The three wolves sitting on the top of the hood of the car snarled as they threw their heads against the glass. Through the glow of the headlights, she could see their drool dripping down onto the car. In that second, she knew he’d been completely correct. Black magic was what made those things snarling on top of the car. Someone evil had done this.
“They’re people, right?”
He nodded. “They were. Az has some theories, but right now it looks like they won’t ever be again. I don’t have any choice. Their minds are gone. I’m going to have to eliminate them.”
“Hey.” She caught his attention. “That’s not a mark on your soul. That’s on whoever did this to them.”
“The wolf who did this to them doesn’t have a soul left.” He swallowed; she could see the tightness of his muscles in his neck. “And I don’t have much of one either.”
“Randolph…”
He interrupted. “Lock the doors. Don’t get out of the car.” With a blink of her eye he was gone. He got the car door open and got out of the car.
With a click, he locked her inside the vehicle.
She couldn’t believe he had left. He had left her in the car with three drooling wolves-slash-people threatening her on the roof of the stolen vehicle.
Elizabeth would have preferred the twins’ magical assaults to the look of death in the red beady canine eyes staring at her through glass which suddenly seemed way too thin.
“Here, wolf.” Her head shot to the right as she heard Rex’s shout. He jumped into the air once. “Look at me.” The growling on the car increased seconds before, in unison, they lunged in the air at Randolph Kane. He’d used himself to lure them away from the car.
He had said there were fifteen of them. Rex was one man against a veritable army of wolves. Although she was smart enough to know she would most likely be in the way if he had to worry about her while he battled, she couldn’t help but feel she wanted to be there to help in some way.
Rex took off, running deeper into the woods. She couldn’t see a thing in the darkness of the night around them. Time felt like it ticked by. How long had he been gone? She looked at the clock, which was useless because she had no idea what time it had been when he’d left the car.
“Ah, hell.” She hit her hand against the dashboard. It stung and she wished she hadn’t.
The swooshes of cars speeding past her on the right acted as background noise to her terrified thoughts. When she looked over, their headlights blinded her. Goddess, how would she explain it to a police officer if they pulled up behind her? She was in a stolen vehicle without Rex. The cop wouldn’t even be able to look at her even if she could come up with an excuse.
Not to mention, the mounting pressure in her head every time she thought about Rex being injured. He’d become important to her. They’d only known each other a brief period of time and they clearly needed to discover more about one another before she could better define her feelings for him. But that didn’t matter. He’d cared for her when she needed him.
There was something about him—when she looked in his eyes she could see emotion hidden in them. Rex was starved for something and it had nothing to do with food. She could recognize it because she needed it too. Love. Companionship. Someone to look at you and think you were the best, most important person in the world.
His last comment he had made about not having a soul, it hurt her heart.
Goddess, she had to be out of her mind, but she wasn’t going to leave him out there in the woods alone. She unlocked the car door by pushing up the lock. In a move not nearly as smooth as when Randolph had done it, she got out of the car. Outside of the vehicle it was much louder.
The highway wasn’t busy but every time a car came by it shook her body with the force of the speed passing her. She closed the door, and keeping as close as she could to the outside of the car, she made her way to the other side so she could get into the wood.
Wolves howled in the distance. She stopped moving. Was one of them Rex? Was he hurt? She bit down on her lip. This might be the stupidest thing she’d ever done but she was doing it, regardless.
Chapter Seven
Rex snapped the neck of the first wolf to approach him. This would all be easier if he changed into his own canine form. But he was holding off. There were fifteen wolves and he couldn’t let them anywhere near his fragile mate. In his wolf form, they might decide he was too fierce and decide to go for a more vulnerable target.
Let them think him weak for as long as he could. Then he would shift and end this.
Darting to the left, he moved out of the way of the next assault. The made wolves were dangerous because they were relentless. They had no voice in the back of their minds telling them to retreat, to fight another day. Rex’s wolf didn’t like to back down, but he would if it was called for. The made wolves only knew they were supposed to kill.