The wolf slowly stalks toward me, growling and drooling from his bloody snout. That’s Parker’s blood on his muzzle. Parker’s down on the ground now, and I can’t tell if he’s dead or alive. With each step the wolf takes, the man holding me from behind grips me tighter. The feeling in my gut intensifies.
Then, something else rises from deep inside me, a power that I don’t understand. It’s only happened once before. I got kidnapped by a sorcerer when I’d been searching for the missing underworlders. When he was about to kill me, I put him under a spell somehow. I don’t know what kind of power it is, or why I have it, but I know it has to do with my curse. The one that makes men become obsessed. The sorcerer had eventually used his magic to fight me, but this guy doesn’t have magic.
I embrace the power coming alive. Now that it’s awake and I can feel it, I can sort of grab onto it and bring it all the way to the surface. Once I’m fully in control, I know that I’m stronger than the wolf in front of me. I’m stronger than the two holding onto me, too. I’m more powerful than all three of them together. If I want them in my thrall, they will be.
I focus my attention on the one in front of me, the one who means to kill me. When our gazes lock, he flairs his nostrils and his pupils dilate. I have him now. He’s under my control. “Stop,” I say. My voice sounds strange. It’s lighter somehow. Almost musical.
The wolf stops moving.
“Sit.”
He does.
“What the hell?” the man holding me from behind mutters.
I keep my focus locked on the wolf sitting before me. It whines and jerks forward, as if it desperately wants to come to me but doesn’t want to disobey me, either.
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t know, man,” says the guy with the scraggly beard, “but I’m getting out of here. This bitch ain’t worth losing my mind.”
The man runs off, but I don’t break my gaze. “Turn back into a human,” I order.
The wolf whines again and then morphs into a man right before my eyes. He’s sitting on the ground, completely naked, and still staring at me with complete adoration. He looks so infatuated that I bet he’d do anything I ask him to right now, even kill himself if I ordered it.
The man holding me isn’t gripping me tightly anymore. He’s merely watching the scene in front of him with morbid fascination. “What have you done to him?” he asks. His voice is a whisper, and he sounds awed enough that I wonder if some of my power hasn’t captured him as well.
The sound of a roaring motorcycle breaks my concentration. I look just as it screeches into the parking lot. The second I break the werewolf’s stare, he shakes his head as if coming out of a daze, and then his eyes become hard. In an instant, he changes back into a wolf and lunges for me. Nick is faster. As the wolf jumps at me, Nick tackles him, stabbing him with a knife I can only assume is silver, judging from the way the wolf howls.
The battle is over in seconds, and the wolf will not be attacking me again. It won’t be attacking anything again. Nick climbs to a stand with his kill at his feet and glares at the man still holding me. The man instantly lets me go and raises his hands in surrender. I almost do the same thing.
Nick isn’t his normal self right now. He’s in fight mode. He’s radiating some sort of power that I think is meant to strike fear into his prey. It works, because both the werewolf and I start to tremble with terror. Nick’s eyes have changed; his pupils are now vertical slits like a cat’s. His skin is different, too. I can’t see it well in the dark, but it’s glinting in the moonlight as if it’s shiny now. Like it’s made of metal or something. Maybe armor? Or scales?
“Are you hurt?” he asks. His voice is rough, with a surprising amount of emotion, but it’s also just deeper, more guttural. It’s almost as if he’s having difficulty speaking.
I shake my head, unable to stop staring. Just what in the hell is Nick Gorgeous? “I’m fine. Just shaken up.”
He looks me over from head to toe. After deciding to believe me that I’m not injured, he shakes himself out of his fury and seems to transform back into his normal self. It takes him a moment to collect himself. Then he flashes me a roguish grin and nudges the body at his feet with a snort. “Well, he’s not going to be any good for questioning.”
While Nick secures our only remaining bad guy, I rush to Parker’s side. He’s conscious, but only just. His chest and side are both shredded, and his shoulder has been bitten. His face is green instead of its usual pale coloring, and he’s sweating. I didn’t know vampires could sweat. The poor guy looks awful. “Call Henry,” he croaks, holding out his phone to me. “He should still be close. He can help me.”
His eyes roll back in his head before Henry picks up.
“I asked you to talk to her, not buy her dinner!” Henry hisses in lieu of a greeting.
“Henry!”
“Nora?” His tone changes completely at the sound of my voice. “What’s wrong?”
“We were attacked by werewolves. Parker’s hurt. I think he’s dying. Please come help him.”
Over the line, I hear him make a screeching turn in his car. “What about you? Are you hurt?”
“No. I’m fine. Just come help Parker!”
“I’ll be there in two minutes.”
Gravel crunches and Nick crouches down beside me, examining Parker’s scratches and the bite. He checks for Parker’s pulse and sighs. “He needs vamp blood. That’s the only thing that will save him now.”
I blink at Nick. Parker told me not to feed anyone anymore, but I’d feed him again if it meant saving his life. “Only vampire blood? I can’t…?”
Nick shakes his head. “Werewolf saliva will turn a human, but it’s deadly poison for most underworlders—vampires especially. He needs more vampire blood to strengthen him and flush out the poison. If he doesn’t get some soon, he won’t survive.”
Henry’s Mercedes pulls back into the parking lot, and I breathe a sigh of relief. This is the only time I’ve ever been—or will ever be—glad to see the vampire. I wave him over and he comes quickly, but his eyes are on me, not Parker. He grabs me by the arms and looks me over from head to toe. “Were you bitten?”
I wave him off with a huff. “Not me. Parker. Help him.”
Slowly, reluctantly, Henry turns away from me and crouches next to Parker. While he’s checking Parker’s wounds, Nick pulls me aside. “What the hell happened here?”
I follow his gaze to the carnage around me and shake my head. “I don’t know. They came out of nowhere. I think I was their target, and Parker was just collateral damage. They planned to turn me, though, not kill me. Well, all of them except the one you got. That guy was ready to tear me to pieces.”
“Do you recognize any of them?”
I start to shake my head again, but then stop. I do recognize one of them. I point to one of the guys Parker took down. All three of them have shifted back into their human forms, and one of them has a very familiar face. “That guy was in Skinny’s having dinner when we were. He was teasing me about dating Rook. I think he was trying to piss off Parker and Henry. He left before us. He must have called his buddies for help. But why they’d want to attack us at all, I don’t understand. We didn’t make him mad or anything.”
Nick sighs. “They were rogues.”
“What?”
“Packless werewolves.” Nick points to the guy he killed. “I’ve had trouble with that one before. When rogues attack unprovoked, it usually means they were hired to do it. Rogues often work as mercenaries.”
My stomach rolls at the implication. Someone hired rogue werewolves to turn me? Or possibly kill me? Why would someone want me dead now? And who would hire wolves to do it?
I come back from my thoughts when Henry hisses loudly. He’s glaring at me with red eyes. “Why do I smell you on him?”
Um…because he kissed me, I think. But no way am I telling Henry that. He’d shit a brick.
“NORA!”
I don’t like being yelled at and snap back. “It’s none of your damn business why!”