Maura Downey really didn’t know how to give up. Jack didn’t want to be rude to her. She was a nice girl, and she was pretty. He’d gone out with her a few times. But… there was always something lacking between them. He just didn’t find her that interesting. With the winter formal coming up in about a month, he understood what she was doing now, trying to get his attention, batting her eyelashes at him, lingering next to him in the hallway, all of that stuff.
Jack wasn’t interested, though, and even though he was polite and laughed at her jokes, he was really hoping the recent rumors about him and Everly would be enough to dissuade Maura from pursuing him.
Apparently… not.
“Well, Maura,” he said as they walked out of class together. “I’ve got to go.”
“Oh, are you in a rush?” she asked. “I thought maybe we could go to the dinner and get some fries or something. Do you
Toby was still sleeping, which wasn’t a surprise at all considering everything he’d been through the day before. It was so strange to see him that still. Ordinarily, he wasn’t in the same place for more than a few seconds, and even though Everly had had all night and day to think about what had happened to him, that didn’t make it any easier to see him now.Greta walked them into the guest room where Toby was sleeping. It was a nice room, with cream paint on the walls and a full-sized bed with a pretty off-white bedspread. There was cherry wood furniture and a large television. If Toby was awake, he’d probably scratch up the furniture or pee on the beige carpet, just to let everyone know this was his room. The paintings on the walls were nice outdoor scenes. Even the guests who stayed in the Greys’ house had it pretty nice.“Here we are,” Greta said. Flowers sat on the table next to the little rolling bed Toby was in. It
“Jack!” The words Jack was about to say to Everly caught in his throat as he heard Bridge shouting his name from across the street. “Damn it,” he thought to himself. “Why did she always have such awful timing?” He wasn’t even exactly sure what he was going to say—something about whoever Everly had called on his phone, it didn’t matter, but he wanted her to know that he’d do whatever it took to help her find out what happened to her mom and keep her safe. Or something. He just wanted her to know that he cared about her. Walking down the sidewalk next to her just then, he’d wanted so badly to reach over and take her hand, but he didn’t want to freak her out. He’d done that enough recently. And now, here was Bridge, bobbing across the street, interjecting herself into their business. He tried not to be too annoyed. She had been a big help the night before after all. “Hey, Bridge,” he said as the tiny brunette came around his car. “This is
Jack pulled the car to a stop outside of Everly’s house, and he picked up her backpack, noting that her dad was home already. She figured he would be because of the telephone repair man coming that day.“Thanks a lot for the ride and taking such good care of Toby,” she said, hoping nothing else that had come out of her mouth had offended Jack.“I’ll walk you to the door,” Jack said, already opening his car door.“You don’t have to do that,” Everly said. “My dad’s home.”“I know,” he told her, but he was already out of the car. She pushed her door open, and he met her there, offering her his hand.She took it even though she didn’t need it to get out of the car. His hand was warm, and just in the few seconds that her hand was on his, she could feel how marble-like his flesh was.As soon as she was up and walking toward the house, the car door shut behind
Staring at the message on her phone, Everly tried to decide whether or not she should call Slate or text him back while she still had a signal. His text just said, “How is your dog? Is he still hanging in there? Are you okay?”It was nice. It was a pleasant text, something a nice person would send.Jack would have her believe that Slate’s motivation was to win her over and then pounce on her, hoping to get her to trust him and then rip her open and lap up her blood like some sort of a savage.While she knew that Jack did know this man a lot better than she did, it was still hard to believe he could sound so shocked and concerned on the phone with her the other day and still want to hurt her.“What do you want to do about dinner, Everly?”Her dad’s voice startled her, and Everly almost dropped her phone. She looked up at him, her eyes wide. He probably thought she was doing something she shouldn’t be, like l
The next morning, Everly’s alarm went off too early. It was the same time that it always went off, but she hadn’t slept well, and she could’ve done with another hour or two of sleep.She turned her alarm off and sat up, scratching at her head. At first, she was slightly panicked that Toby wasn’t next to her, but then everything came flooding back to her, and she remembered what had happened to her best friend.She also remembered that Jack was giving her a ride to school, so she hurried to go take a shower, trying not to let her nerves get the best of her. Even thinking about seeing Jack made her stomach twist into knots. It was so strange how he could have that kind of effect on her after he’d been so mean to her early on. She thought she understood now why he had been behaving like that, but still… shouldn’t she at least be a little annoyed at him still and not giddy thinking about him?As she washed her hair in the sho
By the time third period was over, Everly’s arm was driving her crazy. It was itching so badly, she had to go into the bathroom and scratch the living daylights out of it. She knew there was something wrong, but the idea that she was going to have to tell Jack that she may have been scratched by Rider made her stomach tighten up into a knot.She was just about to push into the bathroom when she heard two familiar voices and froze with the door slightly ajar.“So… now that you’re eighteen, you should have your powers, right? Why not just make Jack fall in love with you?”That was Candace. Everly would recognize her voice anywhere. Powers? What powers?“Shut your mouth, Candace!” Maura said harshly. “Someone could hear you!”“No one is in here. I already checked the stalls.”A small wall jutted out between the door and the sinks where it sounded like the two of them were standing. They wer
Seeing Toby was always nice, but there was definitely some tension between Jack and herself. Everly knew he’d said he wasn’t mad that she hadn’t told him about the scratch on her arm, but she wasn’t sure if she believed him or not.He hadn’t said anything about it. Not on the ride to his house, and not while they were visiting Toby either. Now, she was sitting in the passenger seat of his car, and she was wondering if she should bring it up or if he might.She also wanted to ask him about what she’d heard in the girl’s room. It was difficult to bring up that topic, too, though since he’d been so adamant that there was no such thing as witches, vampires, and other mythological creatures that she hated to even bring it up.Jack could obviously tell that something was bothering her, but she had to assume that he thought that it was the scratch. Of course, her mind was on that, too. It was too difficult for Everly to accept
He had kissed her. Jack didn’t mean for it to go that far, but looking at Everly’s arm and seeing how red and swollen it was, hearing her say that the scratch had gotten bigger, and just looking at how awful it looked, it was upsetting in a way he couldn’t even put into words.As much as he wanted to stay there with her, he also wanted to get home. He needed to talk to his dad. He needed to get into the library and start looking through the books there. A lot of them were hundreds of years old and written in German. A few of them were in French. Some of them had to say something about what could be done when a person with DNA like Everly’s was infected by a shifter to prevent them from being transformed into a werewolf.It was nearly impossible to let go of her. She smelled so good, like strawberries and vanilla. Her hair was silky smooth, and he could hear her heart beating rapidly in her chest. It had sped up the moment he’d touched her. Bei
Everly carefully made her way down the stairs toward Jack’s living room, holding on tight to the railing. The heels she was wearing were a lot higher than what she was used to, but Alyson insisted she should wear them because they looked perfect with the sapphire blue dress she was wearing. While Everly loved the tight, strapless, sequined dress, she wasn’t sure that the silver heels looked all that great.They’d look a lot worse if she fell down the stairs and broke her neck because of them…. But then, she was a shifter now, so her coordination should be better.That didn’t make her feel any less shaky on the shoes.When she got about three-fourths of the way down, she heard a loud exhale and managed to pull her eyes away from the next step long enough to look at Jack.Her heart skipped a beat, seeing him standing there by the front door with a pink corsage in his hand, wearing a perfectly-fitted suit with a tie that matched her dress. His eyes were wide, and his mouth was slightly a
Pain radiated throughout Jack’s chest and back as he felt himself slowly being dragged back to reality. His thoughts were cloudy as he tried to remember exactly what had happened. The last thing he remembered, he was running through the forest toward the sounds of fighting, looking for Everly.The next thing he knew, he was lying on the ground, blood everywhere, trying to breathe through the most unbelievable pain he’d ever experienced in his entire life.“Come on, Jack!” he heard a somewhat familiar voice telling him. “Go ahead and open your eyes, Jack. Let us know that you can hear us.”It was a struggle, but the realization that he didn’t know where Everly was or if she was okay made him will his eyes open. Blinking a few times, Jack looked at the concerned faces around him and tried to piece everything together.He was surrounded by people who looked like they were about to cry, except for Jamie, the healer. She was concerned, but not tearful.He’d seen Everly, though, so he force
Not long ago, watching Jack die wouldn’t have been that big of a deal to Slate. In fact, he probably would’ve just shrugged about it and made some remarks like, “Too bad. He was so young.” But now that he realized that Alyson was his fated mate, Slate felt compelled to find someone to help the guy he’d wanted to tear limb from limb all by himself only a few days ago.Tearing through the woods, he used his mind-link capability to reach out to anyone from his pack to see if they knew where any healers were. Unfortunately, everyone was either too far away to hear him or they were too busy to respond.He darted through a thick wooded area and came around a large pine tree to see a wide meadow full of velvety green grass glowing in the silvery moonlight.And on the other side of it, he saw a familiar wolf loping along, following his nose.It wasn’t one of the healers he was looking for, though.No, it was someone who shouldn&rs
The smile on Everly’s face was there despite the pain at seeing Lexi show up right behind Maura as she was in the process of tormenting her. Maura might’ve thought it was fun prolonging her death, but just like the villain in every James Bond movie, she was about to find out what happened when you didn’t kill your enemy right away.“What’s wrong with your face, Everly?” Maura had asked her, but Everly didn’t get a chance to answer before it was Maura’s face that was suddenly messed up.Lexi hit her from behind with a strong beam of magic. It was so powerful that Everly could actually see it glowing and lighting up the forest. When it hit the cheerleader in the back, Maura’s eyes bulged, and her body stiffened, her back arching as she tried to figure out exactly what was happening and how to make the pain stop.Immediately, the agony that had been coursing through Everly’s body faded as Maura was too dis
Hands would’ve been a great thing to have at the moment, but Everly only had paws. She looked around and saw that her dad had the backpack, so theoretically, she could go shift and get dressed quickly, but her back hurt so bad, she didn’t know if she could get all of that done.Jim was already trying to stop the blood that was flowing like a river out of Jack’s chest and back. “I’m so sorry,” he kept saying. “I was just trying to protect you, Everly.”She couldn’t respond to her father, what with him being a human and her being a wolf, but she knew it wasn’t on purpose.That wouldn’t matter if Jack died.Behind her, she heard the sound of rocks and tree branches sliding down the side of the ravine as Alyson and Slate came flying down behind them.“What happened?” Alyson asked, using the mind-link. “We thought we heard—” Her eyes landed on Jack and her countenance
Every inch of Everly’s body ached, but she knew she had to push herself up off of the ground and get out of there.If that wolf were to come back, he would kill her, and she’d fought too hard to die now.Pushing up off of the ground, Everly tried to get her feet beneath her. The ache in her back was blindingly painful. She thought she might pass out from the pain. Could she have injured her spine when she hit that tree trunk upon her descent?She didn’t know, but she had to ignore the pain and move.Everly took a few careful steps, trying to get her bearings. She knew that Jack and her mother were up on top of the hill. But it was so far away from where she was now, she couldn’t even hear them fighting.Climbing back up the steep ravine would be nearly impossible in her current state.Instead, she’d need to find another way to walk to get back to someone who could help her.If only she had her cell phone&
The black wolf Jack was fighting was strong, and though he had spent a lot of time training and sparing with other wolves in his pack… he’d never actually fought anyone with the intent to kill them.But… at the moment, he had no choice. If he didn’t try to kill the wolf that was scratching at him with his long claws, trying to knock Jack backward so that he could sink his long fangs into his neck, then that wolf would finish him off without a second thought, and Jack couldn’t let that happen.Next to him, Slate didn’t seem to have any problem whatsoever going in for a kill shot. Out of the corner of his eye, Jack could see Slate knock the smaller male he was fighting onto his backside and then chomp down on the sensitive area between his neck and shoulder. Within a few seconds, the wolf stopped moving, and Slate stood up, looking for the next wolf to take on.Jack didn’t have time to survey the area as he needed to pin this
Running through the forest with Jack on one side and her mother on the other, Everly felt a nervous tension building inside of her. Knowing that Jack and her mother had vowed to protect her was one thing, but that didn’t mean that she wouldn’t end up in a situation where she’d be forced to protect herself.And she was pretty sure she wasn’t capable of that.After all, she wasn’t exactly an athletic human to begin with. Now that she was a wolf, that hadn’t changed. These other shifters had been training for this their whole lives, so they knew exactly what to do while they were fighting. And the werewolves were so vicious, they instinctively knew exactly what to do to make sure that they could handle anyone who was stupid enough to challenge them.But Everly felt just about as vulnerable as her dad. At least he had brought a gun. He was riding on her mother’s back right now, and Everly made a point not to look directly into Jim
“He was at the party?” Everly repeated what Su said. “Slate was at the party where you were turned into a werewolf?”Su’s head bobbed up and down again. “That’s right. He was with the guy that bit me.”“You’re sure it wasn’t him though, right?” Everly asked as she felt Jack tense up beside her.“Oh, yeah. I’m sure it wasn’t him. But still… it’s weird to see someone who knows about all of this. He was with the guy when he was telling me about what happened and telling me that I was in huge trouble and I was going to have to do something.”Everly couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Slate had gone through this before. “Slate!” she shouted, and he looked up.His eyes flickered to Everly’s face, and then they went to Su’s, and they widened. Even from across the yard, Everly could read his lips, “Oh, shit.”