Gone with the Wolf - By Kristin Miller Page 0,37
brain. “Everything…really happened, didn’t it?”
“Yes.” Drake’s lips fell into a grim line and he folded his arms across his chest. He looked like he was protecting himself from something…but that would be ludicrous, wouldn’t it? What would he have to be afraid of in his own home?
“I’m sorry for what I had to do,” he said. “But after what happened, there was no choice. You must have a million questions.”
“The stranger from city hall…” Emelia swallowed hard. Drake handed her a second water bottle that she downed as quickly as the first. “He was your brother?”
Where did this insatiable thirst come from? And why was Drake acting like he knew what she’d want, before she wanted it?
“Unfortunately, you met my twin, Silas. I can’t apologize enough for what happened. I’d meant to keep you out of all this and I sure as hell didn’t expect him to attack you. Rest assured he’ll pay with his life for what he did to you.” He spoke with heated determination, each word gruff and clipped.
Emelia licked her cracked lips, then let her tongue settle on the jagged tip of her newest canine. “My teeth, they’re—”
“Canines.” Standing, Drake circled his chair and gripped its raised back. He looked weary and concerned. Like he wanted to put the chair between them for a reason. “Your teeth will change at first, but they’ll go back to normal once you continue with your regular diet. They’ll only elongate at the full moon after that.”
“What are you saying?” Heat rose to her cheeks. “The full moon will…what?”
Now it was Drake who tensed. “My brother and I are werewolves, Emelia, born to werewolf parents. After Silas bit you, I had no choice but to bite your thigh and finish the process he’d started. If I’d left you the way I found you, you’d be dead. But now, because of the two bites, your body will”—he rolled his shoulders back and slapped a stoic, unreadable expression on his gorgeous face—“have the ability to shift into a werewolf as well.”
“What the hell!” Emelia jumped out of bed so quickly, she dragged the blankets with her. “Werewolves? This isn’t happening, I’m dreaming, that has to be it. This is a horrible dream brought on by the attack the other night. Right? Drake, tell me I’m having a nightmare.”
Drake reached out for her. “I wish I could tell you that this is all a bad dream, but I can’t.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me! Werewolves? In Seattle?” Her legs twitched, cramped, seizing with sharp knots of pain. She paced, stomping to shake the quivers out of her legs. “I’m a werewolf? Wonderful. I’m going to turn into a monster and howl at the full moon like the bloody, hairy mess in American Werewolf in Paris and shit. Oh God, your brother told me what would happen if he bit me. I saw…”
Drake in wolf form, fighting his brother…to protect her.
Drake tunneled his fingers through his dark mess of hair. “Yes.”
“I saw you…as a wolf.”
“I should apologize for scaring you that way, but what I did was absolutely necessary.”
“You didn’t scare me,” she corrected, stopping in front of him. Drake’s complexion had drained to ghastly white, as pale as the shirt pulling taut over his chiseled body. “I was never afraid of you.”
The panic whirling inside Emelia died down as she stared into Drake’s smoldering dark eyes. She became hyperaware of the heat radiating from his body. Of the magnetism pulling her body to his.
“Emelia, you’re handling this really well,” he said. “Most turned werewolves can barely hold on to a thread of sanity for the first few days.”
“Believe me, Drake, I’m not handling any of this well.” Emelia fought the urge to grab Drake by the waist and claw her fingers into his sides, raking her nails along the hard grooves of his abs…instead, she clutched the fabric over her stomach and gritted her teeth. She should be panic-dumb and tingly numb, not focusing on her arousal and how hot Drake looked. “I feel like I’m rotting away. My insides feel raw and worn, yet I feel like there’s fire chugging through my veins. My arms are tight, and my legs ache like I’m having growing pains.” What would she become when this was over? A wolf like Drake—one who is commanding, yet has an uncanny sense of calm about him? Or would she turn evil like his brother and become a wolf who kills for her own gain? “I don’t feel