Tears burned my eyes. He’d shoved me behind him on the trail. “He saved my life,” I whispered.
Hugh nodded. “I don’t doubt it.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, and his voice grew rough. “He was a good man. I couldn’t have asked for a better son.”
The tears overflowed, spilling down my cheeks and into my hair. I went to brush them away—and came up short when the bindings on my wrists dug into my skin.
“Don’t fight,” Hugh said. “You’ll just make the knots tighter.”
A sense of unreality descended over me as I remembered I was hurting and restrained. I was also filthy, I realized with sudden horror. My scalp itched and the tank top I’d worn at the Gorge was stiff with old blood. But there had to be a perfectly reasonable explanation, I thought, a growing sense of panic rising in my chest. Any minute now, this situation was going to make sense.
I drew a shaky breath—
Hugh cut me off before I could speak. “Nothing I’m about to tell you will make sense. But I need you to listen with an open mind.”
My throat grew even drier. I was hardly in a position to refuse, so I dipped my chin. “All right.”
“You and Alex were attacked by wolves. But not the kind you’re used to.” He paused for a beat, his green gaze holding mine. “These were werewolves. They killed Alex and did their best to kill you. When I found you on the ground, you had minutes left to live. So I bit you.”
I stared at him.
He was mad with grief, I decided. He was in shock over Alex’s death and now he was experiencing some kind of mental breakdown.
“I bit you and I turned you,” he said. “Because I’m a werewolf, too. And now you’re like me.”
My heart pounded like a drum, each beat a canon blast in my ears. He’d bitten me—and then tied me up. What else was he capable of? His green gaze was steady, and if I hadn’t known he was in a full-blown crisis I would have taken him for a calm, rational person.
In journalism school, the local police department had given us a course on interviewing people with mental health issues. Sympathy was key.
“Mr. Dalton,” I said, pleased when my voice didn’t tremble. “I know this is hard for you, but there are people who can help…” I trailed off as he stood and moved to the end of the bed. When he faced me, I sucked in a breath.
Because his eyes had lightened several shades, and now his irises glowed an eerie emerald. No one had eyes like that.
Alex’s eyes had glowed like that. The memory of it swamped me, throwing me right back to those tense, shivering moments at the Gorge.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Hugh rumbled, and there was something almost apologetic in his tone. He turned his back and pulled his shirt over his head.
My gut clenched. I yanked at the restraints, all thought of sympathy flying out the window. “Help!” I screamed. “Someone help me!”
He removed the rest of his clothes and knelt on the floor. Still facing away, he rested his weight on his palms, giving me an unimpeded view of his muscular back and taut ass.
Then he changed.
And I stopped breathing.
His skin rippled. Dark brown fur sprouted across his back, shooting up like a video of grass growing in fast motion. His body bulged in ways both fascinating and grotesque, his limbs shrinking and reshaping themselves. He dropped his head forward. His ears slid down and then moved back up, the tips now pointed and twitching. The fur grew thicker. Flashes of red appeared among the black, and I realized I was seeing his flesh turned inside out as it formed into something that simply was not possible.
This wasn’t possible.
It all happened so quickly, and yet time seemed to stand still as the thing that used to be Hugh Dalton turned around at last.
Wolf. A freaking wolf stared at me, its green eyes burning with intelligence.
And I knew then that Alex had indeed been keeping secrets from me—and I was in a whole lot of trouble.
CHAPTER FOUR
HUGH
Well, she wasn’t screaming. That was a good sign.