Once Bitten (An Anya Maynard Novel)

Chapter Fifteen

This time when I woke beneath the fluffy white comforter that wasn’t mine I didn’t panic. I stretched like a contented cat, feeling thoroughly healed after my deep slumber. There was no urge to jump out of bed, no inner need to discover exactly where I had been taken, I was perfectly happy staying exactly where I was. Because if I stayed here under these covers I could still pretend I was just me. The old me, a me with a past that was less than desirable but with a future that didn’t require have to worry about pack laws and my possible death. In this bed I could pretend like the last twenty four hours hadn’t happened. Instead of waking up healed from bullet wounds I was just waking up after a black out and this could all just be a redo of yesterday’s events.

This time I wouldn’t answer the door and get dragged away by some psychopathic werewolf. This time there wouldn’t be anyone at the door. I would wake on my own and find Connor somewhere in the house, where he would explain to me he wanted to make sure I was okay after blacking out and that he would take me home if I was alright. A black out that I could still assume was because I was upset, not because my wolf felt the need to defend us. Defend us by nearly killing a not even eighteen year old boy.

I swallowed deeply and pressed my hand against my forehead remembering everything my wolf had showed me after we got back last night. Steve, who turned out to have spent some time as a doctor, treated Jess and my wounds and helped us clean up before tucking us away in bed. I just wanted to go back to sleep, but my wolf had other plans. I may have slept on the ride here but she hadn’t. She stayed vigilant, going through my memories, catching herself up on everything she had missed. And she thought she needed to return the favor.

She didn’t give me back all the missing memories, only the last two incidents, the ones she thought impacted our lives the most. The man in the abandoned house and Tyler.

The memories of the man had been everything I had already suspected. The evidence had been in front of me when I came-to so it wasn’t hard to guess how his body had ended up in such a mangled heap. Tyler on the other hand, well, Connor had been the only reason why he survived. He was the one who pulled me off of him before my wolf could literally beat him to death. She had been so angry, taking out all her suppressed rage for Brad, Nikko and Tyler all out on him. It made me sick to think about what she had done. After Connor and his wolf came crashing through the door Nikko and Tyler’s friend turned their attention on him, leaving Tyler to wait for my change. He didn’t know yet, Nikko, that I didn’t physically become a wolf so Tyler wasn’t prepared for the...attack.

One of Tyler’s friends hadn’t been so lucky, but that soul wasn’t on my conscious. And though it did trouble me that Connor had killed that boy, I couldn’t fault him for trying to defend himself.  

And me.

I would never have asked her to give me those memories, especially knowing the brutal images they would forever burn in my brain. Connor sinking his teeth into a dark tan wolf and snapping its neck, his own foreleg dripping blood from a wound I hadn’t seen him obtain. Me, or rather my wolf, sitting atop Tyler’s chest, swinging fist after rage-filled fist against his face in rage…his mangled face…she actually enjoyed the cracking of his bones beneath her fist. There was blood everywhere, every impact spraying across my clothes, my arms, my face…I shook my head…I didn’t think a wolf could even heal from that. He was going to be disfigured for the rest of his life, because of me.

Connor had pulled me off of him before my wolf could deal the killing blow, but she had fought him. That’s how my uniform ended up so sodden with blood. He had dragged me through the diner’s entranceway where two other men lay bleeding onto the tile floor. Tyler’s others friends, the ones they thought would be able to keep Connor busy why Nikko abducted me. Connor had taken care of Nikko too, knocked him flat out before he could so much as aim his gun at Connor.