Page 54 of Depraved
Like a madman, Black slowly stands.
I reach for him, yanking at his pants, trying to drag him back down. But he ignores me. Bastard. Stupid motherfucking fool!
Still crouched behind the metal, he shifts into his werewolf form. His clothes rip and flutter down on me in little strips as white fur erupts from his skin and his skull morphs into a snarling wolf head.
An extra shiver goes down my spine, one not caused by fear of the bullets flying everywhere but by the intensity of his magic and his fury.
With a roar, Black’s claws jerk forward and sink into the first sheet of metal in the rack in front of us. Those four-inch nails of his slide right through the steel like it’s butter, and I gasp in surprise. I had no idea he could do that.
With a groan, he lifts the entire ten-foot sheet from the rack with a single hand and holds it in front of him like a shield. He glances back at me, his eyes molten gold. His lips curl up over his teeth, and he snarls a warning that reverberates inside my skull.
Stay.His voice sounds right inside my head.
My wolf immediately disappears from the corner of my eyes, fritzing into nothingness as I realize Black is going to leave me alone.
Vulnerable.
She disappears so that she doesn’t make things worse as I watch Black stride away, leaning forward into his makeshift shield as bullets barrage him.
He’s going after them.
Fuck.
Insecurity envelopes me. I don’t know how to fight. I don’t know what to do. How many are there? What if he can’t take them all?
We never should have come here alone.
I scramble for my phone, digging it out of my pocket, intending to call Dewey—the elite who’s the check-in point for all alpha Lobos sniffing around down here. But my fingers shake so much I can’t even dial.
Panic makes me feel small, and it starts to overtake my thoughts. I blank on Dewey’s number. I don’t recall that he’s in my speed dial. I even forget how to breathe for a second and grab at my own throat. Red spirals at the edge of my vision. I blink.
A bestial roar reaches my ears, and I cringe, tucking in my knees and elbows, feeling utterly useless. Metal scraping joins in with the concussive shouts of the bullets.
What’s going on?
I can’t just stay here waiting to see what the fuck is going to happen. I have to do something.
Better to die fighting than on my knees.
Nope. Don’t think about death, Elena. Just fighting. Then running. Nothing else. Fight so you can run.
I try to breathe slowly, in through my nose and out through my mouth. I try to picture the forest outside and use that as my mental finish line. My goal is to get out there.
I can’t lift a damn wall’s worth of steel like Black, but maybe I can crawl forward and grab a metal straight-iron rod to try to stab someone.
I push up onto my hands and knees and edge forward, ignoring the burn that seems to encase my skinned arm with every movement.
I peer around the corner of the metal, holding my breath, ready to duck back at any moment. But I don’t see anyone else in my line of sight. I lean further, heart pattering. Still nothing.
How many are there?
My eyes dart around the best they can, given that there are racks of metal all throughout the space. Killers could be hiding behind any one of them. This is the perfect location for an ambush, and I’d think it was one, except for the fact that Brittany was taken out first.
Not me.
Not Black.
That fact alone is interesting … because it means Thomas Stone wants us alive.
