This time they hit the limo dead-on. She clutched at Marcus when they began to slide down the steep incline. The car rolled over. It all seemed to happen in slow motion; Marcus’s weight pressed her against the ceiling then the floor. Metal shrieked and glass shattered. She didn’t have time to do anything but hold onto his body for dear life.
The car came to rest on its roof at the bottom of the ravine with Lainie trapped beneath Marcus’s unconscious form. Her head hurt but it was a miracle she was alive at all. She tried to get out from under him, but he had her pinned.
Lainie turned her head to one side to look out the one remaining window. The moon was almost full, she thought idly, and then wondered if she had a concussion because of what else she saw.
A shadow, large and looming, and coming closer.
A growl came from the other side of the car. She froze.
Maybe she was hallucinating. Yeah, she hoped so. Or dreaming. Or—
A large furred paw stepped into her line of sight.
“Holy shit!” she hissed and increased her struggles to get out from under Marcus.
Outside of the car, clearly visible on the stark red rocks were big furry creatures like the one in her nightmare. And, she recalled with sudden vivid clarity, like the one that took Jade. One of them was a wolf, but the rest were something in between. Werewolves had stepped out of the myths and legends to scare the hell out of her. They stood on two legs, and there was growling, lots of it. The car rocked back and forth and more of the furred feet appeared on the side closest to her and Marcus.
“Damn,” a deep, gravelly voice said from above her line of sight. “The gas tank’s busted.”
One of the werewolves leaned down to peer at her. His large furred head filled the window.
She blinked rapidly, thinking if she did it enough, he’d disappear.
“Hi there, sweetie, I think it’s time to blow this pop stand.” Despite the deepness of his voice, it held a southern drawl and sounded faintly familiar.
She squeaked when a pair of black-furred hands tipped with some seriously gnarly claws reached into the window and grabbed her by the shoulders. He ignored her frantic protests, pulled her out and set her on her feet.
She stared up into his bright amber eyes and swallowed hard. Easily two feet taller than she and heavily muscled, he was one monstrous wolf dude. He snarled, showing off a set of long ivory fangs. Fangs? Shit fire and save the matches! This was worse than any horror movie she’d watched from between her fingers. He was broad and big, and if she wasn’t mistaken, leering at her. Ew!
“I’ll be damned.” He leaned down for a closer look, then a surreptitious sniff. “It’s Lainie!” This was met with a few chuckles from the other big wolf, men, er , things.
“This ain’t old home week, dude. Get Marcus out before the car blows up.” The big silver werewolf shoved them aside and Lainie took in the reverent way he lifted Marcus out of the wreckage. “When we find out who the fuck did this shit, they’re gonna pay.” Silver wolf snarled, showing some impressive fangs of his own. Nice dental plan.
“What are you?” She tried and failed to keep the quiver of fear out of her voice.
“Wolves, sweetie,” the black one answered, squeezing her arm gently. “Well, right now, Wolfkin, except for the throwback over there.” He indicated the lone “wolf” of the bunch. That was to say the one that looked like an actual wolf, if you discounted his size and the weirdly knowing yellow eyes that stared out of his silver-furred face.
She stood frozen with shock while they stripped Marcus out of the shirt and jacket she thought he’d looked so handsome in earlier. As the moon struck his bare flesh, she was horrified to see fur growing out of his smooth skin. He moaned and his mouth opened to reveal fangs growing longer before her very eyes. Marcus was one of them? A sense of betrayal made her blood boil, unfreezing her paralyzed muscles.
Mick came around the side of the car and Lainie waited for him to shoot these freaks of nature. Instead, he lowered his head in a sign of submission and whined. Low, menacing growls reverberated from deep within the silver one’s chest. Somebody was in trouble, and she had a niggling suspicion that it might be her.
With that thought screaming through her head, she did what any woman with more than two brain cells to rub together would do in her situation. She rammed her elbow into fur boy’s belly, lifted the hem of her tattered skirts and ran like hell. If she wasn’t so scared, she might have laughed at the comment she heard from the black Wolfkin.
“Dammit all to hell. Why do they always run?”
Was he serious? She didn’t stick around to find out, just poured on the speed, attempting to distance herself from the nightmare her life had just become.
