by Lacey Savage
It couldn’t be anyone else. She swore low under her breath and tried to get her bearings. She’d been heading north for ten minutes. The highway couldn’t be much farther. Somewhere in the distance, a wolf’s howl pierced the cool night air. Her heartbeat sped up, pounding so hard she could feel it.
J.C. It had to be. He’d probably changed into wolf form to chase after her. But what if it wasn’t? For the first time since she’d fled Hard Delights, Eve began to think that perhaps running alone through the forest in the middle of the night wasn’t the best idea. There were more dangerous creatures in the forest than J.C. Hill.
The footsteps sounded closer. He’d spot her any second now. Eve turned and ran, and when she thought she couldn’t make it another step further, she pressed on. Adrenaline kept her moving.
Adrenaline and shame.
She couldn’t face him. Nothing he could say to her would take away her humiliation, and she didn’t want to hear any excuses. To think that for a moment while he fucked her, she actually thought this thing between them might be more than sex. She believed she’d felt a connection, a spark of yearning and mutual understanding that might have developed into something deeper than a one-night stand.
How stupid could she have been?
Eve bolted between two massive oak trees and found herself in a clearing. It wasn’t large, perhaps only about the size of her parents’ backyard, but it stood out in the middle of the densely populated wood. She was too visible, too vulnerable here. She had to go before he saw her.
Eve made a mad dash for the edge of the clearing, and safety. A car horn echoed in the distance. The highway was close. She could hitch a ride back into town and return for her car tomorrow morning.
Her toe caught the edge of a rock and she fell forward, landing hard on her outstretched hands. The wound in her palm flared anew. The footsteps faded and she knew he’d reached the clearing.
Eve scrambled to her knees and turned to face him. “J.C.,” she gasped between forced breaths, “I don’t --”
“Is it done, then?”
Eve squinted. The moon was only a quarter-full, but it managed to illuminate the man’s features.
Not J.C.
“Daniel,” she whispered, completely at a loss. “What are you doing here?”
“You didn’t think I’d protect my investment?”
“Your investment?” she repeated hollowly. Her breathing was slowly returning to normal. “I don’t understand.”
He crossed his arms over his chest but made no move to approach her. His black shirt molded to his skin, making him seem even more powerful and authoritative than the white lab coat he always wore at the Foundation.
“The formula I gave you. I assume you’re running because J.C. found out what you were up to. I don’t particularly care one way or the other, of course,” he said before she could reply, “but I need to know whether you’ve managed to inject him before you ran from the park.”
Eve frowned. Daniel had obviously followed her from Hard Delights, but he didn’t look winded. He’d run the same distance she had, yet while she was panting and rivulets of sweat ran down her face, Daniel wasn’t even breathing hard.
“It wasn’t like that,” she said. “J.C. doesn’t know about the formula.”
“Ah. Lover’s quarrel, then?”
Eve clenched her jaw. “None of your business.”
Daniel grinned, his teeth glinting in the moonlight. His smile looked menacing, dangerous even. She struggled to stand.
“Well, whatever happened between you, it obviously wasn’t pretty.” He gestured around him. “If it had been just your average, garden variety spat, you’d have driven away, not run aimlessly through the forest like a lunatic.”
Eve bit her lower lip but didn’t contradict him. Now that the adrenaline had run its course, even she had to admit that sprinting through the woods wasn’t the brightest thing she’d ever done.
“It was the lycanthropy that made him do whatever it is he did to you. He’s not human, Eve. He doesn’t behave like rational men.”
Eve’s laugh was hollow. “It wasn’t his… condition. He’s not sick. He’s an asshole.”
“It’s not too late, you know,” Daniel continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “You can still inject him with the formula. If you won’t do it for the good of mankind, do it for yourself.”
Eve took a deep breath. “I don’t understand.”
“Revenge,” he said slowly, as if speaking to a child. “J.C. doesn’t want to be cured. So, cure him anyway. He obviously did something to you that you didn’t want. Do the same to him. An eye for an eye, so to speak.”
She shook her head. “I don’t have the syringe anymore. I left everything in my purse, and the purse… with my shoes.” On the floor of the shack, probably right beside her silk thong.
Daniel waved a hand dismissively. “I have another.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small box. He flipped the lid open. Moonlight glinted off the glass syringe, fragmenting the silver light into a myriad of colors.
Daniel held his hand outstretched as he crossed the distance between them and offered her the container. She reached for it, feeling the familiar anger pool low in her belly as her hand instinctively closed around the box.
“I knew you’d come through for me,” Daniel whispered. “Now go finish the job.”
* * *
J.C. growled and flew through the air, but it was too late. He wasn’t charging into the clearing like a dashing hero rescuing his lover.
No, Eve clearly didn’t need rescuing from Daniel Kraus, a man J.C. had known for decades. He’d heard every word. It had only taken him a minute to dress and run after her, and her haphazard tracks through the forest hadn’t been hard to follow.
She meant to destroy his kind. His way of life. If his father or brother had been in his place, they never would have let Eve get as close to them as she’d gotten to him. Guilt and shame flooded him. He wasn’t a leader. He never would be.
He landed in the clearing on all fours, fully shifted to wolf-form. His heart pounded against his ribcage, Eve’s betrayal still flooding his thoughts.
“J.C. How nice of you to join us.” Daniel’s voice was calm, but J.C. caught the glimmer of surprise in the man’s eyes.
J.C.’s claws dug into the ground. Blood lust rushed through him, compelling him to attack first and ask questions later. The threat to his pack couldn’t be ignored. Neither Eve nor Daniel could be allowed to leave the clearing alive.
“J.C.,” Eve said. “This isn’t what it looks like.”
He’d have laughed if his current shape had allowed it. As it was, he could only grunt. He crouched low to the ground, preparing to strike.
In a flash, Daniel closed the distance separating him from Eve and grabbed her by the waist, pulling her to him. He wrapped his arm around her neck and she cried out in surprise.
“You’ll have to go through her to get to me,” Daniel said.
“What… Why are you doing this?” Eve gasped.
“Because J.C. would never harm his mate. And I can’t allow him to get to me in his current condition. Look at him. The bloodshot eyes, the feral growl. He’s likely to tear my head off before I can even blink. It’s not going to happen.”
“I’m not his mate,” Eve said, eyeing J.C. coolly.
“Don’t be stupid,” Daniel retorted. “I can smell his seed all over you.”
A hint of silvery moonlight flooded Eve’s face, highlighting the blush traveling over her skin. J.C. looked away from her, forcing himself to focus on Daniel. The woman had betrayed him. He couldn’t let his lust or whatever misguided emotions he felt for her overshadow his common sense. That’s how they got here in the first place.
“So we had sex.” Eve squirmed in Daniel’s hold. “That doesn’t mean we’ve… mated.”
“Oh, come on,” Daniel argued. “You graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard with a degree in human genetics, and you mean to tell me you’re
not bright enough to realize the creature has marked you as his own?”
J.C. took a step forward, keeping his body low to the ground, ready to spring into the air and attack them both. Daniel had been wrong. He would hurt his mate to get to him, because the woman he’d chosen for his own clearly hadn’t been the woman he thought her to be.
Half an hour earlier, he’d been prepared to argue for their union in front of the entire council of elders. While he’d been with her in that shack, while he’d been in her, nothing else had mattered. He knew she was meant for him the way no other female, human or werewolf, could ever be.
How could he have been so wrong?
Daniel must have seen the determination in his gaze, because he tightened his hold on Eve. He tilted her head at an angle, the skin of her throat stretched taut from the uncomfortable position.
“You’re wrong,” Eve insisted. “No man who wanted me as his own would treat me the way he has. Like a whore.”
Her voice shook as she spoke but she met J.C.’s gaze boldly, daring him to disagree. He couldn’t, and not just because he was in wolf-form. He had treated her with no regard for her feelings, only his own. Making sure he didn’t fall for her had been more important to J.C. than showing her how much she meant to him.
Obviously, he’d been right. The woman had broken through all his defenses with one clear goal in mind: the utter destruction of his kind.
“He’s not a man,” Daniel said. “As you can clearly see for yourself. He doesn’t have the same emotions men do; the same ability to reason and do the right thing. This beast needs to be destroyed, and not just him, but his entire kind.”
J.C. had heard enough. He bared his teeth and howled a challenge to the alpha leader of the Kölen pack.
Daniel understood. He wrapped his large hand around Eve’s throat and ran his thumb in small circles over the fine pale skin of her neck.
“No,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “What he’s done to me is none of your concern. But J.C. isn’t evil, and he’s not a beast.” She met J.C.’s gaze and heat sizzled between them as tears flooded her piercing blue eyes and rolled down her cheeks. “He’s beautiful. And all he wants right now is to protect his kind from people like you.”
Daniel snarled. “What do you know about people like me?” He made the words sound like the worst kind of slur. “The formula wouldn’t have killed him; though I suppose now we’ll never know. Judging by the way he’s looking at you, I doubt he’ll ever let you get close enough to him to find out.”
“I don’t believe you,” Eve gasped out. “You’re insane. You’d have killed him, killed them all given half a chance.”
“Believe what you will. I’ve been working on this formula for two decades, and I’ve finally perfected it. There hasn’t been a male child born of a union between Zanteans in twenty years, thanks to me.”
He paused for a moment, as though reliving an old memory, then continued, “J.C.’s father and I were… friends once, long ago.” He spat the words as though they tasted foul in his mouth. “At least, the fool thought we were. I always knew our pack was stronger, braver, tougher. I think deep inside, he knew it, too. One day, he proposed we join forces, unite our packs under one common name. His name. I had other plans. By that time, I had a prototype ready. He never even felt the needle pierce his skin.”
Daniel’s eyes narrowed, his gaze going cold. “The formula worked, though not quite as well as I’d intended. Sure, the bloodline can’t continue without a male, but filthy Zantean bitches are still being born every few months. My latest achievement won’t disappoint.”
“Sterilization,” Eve said, horror flooding her voice. “Mass sterilization was your brilliant plan for destroying a species?”
“Not a species. Only a pack.”
The knowledge that Eve hadn’t been aware of Daniel’s intent dazzled J.C. Tears streamed down her face, but her look of sheer terror told him everything he needed to know. She hadn’t been involved in Daniel’s plot to destroy his pack. The realization flooded him, made his knees weak.
In the next instant, he lunged.
Although J.C. struck with his customary speed, Daniel must have been expecting the imminent attack. He shoved Eve away from him with a forceful push and she fell to the ground, crying out when she landed. The man ran to the edge of the clearing, shifting as he went.
Changing from human to wolf-form wasn’t an instant transformation. The process took minutes under the best of conditions, but a werewolf could hurry it along by physically speeding up the cells in his body. It took immense willpower and it was extraordinarily painful, yet at times absolutely necessary, as Daniel demonstrated while J.C. chased him.
Daniel flung himself from one tree to the other, keeping J.C. at bay through the thick underbrush as the shift took over. When they finally met in the middle of the clearing again, Eve was on her feet, screaming at them to stop. Neither wolf listened.
Daniel’s coat was pure silver, a bright contrast to J.C.’s own pitch black, but much easier to spot in the night’s shadows. J.C. hoped his own dark fur would give him the advantage, though in such close quarters, visibility probably wouldn’t matter.
J.C. jerked forward. Daniel matched his move, and they sprang up into the air where they collided with an impact that stole the breath from J.C.’s lungs.
Daniel snarled. They rolled on the ground, J.C.’s teeth snapping as he fought to bite down on Daniel’s flesh. Daniel’s hind feet came up and shoved against J.C.’s midsection, sending a stream of pain shooting from his ribs into his groin. The air wheezed out of his lungs in a rush. He countered with a sudden and vicious snap of his jaw, but only managed to bite a mouthful of air.
Eve’s scream pierced the night air. She was crying out his name, J.C. realized through a fog of pain and anger. Emotions vied with one another inside him. Fury toward the man who’d tried to destroy his pack for nothing more than envy, selfishness and greed. With the Zanteans out of the way, the Kölens would be the only remaining pack of werewolves. Cohabitation had probably never even entered Daniel’s mind. For him, survival of the fittest had been the goal all along, and he’d have gone to any length to achieve it.
J.C. and Daniel tore away from each other and circled the clearing, gazes locked. Eve’s anxious face caught J.C.’s attention from the corner of his eye and he nodded, intent on reassuring her.
That slight movement of his head cost him the advantage. Daniel lunged, claws extended, canines snapping. His lips curled back, showing a mouthful of pointy teeth, teeth he was determined to embed in J.C.’s neck.
At the last moment, J.C. flexed his muscles and jumped out of the way. Daniel’s claw grazed his hind leg, but J.C. spun quickly, dredged up all his remaining anger and flung himself on his opponent’s back.
J.C.’s teeth finally found purchase at the base of Daniel’s throat.
Blood streamed over his lips and into his mouth as Daniel writhed beneath him, his ragged howl turning to a pain-filled whimper. J.C. tore his teeth away from Daniel’s body, dragging along a chunk of flesh that he spat on the ground. Rearing his head back, he howled and snapped his jaw again, intent on returning for another bite, this one to Daniel’s carotid artery, then another and another, until there was nothing left of the wolf who’d threatened his pack, his future, but a misty ceaseless spray of blood.
Only Eve’s terror-filled gaze stopped him from tearing his opponent to shreds. Her mouth gaped open, her eyes wide with horror. For a moment, he saw himself through her eyes, blood covering his mouth, anger, hate and destructive power keeping his body in a tense, murderous coil.
With a jerk, he got to his feet, releasing Daniel. Bright crimson blood stained Daniel’s silver fur, flowing freely from his throat. J.C. didn’t need to finish the job. The blood loss alone would probably kill him.
J.C. howled again, but Daniel obviously didn’t need any prodding. He ran for the edge of the clearing in the direction of the highway. A moment later, he disappeare
d into the trees.
J.C. collapsed to the ground, panting. His side hurt from the earlier blow, and he checked quickly for broken ribs. None, thankfully, but his hind leg stung where he’d been bitten and he felt warm blood flowing down his shin.
Eve hesitated for only a moment before rushing to him.
In her right hand, she held a syringe.
Chapter Eight
“I can help you.”
J.C. snarled at Eve, baring long, glistening canines. Blood dripped from his mouth. She swallowed hard and took another step forward, hand outstretched.
“This is the formula Daniel has spent years perfecting. I can help you find an antidote to the original he injected into your pack. And if that doesn’t work, I can attempt to create a fertility formula.”
She saw him pull his lips back over his teeth in warning and dropped the syringe to the ground. Suspicion flared in his eyes and he turned his head away. She reached out to him, but before she could touch his fur, he started to shift. His claws retracted, his fur smoothed out into solid flesh and sleek muscles, his muzzle retreated into the familiar full lips and square jaw. He wiped the back of his hand over his mouth, cleaning Daniel’s blood off his skin.
Despite herself, Eve breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn’t believed he’d hurt her… not really. But after seeing him practically tear Daniel apart, she couldn’t have been sure he wouldn’t do the same to her.
“Why would you help us?” His voice was hoarse and rough, as if he hadn’t used it in much too long.
“Because…” She hesitated, debating how much to share. “Because I care about you,” she said at last.
J.C. snorted. “Right. Half an hour ago you told Daniel you thought I was… what was it again? An idiot?”
“Asshole,” she corrected, fighting the smile tugging at the corners of her lips. “And you deserved it.”
“Uh huh.” He stood and applied his weight on his right leg. A jagged wound ran down from the crease of his sexy ass halfway down to his knee. It looked like it hurt like hell, but J.C. didn’t even wince. “And I don’t anymore?”