Naked, I run my hand through my sweaty hair, my head cocked slightly. The rooftop party sounds quieter now but still louder than it would to a regular person.
Regular.
That’s something I’ll never be.
Walking to my car, I pop the trunk. I’m glad I left the keys in the car instead of taking them on my wild run. My clothes from before lie shredded a few feet away.
I reach into the trunk and take out the bag.
Always keep a change of clothes in your trunk. You never know what’s going to happen.
It’s Liam’s voice again. I grin as I remember he told me that long before I could drive.
But as I hurriedly pull my clothes on, the smile falters.
I think of my woman, how she looked at the window, her curvaceous body crying out to be touched, to be claimed. Then, I try to imagine how she’d look if I acted on my desires, scaled her building in wolf form, and crashed through her window.
With my human brain, I can see it all clearly.
She’d scream. She’d run away.
She might even try to kill me.
CHAPTERTHREE
Ruby
“Are you all right?” Mom asks, slowly buttering her bread.
She’s always a little slower in the mornings because of the sleeping pills. She moves the butter knife back and forth slowly, almost as though she’s in a trance, staring over at me with a flicker of concern in her eyes.
“I’m fine,” I tell her, trying on my best smile. “I just had a strange dream.”
I’m not sure if that’s a lie.
Ididhave a dream filled with teeth and claws and visions of a wolf, its eyes becoming the same silver shade as its fur in the dream when I had no way of seeing them in reality.
In the dream, they blazed. The eyes seared into me.
Silly thoughts clung to my sleeping mind as I awoke, whispering that this wolf was going to hunt me down.
Going to sneak into my bed. Going to do things I’ve never even done with a person, let alone….
And then I stopped, laughing at myself.
I was tired. I imagined a wolf for some reason. Stress made the wolf chase me in my dreams. That’s all.
But I can’t fight that feeling, that teasing at the edge of my mind. The wolf was staring at me because it,he, wanted me.
He wants to make me his. He wants to fix all my problems.
He wants to save me.
“I’m going to look for work today,” I tell Mom.
Mom gets a panicky look, her eyes shifting from side to side as if she’s looking for an escape route.
“I might have a wander, too,” she says non committedly.