Page 19 of The Monster's Desire

Apparently, I have no sense of direction. I circle back around the gas station for the third time. I’m completely baffled as I try the road I know isn’t the road I used to get to the store.

However, I’ve spent the last hour or so trying different streets, and I’m super freaking flummoxed. It was evening, but I think I’ve driven around for so long this technically qualifies as night.

The road is completely dark, since there’s very little around. There aren’t street lights or homes to give ambient lighting. Nah, it’s just pure nothingness and the moon. My headlights illuminate the road, but only for a short distance.

I’m humming along with the radio and considering it might be time to bust out some magic when I see three wolves dart across the road.

Okay, darting might be too generous. One darts, one hobbles, and the third looks torn between the two. They’re all small, like adolescents or maybe teenagers. I really don’t think they can be adult wolves based on their size.

Slamming on my brakes, I pull off the road and aim the lights toward the woods.

The illumination sure doesn’t penetrate very far.

Am I really about to follow an injured animal into an unfamiliar forest? Though it sounds crazy, I’m not human; I’ve got my own protections if need be.

My car door opens, and I pop out of the vehicle before I can convince myself this is a terrible idea.

The ground is littered with the wolf’s blood. Something got one of them good.

My magic itches under my skin. It aches, calling to me that it wants to be used.

With a swipe of my hand, my magic pulls the energy from the blood and it slowly disappears. Witch light is a small ball of minimal brightness. It’s comparable to a small LED light.

I summon two, one to hover along each side of me.

I might feel compelled to help the pup, but I’m also not one of those too-stupid-to-live humans with more heart than brains.

I’m not going to barrel forward with no clue what I’m walking into, or that’s the plan until I hear a young girl sobbing. That’s apparently when I become one of those idiots who runs toward danger instead of away from it.

My magic floats out like tendrils of smoke, checking the area for danger. There’s a deadly poisonous snake twenty feet to my left, so I duck a little farther to my right. I’m barely fifty feet inside the tree line when the small clearing becomes visible.

“We need to go for help,” a boy in his late teens says. He’s trying to drag a young woman away from the boy on the ground.

“Stop, George,” she hisses. “I’m not leaving him. If you want to go for help, then go. We’ll be fine. Hurry back.”

“Jenny, come on.” George yanks harder, trying to drag her away.

“Just go,” the kid on the ground says. “Get her to safety.”

“No, Brock. I’m not leaving you,” Jenny says.

Brock is bleeding all over.

My magic aches to use all that freshly spilled energy. Being a blood witch sucks sometimes. I’m literally dragged forward by my magic.

The guy, Brock, is seriously jacked up. You don’t bounce back from that kind of damage without a hospital or a healer. Maybe a vampire, but no vampire would be willing to patch up an unknown shifter, so that’s basically irrelevant.

I’m none of those things, but my magic doesn’t seem to care. Three sets of glowing eyes find mine when I get close enough for them to register my existence. Jenny is probably in her late teens or early twenties, and the guys are likely around the same age.

This would be a lot less awkward if they weren’t butt-ass naked, but shifters in general are much more accustomed to nudity than a lot of the other species.

The low warning growl that comes out of the kid on the ground surprises the hell out of me. He’s literally bleeding out and he’s warning me?

He’s a future alpha.

“Who are you?” Jenny crosses an arm over her chest.

George takes a step in front of her, and I avert my eyes.

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