One wolf thundered past me. The other rushed to me and…and licked me.
“No!” Valerie’s scream. “No, no, no!”
My head lifted. I heard the pops and the horrible cracks that were bones transforming. Fur melted from the wolf’s body as it huddled around me.
Protecting me.
The face shifted back into—into Rafe’s face. His eyes still glowed that wild yellow, but his face…that was Rafe.
His arms curled around me. “It’s okay. I’m going to take care of—”
A howl split the night. Pain-filled, enraged. My head whipped around, and I saw that Valerie had stabbed the other wolf. She’d stabbed Brent! His body lay on the ground, and I knew those dark shadows beneath the wolf were actually pools of blood. She stood over him, the knife gripped in her hand.
“See what you’ve done?” Valerie screamed at me and her face was already shifting and transforming, her cheeks becoming sharper, her jaw longer.
I’d never suspected her. I hadn’t seen her name in the book, hadn’t realized—
“This is your fault!” Her screeching voice echoed in the woods. “You put a spell on Brent, didn’t you? Just like you did to Rafe! Helen helped you, I knew she would, and now you’ve—”
“You killed Granny Helen.” The words burst from me. Even now, I couldn’t hold myself back. Rafe had pulled me to my feet, and, strangely, I didn’t feel the pain in my stomach anymore. I could feel his arms around me. Warm and strong, but nothing else. No pain.
She smiled at me. I saw her fangs. I saw the evil. Why hadn’t I seen it before? Why hadn’t anyone?
“How?” The snapped question came from Rafe. “You weren’t born here in Haven, you weren’t—”
“Seems my great-grandfather enjoyed seeking some fun times outside of his marriage.” Valerie’s sharpening teeth snapped together. “Of course, he never bothered telling his lovers about his little family trait of turning into a werewolf.”
I started to shake, I couldn’t help it, and more of my blood dripped on the ground.
Bleeding too much.
“But I figured out how to stop the curse.” Leaves crunched, and I knew she was coming for me. “All we have to do is kill the witch.”
I shook my head. Brent still wasn’t moving. Be alive.
“Rafe…” Now Valerie’s voice had dropped and taken on a silken, almost seductive quality. “You like me, Rafe. You’ve met me under the moonlight and kissed me so many times.”
First she’d stabbed me, now this? My back teeth locked. But I couldn’t move. If I did, I was pretty sure I’d fall on my face.
“If we kill her,” Valerie, VIP, cheerleader, werewolf, killer—crazy bitch—continued, “then we can be free—together. I found a journal in Helen’s shop. The journal told me everything I needed to know.”
She’d found the journal?
“To break a witch’s curse, you have to break the witch. The cursed have to drink her blood. She has to die, then we can be free!”
It sounded like a sucky option to me, but then, I was the one who’d have to do the dying. Rafe was the one who’d been forced to change into a wolf, over and over again. His family had been the one cursed.
This might be sounding like one very good deal to him.
I choked back my whimper of fear because yeah, right then, big, bad old me felt like whimpering, and I tried to pull away from Rafe.
His hold just tightened. Then his eyes, still with that glow of yellow around the edges, met mine. “You think I’m going to let you go?” His voice was a terrible blend of a man’s deep rumble and a wolf’s snarl.
Valerie laughed.
So sorry, Dad. So—
“No, I won’t.” His claws were out. I could feel them on my skin. But then those claws pushed me behind his back, and I heard him say, “And if you think you’re taking her from me, then Val, you’d better think again.”
My breath exploded from my lungs in a shocked rush. I peered over his shoulder and watched as Valerie screamed. No, howled. The pretty cheerleader vanished and a raving wolf took her place as bones snapped and popped and fur exploded along her body. Then she was attacking Rafe. Her teeth came right at his throat but he caught her, and drove his claws into her thick fur.
“Run!” He screamed at me. “Get out of here, Anna, run!”
Clutching my stomach, still attempting to stop the blood, I tried to run. I slipped instantly because my legs wouldn’t work. But then I crawled back to my feet.
I didn’t head for the thick darkness of the trees. Even without a knife wound to the gut, I couldn’t outrun a wolf. There was no point in trying.