Hot Blooded (Wolf Springs Chronicles) - By Nancy Holder Page 0,46

suite and climbed in their beds.

But Katelyn was too wired to sleep. She felt odd sleeping in her grandfather’s presence, and wished she’d asked for the pullout couch instead. She remembered trips up to Tahoe with her parents when she was a kid, how they’d always slept together in the same room. But with her parents it had been normal; she’d been used to it and them. Then a text message came in, and she jumped, hoping it was from Cordelia. But it was Justin, and she remembered with a jolt how he had told her to keep in contact. Oh, God, she really wasn’t all that good at being a werewolf, was she? Following the rules.

Everything OK? he had sent.

She texted back a yes-sir — her version of an apology — and decided to try Cordelia again. Then, even though the phone was on vibrate, she heard her grandfather clear his throat. She wished even more fervently that she’d asked for the couch, but sighed and lay on her side looking toward the window, staring at the stars. When she closed her eyes, she kept seeing Cordelia’s face as she got into the Gaudins’ car, and then the glowing forest. And she wished there was something she could do not just to save herself but also to save her friend.

~

Katelyn woke in the morning and it took her a moment to remember where she was. She checked her cell phone to see if any new texts or calls had come in. Nothing.

The shower was running. She rolled over to find her grandfather’s bed empty, just as the water turned off. A minute later, the bathroom door opened and she rolled back toward the window to give him privacy. After she’d allowed him some time, she rolled back over again.

He was wearing a pair of trousers with a towel across his shoulders, and just as she was about to wish him a good morning, he turned to get a fresh shirt hanging in the closet and his towel slipped. Suddenly Katelyn could see his back. She stared, startled.

Deep, hideous scars ran from his shoulder blade nearly to his hip on his right side.

Scars that looked like claw marks.

9

“Grandpa, what happened to you?” Katelyn blurted before she could stop herself.

He jumped and turned to her, eyes wide, nostrils flared. He shrugged his shirt on quickly and began to button it. “Good morning. Didn’t know you were awake,” he said gruffly. “You sleep okay?”

She bit her lip as she nodded her head, her skin tingling with anxiety. He was avoiding her question. Maybe she should let it go, but his scars looked exactly like the gouges the werewolf had left on her. Scratch marks that had miraculously healed within a couple of days. One of the first signs that something had changed about me.

“Happened a long time ago,” he said curtly, tucking the shirttails into his pants.

“What happened?” she persisted.

He was silent for so long that she wasn’t sure that he was going to answer her. Just as she was about to give up and head for the shower herself, he answered.

“I got attacked while I was hunting,” he said. “Long time ago.”

Her heart pounded in her chest as she stood up. “Did it bite you?” she asked, voice tense.

He gave her the strangest look and she swallowed, panicky. Did he know why she was asking?

He shook his head. “Nope. I was cocky, and I got too close. It just scratched the hell out of me.”

“Did you, did you kill it?” she asked, hating the fact that her voice was quavering. She didn’t want to betray anything she knew about the things that attacked people in the forest.

“Never saw it again.” He walked out to the living room. “Hey, Vladimir, you vampire. You up?” he called.

She made it into the bathroom and got into the shower. It took her forever to figure out the faucet controls; she was high-strung, jumpy. Something had left those scratches on her grandfather’s back.

Wait. He never said what kind of animal it was. He just said he never saw it again.

A thousand questions raced through her mind as she tried to focus on the feel of the water pounding on her face, the heat. His back explained so much. Why he knew the woods were dangerous.

It wasn’t just about what happened to Becky Jensen before I arrived. It’s about what happened to him.

When she finally left the bathroom, she dressed swiftly and then walked into the living