Page 30 of My Blind Date is a Werewolf

Come late afternoon, I called Adrian again to get an ETA, and he said he’d be getting to my place around eight or nine in the evening, so I ordered myself some pizza and hot wings and cued up the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but it was more for background noise than anything. If I wasn’t texting back and forth with Adrian, then I was just mindlessly scrolling through Instagram or Pinterest.

The doorbell rang fifteen minutes into the movie and I jumped off the couch, thinking that my dinner had arrived. It rang three more times in quick succession while I dug out money from my purse.

“Keep your pants on, will ya? I’m coming!” I yelled, bumping my big toe on the corner of the coffee table. “Oh, mother of… Ugh!” I cursed, hobbling to the front door. The first thing I saw when I opened it were the two pizza boxes with a bag of hot wings on top. Before I could react, the delivery guy had pushed his way into the living room, tossing my food on the floor and kicking the door shut behind him.

“Hey, what the heck—” I froze, my heart plummeting all the way to my stomach when I saw Dustin, gun in hand. He looked worse for wear. Instead of his usual clean-cut appearance, he looked rumpled and disheveled, like he hadn’t slept or bathed in days.

“Don’t scream, Livy. I can explain.”

My fight or flight response kicked in and I tried to run. If I could get to my phone and barricade myself in my bedroom, I could call for help and—

I felt a sharp pain at the base of my skull just as my fingers grazed the cellphone and everything went dark.

CHAPTER 20

ADRIAN

My head felt like someone had gone to town using it as a drum set. I forced my eyes open, wincing at the throbbing pain at the base of my skull and struggling to sit up until I discovered that my hands and legs were tied together and that I’d been tossed onto the couch. My mouth had been taped shut as well.

The shadows in the room had moved, the sunlight no longer pouring through the east-facing window, so a significant amount of time had passed, at least a couple of hours. The movie was still playing on the TV, but I couldn’t tell if it was still The Fellowship of the Ring or The Two Towers. I laid there on the couch, staring blankly at the screen, my brain scrambling to make sense of what was going on and trying to amass the strength to haul myself up.

Someone was whistling in the kitchen, accompanied by the sound of water rushing from the faucet, and then silence. I listened to the footsteps, each one of them like an arrow to my heart, as he got closer. My phone, which had been on the coffee table before I passed out, was missing.

What was Dustin planning to do with me now? Hold me hostage? Kidnap me? Had he been biding his time, waiting for a moment when Adrian couldn’t come to me? Or was this a crime of opportunity? My heartbeat was a jackhammer in my chest. And to make things worse, I needed to pee—desperately.

“You’re awake!” Dustin cried in relief when he came into view. Rushing to my side, he placed a glass of water and a bottle of aspirin on the coffee table and helped me sit up, ignoring the glare I gave him. “I was starting to get worried when all that time passed and you didn’t stir. You have to believe me when I say I didn’t mean to strike you that hard.” He brushed my hair out of my face, a sickening look of adoration in his eyes. I scoffed and rolled my eyes, wanting to slap away his hand. He smelled like stale beer and cigarette smoke and a bit of cologne. This close, I could see the thin bluish-green lines of his veins under the purple bags under his eyes. There was a hot pink lipstick stain on the collar of his shirt and a hickey on the side of his neck. He obviously had no problem landing a chick, so why couldn’t he just leave me alone?

“Don’t look at me like that.” Dustin tsked, moving from a crouch to kneeling in front of me. “I don’t want to hurt you, Olivia. I’m here to save you. I’ve been trying to find a way to warn you, but you’re always with that monster,” he sneered. “I just came to talk, to make you see reason, I swear.”

“With a gun?” I tried to ask, but it all came out as muffled gibberish.

“Oh right, the gag! I’m going to take this off so that you can take some pain medication for the headache that’s undoubtedly plaguing you. I want you and I to have a conversation like two reasonable adults.”

I nodded my head vigorously, making more inaudible sounds around the gag in my mouth. If Dustin wanted to run his mouth, then I’d let him and bide my time until he let his guard down and I could escape. All this time, I’d been doing my darndest not to stare at the front door or the windows. The curtains were pulled closed so no one could see into the living room from the street. But I just needed to get free, then I would—

“Olivia!” Dustin yelled in my ear, snapping his fingers in front of my face. His thin lips were pulled back in a snarl, a crazed glint in his eyes. “You’re not paying attention! How do you expect me to trust you when you keep tuning me out?” he hissed. I bowed my head in apology, making myself as meek as possible.

Dustin clicked his tongue. “I’ll say this once more, and if you cross me, whatever happens is on you. I’m going to take the gag off. If you scream, I will hurt you. We both don’t want that because it hurts me so much to cause you pain, but I need to know that you’ll listen to what I have to say.”

I nodded, and then Dustin ripped the tape off my mouth.

“What do you want, Dustin? Tying me up and holding me hostage? Are you insane?” I whisper-yelled, wincing when my headache flared up. Dustin rushed to give me the aspirin and water, I gladly took a pill and waited for his answer.

“I’m sorry, Olivia. I really did come to speak with you, but I panicked when you started to run away from me.”

“Maybe I would have believed you if you hadn't brought that with you.” I nodded at the gun tucked into his waistband.

“Oh, this?” He took the gun out, pointing it in my direction. I shrunk away from him, pressing my back into the couch. “This was for protection against that monster. Look, I know he has you wrapped around his finger, but you have no idea who you’re sleeping with, Olivia. Adrian Cooper is a monster—I saw him with my own two eyes.” Dustin had gone pale, the fear in his eyes palpable. My mouth went dry at his statement.

“What do you mean by that?” I croaked.

“Promise me you’ll keep an open mind because what I’m about to tell you will sound crazy. I saw him kill those…” He paused to take a breath. “I don’t know what he told you, but Adrian Cooper is a beast, some kind of monstrous wolfman out of legend, and he killed some people. I saw it, you have to believe me!”

Was he talking about the rogues who’d come to Mystic Cove? How could he have seen what had happened that night?

“I know, it sounds crazy. But I was there at Gordon’s dive bar when they led those men out. Adrian and two others, they led three men out of that bar and into the woods and they all…” He stopped, sucking in shallow breaths. “They transformed into…into wolves!”

I couldn’t suppress a groan. Of all the people to discover Adrian’s secret. My brain was still sluggish, but I remembered that I had a part to play in the town’s whole song and dance, so I laughed. “Did you hit your head? Or maybe drink one too many Jager bombs?”

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