“She’ll be safer that way,” he replied, avoiding my gaze. “Hidden. Stronger. If he ever figures out what we’ve done, she’ll have the means to protect herself.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Um, could we possibly not talk in riddles, please? What exactly are you suggesting we do?”
Serena took my shoulders in her hands and squeezed tight. Her eyes searched mine with an intensity that sent shivers down my spine. I’d been on edge before, but something about the way she looked at me shook my soul. Whatever Az had come up with, I wasn’t going to like it. It was probably dangerous. And it would leave me reeling for weeks.
Anything he did had a tendency of doing that.
“The only way to mask your scent is to change you in some fundamental way,” she said in a harsh whisper. “As long as you areyou, Mia, anything we do is temporary. This disgusting dumpster smell will fade quickly even if you don’t shower.”
My heart flipped over. “So, I have to jump into a dumpster every day. Maybe live in one? That’s what this is all about, right? Nothing more than that…right?”
Not that I liked the sound of living in a dumpster. Talk about hitting rock bottom.
She pressed her lips together and flicked her gaze toward Az. With a heavy sigh, he trailed over to us and placed a firm hand on my shoulder. For comfort and solidarity, no doubt. But his touch had the opposite effect on me.
That eerie, familiarzingshot through me, singeing my core and making my ears ring. I sucked in a sharp breath, tensing. His eyes met mind, flames flickering deep within the ice blue shards. Those flames bored into my soul, filling me, consuming me, until I wasn’t entirely sure where I ended and the fire began.
“Ahem,” Serena said.
My cheeks flushed, and I ripped my gaze away from Az. What was it about him that caused that kind of reaction in me? Was it because he was a demon? No, it couldn’t be. As fond as I was of the Legion, being around them never made me feel like this. Like I was unmoored.
“Your blood needs to change,” Serena said in a rush of words, cutting through my thoughts. “It’s the only way to permanently change your scent. That means turning you into something else. It means saying goodbye to your humanity, Mia.”
“What?” I whipped my head toward her, certain I would see laughter in her eyes. But her face was as cold and stony as the steel buildings of Midtown. Her lips were flat. Her eyes hard. She meant every word. My heart pounded my ribs. “You can’t be serious.”
Az tightened his grip on my shoulder. “Trust me. This is the last thing I want to do. If there was another way, I’d choose it in a heartbeat.”
“Thereisanother way,” Serena said. “The fae. But there’s no guarantee they’d say yes, and they’d probably ask for something in return.”
“And we might not get to them in time. I don’t want to risk taking Mia back out on the streets until her scent is fully gone.”
“Plus, Lucifer might suspect that’s what you’d do.” Serena frowned. “He’d probably never guess you’d be willing to hand her over to a vampire or werewolf.”
I tried to take a step back, but Az held me firmly in place. “So, that’s what this is all about,” I whispered, wildly casting my eyes from one face to the next. “You want to make me a werewolf.”
Those were absolutely the most bizarre words I’d ever spoken aloud, and I’d said some crazy shit over the past couple months. My best friend and my former fake boyfriend wanted to turn me into a furry, full-mooned beast.
“Yeah, kind of,” Serena whispered. “Sorry, Mia. The best way to mask your human scent is to turn you into something else. Something that could not only hide you but help you protect yourself.”
Something else. I would be…a supernatural.
With a strange prickling sensation rushing across my skin, I lifted my eyes to meet Az’s intense stare. “Alright.”
He blinked, confusion rippling through his eyes. “You’re agreeing to this?”
“What did you expect me to do?” I whispered, fisting my hands by my sides. “Let Lucifer hunt me down and kill me? No thanks. A werewolf sounds like the better option to me.”
He shook his head. “I thought you would run screaming out the door.”
A wan smile lifted the corners of my lips. “I don’t run screaming, Az. I thought you’d figured that out by now.” And then I turned to Serena, who was regarding me with an expression I couldn’t quite read. “So, what now?”
“I have a strange feeling,” she whispered, her dark eyes widening. “Something’s off.”
Az jerked his head her way. “What do you mean something’s off?”
She shook her head, stepped in close, and then dragged a sharp, painted nail across the width of my shoulder. I winced as pain lanced through my arm. Blood bubbled up in the wake of her mark, bright red and angry.
I held my breath and waited for something to happen. Was that…it? Would I transform right now? Would they be able to control me? For the first time since Serena had suggested this crazy plan, a lump of unease rolled through my gut. We hadn’t prepared for this. What would happen if I turned into a beast right here and now?
