A book came sailing out the door of the library to slam into the one-blood’s head and knock it to the side with a furious snarl. From inside the library came a woman’s happy little, “Yes!” and then a hail of books came raining down on the one-bloods assembled there.
I didn’t care. They could have dropped a house on the grass. All that mattered was that it distracted the shifted one-blood long enough for me to catch up.
It was time to show those disgusting upstarts just how we did things in Bashkiria.
I slammed into his side with a furious snarl, laying in with teeth and claws. Like all cowards when faced with a serious opponent, the one-blood tried to bolt. I let him go after giving him a good bite across the shoulder to remember me by. I had bigger things to worry about.
Then, finally, Stacia was there, staring at me with wide eyes.
Because I was a wolf.
I froze. Would she scream? Would she run? Did she see me as an animal? A monster? It felt like someone had scooped out my guts and replaced them with concrete.
But she just swallowed hard and licked that perfect, plump bottom lip of hers.
“Bash?”
My heart leapt. She knew me. Shesawme. My mate wasn’t afraid, not of me. I wanted to throw my head back and give thanks to the Goddess.
“Bash, look out!”
I felt the rush at my back and twisted to the side, sinking my fangs into the one-blood who’d tried to ambush me.
The rest of the Dire Wolves burst onto the scene, and the rest of the one-bloods all either decided to ditch their human forms or make a run for it. Stone laid into the leader, snarls ripping through the air as fur flew. Ty and Eli made for the library, until two faces appeared in the window and the girls started waving.
That explained the rain of books then.
The pair of them didn’t waste any more time, bursting free in a wave of fur and fangs and throwing themselves into the fight.
I gave Stacia a quick once-over, checking for injuries, but I didn’t scent any blood. Just the faintest hint of ripe peaches that I’d been afraid I might never smell again.
I turned back to the one-blood under my claws.
My mate was there, and she wasn’t afraid of me. What was a fight with a bunch of pathetic excuses for werewolves compared to that? I could do bloody anything, so long as Stacia was with me.
STACIA
Okay.
So.
Things happened pretty quickly, and my whole head felt a bit like an etch-a-sketch. Like, when I’d woken up yesterday morning, there had been two things that I’d known for sure. That I was going to go to law school, and that freaking werewolves didn’t exist.
Standing there on the front steps of the library, it felt a bit like someone had come along and given me a few hard shakes, and I had to fiddle with the knobs and redraw some lines.
When the biker guy had suddenly turned into a monster movie nightmare and then a huge black wolf had come thundering across the lawn toward him, I should have freaked. Like, just screamed and run for it. But I hadn’t.
Because when the second wolf had turned its beautiful dark head toward me and I’d looked into those huge golden eyes, all I’d seen was Bash.
When I’d called his name, his ears had perked up, and if that wasn’t the cutest freaking thing. Which then made me feel a bit crazy, because there was literally a werewolf fight happeningless than twenty feet from me, and I was cooing inside my head about how sweet Bash’s ears were.
Priorities.
More and more of the bikers were changing, and one of them took the chance to throw themselves at Bash’s back, and I yelled out a warning.
Bash stepped to the side, moving more like a shadow than an animal, and he’d snatched that werewolf right out of the air and thrown it onto the steps, where it landed with a pained yelp.
And that was when everything had gone totally off the rails.
