CHAPTER 3

 

I took a sip of the bourbon and blinked a couple of times. My eyes watered, and heat rushed all the way down my gullet to create a noxious mix with my pain perdu.

Jake shook his head. “You’re such an amateur.”

I had no intention of starting a drinking contest. I just wanted to get his attention. Now I had it, and the anger still wafting off him sent chills through me.

I took a steadying breath and dived off the cliff. “I care about you, Jake—wolf and all—and I’m sorry for pressuring you to be something different.” His lack of response propelled me to keep talking. “Tell me what I can do to help, even if it’s just to leave you alone. Talk to me.”

He stared at his glass, then over my shoulder at the street outside, everywhere but my face. My empathy allowed me to feel the war within him as his pride battled his need to open up, and as the wolf battled for dominance over the man.

When he finally looked at me, his eyes weren’t the soft amber I’d hoped to see. They were hard and calculating. “You care about me, do you? Wolf and all?”

“I do care.” He was calling me out. “I just realized I’d been asking you to be someone you aren’t. I’m sorry it took me so long to see that. It wasn’t fair.”

His smile was cold. “So you think we can be friends?”

We’d have to start from scratch, but we could do it. “I know we can.”

He slid his chair around the table until it was next to mine, and I stifled the impulse to put more distance between us. “What about more than friends?”

How much truth-telling did I want? An image came to me unbidden: Jake standing over me on that pier last month in his wolf form, teeth bared. “I—”

“Don’t bother to answer the question, sunshine. I can feel your heart speed up without touching you—did you know that? And it’s not speeding up because you want me. It’s because you’re afraid of me. Do you have any idea how that makes me feel?”

Probably not very good, but how could I make myself not fear him? How could I slow my heart rate or the rush of adrenaline into my muscles? “No,” I whispered.

He leaned closer, close enough for his body heat to mingle with mine. “Your fear excites me. It makes the wolf want to come out and play.”

With some effort, I forced myself to look him in the eye. I’d always insisted to Alex that Jake would never hurt me, but a few grains of sand had been falling from the hourglass of doubt for a few weeks. Now they’d sped to a fast trickle. Jake wouldn’t hurt me intentionally, but Jake wasn’t always in control.

He leaned back in his chair, his point made. “Well, at least you’re not looking at me with that poor-bastard-what-are-we-gonna-do-about-Jake expression. I’m sick of seeing it, from you and Alex both. You want to know why I drink? It’s because of that look. I’d rather see fear on your faces than pity, and the more I drink the less I care.”

My own anger sparked. We might have screwed up, but we’d been trying to help him. “Then tell us how to do better. Help me do better. What do you need from us?”

He rested a hand on my forearm and squeezed a little tighter than necessary. “I don’t need a goddamned thing from either one of you. Just leave me alone and stop watching every move I make.” He looked at me with yellow-gold eyes that had an odd, flat refraction. Wolf eyes. His nostrils flared as he inched closer.

Jake was about to lose control, and I didn’t want to be alone with him anymore. He was scaring the hell out of me, and the wolf part of him liked it.

Tamping down a surge of panic, I pushed my chair back, but his hand remained clamped to my arm as if glued. I tried to slow my galloping pulse without success as he slid his chair even closer.

Pulling my arm to his face, Jake inhaled deeply. “Your heart is pounding so hard, it vibrates through my whole body. I can almost taste it.” His voice was a rough whisper against my skin.

“Jake, stop it. I’ve got to go.” I stood and tried to tug my arm away, but he gripped it harder and stood as well, pulling me against him and sending a sharp stab of pain through my rib cage.

“What’s wrong, DJ? You scared?” His words, carried on hot breath sweet with whiskey, tickled across my cheek. Jake’s eyes were completely gone now, replaced by something cold and alien. “You should be.”

Damn it, the wolf was in control. I couldn’t read any emotions but anger and aggression. “Let me go. Now.” Panic surged through my system and I couldn’t stop the overflow of magic that shot from the fingers of the free hand I had pressed against his chest.

He jerked away with an inhuman snarl and a nip at my forearm still clutched in his grip. A burn raced across it as I jerked it away.

We stilled, the moment carved in ice as we both looked at my arm. He’d broken skin. A small scratch, three or four inches long with a deeper jag at the end. Not serious enough to need stitches, but deep enough for the blood to well up and start a slow drip onto the scuffed hardwood floor of the bar.

Deep enough for a little of the virulent loup-garou DNA to mingle with my own.

Deep enough to change my life forever.

Jake took a step backward.

“I’m fine.” I grabbed a napkin from the table and dabbed at the wound with trembling fingers.

Jake hadn’t spoken. When I looked up, his eyes were wide, his gaze fixed on my arm. Terror and arousal roiled inside him as Jake tried to regain control. The wolf wanted to feast, and the man wanted to flee.

“It’s all right.” I pressed the napkin against the cut, as much to get the blood out of his sight as to stanch the flow. My voice quavered. “No big deal. Just a little scratch.”

“I … God.” Jake shuddered and backed away.

He whirled and walked behind the bar, pulled a pistol from beneath it, and stuck it in the waistband of his jeans, underneath his sweater. I could see his hands shaking from across the room.

He paused to stare at me one long, soul-cracking second, his eyes gone back to amber and filled with unspoken regret, before walking out the front door and slamming it behind him.

Jake’s footsteps were absorbed into the daily noise of Bourbon Street, and I was alone.