Wolf's Hunger (Mafia Monsters #5) - Atlas Rose Page 0,10

me hard against his body. “Imagine waiting your entire young life for the moment you howled. To us, it’s more than just speaking. It’s the moon in our eyes and the dirt under our paws.” He took a step closer and lifted his hand, placing his palm over my heart. “It’s this…thud…thud…thud.” The throb of my heart grew stronger with the warmth of his hand.

I stared into his eyes. They were so different from me, so very different. “Tell me what I can do.”

His strong hand at the small of my back pinned me in place as he rubbed his cheek against mine, his breath warm against my neck. “Stay here,” he murmured. “Don’t go outside, don’t go anywhere. Not until we know what we’re dealing with. It’s going to be dangerous for you out here. We all become a little more…” he pulled away, “uncivilized.”

Uncivilized. The cold air moved in with the word, and danced across my skin. What did that even mean?

“There’s plenty of water and canned food…and alcohol.” Arran lowered his hands and stepped away before jerking his head deeper further along the cavern. “The bedroom’s back there and a shower. You’ll need to use our clothes. When it’s safe, we’ll go back for your things. Until then, stay inside and if anything happens, just yell, there’s going to be one of us close to you at all times.”

A shudder coursed through me. It was the cold, I told myself. The chilling wind that carved through the open walls of this place. Arran stepped closer and wrapped his arms around me. “It’s going to be alright, just wait and see. We’ll protect you here. We’ll keep you safe.”

A howl tore from somewhere in the night. Arran jerked his head toward the sound, nostrils flaring, senses on fire as his body tensed. “Eat,” he urged, his voice more guttural now. “Try to sleep and rest. Tomorrow we’ll make a plan. Tomorrow we’ll figure everything out.”

He dropped his arms from around my body and took a step backwards before he turned.

“Arran.”

He glanced over his shoulder.

“What is it about the Fae that’s so terrifying?”

There was a twitch at the corner of his mouth, his half-hearted attempt at a smile. “They’re unknowable, unfathomable…volatile chaos at its most brutal best. You can never fully trust them, Carina. Because you will never truly know them.”

He turned his focus to the shimmering full moon and midnight forest all around us. “Stay inside,” he repeated his warning. “Eat, sleep. Try not to be scared of us.”

He was gone in an instant, taking long strides before he disappeared in the same spot Vitold had, lunging into the night…and leaving me alone.

“Try not to be scared?” I flinched as another howl rocked the night. “Easier said than done.”

Volatile chaos. I swallowed the words and looked down at the throb in my chest. Darkness swelled inside me, a different kind of darkness now. One that had known the Unseelie as he strode from the darkness in that desolate place. One that I felt changing even as I stood here.

I lifted my gaze and looked around the cavern, to the night filled with terror.

A night that should’ve been the start of a new path.

What was I going to do now?

“The only thing I can do,” I muttered to myself. “Survive…and find the fucker who did this.”

4

Strands of hair whipped my face from the blasting wind. I shuddered from the cold and wrapped my arms around my body, staring at the spot where Arran had disappeared, until I forced myself to move.

My belly let out a grumble. The gnawing ache took hold with taloned claws until I ground my teeth hard. I couldn’t stomach the thought of food, not after everything that had happened tonight. Instead, I lifted the bottle to my lips and swallowed, letting the burn of that amber liquid slide all the way into the pit of my stomach as flashbacks of the last twenty-four hours returned.

What the fuck just happened?

Cold air chased the heat of the Scotch as I inhaled hard.

I tried to piece it all together, how we’d started at one place…and ended at another.

It was all my stupid, fucking fault. I pressed the bottle’s rim to my lips again and swallowed. “Why the fuck did you have to go to that farmhouse, Chase? Why?”

The more I drank, the less it all made sense. Trembling fingers rose and brushed stray strands of hair from the corner of my mouth. Shards of glass tumbled free. Glass