She swallowed and nodded, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically.
“See you in a while, love,” Michael called, and went back to cleaning up for the night.
They’d been busy as hell that evening, which was why everyone was running behind. Even Mrs. G remained locked in her office, and her occasional mutters and colorful curses would sound to remind them she was still there.
The drive to the house was a blur as she played and replayed various scenarios in her head. By the time she pulled into the drive and shut the car off, she was so hot she wondered if she could even wait for them.
But of course she would. They were so worth waiting for.
She dropped the keys on the entrance table and leaped up the stairs. They wouldn’t stay at the bar for long and she wanted to get freshened up and in bed before they came roaring through the door.
She shivered. They were hers.
She’d barely made it to the bathroom and kicked off her shoes before she heard a heavy tread on the stairs. Dammit. They’d pretty much followed her home. At least she could brush her teeth before Trey snatched her from the bathroom and into his bed.
She giggled at the thought, then hurriedly rinsed her mouth. Wasting time with her two men around was not a smart thing to do.
Taking time to study her face in the mirror, she rubbed at her cheeks to get some color going, patted down her hair, then turned to open the door.
It was opened before she could reach it. Not gently, not carefully, but jerked practically off its hinges.
She stared, shocked, unable to even scream.
Robert.
How had he found her so quickly?
And here, in this house?
“Hello, Selene.” He cocked a hip against the door frame, blocking her exit, his face a mixture of greedy anticipation and sadistic darkness. “You’re looking well.”
All that came out of her mouth was a squeak, and as black spots danced before her eyes her only fear was that she would pass out and he would kill her while she was unconscious. Illogical maybe, but there it was.
She put her hands on her knees and drew in gulps of air as she stared at his feet. Don’t look at his eyes. It had been the one rule she’d created for herself and had stringently adhered to.
His eyes were gateways into an abyss she did not want to fall into. She’d be lost forever and she knew it. No, he was not a vampire, but the evil lurking there somehow damaged her, claimed her, terrorized her in her nightmares.
He stepped closer and lifted a lock of her hair, tugging it gently. “What, no welcome?” He sighed. “Do you at least want to know how I found my little bird?”
She straightened up, afraid not to. She tried to be strong, to find her own power, but it was too soon. And she was too afraid.
Her fear rose to choke her in a rancid cloud, and she could feel herself begin to hyperventilate. Oh God, why? Why?
“I heard that you were living with two men. Two men!” He threw his head back and laughed, the echoes of his familiar, vile voice bouncing off the walls of her mind.
“No,” she said. That was all she could manage. Just no.
“Of course not.” His laughter dried up as if it had never been, and he pulled her hair just enough to let her know she’d better look at him.
She stared at his mouth, his nose, anything but his eyes. “No.”
He sneered, his coldly handsome face turning ugly quickly. “I knew that couldn’t be true. And you knew I’d never give up until I found you. Now here I am, and here you are.” He leaned down and licked her from chin to eyebrow in another familiar action that made her stomach clench and nausea threaten.
Oh how I hate you. Finally. Finally some microscopic tendrils of hate, of anger.
She jerked away from him and grabbed a washcloth, scrubbing her face so hard she nearly left the skin on the cloth. “Get out of here.”
He hesitated, shocked. “What did you just say to me?”
She clenched the washcloth, her eyes filling with hated tears. Her voice broke but she got the words out. “Get out of here.”
Carefully he ran his hand over his close-cropped skull. “Well, well, well. Someone has taught my little bird how to have a backbone. And in such a short time!”
He grabbed her by the throat so fast she didn’t have time to react and pushed her backward through the bathroom door and into the bedroom.
She tried to scream but his grip tightened on her throat, blocking her air, crushing her windpipe. She knew he was going to kill her this time. Of course he would.
She dug her nails into the back of his hand and drew on every bit of strength she’d gathered in recent days and pulled it to her until she was made of pure horror, terror, and rage.
And with the almost physical ball of power created, she called her wolves.
Michael wiped his hands and went to find Trey. It’d been a long day and all either of them wanted was to go home to Selene. She had been wrapped up in their souls long before she’d ever shown up, and now they were together.
She still didn’t understand the implications of that, not quite. But she would. In time she’d become a wolf too, but there was no rush. Trey would delay that for as long as possible for fear of killing her, but Michael had more faith than that. They hadn’t found each other only to lose her.
Trey met him halfway down the back hall. “Ready to go?”
“And eager. It’s all I’ve thought about all day. Will it ease over time?”
Trey smiled and pulled him to his chest in a gentle hug. “A little. It was the same when I found you, remember?”
Michael shivered. He did indeed remember. “Yes.” His whispered words were lost in the warmth of Trey’s throat. “I think about that time often. Have I thanked you for saving my life?”
Trey’s deep laugh rumbled through Michael’s body. “A time or two, my love. Just as I’ve thanked you for saving mine.”
Michael shook his head. “You literally saved mine, Trey. I—”
But then he stopped talking as a tingle of terror lit his mind in a red haze of fire. He pulled back and stared at Trey, who was staring at him with a horrified frown of his own.
“What the fuck,” Trey murmured, “is that?”
And they both understood at the exact same time as the fire of fear became an overwhelming force neither of them could ignore.
“Selene.”
They burst out the doors, shifting immediately. Her screams seemed to reverberate in the air, squeezing his heart with a terror he’d never know. Not even when he’d been near death had he felt such urgency, such dread.
She was dying. He felt it like a physical thing and knew Trey did as well. They streaked through the streets, not thinking of hiding, or caring that one of the blissfully unaware humans might see them.
It was all Selene. They had to save her. Now.
They ran faster than they’d ever run, but still it seemed to take an eternity to reach their love. His wolf eyes picked up scents and sights that fleetingly called to him, but only for a second.
He was focused like a heat-seeking missile on only one thing—getting to Selene.
Trey ran right beside him. Usually the bigger wolf could have taken the lead, but not this time. Desperation lent him wings and he streaked through the alleyways and yards along with his alpha, and together they crashed through the door of their home.
Selene. We are coming.
There were no sounds but they felt her screams and the evil around her. Linked by a force neither of them really understood, they sprinted up the stairs, roaring their rage and fear, and straight to their third.
Selene.
They burst into the bedroom like avenging demons from a nightmare, no other thoughts than to protect the woman and kill the man.
The stranger was flattened against the wall by the time they entered the room, his palms up, his face white as parchment. He’d had to have heard them exploding through the front door and would have known he was in trouble.
No matter how bad he was, he was still a coward.
And the men—the wolves—were enraged.
The man screamed and lifted his hands to protect his hateful face, his eyes wide and disbelieving as he watched the wolves coming toward him.
They crouched low and let their growls, deep and dark, precede them. Michael needed to feel the man’s terror, and he wasn’t disappointed. As they stalked toward him, the air whooshed in and out of Michael’s lungs like a bellows, his barely contained bloodthirsty eagerness begging to be given free rein.
But the wolves would toy with their prey.
The stranger walked sideways and ended up against the dresser. He’d try to run into the bathroom and slam the door, and if he’d been in human form, Michael would have smiled.
The man held his hands out beseechingly. “What is this?” His voice was weak with terror, shaky and thin. “What are you?”
Selene’s connection to the wolves had called them to her, and her fear and pain—years and years of pain—pushed them to slaughter him.
Michael wanted to shift so he could tear into her abuser as a man, but the wolf wasn’t about to relinquish his hold.
The wolves and the men united to give the stranger everything he deserved, and to make sure he felt it.
They were going to avenge their woman.
Michael rammed into the abuser’s midsection and grunted with satisfaction at the sound of crunching bones and the loud thump of his nearly hairless skull against the wood of the dresser.
Glass fell to the floor and shattered; a lamp toppled over, but nothing could cover the screams of the man who had hurt their Selene.
Had they been purely human, the men might have stopped, might have beaten the guy up and left it at that.
But they were wolves, and the wolves felt the evil and saw the threat. They did not hesitate to neutralize it. As humans, they would live with what they did. As animals, they cared little.
His death was necessary.
They teased for only a short time to torment him the way Selene had been tormented. It wasn’t long, however, before his screams faded and the blood-splattered walls were almost the only evidence that a man had once stood whole and full of hate.
They returned to human form after, both of them naked and bloody, and Michael pulled Selene into his arms while Trey attempted to find her heartbeat.
She was so white and still and little. Her throat was mottled and swollen, and a couple of bruises had begun to bloom on her cheeks. He glanced at the mess that was once a man and wished he’d come back to life just so they could kill him again.
“She’s not dead,” Michael begged. “Tell me.” But he couldn’t feel her life. Couldn’t grab on to any tiny thread of life inside her, and he knew she was dead.
“She’s not dead,” Trey said. “Shhh, Michael. She’s alive.”
It took him a full minute before he could comprehend Trey’s words. She was alive? He took a deep breath. “Call Michelle.”
But Trey was already on it. He punched in the number to the wolves’ doctor and after a few terse words, hung up and waited with Michael on the bed.
“She’ll be okay,” Trey said. “I promise.”
“If she’s not—”
“She will be.”
“You could bite her.”
But Trey’s face became even grimmer. “No. She wouldn’t survive the change, not right now.”
But she might not survive this, either. At least if they turned her, as a wolf she would heal this beating as though it were nothing.
“I’m here,” Michelle called, running up the stairs. “Tell me.”
Trey told her what they’d found and after a quick glance into the corner, Michelle took over. “Michael, call the crew to come clean up. Trey, carry her to my van.” When they started to argue, she put her hands on her hips and stared them down with a fierce chocolate gaze that had cowed men for years. “Now. If you want me to save this woman, you’d better fucking move right now.”
With no further hesitation, they did as she commanded.
Selene must be saved.
Selene wasn’t sure how much time passed before she fought her way out of what was surely a drug-induced haze and just lay for a moment, staring at the white ceiling.
So … Robert hadn’t killed her. But he was dead. No one had told her. Or maybe they had. Maybe one of her men had whispered to her while she’d slept, while she’d visited the darkness and had wondered if she’d ever find her way back to daylight.
She felt different. Sad, relieved, tired … free. Happy, empty, full, sick. So many contrasting emotions battled inside her that she couldn’t differentiate between them.
She hadn’t proved to herself that she could look a man in the eye and not back down. She wanted to be able to take care of herself. She was still weak, and that pissed her off.
But he was dead. Robert was gone, and that part of her life was gone as well. Forever. She was different.
Her mouth was as dry as a desert, but her throat was no longer hurting when she reflexively swallowed. She remembered vaguely that she’d been in terrible pain—she could barely breathe, or swallow, or do anything but sink into the darkness and wait.
She had an intravenous line in her right arm and was wearing a thin hospital gown. It didn’t feel as if she was in a hospital, though.
The room was too warm for a hospital room.
“Hello?”
No one came. She pulled the tape holding the IV in her arm and it came out easily, but it took her longer to figure out how to get the bed rails down. Once she did she climbed gingerly from the bed and made her way to the door, feeling too alone to stay put.
She was shaky and weak, but otherwise felt fine. Her throat was tender when she touched it, but she was alive so she couldn’t complain about a little soreness.
Opening the door she was surprised when she stepped from the room into someone’s living room. She was in a house.
“Trey? Michael?”
“Honey! What are you doing up?” A gray-haired lady rushed through a doorway, wiping her hands on an apron. “Why, you get back in that bed before Michelle skins us both alive.”
Selene backed against the wall, her palms up to ward off the woman. “Where am I? Where is Trey?”
“You’re at the doctor’s house, love. She’s out taking care of another emergency. That woman works nonstop. You’d think—”