Page 5

“Stuck-up bitches like you are the problem,” he says. “Never want to give a nice guy a chance.”

“Is the nice guy on the street with us?” She acknowledges him for the first time as they get to the corner of an alley that looks to me like… Yep. It’s a dead end. She’s going to corner herself on purpose. Christ. What the hell happened to her?

“Smartass bitch,” he says.

“You like using that word,” she replies, turning around and backing into the alley, one slow step at a time. She even takes her jacket off, slings it over a crate. The guy thinks he’s cornering her. He’s not thinking clearly enough to realize that he’s being hunted.

Survival instinct of a marshmallow.

“That’s what you are. Think you’re better than everyone else. I’ll fucking show you.”

The guy is now closing distance on her with the agitated strut of a man who has hit a woman before and thinks he can do it again.

I am about to watch someone die.

Ah, well.

It happens.

* * *

Fiona

It’s always over so quickly. I think they’re going to put up a fight, but the second they see me turn from a human female into a she-wolf, they stop and stare. Deer in headlights. Humans are apex predators as a species, but as individuals they really don’t know what the fuck they are doing.

I’m back in my human form now. My pants are fucking gone, but I kicked off my boots in time and I make sure I wear a jacket long enough that if I have to wear just that and nothing else, I’m not indecent as I go through the streets. Having my hair in a wolf cut helps too. The shaggier I look, the more intentional I seem. Also, I can keep my phone and money and stuff in the jacket. First time I did this, it wasn’t planned and I spent twenty minutes picking my personal effects out of some dickhead’s entrails. That was a lesson well learned.

As of this moment, I only have my boots.

“Where is my fucking jacket?”

I mumble the question to myself. My mouth is full of blood. My head feels light and brilliant. I’m high as hell on death. You’re not supposed to eat people.

But they’re meat.

And it’s hard not to get a little taste, and maybe have a little nibble.

So.

Anyway.

I need to get out of here. Got to get somewhere safe before the sun comes up and monsters aren’t so well tolerated. The body will be found, and they won’t know what to do about it and nothing will happen. People would be horrified if they knew how much murder came down to nothing, how often cops don’t even investigate if the dead person seems like someone who should be dead. Maybe this guy has a loving family waiting for him at home, but if he does, I’m pretty sure I did them all a big favor.

I keep looking for my jacket. It’s really not that big an alley. Where the fuck did it go?

I swear I put it on a crate, but it’s not there anymore. Sometimes things get knocked off in the transition and the flailing and the everything else.

“Are you looking for this?”

There’s a very large man at the end of the alley, holding my jacket by the collar with two fingers. He’s got to be at least 6'3" tall, and broad to match. I can smell him now that the scent of blood is clearing a little. A shifter male. Dominant one. Fuck.

I can’t see his face very well. The shadows are doing a lot to keep him hidden. He’s blocking my exit, and he has my jacket. I want my jacket, and I want him the fuck out of my way.

“Move,” I tell him.

He smirks. I see the corner of his mouth lift and his cheek dimple. He has a powerful jaw, and I bet a handsome face. If I was in the mood to give a fuck about men, I might be curious.

I think about kicking my boots off again, but a shifter male is a very different prospect from a drunk asshole at a bar. He could take his wolf form as well and then the fight would get really unfair, real fast.