Hot Blooded (Wolf Springs Chronicles) - By Nancy Holder Page 0,2

the darkness, the drums of the Inner Wolf Center were echoing off the mountains. A man named Jack Bronson had bought the old hot springs resort Wolf Springs had been named after, and now business executives paid small fortunes to learn how to let out their inner predators. Seen as a nuisance by a lot of the townsfolk, they mostly kept to themselves at the center. It was a good thing, too. Her one encounter with a couple of those executives in town had been less than pleasant. They’d gotten in touch with their inner jerks a little too much.

As she stepped into the kitchen, she thought she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head swiftly, but there was nothing there.

Just my imagination, she thought, crossing toward the sink. Then she turned and jumped. Justin was standing outside the window, staring in at her. His thumbs were slung in the belt loops of his jeans, his head cocked beneath the moonlight. A jacket that he didn’t need stretched across his shoulders and she remembered the dream, how he had caught her, trapped her. But now, looking out the window, she remembered riding on his motorcycle, and kissing him in the forest before she knew he had a girlfriend . . . or that he was a werewolf. He had been her first real kiss, and even now, despite everything — despite Trick — she still felt drawn to him.

He gave her a slow nod and she caught her breath, wanting, and not wanting, to go to him. They were two of a kind now, in so many ways.

She went to the back door, opened it, and stepped onto the porch, where he was already waiting. The drums matched the unsteady flutter of her heartbeat. She had to tip her head back to see into his penetrating blue eyes, but she defiantly met his gaze. He looked displeased, and she remembered that in the werewolf world she was the lowest of the low, practically an outcast. He was very high-ranking, definitely her superior, and she should show respect by lowering her gaze. She didn’t back down, but she was afraid not only of him, but also of what she had done with him. Last full moon, the time of her first-ever change, they had hunted together. Taken down a deer — even though she was a committed vegetarian. And she hadn’t remembered any of it.

He glanced upward, as if checking on her grandfather’s window; then he blew air out of his cheeks and jerked his head to the side of the cabin. She had left a pair of sneakers by the door. She stepped into them and followed him, her footfalls crunching on frosty earth.

Shoulder to shoulder, they crossed the driveway. She didn’t see a truck or his motorcycle anywhere, and she wondered how he’d gotten there. And when. Once in the woods, he turned to her.

“I didn’t tell,” she said in a rush. “I didn’t say a word.”

Without replying, he took her arm and pushed up the sleeve of her sweatshirt, examining the place where she had fallen into a silver animal trap that morning. When she’d been injured, Justin had carried her to his truck, intent on getting help, even though he had expected her to be dead by the time he’d reached it. Silver was incredibly poisonous to werewolves: even a small prick from a silver knife could make them horribly sick. More catastrophic damage could definitely kill them.

“How come you’re still alive?” he whispered, though loudly enough for her to hear over the drumbeats.

She knew without looking that there wasn’t even a mark on her skin. Werewolves healed amazingly fast. That was one thing to be grateful for.

“Maybe the trap wasn’t made out of silver,” she said. “Maybe you just thought it was.”

“Oh, it was. Believe me. I smelled it. Felt it.” He dropped her arm and studied her face. “If you were bit by one of us, how can you be immune? We’re not immune.”

“My point exactly,” she shot back. “Maybe something else bit me.”

“Oh, we’re not back to that,” he scoffed. “Darlin’, the Hellhound is a myth.”

Her temper flared unexpectedly. “Why? Why is it a myth and you’re not?”

Katelyn had never believed in werewolves until coming to Wolf Springs. Who was to say the Hellhound wasn’t real, too? Cordelia had told her that it was the werewolf equivalent of the Bogey Man, a story they told to keep each