Page 8 of Defeated

An impossibly stupid thing.

He turns his back to me.

For a second, all I can do is stare, my wolf as stunned as the woman.

My mind blinks awake when he fumbles for something in his pocket.

Taking advantage of his stupidity—does he want to die?—I slink forward a couple of steps, to be more sure my leap will bring him down.

The sound of a ringing phone fills the room.

Again, I hesitate. None of this is going how I thought it would. Every time this shifter does something, it’s a thing I’m not expecting.

He glances over his shoulder, seems not to notice I’ve closed the distance between us and flashes me a small smile. “Like I said, he’s busy with the cake competition, so he might not?—”

The phone stops ringing.

“Chris?” a deep, painfully familiar male voice interrupts him.

We didn’t speak for long.

One barked order in an alley that saved my life. A handful more words—a warning to leave the city—outside his apartment. But I know that voice. Know exactly what it means.

Colton.

He’s alive.

“Is something wrong?” Colton asks, sounding worried.

Chris turns fully to face me.

You nearly killed an innocent man.

This man—Chris—wasn’t here to rob Colton. It sounds like they might be friends.

“I’m at your apartment,” Chris says, his eyes glued to my face, “and I have someone here who might have thought you weren’t coming back. She might have even thought you were dead, and I was up to no good.”

How could he have understood so much without me needing to say a word?

“She?” I swear Colton’s surprise travels down the phone. “Zoe? I thought you’d left town. Have you been there all this time?”

As a wolf, I can’t speak. I’d like to talk to Colton and reassure myself he truly is okay, but I’ve never been more relieved to be a wolf and not a woman.

You were wrong, Zoe. And you nearly killed an innocent man because of it.

My trembling starts on the inside.

I start my slow retreat, needing to leave before Colton hears what I did.

I can’t be here when Chris tells him I nearly killed him. He would hate me, probably even regret saving my life if he ever learned what I came so close to doing. One leap, one bite, and his blood would have filled my mouth. I’d have watched the light in his brown eyes go out.

And he wouldn’t have deserved it.

I have to leave. Now.

“Zoe?” Colton asks.

Chris gives me a long look. “Zoe is a wolf.”

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