Ignoring her, he paced to her bathroom. The door closed with a swish. Mary Ann set Aden’s note on her nightstand and stood. Then she sat back down. Her knees were a little weak. What would Wolf look like? Was he someone she knew? Every time she tried to picture him, all she could see was a hard, muscled body. His face always remained in the shadows.
The phone rang, startling her, and she jumped.
Mary Ann glanced at caller ID, and her trembling intensified. Penny. She crossed her arms over her middle, anchoring her hands under her armpits so that she couldn’t reach for the receiver.
Another ring.
As she sat there, Mary Ann was surprised to feel hurt, pure and undiluted, rather than anger. She loved Penny, she did. And Wolf and Aden were right. Making mistakes and then hiding them was human nature. But she couldn’t act as if nothing had happened, nor could she trust Penny not to do it again. With someone else. Someone Mary Ann actually adored. For some reason Wolf popped into her mind.
At the fourth ring, her machine picked up.
“I know you’re there, Mar. Talk to me. Please. There’s so much I want to tell you.” A pause. Penny sighed. “Fine. We’ll do this over the phone. I wanted to tell you what had happened. I did. Remember at the café, when I mentioned that Tucker would stray? I was trying to work up the courage to tell you but I stopped myself. I was too afraid of this. Of losing you. I didn’t mean for it to happen.” There was another pause, crackling static. “We’d both been drinking and neither one of us was thinking clearly. In my mind, I justified it because I knew you didn’t love him. I told myself I would only be hurting you if I told you, that unburdening myself would be selfish. I was wrong. I see that now. Mary Ann…please.”
Beep.
Silence.
Mary Ann’s jaw started trembling, right along with her body.
The phone began ringing again, and she glanced at the caller ID, expecting to see Penny’s number. Would she answer this time? What would she say? She saw Tucker’s number instead, and her teeth ground together in irritation. Was something in the air? A call Mary Ann vibe?
Him, she didn’t love. Him, she wanted nothing to do with. She wasn’t even tempted to pick up the phone.
His message was shorter than Penny’s.
“I’m sorry, Mary Ann. If you would just talk to me, I could explain, make you understand. We could be friends, like you said. Just…call me or I swear to God…” The words ended in a growl.
Click. Silence.
She shook her head. They were over, done in every way, and talking wouldn’t change that.
“Are you ready?”
Wolf’s voice. His real voice. Deep and rough…unsure. Was he as nervous as she was?
“I’m ready,” she called, her voice now trembling, too.
The bathroom door creaked open. There was a shuffle of footsteps, and then a boy was leaning against the wall across from her, staring over at her.
First thought to run through her head: she’d never met him before. The second: oh my God. He wasn’t exactly beautiful, his features were too sharp, but that only added to his appeal. He looked wicked and ruthless and capable of anything.
He had black hair, as silky and shiny as his fur had been, and his eyes were still green. That, however, was where the similarities with the wolf ended. He was taller than she had guessed, stacked with muscle and sinew, and had wide shoulders and long legs. His skin was a tantalizing golden brown. He wore a plain white T-shirt and faded jeans that hung low on his waist. No shoes or socks.
Her stomach had yet to stop flip-flopping. She’d lain in bed with this magnificent creature. She’d held him in her arms and petted him. She, who spent her spare time reading, who studied no matter how much she hated it and wouldn’t know fun if it slapped her across the face. She, whose most defining feature was a fifteen-year plan—a fifteen-year plan she no longer even thought about.
Funny. She’d once thought abandoning her life’s plan would be a reason to mourn. Right now, she only wanted to celebrate.
Until doubts took hold.
Had she bored Wolf to death? He ran wild in the woods. He could shift between animal and human. She was plain ole Mary Ann.
What are you doing? Blank your thoughts. He could read auras. Did he know what she was feeling right now? How she was drooling over him? Oh, great. Gonna be sick.
“Well?” he said. “Do you have nothing to say? You’re bright pink, green and gold. Excited, nervous and nauseous.”
Her cheeks heated. Her skin was probably the same colors as her aura.
“So what are you thinking?”
“You can’t figure it out?” No way did she want to say it aloud.
“Mary Ann,” he said, exasperated.
She’d take that as a no. “I’m thinking you are…normal.” Not true, not true, oh, not true.
He popped his jaw. “Normal.” His harsh tone suggested that was a very bad thing.
Not knowing what else to do, she nodded.
Silence stretched between them. Neither moved.
Say something. Anything. “Aden thinks I’m some sort of superability neutralizer. If that’s true, why didn’t I stop you from changing from wolf to human? Or maybe a better question is why didn’t you change back into a human when you first approached me? Of course, both of those questions hinge on the fact that I’m a neutralizer, which I might not be.” Dear God. She was babbling. Stop! “You know, you could stop glaring at me. That might help.”
He scrubbed a hand down his face and laughed without humor. “All this time I agonized over the decision to show myself to you, my true self, afraid of your reaction, and this is what I get,” he said, and laughed again. “You act as if I didn’t do it. As for your ability to neutralize, maybe you can, maybe you can’t. Shape-shifting isn’t supernatural or magic or whatever you’re thinking. It’s a part of who I am, how I survive. You can’t stop humans from breathing, can you?”
“No.”
He nodded as if he’d just proven his case. “My name is Riley, by the way. Not that you asked.”
“My name is Mary Ann,” she responded automatically, then blushed again. “Sorry. You knew that.” God, this was awkward. Part of her wished he’d go back to wolf form. That, she knew. That, she was comfortable with. That, she didn’t want to drool on—and then subsequently kill herself in embarrassment for said drooling problem. Maybe it was best to change the subject. “So why were you so nervous about showing me your true self?”
“I knew your expectations were high. I wanted to meet—or exceed—them.” He didn’t wait for her reply but crossed his arms over his chest, pulling the material of his shirt tight against his biceps. “Anyway, you never answered my question. When I first walked in, you were talking about starting at the beginning. The beginning of what?”
Nope. She wasn’t gonna go there. “Sorry, but I can’t answer you now, either.”
He straightened, looking slightly offended. “Why?”
“It involves Aden, and you want to kill him.”
“Yeah,” he said, not denying it, “but I’m not going to. My friends like him.”
“Friends?”
“You. And my charge, Victoria. Vampire princess and all-around pain in my—well, just a pain.”
Victoria. The vampire princess Aden had talked about with longing? The vampire princess who had put stars in Aden’s eyes? Must be. Friends, Wol—Riley had called them. “Aden told me a little about her.”
Riley nodded stiffly. “You shouldn’t know about her. No one should. My job is to keep her safe and the more people who know about her, the more unsafe she is and the angrier her father will be with me.”
“Aden and I will keep your secrets, believe me. To talk about them is to paint targets on our backs.”
“No one will make you a target,” he said, and there was so much fury in his tone she was momentarily speechless. He strode to her, sat beside her. Their shoulders brushed, and she shivered.
There was a beat of silence, of utter tension.
She wasn’t sure what she wanted him to do just then; she was only sure she wanted him to do something. Anything but move away from her.
“I just meant,” she said softly, “that they’ll think we’re crazy and gossip about us.” Another thing to drool over: his protective nature. But did that protective nature mean that he and Victoria were more than bodyguard and princess? More than friends? Her hands tightened into fists. Was she…jealous? No. Surely not. “I thought vampires and werewolves were enemies. I mean, Aden said the vampire told him to stay away from you.”
“She’s such a riot, that one.”
“So you’re not enemies?” And why did she suddenly want them to be? What was wrong with her? Were the two dating? Her teeth ground together.
“No. Vlad, the first of the vampires, gave the same blood he had drunk, the blood that changed him, to his beloved pets. They, too, began to change. Soon they were able to take human form, though they retained their animal instincts. In those early days, they were vicious, ferocious, and would try and eat everyone they encountered. Those people who were attacked, the ones that survived, began to change, as well, though they retained their human instincts. Those are my people. Vlad helped them, nursed them. In return, my people pledged to protect his.”
All that history was fascinating. Scary, but fascinating. And yet that wasn’t what her mind focused on. “So why’d you decide to reveal yourself to me now?”
“Because,” was all he said, eyes narrowing.
“Why?” she insisted. So that he could finally touch her with his hands? A girl could dream. Her eyes widened. Where were these thoughts coming from?
“Because. Now, I believe you were going to tell me what you were talking about earlier.”
Frus-trat-ing. But she should be used to his lack of response. Clearly Riley felt entitled to all the info she possessed, but didn’t think it was necessary to return the favor.
