“Chances are it won’t work at all. But there’s also a small chance that it will,” I said with a sigh, already exhausted. “Anyway, you can have it. Whether you decide to take it or not is your choice.” With a smile, I waved my hand and turned to leave.
It was up to him now. He could decide whether he wanted to drink that mixture or not—as it should be. It wasn’t my decision to make. It wasn’t Dominic’s decision to make, either. Just Derek’s.
I was already at the end of the street, about to cross to the other side and call an Uber, when I heard something behind me.
Something that sounded a lot like a werewolf growl.
I stopped. I turned.
And I saw Derek standing right where I’d left him, the bottle in his hands empty. Completely empty.
My heart tripped all over itself. My mouth opened, but I had nothing to say.
He drank it. He drank the mixture.
His eyes were squeezed shut, and his head kept shaking from one side to the other. I didn’t know if I wanted to smile or cry or justrun, but I stood still anyway.
“Derek?” I called, my voice barely a whisper, but he raised his head anyway and looked right at me.
Oh, God. Was he going to collapse like I had all over my bathroom tiles? Why hadn’t he waited to get inside to drink that bottle?
But…Derek didn’t look like he was going to fall. On the contrary—he stood perfectly still as he watched me, his shoulders rising and falling slowly as he breathed deeply. My legs moved on their own, and I started to walk to him, just to make sure that he was okay. If he was really going to fall down, I was going to need to call Dominic to bring him inside.
But when I was about five feet away from Derek, I stopped again.
Because I saw his eyes.
I saw the gold in them, clear as day.
My God.
Derek smiled, just one corner of his lips turning up. “Look at you,” I thought he whispered, but I couldn’t be sure. The empty plastic bottle fell from his hand and hit the asphalt with a loud thud, making me jump back.
“Derek, are you okay?” I asked, still not sure whether to panic or be glad. But…
“Perfectly fine, Teddy,” he whispered and took a step closer to me, looking like a completely different man from the one he had been just minutes ago. “Come with me, will you?”
Raising my brows, I shook my head. “Actually, I have to go now. You sure you’re okay? Maybe we should get Dominic—”
“Teddy, come on. Come with me.” And he reached out his hand for me to take.
I put both mine on my chest. “Really, I can’t. I think I’m just going to go talk to Dominic again,” I said, and started walking closer to the house.
But he moved—fast, too fast for me to make it out until both his arms were around my waist and he lifted me up.
“Derek!” I cried, suddenly terrified. My purse was no longer in my hands, and we were moving. He wasrunningwith me in his arms, and I could barely see anything from my hair stuck in my face.
Oh, God. What the hell was he doing? Where was he going to take me?
Shit, shit, shit…
“Derek.”
Dominic’s voice reached my ears a second before Derek stopped moving. I moved my hands frantically to push my hair away from my face and finally saw Dominic. He was in the backyard of his house, and I was still in Derek’s arms. He clutched me tightly to his chest even as he turned around to face Dominic, taking him away from my view.
“Let me go!” I shouted, thrashing my arms, trying to push him away, but all he had to do was use a little bit of force to turn me around. Suddenly, my back was pressed to his chest, and his hand was around my wrists tightly.
Dominic was barely five feet away. His eyes were on his brother, whose face I couldn’t see, but I still felt his steady breathing.