She glanced through the windshield at the crowd Cavin was beginning to organize. They were all people-all in human shapes-but she knew without a single doubt that they were shifters under their skin.
Either she was utterly transparent or Jude hadn't been completely upfront about the mindreading thing because he touched her cheek and turned her face toward him. Waiting until she looked up into his eyes, he said, "They're important, but they're nothing without you. Lily, what you are-" Someone called Jude's name, interrupting him. He swore. "Sweetheart, I'm sorry. Time is a problem right now."
She pressed her lips together, unable to come up with something suitable to say, especially when the only thing she wanted to tell him he was wrong. Their future had changed, and now there would be nothing with her.
After he left, Lily released a shuddering breath and joined Alexa. Their escort didn't say much as she led them to an elevator and up into the club.
19
Time wasn't a problem. Everything she was-that was a problem. It was the problem. Jude had said it himself-you were either born a shifter or you were turned by a bite. Simple.
And she'd been bitten. There was no doubt in her mind that Katt had started this way; the only question was how long did she have before whatever had made her got a good lock on the mind control thing?
Did she have enough time to get out of the Jungle before her creator started pulling the puppet strings?
The female shifter led the way to a sleek, masculine room. She produced a change of clothes from the staff locker room, and after she left, Lily replaced her makeshift dress with a soft black t-shirt that was a shade too small and a stretchy black pencil skirt. They smelled like somebody else's perfume but Lily dressed without complaint, tucking the shirt into the skirt's high waist in order to conceal the betraying marks of the spider's bite.
As she did, Alexa caught her eye. Worry creased the other woman's features. "That isn't nothing, is it?"
"No, I don't think it is." Lily pressed her lips together. Her lower back throbbed. She imagined every pump of blood carrying poison deeper into her system. How long did she have until she became the same as Katt? Maybe weeks before she reached the extreme he had, before she became a … a husk, an incubator, but what about early stages? What happened during the beginning? "I can't stay here."
Alexa stood in front of a bank of security monitors, hugging herself. She looked away from Lily to study the screens. "People are all just doing their thing. I don't think they know something's going on."
"No, probably not. That would create panic." Moving close to the monitors, Lily studied them, looking for images of the exit points. There was the front door, and half a dozen fire exits. The emergency exits would be alarmed so she couldn't leave that way. The front door would be easiest and least suspicious if the club hadn't gone on lockdown. Besides, it wasn't like she was a prisoner. What reason did anybody have to stop her?
She opened her mouth to say just that but closed it with a frown. It wasn't right to involve Alexa any more than necessary. "I'm going to go to the bathroom and deal with my hair. I'll knock on the door when I get back."
Alexa gave her an oblique look and then dug into her bag. "Take my phone. You don't have anything at all."
Lily started to refuse but Alexa was right. She had nothing, not even shoes, because she'd left her ruined heels in the salon, which by now was nothing more than wet ashes. And she still hadn't gotten ahold of Rhys.
Wordlessly taking the phone, she slipped from the room. Outside, she took a minute to get her bearings and then headed into the Jungle.
It was the first time she'd ever walked through the club without an escort, without a mask, and she felt utterly exposed. People looked at her. Males, mostly, and they did more than look-they scented the air, a subtle tilt of head and flare of nostril that she wouldn't have noticed, hadn't noticed, before that night Jude cracked open her world. With each sniff, her heart raced. What did they smell on her? Jude? The foreign venom of the spider that had bitten her? Something as simple as the blood that must still linger in her hair?
Awareness tingled in her core. Exhibitionism wasn't something she specifically sought as a kink, but the sensation of eyes on her, men and women wondering about her, scenting her secrets, was a spark that found kindling deep inside. It almost halted her escape. Her mouth curved and she was starting to turn toward a brutish, muscular male whose limbs were human but covered in a layer of fur when a lick of heat sliced up her spine from the small of her back to the base of her skull, so unexpected that she sucked in a breath and bit the insides of her lips to contain a cry. Pain brought a moment of clarity, the sick realization that something foreign was influencing her.