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From deep within, a chilling growl emanated, making the hair on my neck and arms stand on end. I tried to scramble backwards, not wanting to make the acquaintance of whatever was down there, but Peyton came up behind me, keeping me in place with a boot placed firmly at the small of my back.
“Now, now, Ms. McQueen, giving up already? What a boring way to fail my test. You kill what’s down there, and if you come out standing, then you get your stab at me. So to speak.” He laughed a cruel, merciless chuckle and kicked me, sending me spilling over the edge and down a dozen feet to the damp concrete floor below.
The shock of the fall left me frozen briefly, but the growling noise—now much louder and closer—brought my wits back to me, and I skittered away, my spine pressing to a stone wall that wasn’t nearly far enough from the beast in my opinion.
Something nagged at me, a worried kind of bubble in my stomach that wouldn’t go away. I assumed it was related to the absolute terror I felt at being trapped in some sort of to-the-death cage match with a monster of unknown origin, but it wouldn’t go away.
My eyes started to adjust to the darkness, and I licked my lips, trying to chase off the dryness.
I tasted lime.
No.
Lights mounted around the circumference of the pit snapped on, bathing the circle in blinding white. I blinked back tears, trying to see through the sudden brightness. Hoping I wouldn’t see what I feared I would.
On the opposite side of the well, his black fur ruffled up at the back and his canine teeth exposed in a menacing snarl, was Desmond.
Werewolf Desmond.
And we’d just been set against each other in a death match.
Chapter Twelve
“Oh. Des. No.” I shook my head, barely able to comprehend what I was seeing. We were nowhere near the full moon, and Desmond lacked my ability to partially shift, let alone to fully shift his form without the lunar influence. Yet here he was in front of me, and there was no mistaking it was him. “What did they do to you?”
He snarled in response, saliva dripping in long ropes from his mouth.
The curved stone surface of the wall behind me was smooth and slick with sewer wetness. Climbing out to evade Desmond wouldn’t be an option. I had my sword and knife, but as far as I was concerned there was no way in hell I would be drawing a weapon against my own boyfriend, werewolf or not.
“He looks hungry,” Peyton commented from above.
I glanced up to see him peering over the edge, a wicked grin on his face. He was just perfectly fucking delighted with himself over this one.
“What did you do to him?”
“I’ve worked with wolves before, Secret. You don’t think I learned a thing or two about managing them in that time?”
Managing them.
I thought back to the time he’d teamed up with Marcus Sullivan, the former alpha of Albany and my mom’s psycho main squeeze du jour. Peyton had used Marcus’s men as guards instead of trusting vampires, but those wolves had all remained in their human form. Nothing about that encounter explained how Desmond was all furry right now.
When we’d gone to the fairy realm, he’d lost control of his wolf and been forced to shift. Was it possible he was better able to change forms without the help of the moon now?
No, that seemed unlikely. We’d been back for months, and he hadn’t shown any signs of it until now, unless he was keeping them from me.
But Desmond wasn’t the one who kept secrets. I was.
I ran my palms over the wall again, hoping a handhold might reveal itself, but what was I going to climb out to? They wouldn’t help me out at the top, they’d just kick me back down. I’d managed to make it through one landing without serious injury, but I wasn’t immune to broken bones. I couldn’t risk a second fall.
For the time being Desmond seemed content to growl at me and wasn’t lunging or snapping his teeth. Yet.
“Desmond…”
The hair on his haunches stood on end as he stooped his body closer to the floor. I knew wolves pretty well, and this was textbook attack behavior. Guess he wasn’t in the mood to chat.
My wolf had been feeling motivated a few minutes earlier in Peyton’s chamber, and I wondered if she might be willing to participate in this situation. When Desmond had shifted to his wolf form in the fairy realm, he’d been borderline homicidal. My wolf had been able to control him then. Maybe she’d be able to help now.
Anytime…
