Once Bitten (Alexa O'Brien, Huntress #1)(11)

I raised my head to look at him. My eyes turned wolf in a blink; the deep brown of my irises filled the whites so they were no longer human. He smiled down at me and placed a quick kiss on the tip of my nose.

“Ready?” His low, smooth voice was a whisper. Those intense jade eyes held a teasing glint.

I gave him a playful shove. His closeness was undoing my last bit of resistance. I needed the change, and with the full moon only two days away, I was more than ready to run wild.

In response to his question, I threw my head back and looked into the sky, as if it were a dark velvet veil that hid the secrets of the universe. I held my hands out before me and just let the wolf inside break free.

The sudden blast of supernatural energy that shot through me forced me to my knees. A small cry escaped me. For just a split second, I was flooded with the most horrid pain. It flowed over me as bone and muscle shifted in reformation. In an instant, the pain had become soothing languor. In seconds, I stood in my backyard as a large wolf, with fur the same ash blonde as my hair.

Shaz makes the most beautiful snow-white wolf due to his insanely white-blond hair. He is much larger than I am, with green orbs that stand out in awe-inspiring intensity. He nuzzled me with a wet muzzle before bounding through the open gate.

We raced across the field at top speed. We always tried to beat each other to a particular tree at the far edge of the field. Shaz often took off fast and then burned out, so I planned to take advantage of that at just the right time to propel myself forward and win.

The wind in my fur was a cooling breeze that carried the scents of the forest to my sensitive nose. Blood on the air informed me that a few coyotes had managed to kill a small doe not long ago. The slightest hint of rain still indicated an early morning shower, and I savored the scent.

Just as I’d expected, Shaz began to lose his steady pace and dropped in speed. I took the opportunity to burst ahead of him, and he nipped at my heels. I stood in front of the victory tree with the best mocking, tongue-lolling, goofy grin that any lupine could muster.

When he arrived at the tree too late, his response was to wrestle me to the ground in a series of playful bites and nips. I could hear little critters running through the underbrush to take cover. I broke free of Shaz’s grip and pounced on him to bite the tips of his ears. He feigned surrender and followed up with a nice bite on my flank, one that might actually bruise.

After we’d exhausted ourselves, we rested in the soft grass beneath a large evergreen tree. We easily fell asleep amid the sounds of the early morning birds waking and the last few hoots of an owl as he made his way home for the day. I rested my head on my paws and dozed. Shaz’s head rested on my back, and before long, I heard the soft sound of even breathing.

To be a wolf wasn’t hard. No, the hard part was to go back to being human afterward. In a world of noise, pollution and selfishness, I enjoyed the relief, the escape to something pure, natural and free. More than once, I had entertained the thought of living among nature as a wolf always and saying goodbye to the human world. However, it could never be so simple.

As a creature with a duel nature, to deny one risked the other. Several shifters had chosen one side, human or wolf. Most of them had driven themselves into madness. The balance in-between was often hard to find, but it was always worth it.

I sighed with contentment and allowed all human thought to blow away on the gentle breeze. Human worry had no place here, among the forest and its occupants. I was wolf and comfortably so.

Chapter Four

Friday night was the hottest night at Lucy’s Lounge. I figured I would stop by for a bite to eat before making the short highway trek to Edmonton. The lounge kitchen made a to-die-for sirloin steak.

I touched up my smoky, dark eyeliner in the car. No lipstick, I rarely wore any. Tonight I’d decided to exchange my casual attire for basic black dress pants and a snug, corset-style, black top. My hair flowed long and loose down my back.

I preferred to park near the back of the lot. I didn’t see the point in fighting for the closest space. By parking in the back, I had to walk past the alley that ran behind the building. No sooner had I approached it than I felt that cool, undead presence. Arys was down there.

I debated leaving the brightly lit lot and entering the darkened alley. Two guys whistled at me as they walked to their car, but I paid them little attention. My mind focused only on that cold energy drawing me in. That centuries-old power seemed to beckon to me on the still night air.

I have a natural distrust of alleys. They’re not known for their safety. They are too dark with too many shadows to hide in. Anything, vampire or other, with any kind of psychic ability, can shield its energy. In effect, it can make as if it weren’t even there and leave its victim unaware. What a big bad wolf I was, afraid of the dark. However, Arys was down there, which assured me that nothing else was.

I moved silently forward. I could feel Arys in the blackness. I had gone halfway down when another alley intersected, and the scent of fresh blood pulled me to the left. I wasn’t surprised to find him draped in the shadows with a woman clutched tightly in his grasp.

Even in the dark, I could see the whites of her eyes as she struggled. He held her immobile, and my heart paused when her gaze landed on me. I was still yards away, but she saw me clearly as her vampire-induced disorientation loosened its hold. She gave a strangled cry, and Arys clamped a hand over her mouth. As she whimpered, I stood frozen, unable to come to her aid as she hoped. If anything, my presence only excited the vampire more.