Under My Skin (28 page)

I roared my approval into the night. The cry that left my throat wasn’t human. A few werewolves halted mid-step. Their heads swung toward me.

Behind me, Paige squealed her success. An antique silver serving spoon whizzed through the air at Wade. He snatched it and with one hand ripped the molting flesh from the beast and with the other plunged the silver spoon into its heart.

I’d heard of silver spoons in people’s mouths but…whatever worked.

A werewolf leaped at me with a drawn-out snarl, incisors dripping with stinking saliva. My nose scrunched up at the smell of recent kill—canine. How these creatures defiled themselves. Slaying such weak prey. I dodged his charge, then waved my hand to get rid of the fumes.

“Whew, someone’s been eating their dogs raw again.”

The creature froze as if stunned I hadn’t cowered in fear. But I was no longer plain old Eryn—I was Eryn with some serious wolven attitude. The hands gripping my athame now had claws and tufts of silver fur. My jaw extended, bones cracking and shifting to make way for a wicked mouthful of teeth. This should hurt like hell. But only my teeth ached, elongating—scraping against my bottom lip. I swiped my tongue out to collect the blood.

“How ’bout a snack with a little more kick?” I said thickly, through a mouthful of fangs. I shot out a sidekick and struck the beast with such savage force its head lollygagged on its shoulders. I laughed. Before he could recover, I launched myself at him. With my strange wolfish hands, I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and the snout. Purely on instinct, I snapped his neck with an awesome wrench.

Black blood spattered my chin. Breathing hard, I wiped it off on my sleeve and met Wade’s openmouthed stare.

I bared my teeth, riding the rush of adrenaline and wolven strength. But it was new, untried, and all too quickly ebbed. I gulped in air as the pressure in my face faded and my teeth resumed their normal size. I stared down at the boy I’d killed. His face etched into my mind, his pale skin dotted with freckles. Another lost soul. Then he burst into a ball of white light.

I had no time to feel anything more than a twinge of regret.

Wade, Brit, and I worked as a team, slaying and cataloguing the dead, committing their faces to memory even as they disintegrated. We killed many, shielding our eyes as werewolves imploded around us, leaving us vulnerable, blinking away spots in the night.

The werewolves began to retreat, slinking back through the graves and into the woods.

My athame trembled in my hand.
Gotta rest a bit.
I slumped against a granite angel, using the stone as a prop to stay upright.

“Father must have called them back.” Wade met my gaze, his expression bleak. “They’ll tell him I helped you protect Paige. That I killed their brothers. There’s no good way to spin this.”

Sucking in gulps of air, I stared at Wade. My wolf worked overtime, revving through my veins, healing me from the inside out.
Helped protect Paige?
Was that what all this was about? If Paige hadn’t been with me, would he have stayed to help? Or had he jeopardized his standing with his father to protect her? I shoved the sharp stab of jealousy aside and pushed myself from the tombstone. The core of my body rejuvenated, my muscles aching, but steadfast.

I turned to see how my cousin was holding up.

Nothing but a pink foofy mitten rested on the snow.

“Oh no—“ I lurched forward, clutched the mitten to my chest.

“Where’d she go?” Brit cried. “We need to put that girl on a leash.”

Wade pointed, his face grim. “There.”

Twenty feet away, near the woods that edged the cemetery, a werewolf reared onto its hind legs with a roar. Paige knelt in the snow, her arms shielding her head as the beast towered over her. In the after-battle quiet, sound carried to my sensitive ears. Cartilage snapped as the werewolf changed from walking on four legs to standing on two. Its torso shifted to normal proportions. The more human it started to look, the more evil it seemed.

With a single long howl, the werewolf slung Paige over his shoulder and slipped into the woods.

“Don’t.” Wade made a grab for my arm as I leaped forward. “They want you to follow. It’s a trap.”

But I was already running a zigzag slalom around tombstones and crypts, my nose high, trailing the horrid perfume and rotting werewolf blend into the forest. When I had Paige safe, I’d kill her myself.

“Eryn, wait for me-e-e…” Brit’s voice echoed around me.

“No, Brit, wait for the guys,” I shouted over my shoulder. Brit broke into a run. I slid to a stop as her legs gave out and she stumbled. Magical energy sizzled in the air. Her body shimmered and trembled, her face shifted, her skin darkened.

“Brit!” Frantic, I reached for her, but grabbed only a fistful of air.

Gossamer wings, iridescent yet glossy, like black licorice, arced behind her as Brit jettisoned over my head into the night sky. Ohmigod. A dark sprite. No wonder she never ran in front of humans. The urge to break into flight would have been maddening.

“Where did they go?” Brit screeched, hovering in the air above me. “I don’t see them.
I don’t see them.
”

I stifled my own panic and opened the door to my wolven side.

I inhaled deeply. Beyond the beast’s gloating stench I picked up Paige’s lingering fear. Fear was easier to track. It called to me. My skin stretched taut over my bones, barely kept me from splitting in two.

The whooshing thrum of Brit’s wings above me kept time with the pounding of my feet as I ran. Branches flew at my face, but I barely felt the stings. Deadwood, thickening brush—nothing slowed me down. I moved, fluid, without conscious effort, at an incredible speed. Outside of myself. This Eryn wanted blood, wanted to wage war.

I couldn’t help but like her.

My lungs—cavernous. My ribcage popping and then expanding as I took in both air and the scent of my prey. And the saltiness of fresh blood on the air, Paige’s blood.

Paige was pack…I couldn’t let Logan have her.

“I see them,” Brit yelled above me. Then she tucked her wings into her body and dove into the treetops.

Ignoring the pain twisting my guts, I sped up and followed Brit into a small clearing. In the middle of the snow-covered field, the werewolf stood a few feet away from my cousin, snorting and gnashing its teeth.
Why wasn’t it ripping into her already?
Paige held out her mittenless hand. A torn gel nail dangled from her finger. Blood dripped from her hand in slow motion, staining the snow crimson like a cherry snow cone.

The coppery scent of her blood traveled fast across the clearing, brought to me by the wind. My jaw ached, my face swelled from the pressure.

“Look what it did,” Paige raged. “I’m bleeding!”

The werewolf, having morphed back to its walking-on-all-fours state, stared at Paige, its jaws hanging open.

In the throes of full-on bloodlust, hardly in the position to appreciate the humor of the situation, I couldn’t get any closer to Paige. In my semi-morphed state, I might be more of a threat to her than the werewolf.

Brit knocked Paige into a thick shrub, then swooped at the beast. She glommed onto his back, immobilizing him with her arms and the four-inch long talons at the tip of each wing.
What I’d give to have those babies.
She yanked his forelegs back, snapping his spine, leaving his ribcage exposed.

At his roars of pain, I ran forward, gripping my athame, then hesitated. Brit looked so foreign in her dark sprite form. Her eyes flickered strangely, glowing gold like a cat’s.

“Do it,” she snarled, thrusting the werewolf’s exposed belly toward me.

I hauled my arm back and fired my athame straight into the werewolf’s heart.

Bulls eye.

Brit let him go as he morphed to human form. The boy who slid from her grip was the rancher’s son. His parents had been on the news that morning, pleading for information on his disappearance. How long ago that seemed.

We shielded our eyes when his body shimmered. The light faded, leaving a melted snow imprint of his body on the ground, like a crime-scene chalk outline, with Paige’s other mitten resting in the center. Paige dove for it as evil’s sour stench drifted across the moonlit clearing.

My nose wrinkled. My lips twisted into a snarl. Logan stalked into view, flanked by two of his wannabe-vamp rent-a-cops, who hissed at us like poorly costumed actors in a B-grade horror flick.

Well, Wade
had
tried to warn me.

Chapter 14:
There’s a Plague in This Town

I stroked the thin leather string around my neck that held Alec’s cross, promising myself that
next
time, if there was a next time, I’d count to ten and recall this exact moment of sheer panic before chasing after weres, or vamps, or anything else. The silver cross flashed in the moonlight as if taunting Logan to come and do his worst.

I grabbed Paige’s arm and yanked her behind us. The cool night vibrated with the paranormal energy fogging the air. Brit’s dark wings twitched behind her, fanning back and forth like an angry cat’s tail.

“Hey…” Paige batted at the iridescent wing blocking her view. “Get a grip on that Halloween costume, you freaking
ghoul
.”

Logan glided forward, a fine mist of snow drifting in his wake. He exuded evil in a black suit and scarlet tie, his hair slicked back with product, probably some formaldehyde-like preservative. I couldn’t look into his refined, gaunt features. Knowing death came for you was one thing, watching the smirk on its face as it swaggered your way—quite another.

Logan’s police officer henchmen kept pace with him. I identified the ever-ready minion, Officer Flutie. And the other…

“Is that…?” My words trailed off.

Brit’s features fell into shocked lines. “Not
him
, not now,” she said, her breath catching.

Officer Heils, Brit’s father, moved swiftly alongside Logan as the trio stalked toward us. First her brother had been turned into God-knew-what kind of monster by the very thing moving toward us, and now her suspicions about her father’s role in Blake’s death had been confirmed. Officer Heils must be high up in the ranks to be Logan’s escort. Either that, or Logan relished dolling out as much misery as possible.

Wade had said Logan hadn’t created any other vampires, but his sire had certainly created a police force of enthralled humans. Mindless. Mere husks to do Logan’s bidding. Their eyes, empty. Savage.

I searched the clearing, looking for an escape route. What was keeping Alec and Matt? Were they hurt? And had Wade abandoned us now that his father was here? I couldn’t project any questions his way and risk Logan overhearing me tap into our mental line. Besides, no matter how convincing Wade’s performance, how sincere he seemed, I knew better than to trust the bad guys. Didn’t I?

Paige hopped up and down, trying to see over me and around Brit’s wings. “Over here.” She shouldered between us with surprising strength. “Chief Gervais.” Her voice had the reverence of a cult member toward her leader.

“You’ve come to save us!” Paige stumbled forward, holding her injured finger aloft as if asking him to kiss it better. “Like they said on the news, you’re Redgrave’s only hope.”

Brit grabbed Paige’s arm and dragged her back. “Reality
bites
, Paige. Do those look like the teeth of Redgrave’s only hope?” She gestured to the inch-long fangs that had sprouted from Logan’s incisors at the sight of my cousin’s blood.

“Get your freakage off of me.” From out of nowhere, Paige whipped out a silver fork that she must have pillaged from Matt’s gear bag and jabbed it in Brit’s arm once, twice…like she was prepping a potato for the barbeque.

Brit shoved her away, and Paige ran straight for Logan. Seriously, you’d think the daughter of a teacher and a lawyer could take one look at the fangs, the hollow cheeks, and bible-paper-thin skin and do the math. Her almighty Chief Gervais = evil.

Logan actually
did
kiss Paige’s finger when she threw herself into his arms. He licked at the semi-dried blood and grinned at my audible gag. Thankfully Logan’s surprise appearance had jolted me from bloodlust to survival-lust, and I no longer wanted to make a snack out of Paige. Oh, the
ick
factor. A few minutes ago, however, Logan’s provocative actions might have sent me over the edge.

Paige pressed herself against Logan and sighed, “There’s more where that came from.”

I wanted to hit something. Brit would have to do. I slapped at her shoulder. “Are you seeing this?” I demanded, ignoring her pointed glance from her shoulder to my hand. “She’s under his thrall like that news hound yesterday. First Wade, now Logan. She must really have some nasty evils in her.”

But then, I’d always known that, so why was I surprised?

The officers circled us slowly while Logan wrapped his arm around Paige and gave her a comforting, creepy hug.

“Tell me you’ve got a hidden power that’s going to come in really handy about now,” I said out of the corner of my mouth, trying to recall what other talents dark sprites had. Sprites usually kept to themselves. Most of what my father had told me about them—pure speculation. “You can spit fire, right?”