The Better to Bite (Howl #1)(23)

I blinked. But then other people were talking.

“Wolves…”

“Man, you think it’s true?”

“What about the story, did you—”

The voices around me droned on and on.

Rafe pulled back, and his eyes were flat and hard. He didn’t speak again. Not until the scream of sirens filled the night. He pulled me up, kept a good hold on my hand, and led me to the open door.

“You never said…” His voice was pitched low, “how you got us to Brent’s house.”

My dad jumped from his car and ran toward me. “Anna!”

I pulled away from Rafe and rushed to my dad. Only when his arms closed around me—only then—did I finally feel safe.

An ambulance roared onto the scene. The attendants loaded Brent up, and my dad forced me to get inside the vehicle, too. I tried to tell him that I was fine, but he gave me the look.

“You’re gettin’ checked out, baby.” I could hear the worry in his voice. “Then you’re telling me what the hell happened out here tonight.”

I found myself in the back of the ambulance. I looked up, and Rafe had two deputies standing on either side of him.

I hadn’t told Rafe about my difference. I’d run to escape him and that truth. He’d ask again, I knew it. But he also hadn’t told me just how he’d wound up in those woods.

I shivered as the ambulance doors slammed shut.





Chapter Six


The nightmare came to me again. I was in the woods, running. Brent’s truck lay crumpled behind me, and the growls and snarls of wolves were around me.

Wolves. Not just one. Two this time. They came from the darkness, and their glowing yellow eyes locked right on me. The first wolf leapt at me with its bloody fangs bared.

I didn’t have my mace, and the wolf’s teeth sank into my arm, tearing and ripping into the flesh. The white-hot pain cut through me as blood poured from the wounds. The teeth tore— My eyes flew open, and I jerked my arms free of the tangling cover. My hand swiped out and hit the lamp on the nightstand.

I stared down at my arm, expecting to see torn flesh. But, no, I was fine.

Everything was—

A light tap sounded at my window. I shook my head. Maybe I was still asleep.

But the tap came again.

I yanked open my nightstand, and my fingers wrapped around my trusty mace.

Second floor. Second floor.

It was probably just a branch scratching against the window. There was an old oak tree pretty close to the house on this side. I didn’t want to call my dad in the room for a loose branch. I could so handle this.

A few nightmares weren’t going to turn me into a total coward.

A few more wolf attacks—maybe.

As I crept toward the window, I kept my fingers wrapped around the mace. I peered through the blinds and gasped when I saw a pair of eyes staring back at me.

Rafe’s eyes.

I shoved away the blinds and yanked up the window. “How are you—”

He’d climbed up the oak tree beside the house. Its top branches nearly reached my window. Rafe was still standing on those branches as he leaned toward me.

“Lower your voice,” he told me even as he raised a brow. “Or the sheriff will come in here and haul my butt to jail.”

Probably. Definitely. “What are doing here?”

“I needed to see you.” He wore dark clothes and seemed to blend in with the night around him.

I realized that I was wearing old jogging shorts and a faded concert t-shirt. Whatever. I hadn’t been dressing to impress at—crap, was it really 4 a.m.? Cause that was what the glowing clock on the wall said the time was.

“Let me come in,” he said, his voice whisper soft.

I shook my head and put the mace down on my dresser. Then I crossed my arms over my chest and met his gaze with a shake of my head. “Not happening.”

His hands curled around the windowsill. “We need to talk.”

“Then come see me in the morning, like a normal person.” I started to close the window on his hand.

He caught my fingers, stopping me “Are you okay?”

“Y-yes. Just a bump on the head and some scrapes.” Apparently, I was a bleeder. The doctors had patched me up pretty fast. “Nothing that won’t mend.” I felt like I’d gotten beat up or run over by a bus…or, um, a truck.

I took a breath and caught his scent. It was a crisp scent, masculine. “Aren’t you going to ask about Brent?” As far as I knew, Brent was still in the hospital. I’d tried to see him—no dice. The doctors had barred my way.

“No.” Flat.

I frowned at him.

“Brent will be fine.” He seemed absolutely certain of that. Strange, but that certainty made me feel better. Then his gaze raked me and he asked, “Did you get bitten?”

“By the wolf?” The wolf he hadn’t wanted me to talk about. Why not?

“Yeah, by the damn wolf.”

So he admitted the wolf had been there. Progress. “No, I didn’t.” What was up with his obsession with me and bites?

I thought his shoulders seemed to relax.

“What is going on in this town?” I demanded. “This isn’t normal, you know that. I mean, yeah, I’m from the city, but even I know wolves aren’t supposed to charge at trucks.” Everyone knew that. “We’ve got hikers missing, bodies turning up—and a wolf who likes to attack too often.” A two-year old could connect those dots.