Chapter 2 #2
The big one moved faster than should have been possible. One second he was ten feet away; the next, his hand was wrapped around my wrist.
His grip was crushing. I cried out, the phone clattering to the pavement.
"Don't," he hissed, leaning down. His breath smelled rank—like old meat. His eyes...
I stared into his eyes. They were shifting. The pupils were warping, elongating into vertical slits.
"What are you?" I whispered, terror freezing the blood in my veins.
"We're the new management," he growled. He raised a hand, his fingernails looking thick, almost like claws. He reached for my face.
I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for the pain. This is it. I’m going to die in the snow, and my dad is going to be so disappointed that I ruined his reputation by getting murdered.
Then, the world exploded.
There was a sound—a roar that didn't belong to a human throat. It was a sound from the Pleistocene, a sound that vibrated in the marrow of my bones.
A dark blur tore past me. The air pressure dropped so suddenly my ears popped.
The man holding me was ripped away. Literally ripped. He went flying backward as if he’d been hit by a freight train. He slammed into the trunk of a pine tree with a sickening thud and slumped to the ground, groaning.
I opened my eyes.
Standing between me and the two men was a monster.
He was wearing a black hoodie, the hood down, revealing wild, dark hair. His back was to me, but I knew those shoulders. I knew that width.
Jack.
He was vibrating. A low, continuous growl was emanating from his chest, a sound so deep I felt it in the soles of my feet. He didn't look human. His posture was hunched, predatory, his hands curled into claws at his sides.
The wiry man—the one still standing—looked terrified. He backed up, hands raised. "Sterling. We were just... sending a message."
"Message received," Jack snarled. His voice was unrecognizable. It was gravel and death. "Now take a message back to Rurik."
Jack moved.
I couldn't track it. It was a blur of violence. He closed the distance in a blink, grabbing the wiry man by the throat and lifting him off the ground with one hand. He slammed him into the pavement, not enough to kill, but enough to break things.
"Tell him," Jack roared, leaning over the gasping man, "that if he sends another stray onto my territory, I will mail him the pieces in a box. And if any of you—any of you—come near her again..."
Jack didn't finish the sentence. He just let out a roar that shook the snow from the trees.
The wiry man scrambled backward, crab-walking on the ice, dragging his groaning friend up by the collar. They didn't look back. They ran into the dark woods like the devil himself was snapping at their heels.
Silence slammed back down on the quad.
I stood pressed against the statue, my chest heaving, my heart rate somewhere in the triple digits. I was shaking so hard my teeth chattered.
Jack stood there for a long moment, staring into the woods where they had vanished. His breathing was ragged, harsh.
Slowly, terrifyingly, he turned around.
I stopped breathing.
His face was a mask of fury. His eyes were glowing—bright, molten gold, illuminating the darkness under his brow. His canines... were they longer? They looked longer. Sharp enough to puncture skin.
He looked at me, and for a second, I thought he was going to attack me too. The hunger in his expression was naked, raw. He looked at me like I was the only water in a desert.
"J-Jack?" I whispered.
He flinched at his name. He closed his eyes tight, shaking his head as if trying to clear water from his ears. He took a deep, shuddering breath, his hands flexing at his sides.
When he opened his eyes again, the glow had faded to a muddy, agitated brown. But the intensity remained.
He marched toward me.
I should have run. My brain screamed at me to run. But my legs were lead.
He stopped inches from me. He was radiating heat—a furnace in the winter night. He smelled of cedarwood, that ozone scent of storm, and something darker. Musk.
He reached out. I flinched.
He paused, his hand hovering near my face. He looked at my flinch with a flash of pain, then hardened his expression. He reached down and gently, surprisingly gently, brushed a snowflake from my cheek.
"Did they touch you?" he demanded. His voice was rough, barely controlled.
"My wrist," I managed to squeak out. "He grabbed my wrist."
Jack’s gaze dropped to my hand. He gently took my wrist in his massive palm, lifting it to the light. There were already bruises forming—finger marks.
A growl rumbled in his chest, vibrating up his arm and into my skin. He lifted my wrist to his face.
I gasped.
He didn't kiss it. He inhaled it. He pressed his nose against the sensitive skin of my inner wrist, taking a deep, ragged breath.
"You smell like fear," he muttered against my skin. "And vanilla. It’s driving me insane."
"Jack, what is going on?" I asked, my voice trembling. "Who were those men? Why are your eyes... why were they..."
He dropped my wrist and stepped back, putting distance between us as if he couldn't trust himself.
"They were a threat," he said curtly. "A threat I failed to stop before it got this close."
He looked around the dark quad, scanning the perimeter with paranoid intensity. "It’s not safe here. The dorms aren't safe. Rurik knows where you live now."
"Who is Rurik?"
"Doesn't matter," Jack snapped. He looked at me, his jaw set in a line of grim determination. "You’re not going back to your room."
"Excuse me?" I bristled, trying to find a shred of my dignity. "I am going to my room. I’m going to call my father, and—"
"Your father can't stop them," Jack cut me off. "A locked door can't stop them. Campus security is a joke."
"Then where am I supposed to go?"
Jack stepped closer again, looming over me. He sucked all the oxygen out of the air.
"You’re coming with me," he said. It wasn't an offer. It was an order.
"I am not going anywhere with you," I said, though my protest lacked conviction. "I don't even know you."
He laughed, a dark, humorless sound. "You have no idea, Mouse. But you’re about to learn."
He reached down and grabbed my bag from the snow, slinging it over his shoulder as if it weighed nothing. Then he grabbed my hand—his grip firm, possessive, hot enough to burn through my glove.
"My truck is this way," he said, pulling me toward the parking lot.
"Jack, stop!" I dug my heels in. "You can't just kidnap me!"
He stopped and turned, his face inches from mine. The gold was bleeding back into his irises. The intensity of his gaze pinned me in place.
"I’m not kidnapping you, Eloise," he growled low. "I’m guarding you. Because if I leave you here alone, I will have to hunt down every single thing that comes near you and tear it apart. And I really don't want to clean blood off my jersey tonight."
He leaned in, his lips brushing my ear.
"Now be a good girl and get in the truck."
The praise—good girl—hit me in the chest like a physical blow. It bypassed my brain and went straight to some dormant, traitorous part of my nervous system that went liquid at the sound of his command.
My resistance crumbled. Not because I was scared of him. But because, for the first time in my life, standing in the shadow of this terrifying, beautiful monster, I didn't feel like I had to be strong.
I let him lead me to the black pickup truck idling at the curb. I let him open the door.
And as I climbed inside, smelling the leather and the cedarwood scent that saturated the cab, I realized Cami was right.
I had made a mistake.
I had just gotten into the car with the wolf. And I wasn't sure I ever wanted to get out.