I back away, breathing hard. My chest is heaving like a bellows.
I need to ground myself. The Wolf is clawing at the back of my throat, demanding I lick the bayou water off her face, demanding I rub my scent onto her skin to cover the stench of the Leech.
I jam my hand into the pocket of the discarded jeans I stashed in the brush before my patrol. My fingers grip the cold, rough iron of the railroad spike.
I squeeze.
I put everything I have into the grip. The rusted edges bite into my palm. I squeeze harder until the skin breaks.
The sharp, hot sting of metal slicing flesh cuts through the haze. Iron is poison to magic. It’s clarity. The pain centers me, pulling me back from the edge of the feral cliff.
"Jax!"
The shout comes from the tree line.
Two wolves burst from the brush. Beau, my second-in-command for this patrol, and Remy, my Beta. They’re in human form, naked and streaked with mud, clothes bundled in their arms.
"We heard the crash," Beau says, breathless. He’s young, reckless, with hair the color of straw and eyes that miss nothing. "Saw the car go down. Is it a Hunter?"
He stops. He smells it too.
His nose wrinkles, disgust rolling off him in waves. "Leech," he spits. "She smells like the Crypt."
Remy doesn't speak—he never does—but he moves to my left, his dark eyes narrowing as he looks from the woman to me. He sees the tension in my shoulders. He sees the blood dripping from my clenched fist.
Beau takes a step toward the woman. "Damn bloodsucker must have missed the turn. I’ll handle it. We can toss her back in the water before the Sheriff comes."
He reaches for her.
"Don't touch her."
The voice doesn't sound like mine. It sounds like gravel grinding in a mixer. It’s low, lethal, and vibrating with a threat that promises immediate violence.
Beau freezes, his hand inches from her arm. He looks at me, confused. "Jax? She’s a stray from the plantation. You can smell the rot on her from here."
"I said back off."
I step between them, placing my body as a shield. My eyes feel hot, the vision shifting into the gold-tinted spectrum of the Wolf.
Remy makes a sharp, guttural noise in his throat. He steps in front of Beau, pushing the younger wolf back. Remy signs quickly, his hands moving in the sharp, truncated dialect of the pack.
Alpha is unstable. Eyes.
Beau looks at my face and pales. "Jax, man. Your eyes are gold. You’re shifting again."
"I'm fine," I lie.
I’m not fine. I’m burning. Every instinct I have is screaming at me to rip Beau’s throat out just for looking at her.
"She’s... complicated," I grit out. I open my hand, letting the iron spike drop into the grass. My palm is a mess of red, but the pain is fading too fast. The healing factor is kicking in.
I look down at her.
In the moonlight, she looks even worse. Her skin is translucent pale, her clothes are soaked and ruined. But it’s the thumb that catches my eye.
There’s a cut on her hand. Fresh.
The scent of her blood hits the air.
