“Without me, you’re nothing,” he snarled. “Nothing. A failed writer with delusions of grandeur. I gave you everything, and this is how you repay me?”
I tried to speak. To tell him I hadn’t done anything. But no sound came out, just a strangled wheeze.
“You want to play hardball? Fine. We’ll play hardball.” His grip tightened. “But I promise you, Riley, you won’t like how this ends.”
The alley was empty. No one walking by, no one to hear if I somehow managed to make a noise. And I knew, knew with horrible certainty, that if I tried to scream and no one came, Damien would make me pay for it.
This is it, I thought, distantly. This is how I die. In a dirty alley, at the hands of my ex.
At least I kissed Caelan first. At least I had that.
Black spots danced in my vision. My lungs burned. My fingers were weakening against his grip.
And then the strange thing happened. My chest started to tingle. Not from lack of air. This was different. A warmth spreading through my sternum, a pull, like someone was tugging on an invisible thread attached to my heart. That’s when I heard footsteps, running fast toward us.
I forced my eyes open. Through the black spots, through the fading edges of my vision, I saw the entrance to the alley. And my heart, my oxygen-starved, barely-beating heart, leaped. Caelan.
He was sprinting toward me, faster than any human should be able to move, his expression a mask of pure, murderous rage. His eyes were fixed on Damien, on Damien’s hands around my throat, and there was a quality in them that made my blood freeze.
They were glowing amber. Inhuman.
I opened my mouth to try and speak - and Caelan’s body changed.
It wasn’t gradual or slow. One moment he was a man running toward me, and the next his form was shifting, warping, fur erupting across his skin. His clothes shredded. His bones cracked and reformed with sounds that should have been sickening but were somehow natural, inevitable. His face elongated into a snout, his hands became paws, his body dropped to four legs.
Where Caelan was, there was now a wolf the size of a horse. A wolf with fur the color of dark gold and eyes that glowed like molten amber. A wolf that was snarling with such rage that the sound vibrated through my chest, through the wall behind me, through the very foundations of the building.
This was impossible. Insane. This was the kind of thing that happened in my books, not in real life. Real life didn’t have werewolves, didn’t have men who transformed into massive, glowing-eyed beasts.
But real life was currently pinning me to a wall with its eyes on my attacker, and real life didn’t care what I thought was possible.
I screamed.
The sound tore out of my ruined throat, raw and primal. I screamed even as the pressure on my neck disappeared, because Damien had seen the beast and had stumbled backward, his face white with shock, his hands releasing me as he tripped over his own feet trying to get away.
“What the fuck,” Damien was babbling. “What the fuck, what the fuck, what the...”
I screamed as I slid down the wall, legs giving out, lungs finally pulling in air but my brain still short-circuiting from what I was seeing.
The wolf, Caelan, the wolf that was somehow Caelan, positioned itself between me and Damien, massive and protective. Its hackles were raised, its lips pulled back to reveal teeth the lengthof my fingers. Saliva dripped from its jaws. Its muscles bunched beneath its golden fur, ready to strike.
Then it turned its head toward me and I flinched, pressed myself against the wall and waited for the killing blow. Instead, the wolf stepped closer, carefully, like approaching a wounded animal.
Its massive head lowered to my level. And then, gently, impossibly gently, it licked my cheek. Its tongue was warm and rough, and it traced over the spot where Damien slapped me with a tenderness that made no sense. That couldn’t exist in a creature this terrifying.
Then its snout moved to my throat. Nudged the red marks there. A low whine emerged from its chest, full of distress, fury, anguish at what it was seeing. The wolf turned back to Damien, and all that tenderness disappeared.
The snarl that ripped from its throat was the most terrifying sound I had ever heard. It wasn’t a dog’s growl. It wasn’t even an animal sound. It was older, a promise of death given voice.
The wolf lunged. Damien screamed, high-pitched and pathetic, as the beast knocked him to the ground. Its jaws snapped inches from his face. Its massive paw pinned him to the filthy alley floor, but it didn’t kill him. It could, I could see that. The wolf’s teeth were at Damien’s throat, pressing just hard enough to draw a thin line of blood. One bite, one twitch. That was all it would take.
Instead, the wolf snarled one last time like a warning, and slammed Damien’s head against the concrete. He went limp, unconscious, and I sighed in relief. Good. One devil down, another one to go.
I hadn’t moved, couldn’t even if I tried. My legs were jelly. My brain was static. I was pressed against the brick wall, trying to melt into it, staring at the impossible scene in front of me.
Then the beast turned to me. For a long moment, we just looked at each other. Beast and woman. Glowing amber eyes and wide, terrified green ones. Then the wolf’s form began to shift again.
It was just as fast as before, just as violent. Fur receded, bones cracked and reformed. The massive body shrank and reshaped until...
