Chapter Twelve – Angela #3
He brought a hand up, and wiped a tear aside. “Really—you don’t have—”
“I want to,” I interrupted, as I reached in.
“Please.” My fingers circled him before he could protest any further, and his eyes closed as he started to sway.
He was erect in moments, back to the way he’d been before, when he’d been between my thighs, and he let out a low moan.
His hand reached for my wrist to keep me steady while he thrust and—
“Oh God,” he said, much as I had when I’d woken up.
“Yeah—yeah,” he hissed, and then his breath caught, and he grunted, releasing himself, his cum spilling out in my hand.
He groaned afterward and slouched, still holding my wrist—for a horrible second I thought maybe he was going to throw me back into the cage.
And that had been a human thought, I realized; my wolf knew better.
Jonah just helped me wipe my hand on his jeans.
“God—thank you. I don’t think my balls have ever been so blue.
” He let go of my wrist and I took my hand back.
“Plus, I’ll be able to remember it,” he said lightly, and snorted.
“As will we,” said Wyatt, from across the garage, where he and the others were standing with their backs turned to us to give us privacy. “Are you two done? Because if the others get back—wolf or no wolf, if Gray sees her, he’ll never let her go.”
I turned around, still naked, among near strangers, and felt completely, oddly, safe. “Yes,” I said, and started hauling on my clothes.
As we ran down the hillside, Jonah gave me driving directions: south and downhill, as fast as you can. After that, follow my nose. We crouched outside another garage, near a ramshackle farmhouse—one with lights on, and people still inside. Three trucks were parked outside.
“Which one?” I whispered.
“Red one, closest,” Jonah whispered back.
Wyatt caught my arm before I could run for it. “I’ll go in and make a distraction.”
“You smell like her,” said Holt.
“We all smell like her,” said Jonah.
“Bigger distraction then,” said Wyatt, with a grin. He ran into the garage we were hiding behind. I heard an engine kick over—and then a dirtbike race out. He parked himself in front of the farmhouse, spinning in a tight circle, revving his engine loudly, howling, “Night ride!”
Jonah grunted, and looked to the other men. “Go get on bikes—now!”
They funneled away into the garage, as men inside the farmhouse poured out, with shouts. Between the exhaust fumes and general confusion, it was perfect, and soon Wyatt had led the majority of the stationed pack away. I listened to the sound of dirt bikes receding in the distance, and Jonah stood.
“Anyone still inside is too drunk to care—you’re safe.”
It was hard to believe. “And you’re letting me go.”
“Till full moon, when you swore you’d be back here.”
I nodded. But that’d give the others a whole two days to be upset at my absence. “What’ll happen to you, in the meantime?”
“I’ll tell the others that you swore.” He shrugged one shoulder. Underneath the waxing moonlight I could see his face tense in concentration. More weighed on him than just my problems.
“And about Wade?”
“The ones that’re ready to hear it, yeah.”
There was something about him, so transparent and earnest, I felt like I had to tell him the whole truth.
“It’s my fault that Gray’s in prison. My best friend and I—we were with him, and his baby killed her.
When I went to the Farm to tell him, I found another girl’s body, and reported it to the police. ”
“You were still human then. That was a human thing to do.” He dark eyes flickered over to me. “And besides, he brought that on himself.”
I had a sudden, unbidden urge to lick his lips in solidarity. Where the hell did that come from? “Thank you.”
He nodded. “Go.”
I ran out to the line of trucks and found, as expected, the keys inside the red one.
The engine turned over easily and I backed up, headlights off, using my own moon-enhanced vision to find the road.
The path was twisting, I couldn’t go that fast, and I prayed that Wyatt had taken the others off in the other direction.
Just as the road smoothed out and I prepared to hit the gas, a black wolf appeared behind me.
It leapt and landed in the bed of the truck with a thump.
I wheeled the truck sideways, heard claws scrape against metal, and the sound of growling from close behind.
I drove wildly, trying to dislodge it, but in the rearview mirror I could see it shifting to take a human form—a naked woman with long black hair—who punched her way through the back windshield glass to grab me.
“I went out to smoke—I knew I knew your scent,” said an inhuman voice behind me.
I hit the gas again, as I struggled—but within seconds she’d pulled herself inside the cab with me, and was fighting me—bashing my head into the steering wheel and pulling the emergency brake, hauling the truck to a swift stop.
I recovered, far faster that I thought I could.
“I remember you too, Nikki!” I grabbed her and shoved her back, hearing her thump against the passenger side door.
She rebounded off of it to lunge back at me, and we wrestled.
I elbowed her ribcage and heard things crack.
She punched my jaw in retaliation, and we clambered in the small space.
I kneed her between her legs, trying to throw her off of me, but only managed to throw her into the console.
Her hands reached for and found my neck—as I shifted my hand into a clawed monstrosity without thinking, and plunged it into her side.
Somehow I knew—my wolf knew—that this was to the death.
Blood gushed out of the wound I’d created, dripping down her arm, and I would’ve sworn that I felt organs inside her—human Angela would’ve thrown-up, if only she could breathe—everything was going black, and I could feel Nikki’s own claws piercing my throat’s cartilage on either side.
Then the truck rocked as something new scuffled on the bed—and both of us heard a panicked, “Mommy!”
Her hands on my throat paused—my hand inside her waited—and we exchanged a look born of maternal instinct. I had a finger looped around what I was sure was intestine, which the second before I died I would yank an armful of outside of her—and she was breaking my neck just as fast as it could heal.
If we did these things—we would both die, and neither one of us would ever see our children again.
“Mommy?” her girl—it was a girl’s voice—howled, and I could see two small arms reaching in through broken glass.
Nikki’s hands on my throat relented only enough to see if I would do the same. I pulled my fingers out of her side an inch in answer.
After that, we untangled in slow motion. Her hand reached for her side as she pulled back, and mine went for my throat, fighting not to cough now that I could breathe.
“Mommy are you okay?”
“I’m fine, baby,” Nikki said, her eyes still on me.
I hated her. If she hadn’t talked to Willa about Gray that day, then none of this ever would’ve happened—but I also wouldn’t have Rabbit.
“Mommy who’s that? What’s wrong? Why’re you fighting?”
“She’s an old friend,” Nikki answered.
“Yeah,” I agreed, for the girl’s sake. I spared a glance at her. She was as naked as we were—surely she’d chased after Nikki as a wolf—and she looked exactly like her mother, her black hair fading into the night behind her. “Get out of my truck, Nikki.”
Nikki’s jaw clenched in defiance—but if we fought again, it was even odds, and right now her daughter was foolishly reachable through the missing glass.
Some part of me knew it was not unheard of for wolves to kill other wolves’ puppies.
That thought also made me want to vomit. I swallowed and sat up straight.
“I’m coming back on the full moon,” I said, crossing my chest. “Wolf’s honor or some such.”
Her eyes narrowed, and then she slowly nodded. “All right.” Her hand went behind her to find the door handle. I heard it unlock as she eased back out. “Get down from there, Lexie. We need to let the nice lady leave.”
Lexie sprang from the truck bed to easily land at her mother’s side. Nikki put a hand on her shoulder, steering her off the road, and I unbraked the truck to race into the night.