Page 22 of Throwing Shade
The sky turned luminous, lit up in an orange, pink, and gold sunset, its beauty undermined by one of the crows muscling the finger down.
I gagged.
The white wolf took off in an easy lope and intercepted the man, lazily batting him to the ground.
Alex bounced twice, then rolled to a stop, pinned in place under the enormous paw that the animal rested on his neck. He began babbling, begging for his life.
Shaking, I hid under my black mesh.
The wolf grabbed Alex’s belt in his teeth and bounded up the stairs onto the walkway with his prey.
Was the wolf going to kill Alex?
For a second, my feet refused to move. There were a million reasons to walk away, including the extremely important one of self-preservation in the face of the Big Bad Wolf made flesh, but I couldn’t let Alex be murdered.
We had a moral imperative as humans to do something.
That argument wasn’t as compelling when applied to a psycho who preyed on women, but if I could get him to confess and be locked up, then the victims he’d harmed in the past would have justice. He was also my only lead to find Jude.
The flaw with this was that I also had a moral imperative to stay alive for my daughter and the only way to save Alex was with magic.
Exhaling hard, I swore under my breath and kicked into gear, but those precious seconds had cost me. I’d lost sight of them, so I dropped my cloaking and sent Delilah ahead of me.
The wolf was on the roof of the restaurant with Alex at his feet. He snarled, saliva flecking off his sharp canines.
Delilah jumped onto the shifter’s back, pulling out her best grappling hold. His fur was dense and wiry, covering a body of pure muscle.
Alex belly crawled away.
The white wolf’s growl vibrated through my shadow and into me.
I slowed to a stop at the edge of the grassy roof, but kept Delilah choking him.
The beast caught my shadow in his mouth, but when he flung her away, he was oddly gentle, because my sweater didn’t tear and no teeth marks broke my skin, nor did he simply rip Delilah’s arm off entirely.
He snagged Alex by the pant leg, and dragged him back, giving the man a grass and dirt facial. Alex’s shadow vibrated so hard it was palpable.
My stomach somewhere in the vicinity of my toes, I stepped forward with my hands up. “Don’t kill him.”
The wolf bared his lips, leaning onto his prey’s back with one paw.
Was the wolf enemy of my enemy, my friend?
“He tried to force himself on me the other night,” I said, “and he may be responsible for my missing friend. Please. Help me get answers.”
No matter how much Alex struggled, the animal didn’t budge. Under his unnerving primal stare, I was about to get the hell out of Dodge when the wolf barked, sounding a tad impatient. He flicked his tail at my combat-ready shadow.
The Ohrist shifter understood me, but that didn’t mean he’d cooperate. I was a goldfish trying to reason with a shark.
“You don’t like that? No problem.” I returned Delilah to a neutral position.
The clear peal of a trumpet sounded.
I jerked my head around, searching for the source. “Did you hear—”
The wolf’s claws extended, glowing like they were made of pure light, and he tore into Alex’s chest, ripping out his heart and dropping it back into the body cavity with a wet splat. Alex went limp, his head twisted to face me, and a swirling phantom of crimson and gray exploded out of his corpse.
I shrieked and ducked, meeting Alex’s lifeless stare. His shadow once again looked normal, the putrescence now freed and dive-bombing the wolf, who leapt, growling and attempting to catch hold of the mass.
