Page 3 of It All Started with a Bite

I grabbed the man’s shoulders and tried not to think too hard about how this probably counted as assault. Ellie lifted his feet and pondered her options out loud as we shuffled down the hallway.

“I liked that yoga class you took me to last week. The instructor said I had potential.”

The instructor was being polite, but I didn’t mention this to Ellie.

“A flower shop might be a good idea,” I grunted as I hefted the man’s increasingly heavy body. “You’re great with plants.”

The guy’s suit was straining at the seams, like his muscles had gotten bigger. Which was impossible, obviously.

The sound of frantic barking greeted us as we approached our apartment, the corner unit on the fourth floor. Bo’s deep voice echoed through the door in a way I’d never heard before.

“Hush, Bo!” I hissed. “You’ll wake the whole building!”

The barking cut off abruptly. That should have been a clue that all was not well with this situation.

Bo had never listened to a command in his entire life.

I managed to fish my keys out without dropping our now-feverish guest. The door swung open to reveal my Husky standing in the middle of our living room, pupils dilated, hackles raised, and teeth bared. I froze.

In three years of owning Bo, I’d never seen him bare his teeth at anything, not even the vacuum cleaner he was convinced was his mortal enemy.

“What’s wrong with him?” Ellie asked.

Bo took one look at our unconscious companion and backed away so fast he crashed into the coffee table. A high-pitched whine escaped his throat as he scrambled in clear panic, knocking over my carefully arranged stack of accounting textbooks in his attempt to get away.

“Bo?” I said worriedly. “It’s okay.”

My normally friendly goofball of a dog was now trying to climb the wall while making sounds I didn’t even know dogs could make.

“Maybe he’s drunk too?” Ellie suggested hopefully.

I shot her a look. “He’s been home all night. Unless he got into a secret stash of doggy vodka I don’t know about, this is definitely not normal behavior for Bo.”

“Let’s just get this guy inside before my arms fall off,” Ellie groaned.

We managed to get the man inside our apartment and onto our sofa. His legs dangled over the armrest.

I hadn’t realized how tall he was until we laid him out.

The overhead light gave me my first good look at his face.

“Oh.” Ellie squinted. “He’s kind of cute.”

She wasn’t wrong. Despite being passed out and drooling slightly, the guy was attractive in that possibly-murders-people-for-fun kind of way. His dark hair fell across his forehead rakishly, his cheekbones and jawline were chiseled like a minor Greek god’s, and his lips were perfectly formed and the color of cherries.

I looked closer. Yup, definitely pizza sauce.

Ellie cocked her head. “Is it me, or does his face look kind of hairy?”

I stared. She was right. The guy was definitely sporting more facial hair than when we’d found him on the steps, like he’d grown a partial beard in the time it took us to get him upstairs. My gaze found his hands.

They were also hairy. And his nails had grown oddly long and sharp.

Bo let out another whimper from where he’d wedged himself behind my grandmother’s antique sideboard. The sound sent a chill down my spine.

I slowly backed away from the sofa. “Maybe we should call the cops after all.”

Several things happened at once.

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