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“Let her go, Derek,” Dominic said, taking half a step forward.
Derek tightened his hold around my wrists. “No, little brother. She’s coming with me,” he said.
“I’m not going anywhere with you!” I said, trying to slam the back of my head to his face, but he moved away easily. “Let me go, damn it!”
“She’s feisty,” Derek said, and I could hear the grin in his voice.
“How much did you take?” Dominic asked him, never looking at me, but I could see that his eyes had become completely golden. Oh, no. Was he going to shift now?
“The whole thing. It was delicious,” Derek said from right next to my ear. “See? She takes care of me. Unlike you.”
“Stop it, Derek,” I demanded. “Let. Me.Go!”
“She’s not going anywhere with you,” Dominic said. “Let’s sit down for a bit. Let’s talk.”
“Fuck talking,” Derek spit. “I’m leaving.”
“No,” Dominic said.
I was so afraid I could hardly breathe. But when I did force some air in my lungs, I felt my magic stir inside me. My magic. I had my magic back now. All I needed was a little bit of it to distract Derek so I could get away.
His arm snaked around my waist, and I looked down to see that his fingers were tipped with claws. Actual claws, just like the ones on Dominic’s hands.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I didn’t let the fear get to me. I focused on my magic, gathering as much of it as I could—and it responded. Every time I was overwhelmed with feelings, it always responded fast and with so much precision. I felt it moving down my arms, and I felt it releasing from my fingers, creating a bubble all around me.
“Teddy, stop,” Derek hissed next to my ear.
Too late.
I slammed my head back, and this time I hit his nose. The bubble of magic I’d wrapped around myself exploded, pushing him back, and pushing me on all fours to the ground.
Derek roared like a monster, and Dominic was already running. By the time I pushed myself up to my shaking legs, Derek was jumping on the bricks of the four-story building at the back of the yard, and he wasclimbingit with his claws like he was freaking Spiderman.
Warmth spilled down the left side of my waist, but I still couldn’t look away until Derek moved to the top of the large building and jumped, disappearing from our view. Dominic was there, too, watching, hands still fisted, but he didn’t move. He didn’t follow him.
Instead, he turned to me.
“What have you done?”
The view in front of me swam. My legs wobbled, then let go of me. I thought I was going to hit the ground, but I didn’t. I fell right into Dominic’s arms instead. His teeth were gritted as he pulled up my shirt to see the left side of my waist. I saw it, too—saw the four deep cuts on my skin and the blood coming out of them.
“You’ll be okay,” Dominic said, putting his large hand over the wounds to add pressure while he held me against his chest.
“I didn’t…I didn’t…” God, I couldn’t speak. It wasn’t the wounds—I’d suffered far worse. I barely even felt the pain, but it was the panic. It was the fear.
“Hush, Teddybear. You’re going to heal in no time,” Dominic said, his voice soft and full of rough edges at the same time as he pressed his lips to the top of my head. I wrapped my arms around him as tears slid from my eyes.
“What did I do?” I whispered, half the memories of the past few minutes already blurry, as if my own brain was trying to shut them out to keep the fear at bay.
“You gave a thirty-year-old werewolf his wolf back for the first time,” Dominic said.
My eyes squeezed shut, and I hid my face under his neck. Memories of our talk in San Francisco came back to me. Dominic had told me how hard it had been for him to control his wolf on his own when he came out the first time…as ateenager.
“Oh, my God,” I breathed, shaking my head as if I didn’t want to accept my own memories. What I knew to be true. Werewolves needed to be guided to control their shifting. When it hit them while they were teenagers, it almost drove them nuts. It took a lot of work to learn how to control the animal in them and here I was, thinking just because Derek was older, he would be able to master his wolf, just like that.
When even Dominic couldn’t, even though he’d never been without his animal half in the first place.
“It’s okay, Teddybear,” Dominic whispered in my ear, kissing my hair. But it wasn’t. It was far from okay.
