A ding.
It had never before sounded so sweet or meant so much.
I fell within the relative safety of the elevator as the doors finally slid open. Scrambling on the floor in my haste to get away from the shadows that reached for me from within the now dark hall.
The lights in my temporary sanctuary hummed ominously.
“Close,” I hissed it, staring daggers at the elevator doors, and wishing I could get up to push the button that would close them faster, but knowing that something would grab me if I did.
“Close damn you, close.”
The doors began to slide shut, but before I could breathe a sigh of relief one of the shadow people lunged through the opening.
It couldn’t come in very far because the lights were still on, and the darkness behind it began to pull it back. But its claws dug into the floor of the elevator, ripping through the metal as if it were butter. Its mouth opened and that awful emptiness I’d felt before began to suck at me. Pulling me like a vacuum against my will, so that no matter how fast my feet scrambled or how desperately my fingers clutched at the railing inside the cabin, something kept pulling me irrevocably forward. Dragging me inch by inch until that greedy salivating mouth was nearly wrapped around my foot and my mind was blank from the fear of it.
Then a wolf ripped its way from the darkness and threw itself into the elevator beside me. It slid in the small room until it got its bearings. Then it was turning on the shadow creature. Ripping it from the dark and tearing into it with a ferocity that made my insides quake. Darkness flew about the elevator like blood, sliding down the walls and sticking to the wolf’s jaws as it consumed the yowling creature. The sound the shadow made was like dying dreams and grief made eternal. I turned away until it stopped with a final brutal clash of jaws through meat.
The doors dinged shut and for a heartbeat all was silence and the sick stink of human terror.
My terror.
I found myself huddling in a corner, my fists held up defensively. I was shaking so hard I could barely sit still. The wolf snarled at me, an angry, offended sound, before walking in a brief circle, and settling back on its haunches. It took three floors before I was calm enough to notice that something about this wolf was very different from the one I’d seen before.
For one, it was smaller. Don’t get me wrong, it was still a hell of a lot larger than any dog I’d ever seen, but it wasn’t the size of a small pony either. Which was a vast improvement.
Like the other wolf, it was as black as night, but whereas the other animal had been flesh and blood, this one was like the shadow creatures. Soft and smoky around the edges as if it could simply blow away. I was half convinced that if I pressed my hands against its side, where its fur danced along its body like black flames caught in a wind, that there would be nothing solid to stop me from pushing through to the other side.
Its canines were very real however, a fact it proved in the next second when it yawned, as if bored by my perusal. I met the animal’s eyes, and the deepest amber stared back at me. Not yellow, not black, amber.
I’d know those eyes anywhere.
“Gabriel,” I said, voice without inflection even as relief washed through me with all the icy force of a river. My bottom lip began to tremble, my expression crumbled, and to my shame, I started to cry.
He came up to me, and instinctively I wrapped my arms around his neck and buried my face in his ruff. He was warm, solid, and as soft as down. I gave a shuddering sob into that thick coat and the scent of pine, soil, and wood smoke filled my nostrils.
Then the confines of the elevator warmed as he began to shift. The black smoke that made up his body coalescing and gaining color until he knelt there, hard, naked, and steaming against me.
“Shh,” he murmured, strong arms wrapping around my waist and large hands stroking along my spine. I shivered, but this time it wasn’t from fear. Funny how quickly my priorities shifted once a naked man was introduced into the equation and my life was no longer in immediate danger. “It’s all right. Just calm down.”
Sniffling pitifully, I placed my chin on his shoulder and tightened my arms around his neck. Feeling like a nasty old man, I took advantage of my position to glance down the golden toned length of his back to the top of the twin globes of his ass.
Mm. Mm. Good.
Before he could realize I was being a lecher, I pulled out of his embrace and wiped the evidence of tears from my face. I always hated crying. The weakness it represented. None of my foster parents had ever treated me any differently because of my tears and I had gotten out of the habit of shedding them. Especially in front of strangers.
Apparently sensing my sudden unease, Gabriel looked away from me and stood. His averted eyes were all the permission I needed to drink in the sight of him. His skin was golden from hours spent under the sun, and there didn’t seem to be an ounce of fat on him. The muscles in his arms and legs were sharply defined and coated in a light dusting of light blond hair. There were four vertical scars across his right pectoral that were faded white with age.
He had these muscles in his abdomen that drew the eye downward to where his bells and whistle dangled, thick and heavy, from between his legs. Some men, when naked just looked a little…depressing with all of their clothes off. As if they were made vulnerable once you caught sight of the crown jewels. Then there were other men, a blessed few like Gabriel, who seemed stronger. Larger without clothes, as if the weight of cotton and silk had been a cage they were all too happy to step out of.
The sight of him there, the raw, animal possibility of him, made my mouth go dry and I felt lust pool liquid heat between my thighs. I must have made some sound, because he looked down at me. I don’t know what look was on my face, but it seemed to please him to no end. Amber eyes still trained on me, and darkening by the minute, he stretched the kinks out of his arms, and I purred like a kitten at the play of strength beneath skin.
The small space felt too hot, as if there wasn’t enough air in it for the both of us, and I found myself shifting in clothes that suddenly felt too tight. He watched me until something caught his attention beyond the elevator and I dragged myself from the fog of dirty thoughts I’d been trapped in to use my own senses as well. It took me longer to notice, but eventually it came to me.
Like faint music, the howling rose and fell on a cresting wave. Filling the air and making it shiver. We were nearly to the ground floor, and the closer we came, the louder the howling became until it echoed in the limited boundaries of the elevator. I watched him as his head fell back and his eyes closed, body tensing as he absorbed the sound. Drinking it in and letting it ride over his skin until the edges of him began to grow soft and dark around the edges. As if the voices of the other wolves were enough to make leave his human form behind.
I looked at the panel above the doors in slowly rising panic.
The seventh floor. Six more and those doors would open again, and once again I’d be face to face with God knows what.
“It’s all right,” he said again. I looked back at him and realized that my breathing had grown heavy. “The specters are gone,” he soothed.
“How do you know?”
His chin lifted to indicate the howling beyond. “They told me.” He smiled. “Singing of their victory.”
I sighed, relief making me slump against the wall at my back.
“Go team,” I said weakly, and he chuckled. But just as quickly as it had started, his amusement abruptly died. His eyes widened and he glared down at me as if finally realizing something awful.
“You’re human,” he told me. Like it was some big surprise.
I nodded. “Sure am. And you’re a werewolf.”
He lifted his shoulder in a half shrug, “Eh. I guess you could call it that.”
“Wait-What?”
“The pack can’t control themselves very well on full moon nights. Especially around humans,” he said musingly.
For a moment I was still caught on the idea of him not techn
ically being a werewolf, but then what he said finally sunk in.
“What are you saying?” My voice sounded breathless. No wonder. As soon as I thought I’d crawled out of the frying pan, he threw me into the fire.
“I’m saying that they’re going to try and rip you apart.”
That was around the time I started hyperventilating.
“Calm down,” he laughed, reaching down to grab me by the shirt collar and pulling me to my feet. “I’ll fix it.” Shoving me against the wall, he stepped into me and lowered his head, voice rumbling like thunder. “Make it all better.” Nose brushing against my neck, he breathed me in. The same way he’d done all those weeks ago after getting me out of jail.
Then his mouth was on me, teeth nipping at my bottom lip and his hands fisting in my hair as he jerked my head back. His knee slid between my legs, pressing upwards until I could feel the heat of him pressing hot and firm through my jeans. His erection pressed against my other thigh and my lips parted on a moan at the feel of him.
Then his tongue was there, stroking, thrusting, forcing me to participate in a dance that left me reeling. His hands traveled down, nails running lightly over my throat and along my breasts, my nipples hardening beneath my shirt. I shifted against him, restless and desperate and those hands became claws. Not beastly claws, but man claws that ripped at my clothes, pulled me apart, and left my skin shaking and bare beneath the air.
Gabriel pulled away from my mouth, only to sink his teeth into my neck. I cried out and my vision went dark, the walls of my sex pulsing, throbbing. All I felt were hunger and need, and I desperately clutched my fingers into his hair and held him close. His mouth a hot, wet cave against my skin, teeth sending pulsing shots of pleasure through my body until the strength in my legs gave out and all I could do was sob.
Then that sound again.
Intrusive this time.
A cheery little ding, and then the doors were opening.
I looked over Gabriel’s shoulders into a sea of darkness. Trapped within that darkness like hundreds of stars, were glowing yellow eyes. The pack sat in the rafters, on desks and tables, crouched in the railings of the floor above, and watched from every corner of the huge lobby.
It was a sea of fur, black, brown gray, white; they filled every inch of the room. Some were still human true, still dressed in their tactical gear and brandishing their guns as if they were claws and teeth, but the rest had long since given in to the beast inside of them. As soon as they saw us, the howling ceased. Then the grumbling started, angry little yips and barks that made the hair on my arms stand on end.
Gabriel wrapped his hand around the back of my neck and his voice was a warning growl against the shell of my ear.
“Keep your head down, and don’t. Make. A. Sound.”
It was almost too much: the change from panic to lust, to fear all over again. It took me a shaking moment to get my legs working again, and I had to swallow several times before I nodded in agreement. I wanted to fix my clothes, cover myself where Gabriel had pulled my clothes away, but he didn’t give me a chance. I let him lead the way from the elevator. When it looked as if I would hesitate, his hand tightened almost painfully on the back of my neck and he jerked me forward to stand beside him.
Once clear of the elevator we stood there, silent before the pack as their rage continued to crest around us. They crowded closer and closer, snarling and snapping their jaws as if desperate to take a chunk out of the human in their midst. But despite their frenzy, as soon as Gabriel began to move past them they parted like Moses with the Red Sea. From the corner of my eye, I saw the large beasts look between Gabriel and I, cringing away when they made eye contact with the man at my side only to raise their hackles as soon as they turned their attention to me.
Numb, I did my best to keep up with him, too frightened to move any faster and unable to lag behind. The wolves came at me, sniffing and snapping at my ankles and fingers when they thought Gabriel wasn’t looking. But no matter how close they came, they never made contact. In fact, as soon as most of them were within sniffing distance they shook their heads in confusion and shied away.
I heard multiple noses working, getting a whiff of me and drawing my scent and Gabriel’s in deep. They were so worked up that I’d expected them to rip me away from Gabriel at any moment. But whether it was his hand on my neck, or the scent of him on my body, they made no move to take their aggression to the next stage.
We were halfway across the room, halfway to the front door and freedom, when all of that changed.
I’d done a pretty good job of avoiding eye contact with the animals around me, but then I felt something cold and wet brush against my upper arm. I turned my head with a start, and standing beside me, nose on my arm and eyes on my face, was one of the wolves. I’m sure he was only curious about me, but as soon as my eyes met his some sort of hunting instinct must have been set off, because in the next instant his jaws were snapping around my arm, teeth sinking deep and skin tearing while I screamed and struggled in his grip.
The heat of Gabriel’s hand disappeared from the back of my neck and then he was there, his fingers dipping between the animal’s jaws and prying them apart until I could pull my arm loose. Only he didn’t stop pulling once I was free. Cold rage suffused his features, sending the amber to swell and drown out the white of his eyes. He paled, and his lips drew back from lengthening teeth, canines snapping as the muscles in his arms and shoulders worked. He ripped the bottom half of the wolf’s jaw apart and threw the bloody part into the inner depths of the room, grinning madly when the part of the pack it had landed amongst fell upon it with hungry yips.
The wolf he’d mangled collapsed at his feet, paws clawing the air as its pain filled cries joined the cacophony. My arm had grown numb, and I reached over with my still working hand to touch the wound with gentle fingers. I stared down at the blood that coated my hand and felt the world shift ominously beneath my feet. I wanted to pass out, I probably needed to pass out, but I had something else to worry about now. The wolves surrounding me caught the scent of my blood and it seemed to overpower whatever protection Gabriel’s lingering odor had leant me.
Their heads lowered as one, their eyes grew heated and hungry, and their ears went flat. They stalked me, more and more of them separating me from Gabriel. My mind went blank, and I clutched my bleeding arm against my abdomen as if I could protect myself from the bloodthirsty mass. My eyes practically flew from one wolf to the other, and I found myself turning, turning, turning, trying to keep them all in sight as they surrounded me and failing miserably.
I looked over at Gabriel, and he must have seen what I was about to do written all over my face, because the last of the animal bled away and concern filled his eyes.
“Don’t—”
But it was too late; I turned on my heel and ran.
They practically tripped over themselves coming after me. The entire room moved like one giant beast, a beast with a single goal and purpose in mind. I never would have made it to the front door if Gabriel hadn’t done something. I probably wouldn’t have cleared three feet, but he made a sound. Part human, part animal, a growling roar that stopped every wolf in the room in its tracks, claws scrambling uselessly on the hardwood as they fought for traction.
I’d almost made it to the door when one of the men in the room brought me down. I struggled, feet scrambling and fingers clawing at the face above me until I drew blood and he jerked from me with a hiss of pain. His fingers tangled in the necklace around my neck, and I sobbed, half convinced I was well and truly caught. Then the chain snapped, necklace coming away in the man’s fist and I was away. Getting to my feet and running.
I ran, and ran, and ran, and when I finally burst through the doors of Lumière Corporation the lonely rise of Gabriel Evans’s howl was the only sound to accompany my mad flight into the night.
“I live for the hunt. Fear makes the meat taste sweet.”
—Juliet Baker
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