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If that scumbag had done something to her, I didn’t care how mortal I was, I’d go back across the gate and kick his fairy ass into another dimension.
“I’ll go see her,” I said.
“Secret…” Desmond’s voice cut in, an edge of worry coloring his typically calm tone.
“One second,” I said, covering the mouthpiece of the cell.
“I don’t know if we have a second. ” He pointed down the block to where a group of six men was walking in our direction. Their purposeful strides told me it wasn’t a coincidence they were moving our way. They were coming for us.
“Wolves?” Not being able to smell them for myself made me nervous. What made me more nervous was knowing it was six against two and I didn’t have any kind of supernatural strength on my side. Considering I’d been bested by rug burn that morning, I didn’t think I’d be much help against six werewolves.
“Yeah,” Desmond whispered, unable to hide how uneasy he was.
For the first time in my adult life, I was going to be a liability to someone’s safety just by being with them.
“Lucas, I gotta go. ” I hung up the phone before he could reply.
Even if I wasn’t going to be much use in the strength department, I had something that could do damage against wolves. After dropping my cell back into my purse, I withdrew my SIG, pulled my hand back out and clicked off the safety. These guys weren’t here for Desmond, they were here for me. I could already see Hank and the ponytailed scumbag among the group.
My mom’s pack.
“Don’t suppose you think they’ll go easy on us if I tell them about my predicament?” I gave Desmond a fake-hopeful smile. He grimaced in return. “So much for putting my past behind us, eh?” That didn’t seem to make him laugh either. Honestly, I wasn’t in a laughing mood at the moment, but being human didn’t mean I had to be deathly serious all the time.
Maybe deathly was the wrong way to think of things right now.
I’d been human less than twenty-four hours, and I was already looking down certain death. This had to be a record for the shortest lifespan of a newborn twenty-three-year-old ever.
But then I reminded myself how often my death had seemed like a sure thing in the past, and I was still kicking, so maybe this wasn’t hopeless. I did have Desmond with me, and my gun. And a fucked-up adulthood that had trained me how to think and behave in situations like this one. Not to mention my training had all come from one man…a human man.
Fuck the discouraging thoughts. I might be human, but I was still Secret McQueen.
I chambered a round and dropped my purse to the ground. If I couldn’t use it to kill someone, it wasn’t any good to me, and as big as my purse was I don’t think it qualified as a deadly weapon quite yet.
“I’m not sure how much use I’m going to be against the big ones,” I admitted.
“Stay behind me. ”
“I can take out the scrawny one. And the leader. ” My voice didn’t belie my uncertainty, for which I was grateful. Sounding self-assured went a long way towards making me feel it.
“Secret, stay behind me. ”
The pack was only a block away, close enough to hear what we were saying, so I chose my next works carefully. “I know you’re prone to being protective, but I’m not useless here. ” I waved my gun in his peripheral vision. “I can handle myself. If I can’t, then I’ll stay behind you. ”
Desmond, who had been rigid and standing with a fighter’s determination, shifted his position to look at me. In one brutally masculine gesture he grabbed me by the waist and yanked me against him, his mouth crushing mine with a rough, hot kiss that made my whole body explode with tingles. When he released me, I was dizzy and my feet had gone missing.
“I won’t lose you, understand? Not now. ”
The pack was crossing the street, and we didn’t have time for romantic proclamations, just barely enough time for me to whisper, “Not ever. ”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
In some ways being human was not so different from being a vampire.
While in the throes of a vampiric rage—or while my body was healing itself—all the world around me would dim into a white noise. When Pony-boy and his goon squad came to a stop a few feet away from Desmond and me, the throb of my pulse in my ears was so loud it was all I could hear. All other noise vanished, and the constant reminder of my humanity thrummed inside my head.
“Be calm,” Desmond said quietly, even though the other men would hear him.
“This is me being calm. ”
