. Apparently he came here tonight looking for Selene, but when he found me instead—” Eve waved a hand at her cheek. “I guess I’m lucky he didn’t bring a condom this time.”

  Jac’s face darkened as she continued to wipe away the dried blood. “If Selene hadn’t killed him, I would have.”

  Pushing back a wave of revulsion at the thought of all the ways the night could have ended badly, Eve took a deep breath and focused on the fact that she was safe. “So that night two weeks ago, that was when I called down after two in the morning to tell your detectives there was a barking dog in my hallway.”

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  “Well, turns out that was Selene. She’d been sneaking into my building to guard my door and just happened to be there when he broke in that night—using the roof-access door. After she chased him away, she was able to follow him home. That’s how she knew who he was.”

  Jac’s hand slowed as comprehension spread across her face. “So this isn’t strictly a full-moon thing?”

  “She…” Eve glanced at Selene, wishing she had her permission to share her secrets. Not that it mattered much in this instance—Jac already knew the worst of it, and if Eve was going to ask her to keep it a secret, she figured Jac deserved the truth. “She’s a shape-shifter, I guess. She can become whatever animal she wants. Normally she retains her human consciousness no matter what form she takes, but not when the moon’s full. It forces her to transform into this wolf, and she doesn’t remember anything the next day. She’s convinced that she’s a killer on these nights, so she’s always spent them strapped to a steel table.”

  Jac chuckled. “Well, that explains the setup in the guest room.” Raising an eyebrow, she pulled the bloodstained washcloth away from Eve’s face. “I told the responding officers that Selene’s probably into kinky sex.”

  Blushing, Eve checked her face in the mirror. She definitely needed stitches, and antiseptic. “Last month, when I thought she was cheating on me? She had a standing appointment with an escort service to have someone come out on the evening of the full moon and tie her down. Then they’d leave and come back in the morning to release her. That’s why she lied to me about being out of town. That’s who the blonde at her door was.”

  “So it was all just a big misunderstanding.”

  “She didn’t feel she could tell me the truth.” Eve turned to Jac, aware that Selene sat in the bathroom doorway listening. She knew Selene wouldn’t remember any of this conversation tomorrow, but it was still strange to have this discussion in front of her. “Believe it or not, her first couple of experiences with having people find out what she is didn’t go well.”

  “Not surprising.” Jac tossed the washcloth aside, glancing back to regard Selene, who watched her with intense green eyes. “Well, the hardest part about covering this up will be trying to explain what exactly killed Kevin Pike. Call me crazy, but I don’t think Wayne—or whoever examines his body—will believe you used a knife to make the wound that killed him. Seemed pretty obvious to me that his throat had been torn out.”

  Eve shivered. She had no idea how Selene would react to the news that she had finally done what she most dreaded. Whether or not she’d been acting in self-defense—to protect Eve—Selene had killed a human being. And she’d never remember doing it. “I’ll say that I had Luna the Rottweiler here with me. She came to my defense when Kevin broke in.” A trained forensic pathologist would no doubt determine that the creature that had caused Kevin Pike’s wounds was larger than a Rottweiler, but no one would assume she was covering something up. Hopefully the medical examiner would accept her story and not probe too deeply. “That’s the best I have to offer. Hopefully it’ll be accepted without too much scrutiny.”

  “Luna the—” Jac laughed and shook her head. “Oh, no. That was Selene, too, wasn’t it?”

  “Yup.”

  “Dude, she ate dog biscuits. I fed her dog biscuits!”

  “She didn’t want to be rude and not accept them.”

  This set Jac off on a long, loud fit of laughter. Eve joined in, grateful for the moment of levity. Jac’s ability to find humor in the situation reassured her that everything would be okay. Finally sobering, Jac said, “Damn, I sure wasn’t shy about talking smack to her face, was I?”

  “It’s not like you knew she could hear what you were saying.”

  Jac sighed deeply, running her hand over her hair. She regarded Selene, who lay stretched out in front of the door, with wary eyes. “How long will she stay like that?”

  “Until tomorrow morning, I guess. Probably sunrise?” Eve stepped out of the bathroom and led Jac to the living room. Selene followed. “I’ll sew up my face in a few minutes. Why don’t we sit down?”

  As soon as Eve entered the living room she drew the blinds, ensuring that nobody would be able to see inside. More than twice the size of a normal wolf, Selene wouldn’t be mistaken for a family pet. It was bad enough that Jac knew the truth—Eve wanted to contain the night’s damage as much as possible.

  Jac slowly lowered herself onto a high-backed leather chair, while Eve sat at one end of the couch. Selene jumped up to stretch out along the rest of it, laying her head on Eve’s lap.

  Seemingly unable to tear her eyes away from wolf-Selene, Jac said, “You really want to let it get on the furniture?”

  “Considering that she’s the one who paid for the furniture, I’m not sure it’s my place to tell her no.” Eve sighed and collapsed against the cushions. “You can’t tell anyone about this, Jac. Seriously. She’s spent her whole life hiding and finally trusted me enough
to share this secret. If I end up being responsible for her loss of freedom and anonymity, I’ll never forgive myself.”

  Jac shook her head, searching Eve’s face. “Tell me the truth. Do you think she’s dangerous?”

  Selene chose that moment to stretch out her front paws and yawn loudly, then she released a contented sigh and nuzzled farther into Eve’s lap. Snorting, Eve said, “Do you?”

  “Maybe not now, but when I first got here—”

  “She had just stopped Kevin Pike from choking me to death. Adrenaline was flowing, for everyone.” Eve gave Jac a pointed look. “You were aiming a gun at her, remember?”

  “Fair enough.” Sniffing, Jac looked around Selene’s living room as though she could no longer sustain eye contact. “You know Selene isn’t my favorite person, but she did save your life tonight. And your feelings for her—well, let’s just say it’s pretty obvious that I won’t exactly win you back by doing something to hurt Selene. So…”

  “Thank you, Jac.” After the night she’d had, Eve couldn’t stop the tears from spilling onto her cheeks at Jac’s reassurance. Selene picked up her head and stared into Eve’s face, and if Eve didn’t know better, she’d think Selene was experiencing a lucid moment. Stroking Selene’s head, Eve said, “I know Selene will be grateful, too.”

  “That doesn’t mean I won’t be keeping my eye on her.” Clearing her throat, Jac stood up and straightened her clothing. “I know this relationship matters to you, so I promise to try and get to know Selene better, but I’m telling you right now…if she hurts you, she’s answering to me.”

  “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

  “Okay.” With a determined nod, Jac approached the couch and held out her arms. “Now stand up and give me a hug. If you don’t think Fido will mind.”

  Eve maneuvered her way from beneath Selene’s body and got to her feet, moving into Jac’s embrace with a grateful sigh. “You’re a good friend.” She could feel Jac’s sadness at the statement—not literally, but she knew Jac well enough to know that the sentiment triggered genuine regret.