Hearts of Darkness: A Valentine's Day Bully Romance Collection

by Joanna Mazurkiewicz

  “Oh, no you don’t,” a deep, authoritative male voice announced. Warm arms pulled me up from the ground, but my head flopped backwards.

  “Blessed dark,” I sighed, finally able to quit watching the dark. But that reminded me. “Don’t let the werewolf kill me, okay?”

  “I won’t,” the voice assured me.

  And with that, I allowed myself to slip into the darkness.

  I DON’T KNOW HOW LONG it was before the voice drifted back into my consciousness. “Shit. She’ll be lucky if she doesn’t lose that eye.”

  “It’ll regenerate when she shifts,” a second voice replied.

  I tried to drag open the eye they were discussing, but all I could see was a blurry red haze.

  Red. Valentine’s red.

  Blood red.

  “And if she’s lucky, it might even still work after the regen,” the first guy said.

  If I concentrated really hard, I might be able to move one hand up to check out the damage to my face.

  “Now, don’t do that,” one of my rescuers murmured, holding my arm down in place. I pushed against his hand. It might as well have been an anvil, given the weight of it on me. I opened my mouth to explain what I was doing, but all that came out was a moan.

  “You got any morphine?” Mr. Anvil-Hand asked his companion. “We’re going to have a hell of a time getting her out of here otherwise.”

  “No. This was supposed to be a straightforward hunt, remember? No victims.”

  Mr. Anvil-Hand sighed. “Yeah. I should’ve known the townie kids would be in full-on party mode out here tonight.”

  No morphine. My muddled brain managed to figure out that mean no pain relief was coming soon. Tears began slipping out the corners of my eyes—at least one of which was possibly destroyed forever.

  Mercifully, I drifted away soon thereafter.

  SOMEONE’S SCREAMS WOKE me up at some point. For a minute, I thought maybe they were mine. But then I realized I was hearing Rose’s voice shrieking my name.

  “Reika!”

  I dragged open my one working eye to see Rose waving her finger in a young man’s face. “What happened to her? What did you do to her?”

  “It wasn’t us.” Anvil-Hand guy was younger than I anticipated. Maybe college age? “We found her out here. Looks like...” He paused, glancing at the other men with him.

  “Animal attack,” the second guy said.

  “Definitely an animal attack of some kind,” the third guy concurred.

  But there had been two animals, right?

  Rose waved her phone in the air, trying to find a good signal. “Aren’t we supposed to be able to call 911 no matter what?”

  By now, other kids from the party were drifting over to see what was going on.

  Anvil-Hand jerked his chin toward the darkened forest. “Looks like an ambulance will be here soon. You two go ahead. I’ll see her to the hospital and catch up with you later.”

  No one else seemed to be noticing how bad off I really was, and I couldn’t figure out why.

  Then I realized part of why I couldn’t move. Anvil-Hand had wrapped me tightly in his hoodie, tying it off—maybe to keep me from bleeding out?

  I don’t think it’s working. But it left Anvil-Hand without a shirt at all. And that’s not a bad thing.

  I heard the wail of an ambulance as I faded into the black distance with it, riding the sound until I couldn’t hear anything else at all.

  WHEN I CAME TO CONSCIOUSNESS again, bright morning sunlight washed across my face. It took me several minutes to figure out I was in a hospital bed next to the open blinds of an east-facing window.

  Rose sat slumped in a vinyl recliner, her elbow on the armrest and her head barely propped up onto her fist. She wore the same clothes she’d had on at the party, so it couldn’t be more than the next morning.

  Right?

  My vision was still blurry and blocked. I tried to reach up to feel my face, but discovered my hands were swathed in bandages, my right arm in a cast.

  And everything hurt.

  I must’ve groaned aloud, because Rose jerked up straight. “Oh, my God, Reika. You’re awake. I’ll go get a nurse.”

  I wanted her to fill in the blanks about what had happened after the ambulance came. Brief flashes of memories flipped through my mind—people yelling, rolling through a hall on a gurney, someone telling me to breathe deeply and count backwards from ten—but that was all.

  Rose scurried out of the room before she could hear my, “No, wait.”

  In her defense, my throat was scratchy and not much sound came out.

  “How are you feeling this morning?” My head spun around at the sound of the deep voice from the door. Anvil-Hand guy.

  “Thirsty,” I croaked.

  He strolled over and pulled a pitcher off the bedside table to pour a cup of water for me. “I’m Channing Lowell,” he introduced himself as he handed the water to me.

  I took the cup between my bandaged hands, holding it gingerly.

  “Those are going to heal faster than you expect,” he said, nodding toward my arms.

  I didn’t have an answer for that, so I drained the cup instead.

  “Thank you,” I said. “For the water and for saving me last night.”

  “About that.” He dropped into the seat Rose had vacated. “I need to tell you a few things.”

  Something about his tone worried me. “Yes?”

  Channing ran a hand through his dark blond hair and stared at me from under his lashes. He really was remarkably handsome.

  Then his eyes flashed bright gold, as if a light were shining out of them.

  I jerked back, the paper cup tumbling out of my uncertain grasp and falling to the floor.

  “That really was a werewolf that attacked you last night.” His voice was low and intense, and he leaned forward as if to impress his seriousness upon me.

  “No. I was drunk. Hallucinating. The guy I was with—he must’ve left. And then an animal attacked me.”

  “A werewolf took you into the woods and attacked you,” Channing insisted.

  Handsome guy, but totally insane, dammit.

  But really, what did it matter?

  “Okay, fine,” I said, as if I were conceding. “A werewolf attacked me.”

  He frowned. “You don’t understand. A rabid werewolf bit you. You are going to turn. By the next full moon, if not sooner.”

  Yeah, right.

  Generally, I like to humor crazy people. Because they’re crazy. And the sooner he got out of my hospital room, the better—gorgeous or not.

  “Okay,” I said slowly. “So I guess I’ll just have to learn to deal with it.”

  “Won’t happen. Not on your own.” Channing rubbed his eyes. “You’re going to have to join us over at Woolsey University.”

  “The crazy religious college on the other side of town? No, thank you. I’m going to Yale next fall.”

  “I’m so sorry, Reika. You can’t. You’re too likely to hurt someone without some serious training. And if you try to leave town, you’ll be stopped. You don’t have any choice.”

  “I think it’s time for you to go.” My voice had turned raspy with anger.

  Channing stood. “Okay. But you are going to matriculate into WU next month. Early admission. Special program.” He fished a card out of his wallet and dropped it onto the bed tray. “Call me once you realize I’m right.”

  He moved toward the door, then half-turned to look back at me. “And try not to kill anyone before then, okay? That would be...not good.”

  I inhaled and exhaled slowly and deeply for several moments after he’d left, trying to control the anger that suffused me.

  How dare he try to convince me to go to an inferior school? I’d worked too hard to let that happen.

  A noise at the door snagged my attention.

  “Hi, Reika. I’m your nurse, Jana. How are we feeling this morning?”

  Great. I had the most annoying chipper nurse in the world. />
  “Fine,” I snarled.

  She talked nonstop as she moved around me. “I’m going to check your vitals. Dr. Naylor will be in later this morning to examine your incisions. The surgery went well, but it will take you a while to recover.” She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. “And of course, the issue with your vision might take a while to...resolve itself.”

  The blood pressure cuff on my arm felt tighter and more constricting than usual, the oxygen monitor louder, the thermometer in my mouth irritating in a way I couldn’t have articulated.

  “Hm. Your blood pressure is running a little high. Your temperature, too.” She jotted a few numbers down on a sticky note pad she pulled out of her pocket. “I was hoping you’d be able to go home tomorrow. But now I don’t know.”

  The growl started deep in my throat as a low rumble.

  Nurse Jana didn’t notice it for a long time. But when she finally did, she paused. “Are you okay? Should I get the doctor now?”

  Underneath their bandages, my hands started to ache, then tingle. A sudden spasm bent my spine, and I cried out as I dropped my head toward my lap.

  “Go get the doctor,” Channing ordered from the door. “I’ll stay here with her.”

  What was he doing back? My growl deepened.

  To my surprise, the nurse actually followed his advice.

  “Couldn’t she just call someone in?” Rose asked as she trailed in behind Channing.

  “I’ll take care of this. You watch for the doctor—tell me when they’re on their way.”

  Rose obeyed him, too.

  I didn’t have time to wonder at it, though. A wave of red-hot anguish rolled through me, leaving behind pain like nothing I’d felt before, even when the wolf had broken my arm the night before.

  This was like all my bones breaking at once, crunching and rolling around inside me.

  I squeezed my one good eye closed, only to pop it open again a minute later when I felt my nails—make that claws—rip through the bandaging around my hands.

  “Oh, fuck,” I whispered. “I’m changing.” My mouth contorted around my newly twisted jaws, and when I tried to feel my new fangs with my tongue, they left a bleeding gash behind.

  But the bleeding stopped almost instantly as my tongue healed.

  “Let’s get you into the bathroom. If you can calm down, this won’t last long,” Channing said, gripping my under my arms and hauling me out to stagger into the shower. He turned the water on, full-blast and freezing cold.

  I heard his voice out in my room as he spoke soothingly—and apparently convincingly—to various people as they came and went.

  How the hell was he managing to keep the medical staff from bursting in to check on me?

  After a few minutes, I realized the cold water had turned freezing. Or maybe I had simply grown more sensitive to it...

  As I quit shifting, I realized.

  I stood up, shivering, and turned off the water. I stripped off my soaked hospital gown and dropped it to the shower floor, along with the shredded bandages I’d peeled off my hands, face, stomach and legs. I’d have to deal with the cast later, assuming the bones were as healed as they felt. Then I wrapped myself in a thin, scratchy towel and moved to stand in front of the mirror.

  Even under normal conditions, the fluorescent lighting and green walls would have been unflattering.

  Now, I looked monstrous.

  I gazed at my face in the mirror, then checked the rest of myself to confirm what I suspected.

  Scars covered my whole body, running in raised lines ranging from angry red to bright white. Not even my breasts had been spared. They were crisscrossed with puckered pink scars.

  The one that ran across my eye stood out in harsh colors against my pale skin. The iris of the eye itself looked as if it had been leached of color, drained from dark brown to a white that was almost silver.

  But I could see out of it.

  Almost.

  Sort of.

  The silver color seemed to coat everything I looked at out of it.

  The whole world danced in a beautiful silver sheen—and it came from the horror that had been my face.

  I wanted to cry, but I wouldn’t let myself.

  Werewolf.

  I believed it now. I’d be foolish not to.

  My future, which had stretched out in front of me like a perfect dream just two days ago, was just that: a fantasy.

  I was stuck here. At Woolsey University, no less. The last place I ever would have chosen on purpose.

  More like Werewolf U.

  “Reika? You okay in there?” Channing’s voice came softly through the door.

  I opened it and stepped out, tightly clutching the thin towel around me. “What would have happened if I’d finished shifting?”

  Channing took a step backward to let me move toward the bed. “There’s a good chance you would have killed someone.”

  To keep from crying, I bit the inside of my lips. He was telling the truth. I knew it. “What now?”

  He held up a stack of clothes, a set of scrubs from the looks of them. “We get you out of here. The doctor is pushing through your discharge right now. By the time he’s done, he and the nurse will barely remember you at all. And there won’t be anything unusual in the records to trigger any kind of investigation.”

  I frowned. “How did you do that?”

  “I’m an alpha. It’s what we do.” His nonchalant shrug was almost too practiced.

  With a snort, I took the scrubs. “Then what?”

  “We’ll go get you registered at WU.”

  I bit the inside of my lip so hard I tasted blood. But I didn’t cry. “Fine. Let’s go destroy my life.”

  Channing’s sympathetic frown almost did me in. “It’s not going to ruin your life. WU is a good school—and whether or not you know it right now, you’re going to need us.”

  “To teach me how not to kill people?”

  “Among...other things. But yes. That, too.”

  “Fine.” I ducked back into the bathroom and slipped the blue scrubs on. He’d grabbed hospital socks, too, the kind with the non-slip rubber on the bottom. If we were careful, no one would notice them and realize I wasn’t a nurse or doctor.

  I took another long moment to stare at my newly reconfigured face in the mirror. My new vision coated it in silver, and if they had belonged to anyone else, I might’ve thought my scars interesting.

  But all I had to do was close my silvered eye to see the truth.

  I’d been disfigured.

  I was horrible.

  And if I didn’t want to become hideous all the way through, I would have to get control of the monster I carried within.

  I can do this. I repeated the thought as I rejoined the pack alpha.

  “One more thing you should probably know,” Channing said as we moved into the hallway and toward the hospital exit. “The wolf who attacked you? His name is Blake Kenyon. And he’ll be joining the special program with you.”

  I skidded to a stop, the rubber on the bottom of my hospital-issued socks squeaking against the tile floor.

  No.

  I couldn’t do that.

  I could not cope with seeing the guy who had seduced me out to the woods on Valentine’s Day specifically to attack me.

  The monster who had turned me into this.

  A growl started in my belly, this time.

  My fingers clenched, then flexed.

  “No,” I snarled.

  And my claws popped out of the ends of my fingers as my fingernails fell against the floor, clattering softly like ten little raindrops.

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  About the Author

  USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and New York Times bestselling author Margo Bond Collins is a former college English professor who, tired of explaining the difference between "hanged" and "hung," turned to
writing romance novels instead. (Sometimes her heroines kill monsters, too.)

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  Read More From Margo

  Brutal: Werewolf University Book One

  AT WEREWOLF UNIVERSITY, love can be a real killer.

  Reika Lourdes would do anything to go to a different school. But after she’s attacked by a rogue werewolf, her fate is set. She must attend Woolsey College—or Werewolf University, as it’s known on campus—until she can control both the contagion rampaging through her system and her new murderous impulses, too.

  If that weren’t awful enough, Blake Kenyon, the wolf who attacked her, is in all her classes—and he’s always glaring at her, even though he’s the one who attacked her.

  Worst of all, Channing Lowell, the werewolf who saved her after the attack, has turned from protector to tormentor. It’s like he’s trying to make Reika hate him. And it might just be working. Then again, she might be falling for them both.

  Right up until she realizes someone on campus actually wants to see her dead.

  That’s when things really get brutal.

  Read More of Margo’s Books

  The Shifter Shield Series

  The Abracadabra Apocalypse Series

  Once Upon a Fairy Tale Night (A Fairy Tale Retellings Box Set)

  Moon & Fangs (An Urban Fantasy)

  Tiny & Fierce (A Reverse Harem Sci-Fi Romance)

  Heavy Metal (A Blaize Silver Urban Fantasy Collection)

  Her Big Bad Wolves (A Reverse Harem Novella Serial)

  Margo Bond Collins writing as Ivy Hearne

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  The Hunters’ Academy, Year 1

  The Hunters’ Academy, Year 2

  HIT AND RUN

  Part One