Page 68 of Dark Dragon’s Mate

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Ragnor had infused his damn toxin—infused Emon—with a despair that latched onto his soul—and was killing him from the inside out.

She looked up from the computer and was hit with a sudden bout of vertigo. Strange colors swirled around the edges of her vision.

I feel wrong, Layla was whispering. Wrong, wrong, wrong…

She’d been drugged, Trish realized, her mind whirling. She had to take a blood sample… get Tristan… she wasn’t sure what to do first. Her gaze fell on the half-empty coffee cup sitting on the counter.

Damn. The coffee…

She reached for it, and the room lurched. She felt a sting on her shoulder, like a bug bite.

And then all the colors turned to black.

Chapter 34

Trish woke up surrounded by the smell of blood. In the air, in the ground below her, even on her skin.

What the hell…

Her eyes were sticky and her head was splitting. She could feel the sun on her skin, the hard-packed earth gritty underneath her.

Which meant she was naked. Which meant she’d Changed. And all the blood meant… Layla had killed. And killed, and killed…

Trish forced her eyes open and sat up. She was in some kind of animal enclosure with a high board fence around it. A sheep enclosure.

She could tell because of the strong smell of sheep. And because of all the bloody, torn, dismembered bodies around her.

She felt sick.

Layla had gone crazy and killed at least twenty of Emon’s sheep. But why?

Something was wrong. She sometimes felt disoriented after a Change, but not like this.

Through her foggy haze, she heard voices. Faint, but getting closer. Grange, she realized. And Noah.

“There has to be some mistake,” Noah was saying. “Trish would never do something like that.”

Grange’s voice was unhappy. “You may not know as much about her as you think you do,” he said. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I like her too—in her human form. But…”

“What?” Noah said impatiently.

“Well, she’s hiding a lot from you all. Her and the white wolf. Tristan. I mean, at first I didn’t think it was any of my business.” He hesitated, then went on. “But now it is. Even if she’d just attacked the sheep—but attacking me too? She tried to kill me. She’s dangerous.”

She’d tried to kill Grange? Fuck. How could this have happened? Layla, what did you do?

Trish tried to get to her feet, looking for something to cover herself with so she didn’t have to face Grange and Noah naked.

“Look at these bite marks.” The voices were louder now. “They’re still bleeding. And these. And she got me pretty good with the claws, too.”

There was blood all over her. Under her nails. On her face. In her mouth. Thank god Grange was a lion—Layla might have killed him.

Would have. He is a pussy. Layla sounded smug. Did not attack.

Trish ignored her, straining her ears to hear what Grange was saying. What she had to somehow defend herself against. Noah was an Enforcer. He would be acting in his official capacity, not as her friend.

And Emon was on the other side of his domain. She wasn’t officially mated to him, or released from the Silverlake pack. Noah could—would probably have to—take her into custody, back to Silverlake. To the Council.

“Something about her didn’t sit right with me from the beginning,” Grange was saying now. “Maybe it’s easier for an outsider to see? But she can’t even Change without Tristan or Emon to babysit her, make sure her wolf doesn’t go on a killing spree. And she’s attacked them both. She almost killed Tristan when she first got here. Practically ripped his throat out. I don’t know why he’s protecting her.”