That shouldn’t sound half as sexy as it sounds.
Fuck me.
CHAPTER 6
When I was first changed into this, the night of my celebration for winning the Lafon case, I was already quicker than her.
Three days later, she doesn’t stand a chance.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned holed up here for more than seventy-two hours, it’s that this change is exponential to an extreme.
Every minute that passes alters my molecular structure even more.
This body is so far from human by now that the fact I ever was one seems like a fantasy.
A bygone dream.
I’m within the study instantly, feet from her as she stands in front of the large, yellow armchair that faces away from the fireplace.
Maybe she only had a second prior to me entering, maybe two, but it was enough time for her to unleash her powers.
And I’m not talking about her hellish fire.
Objects float in the air above her head, moving in concerted circles that are too controlled to be random. Her hands are held up to her sides, elbows bent, fingers steepled.
My tribal, ebony Makonde figure—a piece I hand picked myself on a trip to South Africa—floats down from the chaos of other objects and stops inches from her head. It twirls slowly for her as she reaches up. Her fingers follow its outline half-an-inch above the sculpture’s actual surface.
Like a blind person caressing someone’s face to see them.
She is.
There it is once more. That instinct. An influx of knowledge that seems to have come encoded with the change.
And it’s telling me that she is doing exactly that—she’s somehow garnering information from that statue as she studies it, absorbing data off the atoms hovering above it.
What the hell is she seeing?
Is she bearing witness to the moment when I found that at the street market and needed to have it, despite the price?
Or because of it, rather.
A dark gray, French ceramic bowl glides down toward her left hand, mimicking the trajectory of the Makonde statue. She repeats the motion with her fingers, tracing the bowl, while continuing to brush the statue with her right hand.
Different location, same story. An object I needed to own, not just because of its appearance but because of how much it cost and what it meant.
I was part of the “big leagues” now. Could afford those reminders of how far I’d come.
I’ve already seen her scorn at my life choice and I tense as I imagine what she’s seeing—the judgmental thoughts going through her head as she pries. “What are you doing? Are you looking into my sh—”
She spins to face me, hair and skirt swirling, hands held up by her shoulders. Every object follows the momentum, until each of them freezes in the air around her.
Again my mind screeches to a halt.
Again reality crumbles, shattered pieces of my identity left in its wake.
“Yes.” Her fingers twitch; my possessions do the same, commanded by her will. “I’m looking into your shit.” And she flicks her fingers open.
With a deafening bang, the objects hit the wall behind me. The door frame. Pretty sure I just heard one of the heavy figures break apart the glass frame next to the bookcase.
Fury.
Red-hot lust.
Disbelief.
How is anyone supposed to sift through all that?
I don’t. I stand here, motionless—stupefied—as she calmly takes a seat on the dark yellow armchair and smooths her skirts over her exposed thighs. My teeth grind against each other, my jaw working double time, the blood in my veins a disorienting roar. “Why don’t you just finish me off already?” It’d be a mercy compared to this.
As if she’d ever have any mercy to give. “I told you, werewolf. I have uses for you. And aside from finding a way to escape your deserved fate, I know you’d also love to help me bring my coven to its knees before I kill you.”
“Who told you I’d want to escape my death?” I mumble under my breath, sitting on the matching armchair across from her.
Sky blue eyes narrow at my comment.
More incredulity from her.
This witch doesn’t like me one bit and I suspect it’s a feeling she’s been harboring for a while. “Just how much do you already know about me?”
“I know everything.” The lack of intonation in that statement is a statement in and of itself.
“So they give you a dossier on your victims or some shit like that.”
Her mirthless chuckle is as beautiful as it is menacing. “Or some shit. And you are not a victim, werewolf.”
My legs vibrate with energy, my mind. Heart. I run my hands down my quivering thighs, shifting on the edge of this seat. Impulse control hasn’t been this bad since my days as a junkie. “My name is Silas, as you well know. Use it.”
Flames lick across the tips of her nails before disappearing once more. “Watch it, were—”
“And while we’re at it, give me your name,” I interrupt her.
She crosses one leg over the other and her dress parts again. “I have no interest in your name other than to add it to my list of confirmed kills. Get over it.”
“Well, I’m very interested in your name,” I reply.
“Get over it.”
My eyes narrow as another wave of hunger crashes into me.
Her eyes narrow in return.
Does she fucking know she’s been the centerpiece of my fantasies for a decade? She’s treading dangerous ground and doesn’t even seem to realize it. “You’re going to have to kill me,” I warn her, my voice monstrous and inhuman.
Because I’m monstrous and inhuman now.
“I will. When I no longer have use for you.”
“You’re an all powerful witch. What could you possibly need me for?”
“And, for some reason I don’t understand, you’ve become an all powerful werewolf. Even after only three days, you seem to possess the strength of a centuries’ old creature.”
I rip my gaze from her and her golden skin, those baby blue eyes that appear to glow when compared to the midnight blue wall. My eyes land on the shattered pieces of the Makonde statue.
If that isn’t a metaphor for the current state of my life.
“Why did they turn me into this?” I ask.
“What’s more painful to the human mind than death?”
Her question catches me off guard. “I . . . what?”
She drapes her arms over the thick armrests. “Change, werewolf. Change.”
“I don’t get it. Why punish us more than necessary when our deaths benefit your kind?” Witches. Sadistic. Evil. Is that voice right about them? It seems to think it is.
As if to prove my instinct’s point, she shrugs one shoulder. “It’s the same as making a deal with the devil, isn’t it? In the end you suffer for your greed.”
Telling. Very telling. “So you’re comparing your kind to the devil.”
She makes an exasperated sound and rolls her eyes. “Doesn’t everyone, always?”
Seconds tick by, and I find myself frozen speechless.
It’s her.
It’s really her.
She’s in my home.
This isn’t the fucking time. Keep it together. It’s always the time to want her, though. That’s a lesson I learned the hard way over the years. “But why turn us into werewolves specifically?”