Chapter Eighteen
Molly
Keller walked back into the kitchen, wrapped his arms around her waist and placed a kiss on the column of her neck.
Molly was still confused as to why he was lit on whiskey at seven o’clock in the morning. And why Dom had stopped Riley’s question. And why Keller had followed them out onto the front porch. Everyone was acting really strange. She felt like the only person in the room who didn’t know the punchline to the joke. She wanted answers, needed them.
“Keller, seriously, what’s going on?” She turned in his arms, meeting his eyes and dropping her voice to a whisper. “Why did you leave my house to immediately come over here to get drunk with Dom? Is it the investigation? Is it something I did?” Normally, Molly would mind that Corey and Dom were listening to her and Keller, but she was too worried, too confused to care right now.
He sighed, resting his forehead against hers. “No, darlin’, it’s nothing you did. And the investigation is a pain in the ass, but it’s going fine.”
“Okay, then what?”
Keller looked over Molly’s head at Dom and Corey. Whatever he saw made him straighten his spine. He moved a few feet away from her, and she felt his absence immediately, like all the warmth in the room left with him. He stripped off his t-shirt and kicked off his tennis shoes. What the hell was going on?
“Molly, there is something I have to tell you—”
Dom took a step forward. “Keller, man, now’s not the time. Not like this.”
Not the time for what? Was she still dreaming? She felt so lost.
Keller ignored him and kept right on stripping. “The investigation? It isn’t just about Henderson’s murder. He gathered a lot of evidence about all of us that live and work here at St. Leasing.”
Molly nodded. “The shifter stuff, I know—Corey told me. What’s that have to do…” She trailed off when he took off his workout shorts, standing before her in only his briefs.
“It’s all true. Shifters are real. I’m a shifter. I come from a long line of shifters. I can change into a wolf anytime I feel like it.” And he did.
Molly stood still, not even blinking. The air had shimmered around her and then, where Keller had been moments before, now stood a large, sandy-colored wolf.
Dom raced over and put his hand over her mouth, muffling the scream she hadn’t even realized she’d let out. He kicked at the wolf when he started to growl low in his throat. “For real, Kel? She can’t scream like that, there are fucking Feds on campus all the goddamn time. What the hell is wrong with you? Did you think she would react well to you just broadsiding her like that?”
Dom carefully backed her into the living room and sat her down on the couch, still not taking his hand away from her mouth.
Molly was vaguely aware of what was going on around her. She knew now that she had started to scream, and she knew Dom’s hand was over her mouth. But she couldn’t take her eyes off the light-colored wolf standing in the dining room. Her last glimpse she had of the wolf was when Corey whacked it over the head with a rolled-up newspaper. Somewhere in the back of her mind she laughed, and she had no real clue why.
Dom took a deep breath and spoke calmly like he was talking to a crazy person. “Molly, sweetheart, I am going to take my hand away. But you CANNOT scream.” Oh, that was it; she was the crazy person. She had to be; she’d just hallucinated that her boyfriend turned into a wolf. “Do you understand?”
Molly nodded her head, even though she really didn’t understand one thing that had taken place in the last sixty or so seconds. They needed to call an ambulance; she needed a doctor. Or maybe she really was still dreaming.
Dom removed his hand and peered at her like he was waiting to see what her next reaction would be. To her own surprise, she just sat there. Still as a statue.
Corey whacked the wolf again, speaking to it like it was a person. “You are an idiot. Shift back right this fucking second and help us deal with the mess you just caused.” Molly watched as Corey took a few deep breaths and then strode into the living room and knelt down in front of her. “Molly. I know that this is a lot of information to handle first thing in the morning, when you are sober.” Corey cut her eyes at Dom. “But you are not hallucinating. You are not crazy. Keller is a shifter. He is a moron, but he is a shifter.”
Molly blinked several times at Corey before she spoke. “He turned into a wolf. A blond wolf. Like the color of his hair.”
Corey smiled kindly, like she was still afraid Molly would pass out or something. “Yes he did. How do you feel?”
Like she was fucking insane. What was happening? What was causing this? Had Keller actually shifted? Was that really a thing? Was the sky still blue? Was the grass still green?
She shook the questions from the front of her mind and tried her best to answer Corey’s question. “I think I should be scared or mad or—”
Corey shook her head, still smiling. Why was she smiling like that? What part of this was funny? “No. Molly, how do you feel? Don’t think.”
Molly glanced past Corey and saw Keller standing a few feet away. He was a human now, wearing only his shorts. His tan chest rippling with muscles, his sandy hair messed up, looking like it had first thing that morning. He was breathing hard, the pulse in his neck rapid, his eyes all but pleading with her—for what, she didn’t know.
Logically, she understood all the emotions she should be feeling, yet she answered, “Affection. Confusion. Lust? As bad as it sounds, I just want to walk over to him and rip his shorts back off.” She put her head in her hands, grabbing hold of her hair and pulling it at the roots.
Like an insane person would do.