Knox watched the taillights of the SUV disappear around a corner. They were gone, and he knew there was no way to catch them now. Besides, Rachel was right about the cops. He could already see the glow of flashing lights strobing against the night sky.
He took a deep breath, hoping it might calm him down enough to lose the werewolf accessories. But the extra air only made his inner wolf howl more when all he could smell was the scent of Rachel’s blood.
“You’re bleeding!” he said, running his hands down her body, trying to find the wound and see how bad it was.
“No duh.” She backed up. “And you’ll be bleeding too if you try to grope me while your claws are out.”
He was smart enough not to touch her again, but he continued to visually search her body in the dark, smelling the blood but still unable to pinpoint the source. And his damn nose wasn’t helping him at all. Not being able to see how badly Rachel was hurt pushed his shift even further. His claws and fangs extended so far so fast it plain hurt.
And the lights and sirens were getting closer by the second. The cops were going to be there any minute.
Shit.
Realizing he was never going to be able to change back in time, Knox threw a quick glance over his shoulder. Maybe he could find a place to hide in the parking garage.
Rachel must have realized what he was thinking because she reached up and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Relax,” she said, her voice gentle. “Trust me and I’ll get you through this, okay?”
He didn’t know how he could feel the warmth of her hands through his suit, but he could, and they were the most comforting thing he’d ever felt. But even that couldn’t compare to the serene expression in her eyes. He expected her to start talking about running through the mountains or some crap like that, but instead, she grabbed the bottom of her uniform T-shirt with one hand and yanked the material out from under her equipment belt, pulling it up until he could see several inches of perfectly toned stomach…along with the blood marring that perfection.
He growled again.
“It’s okay,” she said, wiping away the blood between her waistline and lowest rib. “The bullet punched through the muscle below my ribs, so it didn’t hit anything important and barely hurt at all. See? It’s healing up already. In a few hours, it will be completely sealed, and nothing more than a slight scar in a week or so.”
Knox let out a breath, more relieved than he’d expected.
Rachel lowered her shirt and wiped her bloody palm on the leg of her pants, then took his hands in hers. “I’m okay, so let’s get you to shift back now. Because I have no idea how I’d explain this if someone saw.”
It took a little while. In fact, the emergency vehicles were already moving around the mall parking garage by the time they were done. But Rachel finally got him tucked back into his normal form, no claws or fangs in sight.
“Come on,” she said. “We need to get back in there before the DPD shuts down the entire Galleria and blames it on us.”
Knox nodded, and together, they jogged through the parking garage and the stairwell they’d come out of. While he should have been trying to remember the twists and turns they’d taken on their run through the service corridors of the mall, instead, all he could think about was Rachel—the grace she’d displayed as she ran, the way her eyes glowed red in apparent anger, the scent of her blood and how it had made him completely lose his mind. But more than anything, he thought about how much it had disturbed him when he’d seen all that blood smeared across the perfect skin of her stomach.
What was this woman doing to him?
Chapter 7
“Sorry about all that crap back at the mall.”
Rachel slid into the restaurant booth across from Knox and ran her fingers through her hair, trying to overcome the worst case of helmet head she’d ever had. Well, technically it was the only case of helmet head she’d ever had, since she’d never ridden on a motorcycle before. Still, it made her understand why Knox had been so quick to let her use his helmet while he went without. When he’d offered, she’d thought he was simply being a gentleman. Now, she wasn’t so sure. Maybe he simply didn’t like the way it messed up his hair. On the other hand, she was thrilled with how much fun it had been to ride on the back of his bike. Finally giving up on her hair, she dug a ponytail holder out of her pocket and put it up.
“I don’t know what they were thinking, blaming you and the DAPS guys for the ambush. They were out of line,” she added as she skimmed the menu. She probably shouldn’t waste her time. They were at a pizza place. What else would they order?
Out of linewas putting it nicely. Both Gage and Chief Leclair had shown up at the mall, furious when they found out the hired killers had known the exact route the family would be taking through the mall’s service corridors—information they could only have gotten from an inside source. They’d immediately thought someone at DAPS was responsible for the leak, even though Theo insisted the mole must be in the DPD or someone in mall security.
At least no one suggested Knox was involved. Not only had he almost gotten killed, but he’d also been the one responsible for the dead bad guy they were still trying to identify. All in all, the scene had been tense and had only gotten worse when Diego, Trey, and Zane had arrived. Diego lost his mind when he realized she’d been shot, immediately blaming Knox, saying it wouldn’t have happened if he’d been there. Knox and Diego had damn near come to blows before Gage and Rachel had stepped in to separate them.
“Don’t worry about it,” Knox murmured, reading his own menu for all of three seconds before setting it on the table. “Everyone was heated up over the attack on the prosecutor and looking to vent. Thanks for sticking up for me, though. I’m pretty sure your pack mates weren’t too thrilled about it.”
Understatement there. Taking Knox’s side in the ensuing argument had thrown her pack mates—especially Diego—for a loop. When she’d told him she was blowing off dinner with him to go out with Knox instead, he’d almost blown a gasket. She’d owe him a big apology later…with donuts. Putting an outsider before the Pack was going to rankle for a while. But Knox had saved her life, dammit.
“They’ll get over it,” she said with a shrug, not sure if that was true.
Diego had actually pulled her off to the side, wanting to know if she was sure about what she was doing. He thought she was overreacting to the intense situation they’d just gone through together, warning her that Knox was a player only interested in one thing and couldn’t be trusted. She told her pack mate it wasn’t like that, insisting Knox was simply a new werewolf she was trying to help out. Diego didn’t look like he believed her.
Truthfully, she wasn’t sure what to believe herself. So many things had happened over the past few hours that her head was still spinning.
She was distracted from deeper contemplation on how screwed up her life was at the moment by the arrival of their server, a thin teenager with glasses and a bored expression who looked like he’d rather be anywhere in the world but here.
