I had been so tired, I almost overlooked Evan’s warning. “Get as far away as possible.” Was I in danger here? Would someone burst in and kill me the second I fell asleep? Snapping fully awake, I clicked on the lamp on the bedside table and flopped back on the pillows. I looked at the door. There had to be a way to secure it from the inside, even if it wasn’t immediately visible. After all, March had used a key to unlock it. I rallied what little strength I had left and wobbled to the door. There weren’t any latches immediately obvious in the vicinity of the doorknob, and there wasn’t a dead bolt. But then, why had March needed a key? I tried to turn the knob.

It didn’t budge. I’d been locked in.

Regardless of how much I needed it, I didn’t think I’d be getting much sleep, after all.

Chapter 12
It’s a Small World

The werewolf waited for someone.

Max watched her from the safety of his rental car as she sat in the small coffee shop. The Trans-Am, though badass, would have tipped her off to his presence, so he’d had to leave it behind.

He’d add that to his list of “Reasons to Extremely Dislike the Were-bitch.”

To the untrained eye, Bella would have appeared as one of those überconfident women who went to coffee shops alone. No book, no laptop, not even a newspaper to distract her from her solitude. Framed as she was in the sole window of the tiny, brick establishment, she drew the attention of anyone who passed on the sidewalk outside. One man walked into a mailbox, totally oblivious to the world around him as he stared at Bella.

She appeared to be absorbed in thought, but Max saw the way her golden eyes surreptitiously scanned the passersby, and the coffee she’d been nursing had long since gone cold. In the sky above, the moon was full. She wouldn’t assume her animal form. Few of them ever did, though they frowned on the use of science to stop it. No, they did spells, probably with gross ingredients like baby tongues and eye of newt. And they thought a little prick of a needle once a month was a sin worth killing over.

The warm light of the coffee shop’s interior spilled onto the street, illuminating her from behind like an unnatural sun. Supernaturally motionless, she seemed a figure in a painting. Her admirers had no inkling how deadly and dark this mysterious beauty really was.

Shaking his head, Max groaned. She was not beautiful. He was just horny. He’d find a way to make that her fault—not in the obvious way, because bestiality wasn’t his thing—later.