Shutting off the water, she stepped from the shower. As she wrapped herself in a towel, her gaze slid to the mirror, to the stranger staring back, pewter eyes gleaming with a hunger that she now understood.

Without thinking, her hand snatched up the first thing it could find—a small vase of dried flowers on the back of the toilet—and let it fly. The mirror shattered with a loud crash. Shards of vase and glass rained down on the counter and floor. Still, those lycan eyes were visible, distorted through the fractured mirror. The eyes of a beast, mocking, laughing at her display of pique.

“No,” she raged, wanting to gouge them from her face.

Her hand closed around the ceramic toothbrush holder just as Gideon burst into the bathroom. He caught her arm before she could let it fly.

Prying the toothbrush holder from her clenched fist, he tugged her away, his grip warm and firm on her arm. Shards of glass cut into the bottoms of her feet and she winced, stumbling against his chest.

Gideon looked down. “Damn,” he muttered, sweeping her into his arms and carrying her out of the bathroom. Claire soon found herself on the bed, her feet propped in Gideon’s lap as he plucked glass from the soles of her feet, his hands surprisingly gentle.

She watched him silently for a moment before asking, “Why are you doing this?”

His brow creased as he concentrated on her feet. “You might be a lycan, but it’s still gonna hurt to walk around with glass in your feet.”

Claire wet her lips. “I mean, why are you helping me?”

He looked up, studying her for a moment before returning to his task. “We’ll head back to town today. We don’t have a lot of time, so you’re going to have to help. I need to know everything about Lenny. Family, friends, where he liked to hang out. There’s a good chance he knew the lycan who infected him, so we’ll start by retracing his movements of the last month.”

Claire considered him for a moment before nodding. He was helping her, trying to stop her from turning into a bloodthirsty monster. A killer. She shut her eyes and gave her head a slow shake. That was all that mattered.

Opening her eyes again, she asked, “What happens when we find the one who infected Lenny?”

“I’ll kill him.” He said it so simply, like he killed all the time, and it was then that Claire finally accepted that he did. All except her, a small voice in the back of her mind reminded her.

“After you kill him, the curse will be broken.”

At this, Gideon hesitated, his hand hovering over her foot. “If he’s the alpha, yes.”

“Alpha?”

“Each pack has one alpha and every lycan can be traced back to that alpha, either through birth or infection.”