Page 25 of Piece You Saved

I dart another quick look at the back seat, where Dariel is sitting beside Aden. Just like all the times I’ve peeked before, Dariel has his forehead resting on Aden’s temple, and his lips are moving. He’s talking very quietly right into Aden’s ear.

What is he saying?

Is Aden even listening? I doubt it. He has his eyes closed as he sits strapped into his seatbelt, his body twitching each time one of those wolf growls rumbles from his throat.

He’s going to shift into a wolf. And soon.

Once again, his bare throat pulls at my attention.

It’s insane to think in minutes the bite on his throat has healed, and with that one bite, his life is forever different. My fingers trace the scars on my throat, an action I’m not even aware of until I’m tracing the fourth.

Why has it never worked for me?

No matter how many times Rylan bit me, he could never turn me. One bite and Aden is… changed. Forever.

Rylan hinted that maybe I’m not quite… human. Whatever that meant.

Kade takes a right too fast. The tires squeal as I jerk my head back around, yanking at my hand, a sign for him to let me go. “You need both hands, Kade.”

He clamps onto me even tighter as he straightens the car and flashes me a grin. “More fun with one.”

Alarm spikes through me. It only increases when he puts his foot down and we shoot through a set of traffic lights mid-change.

Behind us, a car horn blares. Kade tugs his hand from mine, lifting it to give the driver behind us a lazy one-finger salute before he reclaims my hand.

“See?” He grins at me.

I wait for my heart to steady.

Another growl comes from behind us. This one is wetter. All the hair on the back of my neck stands on end.

“Kade!” Dariel snaps.

Kade yanks his hand from mine, puts both on the steering wheel, and literally floors it. This time, I don’t say a word, because the sound back there was all wolf.

Aden’s shift is starting now.

I don’t want to look. I tell myself not to look. Yet as Kade roars through the city, taking side roads to avoid any traffic he spots ahead, the need to know pulls at me until I can’t ignore it any longer.

I glance back.

Aden is looking right at me, but his gold-amber eyes aren’t remotely human anymore. And the wolf inside him isn’t only itching to burst out. It’spissed.

You just had to look, didn’t you?

My stomach clenches, and I choke back the urge to fling myself out of this speeding car. A natural response when your eyes clash with a predator sitting not one foot away.

Dariel grips Aden’s chin and turns his face aside, breaking our stare. “It would be best if you kept your eyes in front,” Dariel says calmly.

“Never stare a wolf in the eye, Saige. It’s a challenge,”Rylan told me years ago, right after he’d shattered the image I had of him as the wealthy businessman I’d believed him to be.

I turn around and stare straight ahead.

Aden is watching me again. Or maybe this time Dariel is the one staring at me with his wolf eyes. Dariel has given me reasons to fear him. But Aden? I want to believe he would never hurt me, but he isn’t the same Aden he was before.

I’ve seen it. And I’ve felt it too. Rylan and his wolf were like two different souls. Before biting me didn’t work, and before I tried to run away from him, he was generous in bed and out of it. He complimented me often. And smiled. Also often.

Cruelty is a human trait, I remember hearing somewhere. Or maybe it was in a documentary or TV show I saw once. It’s true. Rylan’s wolf… and his packmates weren’t cruel as wolves. They were predators.

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