Slowly her focus, her sense of hearing heightened, the words being spoken in the next room taking form enough for her to realize what she should have already assumed. They were talking about her, and she didn’t like what they were saying.
Her gaze went back to the door. Run. The words murmured in her head, playing like background music to the conversation one room over. Run. She stood up.
CHAPTER TEN
“Damn it, Troy,” Evan growled, furious with his brother. “I want you both out of here. I’ll handle this myself.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Troy said. “You can’t kill her and someone might have to. I know how this goes down. I couldn’t kill Sarah, remember? And I should have.”
“Stop making this about Sarah,” Evan ground out, his fist balled at his sides. “Marissa isn’t Sarah.”
“Not yet,” Troy countered.
That was it. Evan snapped and moved toward Troy, who pulled his shoulders back, ready for conflict.
“Enough,” Aiden commanded, shoving a hand on both of their chests. “No one is getting killed. When have we ever not gotten a target we set out to get?”
Troy scoffed. “We’ve chased this wolf half way across the country. We didn’t get him in three other states.” He glared at Evan. “Yet, you put your life on the line with the gamble we’ll get him in a few days.”
“My life,” Evan blasted back. “Mine.”
“Even if we left you to deal with this, and by some miracle, you managed to kill the wolf, your problems aren’t over. You broke the law by bonding with a human. That’s punishable by death. You saved her life and wrote your own tombstone.”
“Which is why I want you out of here. That’s the only way you can deny being a part of this.”
“If you two would pipe down I know how to get out of this,” Aiden declared.
Evan’s gaze shifted to Aiden, “How?”
“The virus is mutating. It has to be. There’s no other way that wolf only partially shifted and still attacked us, back at Marissa’s place. We need a blood sample.” He lifted his chin toward the other room. “Marissa gives us that.”
A glimmer of hope spread through Evan. “You’ll have to involve Marcus.” Marcus being the Vampire who’d saved them, and now their ‘Warden-in-charge’. No one wanted to piss off Marcus.
“Hand me a phone and let me get to it,” Aiden said. “This is a good cover story. Saving Marissa to study the mutation of the virus really could save lives. And I’ll petition for Marissa’s conversion to vampire before the full moon which will stop her from changing to wolf.”
Evan scrubbed his jaw and turned away, no longer thinking of a battle with Troy. He didn’t want to force conversion on Marissa. He wanted to kill the wolf and then give her time to decide on conversion herself, even if it meant putting himself at risk with the council. But he had to keep his options open, give himself, and Marissa, options to survive.
He turned to face his brothers, and gave Aiden a quick nod. “Call Marcus, talk to him.” He glared at Troy. “And you go find that damn wolf without making yourself his chew toy again. We don’t even know which direction he went and—”
The door in the next room opened and then slammed shut. Evan cursed and didn’t even bother looking in the next room. He went for the front door of the room he was in, and opened the door to a downpour of rain. Marissa was already across the road, headed towards the woods. He’d been too pissed off at Troy to consider her heightened senses, her ability to hear through the door. But she’d heard. He had no doubt. She’d heard and she’d bolted.
“She’s upset,” Evan said to his brothers, who flanked him on either side. “So just stay back and make sure the wolf doesn’t show up.” He took off running.
It took only a minute to catch up with her, but he let her run, hoping she’d burn off some of the adrenaline her emotions, and the virus, were fueling. Twenty minutes passed, and still she ran. The rain shifted from intervals of light to heavy showers, but she pressed onward, until she stumbled and he was there to catch her, wrapping his arms around her from behind.
She whirled on him, hands on his chest, anger gleaming from her eyes. “Why’d you do it? Why would you put your life on the line for a woman you barely know? Why, Evan?”
“Because the minute you walked in that bar I felt more alive than I have in a hundred years and I needed to know—I need to know why.”
A stunned look slid across her face, along with droplets of water. She shoved her hair from her face. “You don’t know me.”
“The bond—”
“Will get you killed,” she said. “I live and you die. I can’t live with that.” Her knees started to buckle and he tightened his hold on her waist.
“I’ve got you,” he told her, pressing her wet hair back from her face. “And I’m not letting go, so you might as well just accept that.” He softened his voice, pressed hair from her face. “Come back to the room with me.”
She shook her head. “Troy hates me. I can’t deal with him right now.”
“He doesn’t hate you. He just doesn’t want to like you.”
“Because he thinks he might have to kill me.”
“Because he was in love with a Werewolf, she turned on him. And he and Aiden are going after the wolf, they’re leaving. We’ll be alone.” He felt some of the tension slide from her body and he kissed her. “Come back to the room with me.”
“Only if you agree that if the full moon arrives, and the wolf isn’t dead, you’ll let Troy kill me before I change. He hates me. I know he can do it. And I know you can’t and won’t.”
“Sweetheart, I told you. Troy doesn’t hate you. He just doesn’t want to like you.”
“And I told you why. Because he knows he’s going to have to kill me.”
“No. It was because he fell in love with a wolf who betrayed him.”
Surprise flickered in her face, her voice rasping out. “And he’s afraid I’m going to betray you. And I will Evan. I know I will. My wolf absolutely does hate you.”
He framed her face. “Your wolf doesn’t hate me anymore than Troy hates you or you wouldn’t want to fuck me like you do. You just don’t understand your primal side well enough to understand what it’s telling you.”
“You’re wrong,” she insisted. “It hates you. It will kill you if I survive that moon.”
“It doesn’t hate me. It fears me. There’s a difference.”
“Whatever you want to label it,” she said. “It wants you dead.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It wants you dead. The hair on the back of Evan’s neck stood up at those words, and anger fired in his gut. “Message, for your wolf—you’re mine. It can’t have you.”