CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Peter looked so sexy that it was all I could do to keep from throwing him down on the porch and fucking him right then and there. He had on jeans, a leather jacket, black Johnny Ramone Vans, and a Rolling Stones T-shirt. The jeans fit. The T-shirt fit even better. I didn’t give a shit about the Vans.

Without my heels, my head just grazed his chin. He made me feel small and feminine, and I liked that. That’s not the way I see myself, so it’s fun for a change. I was smiling when I led the way into the living room.

But when I turned around to resume our embrace, he walked past me towards the back windows.

“There’s someone out there,” he said, pressing his face against the glass. “I just saw movement down on the beach.” I saw him reach his hand around to touch the small of his back and realized that’s where he had his gun.

“It’s just a fan, I think. Or a photographer with nothing better to do on a slow news night. He can’t see in. The windows are tinted for privacy. And he can’t get any closer than the beach, so you can relax. If he gets really annoying, I’ll turn into a pelican and go down and poke out his eyes.” It was a new experience: teasing about my true nature. I was having fun. Maral’s the only other human who knows what I am, and her sense of humor ends with using “Werewolves of London” for her ring tone.

Peter wasn’t smiling, though. He declined my offer of wine or something to drink and perched on the edge of the sofa, waiting for me to sit opposite. “I can’t relax, Ovsanna,” he said, “not until I can explain why I came out here, and why I’m not staying.”

I felt the blood begin to pound in my body. My skin started to flush. “I thought the reason you came out here was to stay. What was that kiss you just gave me?” Anger flashed through me. I was aroused, wanting desperately to change. I tried to stay calm long enough to let him talk.

“Look, Ovsanna, you know I’m attracted to you. Every minute we’ve been together since Christmas has been leading up to this. It was all I could think about, driving up here. I want to make love to you. I have the feeling if I do, I’ll never want to stop. And that would be great, if I didn’t have a job to do. But I do.” He stood up and walked back to the window. “I mean, I’ve already done it, but no one knows that except you and me and your . . . fucking vampyres! No one else knows the Cinema Slayer is dead. So I can’t close the case. And you were involved in the case. Hell, Maral was even a suspect for a while. So as long as the case is open, I can’t sleep with you! I can’t even see you without a good excuse for the Captain. Do you understand that?” He turned back and looked at me with such pleading in his eyes that I couldn’t let my anger overwhelm me.

But I couldn’t keep it under control, either. My fangs unsheathed and my eyes turned red. I was royally pissed. I’d been imagining this night for days now, and this was not what I’d imagined. My vision sharpened, but the color leached out of everything. Peter’s face was defined in shades of black and gray. I looked past him out the window at the photographer on the beach, and my frustration and rage found an immediate target for release. Fuck Peter King and his explanations. Fuck his attack of conscience and his integrity. I wanted to tear something apart. I wanted blood.

In an instant I was in the sand, screaming at the poor bastard with the camera. He stared at me with his mouth hanging open, stunned at my sudden appearance from nowhere. “What the fuck are you doing out here?” I screamed. “You’re trespassing, you son of a bitch!” Talk about misplaced anger. I tore the strap from around his neck and hurled his camera into the water. It was heavy, but I tossed it like a pebble.

I turned back, expecting to see him cowering. My fangs hadn’t dropped yet, but even in the dark, he’d seen my red eyes. And my voice, when I’m angry, can level a baseball stadium. They don’t call me the Scream Queen for nothing.

He wasn’t cowering. He had something around his neck, some sort of fur band, and he was rubbing it, muttering to himself. His human scent dissipated, replaced by something lupine and feral, and I knew in an instant what was happening. That band was a talisman; he was using black magic. His clothes ripped apart as his body changed shape, his shirt and jacket shredding at the seams. His haunches tore through his jeans as if they were tissue paper. The smell of wolf was eye-watering.

The paparazzo was a fucking boxenwolf. He’d used the talisman around his neck to shape-shift, and he was coming at me. What was it with me and wolves these days? First the monster were at the house in Bel Air and now this prick bastard. You’d think I was in heat or something.

The boxenwolf was big. Not as big as the werewolf from Saturday night, but big enough to give me trouble. Bigger than a Grey and a lot more vicious. He circled me, snarling and snapping. I extended my claws and dropped my fangs. Wolves are very expressive; you can see their emotions in their eyes. This one wasn’t surprised I was a vampyre.

He backed away from me and started howling. I moved in on him, slashing at his throat. The fur talisman protected his neck. I came away with clumps of mangy brown hair under my nails but no flesh. He backed away again, his hind legs in the tide. I didn’t understand why he was retreating—until fangs clamped around my bare leg and something powerful struck me from behind. I went down in the surf, and the rest of his pack attacked.

There were five of them. All wearing fur-pelt talismans around their necks. All boxenwolves. Powerful. Ferocious. I shoved myself up from the waves, used one hand to throw one of them—a gray-coated female—farther into the ocean, and sank my teeth into the snout of the male who had me by the leg. I shook him loose; he came away with a chunk of my calf in his mouth. The smell of my blood and his blood together worked on me like a shot of meth. I crushed his muzzle between my teeth.

The gray female was fighting the undertow twenty feet from shore. That left my buddy the photographer and his three pack mates. We had a moment’s standoff while the four of them circled me and I held down the fifth in the sand. The pain in his snout left him barely struggling. He was yipping instead.

And then again they attacked.