Page 33 of Wanted

The truth is, I don’t know what to think.

Then I remember the night before.

I blink and stare at Chance. “Were those guys last night…” I trail off as the memory of the shadow of what I believed were dogs in the parking lot of the motel come to mind. “Were they…human?”

Chance gives me a hard look. It’s not quite mean or malice-filled. It is intense, however.

“Yes.”

His one-word answer sounds more like the beginning than an end to an answer.

“And they were wolves.”

Those words steal my breath.

“No, no, no, no…” I mumble the word over and over again while squeezing my eyes shut.

I palm my forehead repeatedly in an attempt to make myself wake up from this strange and scary dream. When I open my eyes, all will be right with the world again.

Ashley will be back in Upstate New York, where she’s safe.

And I will be in Colorado where I’m spending the summer working as an anthropology intern.

All I have to do is open my eyes.

“Stop it,” a deep voice interjects before I finish my thoughts and will myself to peel my eyelids apart. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

Those words, for whatever reason, penetrate the haze of my confusion and fear.

Slowly, with deliberate effort, I open my eyes.

My shoulders slump when I swivel my head from left to right, only to recognize that I’m still in this small women’s bathroom of a diner out in the middle of nowhere, Florida.

That’s not even the worst part.

Worse still, is that I’m locked in said bathroom with a very tall, very strong and dangerously good-looking man.

A man who I witnessed change into a wolf, not too long ago. Now he stands before me, his huge hands engulfing my wrists as he hovers over me.

Our eyes lock.

I search his copper orbs with flecks of gold in them. His stare doesn’t waver or falter. It’s as if he’s allowing me to see right into his soul.

As if he wants me to see into the deepest parts of him.

That thought has me snatching my hands away.

I step back until my back bumps against the wall. My chest rises and falls as I try to form coherent thoughts.

I decide to go with the first question that comes to mind.

“What…” I pause to clear my throat. “What are you?”

His lips pinch. He’s debating his answer to my question.

I should’ve given myself more time.

I should have contemplated my question a little more deeply.

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