Page 17 of To Keep A Wolf
I look up to see Jadick standing over me. A bloody gash mars the left side of his head with dried blood coating his temple and cheek. The upper half of his face is swollen, and I take some satisfaction from seeing my earlier handiwork had an effect. He stares down at my wolf, his lip curling in cruel enjoyment.
The gun hangs limply in his hand now, and I brace myself for him to use it again. But he merely stands over me and watches as my injury takes hold. Blood seeps through my vanilla-colored fur and onto the floor.
Footsteps rush in. Heavy boots that are suddenly muted by the carpet as they reach us. Breathless soldiers, wide-eyed and then wary when they spot me.
“Nice shot, boss,” one of them says.
Gregario.
The bastard.
“Apparently, I’m the only one in this house capable of hitting a moving target,” Jadick snaps at him.
My eyes blur with the pain. Or with the blood loss. Confusion and pain whirl inside me. I can’t be dying. One bullet can’t do that. But then I recognize the familiarity of the burning in my veins.
Venom.
He’s shot me with a poisoned piece of lead.
It’s not the first time I’ve been poisoned. Or even the second. But it is the thing that’s kept my wolf from rising all these weeks. Jadick knows it too, which is exactly why he chose it, of all things, to subdue me with.
His eyes glitter as he watches my wolf realize what he’s done.
Something in me snaps.
Ignoring the agonizing burn of the venom, I rear my head back, twisting my wolf body around, and bite Jadick’s ankle. He doesn’t see it coming and reacts a second too slow. My teeth crack through his bone, and he screams.
The tang of his blood fills my mouth. Nothing in the fucking world has tasted sweeter. I decide right here and now to finish it.
Screw the pack and the deal and anything else.
I’ll kill the alpha myself.
I release him only long enough to reach higher and bite again.
This time, his calf. It’s fleshier than his ankle. I rip into it, wincing at the stabbing pain in my shoulder as I move. Security presses in around us. Gregario. Who knows who else. I don’t see them.
I see only red.
Death.
Jadick Clemons’ swift end.
Something slams into me with the force of a truck.
Screams sound, ringing in my ears, as I am driven away from Jadick. He stumbles back and through the sea of wolfish bodies pinning me to the floor, I see a trail of blood from Jadick’s leg as he’s dragged to safety.
I writhe and twist, trying to break free of the massive paws grinding me into the floor. But every maneuver is met with more snapping teeth and sharpened claws against my sensitive flesh.
Finally, the pain is too much and the venom too widespread, and I feel my grip on my beast fading. A scream builds in my throat, frustration more than anything, but I swallow it down. In the next moment, my fur has receded, and my limbs are human again.
I am no longer a deadly, powerful beast. I am simply Mac, a poisoned human-shaped prize. Nothing more.
The wolves who were pinning me back off, though not by much.
My naked body is on full display for a room full of Jadick’s soldiers.
And they make no attempt to look anywhere but at my exposed skin.
