my room. She was right above me in the Marigold Suite. If I closed my eyes, I could even hear her breathing. She was asleep, coming down off the high J.C. had given her. He could have killed her last night. Too much. Too fast. She’d only want more.
I thought of her lips. God. So soft. So pink. I thought of the way her nipples pebbled through the thin red dress she wore. The way it rode up her hips.
Fuck.
Was I any better than J.C.? I wanted something from her too. I wanted...her.
No. No way. Not now. J.C. had trusted me with her. That had to mean something. It meant I was getting closer.
I sat at the small table in the corner of my room. I, too, lived here rent free for the services I provided for J.C. and the Ring. That was just it. I was only ever supposed to be a bouncer. Keep the peace on the floor of the Golden Taurus. Get in. Get out. Don’t get attached. Until one unguarded moment when J.C. would leave me alone in his suite. Then I could access his archives and find the only thing I’d ever cared about.
Until now.
Now, the idea of anyone getting near Phaedra had my wolf enraged. My claws sprang out. My paws ripped into the floor. I couldn’t handle the confinement of four walls. So, I left.
Dawn broke. I tore out the side door and down the terrace. No one else was up yet. Not even J.C. I ran for the woods, shifting as I went. My vision brightened. Birds chirped, then went silent as they sensed me approach. They knew what I was. Even as they knew I hadn’t come for them. I had bigger game in mind.
After a few minutes, I found it. Heart pumping with fear, the deer sensed me before it saw me. By the time it did, it was already too late. Hunger fueled me. I leapt over a fallen log. The deer hesitated a moment too long. Left? Right? It chose poorly.
With a savage tear, I bit into its hindquarters. The beast’s front legs buckled. I leapt again and tore into its jugular, letting its blood flow down my neck. Savage. Primal. Raw. I felt alive. I imagined the death was J.C.’s No. This would be too good for him. If I ever had the chance, I would kill him slowly.
I feasted. Paid homage to my kill. I’d given him a good death. He would live on in the fawns he sired, nesting on the other side of the ravine. When I finished, I left the rest for the scavengers. By nightfall, there’d be nothing left of him but bones.
I could have gone back to the Taurus. Should have. Had I sensed any trouble with Phaedra, I would have. But her heartbeat with the steady rhythm of deep sleep. J.C. meant to turn her nocturnal. He’d need her that way.
I spent the day combing the woods around the Taurus. No other shifters dared approach. If any had, the Ring would sense it for sure. This was no man's land. Trespassers would be captured or killed.
Twenty years ago, this forest was a nature preserve. Federal lands. Since the shifter attacks of seventeen years ago, the Ring patrolled it for the U.S. government. No unauthorized magic users could be here. Not shifters. Not witches. They belonged in the Oasis Territories further north in Durness. Wild Lake in the Midwest. Wild Ridge north of that.
That’s where I was from. No. It’s where my mother had escaped to. The bear clans there had taken her in as a refugee, not knowing she carried me in her belly. An Alpha wolf. But she had nowhere else to go.
By midday, I’d settled in a clearing near a small lake. I felt my mother’s presence here today. A water mage, she could command it. She wasn’t the strongest of witches, but her magic was pure. I shifted and stepped to the edge, letting my feet sink into the sand. I swore I could still see her smiling face in the shimmering waves. She would sing to me. A song about finding rainbows.
I waved my hand over the water, wanting to touch her one more time. Wanting to feel her arms around me. Her eyes were always so sad. I’d catch her crying and for years I never knew why. Then, as I got older, I knew. It was me. I reminded her of the thing she