Cassie grimaced at the bite of the silver on her wrist, at him tugging her around like a dog, or in this case, a wolf on a leash. She cared about Troy, but this part of their meeting was wearing on her nerves.
“Is the cuff necessary?” she asked, realizing they were headed down a hallway to what she was pretty sure was the only bedroom in the place. He didn’t answer. Of course he didn’t. Why did she think he would answer when he clearly had grown some aversion to conversation?
A few more steps and they were in a small, dimly lit bedroom with a king-sized bed and nothing but plain white sheets. She wasn’t beyond admitting she’d had more than a few fantasies about his bedroom and none of them looked quite like this. The place was a dump and she wondered why. All the Wardens were paid, and paid well.
He stopped by the broken-down nightstand and unlocked his cuff, his long blonde hair draping his face. She reached up and gently shoved it away aside, and his gaze slowly lifted to hers, his eyes glowing silver, all remnants of yellow now gone. “What’s happening to you?” she repeated, then rephrased. “What happened to you?”
“A wolf happened to me,” he said, and then moved abruptly.
Suddenly, her hand was over her head, and her wrist was attached to the bedpost. Cassie was no push over. She was a member of the elite Royal Guard, and when she wanted to fight, she could fight.
She wrapped her legs around Troy’s, and grabbed his shoulder with her free hand. “Take the cuff off of me,” she hissed. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll help you.”
He held up the key and she reached for it. He flung it across the room. “Damn it, Troy!”
“Let go of me, Cassie, before I forget why I want you to. Before I’m no longer responsible for my actions. Believe me, you don’t want me this close to you when I’m like this. I don’t… want to hurt you.”
If the words had been a threat, she’d have rejected them instantly. But they weren’t. They were a plea of desperation. She had to let him go. She knew this. She sensed it. But everything inside her screamed to hold on. That if she let go of him, he might run out the door and she’d never find him again. The Troy she knew was still inside this rougher, darker Troy, and she was going to find him, one way or the other.
She was about to tell him as much, to beg him to talk to her, when he suddenly buried his face in her neck, a low growl escaping his lips, before he began to tremble… like a Red wolf about to shift.
CHAPTER FIVE
“What’s happening?” Cassie asked urgently, sliding her free hand over his hair, and cursing the key he’d thrown away. “Let me help you, Troy. Please. Let me help.”
“I need up,” he hissed into her ear, pain etched in his tone. He tried to roll off of her and she let him this time. It wasn’t as if she could have really stopped him without a struggle that she would have ultimately lost. Something told her a struggle wasn’t a good idea right now.
Troy curled to his side, and gave her his back, which told her he was in serious pain. She’d seen him fight unfazed, with huge, gaping wounds that he didn’t even seem to notice. She tried to reach for him, but the cuff kept her from getting close enough. He moaned again, a wolfish sound that defied reason. Cassie gaped as his jeans ripped down his thighs. Not only was he doing the impossible for a vampire by shifting, the agony he was in told a story. Natural born wolves didn’t feel any form of discomfort with a shift. Red wolves did. Cassie didn’t want to think about what that meant for Troy, but she was pretty sure that allowing him to shift would be a very bad idea. She was also fairly sure that the only way she’d come out of this alive if he did was by shifting herself to hold her own. Troy was right, though. She really didn’t want to lose her hand in the process.
Cassie jerked hard at the cuff, and then did it again, over and over, trying to break it, but it wasn’t normal silver or steel, that was clear. It had to be spellcast by one of the ‘Coven of the Rain’ witches who’d recently aligned themselves with the vampires. Damn her brother Nico for pissing those ladies off. They were clearly better allies than foes.
Just when Cassie was going to give up on freedom and rethink her next move, the headboard creaked under her efforts. The next second, the metal bar her cuff was attached to, broke away from the frame.
Cassie tugged again and the bed piece came completely lose, and shot out towards her, all but smacking her in the face. She recovered, but much to her frustration, the ends of the bars were too wide to shove through the cuff. She was stuck with it. She needed the key.
Cassie kicked off her shoes that she had remarkably kept on up to this point, then lugged the bar with her, scrambling off the bed, half expecting Troy to grab her, but he didn’t. He just kept shaking.
Frantically, she searched for the key, and thankfully found it with surprising speed. Cassie snatched it up, quickly releasing her wrist. She rushed back to the bed, approaching Troy from behind, knowing that male wolves didn’t do well with anything they thought to be confrontational. And rational or not, right now, her vampire seemed more wolf than blood sucker.
Cassie pressed herself to Troy’s back, stroking his face. “I’m here,” she whispered. “Tell me how to help you.”
He tried to move away from her. She grabbed him, turning him over and climbing on top, straddling him.
He shackled her arms, his eyes glowing that silvery yellow again and his face beginning to change. “I need… blood,” he huffed, breathing heavily. “Have to stop… shift.” He tossed her off of him and she scrambled to get back to him, but suddenly, he was convulsing, the sound of cloth tearing and bones snapping telling her he was out of time, and so was she.
There was no hesitation in Cassie. With quick, decisive actions, she shoved Troy to his back, then snatched the blade she’d seen him shove inside his boot. His body jerked and cracked, driving her urgency. Cassie straddled him again, and sliced her wrist with a grimace at the acid burn of the silver on her flesh. Blood poured from the wound and she held it over his mouth the best she could with him moving around. She’d only have a short window to feed him before she’d have to shift to heal her wounds before she bled to death. The instant blood touched his lips, the vampire in him responded instantly, and somehow, that vampire’s existence comforted Cassie.
With a low moan escaping his lips, he grabbed her arm and held it to his mouth, drawing deeply on her arm. Only then, with him drinking, holding her with a vice grip, did Cassie let herself think of the consequences of her actions, that she might not be able to make him stop. The more he drank, the more she thought of shifting, but if she did that too soon, he might shift, too. And if he did, if he was a Red Wolf, she feared they would end up fighting, perhaps to the death. She cared about Troy, more than she’d let herself admit until this moment for all kinds of reasons. Beyond personal, and there was plenty of those, she couldn’t—wouldn’t—risk a battle with him, that might leave one of them dead, and ensure a war between their races.
No. She was going to have to trust in Troy, who she knew to be strong enough to battle any monster, even his own. She’d seen him battle the hurt of betrayal and never falter, never make a mistake that might have cost lives. She trusted him. She was still telling herself that when she started seeing spots, even moments before everything went black.