“Did he hurt you?”
The woman’s voice was soft behind her. Khaki took a moment to gather herself before turning around to see her neighbor Emma Sutton with a concerned look on her face. The redhead was clutching the strap of her shoulder bag so tightly her knuckles were white.
“No,” Khaki said. “He never touched me.”
Emma eyed her skeptically. “If he didn’t touch you, why are your fingers bleeding?”
Khaki looked down to see drops of bright-red blood dripping off the tips of every finger. It looked like a demented manicurist had gone after her cuticles with a razor blade.Whatthehell?
“Did that son of a bitch smash your fingers in his car door?” Emma grabbed Khaki’s hands before she could stop her, trying to see how bad her injuries were. “Screw him. I’m calling the cops.”
Khaki fought the urge to yank her hands out of Emma’s grip, knowing that if she did, it would only alarm the woman even more. But she didn’t want her neighbor getting a good look at her fingers. She had no idea what was going on, but she was afraid it had to do with being a werewolf, and she didn’t want Emma to see something she shouldn’t. But Emma let go first, and only so she could dig in her purse for something—most likely her cell phone.
“You don’t need to call the cops,” Khaki said. “I am one, remember?”
Emma shook her head as she pulled out her phone. “I’m not letting that jerk get away with doing something like that. If you don’t press charges, I will.”
Khaki appreciated Emma’s resolve, but she was too freaked out to deal with this right now. She wanted to get inside and take a closer look at her hands, but she had to deal with her neighbor first.
“Emma, it’s nothing. Really.” She forced herself to give the woman a smile. “The thorns on the roses stuck me when I grabbed them out of his hands.”
Emma didn’t look so sure, but she stopped dialing.
Khaki held up her hands. “See, they’re not even bleeding anymore. Just some scratches.”
Well, they were still bleeding some, but not as profusely.
Emma looked closer, then frowned. After a moment, she lowered the phone. “Okay, maybe it’s not as bad as I thought. But you should still tell somebody. You can’t let that guy get away with showing up here and yelling at you like that. Who was he anyway, your ex?”
“Yeah.” Khaki breathed a sigh of relief. Thank God her new neighbor wasn’t going to push the issue. “I’ll call my boss as soon as I get into my apartment, okay?”
Emma nodded. “Okay. But you have to promise that you’ll call me after you talk to him. I want to know you’re all right.”
“I will.”
Khaki hurried up to her apartment and immediately ran into the kitchen to wash the blood off her fingers. Once the worst of the mess was gone, she stared at her fingernails, hoping to see…well, something that would explain what happened in the parking lot. But there wasn’t any sign of werewolf claws peeking out from under her regular nails. Beyond a thin line of blood under her nail tips and around the cuticles, there wasn’t much of anything to see at all.
She pulled a paper towel off the roll and dried her hands. Just because she didn’t have claws now didn’t mean they hadn’t come out during her argument with Jeremy. It was the only thing that explained why her fingers had been bloody.
Had Jeremy seen them? She’d been so focused on the thought of hitting her ex with a flower vase that she hadn’t noticed what he’d been looking at. But the more she thought about that, the less likely it seemed. If he’d seen claws coming out of her fingers, he would have said something. Subtlety wasn’t his strong suit.
So she was safe there, but it still left her with an even more pressing question. Why had her claws come out, and why wasn’t she in control of them?
She held up her hands and stared at them, silently willing her claws to pop out. But not a damn thing happened. Her hands stared back at her, as if saying,What do you think you are, a werewolf orsomething?
Khaki clenched her fingers, then flipped them down and open—like Wolverine did in the movies.
Still nothing. She felt stupid.
Khaki sighed. She shouldn’t be surprised her claws didn’t work right. Why would they? She couldn’t control her eyes in the dark, so why should her claws be any different?
Khaki pulled out her ponytail holder and ran her fingers through her hair as she walked through the living room and into her bedroom. She needed to talk to someone about what the heck was going on with her. If the issues she had with today’s training hadn’t convinced her, what just happened had. If she didn’t get a handle on this werewolf thing quick, she would end up getting booted off the SWAT team. Worse, she might accidentally reveal herself to someone like Jeremy.
But who should she talk to? She sat on the bed and unlaced her boots as she considered that. She could call Cooper or Becker. She’d hung out with them the most. But she dismissed the idea just as quickly. Becker wasn’t much more experienced at this werewolf thing than she was, and Cooper struck her as the kind of guy who simplywasa werewolf without thinking too much about it. Neither one would be able to teach her what she needed to know. Plus, she wasn’t sure if they’d keep her secret from the rest of the Pack. She didn’t want everyone knowing she was a deficient werewolf.
Who could she trust? She went through the list of names of the other guys in her squad as she took off her uniform and pulled on jeans and a tank top. Although she might trust them to have her back in a shoot-out, she wasn’t sure she could confide in any of them. In fact, the only person she felt comfortable enough to talk to was Mac, and she wasn’t even in the Pack—not technically, anyway.
Khaki grabbed her cell and called Mac before she could change her mind. Mac answered on the second ring.
