Page 60 of The Forbidden Wolf

Across the aisle, Evan instantly squared his jaw and puffed out his gym rat pecs. He casually slid one arm around Jayla’s shoulders like he’d been meaning to do it for a while. As he made himself big, she made herself small, demurely crossing her legs and tucking into his chest as if they were a couple. It happened so smoothly it seemed they must have felt the need to do it a thousand times before. My throat tightened. Humans had their own ways of shifting to protect the ones they loved.

The car rocked three more times, and then the pre-recorded voice warned everyone to stand clear of the closing doors. I cut my eyes to the right, and the four blurry figures in my peripheral came into all too sharp focus. Three males, one female, all of them soaked inside and out. But I recognized each of them in spite of their bedragglement.

The middle-aged female and her sturdy male collapsed onto the short bench on the other side of the now tightly sealed door. Two younger males remained standing as the train lurched forward. The shorter, stockier member of the pair grabbed onto the nearest metal pole, but the tall, skinny one in the fur cape… He planted the fat end of his wooden bat on the floor for balance. A shiny sliver of tape was the only remaining evidence of the KEEP U.S. HUMAN sign I’d seen attached to it earlier.

My head snapped toward Sebastian, who stared coolly ahead with his legs obnoxiously spread and his muscular arms folded over his chest. He wouldn’t look at me no matter how much I widened my eyes to communicate the danger. Finally, I gave up and for the first time pushed my thoughts into his mind.

“They’re anti-shifters. I saw them earlier on their way to a rally in the park.”

“I wondered,” he replied.

“What do we do?”

“Nothing. Stay calm. They’ve no reason to bother us.”

I sighed and crossed my own powerful arms, but in my silly dress with my lack of obvious muscles, it didn’t really convey the same message as Sebastian’s posture and possibly detracted from his. We just looked like rich people having a lover’s quarrel. Which, come to think of it, we now were.

“Thanks for telling me my idiot pack got themselves photographed,” I griped.

“I was waiting for the right time.”

“Right away was the right time. Never keep something like that from me again.”

“You were still recovering. I didn’t want to upset you.”

“I’m not your mother. Don’t treat me like I’ll break.”

Sebastian broke character and glared at me. I glowered right back. Charlie looked between us, thoroughly confused. I scooted a little closer to her, forgetting the cardinal rule of Jurassic Park. The movement immediately caught the bat-guy’s predatory eye. He took a few halting steps toward us, using the bat like a cane until it landed maybe only six inches from my bare feet.

“Where are your shoes?” he asked in a chillingly clear tone.

“Ignore him,” Sebastian warned.

“Where are your shoes?” he repeated, nudging my closest foot with the bat. “You’ll catch pneumonia.”

“My heels broke,” I mumbled. “I’m fine. Almost home.”

Slowly, the male rolled the bat up my ankle to the hem of my skirt. “Need some real company? I’d never let my girl walk barefoot in this shit city.”

My blood ran cold with indignation. Two Fridays in a row, males had tried to prey on me, but I could eat this puny human alive. And maybe I should. How many females had he treated this way? How many had he followed off the car? I jerked my legs under the seat so fast the end of his bat hit the floor.

I looked straight into his cold shark eyes and snarled, “Don’t touch me again.”

Charlie pinched my thigh. Evan sat up even taller. Sebastian didn’t move.

Something flickered back to life inside the bat-guy’s deadened gaze. He squinted at my face, and then a fuzzy yellow smile split his patchily bearded cheeks. The bat rose from the floor to point at my face. “I know you.”

“No, you don’t,” I said, never breaking eye contact. He couldn’t scare me. If he wanted a reason to hate shifters, I could give him one, but he wouldn’t be able to talk about it in the morning.

“Yeah.” He shook the bat. “I saw you on the news. You were in the park, wearing one of those creepy black suits.” He swung the bat onto his left shoulder and gripped the skinny end with both hands. “You’re one of them.”

My eyes flinched shut. I was going to murder my twin. Shaking my head, I tried to play my reaction off as annoyance and forced myself to look at the male again. His long fingers caressed the bat’s grip in a sensual way that made my skin crawl inside the creepy black half-suit concealed by my gown.

I forced a laugh. “I don’t go in the park. Too many weirdos.”

The bat-guy widened his grin and his stance. “Yes, you do. Isn’t that right, boys? We’d never forget a face like yours.”

The stocky male lurched over, grasping the metal pole at the end of my bench. He peered down at me, mouth loosely ajar. Finally, he laughed and said, “Oh, yeah, I seen her in my dreams every night this week.”

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