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Desmond edged forward with an exaggerated pounce. It was an intimidation gesture, and it was working. He was an alpha wolf, for crying out loud. He’d be scary if he was a normal wolf size, but he was like a pony-sized wolf. He could get my head into his mouth with very little effort.
I didn’t want to give him the chance to try.
His ears were flat against his skull, and his lips pulled back to show a terrifying, toothy grin that would make the Joker proud.
Actually, it would probably make the Joker shit himself.
“Okay, bitch, anytime.” She was my wolf. I didn’t feel the need to be polite.
We can’t hurt him.
At least she was awake.
“I don’t want to hurt him.”
He is our mate.
“I know. Just make him behave.”
She growled, and inside I could feel a sensation that defied explanation. A human couldn’t comprehend having a werewolf come alive inside their skin. I could feel her, all fur and heat and yearning. She unfurled, opening like a fist unclenching, and the prickly feel of it made me shudder.
She was getting stronger.
Desmond must have sensed her because he stopped advancing and instead of growling, let out a low whine.
Let me out, she demanded.
I didn’t like the sound of that. “We can’t shift. Not here.”
Let me speak.
That I could do. “Fine.”
My body jerked as if I’d taken an electric shock to the spine. I crumpled to the floor, panting, and spasmed several times. What was she doing? I’d told her we couldn’t shift, and this was suspiciously shifting-like in its symptoms.
“Stop,” I gasped.
I shuddered violently, and without realizing I’d moved, I was now crouched in a low squat, my palms flat on the stone. When my mouth opened, it wasn’t because I was trying to speak, yet words came out anyway, and they weren’t mine.
“Lie down, beast of the ranks. You have challenged me before and proven unfit. Kneel before your queen or suffer.”
There’d been times in the past I wondered how Lucas had ever believed I was suitable to be the werewolf queen. As Secret, I wasn’t. But the wolf inside me? She was a different story, and she commanded so much respect, I understood now what he’d seen. She was the queen, not me.
Wolf-Desmond edged forward, sniffling the air, still showing his front fangs in a sign of fearful defiance. Because of the position I was in, I was now facing the wolf head-on, his snout barely a foot away from me. I was terrified, but my wolf was having none of it.
Show no fear, foolish girl. Don’t make him doubt us.
Easy for her to say since she wasn’t the one whose body was on the line. What did she care if my human face got ripped to shreds? It only mattered to her if I died.
I swallowed hard and focused on the rough feeling of the stone beneath my fingers. It was wet and slippery, and I curved my nails around one of the cobblestone edges and gripped it until it hurt. Focusing on the pain took my mind off the trail of saliva dripping from Desmond’s yaw to the floor.
“BOW DOWN.” The voice ripped from me and sounded like something echoing from the bowels of hell itself. If it hadn’t come out of my own mouth, it might have scared the living shit out of me, but as it was my fingers began to tremble.
What was this thing inside me?
I had never spent a lot of time focused on the finer details of living with a wolf trapped in my body. For much of my life I’d ignored her completely, using the cool, calming effects of my vampire blood to keep her in line. But ever since my trip to Louisiana, when I’d shifted for the first—and only—time, she was hell-bent on making me acknowledge her.
And she was winning.
