TALL AND FULL of muscles, he was a white guy with a dark crew cut, square jaw, and a wry smile. His T-shirt was tight, his jeans faded. Bully. Enforcer.
We stopped, squaring ourselves before him. Somehow we managed to stay calm. Tilting my head as if curious, I regarded the stranger. Ben smirked as if bored. We were posturing, showing dominance—but we couldn’t hide our emotions. He would hear our heart rates speeding up, smell the sweat of tension breaking out. See our shoulders tightening, stiff as hackles. But we stood our ground. Running would only encourage him. Ben held the gun at his side, finger on the trigger.
“Is there a problem?” I said.
Ben glanced over his shoulder—the other two werewolves were crossing the street, moving in behind us.
“I have a message from Roman,” the guy said.
When Ben started to raise the gun, I touched his arm, forestalling him. “What message?”
The guy bared his teeth and sprang, hands outstretched, fingers clenched like claws. I ruined Ben’s first shot with my arm in the way, and the second missed because the guy was fast and already on top of us, knocking the weapon out of Ben’s hand. I went sideways, dodging—Ben dived in the opposite direction as the two others grabbed at him. I couldn’t see where the gun had gone.
The big guy snagged me as I swerved, taking hold of my arm, swinging me around the corner and into the side street he’d come out of. I slammed into the wall, banging my head and seeing stars. Falling, I dropped into a crouch and growled, glaring up at my attacker.
Ben tackled him.
Caught off guard, the big guy fell, and the two rolled onto the pavement. The other two jumped on top of him. Letting out a guttural shout, I lunged into the fray, slashing with inadequate fingernails instead of claws. My only thought: to get them away from Ben, to drive them off. Taking hold of a handful of hair, I yanked back—the first henchman’s face came up, his teeth bared to show the start of fangs, which snapped at me, millimeters from my arm. I let him go and raked claws across his cheek. The second henchman kicked me, and I fell against the wall again.
We all looked human, but we fought like wolves, with lupine strength and speed. Instead of throwing punches, we slashed, snapped, wrestled. Instead of grunting and shouting, we growled and snarled. I could feel Ben’s anger lashing out at them; my own rage narrowed my vision to the three enemy wolves and my need to rip into them.
Ben managed to wrestle out from under the pile of bodies. Lips drawn back to show teeth, face contorted in fury, he grabbed the head of the one who had his hands on me and wrenched. With a yelp, the guy fell over, scrambling to regain his balance.
A shadow and the scent of a newcomer—human—appeared at the end of the street. The intrusion was shocking to all of us; we broke apart, separating into our packs. Ben and I stood shoulder to shoulder, facing the three men fanned out before us.
The figure at the end of the street was Cormac. The smell of him boosted me, giving me the confidence to turn on our attackers.
“Message from Roman, huh?” I shouted at them. “Screw that!”
They were wary of Cormac, glancing at him when they weren’t staring at me. Backing away from us both, they finally broke and ran around the next corner.
I would have chased them, but Ben fell to his knees, groaning. He smelled of blood, seeping out of cuts across his face and the chest of his torn shirt. And he smelled of fur. Agitated, he struggled out of his blazer—also torn—and yanked at the strap of the gun holster, trying to pull it off. His hands showed wolf’s claws, and tawny fur brushed his arms.
Cormac did chase them, to the corner at the next block, but he stopped and looked back when Ben fell.
“Ben, no,” I said, crouching before him and clutching his arms. His muscles were taut, bracing against the need to shape-shift.
He clamped shut his eyes, grit his teeth, and doubled over, hugging himself, as if he could hold it inside. Trying to hold the wolf in when the Change was so far along hurt—so much easier to let it go. We were in the middle of San Francisco—he had no place to run. We weren’t safe. I folded myself over him, holding him as much as I could, helping him. Resting my face on his shoulder, I murmured at him, letting my breath caress him so he could smell me trying to give comfort, to anchor him.
“Keep it together,” I said. “Hold it in, please Ben, hold tight.”
His body trembled. I couldn’t tell if he was shaking from shock, or if that was his wolf breaking free of his human skin. I thought he was going to burst. His breaths came in rapid, heavy gasps.
Cormac approached.
“No!” I shouted at him. “Stay back!” I might have snarled, baring my teeth at him, threatening.
Ben threw his head back and screamed. I held tight, my arms wrapped around his body; no matter what happened I’d keep holding. He clung back, and the scream faded to a moan.
“Please stay with me,” I breathed against his ear.
We stayed like that for such a long time. My legs cramped, the pavement bruised my knees, but I didn’t dare move in case it pushed him over the edge. I had to wait, hoping he trusted me, felt safe with me, and pulled himself home.
Then, Ben’s hands closed over my arms. And they were hands, with human fingers and no claws. His breathing slowed. Inch by inch, muscles released, softening. He leaned against me instead of holding himself rigid.
Kneeling in front of him, I put my hands against his cheeks. He was chilled and sweaty. I tried to press warmth into him, to make his face relax along with the rest of him. Sweat soaked his hair.
“Look at me,” I whispered. He showed me hazel eyes, catching what little light still reached us to glow gold. Exhaustion, sadness pulled at his features. “Shh, you’re fine, you came back to me. It’s okay.” I kept murmuring until he could do more than stare at me.
He collapsed into my arms. “Kitty,” he moaned, his arms squeezed tight around me, hands clenched against me. I hugged back, my eyes stinging with tears. This had been so close, but we were both human now, solid and human, body against body.
“It’s okay,” I said, my face against his neck, skin to skin. I licked his chin, a wolfish gesture. He tipped his head to catch my lips with his and we kissed, needy and relieved.
Maybe he believed me, maybe he was all right. But he didn’t let go.
I glanced up; Cormac waited patiently at the end of the alley, keeping his distance. That prompted Ben to turn, to follow my gaze. He quickly looked away again, leaning his head against my shoulder.
“How is he?” Cormac called.
“How are you?” I whispered to Ben. He shook his head, but heaved a sigh, and the last of the rage and terror left him. When he pulled away from me, I felt cold.
He met my gaze. “That was too close.” His voice scratched, rough from growling.
“Yeah,” I said, rubbing my arms, returning to warmth.
“They wanted to hurt you.”
“They didn’t. I’m fine.” He rubbed a spot on my jaw, and the skin stung. A scratch or cut. So they’d gotten me. “I’m sorry—I should have let you shoot him.”
He shook his head. “He was faster than me—they all were. I’d have missed.”
“Let’s get out of here,” I said, pushing to my feet, holding my hand to him. We helped each other up.
We faced Cormac, who just stared. I couldn’t guess what he thought of this.
“I had you in sight,” the hunter said, breaking the silence. “Spotted them just as they moved on you.”
“You weren’t planning on trying to stop them, were you?” I said. Cormac used to hunt rogue werewolves. He had a whole arsenal of weapons and silver bullets, but since serving a prison term for a manslaughter conviction, the guns were off limits. Him getting into a hand-to-hand fight with a werewolf was unthinkable.
“I think I may have distracted them. Scared them off. Ben—you okay?”
Ben looked away.
Any chance we’d had to follow our attackers was gone. Maybe we could track their scent, but it would be easy to disappear in the city. Staying with Ben was my priority. I wrapped my arm around his, keeping him close.
“Did you get a look at them?” I asked Cormac.
“They had a van waiting,” Cormac said. “I got the plate, but I don’t know how much good it’ll do us. They looked like professional heavies to me.”
I shook my head. “Well, we got what we wanted and flushed them out.”
Cormac asked, “Do you think they were trying to kill you or just hurt you badly?”
“There are easier ways to kill a couple of werewolves.” My breathing had steadied, but my senses were still on trip wires. I took a moment to look myself over, and Ben. We were scratched and bruised, clothing torn, blood flecking our arms and faces. Our skin had gravel embedded in it from where we scraped along the pavement. We needed to wash up. We needed to get out of town—and maybe that was the point. Send a message, scare us off. “Let’s find someplace to sit down,” I said.
Ben retrieved his gun, which was lying hidden in the gutter, and we moved out.
We were in no shape for the nice sit-down seafood dinner I’d envisioned for us. My shirt would clean up with a little scrubbing in a restroom sink, but Ben’s jacket and shirt were ruined, torn and streaked with blood. We didn’t look anything like yuppie tourists now.
While we waited, Cormac ducked into a souvenir shop to find a cheap replacement. He returned with a black shirt with words in a white typewriter font printed on it: I ESCAPED ALCATRAZ.
“I suppose you think this is funny?” Ben said.
“I could have got the one with the big heart on it,” he replied.
“As in, ‘I left my heart in San Francisco’?” I asked.
“It was pink,” Cormac said.
Shaking his head, Ben tore off what was left of his old shirt and slipped on the new one. It looked obnoxious on him. I kind of liked it. He tucked the gun into his waistband, under the shirt, and left the holster in the car.
Back at the waterfront, we picked up clam chowder, sourdough, and sodas to go and ate them at a shabby bench off the sidewalk. Restless, wary, we kept looking over our shoulders. None of us were very hungry and ended up picking at our food, but Ben and I drained the sodas and went back for more. The fight had sucked us dry.
Cormac kept glancing at us, surreptitiously studying us. Making sure we really were calm and collected.
Ben stared at his uneaten food and smiled wryly. “I guess you’re used to shooting werewolves like me who can’t keep it together.”
“I’m not going to shoot you, Ben,” Cormac said, sounding tired.
“You kept it together.” I brushed my leg against his, hoping to transmit calm and reassurance. In turn, he shifted his leg to rest a little more firmly against mine. He’d be okay. “Now, what are we going to do about those freaks? Wait until they hit again or go after them?”
“They won’t hit again, not like that,” Cormac said. “Their cover is blown. If they just wanted to send a message, they already did that.”
“I have to say,” Ben said, pulling apart a chunk of bread, “this meeting with Anastasia is looking a whole lot more sinister than it did an hour ago.”
I pulled out my phone and dialed her number. Roman knew that we were in town, and I had to warn her. The phone rang, and rang, and rang, and the voice mail came on. I hung up.
“She’s not answering,” I said.
“So something’s happened to her?” Ben said.
The sun was only just setting. She may not have been awake yet. Maybe she turned her phone off. I put my phone back into my pocket. “I guess we’ll find out when she shows up for the meeting.”
Or, when she didn’t show up.