Page 10 of Bodyguard Wolf's Fated Mate
"I can't do that. You can't make me do that," Jasmine protested.
Seeing things through the eyes of the beast made it difficult to focus. The wolf inside me didn't attack but stayed on the fringes waiting for the right time to bring the fight to the enemy.
"Don't threaten me. You can probably fool other people, but you can't fool me. There is no point in even trying. Kill me if that is what you are going to do, but I don't think you can do it. I dare you to prove me wrong. Go ahead. What are you waiting for? Nobody's going to stop you," she said with her hands outstretched and her chin turned up into the sky.
The wolf stumbled but remained standing. It circled behind the beast. It was hard not to respect the black mass. It was truly in a league of its own.
A large hand appeared at the ledge a few feet away with a multitude of different gold rings affixed to his fingers. He was about to see something out of the realm of possibility. It would forever change his perspective and make it difficult for him to go back to a normal life.
The wolf must've thought the same thing. It hurled a snowstorm of tiny pebbles from the rooftop with its feet kicking them at him. The man didn't have a chance to see anything when he was bombarded by those tiny little rocks.
His hands came free of the ledge, instinctively shielding his face. He didn't realize his mistake until he plummeted to the ground below. The agonizing scream proved beyond a shadow of a doubt the man lived to see another day.
The beast incarnated realized there was an enemy sneaking up on it from behind. Tendrils of swirling black extended in a wide arc until it was around my neck. The necessary oxygen to breathe was impossible to extract from the air.
"This is between the two of us. Leave her out of it," I communicated telepathically.
It's not my fault. You brought me a tasty little treat. Do you know how long it has been since I have sampled a power like hers? So pure and untainted. Why should I deny what my appetite deserves? Maybe I should start with you before I indulge in the main course.
"If you were going to do that, you would've done that already. Something stopped you but I have no idea what it was. I intend to find out. It's a weakness that I need to capitalize on."
Something like her only comes around once in a lifetime. It's wasted on those like you completely blind to her potential. Just let me have one taste. It's not like you can do anything to stop me. This thing between us can wait but rest assured, the day is coming when one of us is going to live and the other is going to die screaming.
"I couldn't have said it better myself. The one thing we can agree on is humans are ill-equipped to deal with the likes of us. They will be here any second. You can't be seen. Neither can I. We have a tentative cease-fire."
The tendrils of black smoke retreated, but I could see something menacing hidden within. It was using the black smoke to hide its natural appearance. It leaped from the building and easily landed on the other side.
The wolf shook its head, and I watched through his eyes the path the beast made from one building to another before disappearing. It had somehow followed me without leaving any tracks.
I had practically led it to a food source that was going to keep it fat and happy for quite some time.
Jasmine lay in the fetal position with her legs curled up underneath her. She was literally sucking her thumb. It didn't make any sense until I realized the wolf was still infantile in nature. That it was waking up to the real world instead of the imagined one in her head.
I changed back but it took longer than usual. The wounds sustained crippled me. The pain was a suffering of a different kind. It burned like fire with the temperature rising every few seconds. It was a wonder that I was even able to function without screaming.
I gathered my clothes and put them on the best I could. The shirt was inside out and the pants undone with the belt hanging loose.
Footsteps getting closer meant that we were going to have to take our leave. I fought my way to my feet with my ankle turning in the last stages of the transformation. It refused to turn all the way, but I didn't have the time or inclination to force the issue.
I knelt by her side and scooped her up into my arms. She was surprisingly heavy, but it was dead weight. Thankfully, that was only a turn of phrase. She was very much alive but how long that would last depended on how fast I could get her away before the bright lights of justice came knocking.
Jumping from one roof to another didn't pose a problem in the beginning. That was before the splitting pain in my side and the blood caked on the side of my face. The wolf wasn't at its best, but it wasn't the only one.
There was no telling what was waiting for me on the other side. The beast could be laying in wait. It didn't want human interference but that didn't mean it was gone to lick his wounds. What wounds? I didn't even lay a finger on it. It could've torn me apart, but it didn't.
What stopped it from filleting me was beyond me. It had something to do with her untapped potential. My recollection of events was spotty, but I seemed to recall the beast mentioning it was a power, unlike anything it had seen for quite some time.
Radios squawked from down on the ground and in the stairwell leading to the roof. They were about to make an interesting discovery. It was better to be elsewhere when that happened. They already had two bodies, but they would find blood from different sources once verified by forensics.
They would have questions and I didn't want to be on the receiving end of the glaring fluorescent lights to answer them.
It was going to take a running start but how far I would get with my ankle twisted was going to determine success or failure. It hobbled me, but the wolf inside helped me to achieve the unattainable.
I screamed inside when I jumped from one ledge to the other. My feet landed and skidded across the surface until I landed on solid footing. She was still in my arms, sleeping soundly, most likely her body's way of dealing with the trauma of seeing something beyond belief.
She survived where the good detective hadn't had the good fortune of walking away. His death still haunted me from beyond the grave. His face visited me at night when I closed my eyes and was there when I opened them in the morning.
A flashlight beam almost pinpointed my location. Flattening myself to the roof came at the expense of her body being pinned underneath me. It was unavoidable to leave a trail of my blood at the scene of the crime. The only saving grace was that my DNA wasn't on file anywhere in any database, foreign or domestic.
