Page 74 of Relics of the Wolf

They’d slid the safe aside to reveal a hidden doorway, but they hadn’t left yet. Radomir and Abrams were looking straight at me. Radomir looked like he wanted to run over and grab me, but the gunfire hadn’t stopped yet. Nor had the roars.

The handful of remaining men seemed too dumb—or too altered by magic—to stop fighting Duncan. They either fired at him or tried to club him with makeshift weapons because they’d lost their guns. Judging by the broken and warped metal on the floor, Duncan had torn some of those guns to pieces. A few of the wiser men were running, but they had to navigate around a huge hole in the hallway floor, with the entire railing blown out into the lobby.

“She’s of no concern to my plans,” Abrams said calmly.

Radomir glanced at the desk. “She grabbed the artifacts.”

Abrams’s eyes narrowed, and he lifted something in his hand. The magical artifact I’d sensed earlier? I pushed the window open wider, planning to flee after the kid—the drop from the second story wasn’tthatfar, and he’d survived it—but I couldn’t leave without Duncan.

Abrams didn’t point the device at me. He pointed it at Duncan.

“No,” I blurted, lunging in his direction, certain that the item had more power than the guns that could barely slow down a werewolf in Duncan’s state.

Energy hummed in the air, crackling over my skin, and a narrow orange beam shot toward Duncan’s head. A laser?

Duncan halted his attack, and I was terrified the beam was a weapon that would blow his brains out. It struck precisely at the scar near his eye, seeming toconnectto it.

His back stiffened so much that his head jerked back, but that didn’t break the link. The beam shifted, tracking his movements, staying connected.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t a laser. But itdidhurt him. Duncan grabbed his forehead, his face contorting, as if a dagger had been driven into it.

Heat flushed me, and magical energy coursed through my veins. A feeling of protectiveness for Duncan called to the wolf in me, enticing it to come forth again tonight. With the change threatening, I didn’t have time to remove all my clothes. All I managed was the jacket, afraid those artifacts might disappear if I changed with it on. I tossed it away to ensure it didn’t change with me, but, in my haste, I flung it out the window. Hell.

Fur sprouted from my arms, and my bones and body transformed, the wolf overtaking me.

Radomir must have recognized the new danger, because he backed into a dark tunnel beyond the hidden door. Abrams glanced at me, but he kept his device pointed at Duncan. I crouched, intending to rush him and tear whatever it was from his grip.

Duncan lowered his furred head and stared at Abrams, as if transfixed. The beam still ran from the magical device to his scar.

The two remaining guards in the office, both injured and down, used the distraction to crawl out the door.

As I finished changing, my front paws dropping to the floor, Abrams spoke firmly to Duncan in another language, then pointed at me.

Now fully a wolf, I surged toward Abrams. Surprisingly spry for an older man, he jumped back into the tunnel and hit a switch on the wall. The safe slid back into place.

I snapped my jaws in frustration as I tried to lunge around it to stop it from covering the door, but it was heavy and inexorable and only bumped me to the side.

Frustrated, and thinking like an animal now instead of a woman, I bit at the plaster wall, some notion that I might be able to get throughitcoming to mind. That man had hurt Duncan. I wanted to kill him.

An ominous snarl came from behind me.

I backed up enough to turn to face Duncan, a conflagration of emotions sweeping through me. An ancient part of me recognized the bipedfuris as a superior form, a form even more powerful than that of the pure wolf. My instincts told me to lower my head before this being, to accept him as the alpha. But I recognized his magic, his aura. He was the one who’d fought and hunted by my side. He was the one I wanted to mate with.

Duncan threw his furred head back and roared, the muscles in his entire body flexing with dangerous power. Blood dripped from his wounds—from bullet holes—but the injuries did nothing to diminish him, nothing to make him less terrifying.

His eyes, the same brown hue as always but wild and animalistic—and entirely devoid of recognition—locked onto me. They weren’t the eyes of an ally, a mate.

The beam had disappeared with Abrams, but the scar on his forehead throbbed with magic and glowed orange.

His eyes dark with the promise of my death, Duncan advanced toward me with his jaws parted, his sharp fangs gleaming.

22

After roaring again,the threatening roar of an enemy, Duncan sprang onto the desk.

With devastating certainty, I knew he was after me—and that he could kill me. He lashed out with those long claws, aiming for my head.

I ducked and ran around the desk, my paws slipping on the wooden floor. It was almost the end of me because Duncan leaped off, trying to land on me. Fear made me sprint to the open window. I felt the swipe of his claws as they scarcely missed gouging into my hindquarters.

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