My stomach lurched as Astrid turned to look at me. Her golden eyes gleamed like citrine gemstones, and her bleached white canines caught the moonlight.

With each step she took toward me, she left bloody pawprints. The incredible muscularity visible beneath her short fur rippled with latent power. Blood dripped from her talons and spattered the dirt road.

I couldn’t speak: my fear had finally won out, and my mouth wouldn’t move. Even if I could have spoken, nothing intelligible would have come out.

Chapter 3

Astrid lowered her monstrous head and shuddered. Her whole massive werewolf form started to bubble and ripple as the transformation began to take place.

Without the pressure of having a bunch of goons aiming spell rifles at me, I was able to take in her transformation this time. It was certainly an impressive spectacle. In fact, I’d never seen anything like it in my life.

Once Astrid had regained her regular, beastkin form, I found that the initial shock of the fight had passed.

I let out a low whistle. “That was something else, Astrid!”

“Never seen a lycan transform before?” she raised her head again and looked me full in the face. She was beautiful, and she smiled alluringly at me, but her hands were covered in the blood of the men we’d killed. She withdrew a flash from a pouch at her hip and started to wash her hands, though she couldn’t remove all the blood.

Sudden anger replaced the shock that had filled me a moment before. I could have admired her large breasts and shapely thighs, on full display in her leather jumpsuit, except that my fists were suddenly shaking as the adrenaline of the fight left me.

“I’ve never seen any of the fucked up things that have happened tonight!” I said. “What the hell was that? What just happened? I just killed two men for you, and I’ve only just met you!”

“A good start, wouldn’t you say?” she said coyly, but I wasn’t having it.

“Don’t try that on with me, I want to know what the hell is going on here, and what you’ve roped me into!”

Instead of answering, she looked away, crouching to dry what remained of the blood from her hands on a handful of grass. ”You need to come with me to the mansion,” she said.

”Or what?” I demanded. “Or you’ll kill me like you did those soldiers?” I gestured at one of the dead men she’d killed and immediately regretted it. As soon as I saw his lifeless eyes and his backward head, the eggs and beans I’d had for dinner started to crawl toward my throat.

Her eyes snapped back up to me and pinned me with their golden gaze. Her tail flicked back and forth in agitation, like the tail of an annoyed cat.