Page 59 of To Challenge a Wolf

Before she tapped out a response, she glanced up and met his eyes. “Rhett.”

“He’s a vampire.”

She shut her eyes as if with great longsuffering. “Crap.”

A vampire. Vivian. Friends with a vampire. His brain caught fire the way it had when Malachi had said… But this fire was worse. Hotter. Dangerous. Roaring. Rhett took her hand and headed for the doors. He hoped he wasn’t appearing to drag her. He couldn’t tell right now.

A vampire.

He finally stopped at his truck. He released her hand and braced both of his on the hood. He tried to breathe. Breathe as Vivian had reminded the vampire to do. But Vivian was friends with a vampire, and Rhett’s breaths felt like fire.

“Rhett, you need to calm down. You’re going to pass out.”

“Vampire,” he growled.

“Yes, Blaine is a vampire. He’s also a very good man, and he’s never been my boyfriend. He’s been a brother to me, and he’s as trustworthy as any human or wolf.”

“Vampire.” The only word he could say. The only word he could think.

Bitten multiple times before he’d begun changing form at thirteen. After that, counting on every full moon to make scars of the bites that burned and itched, no medical treatment per Stone’s orders. Always his back, shoulders—somewhere he couldn’t reach well enough to clean and tend himself.

Trained to within an inch of his life. A thirteen-year-old pup trying not to get bitten. Stone’s voice from outside the sparring ring.“Again. Don’t get caught this time.”

“Again. Faster, Rhett.”

“Again. The pup’s got to learn.”

Cool, gentle hand on his forehead. Soft words, no snark. “It’s okay, I’ve got you. Let’s go for a drive, Jamie. Come on, get in.”

The passenger door of the pickup truck was open. He climbed inside. Didn’t know what else to do. Vivian had told him to get in. Vivian had told the vampire to breathe. Vampire. After Vivian, maybe craving Vivian.

They were moving. Vivian was driving his truck. She rolled down his window, and the cool night air flowed over him, through his hair and past his ears. Rhett closed his eyes and tried to breathe, but…

“Vampire,” he said.

“They really hurt you,” she whispered. “I know that. But this…Rhett, you could talk about them before. Why do you have an actual physical fever over the fact I have a friend who’s a vampire?”

He flinched.

“Okay, maybe I’m doing this wrong and I should shut up for a while. You let me know when you’re ready to talk.”

But the minute she was quiet, the minute he heard the wind and the night noises and none of her words, it all flooded back over him, and he wanted to kill something. Preferably the silver-haired one who had gifted him his first bite, three weeks after his ninth birthday.

“Talk to me,” he said.

“Okay. About anything in particular?”

He couldn’t make sense of her question. He was melting again. “Viv, I need you to talk.”

“Okay. So…um…uh, remember when…? Right. Got it. Remember when no one but us cared about the music festival at the fair, so we filched one of your dad’s credit cards and bought tickets? And you were still just on your permit, but you drove us all the way to the fairgrounds and back again, and we sneaked into our rooms at like three in the morning, and no one ever noticed a thing. Not that we were gone. Not that we’d charged a few hundred dollars. You just put the card back where you found it, and we waited for weeks to get in trouble for it, and nothing happened.”

He’d worn earplugs, able to go only because it was an outdoor concert. Stadiums and concert halls were too loud. He hadn’t cared about the artists, not really. He’d watched Vivian most of the night, hardly bothering to look at the stage. He’d been seventeen and suddenly aware that making this girl happy made him the happiest he’d ever been.

The truck had stopped moving. The wind had stopped cooling him.

“Viv,” he said.

“Come here.”

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