“Careful, John,” Ryan spoke as he entered the room. “Keep poking the beast and you’re going to get bit.”
“I’m not afraid of a little pussy.” John sneered.
I meant to respond with a witty remark, but a low hiss came out instead. Hmm. Must be angrier than I realized. John tensed and whipped around to face me. No time like the present to assert my dominance. Werewolves had a distinct pecking order in a pack. John would keep pushing me until I submitted or dominated. And I was nobody’s bitch.
Dominate, my wolf demanded.
Kill, my cat hissed. She had no patience for dominance games and lacked subtlety.
I bared my teeth and let my canines elongate. Most Werewolves lacked the control to do the same. Only the strongest could pull off a partial shift. Yowling, I let out the high-pitched call hikers dreaded to hear when alone in a dense forest—Werewolves too, apparently. They all tensed. They could only override so many instincts of their wolves, and a mountain lion trumped lone wolf in the wild.
Figuring I made my point, I told my cat to settle and closed my eyelids to rein her in. When I opened them, three wary wolves in human clothing stared back at me. Great. Putting them on edge was probably counterproductive to any escape attempts—and there would be escape attempts—but I needed to establish my place first.
Ryan cleared his voice. “Well, that’s settled. How about some cards?”
“Cards?” A strangled sound choked out of my throat in disbelief.
Ryan shrugged. “Daytime TV makes me want to stab myself with a fork. There’re only so many paternity shows I can handle.” He nodded at John and Jess. “And sitting in a room watching these two lovebirds moon over each other is worse.”
Muscles I hadn’t realized were tense, relaxed. The idea of playing cards certainly beat dominance games or torture. I reached my hands out and stretched them for what I hoped would be hours of cards instead of less enjoyable prisoner activities.
Ryan’s attention darted to my hands. “And maybe some sparring afterwards.” He probably picked up on the martial arts origin of my stretches.
“Isn’t that a little dangerous? I might hurt you,” I warned.
“I might like it,” Ryan countered, flashing his teeth. His flirtation gave little doubt to his unmated status, but my wolf yawned. Normally she acted like a bitch in heat when a wolf showed interest.
“Maybe some sparring,” I agreed. My wolf’s opinion wasn’t the one that mattered most. I liked him. He’d let me fight. Hell, anything to take my mind off of what Lucien planned to do to me in the not-so-far-off future.
Chapter Six
Sweat dripped down my face and stung the tiny scratches on my neck. Under fluorescent lights in the stale smelling dungeon of a basement, I circled Ryan, wary of his every move. He was good. His fluidity gave him away as an older Werewolf. The various forms he’d demonstrated over the last half hour of sparring required time to learn and master. Some people threw cash at dojos, buying black belts from money-grabbing establishments. Ironically, those schools tended to be the more high fashion outlets instead of the less than savoury ones that spent little time or money on appearances.
Ryan didn’t buy his black belts. And he had more than one, his technique crisp, clean and perfect.
Of course, he had lots of time to practice. Werewolves lived several human lifetimes, but they were close lipped regarding exactly how many. Shifters were the same. Both aged like norms until they hit thirty and then they faced a slow road to geriatrics. Seventy-nine by the norm count and I still looked in my late twenties—a baby in the world of Weres and Shifters.
I took a moment to assess the damage. Some excessive sweating, a few scratches and an aching shin that threatened to bloom into one hell of a bruise, but nothing serious, and nothing worse than the injuries I’d had walking into the match. Ryan had pulled his punches. He needed to. Full force, a Were’s strike, even in human form, would knock me out. I was supposed to be mending.
Shifters did not benefit from the fast healing Weres were privy to. The arm with the bullet wound throbbed with pain and my ribs ached, but I was in a lot better shape than I should’ve been, thanks to Wick’s healing. If the alpha contained enough power, he could heal any supe with a similar form. Wolf Shifters often hung out near Werewolf packs for that reason alone. Despite what the norm tabloids said, the two preternatural groups weren’t the same thing. As a part of their genetic make-up, Wolf Shifters bonded to wolf familiars when they hit puberty or shortly after. Werewolves acquired their supernatural abilities, being made by another. The lycanthropic virus might not give the Weres feras, but it did make them stronger, larger in their animal form and controlled by the phases of the moon.