What about the tranq? I knew Ray would be breathing down my neck as soon as my involvement with Drake came over the wire.

Jace is putting together medical papers for you and he’ll fax them down tomorrow. He’s confident the lab won’t be able to identify the serum. He’s going to label you as having some kind of a seizure disorder.

Got it. Becky was beginning to get hysterical. I have to run.

Jessica? There’s one more thing. I heard—or rather felt—tension in his voice.

Yes?

What I say to you now has to be kept between us at all costs. I can’t stress this enough. Do you understand? Anxiety thrummed through the connection.

Yes, of course I understand. I won’t repeat it.

Tonight? What you did? Blocking me like that? He took a breath. It’s never been done before. There has never been a wolf strong enough to block me the way you just did. I’m fairly certain that’s what you were doing—whether you intended to or not. No matter how much power I pushed toward you, and even though your wolf had called to mine, I couldn’t break through. I felt his fear then. Jessica, I felt all your emotions … and I couldn’t do a damn thing to control them.

Well, fuck.

8

As predicted, the scene was chaos in under ten minutes. Huge spotlights drenched every inch of our little pocket of grass. It was lit up like a stadium during the Super Bowl. The place was crawling with reporters, cops, firefighters, curious moviegoers, theater staff, and a double set of furious parents.

Nick and I sat half perched out of a squad car, giving our statements to the attending officers. Thankfully, Ray hadn’t shown up yet, but there was little doubt he would materialize soon enough.

I hoped I’d be excused before then, but it seemed doubtful.

“Okay, Ms. Hannon. We have what we need for now. Someone will be in contact with you soon. Mr. Jensen’s final condition”—the female cop nodded toward the ambulance—“will affect this process, as you know.” She meant, if Drake managed to survive, I would be expected to testify in court, and if he died, well, there would most likely be a detailed investigation into his death. I wasn’t looking forward to either scenario.

Before we put a call in to 911, Nick had persuaded both girls, changing the story of what had really happened to something easier to swallow. Poor Jen would retain most of her “before” part clearly—but watching me almost kill her attacker bare-handed with stupefying speed had been tweaked as necessary. In the spirit of things, Nick had even coaxed her out of severe shock before the paramedics arrived, which had been a big task because he’d also had the wailing Becky to contend with.

My right hand, where it’d connected with Drake’s jaw, had completely healed in a matter of minutes, so blaming hand-to-hand combat on what had happened to Drake’s face was completely implausible.

While Nick was busy tending the girls, I’d devised a quick solution with an appropriately sized rock. I pressed it into the contours of Drake’s face, smearing the surface of the stone with an adequate amount of blood and tissue. Thankfully Drake hadn’t stirred during the process—and to my relief, he hadn’t been quite dead either. Supernaturals, on the whole, were tough to kill. But that didn’t mean he’d be waking up anytime soon. His injuries were severe—even for a supe.

The story I told the police was that I’d snuck up on him with the trusty rock, interrupting his attack, and hit him with more force than I’d intended. The story hadn’t accounted for any of the other injuries to his body, but there was a chance Drake would heal some of his own wounds by the time he arrived at the hospital. That would certainly help.

I glanced over the officer’s shoulder as they loaded Drake into the back of the ambulance. He’d already been in a human jail, but I had no idea if he’d ever been in a hospital. An imp’s blood wasn’t exactly a red flag. Most of the time their blood was classified as hemophilic.

The officer handed back my ID. “I understand the process,” I said. “Is there anything else?”

“Will we be able to contact you at this number tomorrow?” She read back my cell phone number.

“Yes.”

“Then you’re free to go.”

Nick was still giving his statement, so I stood outside the car and waited. Our story should hold as long as the persuasion held and Jen didn’t decide to change her side of the story to, “The girl with the glowing violet eyes beat him to death with her fists.”

Unfortunately, blue-sundressed Jen would likely have dreams containing pieces of the true events her entire life. The subconscious was a powerful thing, and this had been an extremely traumatic event for her. Lucky for us, and her, Nick was one of the strongest wielders of the gift. There were only a few humans who hadn’t succumbed to his efforts, and the guy heading straight toward me was one of them.

Cripes.

No matter how many times Nick had tried, Raymond Hart’s mind had never taken to persuasion. The alterations in his line of thinking never stuck for more than an hour at most. And Ray always acted crazy for the next few days. He had no idea what had happened to him, just that something had, and he always blamed me, his anger becoming more intense every time we tried. It was a lost cause, so we’d stopped trying.

“Ray, it’s such a nice surprise to see you here,” I said. “I’m assuming you rushed all the way over here, nowhere near your jurisdiction, to make sure I was safe after my awful run-in with a pedophile. Thanks for caring so much, big guy.” I mocked punching his arm

“Cut the shit, Hannon. This has your name written all over it,” he said.

“Well, yes it does, doesn’t it?” I smiled. “I guess it makes sense my name would be attached to it, since I’m the one who took the creep down a few minutes ago. If it had someone else’s name attached, we’d be in a quandary.”

“You don’t fool me for one minute. Destruction follows you like metal to a magnet. I don’t care if you have some lousy, half-concocted story about why you happened to be here tonight. Or why you knew exactly when an attempted teenage rape was going to take place. Or why there’s a man over there with half his face caved in.” Ray took a step forward, getting into my personal space. He was actually pretty good at intimidation for a non-wolf. I wasn’t shaking in my boots, but he’d made me think twice. My wolf wasn’t the least interested, which was nice. I didn’t need that complication right now. But if Ray continued to push, there was no doubt she’d want in on the action at some point. “I know,” he continued in a harsh whisper. “I know you have something more to do with this than you’re letting on. I can feel it in my bones. And when I find out what it is, I’m going to throw your ass in jail, make no mistake about it. And when I do, I’m gonna sing to the high heavens. You’re going down, Hannon. And there’s not a damn thing you can do to stop it.”

He turned on his heel and stalked away, his swagger assuring me he meant every last word. I knew he was going to stick his nose into the Drake investigation, and I also had a sinking feeling if he made a lot of noise our thin story wouldn’t hold up. A coroner would know better, if he or she was forced to make a serious assessment about a possible murder weapon. It most likely would not come back in my favor.

If Drake lived, my life would be much easier.

I yawned. I needed some sleep. “Let’s get out of here. I’m beat,” I said to Nick, who’d just finished up and was walking around the car.

“Beat doesn’t cover it. What a crazy-ass night,” Nick said. It was only ten-thirty, but it felt like three a.m.

We walked across the parking lot and I poured myself into the passenger side. Nick slipped behind the wheel. I mindlessly grabbed the bag of pastries and fished the last one out and took a bite as Nick drove away.

Nick was quiet for a while before he finally turned to me. “Jess, now that you’re a full-blooded werewolf everything is going to be different. You get that, right? Especially with a serious threat like Ray Hart. Before, he was a mild inconvenience in your life, but now he’ll be viewed by Pack as a direct threat. You’ll be protected at all costs whether you like it or not.” Nick kept his eyes on the road. “That’s Pack Law to the letter. We all follow it. If there’s even a slight chance Ray might find out what you are, or if he comes too close, or threatens you physically …”

“You mean, I’ll be protected by some at all costs,” I answered with a snip. “I have a distinct feeling Pack Law won’t fully apply to me. There’s no precedent for a female in Pack, and the wolves are in an uproar already and they only suspect I’ve changed. I can name quite a few wolves who’d be elated to let Ray do their job for them. It would be much less dirty that way.”

Nick gave a faint psst sound. “Please. Do you think your father is going to let Ray Hart—or anyone else for that matter—threaten you outright? You’re his daughter, for chris-sake. Anyone dumb enough to lash out at you will be paying a huge price—like with their life. Wolves won’t take that risk easily no matter how much they grumble. Waging war against Pack is no small thing. Some wolves may be pissed now, but when it comes time to choose, they won’t leave Callum McClain. Your dad is the strongest Alpha on the planet. They’re going to come around and accept you … eventually. They have to. Ray doesn’t stand a chance if he doesn’t back down.”

Nick was right. Ray had catapulted himself into a game he couldn’t possibly win. Even though I disliked him for a thousand reasons, I didn’t want to be the impetus of his death. I’d joined the police force all those years ago not only because I was good at it, but because I actually believed in the notion of justice. The right to live and be free. Without those two things, I wouldn’t be alive right now.

Unfortunately, that viewpoint wasn’t embraced among wolves. In fact, it didn’t even exist for them. They had no philosophical debate going on in their minds about humans; it’d always been cut-and-dry. Humans were necessary, but not equal. End of story.