Page 68 of It's You
The world started spinning, and she put a hand to her scorching hot cheek.
“Darcy. I can…I can explain.”
“W-w-why are you c-covered in blood?”
Razor-sharp fangs, long, yellow claws, the face of a wolf, eyes that burn, and the strength of ten men…
“C-calm down.” He took another step toward her, and she tensed. She thought about running, but she knew he could outrun her. She put up her palms in frightened supplication. The blood was rushing from her extremities, and her fingers felt like icicles. So cold, they might snap if bent.
“Don’t come closer. P-please don’t.”
She was feeling dizzy. She couldn’t think clearly. She stared at him desperately.
Its fangs drip with the blood of its victims.
He flinched and froze, dropping her eyes.
Darcy sucked in a breath, trying not to faint. “W-where have you been? W-what have you…b-been doing…and whose blood is that?” Her voice was thready and high-pitched, and she felt the moisture of tears slipping down her cheeks. Her blood was pumping so fast it was deafening.
“I’ve been here,” he murmured.
“In-in your garage?” She flicked her glance to the corner where he had emerged. To the metal door with the security pad. “That’s not a wine cellar, is it?”
He didn’t look up. He shook his head.
No one could love such a hideous, abominable creature.
What was the name of the creature?
The Roux-ga-roux.
The mythical creature that ate flesh. The Métis werewolf. The monster. Words formed on her tongue and escaped her mouth before her brain could sanction their release.
“The were…wolf…the monster. Oh, Jack.” She sobbed, her fingers shaking before her, wide-eyed and trembling. “You’re…you’re a Roux-ga-roux, aren’t you?”
His eyes were burning and yellow when he raised them to meet hers. He closed them as his face crumpled in pain before he slowly bowed his head. Darcy knew the answer, and her heart splintered with the pain of watching all the puzzle pieces finally fit together with heartbreaking, terrifying clarity.
She wanted to run. She wanted to run away and hide before he answered her. She didn’t want to hear the word that would destroy everything sweet and real between them. She didn’t want to be in love with a monster.
But she couldn’t move. She stood frozen, holding her breath, staring at his thick, black, dirty, wolf-like hair.
He raised his eyes, and they were brown again. He looked so much like Jack Beauloup, Darcy wanted to die. She saw the pain there, the desperation, and then…the surrender.
“Yes,” he breathed.
Her head lolled back, and the world went silent and black.
For the first time in Darcy’s life, she fainted.
She was somewhere soft,like a cocoon, and sighed with pleasure. It was warm and cozy and smelled like Jack. Jack, to whom she was bound. Jack, whom she loved.
Wait. Jack isn’t…Jack.
Alarm bells were going off like crazy in her head as she remembered the creature from the garage, and she jerked herself into a sitting position.
She realized that she was in his bed, and he was sitting quietly in a chair beside her, freshly showered and shaved, devastatingly handsome, looking exactly as he looked last Sunday morning when she said goodbye to him. He watched her carefully from his seat, and she saw that his brown eyes were grief stricken as they caught hers.
“Don’t be frightened.”
