Page 56

A cage.

Steel bars. A padlock. Six feet square on a concrete floor.

And my wife inside it. On her feet. In a torn blue dress, with her hands wrapped around her belly.

I go still.

Every hair on my body stands up. There’s a sound coming out of me I’ve never made, so low the floor shakes with it.

They put her in a cage. My mate. My…

Her scent hits me. All the way, now, no bars, no distance. Vanilla and brown sugar and fear and fury. And under it, brand new, so faint I’d never have caught it on two legs. Something sweet. Like milk.

PUP.

I hit the door with everything I’ve got. The padlock holds. The hinges don’t. The whole front of the cage tears off, and I throw it across the room, and it takes a hook with it.

And then I stop.

Because I’m a five-foot wolf covered in other men’s blood. My teeth are as long as her fingers. I’ve killed nine men in front of her in about two minutes. And she’s never seen me. Not like this.

I promised her sunshine. A field. All the time in the world.

She’s looking at me. Her eyes are huge. Her mouth’s open.

She takes a step.

Then another. Right out of that cage, across the concrete, in her bare feet. She doesn’t stop until she’s in front of me. She has to look up. She’s shaking.

She lifts her hand and puts it in the fur at my neck. Blood and all.

“Hi, handsome,” she whispers.

My tail moves.

I can’t help it. It just goes, thumping against the floor, like I’m some kind of fucking golden retriever.

She laughs. It comes out broken. And then her face crumples, and she throws both arms around my neck, and she cries into my fur so hard her whole body shakes with it. I put my head down over her shoulder and hold her the only way I can.

“You’re late,” she sobs. “It’s past two. You promised.”

Mine, the wolf says. Safe. Mine.

A gun goes off.

Something punches me in the hip. Not like the rifles. It burns to the bone. Silver.

I spin and put her behind me.

Eamon’s by a side door, thirty feet off. His good suit’s got blood on it and his silver hair’s all over the place. He’s holding a revolver in both hands and they’re shaking so bad the barrel goes in circles.

He was running. He got halfway out, and he came back for one shot. That’s Eamon. Never could leave a thing alone.

He pulls the trigger again. Wide.

I cross the floor in three jumps. I take the gun. I take the hand with it.

He screams. He goes down on his back holding what’s left of his wrist, looking up at me. Nothing charming about his face now. Just old, and small, and scared.