Chapter Ten
He caught the faint scent just as the Gia opened the bedroom door. Heard the lightest creak of the floor, and claws immediately burst from Oliver’s fingertips.
Someone is here. Someone who had been able to break the locks and sneak inside because Oliver had been so focused on making love to Gia. Gia had been all that he could see, smell, taste, touch…Oliver had let down his guard, and the bastard had gotten killing close.
Killing.
Oliver didn’t waste time on a roar of warning. He saw the man before the tree turn, and Oliver knew he would pull up a gun. Oliver just grabbed for Gia. He lifted her up, and he tossed her toward the couch. She landed safely on the cushions.
The gun blasted. The bullet slammed into his chest.
“Oliver!” Gia screamed.
But he wasn’t slowing down. The bullet wasn’t stopping him.
It hadn’t hit his heart. Had instead just torn through muscle and bone and blasted out his back.
A human would have been on the floor. Good thing I’m not human.
Oliver jumped forward and ignored the strange burn that he felt in the wake of that bullet, as if his very insides had been singed.
He grabbed the gun and ripped it from the bastard’s hand. He threw it against the wall.
Then his hand curled around the SOB’s throat. “I am going to tear you apart,” he promised.
Darren Emmanuel—Oliver recognized him from freaking billboard pics and too many television ads—smiled at him. “Not if I rip you open first.”
Something sank into Oliver’s chest. He glanced down, thinking it was a knife, thinking the guy must’ve had a backup weapon on him, but, no, that wasn’t a knife…
Darren had shoved his claws into Oliver’s chest.
“Don’t recognize me, do you?” Darren rasped. “But then again, the first time we met, I looked quite different.” He yanked his claws out. Blood dripped from their razor-sharp edges as he swiped toward Oliver’s neck. “I got you around here that night—”
Oliver caught the bastard’s wrist before those claws could slice his neck. “Because of that attack, I got my own claws.”
Darren’s eyes widened. “What? No, that’s not possible—”
Oliver drove his left hand—with his razor-sharp claws—straight into Darren’s stomach. He sliced deep and hard. “Don’t you know? Anything is possible.”
Darren howled in pain and slammed his head toward Oliver. Oliver let him go and backed up a quick step. Oliver rubbed his palm over the bullet wound on his chest. Burned like a frigging bitch. Smoke was even rising from his skin. What was up with that?
And that was when he realized… “Silver?” He did not remember silver bullets being in the glimpse that he’d been given. A head’s up on that would have been appreciated, Cael. “You’re fucking packing silver when you’re a werewolf? What kind of dumbass does that?”
Darren’s breath panted out. “The kind who knows that sometimes, the best way to strike at an enemy is with a bullet and not with claws. You have to be ready for anything. I always am. I know how to disguise my scent. How to not make a sound when I approach my prey. I am the fucking apex predator.”
So that explained more about why Oliver hadn’t heard or scented the guy sooner.
It hadn’t just been because the awesome sex had distracted him so much.
Good to know. But as far as the apex predator BS…
“You weren’t ready for me.” He didn’t look toward Gia.
She was safe. She’d stay that way. Deliberately, he put his body between her and Darren.
“Not tonight, and not the first night we met. Didn’t expect me to be carrying silver that night, did you?
But the knife was an old gift from my grandfather.
Never left home without it.” Now he realized that silver had saved his ass.
“Took that knife from you.” Darren smiled at him and flashed teeth that were lengthening and sharpening. “Just like I’ll take Gia.”
“Not happening. You won’t touch Gia.”
“Gia is mine! I knew it from the first moment. She’s always been meant to be mine.”
“About that…” Gia coughed. “I’m not. I’m not your anything and never will be.”
“You’re my mate!” Darren thundered.
“Thanks, but no thanks,” she returned quite clearly. “Actually, I rescind the thanks. How about just fuck off?”
Darren’s face mottled with fury. His bones were snapping.
“She’s not your mate,” Oliver told him flatly. “A werewolf can’t hurt his true mate. You do nothing but hurt her.”
“Like you’re any better?” Spittle flew from Darren’s mouth. “Some wannabe wolf. Bet you have no power. Bet the beast controls you. Bet you rip apart every human you see.”
He’d feared that. It hadn’t happened. Wouldn’t, not ever. “No, I just rip apart asshole werewolves who think they can terrorize the woman I love.”
“You don’t love her!” Darren slammed down on all fours.
When Darren shifted, Oliver knew he would have to do the same.
He wouldn’t stand a chance against the other werewolf in human form.
“You don’t know me.” He called up his wolf.
Felt it surge inside of him. Fur rippled across his skin.
His bones popped and broke, and Oliver hit the floor.
But first… “Gia, go!” She should get out of there.
When the wolves battled, he didn’t want to risk any harm coming to her.
“No, I think I’ll stay put.” Her voice was steady. Strong.
His head swung toward her. He saw that she gripped the gun in her hand.
“Loaded with silver? That’s what I got from that earlier bit of chit-chat?
” Gia nodded. “Excellent. Stop the shift, Darren. Stop it right now. You’re going to confess to everything.
I’m going to have the cops lock you away in a cell, and you won’t be able to change into a wolf again and you won’t be—”
“Gia!” Oliver’s roar to her was more beast than anything else.
It was all he could manage. Because caught half-shift, he saw that Darren was lunging for her.
Darren was half-man, half-beast, all fury.
All of his rage was centered on Gia. Darren shoved down with his legs and hurtled into the air.
The jump would take him over Oliver and straight to Gia.
Hell, no. Oliver leapt up, too, and his claws shoved into Darren even as he heard the gun discharge.
There was a terrible scream. Blood—so much blood.
Darren fell. His body crashed onto the floor. Oliver stood over him, body heaving, and watched as Darren’s half-shifted form slowly changed back into that of a man.
“He’s not going to attack again.” Gia’s low voice.
No, he wasn’t. Darren’s heart wasn’t beating. Because my claws stopped it.
Oliver’s body began to ease back into fully human form.
In the distance, he could hear a siren. Gia’s neighbors had probably called the cops when they heard the first gunshot blast.
“Did I kill him?” she asked.
The bullet had hit barely a breath before Oliver’s claws had cut into Darren’s heart.
Oliver caught her hand. He had blood on his fingers. But not her blood. Not this time. “I did it. When the cops ask, I did it all. He broke into your apartment. He tried to kill you. I stopped him.”
But she shook her head. “You’re not lying for me.”
“Gia…” They’d been over this. He would do anything for—
“We tell them the truth.”
“The truth is that he was a freaking werewolf and so am I.”
“Maybe not that truth,” she allowed. She bent and put her fingers to Darren’s throat. “Just making sure.”
There was no need for that. Oliver already was sure.
“He broke in. We had to defend ourselves,” Gia said as she stared at Darren’s body. “We’ll tell the cops as much of the truth as we can.”
As much as they could, without getting tossed into a padded cell. They won’t believe Darren was a werewolf. And if I show them what I am, I’ll get locked away while the world freaks out.
The cops were going to ask questions about the guy’s wounds. Not like those wounds were gonna match up with any knife. Dammit, this night was gonna be tough. Before it was over, Oliver might very well be in a cage.
He wrapped his fingers around her shoulders. Pulled her close. “All that matters is that you’re okay.”
He heard the rush of footsteps in the hall. The cops were definitely there. Oliver inhaled deeply, then slowly walked for the door. Gia was at his side.
He opened the door. Saw two cops waiting. They really had made some pretty fast time. He wondered which neighbor had called for them—
“Cael said you’d need some backup tonight,” the cop on the right said. “Alpha, what can we do?”
Alpha? Wait, what?
“I’m Officer Bridgette Black, and this is my partner, Evan Gerard. We’re here to help.”
“Heard there’s a rogue wolf in there,” Evan said as his nostrils flared. “We don’t take kindly to predatory werewolves in Mistletoe Falls.” He flashed a little fang.
Oliver rocked back on his heels. They are both werewolves. “He’s dead. He broke in, and he was attacking Gia.” The truth. She’d wanted him to tell it. He was. “He lunged at her, and she fired a gun. His gun. He brought it here so he could kill her with it.”
The cop who’d flashed fang shot her a sympathetic look. “Sorry, ma’am. We’re not all monsters.”
No, they weren’t.
“She fired at him, and I slashed up at him with my claws. I aimed for his heart.” Simple.
Brutal. “He was dead before he hit the floor.” With each word Oliver spoke, a weight seemed to lift from him.
“He’s got claw marks on him. Not like those will match up with a normal weapon when an ME examines him. ”
“Don’t worry about that,” Bridgette assured him. “Our ME knows the score.” She assessed him. “Those wounds of yours healing okay?”
He barely felt them. “I’m fine.”
“He’s not fine,” Gia announced. “He needs a doctor.”
“My wounds heal on their own, baby,” he told her quietly. “They’ll be totally gone in about five minutes.” If he’d shifted fully, they would have already been mended. The claw marks on Darren hadn’t healed because he’d died before they could. They’d remained on him in death.
Gia frowned up at him. The little furrow appeared between her brows. God, I missed that furrow.
Gia looked back at the cops. “What exactly does it mean to say that he’s alpha?”
“Well…” Bridgette put her hand on her holster. “He’ll probably be elected mayor in the next election.”
Oliver’s temples began to pound.
“The alpha is the strongest wolf in the area. No one can take him down. No one can break him.” Bridgette cleared her throat. “But if you two don’t mind, we really need to secure this scene.”
Oh. Right. They backed up so the cops could come inside.
“I don’t think they’re going to be hauling either one of us to jail,” Gia whispered.
He knew the cops probably heard her. “No.”
“You really going to be mayor?” Gia wanted to know.
He had no freaking clue. That didn’t matter, though. She mattered. His hands swept over her as he searched for any wounds. There were none. This time, she hadn’t been the one to bleed out and die.
Darren had died. He wouldn’t be hurting her ever again.