“You see what I mean,” I say.
“I’ve heard of something like this before,” Liam mutters after a moment.
“You have?”
“Yeah. This was before we met. Jo told me about it.”
We’re silent for a moment. Liam’s mentor was a woman called Josephine, on the surface a kindly fifty-something hippy, but with a cunning and viciously powerful wolf hiding within.
Liam told me that hunters killed her the week before he found me, and filled her with dozens of rounds of high-caliber bullets, the chunky sort that can damage thick wolf bones.
Silver bullets are another myth. We’re still flesh, bone, and meat, all vulnerable to human weapons.
“She knew a wolf once when she was younger. She said he became obsessed with a human. She’d never seen anything like it. Her scent was all that mattered to him. He couldn’t let her go. He needed her every second, every moment.”
“Yes,” I whisper, not trying to fight it anymore, my scent, the eye color changing, or the tremor in my voice. “That’s it, Liam. That’s exactly how I feel.”
Liam looks at me with cold eyes. “I’m sorry, but this doesn’t have a happy ending.”
I swallow. “Go on.”
“He found his woman when he was in human form. They grew close. And then one day, while they were intimate, he lost control while he was...while it was happening. When they were close, he couldn’t help himself. He changed so quickly, so violently and suddenly, so caught up in the primal joy of the change, he....”
Liam trails off, picking at the table. “Jo told me about this wolf; he said the whole room was red. His lover was gone. The wolf had crushed her in the first moments of the change. And then, in his heartache, he’d ravaged her body.”
My heartbeat thunders through me when I think about hurting Ruby,myRuby.
“I wouldn’t do that,” I whisper, yet there’s no way for me to know.
I’ve never felt this way before.
“You wouldn’t mean to,” Liam whispers. “But if you couldn’t stop your eyes from changing color when you were just talking, what if you did more? Even changing and scratching her would be a nightmare for us. Marking somebody who doesn’t even know we exist rarely ends well.”
“It did with me.”
I try for a smirk, but my mind is flooded with ugly and cruel images of Ruby.
Of Ruby and me. Of Ruby and the wolf.
Liam tries for a smirk, too, but lets it falter a moment later.
“You’re a rare example, Ramsey.”
“What happened to him, the wolf?”
Liam stares at me bleakly. “Are you sure you want to know?”
No, let me live in this dream world.
Let me pretend my beast would never hurt her.
“Yes,” I say.
“He begged Jo to kill him. She didn’t want to, but then he said he’d go into a busy shopping mall on Black Friday, change right in the middle, and go on a rampage. He swore on his dead lover that he’d do it. So Jo did what she had to do.”
I lean back, hands clasped, unable to stop the evil thoughts from flurrying through my mind.
“And this is the only case you know about?” I ask. “Of this scenting...this obsession with a human? The only one?”