How to Run with a Naked Werewolf (30 page)

Whipping around, I turned back toward the north ridge and saw Glenn standing there in all his angry
glory, practically vibrating with rage under his thick Gore-Tex coat. The climate had not been kind to Glenn. His overbright brown eyes watered against the cold, prickling wind. His cheeks were fire-engine red. And instead of making him seem pathetic, the wear and tear just made him seem that much more unstable, unpredictable. Any veneer of civility had been torn away to reveal a level of crazy I’d never seen before.

My heart stuttered in my chest as my brain shouted,
Not real! Not real! Not real!

“Don’t you have anything you want to say to me?” he sneered, chapped lips cracking. “I don’t even get a hello?”

I stumbled back, barely staying upright as my heel hit a patch of ice.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve put me through?” he demanded, stumbling forward, grabbing my arm and shaking me like a rag doll. He seemed reluctant to touch me, as if even after all of this time and all of his efforts to find me, confronting me in person was somehow harder than threatening me through a computer screen. “This is all your fault.”

Panicked, runaway thoughts kept me from focusing. There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. I wanted to curl in on myself, make myself small. “The humiliation of you filing for divorce. Calling the cops on me. Months of searching, paying some stranger to dig into our business. Years of worrying where you were, what you were doing, who you were with. Do you know how humiliating this has been for me?”

In full fury, he didn’t hesitate to use the violence he
used to cover up with “accidents” and clumsiness. He grunted, tossing me back into the snow as if I weighed nothing. I skidded across the ice-slick surface of the road, whacking my head against Maggie’s bumper.

“Your fault,” Glenn spat. “All your fault. Losing those jobs because I was so busy looking for you. You trashed my reputation. You ruined me.”

I slowly pushed myself up, gingerly turning my head back and forth. I could feel a warm trickle of blood down my back, where the base of my skull had caught the edge of the truck bumper.

Glenn shoved me back down with the toe of his boot. “What kind of wife does that to her husband?”

“I’m not your wife anymore,” I whispered.

“You’re my wife as long as I say you are,” he growled, stepping on my chest and pushing me down into the snow. He leered down at me, as if he’d been picturing me like this—broken and bleeding under his foot—for a very long time. He gave me one last kick before crouching over me.

I sat up again, bracing myself on the truck. “You can’t hurt me anymore, Glenn. This stops now.”

He acted as if he hadn’t even heard me speak. “We’re going to walk out of this valley, take my snowmobile back to that piss-water little town, Grungy or whatever. We’re going to go back home, and you’re going to beg the hospital to give us our jobs back. You’re going to tell them it was all your fault that they fired me. We’re going to go back to our life just the way it was. You’re going to go back to being the wife you were. Now, pull your hood up, honey, we don’t want you to get sick.”

Flinching away when he tried to adjust my coat, I stared up at him incredulously. He had finally lost his mind. He thought we were going to go back to where we were when I left? It was insane. Any friends we’d had together had no doubt stopped believing we were a couple years ago. And there was nothing I could say that would get his job back. I doubted I could get
my
job back at the hospital, given my abrupt exit. I shook my head, and the motion upset my equilibrium. “No,” I whispered.

He punched me right on the bridge of my nose, where the cartilage connects to the brow. I sank to my knees, seeing stars. “What did you say?” he demanded, standing over me.

“No,” I said again, my voice a little louder but shakier. “No! No! NO! NO! NO!” I screamed so loudly that it echoed down the street and off the trees. Glenn viciously kicked me in the ribs, cutting off the werewolf-summoning noise into a squelched cry.

“I see we’re going to need a little refresher, honey. I’m your husband. I’m in charge.” He delivered another kick to my rib cage. I flopped onto my side, my face buried in snow. The tiny shards of ice burned the scrapes on my skin. I rolled faceup, my coat tangled under my body, and I felt a metal cylinder bump against my leg.

The baton. I’d forgotten that Caleb had sewn a special pocket in the recesses of my coat to store the baton as a just-in-case measure. I thought it had been overkill when Caleb insisted I keep it in my pocket even after we returned to the valley. Who was going to try to
hurt me on the twenty-yard walk from the clinic to our house? But now I thought it was just-enough-kill.

As Glenn grumbled to himself about my “fat ungrateful ass,” I slid the hand of my uninjured arm into my pocket. My fingers curled around the baton just as Glenn’s foot connected with my ribs. The impact knocked me back, spinning me over and over, while the breath fled from my lungs. The baton was still clutched in my hand as I landed in the snow, a heavy weight in numbed fingers.

“When I say stop, you stop.” He grunted, kicking me in the stomach this time.

This was never going to stop.

Unable to scream for help, I lay there, cataloguing my injuries—dislocated shoulder, broken nose, fractured ribs—and I knew he would just keep coming after me until I was dead. Part of me wanted to give in, to let him just take me. It seemed so much easier than this constant struggle, the nagging fear. I was so cold and tired; down to my soul, I was exhausted. If I got into the car with him now, at least it would be over. He wouldn’t have the chance to hurt anybody else.

“When I say get off of your lazy, spoiled ass and get moving, you say, ‘Yes, Glenn,’ and go where I tell you.” Glenn put the weight of his boot on my damaged shoulder. I made a hoarse mewling sound, one that I swore I heard echoed in a canine yelp in the distance. I rolled onto my injured side, trying to protect it. And he laughed. He was enjoying himself, the big man, the little brat who never got enough of my attention. Well, he certainly had my full attention now. My pain and
fear were
fun
for him. And if someone was that good at hiding that he was
that
sick, it was not my fault that he’d fooled me.
He
did this, not me.
He
was the one who manipulated and controlled and caused pain, not me.
He
was the asshole, not me.

I was not the problem.

I slung the weight of the baton outward with my good arm, thrilling at the metallic singing sound. Sitting up and fighting against the sick, dizzy sensation that came with it, I brought the baton down with all my strength just above his knee. A deeply satisfying crunch echoed about the street, and Glenn howled. I kicked up, catching him square in the crotch with the heel of my boot.

“I always was a slow learner,” I huffed, struggling to my feet. “So is this what it feels like, Glenn?” I slurred, standing over him as he whined and keened over his knee. I cradled my injured shoulder. “Did it make you feel good to stand like this, over me, while I rolled around on the floor like a dog? Answer me!” I yelled, kicking at him, catching him in the stomach.

He moaned and tried to struggle to his knees, but I brought the baton down on his back, knocking him to the ground.

“What you did to me, that’s your problem, your damage. You’re going to have to live with it, because I’m sick of carrying it around with me. You’re never going to touch me again. This is over,” I told him, turning toward the community center.

“But you’re my wife.” He whimpered. “You’re mine.”

“Not anymore.” I walked away, dragging the baton behind me in the snow. My injured arm felt heavy, disconnected, as I stumbled forward. Wiping at the blood running from my mouth, I winced at the split in my lip. Just a few more steps. Just a few more steps, and I’d be back in the hall. I’d find Caleb. I’d be OK.

I staggered forward as I was suddenly knocked to the ground. Rough hands in my hair yanked me to my feet. “You think you could just do that to me?” he demanded, twisting the hair at the nape of my neck and pulling me back against him. I yelped at the sharp stabs of pain throbbing from several different locations. He wrapped his hand around my throat and squeezed, slowly pressing the breath out of my body. “Did you think I would let you get away with it?”

My feet scrabbled uselessly against the crust of snow. The edges of my vision started to turn gray. I swung my baton at his legs, but Glenn used his free hand to swat it out of my hand before snagging my hair again. I fought against the urge to pass out, like swimming against a tidal wave. If I passed out, he would drag me away and do God knew what with me. If I was awake, I could regain control of the situation. Maybe.

Probably not.

A low, loud growl reverberated through the cold air, piercing my chest. Glenn’s grip on my throat slackened, allowing my feet to reach the ground. I gulped huge breaths, even as he tightened his grip on my hair.

My vision cleared, allowing me to make out a dozen huge dark shapes as they separated from the shadows, edging their way into a shaft of moonlight. Right at the
front of the pack, a big gray male curled his lip over his canines, letting them shine, sharp and silver in the light. If I were Glenn, I would be pissing my pants right now.

“What is this?” Glenn hissed, jerking at my hair, making me yelp. This drew a particularly vicious growl from the gray wolf.

“Did I mention that my new boyfriend’s family . . . well, they’re pretty special,” I said, laughing softly to myself.

The Caleb wolf inched forward, the hair on his back raised, fangs bared. A small black female, Maggie, was at his side. Her stance was calmer but no less menacing. Besides Glenn and me, no humans were on the street. The pack handled pack business.

“Shut up!” Glenn backed away, dragging me with him. I dug my heels into the snow, doing anything I could to make this more difficult for him. I heard the same familiar low growls behind us. And I slowly realized there was a circle of wolves, tightening around me and my crazy ex-husband. They all had their heads lowered, lips curled back. Stalking. The street echoed with raspy growls. Although sick with the pain of my injuries, in the midst of this confrontation, I was as relaxed as a spa bunny after a two-hour massage. I knew I had nothing to fear. I nearly giggled at the absurdity of it.

“Hey, Glenn.” I couldn’t resist mocking. “Remember when I said we should get a dog, and you ‘forbade’ me to get one because you didn’t want my attentions divided? Sort of ironic, huh?” I giggled, hysteria taking over fully now.

“I said shut up, or I’ll snap your damn neck, Tina.”

“Oh, do whatever you want to me,” I scoffed, spitting a healthy amount of blood into the snow. “You won’t even make it to your car. They’ve got your scent now, Glenn. They’ll run you down and leave nothing but scattered bones. You came into the woods, in the dark, thinking you were the biggest, meanest thing to walk here, because you can terrorize a woman half your size. Let me tell you something. You’re an amateur. You’re nothing. Forget dragons. Here there be giant, pissed-off wolves. And they are not happy with you.”

Glenn shook me so hard I was sure I heard my teeth rattle. “Shut up!”

CLANG
.

Glenn released his hold on my neck. I sank to my knees, the impact buffered by the snow. I looked back to see Glenn crumpled, facedown, in the street. Mo stood behind him with a fire extinguisher raised over her head.

Glenn moaned, turning onto his back and glaring up at her. “You bitch.”

“Not really an insult around these parts, asshole,” Mo told him. “You thought Tina was alone? She’s not alone here.” When he tried to stumble to his feet, she brought the canister down again, just hard enough to daze him. I heard a pleased whickering sound from a large black wolf near Maggie. “Normally, they wouldn’t let a human get involved in messy business like this. But they needed someone to speak for the pack, because,
well, their jaws are aching to close around your throat right now, and they’re otherwise incapable of speech. But she’s ours now. And if you come near her again—”

Mo stopped as Glenn leaped to his feet and lunged for her, stumbling on slick ice and unsteady legs. The wolves’ growls rose to a fever pitch as she raised the fire extinguisher over her head.

“No!” I cried, snatching the cylinder from her hands with my good arm and swinging it wide, connecting with the side of Glenn’s head. He yelped, stumbling mid-lunge, and flopped facedown in the snow again.

Mo’s eyes went wide. I dropped the fire extinguisher with a
clang
, wincing as every muscle in my body seemed to seize at once. My dislocated shoulder sagged, useless, at my side.

Glenn’s pained moan was muffled by street slush. Mo nudged him over with her boot, so he was at least looking at her when she told him, “If you ever come near her again, the pack will find you. They will make you feel pain like no other human being has ever felt before, and then they will fix it so that your body is never found. It’s not an idle threat. They’re giant dogs. They’re big on hiding bones.”

“Still my . . .” Glenn gurgled through the ice and blood crusting his face. “Wife. Mine.”

I moved closer to him, despite the loud protesting rumbles of a certain gray wolf practically brushing against my back. I couldn’t kneel or bend, because, frankly, I was doing well not to throw up on him. “I’m
not your wife anymore. I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to think about you. And after today, I won’t even say your name again. You’re not my problem anymore.”

I ignored the pathetic little noises Glenn was making, turned on my heel, and walked back toward the clinic to get a Band-Aid for my head.

(At the time, it seemed completely logical.)

But apparently, I turned a little too quickly, considering the blows to my head and the loss of blood. My eyes rolled up, and the world seemed to tilt on its axis and melt into surreal splotches of color.

The last thing I remembered was thinking how much it was going to hurt to land on my bum shoulder. And then a pair of strong, warm arms closed around me, and I felt nothing at all.