Page 27 of Bold Mercy

A switch had flipped inside me, and I embraced the change with everything I was. My body tensed, as hers did, as we both prepared to run. She would have more speed than me, which would make the chase just a little more thrilling.

Thrilling because I could lose her. She could escape. She was strong, insanely quick, and running on a dark magic that I wanted to taste. My heart was beating impossibly fast and hard as a storm of overwhelming energy gathered inside me, and we stared across the dark yard at each other, frozen, for that breathless millisecond.

In that moment, she was preparing herself to die. Like the line of sweat running down her face, an equally bloody tear slid from her eye.

And then, she whirled, and in a blur of movement she raced away. I sprang, as well, my head full of her scent, a scent that would quickly fade if I hesitated. And I would have had her. I would have killed her—we both knew it.

But a huge, warm body torpedoed from the darkness, ramming me so hard I lost my balance, my blade, and for an instant, my senses. Eli’s wolf. He thought he was rescuing me. Protecting me.

He’d lost me for a little while, and I could imagine his worry that he had let his alpha down and I was lying in the darkness, dead.

The bastard lost me my kill. I would have had her. Now, she would redouble her efforts, but she would not meet me again. She wasn’t stupid.

“You bastard son of a bitch,” I said, and shoved his heavy, bloody body off me. Not only had I lost my blade when he’d rammed me, but the pain of every wound I’d suffered that night, including what felt like a half a dozen broken bones from Eli’s “protection,” roared suddenly through me. My enormous boost of adrenaline was gone.

I would have to shift if I wanted to heal quickly. But first, I would have to find my blade, as it had been knocked from my grip. Two others rushed into the yard—Wyatt and Avery. I guessed Brian had stayed behind to guard the detective and, to a lesser degree, the machete-wielding Joe Patrick. Honestly, right then, Joe was the only one of them I felt I could depend on. He understood what was important and didn’t treat me like a delicate flower in need of protection.

I didn’t look at Eli as I began to walk a grid through the yard, exhausted and hurting. I was afraid if I looked at him, I might stab him in the eye when I did find my blade. But I decided right then and there that from now on, I was hunting alone. I wasn’t accepting them and then giving them the slip, either. I would stand my ground with Jared and tell him to keep his damn wolves.

If he couldn’t see me as the power I was, that was his problem.

Finally, Eli loped away, and I was glad to see him go.

“Are Rick and Joe okay?” I asked Wyatt.

He didn’t answer for a few seconds, and when he did, there was definite hostility in his voice. “The two humans are just fine,” he said, “but Brian is dead. I put him in the back of the car so we can transport him back to Shadowfield. I do hope you won’t mind having to ride with a dead wolf.”

I stopped searching the ground and stared at him, horrified. “God, Wyatt. I’m so sorry.”

He said nothing, but the female, Avery, clenched her fists. “He wouldn’t have died had the beta aided us instead of being so wrapped up in protecting you.” She sneered, but tears stood in her eyes. One of their own had died there tonight, and they were hurting.

One of our own.

It seemed that I kept taking one step forward and two steps backward with my pack. They were never going to accept me at this rate. And maybe that was because we both knew I didn’t really belong with them.

I finally spotted my blade and slid it into its sheath, then began walking back to the detective’s driveway, subdued and quietly upset. The wolves were right to be angry. And I had to wonder why it was that my first instinct was to worry more about the humans than my own kind.

Especially when, as soon as they found out about us, the humans would make it their one purpose in life to wipe us all the hell out.