“Should I cut off your fingers first?” I ask, poking the digits with the tip of the knife. “Or take the whole hand in one go?”
The high-pitched keening returns, and it almost covers the scuff of a shoe outside the door.
I scramble to kneel at Danny’s head and grab his hair, yanking his head back and placing the blade at his artery. If I’m caught now, I’ll at least make sure Danny goes down with me.
The door opens a crack, and a man slips inside. As he turns to me, my breath catches in recognition.
It’s the Alpha from the diner. Our eyes meet, and that strange jolt of recognition shocks through me again. Even through the mask and across the room, I catch the clean scent of his pheromones, and my pulse quickens in response.
Then he breaks eye contact to scan the room, taking in Danny bound on the plastic and my knife at his throat. His broad shoulders block the exit as he closes the door behind him and locks it, as I should have done.
A smile curves his lips, predatory and appreciative all at once. “Well, aren’t you precious?”
His gravelly voice slides through the room, and my body responds with a rush of heat that has no place in this moment, no right to exist while my knife is still pressed to Danny’s throat.
“Who are you?” I demand, not moving from my position, keeping the blade steady despite the sudden racing of my pulse. “What are you doing here?”
He leans back against the door, as if we’re havinga conversation at a café rather than in the middle of what’s about to become a murder scene.
“My name’s Rowan. As for what I’m doing here…” His eyes travel over me again in a slow drag that ratchets up the fire in my veins. “I’ve been watching you for a while now.”
“So, you’re the one who’s been following me?” I say, kicking myself now for writing it off as exhausted delusions.
Rowan crosses the room with unhurried steps. “You caught my interest. I would have asked to walk you home after work, but you didn’t strike me as someone open to advances.”
He pauses, surveying Danny with clinical disinterest. “I got concerned when you entered this apartment and didn’t come back out. So I decided to check.”
“Why?” The question encompasses everything.
Why follow me?
Why care?
Why not call the police when he saw what was happening?
“Come now, precious. Don’t tell me you didn’t feel it, too.” He crouches, bringing himself level with Danny, whose eyes now dart between us, and hisnostrils flare as he inhales. “You and I are meant to be.”
My skin prickles with awareness. “You should leave.”
“I could, but then you’d have to handle this all by yourself, and that’s just inefficient.”
A hysterical laugh threatens to escape my throat.
“You might want to adjust your grip,” he continues. “The angle you’ve got will cause arterial spray. Unless you want to be washing blood out of your hair for the next week.”
The casual advice throws me off-balance. “You’re not going to stop me?”
“Why would I?” Rowan’s face turns serious. “You have good reason to kill him, right?”
My hand tightens in Danny’s hair, drawing a whimper from him. “He hurt my baby sister.”
“There you go then.” He points to Danny’s neck. “The better position would be behind him, blade under the jaw, angled upward. Quicker, cleaner.”
The surreal nature of this conversation should disturb me more than it does. Instead, I find myself considering his advice with the same pragmatism I apply to breaking down meat at work.
Rowan watches me. “You’re very calm about this.”
“I’m not calm,” I say. “I’m contained. There’s a difference.”
