Hot Blooded (Jessica McClain) - By Amanda Carlson Page 0,1

my point. “You can either spill it here with me, or you can face my Alpha, who is a lot less patient than me.”

“You will not rule us… bitch,” he sputtered, blood slowly leaking out of the wounds in his neck. “We are stronger. We will never follow you! Your filth cannot touch us.”

Rule? “What in the hell are you talking about?” He wasn’t talking about ruling the humans. I rocked him back on the edge of his heels, my irises flashing an angry violet. “Listen clearly to what I’m telling you now. I want nothing to do with your demon race—not now and certainly not in the future. Ruling you doesn’t even make sense. I’m a wolf, and demons live in the Underworld.” A place nobody in their right mind would volunteer to go willingly. “And believe me, imp, my plans aren’t about to change. There’s absolutely nothing about your kind that appeals to me.” Stinky, unwashed cretins.

He opened his mouth, his stained teeth and coppery breath assaulting me on so many levels. “We will strike you down before you place a foot on the throne of Astaroth! The Prophecy will not stand. Your death is imminent,” he sneered through the choke hold. “You will not best the powers of the Underworld. We are coming—”

I slammed my fist into the side of his head and he crumpled to the ground like a worthless marionette. “Yeah? Well, you’re going to have to get in line, buddy, because everybody around here seems to want something from me and I’m late for a meeting.”

I opened my car door and tossed him in the backseat. He was still breathing, but it would take a while to recover. Unwanted attacks were getting old, but at least this one didn’t have a foaming muzzle and three-inch canines. I slid into the driver’s seat.

Now I just had to figure out why everyone in the entire supernatural race seemed to know more about me than I did.

“What did you just say?” I stood so quickly, my chair spun back and clattered against the wall. “The Second Coming of what? And who exactly was the first?”

Devon tossed a panicked look at my father, Callum McClain, Pack Alpha of the U.S. Northern Territories. The three of us had been sitting at the conference table in my office; my father had his hands folded neatly in front of him, looking calm and in charge. He nodded to Devon to continue as I stalked around the table. Fear leaked out of the Pack’s computer whiz, making my wolf edgy.

Devon spoke again, clearing his voice once before he started. “Um, well, according to what it says here…” I stopped behind his chair, leaning over his shoulder to read the words for myself. The text on the screen appeared to be taken from a copy of a photograph, and not a very clear one. The original parchment background looked broken and old, like the ink had rubbed off before they’d snapped a good shot of it. It read:

THE PROPHECY OF THE TRUE LYCAN:

One shall walk again; above all others she is born;

Within her the beast shall lie, well hidden in True Form;

And from this day forth, the Children of the Night shall pay;

By her supreme rule, her righteous hand will slay;

Justice to all, as none are her equal;

The True Lycan will Vanquish all Evil.

After a minute, I turned away and started to pace. “What it states there doesn’t make any sense. Why wouldn’t we have our own record of this if it were true? Anyone could’ve made this stuff up—it’s on the Internet for chrissake. That could easily be the rantings of a sixteen-year-old sci-fi nerd who fabricated a story about a female werewolf who took over the world. He probably saw a graphic novel about a hot chick who turned into a wolf and his libido shot into overdrive.”

I made it back and forth twice before anyone spoke.

“Well.” Devon paused. “This isn’t the only place I found this information… exactly.”

I spun around to face him. “What? Are you telling me what’s written there is actually a possibility?” The pulse of change began to twitch just below the surface of my skin, my arms and legs tightening in anticipation.

Major emotion was hard on wolves.

It triggered everything inside us, like holding a lit match in front of a can of butane. Since these sensations were brand-new to me, I was clearly having a hard time containing myself. Being overtired and worried about finding Rourke