by S. M. Reine
Yet her body reacted. Heat gathered between her legs as her core clenched in anticipation of sex. The beginnings of an orgasm gripped her, and Rylie had to grab the wall, dizzy with the force of it. Her knees shook.
Judging by the noises coming from the TSA, they were getting hit hard, too.
But then more of them fired on the demon, flooding him with electricity, and the sudden arousal vanished as quickly as it had come upon her. The sexual energies had been pouring off of the demon, like some magic power.
Rylie’s head cleared now that the demon had been thoroughly electrocuted. She hadn’t changed, but she had lost precious seconds to escape.
More security moved in, jogging up the hallway toward them. These weren’t TSA agents. TSA agents didn’t wear black cargo pants, black combat boots, and black polo shirts with bold white letters on their chests: UKA.
It was the Union.
“No,” Rylie whispered.
The demon caught her gaze from inside the scanner. He was a lump on the floor, pale and shivering. “Help me,” he mouthed.
She fled, leaving the demon to the mercies of the Union.
“Stop her!” someone yelled as she vaulted over the security barriers, launching herself toward the shops on the other side.
Alarms came over the PA system. People near the gates began to run, too.
Her feet pounded against the cement as the wolf overrode her mind. Normally, it made Rylie calmer to be in the grip of the beast. It was a cold, clinical, predatory thing, unemotional and always hungry.
But the wolf was out of its element. There were too many people, too much metal, too many strange smells.
Her panic grew.
Rylie’s teeth fell out in her palm, and she flung the bloody shards aside without stopping. Pops echoed deep within her skull as her jaw snapped. The skin on her face stretched. Her muzzle extended. She tried to hide the changes with her hands.
Glancing over her shoulder, she saw three men from the Union cutting through the fleeing crowd, guns at the ready.
She needed to lose them. But how?
Rylie rushed down the long row of C gates. The crowd was chaos as people emptied out of duty free shops onto the walkways. Some dropped at her feet as if afraid to get shot by the Union. Others bumped into her, trying to flee, unaware of the shifting werewolf in their midst.
“Get down!”
Someone in the Union had spotted Rylie and was shouting orders to the crowd.
People started falling faster. They took cover under benches, behind pillars.
Rylie’s human mind grappled with the wolf. Get down, get down, they won’t be able to find me if I get down with everyone else… But the beast didn’t want to lie on the floor and hope to be overlooked. It propelled her onward, forcing her to run, fueled by adrenaline.
A foot lashed out, catching Rylie’s legs.
She fell.
“Over here!” yelled the woman that had tripped her.
Rylie stared at her in dumb shock, even while her kneecaps popped and spine elongated. Rylie’s change was becoming too obvious to hide from the crowd. This woman had noticed, and kicked her over so that the Union could catch up.
“Oh no, no, no,” Rylie said, scrambling to her knees.
The Union carved a path through the airport. They were right behind her.
“Freeze!”
Rylie whirled on them, baring her teeth.
A roar shook the windows of the airport, making people clap their hands over their ears, cry out in fear.
It wasn’t Rylie that had roared.
A massive black wolf erupted from the crowd. He was hulking, bigger than a horse, with paws the size of cinder blocks. He landed in front of Rylie, bracing himself to protect her from the Union’s view. Where he struck the ground, the linoleum cracked with his weight.
Abel.
He threw his head back with a howl, declaring his presence to the airport again—as if anyone could have possibly missed his entrance.
The Union shouted, and Rylie heard the terrifying sound of guns being raised, straps rubbing, leather creaking. They were going to shoot him.
She threw herself onto Abel’s back, twining her fingers in the thick ruff of fur at the back of his neck, while her face continued to shift. Her ears crunched as they slid up the sides of her head. She had to grip his ribs tightly between her knees in order to stay on. He was thick and solid underneath her, pleasantly musky. She buried her face into his fur.
“Run,” she tried to say, but her mouth was too clumsy now. Only a growl came out.
Abel understood. He exploded into motion again, rushing toward the Union.
It was a completely different experience being the wolf, versus riding one; she was still human enough that the speed shocked her. She almost slipped. But she wrapped her arms around his neck and managed to hang on.
Abel’s muscles worked under her as his paws struck concrete. His claws bit into the ground, leaving furrows in his wake.
Gunfire popped around her, but when Rylie looked over her shoulder, she only saw one Union member firing randomly in their direction.
Rylie looked forward again to see an airplane growing in her vision.
He was going for the window.
“Abel—”
He launched. She ducked her head just in time.
They crashed through the glass together, momentarily airborne. Her stomach clenched. She tasted bile on the back of her throat as they fell.
Then they landed.
Abel tumbled, hitting his side, and Rylie flew off. She skidded across the pavement.
It tore her skin ragged, burning a path down her cheek and arm. Shards of glass stuck out of her elbow, her shoulder, her neck. But the healing fever swept over her just as quickly. By the time she got to her feet again, the skin was already growing back where it had been stripped away.
Rylie groaned as she wiped the glass off of her. Healing quickly or not, it felt like razors.
“I told you not to follow me,” she said as Abel trotted toward her.
He growled and nipped her skirt.
“Yeah, I know,” she said, rubbing his nose. “I’m glad you did. Thanks.”
He stood beside her, his body a warm, safe presence wrapped against her back. He lifted his head to look at the window that they had jumped through. The Union men weren’t there yet—but it still wasn’t safe to stand around.
He butted his head into her hands, harder this time. She knew he was telling her to finish changing, or get back on.
More gunfire. Bullets pinged into the pavement around them.
She leaped onto his back, and they ran.
FIVE
WHAT HAD JUST happened didn’t really sink in for Rylie until they bought new clothes for Abel at the corner store and checked into a motel. It was a few blocks away from the airport—close enough to reach on foot, but not so close that the Union would find them with an easy sweep. The door to the room had three locks. Rylie engaged them all.
She closed the windows, stepped back from the door. Then she started shaking. It began in her fingers before spreading to the rest of her body. She tried to sit on the edge of the bed and missed.
“Oh God,” she whispered.
Abel sat beside Rylie, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “Hey,” he said. That was it. It was probably better that he didn’t try to give her any words of comfort—anything encouraging he tried to say would be a lie.
She clutched his shirt. “My mom was due to arrive at a C gate. I ran through the C gates. What if she got off the plane when the Union was chasing me? What if she realizes I’m a werewolf?”
He didn’t respond.
In the silence, her mind raced, replaying the events of the morning over again. Hearing that awful scream from the demon—Why didn’t I run when he screamed?—and the way that the demon had looked at her, mouthing, “Help me.” Like they were together in this, somehow, when he was some horrible hellbeast that made her think sinful though
ts, and she was just a victim of a werewolf bite.
She wasn’t a demon. She didn’t deserve to be chased by men with guns.
It wasn’t the first time that the Union had come after her, but the other times had seemed different. Last time, it had been a personal grudge. This time, they only came at her because of a stupid law. The one that said preternatural entities weren’t permitted to travel without proper paperwork.
Rylie’s very existence was illegal now. Her life would never be normal again.
Hot tears rolled down her cheeks. The shaking grew worse. And Abel just sat there, silent and watchful, but doing nothing to help. “I didn’t even do anything wrong,” she said. “I wasn’t planning to fly. I didn’t need the paperwork.”
“Yeah,” Abel said.
That was it? Yeah? Seth would have had something more comforting to say than that. Whatever he said was always right, in every situation. Rylie would have killed to have Seth there with her.
“I told you not to follow me,” Rylie said, wiping her cheeks dry. “I told you to stay home.”
“I was gonna hang back. Not going to get in the way of your mom or anything. Anyway, you already admitted you were wrong to try to leave me at home. Good thing I was there, or you’d be arrested or dead or something.”
“But you could have been arrested, too. What would the pack have done if both of the Alphas were in custody?”
Abel shrugged. “Run off with Levi? I don’t know, and who the fuck cares?”
“I care,” Rylie said. “The pack would care.”
“I care about you,” he said.
She ignored him. “Now what are we going to do? They’ll be looking for me. And my mom… Oh, no, my mom doesn’t even have a ride home!”
“She’ll be fine. I’m getting the car and we’re leaving.”
“But—”
He cut her off by grabbing her wrists tightly. His hands were so big that they completely engulfed hers. “There are cameras at the airport, Rylie. They’ve got your picture. They’re gonna match you to some database somewhere, mark you off as a ‘werewolf,’ and come looking for your papers.”
“We don’t have papers,” she said. “We haven’t registered.”
“Exactly. We need to get back to Gwyn’s house, hook up with the pack, and get the hell out of dodge. Or we can just run, you and me. Leave everyone behind. Make a break for it. Those are our options.”
“I’m not leaving the pack,” Rylie said. “Summer and Abram…”
“Yup.” Abel released her and stood. “So I’m gonna get the car. Wait here until I get back. It’ll just take a few minutes.”
Rylie didn’t like that plan at all. He would have to go back to the airport parking garage to get one of their vehicles, which meant walking in front of more cameras. If he had shifted into his wolf form somewhere that he could be seen, they might pick him up.
She climbed to her feet. “I’m going with you.”
“This isn’t an argument,” Abel said, and he left, slamming the door behind him.
Rylie gaped at the place that he had been standing.
By the time she got to the window, he was already halfway across the parking lot, moving fast. She jerked the curtains closed and slumped against the wall. Her intestines felt like a nest of worms, knotted and sick.
The Union had been out to get Rylie and her werewolves for years, ever since she was sixteen and not yet an Alpha. The laws passed by the Office of Preternatural Affairs hadn’t made those silver bullets any deadlier. All it meant was that the Union could hunt them openly now.
Her pack had been dodging registration for weeks. Flying under the radar. Trying to escape civilization once and for all.
This didn’t change anything about the fact that they were going into hiding. It only made it more urgent.
Rylie found her way back to the bed somehow, although she wasn’t quite sure how she managed when she could barely feel her feet, much less the carpet underneath them. She sat back against the headboard, tracing her tongue over her teeth, making sure that her change back into human form had gone smoothly. No razor teeth remained. All human.
Abel would get the car.
She would grab Summer and the rest of the pack.
They would buy the land from Bert.
And then they would vanish.
She repeated every one of those steps in her mind, over and over again, until she felt the certainty of it deep in her heart. Once her nerves stopped jangling, she turned on the TV, hoping for another distraction. A soap opera, maybe, or an infomercial, or something equally mindless.
Instead, she found her face on the news.
“—Regional Airport is on lockdown and all planes diverted after a breach of security this morning,” said the anchor. She was red-haired, perfectly-coiffed, and definitely not the type of person that would ever turn into a werewolf when her mother visited. “The Office of Preternatural Affairs is working with the Transportation Security Administration to locate the perpetrators, but…”
Rylie didn’t hear anything else the anchor said. She stared at the blurry photo floating in the background.
It was her. It was a blurry, low-resolution image, but it was still definitely Rylie Tara Gresham in one of her favorite skirts, with cowboy boots, her purse, and flashing gold eyes. They had caught her on a security camera. And anyone who knew Rylie would recognize her instantly.
Including her mother. And maybe the front desk clerk at the motel.
A horn blared outside. Rylie flung open the curtains to see Abel leaning out the driver’s seat of an old sedan. It wasn’t their truck—he must not have been able to get back into the airport. Her immediate reaction was to be horrified that he had stolen a car, but considering that the Union was probably closing in on them at that moment, she wouldn’t criticize.
She glanced back at the TV. There was another photo now, this one of a burly black wolf. Rylie’s face peeked out from behind his flank.
“My mom is going to kill me,” Rylie said.
She turned off the TV and ran downstairs.
Rylie slammed through the front door of the townhouse.
“Gwyn!” she shouted, rushing through the entryway. “Summer! Trevin!”
Aunt Gwyn’s voice came from the kitchen. “In here, babe.”
She plowed through the doorway. “Get your stuff together, we have to—”
Rylie cut off.
Gwyn and Summer were both in the kitchen. They were accompanied by a waifish blond woman with a choppy haircut, a perfect manicure, and the kind of designer heels that cost as much as a used car.
Jessica Gresham was all form and no function. She had never chased lost cattle, had guns fired at her, or fought to defend her life. She’d probably never even chased a taxi.
That might have been Rylie’s life, if she hadn’t been bitten by a werewolf at summer camp. As it stood, Jessica’s life experiences were so far from Rylie’s that they would be lucky to speak the same language, much less be able to hold a conversation.
And she was here. Now. When Rylie had suddenly become a fugitive.
“Sweetheart!” Jessica said, opening her arms wide to embrace Rylie. Her perfume was an assault on werewolf sinuses. Rylie’s eyes watered. “Oh, let me look at you.” Jessica held her at arm’s length, eyes skimming her face, mentally inventorying her daughter’s flaws. Disapproval tipped the corners of her mouth down. “You have certainly filled out, haven’t you?”
“Filled out” was her mother’s nice way of saying “you’re getting fat.” Rylie was still ten pounds up from where she had been before the pregnancy—a horrifying amount to someone like Jessica.
Even with the added weight, Jessica and Rylie were similar enough in build and coloring to be sisters, rather than mother and daughter. Jessica looked deceptively young. It was like being hugged by a version of herself from an alternate universe. A shallow, kind of bitchy alternate self.
Rylie gave Gwyn a helpless look over her mother’s shoul
der. Gwyn’s eyes were wide, jaw tight, the tendons of her neck rigid. What’s wrong? Gwyn mouthed.
Union, Rylie mouthed back.
Her aunt paled.
Their silent conversation hadn’t escaped Jessica. She looked between them. “Is something the matter?”
“Just reminding me that I forgot to get the roast in the oven,” Gwyn said gruffly. She banged through the cabinets, slammed the fridge door, opened the oven.
“Please, don’t worry about cooking for me,” Jessica said. “I was hoping to take you all to dinner.” Her eyes slid from Rylie to Abel at her back. “Ah, how many people are staying here, exactly?”
“You don’t need to take us out,” Rylie said. She couldn’t seem to speak above a whisper, like her mother’s presence had immediately shrunk her to the size of a seven-year-old.
Warm hands settled on her shoulders. Rylie looked back to see Abel forming a protective wall behind her. His touch sapped the panic out of her bones. She wanted to climb into his arms and hide.
Jessica’s gaze was locked on Abel’s hands. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”
“I’m Abel,” he said, voice rumbling through his chest against Rylie’s back. “I’m Rylie’s boyfriend.”
And there it was, out there in the world, impossible to take away.
Rylie hadn’t thought that she could reach a state of panic greater than what she had experienced seeing her face on TV. But this? This was so much worse.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Abel,” Jessica said, voice strained. “Abel. That’s an…interesting name.”
Summer saved the day. She leaped between them, grabbing Jessica’s arm, beaming at her with a disarming smile. It rendered anyone instantly helpless. It worked on the gruffest manly-men, and it definitely worked on fashionable city women. “Can I show you the garden, Mrs. Gresham? We’ve been growing our own vegetables, and the tomatoes are incredible.”
“Tomatoes?” Jessica’s eyes crimped at the corners when she smiled—the only sign that she was a woman in her forties. “How lovely.”