Page 74 of The Lone Wolf Café
I lowered my muzzle, fangs exposed, ready to fight teeth with teeth.
Then the black wolf’s fangs hit flesh, and an agonizing screech blasted in my ears and made my whole body tremble.
It wasn’t me the werewolf had bitten.
It was Rowena.
It was a horrific sight; Rowena’s thin, pale arm clenched in the wolf’s jaws, teeth serrating skin, punching their way through fat and muscle. Blood pooled in a thin circle around each individual tooth, until enough of it collected to form droplets that trailed down Rowena’s arm like tears. It was a deep, shiny, sickly shade of crimson, and despite all my years spent hunting down prey in my wolf form, it was nearly enough to make me vomit.
She’d tried to stop us. To pry us apart.
And she ended up taking the bite that was meant for me.
Panic surged through my veins, but I needed to slow it down to get us out of this situation. So I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and prayed.
Please… let me calm down…
A sharp tingle ran through my body, like a cold chill on an icy winter night, and I snapped back into my human form. Which was important, because I needed my hands to pry the werewolf’s jaws off Rowena’s arm.
I nicked my finger in the process, blood beading up on the tip like liquid ruby. But at least the wolf’s saliva entering my bloodstream wasn’t an issue. The man couldn’t infect someone that was already a werewolf.
But I was terrified for Rowena. She collapsed to the ground, struggling to catch her weight on her knees as she clutched her oozing forearm.
She’d been bitten. By a werewolf.
She was one of us now.
But I didn’t have time to process the harrowing consequences of the bite. I leered at the stunned male werewolf, who was now standing wide-eyed and open-jawed with their paws splayed out, struggling to stay upright. Blood glinted from its fangs, mixing with saliva as it dropped from its mouth and onto the ground. The discharge looked like oil stains amidst the dark soil of Rowena’s garden.
I stood my ground, ears and tail still out, ready to shift back at a moment’s notice. But the werewolf no longer looked angry. It looked stunned. Horrified.
Its eyes flicked over to Rowena, and a high-pitched noise screeched from its throat.
It was whining. Like a dog.
The man clearly regretted biting Rowena. The shock was enough for the wolf to back away, its distressed cries growing in volume as it turned on its haunches and scampered away. It leapt over Rowena’s garden fence like it was nothing, the wolf’s dark silhouette quickly melding into the surrounding forest.
But just before he disappeared, I noticed the werewolf stop at the edge of the forest. His silhouette was little more than a tiny, dark speck against the moonlit sky, but I was certain I saw a second figure move out from behind the trees.
Another werewolf. Considerably larger than the first.
My stomach plummeted even further.Big Red.It had to be. From what I’d been told, they were the only werewolf able to break through the wards.
And let other werewolves through.
Thankfully, we were so far away, Big Red didn’t seem to notice us. As soon as the male werewolf caught up with Big Red, the two of them cantered away and disappeared, their silhouettes swallowed up by the forest.
Once I was certain the wolves were gone, that they weren’t going to turn back and ambush me once I let my guard down, I bolted to Rowena’s side.
She was still on her knees, hunched over with her injured arm tucked against her chest. I placed my hand on her wrist, and she yelped and pulled away. But after a few seconds of pleading glances, she reluctantly allowed me to survey her injuries.
The fang marks were deep. They punched through her skin like darts through paper, leaving a trail of holes in her flesh. Blood poured down her forearm in slick red streams, staining her maroon nightgown and dotting the tips of her fingers. Even when I touched the skin around the wound, she let out a strangled sob, hissing through her teeth as she fought through the pain.
“We need to get you inside,” I stated firmly.
Rowena nodded, but didn’t say anything as I lifted her up and draped her uninjured arm across my shoulder. Her left arm was the only injured part of her body, but her legs were weak and gelatinous, and she struggled to place one in front of the other. As a werewolf who had endured wounds while out hunting, I knew her inability to walk was because of the pain.
Once I brought her inside and set her into a chair, her head lolled to one side, as if the muscles in her neck had stopped working. I steadied her as best I could, terrified she’d pass out.
