Under My Skin (2 page)

The distant approach of my eleventh-grade gym class, all twenty or so students, broke the stillness of the forest. They were some thirty yards down the trail but to my were-friend and me, thanks to our heightened hearing, their cannoning steps sounded very close indeed. I picked up their laughter and groans as they ran.

Checkmate.

The werewolf had missed his moment, and we both knew it. He couldn’t risk an attack in full daylight, close to so many humans. Even rogues weren’t totally insane. They might not follow every teeny little rule, which often brought them the attention of the Council and hunters like my dad, but rogues were all about self-preservation.

Lips pulled back, gleaming fangs bared as if to say,
We’ll meet again
, the werewolf bolted into the thicket and disappeared. My breath left me in a relieved rush. Dropping my daggerless hand, I bent over with my hands on my knees. Okay, rogue werewolf roaming the woods—that was a surprise. I straightened, sucking in air, taking in the werewolf’s lingering stench, imprinting him on my mind. If I needed to, I could track him on the memory of his scent alone. Judging from this foolish daylight excursion, he was one I’d have to track down before he gave someone all the proof they needed that, although Santa Claus was a myth, beasties like
him
really did exist.

And here I’d thought Redgrave had nothing much to offer a girl like me. Now this was more like it. Possible witch and/or magics flying around, and werewolves. Things were looking up. Being half wolven was kind of cool…sometimes. Thanks to my mom’s DNA, I had certain advantages. Advantages I’d never had the chance to explore while taking the drugs my father had created to keep my unpredictable wolven half subdued. Without those drugs I flip-flopped from sheer exhilaration, as I discovered my increasing wolven abilities, to sheer horror. Now, sprouting a nasty case of back hair, a tail, and fangs—some time before graduation—were serious possibilities.

Flying back and forth between treetops, a pair of crows cawed, nagging at me for letting the werewolf go. Although I didn’t speak crow, I was pretty sure they were slandering my good name. I glared up at them and called out, “Oh yeah? I know you are, but what am I?” My voice rose, mimicking their screeching, but when the guttural noises coming from my mouth ran a close second to a horror movie screamer. I stopped.

They sounded too much like the cries I’d heard in my nightmares lately. Since my parents’ disappearance, I’d been having vivid, gory dreams about losing control, my wolf completely taking over. Being off my father’s meds intensified the dreams threefold. But in every dream, right after I’d been stripped of all humanity, my mother appeared, and the disgust in her eyes, the horror on her face haunted me when I woke. I shoved the thought aside. No point in dwelling on the dreams. They’d be after me later anyway.

My sweat-soaked cotton T-shirt absorbed better than a jumbo-sized tampon and hung off me like deadweight. I fisted the drenched material, fanning it away from my skin, about to resume the race, when the crows fell silent.

A twig snapped in the thicket off the trail.

I spun around and gasped when a tall form veered to my left, running at full speed. Not a werewolf this time, but someone from gym class out to win the race. Low-hanging branches prevented me from seeing much, but my adversary was definitely male. He had a half a foot on me and a lean body. The rotter. Losing because of some local-yokel shortcut was NOT an option. So maybe I was being a bit too competitive. What else was there to do in this town?

Well, besides scare off the occasional werewolf?

I sprinted ahead, caught up, and soon took a slight lead. Staying off the trail, clinging to the shadows, the guy checked me out with a few sideways glances. I couldn’t quite contain the extra bounce in my stride or the flirtatious looks I darted back. Something about running with a guy in the woods set my pulse racing in more ways than one. His smooth pace and fluid form told me this was a worthy challenger. For once I actually doubted my chances of winning, but I’d sure give him a good run.

Our pounding feet and rhythmic breathing echoed through the woods. A gap in the trees along the trail finally allowed me to get a good look. He was Native, with high cheekbones, warm tawny skin, a sharp, hawkish nose that looked as if it had been broken more than once. I guesstimated he was a year or two older than me. His dark, shoulder-length hair streamed behind him as he cut a swath through the brush. Clad in a stretchy black T-shirt, jeans taut around his muscular thighs, he was a modern-day warrior.

Then I spotted it—his jogging buddy. A sleek grey wolf loping at his side, its jaws open in a canine grin. I gaped at them, man and beast moving as one. Lanky and graceful, with shining grey fur and keen amber eyes, the wolf was a beautiful contrast to the werewolf monstrosity I’d seen.

But still, a wolf was a wolf. I hadn’t seen anyone at Redgrave High who looked as if they could inspire the loyalty of a wolf. Wolves shied away from human contact. Whatever bonds we’d had in the past, back in the caveman days, things had changed. Man had turned on wolf. Demonizing them in fairytales, slaughtering them, forcing wolves to seek out new territory.

That kind of betrayal wasn’t something any creature forgot. And it was all for nothing. The wolves were never the problem.

So maybe this guy with a wolf at his side wasn’t from gym class. Probably not a good thing.

Too absorbed in staring at my opponents, I failed to watch my footing on the uneven cedar chips. The path twisted. I didn’t. My sneaker snagged on a piece of deadwood. I staggered and lost my stride. My feet kicked dirt and leaves into the air as I crashed against the rough bark of a tree and struggled to stay upright. Hissing, I pushed off the tree and pitched forward.

My challenger whooped. An unrestrained battle cry at the advantage my fumble gave him. He leapt ahead, devouring the trail, leaving me in his dust. His wolf-dog barked in excitement.

Swearing, I straightened and managed a burst of speed. I decided to worry about the German shepherd on ’roids after I ran his buff master into the ground. The trail widened as the poplar trees thinned near the edge of the woods. In the urgency of the moment, chasing after the shadowy forms darting through the trees, my mind was blank. For a split second I ran without thought or piercing memory. I ran for the thrill.

By the time I reached the tree line, I couldn’t see the guy or his dog anywhere. I must have overtaken them when they were hidden by the trees. Adrenaline rushing through me, I bolted into the clearing, tore through the school field, and ate up the last few feet. I leapt into the air and hurtled the finish line of faded orange pylons in the ultimate victory-is-mine gesture.

I swung back to gloat, but my rival was gone. The empty field of yellowing grass and ankle-busting gopher holes seemed to laugh at me. I spun in a slow circle, scanning the edge of the woods, but saw no one.

That odd, empty feeling I got when I couldn’t remember the exact sound of my mother’s laughter or the precise shade of blue in my father’s eyes was back. I released my breath slowly. Only now I was missing someone I didn’t even know.

“All right, Eryn!” Brit, possibly Redgrave High’s only goth chick and, therefore, total social leper, bolted from the crowd of gym-challenged kids and other spectators waiting at the finish line. Over the last few days we had latched on to each other out of self-preservation. There was geek safety in geek numbers. “The new girl kicks butt. You’re way ahead of everyone.” She seemed to get a vicarious thrill at the thought.

“Not everyone,” I said, scanning the tree line over her head. “This guy came out of nowhere. He was all over me.”

I wish.

“Who?” Brit stretched to her full five-foot height and peered across the field. “There’s only you. You’re the first one back.”

“A huge, rather yummy-looking guy was right behind me. He rushed me from way off the trail, totally cheated.” I didn’t tell her about my run in with the werewolf or my chat with the crows. High school was bad enough without everyone thinking I was Looney Tunes.
I
might know about the paranormal world, and hunters certainly did, but 99.9 percent of the human population had no freaking clue what monsters lurked in the shadows. “Are you blind? He was pretty hard to miss. Way taller than me, probably six four, and he was with a wolf, a huge grayish-silver wolf.”

Brit blinked at me from behind a dark veil of overgrown bangs. “All I saw was you gunning for the finish line.” Her black-rimmed eyes glittered with interest. A few of her lashes, heavy with mascara, clung together at the corners of her eyes, but she didn’t seem to notice. Brit, in all her wannabe-shocking glory, must have been used to whatever inconveniences her goth uniform caused. I would have given up at the thought of lacing those knee-high Doc Martens.

“Rewind a sec.” Brit spun her finger in the air counter-clockwise. “Did you say
wolf?
There’s only one guy in town who thinks wolves are Littlest-Pet-Shop material. Alec Delacroix. He’s hot all right, but all that heat’s fried his brain. You don’t want to go there.”

“I don’t?” But the image of long dark hair, broad shoulders, and powerful thighs had already registered on my but-I-really-think-I-do-want-to-go-there interest meter.

Alec Delacroix.

Now there was a nice romantic name for a potential boyfriend—one who certainly didn’t seem to fit the average psycho profile. And I’d seen a few psychos in my day. Mainly members of my mother’s extended family. They’d drop in unannounced and threaten to kill me—the usual we-want-the-half-breed-dead-because-we’re-afraid-she-might-start-a-trend type thing. Of course, after my dad revealed his latest anti-paranorm cocktail, they wanted us
all
dead.

Hunters, guys like my dad, served a useful, if occasionally disturbing, purpose in their elimination of the paranorm rogues. They took care of the deranged and careless, the werewolves, wolven, vamps, or demons who had lost control, given into their baser instincts, and threatened exposure of the paranormal world. For centuries my mother’s people, the wolven, a race of humans who could turn and assume wolf form, had avoided confrontations with hunters. But after Dad agreed to help my mother in her quest to become human, the wolven took notice.

“If you think
I’m
weird”—Brit waved her hand dismissively at my second-too-late protest—“and most people do, Alec is way beyond any obsessive-compulsive, medical-nightmare stuff I’ve got. His whole family is crazy.” She leaned into my shoulder. “They think the town is full of monsters, some kind of werewolves or something. That’s why they tame them, the real wolves, so they can help sniff out the bad ones.”

She checked out my reaction. “Nice, eh?”

I hoped I looked suitably impressed. At her words all the air had siphoned out of my lungs.

Alec was a hunter?

No, he couldn’t be.

Hunters didn’t go around advertising their existence. The Hunter Council would have shut them down long ago. The truth had to be hidden. It was law. The paranormal world, circling humankind like animals with their prey, must remain secret.

Besides, no hunter could survive that kind of exposure, no matter how well trained. There would be questions from the townspeople. The police. Maybe even a few lit torches and pitchfork-carrying mobs threatening to run them out of town. Not to mention they’d be easy pickings for any paranorms out for a little revenge.

The practice of using wolves as trackers was archaic, way beyond old school. Mom had fought that kind of bestial slavery for years. The Hunter Council had a policy against it now—Mom’s crowning achievement. She’d had pretty extreme views on animal rights—ideas that had rubbed off on me—and I could hear the lecture she’d have given me about Alec and his wolf. His having a pet wolf might become a bone of contention between us, but I could educate Alec about the wolf’s right to run wild. If he’d felt half of the sizzle of attraction that I had during our run, he’d soon see things my way.

I couldn’t be this interested in a guy and have him turn out to be one of those the-world-and-all-its-creatures-are-mine-to-dominate cavemen. The fates weren’t that cruel.