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What?
I clambered to my feet and yanked the gun out of Shane’s hand, firing the remainder of the clip into the stunned vampire’s head. When the crater of his skull was reduced to a fine pulp of pink mist and his body sagged to the ground with no hope of rising again, only then did I look down at my own arm to assess the damage.
What I saw almost brought me to my knees.
My hand wasn’t broken. At some point while I’d struggled with The Greek, my adrenaline had overwhelmed the veil of control I’d kept over my werewolf side since I was a baby. Instead of a human left hand, I was looking at a hideous amalgamation of a human hand and a wolf paw. My fingers were shortened, and the skin had changed to a light gray color. A fine smattering of coarse hair covered my hand, ending abruptly at the wrist. But the claws were the biggest shock. An inch long and curved, they were dark black and covered in skin and blood.
I had split the vampire open.
Even as I watched, the pain reawakened in my hand, and everything shifted back to normal. It had taken mere seconds, but watching it felt like a lifetime.
Shane looked away from the dead vampire. He hadn’t seen a thing.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I nodded stupidly, still staring at my hand. I guess I had inherited something from my mother after all. She was one of the few shapeshifters I’d ever met who could complete selective form-shifts without being under the influence of the full moon.
My hands trembled as I picked up my gun from the cold ground.
“You need to call the Council. Get them to send a clean-up crew.” I was already jogging away.
“Wait, where are you going?”
I didn’t answer. I needed to get away from there and back to somewhere safe and warm and normal before I threw up.
Chapter Nineteen
Brigit Stewart had an amazingly normal apartment for a dead girl.
My hands were still shaking when she buzzed me up, but at least they were human hands. The question of how I’d been able to shift only one part of my body, and shift it back, was beyond the scope of my understanding to answer. If my mother wasn’t a homicidal maniac bent on killing me, she’d be the perfect person to ask. Unfortunately, she wasn’t an option.
Yet another question to ask Grandmere when I got around to calling her.
I let myself into Brigit’s living room and was surprised to find a familiar young man sitting on the couch looking both pleased and guilty.
“Hi, Nolan.”
Nolan Tate smiled, flashing his perfectly straight white teeth at me. He was a good-looking kid. A unique blend of Spanish and African-American traits gave his skin a coffee-and-cinnamon coloring. Nolan was more than just attractive, though. He was also a sweet, good-natured guy, and my immediate reaction to him was to keep him protected and safe.
Yet here he was, alone with a vampire.
“Hiya.” His grin broadened a little more.
“What are you—?”
Brigit emerged from her bedroom wearing a tank top and a pair of lacy panties. She waved at me, her megawatt smile showing no signs of embarrassment, and ducked into the kitchen. When she returned, she handed Nolan and I each a cold beer in spite of the frigid temperature outside, and skipped back into her bedroom.
“Uhh.”
“So,” Nolan said, ignoring my stunned reaction. “What brings ya here?”
“What brings you here?” I countered.
“I think dat’s sorta obvious.” This time he had the decency to blush.
Brigit came back in wearing a pair of faded denim jeans. She plopped down next to Nolan on the sofa and snuggled against his side. I wanted to point out to them that when they’d first met, Brigit had enthralled him and bitten his neck open. But I wasn’t really in a place to throw stones at their relationship choices, considering the giant glass mansion I lived in. Instead, I cracked open the beer and took a sip. It tasted rank and skunky, as most beer did.
“I have a job for Brigit.”
