Haunted Sanctuary (Green Pines Sanctuary) (2 page)

The lunge stretched out the line of his body, leaving him low and open to attack. Jay dug his back legs into the soft earth and launched himself at the man’s throat. He closed his teeth on the vulnerable spot and felt flesh give and blood run hot as his momentum carried them both to the ground.

Another wolf snarled at the edge of the trees. Beneath Jay, his enemy struggled weakly. The girl kicked the knife away from his outstretched hand and grabbed it as she rolled to her feet. She held the blade awkwardly, as if she didn’t know how to use it, and backed away, brandishing the weapon at the new wolf.

The wolf ignored her and charged at Jay. The girl shouted one word, her voice high and panicked. “Zack!”

Jay took the full weight of the charging wolf in the shoulder and rolled. He snapped viciously at the wolf’s back legs and pushed up on his paws just in time to see three more wolves break out of the woods, a tall, bloodied man at their heels.

One of the new wolves dove toward Jay. A second lunged at the disheveled man, who caught the animal by the scruff of its neck and threw it toward the tree line with a roar of fury.

The creature hit a tree with a crack and fell to the ground, limp and twitching, but the man didn’t stop or even slow down. He reached for another, and the fight turned quick and ugly as the remaining wolves attacked low, over and over, desperate to gain an advantage.

Teeth tore at flesh. Claws raked through clothes and skin alike. The man seemed as oblivious to the pain as he was to the pink-haired girl’s broken noises of protest. He snapped necks and tore wolves apart, and when no more surged to take the place of the fallen, he whirled on Jay.

“Zack, no—” The girl stumbled forward. “He saved me. He killed Scott.”

The change was hard, sometimes impossible, when a fight had Jay riding high on adrenaline. He called it anyway, and the effort hit him like a sprint, left him clutching a stitch in one side and the fiery cut on the other. “Zack?” he panted in disbelief. “Zack Green?”

The man’s chest heaved. He wiped blood from his mouth before spitting on the ground. “Did you take care of the rest of them?”

Jay grabbed his pants and glanced around at the bodies scattered on the grass. “There are more?” As soon as his brain processed the thought, a cold chill gripped him. “Fuck.”

Eden.

Eden watched the spot by the house where Jay had disappeared and cursed her cowardice.

She should have told him. There’d been a moment when she’d wondered if he knew already, and she should have seized it. Spilled out the truth—the messy, unbelievable truth—even if it meant he’d never look at her the same way again.

All her starry-eyed daydreams of him would mean nothing if a werewolf tore out his throat.

Stupid. Stupid, stupid,
stupid
.

The painful silence stretched out until Eden couldn’t handle it anymore. Had Jay heard something? If so, it had been too quiet for her to pick up, but what else could have driven him from the car? She’d read stories of cops having hunches, gut instincts that seemed to border on psychic ability, but almost all seemed based on subconscious recognition of clues and the voice of experience.

Maybe Jay had experience with werewolves.

Maybe he was one.

She choked on a hysterical laugh and sank lower in the seat. It should have been ridiculous to imagine the Chief of Police as a big bad wolf, but the more she thought about it, the less she wanted to laugh.

Grace. Strength. Power. Her cousin had shared all of those traits, along with Jay’s knack for knowing when trouble was near. But if Jay was a wolf, he was better at hiding his darker side than Zack had been. Everyone in town had recognized the feral edge under her cousin’s anger. They’d treated him like a dangerous animal, one that might maul them at any second.

And, to be fair, he could have.

“Jay Ancheta might be a werewolf,” she muttered out loud, forcing herself to acknowledge the absurdity of her own thoughts by giving them voice. Cringe-inducing, maybe…but with the night heavy and still around her, it didn’t feel absurd.

She eased her hand away from the gun and reached into her purse in search of her phone. Her fingers had just brushed the edge of the case when a low snarl broke the silence.

“Shit.” She dropped her purse and snatched up the gun, her pulse pounding. A man with dark hair slammed against the driver’s side window, and she couldn’t hold back her shriek of fear. Another clawed its way free of her throat as the man tugged at the door handle.

Locked. She’d remembered to lock them when Jay left, and her relief lasted all of five seconds before the man tore the door from its hinges in a screech of protesting metal.

Werewolves. It had to be. The only part of her mind not shaking in terror knew that nothing else explained the strength it would take to rip pieces from the vehicle.

It was that cool, calm part of her mind that pulled the trigger.

She’d braced herself as well as she could, but she still wasn’t prepared for the recoil. Her hands jerked, sending her second shot through the windshield, and the wolf lunged into the car and ripped the gun from her hands before she could hiss out a pained breath. By the time she realized what had happened, his hands had closed around her upper arms.

Her shoulder crashed into the steering wheel as he dragged her across the seat. Fighting his grip was futile; he pulled her into the open and hoisted her up so she was face to face with his glowing yellow eyes.

Those eyes narrowed as he buried his nose in her neck and inhaled. “You don’t smell like his bitch,” the man muttered. “You’re just a lousy fucking human.”

The words didn’t make sense. Had he expected her to smell like her cousin? Or could he smell another wolf in the SUV?
Jay—

Jay should have come back by now.

She pushed the useless thought away and rammed her knee into her attacker’s balls. He howled his pain, his rage, and threw her to the ground like a broken toy. His clothes ripped as he shifted, and he hit the ground on all fours, his hands and feet already turning to paws. Eden found herself staring into an open, snarling muzzle full of razor-sharp teeth.

She scrambled back, kicking at his nose when he lunged. His teeth closed on the heel of her boot, and she twisted and tried to jerk away, wrenching her ankle in the process.

Tears sprung to her eyes, but she bit her lip and pulled again, dragging her foot free of her shoe. Hope surged as she twisted again and landed on her hands and knees. If she could get under the car or to the house—

A growl ripped through the air a second before a heavy weight crashed into her, driving her to the ground. Claws dug into her body, but the pain disappeared under a flood of agony as the wolf sank sharp teeth into her arm.

Screaming. Running. A woman, a brunette dressed in flannel, yelling as she kicked at the wolf. “No!”

The wolf reared back, and the woman swung the butt end of a shotgun so hard it sounded like a solid home run when it connected with the animal’s head. He tumbled off Eden and rolled away just far enough for the woman to ready the shotgun as he rose.

She fired once and the wolf staggered back with a howling whine. She worked the slide, fired again, and the wolf fell.

Eden struggled to her knees, her back on fire and her arm throbbing. “Where’s Jay? The man I came with—”

The woman tore off her flannel shirt and wrapped it around Eden’s wound. “We have to find Zack.”

“Zack’s here?” It was a stupid question, but it was hard to think when every heartbeat made the pain worse. “You’re with him?”

“You’re Eden.” It wasn’t a question. The brunette pulled her to her feet. “Can you walk?”

“I don’t know.” She took one tentative step and hissed as her ankle buckled. She pitched against the side of the SUV with a groan. “I need to find Jay. I didn’t warn him, and I should have. I need to warn him.”

“Shh.” The woman tilted her head, then wrapped Eden’s arm around her shoulders. “Come on, this way.”

The world went gray with every step. Eden couldn’t feel her fingers anymore, couldn’t feel much of her hand at all on her bitten arm.

A bite. “Oh crap, the wolf bit me. Is that bad?”

Before the woman could answer, Jay ran out of the trees, barefoot with his shirt hanging open. “Jesus Christ. Eden?”

She stared at his chest. Beautiful light-brown skin and dark hair, muscles and strength, and if he’d been undressed, unarmed, he couldn’t be human. “You’re a wolf.”

“You’re bleeding.” His gaze dropped to her arm, and he stepped forward to hold her up.

He hadn’t denied it. He hadn’t even
blinked
. “You’re a wolf,” she said again, more quietly this time. “I got bitten. Does that mean anything?”

He blanched. “Eden—”

The brunette cried out, a wordless noise of relief and worry tangled together. She jerked away and ran toward the trees, where Zack had walked out of the shadows, and threw her arms around his neck.

That it was Zack, Eden had no doubt. The eighteen-year-old hero she remembered was there, buried under blood and stress and numerous tattoos that circled his arms, crept up his shoulders and across his chest. He looked as if he’d only aged ten of the last twenty-two years, but pain had carved its mark in his eyes.

They held little recognition as they studied her, but that made sense. She’d been only ten years old the day he’d finally fled his father’s temper.

She wet her dry lips. “Hi, Zack.”

“Eden. Are you all right?” His gaze snapped to Jay, and something dangerous stirred in his eyes.

She didn’t know how to answer.

“She’s been bitten,” Jay said evenly. “I need to take her to the hospital.”

Finally, a normal suggestion. She clung to it with both hands, fighting back the feeling that the ground had turned to shifting sand beneath her. “Soon? I’m not doing so well.”

“Scott’s friend got to her,” the brunette blurted in a desperate rush. “I know you told us to stay inside, but I had to stop him, Zack. I had to try.”

Zack smoothed his hands over the girl’s hair without taking his eyes off Jay and Eden. “Take her. We’ll deal with the bodies.”

Jay peeled back the edge of the makeshift flannel bandage and grimaced. “Let’s go, honey. You’ll do fine ’til we get there, but you’ll need stitches.” He lifted Eden off her feet and carried her to the battered SUV.

Holding back pained whimpers kept her distracted while he settled her on the front seat and buckled her in. By the time she’d gotten her breath, Jay was pulling down the driveway.

“You don’t have a door,” she protested belatedly.

He glanced at her, his jaw tight. “What are they going to do, arrest me?”

She couldn’t help it. Whether it was pain or shock or the series of emotional blows she couldn’t say, but it was too much. A hysterical, gasping laugh rasped out of her. “God, none of them would dare.”

“I hope not.” He pulled onto the main road and reached over to pat her leg. “You’re going to be fine, Eden. The bleeding isn’t severe. They’ll be able to fix you right up.”

Eden caught his hand and clung to it, scared that her good fingers had started to tingle. “Even though I was attacked by something they think doesn’t exist?”

He hesitated. “As far as anyone at the ER will be able to tell, a dog bit you, okay?”

Still avoiding. She squeezed his hand. “Are you a werewolf, Jay?”

“I am.” He slowed for a turn toward the highway. “So’s your cousin, I guess. And the dangerous people after him?”

Swallowing hard, Eden closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to tell you. I don’t—I don’t know much about werewolves, or what Zack’s tangled up in. He tries to keep me and Dad out of it.”

“I get it. You told me as much as you could without sounding crazy.”

The tingling spread to her entire hand. If it hadn’t been so intense, she might have suspected it was nothing more than her body’s pleasure in touching Jay. Handsome, intelligent, wonderful Jay.

The werewolf.

“You didn’t answer me,” she said, trying to keep her voice calm. “Neither did the girl. I got bitten by a werewolf. Am I—” No, those words weren’t going to come out sounding serene, no matter what she did.

He drew to a stop at a red light and sighed. “Eden, I don’t know. It’s not that simple. I’ve seen people with bites turn out to be completely unaffected. It doesn’t mean you’re going to turn into a werewolf.”

“But I could.”

“You could,” he acknowledged.

Her toes started to itch. The pins-and-needles sensation from her arm jumped to her spine, rippling down her body in a liquid rush that made her gasp and arch. “Jay—”

He caught her by the shoulders and turned her to look at him. “What’s happening, Eden?”

It should have been agony. His fingers brushed the flannel wrapped around her upper arm, and she whimpered. Not pain. Prickling. Wild sensitivity so severe she wrenched away and tore the makeshift bandage free.

Her fingers encountered sticky blood and unbroken skin.

Jay pulled her arm toward him and ran his fingers over her flesh. “This isn’t possible.”