“What are you?” She dropped the downed man’s hand and backed away.
The animal crawled out of the chair. He watched like he would love to pounce and cut the distance between them, but with his hind legs out of commission, that wasn’t an option. Instead he stalked her. His body appeared normal, or what she thought a regular wolf should look like. His back legs even seemed ordinary, until you noticed that one hung a bit off the ground. Most of his weight had to be on his front legs.
Shit
. None of that mattered; what mattered was that he was blocking the exit.
“Jason, don’t…” the downed man said.
“Hold him!” she screamed, then shrank down as the wolf’s attention snapped to her. She’d stopped moving backward and inched along the wall, toward the door. The black leather couch and a matching chair were the only things in her way.
The wolf growled at her again. He crouched, and instead of springing on her, he raced along the floor and knocked her down. Before she could move an inch, those large jaws were on her shoulder. She watched them clamp around her flesh and closed her eyes, trying to prepare herself for the skin-rending pain. She counted to three, but when the awful pain didn’t tear her apart, she opened her eyes. Tears slipped down her face, but she couldn’t let the fear roaring through her take hold. If she moved, if those sobs eked out, her entire body would shake, and she would impale herself on his teeth.
“I’m sorry. Please let me go. Please let me go. Please let me go.” Fear made her voice tiny, as if anything too loud would cause him to jerk. Just one more way he could turn her shoulder into a chew toy.
“Don’t move,” the other man said, coming up beside the wolf.
“No shit, sherlock. Tell me something I hadn’t already figured out.” She was scared, not stupid.
The wolf at her ear let out a growl that vibrated against her skin as he tightened his teeth around her. The points felt like tiny pinpricks. She didn’t think they’d broken flesh yet, but the slightest movement from either of them would do it.
“You need to stop challenging him. Let your body go limp. He won’t let go if you don’t submit,” the other man said.
Submit? Was he crazy? She was supposed to lay here like a rag doll while a wolf ripped her to shreds? She lifted her head slowly, trying to catch the man’s gaze, but was rewarded with the sight of the other man’s naked body contorting and shrinking until he was a big black wolf with electric blue eyes.
Was she going crazy? Please let her be going crazy! The brown wolf growled as the black one bobbed his head and let out a high-pitched whine. There had to be a way out of here. If she pulled away from him… Then what? Even though his back legs hadn’t moved, he was still faster than any animal she’d seen before.
Time to face facts. She was in deep shit here. Even if she managed to get away from them, they were going to kill her. They couldn’t allow her to go to the authorities.
Officer, those two men can shift into wolves, and they tried to eat me
. That would only earn her a one-way ticket to the loony farm. So as far as options went, she didn’t have any, except…
Submit
. The rank taste of bile filled her mouth as she thought of submitting to this beast. Hell, she’d always assumed if she was ever put in a life and death situation, she’d want to go out fighting. But faced with a gruesome and painful death, she found she couldn’t do it. She took in a deep breath, which just pushed those teeth farther into her shoulder. Pain flashed hot along her skin, but she did her best not to react. She let the tension drain out of her and bowed her head in sickening submission.
Jason shook his head as he watched the woman scramble into his bedroom and lock the door. He concentrated on slowing the rapid rise and fall of his chest. The urge to run powered through him. It seemed his body didn’t understand he couldn’t run without those two back legs.
Donovan keened beside him. He needed to shift. Donovan wouldn’t shift back until he did. The wolf in him balked at the push to shift. It was going to take him a few minutes to overcome the urges the wolf was feeling. The need to run being foremost. He hadn’t run since it happened. Hell, with only two good legs and one slimmed down shadow of a leg, he doubted he could run. He’d most likely fall flat on his face if he tried. The wolf whimpered in his head. Jason concentrated on the door in front of him, staring at the wood until his vision started to blur, until he couldn’t hear his inner wolf anymore. Then he took in a slow breath and shifted back.
He was lying on the floor…naked. Damn, he’d burst through his clothes. That was a puppy’s mistake. Not something a grown wolf did. He looked over at Donovan, who was shifting.
“You should’ve grabbed me some clothes before you shifted.” His voice was gruff, but Donovan smiled.
“I was actually busy trying to make sure you didn’t turn your guest prematurely.” Donovan stepped into his jeans and buttoned them, then pulled his shirt on. “Especially since I think she isn’t exactly what you expected.”
He was halfway right about that. She was exactly what her picture advertised. She had caramel brown skin that gave her a healthy glow and long dark brown hair that hung below her shoulders. Her mouth was deliciously full and definitely looked in need of some hard kissing.
Jason’s cock bobbed against his leg. Shit, he’d forgotten how exposed he was. He pulled himself back over to his chair. “I’ll be back.”
For a second, he was tempted to tell Donovan not to let the woman get away, but one look told him he didn’t need to bother. The woman had seen them shift—Actually, that wasn’t the biggest issue. No, not by a long shot.
The biggest issue was that he didn’t know if he’d bitten her. One bite from him in wolf form and it was possible she would start the change. He ran his tongue along his teeth and couldn’t taste her on his tongue. Maybe he hadn’t—
“Did you bite her?” Donovan asked from the doorway.
“I don’t know.” Jason pulled a shirt over his head. And that was the problem. He didn’t know.
“Well, what are you going to do?” Donovan turned toward the guest room. “She can’t go now. You know that.”
“Yes, damn it. She can’t leave until we find out,” Jason muttered. His gaze followed Donovan’s.
“Not even then,” Donovan said slowly.
If she turned, maybe she could stay with the pack. One of the other males would swoop in and take her. His beast growled at the thought. If she didn’t turn, she was still a human who knew too much. And he was no longer in a position to offer her sanctuary. Which meant her life was forfeit. That was something he could not live with.
“Man, what the fuck did you do?” Donovan’s voice put sound to the words echoing in his head.
* * *
Gio sat on the bed, banging her hands against her head. This couldn’t be happening. She’d just had a mental breakdown. Men did not turn into wolves. Werewolves, shape-shifters, whatever they were did not exist except in books.
But they did. She’d had a close encounter with two.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
She wanted to scream, but as she slid a glance at the dark-wooded door, she decided not to chance it. Those two monsters outside the door could come barreling in here and tear her limb from limb. She shuddered as the memory of that beast’s teeth clamped over her skin replayed in her mind. The pain of his teeth pushing into her flowed through her body as if she were still sitting on that hard floor, trapped.
Oh shit
. He’d bitten her. Somehow, in the last couple of hours, she’d overlooked that small detail. But he hadn’t done more than puncture her skin. It wasn’t like he took her blood or anything. Wait… That was vampires. She didn’t want to even think about getting furry. Hell, she’d just had her legs waxed three weeks ago.
Damn it.
Her heart raced. It rushed and dashed until she knew she was about to pass out.
Calm down. Calm down
. No matter how many times she tried, she couldn’t stop the panic drumming through her.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and she pulled it out. She held it up and stared at the three bars, then at the single sliver of red in the battery section.
Shit
, it was almost dead. Hopefully she had enough juice for one call. If it went through, one call was all she would need.
She punched in the numbers and prayed.
“Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?”
“Hi, my name is Giovanni Odell, and I’m being held prisoner. I think they might kill me.” She chose her words carefully, even though the voice in her head was screaming at her to tell it all. Tell the woman about how the men had changed on her. Tell her to call out the police and animal control.
“Can you tell me where you are?” the woman asked slowly.
“I’m in Climax, Minnesota. I don’t remember the address. Can’t you pull up my location from my phone?” Gio heard a small
beep
and knew her phone was about to go dead.
“No, ma’am, I’m sorry; we haven’t upgraded to the new systems. Do you remember anything special about your location?”
Before Gio could answer, the phone clicked, then shut off. She pulled it away from her ear in time to see the cheery good-bye message on the screen before it went black.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
She wanted to throw the damn phone with its short battery life at the wall. Her one chance at escape gone because she hadn’t bothered to fully charge her phone on the drive up here. Anger overtook the fear coursing through her. This could not be happening. Her head ached. She was consumed with the need to scream, cry, and run. And just like that, she passed out.
* * *
A loud knock at the door woke her with a start. For a minute she was disoriented. Had it just been a dream? No, no she hadn’t been dreaming. She scanned the room quickly, looking for something she could use as a weapon.
“Are you ready to come out?” a male voice yelled through the wood.
“Is that monster still out there?” She groaned as she realized that it didn’t matter which one of the men was speaking to her, both had turned into monsters. Almost the same size…
There was a chuckle from the other side. “Come on out and see for yourself.”
“Not fucking likely.”
“Look, we aren’t going to hurt you. We want to sit and discuss this like rational adults. Besides, do you really think that door would keep me out if I wanted to come in?”
He had a point there. She rubbed her hand back and forth along her forehead. Didn’t the news always say you should tell your kidnappers your name? Build some sort of connection with them. Make them see you as a person. Gio licked her lips. She was going to have to go out there.
When she went to take a step toward the door, her legs turned to jelly. With each step, her muscles quaked, and she found her heart racing as though it was about to burst from her chest.
You can do this. You can do this
. She pinched the door lock between her fingers and twisted, then grabbed the door handle and pulled it open.
Jason was there, staring up at her, and he was grinning.
“How long have you been there? Were you going to sit there all night?” Her gaze narrowed, but she knew she didn’t want to hear his answer. “Never mind. I don’t care. I just want to get out of here.”
“You’ve been in there since yesterday,” he said hesitantly.
“No. I couldn’t have.” She started shaking. This was crazy. He moved out of her way, and she walked toward the door. She wanted to think he was lying but there was no denying the light coming in the window.
“We can’t let you leave.” He turned the wheelchair and rolled after her.
“And why not? It’s not like anyone would believe me if I told them what happened here.” She stopped and swung around and noticed two things. First he was right behind her. Hell, he’d almost run into her, he was following so closely. And second, the other man was sitting across the room watching her. “I don’t want to spend my future locked up in some mental facility, sipping Jell-O through a straw.”
“It doesn’t matter. Some people would believe you, and they would come here trying to kill me and others like me. That can’t happen.” Jason sounded like he didn’t expect any argument.
“What? You’re going to kill me now?” she asked in a matter-of-fact tone, even though her heart stuttered as she said the words.