use the knife, less noise, but I couldn't reach my boot. I was one step up from lame with my left hand. However, at this range I ought to be able to hit something vital without even trying.
I looked into his eyes. Did he know who I was? Why I'd come here? What I planned to do? I couldn't tell. It didn't matter. My fingers closed over the butt of my gun.
"You should let your hair grow."
I froze as an image slid unbidden through my mind. My twenty-two-year-old self, staring impassively into the bathroom mirror as I hacked off my braid with a butcher knife. I shivered despite the waves of heat coming from Damien like an open oven.
He released my wrist. I could have shot him then, even used my good hand. But he brushed his palm across the shorn stubble of my hair, then dragged his knuckles down my cheek.
I couldn't move, could barely think. His thigh brushed my hip, his breath kissed my temple, and I didn't leap back, didn't even think about slugging him.
I hadn't been touched in years, hadn't wanted to be. So why him? Why now?
I craved the brush of his skin against mine at the same time the pulse of adrenaline urged me to kill him. A small sane corner of my brain wondered if he was practicing mind control. Maybe that's what the werewolves were up to in Crow Valley.
His hand turned and I caught a flash of something I hadn't seen before, something that made my fingers fall away from the gun.
He was wearing a ring. A silver ring.
Any idiot knew a werewolf would never wear silver.
Chapter 6
I stood beneath the flare of the electric lights, horrified at what I'd nearly done. There was a reason I wasn't supposed to kill them unless I saw them change, a reason I'd forgotten. Mistakes could be made, even by the most dedicated agent.
If I killed an innocent human being, that would make me no better than the animals I hunted. I hated them, but right now I hated myself.
"What's the matter?" Damien lowered his hand to my shoulder, gave it a reassuring squeeze. Why he was being so nice to me I had no idea. I certainly didn't deserve it - even without the gun in my pants.
"Nothing."
"You went white. Are you sick?"
Very.
"No. The light's just too bright. Hurts my eyes."
"I'll change the bulb for you."
He released me and stepped back so I could enter the room.
"Not much to it." He swept out an arm. "Bed, television, bath through there."
I nodded, taking in the tiny sink, refrigerator, and coffeepot that made up the kitchen. Good thing I didn't cook.
"I'll just get that low-watt bulb." He moved toward the door. "It's downstairs."
"Thanks. Damien?" He paused in the doorway. "I appreciate your help."
He smiled, though the expression didn't reach his eyes. Now that I thought of it, his smile was rare and always a little bit sad - as if he had memories he couldn't quite shake. Like me.
"No problem. The new kids in town have to stick together."
I stiffened. "You're new?"
"Just moved in about three few weeks ago."
When the dead wolves had started to appear. Coincidence? My eyes fell to the ring on his right hand.
Probably.
"I thought you owned this place."
"I only work here."
"The owner?"
"Lives in Tucson."
"Lucky him."
He tilted his head and his hair swung free. My fingers itched to tuck it behind his ear. Why did I always have to tidy everything? The man, his hair, the world.
"You don't like Crow Valley?"
"I haven't been in town long enough to decide."
"It's not so bad. I've seen worse."
"You travel a lot?"
He shrugged. "Enough."
His eyes had gone dark and haunted again. I wanted to ask what enough was, but the way he held himself, as if he was waiting for a blow or warding off a memory, made me stop.
"I'll get that bulb," he said, and practically ran from the room.
I seemed to have that effect on men since I changed occupations. Once I'd been popular, pretty, the annoy-ingly pert cheerleader type. Hell, I'd been a cheerleader, in both high school and college. I'd dated the quarterback, planned on marrying him, too. Until he'd gotten his throat ripped out.
Then a whole lot of things had changed. I'd started killing for a living, and men avoided me like a lifetime commitment. Sometimes I wondered if what I did clung to me like a bad odor, or a permanent blot on my creamy white skin.