Page 50 of Relics of the Wolf

The gunman stood behind me, utter terror widening his eyes. Swearing, he fired again. Though I saw the finger squeeze in time to duck, the bullet parted the fur on the top of my head. Fear as well as my ongoing fury propelled me forward, and I reached him before he could shoot again.

I leaped, magic and power taking me into him so quickly that even his enhanced blood wasn’t enough. He couldn’t get his rifle up fast enough to block me, and I tore out his throat. As a wolf, I felt no remorse, no concern about possible ramifications, only the satisfaction that I was ending the threat to my territory.

Fortunately, Duncan didn’t come close while I was in that state. In the haze of leaping and charging and snapping jaws, instincts having overtaken me, I might not have known friend from foe. I kept fighting, snarling and attacking anyone close until the battle fury faded and all lay still around me.

15

In the aftermathof the battle, with all my enemies down or escaped, the apartment complex grew quiet, the distant roar of the freeway noticeable as it wafted through the trees. The smell of burning rubber from the men’s tires lingered in the air. All but one of the cars was gone, the one that had crashed into the cedar, faint protesting beeps coming from the console. For whatever reason, those cut through the animalistic haze in my mind, and awareness slowly returned.

I remained in my wolf form, muscles warm from the fight, my shoulder burning from the bullet that had grazed me. At least it hadn’t lodged in. I had little doubt that it, like the bullets that had been used on my pack, had been made from silver. Enchanted silver with the power to kill a werewolf. A shudder went through me, and I shook my head and body, as if to fling water from my fur coat. I wanted to fling off the taint of those men.

Movement behind me made me spin in that direction, tensing in case a new threat had arrived.

But it was my ally, the salt-and-pepper wolf. Duncan. He, too, remained in wolf form, watching me with his brown eyes.

He’d battled against the same enemies as I but hadn’t come too close. Maybe he’d understood that the animal had overtaken me and that, in the midst of the fight, I might not have known friend from foe. I was relieved he’d recognized the danger and had stayed away. In this form, I could easily sense his power and knew he wouldn’t have been easy to kill, but a memory percolated through my mind. Long ago, the love of my life, the werewolf Raoul, had also been stronger than I, but he’d been in love and hadn’t wanted to hurt me. Because of his hesitation to strike aggressively, I’d ended up killing him.

The sour taste of torn clothes and human blood tainted my tongue. I lapped up the remains of melting snow to wash it away. Voices sounded near the human structures. People who lived in the dwellings. They were whispering. Watching.

As more of the wolf magic faded, I realized I would soon change back. Duncan caught my gaze, then pointed his snout toward the woods. He trotted a few steps in that direction and paused to look back at me, his eyes telling me to follow.

Yes, I couldn’t remember why the watching humans mattered—what did a wolf care about such things?—but something told me they did. Besides, it was never wise to change in front of potential enemies. During a transition, one was vulnerable.

I padded into the woods after Duncan, my ears flickering at the roar of traffic. The urge to travel far from this hive of humanity crept into me, the longing to find a serene place to hunt, but the wolf magic ebbed further. With trees all around, my muscles, bones, and skin shifted, returning to their human form. Soon, I sat on my butt in damp pine needles, and the awareness of my life as a woman returned to me. As well as awareness of the pain in my shoulder. I grimaced and wrapped a hand around it.

“Luna,” Duncan said before stepping close to crouch beside me. He’d also shifted back and was as naked as I, the night’s darkness the only cloak for our nudity.

“I’m here,” I said, meaning mentally rather than physically. Of course he could see that my body was there. But he’d been fighting with me and had witnessed me losing it, seen my conscious thoughts vaporize as the beast took over. I eyed him warily for judgment.

“They hit you,” was what he said. “Are you okay?”

“I’ve been better.” I released my wound, my palm damp with blood, but barely glanced at it. I was talking more about how I felt in the aftermath of killing those guys—of completelylosingit with them. Oh, I wouldn’t mourn their deaths, not when they’d mugged Bolin andshotmy mom and Emilio, but I’d wanted to question them. All this had been for naught. We were no closer to finding out who’d sent them and where the artifacts were.

“Let me help you back to your apartment. We’ll dig out your first-aid kit.”

“Are those dead bodies?” someone screeched from the parking lot. The mom with the kids had made it into their apartment, but other people were arriving home.

“I need to call the police and report… something.” Numbness crept into me. Numbness and exhaustion. I didn’t want to deal with the police or anyone else tonight and wished I could crawl into the bushes and be left alone.

“We’ll do that while we’re patching up your wound.” Duncan squeezed my uninjured shoulder. “We might want to take a circuitous route to your apartment though. Your tenants would wonder about our nudity, especially the ones who watched us head this direction as wolves.”

“Mostpeople don’t believe in werewolves.” Even Bolin didn’t, or hadn’t. I thought he might be putting two and two together now that we’d spent time together. “They’re not going to connect our nudity to the wolves who killed those guys.”

Unless they’d seen us change, but we’d done that in the bushes, so I hoped there hadn’t been witnesses. The security cameras might have caught it, but I could delete the footage.

“They’ll probably think we were having sex in the woods,” I added. Though the damp pine needles under my butt didn’t lend themselves to ardent passion. It wasn’t the time of year for trysts in the forest.

“And that you came away from the experience bloody?” Duncan pointed at my bloody shoulder. “I would prefer peoplenotthink sex with me leads to that outcome.”

“Afraid it’ll lower the odds of other women in the complex propositioning you?”

“It very well might. If you’re not going to give in to my advances, I’ll have to find another female to satisfy my urges.”

“I told you Grammy Tootie is available.”

Duncan rose, offering me a hand. “I’m glad you can still make jokes.”

“It’s a defense mechanism. I can always be snarky.” It didn’t mean I wasn’t distressed by the night’s events.

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