Knox quickly hurried to help Rachel, who was standing in the middle of the room like a statue, but he didn’t take three strides before Theo stepped in front of him, eyes filled with rage.
“I don’t know what the fuck you and your girlfriend are, but you definitely deserve each other,” he sneered, pointing his weapon at Knox’s chest.
Knox was moving even as Theo pulled the trigger. The bullet clipped him somewhere along the left side of his chest, but he shrugged off the impact that threatened to spin him around in a circle and closed the distance between him and his former boss. Theo tried to adjust his aim, twisting to get the barrel up and pointing it at Knox’s face, but Knox caught his wrist and squeezed hard, breaking bone as he pushed the weapon up toward the ceiling. Before Theo could react, Knox brought the claws of his right hand up and raked them across the asshole’s face, then slung him across the room. Theo cried out in panic as he plunged into the flames and disappeared from view. There was so much fire and smoke it was impossible to see through to the other side of the room.
Knox would have followed anyway—just to make sure he was dead—but then Rachel screamed again and all he could think about was getting to her.
Turning, he found her on the far side of the library, backpedaling as she slashed and snarled at the clown relentlessly bearing down on her. Around them, bodies were scattered everywhere, but Knox didn’t know if the clown or Rachel had put them down.
Blood ran down her arms and the front of her T-shirt, and it took Knox a moment to realize the clown was swiping at her with claws nearly as long and sharp as her own. Knox wondered for a moment how a clown could have claws like a werewolf, but then cursed his stupidity. Thenachtmahrcould be anything it wanted.
Knox ran toward Rachel, dodging flaming pieces of the collapsing ceiling as he crossed the floor. Knox wasn’t sure what his claws would do to the damn thing and wished he’d gotten Theo’s weapon away from him before tossing him across the room. But he hadn’t, so he made do with what he had at hand—the heavy antique chair that matched the table he and Rachel had been hiding behind earlier. He scooped it up on the run and brought it down as hard as he could over the clown’s head.
The chair broke, but so did the clown. Just to be sure, Knox hefted what was left of the piece of furniture—the back and one leg—and kept smashing. That was when he realized his inner werewolf had completely taken over, growling and snarling at the thing that had hurt his mate. It wasn’t long before there wasn’t much of anything left of the chair or the clown-facednachtmahr.
Knox bent over, resting his hands on his knees, fighting to regain control. Letting the wolf have free rein for a few moments had been exhilarating, but the danger had passed and the creature was dead. He needed to pull back from the edge and fight the instinct to drop down on all fours for reasons he couldn’t come close to understanding.
He took in a long, deep breath, almost scalding his lungs from the heat and smoke in the air. All of which reminded him that he and Rachel needed to get the hell out of this room before it all came down on their heads.
Knox straightened and held out his hand for Rachel, only to see her standing several steps away, her red, glowing eyes regarding him with something close to curiosity—or amusement.
Even as he watched, her face changed, slowly shifting into a different shape. Then she grew taller, wider in the shoulders, and longer in the legs, until there was a man in front of him that he recognized. One that ripped his soul out.
“Why’d you let me die, Knox?” Lawrence asked. “You let me die before I even had a chance to live.”
The man Knox knew to be long dead wrapped one hand around his throat and jerked him off his feet like he was a little stuffed toy.
“It’s your fault I’m dead,” Lawrence added, blood soaking through the chest of the camo uniform he wore, his hand tightening around Knox’s throat so firmly he could barely breathe.
Knox’s claws hadn’t retracted from his earlier fight with the clown, and now they lengthened another inch or so as fear and panic fought to take over. He almost gave in to it, the instinct to lash out and tear the thing in front of him apart, fighting with what he knew to be true.
But this thing wasn’t merely thenachtmahr. It was Rachel—his soul mate. To hurt it was to hurt her.
He couldn’t do that—even to save his own life.
“Rachel,” he gasped, gently covering the hand crushing his throat with both of his. He didn’t fight, didn’t claw to try and rip them away. Instead, he simply touched them, hoping she could feel him. “I know you’re in there, Rachel, and I know you don’t want to do this. But you have to fight this thing. The monster is trying to take over and make you hurt those you care about because it feeds on your fear. You have to fight for us. Please.”
Saying any more was impossible after that. A moment later, his vision began to dim and he started to lose focus on the red, glowing eyes in front of him. The wolf inside him was torn, the need to fight for survival warring with the instinct to protect Rachel.
Knox was sure he was going to die when the thing suddenly let him go. He fell to the floor on his hands and knees, coughing and gulping for air. He was just starting to breathe normally again when he heard a growl followed by the most gut-wrenching sound he’d ever heard.
He jerked his head up to see Rachel on the floor on all fours, spasms and convulsions overtaking her body. Not sure what was happening, Knox leaned forward to help her, but he jerked back as one of her claw-tipped hands came up to shred the clothes off her back. Her jeans tore open next, then her spine, shoulders, and hips cracked and popped as light gray fur erupted from her skin.
The transformation from beautiful woman to beautiful wolf happened so fast it was unbelievable. When the change was complete, there was no red glow to her eyes now or anything to suggest there was anyone in that perfect form other than Rachel. She stood there gazing at him with the most intense, knowing expression he could ever imagine on an animal’s face.
He started forward to wrap his arms around her—more than ready to hug a wolf for the first time in his life—but his body wouldn’t move.
Knox felt the pressure in his head long before he began to comprehend what it was. Thenachtmahrcreeping into him to take over just as it had Rachel. He fought, mentally trying to shove the presence out of his head, but it kept coming until he swore he could feel the other creature in there with him, feel it taking control of his body. Fear like a cold freeze crept over him, slowly numbing his whole body, making him disappear. He knew when it was complete and he was shoved into a little, dark corner in the back of his mind, the thing would make him attack Rachel. He only prayed she would defend herself.
He didn’t realize he’d clenched his eyes shut until Rachel made a chuffing sound in front of his face. When he opened them, it was to find the light gray wolf so close he could feel her breath on his skin, smell the scent of cinnamon and licorice in the air. Then she crouched down and crawled forward to rest her forehead against his.
He felt the fur.
Felt the heat.
Felther.
Knox stopped fighting the creature and instead reached for the wolf, trying like crazy to reach out and touch its mate.
