My heart ached for him, for his pain—his curse. His body could never be at peace.
I put my hand on his shoulder. “You don’t deserve this life,” I murmured. “I can try to numb your triggers more often. Not just when we . . . you know, fool around. It’ll take some time to work up my strength, but I can try.” If there was anything I could do to make this easier on him, I wanted to do it.
He placed a slow kiss on my lips, but Derek barked viciously and I drew back. Lucas scowled and his body quaked slightly.
“Okay, stop it both of you,” I said, taking a few steps away from Lucas and gathering my scattered emotions. “I’m sorry I kissed him in front of you,” I said to Derek. “It was insensitive.”
Lucas looked as if he wanted to tell me off for apologizing, but he clamped his mouth shut. A deadly silence penetrated the night and I felt my pulse quicken. How quickly the mood had changed.
“Let’s keep going,” I said. “What else do we need to test?”
Lucas ran his hand through his hair. “Well, I think it’s pretty clear already, but I guess we gotta be sure.” Lucas turned to Derek, who had come to stand right beside me. “Do you still have the blood crave?”
Derek looked up at me balefully, and I knew it was a no.
“He doesn’t,” I said for him. “Look.” I held my hand out to Derek’s muzzle, and he sniffed it vigorously, tickling my palm with his whiskers. I laughed and Derek licked me. “Ew . . .” I rubbed his saliva off on his fur.
Derek didn’t look pleased.
“He’s like a really smart dog,” I said, smiling over at Lucas. “Not like you at all. When you change, you’re scary and wild. Derek’s still Derek underneath all that fur.” I reached out with my power to feel him relaxed and excited to start experimenting, but as I looked into his eyes, trying to ignite the connection, I felt a wall. It was impassable. Derek didn’t seem to notice a thing as I centered my gaze on his white eyes.
At last, Derek whined impatiently and I stopped, frowning.
There must be too much vampire in him. Not good.
“He’s right,” Lucas said. “We’d better get on with this. I think we should try running first. That’s safest.” He glanced around and pointed to a peculiarly shaped cactus about a hundred yards in front of us. “Run there,” he said to Derek, “And when I say go, run back as fast as you can. Stop before you hit the car, though, all right?”
Derek sniffed as though this last statement was obvious and trotted off to the wonky cactus in the distance.
“To the car,” Lucas said, setting off.
We both leaned on the hood, and I held the stopwatch in my hand, poised to click it once Derek passed the rock I thought was shaped like Courtney’s head.
“Ready?” Lucas asked me. “This is gonna be fast.”
“Ready when you are.”
“On three, all right, Derek?” Lucas yelled. “One ... two ...
three
!”
Instantly, there was a blur of white, and wind whipped by me so strong it blew my hair straight back. Derek stood before us, windblown and yapping happily. It was a few seconds before I realized I hadn’t clicked the stopwatch.
“Holy crap,” I murmured.
“You didn’t time him,” Lucas said irritably.
“That was ... really fast.”
Lucas’s lip curled. “I’ll have to do it. My reflexes are faster.” He held out his hand for the stopwatch.
Derek paced restlessly, tongue lolling out. He seemed all too proud of himself.
“You like to run, huh?” I asked. Derek let out a short howl. “It must be a wolf thing.”
“It’s a pack thing,” Lucas said shortly. “We run in packs. It binds us. Running on our own is nice and all, but it’s nothing compared to running with your brothers beside you. He’ll never have that.”
“What is your
problem
tonight?” I asked, fed up with him.
“Nothing.”
“There’s something—”
“Do it again,” Lucas said to Derek, cutting me off. “I’ll time it this time.”
Derek reset back to the wonky cactus and Lucas counted down. Once more, Derek blew toward us in a whip of wind. I saw Lucas click the stopwatch and then stare at it, eyebrows raised.
“What?” I asked nervously.
“Nothing, it’s just . . .”
“Is he slow or something?”
Lucas ground his teeth. “I wanna see something.” He threw the stopwatch on the hood of the trunk. I picked it up and gawked at the time on it: 0.5 seconds. With my mouth hanging open slightly, I turned to watch Lucas walking to Derek.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Get in the car,” Lucas shouted back roughly.
I heard Derek growl at him, probably as disgruntled as I was at his tone.
“Why?” I called.
“Can’t you just do what I ask for once?” he said, stripping his T-shirt.
“Are you going to
change
?” I gasped.
“Get in the car, Faith!”
I threw the stopwatch onto the hood and stomped into the car, slamming the door behind me. I didn’t care what horrors Lucas had seen in his past, he was being a dick. I watched through the window as he tossed his jeans to the side. Without warning, his body tore apart, distorting and convulsing for less than a second and then he was a wolf, darker than the ink sky above us. My hands were trembling on the steering wheel. This was so unsafe.
Lucas released a short bark and ran back to the cactus with Derek loping along after him. It was then that I realized what Lucas had in mind: he wanted to race.
I waited with bated breath, staring at the empty beam of the flashlight, for the two wolves to appear.
Then a whip of dust told me they’d started. Derek arrived in half a blink and Lucas a few seconds later. My stomach dropped. Lucas had lost. Majorly. I watched from inside the car as they repeated the race twice more. Then it seemed Lucas couldn’t hold his form any longer, and he shifted back into a human.
This was not going to improve his mood.
Cautiously, I cracked the door open and emerged, not knowing if I should say anything to Lucas or not. Snatching up his clothes, he returned to the car silently and thumped down on the hood, which dented beneath his weight.
“Did you record his time?” Lucas grunted.
“Wha—oh, no I forgot.” I grabbed the pen and paper and scrawled the time Lucas had taken on the stopwatch. “How come he doesn’t change back?” I asked after a short silence.
“I guess it doesn’t work that way for him,” Lucas grumbled as he tugged on his belt with a pointed jerk. “I don’t know how long he can hold it.”
“Should we wait and see?”
“No. I wanna know what else he can do.”
“Maybe that’s enough for tonight. I’m sure he’s tired.” I was eager to be done with tonight’s experiments. It wasn’t going at all well, and I didn’t know how much longer cordiality would hold out between my men.
“I want to see how strong he is,” Lucas rumbled. “And then we can go if you want.”
“Okay,” I agreed meekly. “How are we going to test his strength?”
Lucas eyed the car with interest, bent down and pulled on the bottom of it, as if testing its weight.
“Don’t even think about it,” I said. “My mom’s already going to kill you for denting it.”
Lucas seemed unconcerned. “I’ll buy her a new one. This car’s a pile anyway.”
“Lucas,” I pleaded. “I don’t think this is smart.”
He ignored me and beckoned Derek over. Derek padded across the asphalt and sat before us, luminescent white eyes inquisitive.
“Change,” Lucas commanded.
Derek sniffed and galloped out of the beam of the flashlight, for a little privacy, I guessed. When he returned, he was sweating and paler than usual, but his face was alive with excitement.
“Going well, huh?” he asked, taking his time shrugging his shirt over his sweaty skin. “How fast was I?”
I said nothing, but handed the notebook containing his time to him.
Derek sucked his bottom lip in and made a low whistle. “Pretty fast, eh, Lucas?”
Lucas could not have looked more murderous.
“So,” I said loudly, catching Derek’s attention. “You, ah . . . didn’t feel like you had to change back at all?”
Derek shook his head, still smiling with that superior glint in his now turquoise eyes. “Should I have?” he questioned Lucas. His voice carried a deviously innocent note in it. “Werewolves can change any time they want,” Lucas said stiffly, “But if it’s not the full moon, the time we have while we’re changed is limited.”
Derek looked genuinely interested now.
“Why?” he asked.
“Just the way it is. If there’s a human in danger, we can keep the form longer, but without a reason to change, we can’t hold form for much longer than five minutes.”
“How long can you hold it if there’s a vampire around?” Derek asked.
“Till it’s dead, usually. But I don’t need to be a wolf to kill a vampire.” The menacing timbre of his voice made me truly believe that last statement.
“So I don’t count, then?”
Lucas regarded him curiously. “Guess not. Either that or you don’t pose a threat.” His tone had a bite to it at the end that made me sure he’d meant that as an insult.
I gulped as they glowered at each other.
“Well,” I mumbled weakly, “should we . . . ?”
“Yes,” Lucas said harshly. “We’re gonna test your strength now,” he told Derek. “With the car.”
Derek bent and tested the weight of the car, much as Lucas had.
“What are we doing to it?” he asked.
“Lifting it,” Lucas said.
Derek bent obligingly and I shouted, “Wait!”
They both stared at me.
“We have to get the camera off the roof.”
Lucas snatched it up and set it down again about ten feet away, making sure that it was aimed directly at my mother’s poor car. She was going to kill me for this. Lucas had better get her something nice.
“You go stand by the camera,” Lucas barked at me.
“And you can shove the camera up your—”
“Ready?” he called out, ignoring my grumblings.
“As I’ll ever be,” I said. “
Try
not to total the car. We still need it to get home.”
Derek grinned wickedly, his ghostly face shining in the darkness. I held the flashlight’s beam steady on them, watching Lucas bend and pick up the car with apparent ease. He held it cradled in his arms for a few seconds and then set it back down again as gently as if it were a child.
I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
“Good job, babe!” I called out, trying not to sound too asinine.
Both men gave me death glares.
All right. I give up tonight.
Now Derek moved toward the car and bent at the knees, pulling up under his arms and all the way over his head. He showed a bit more strain than Lucas had, and he didn’t set the car down nearly as gently.
But Lucas was not satisfied. He wanted to
beat
Derek, not just match him, and he wouldn’t be happy until he did.
“Throw it,” he said.
“What?” Derek asked, glancing at me.
“Throw the car,” Lucas repeated.
“What? Lucas—no,” I said, stepping forward. “Can’t you at least try to save the car?”
He rounded on me. “Shut up for ten seconds, would you?”
I stopped short. I didn’t care how hurt his pride was, that was not okay. I was about to yell back, when Derek cut in.
“Don’t talk to her that way!” He snarled.
Lucas spun around. “Don’t tell me what to do, runt.”
Derek stared Lucas down, face more unearthly pale than I’d ever seen it. “Careful, Fido, your fangs are showing.”
Lucas’s eyes turned to slits. “You wanna see my fangs? Cuz I’ll be more than happy to show ’em to you.” He started forward and I could tell Derek wasn’t about to back down. Their feral energies radiated through the night, so strong I almost saw them. This was not going to end well.
I came up behind Derek, intending to get between the two of them. But I only got as far as Derek’s flank. Appearing out of nowhere like that must have triggered a reflex or something, because the next thing I knew, Derek had swatted me back—his open palm hitting me square in the chest—and I skidded across the sand, landing in a pile.
That was it. Final straw.
Lucas charged, pummeling Derek to the ground. They both began fighting, and it wasn’t more than three seconds before Derek’s unstable emotions made him change.
I got up and started back toward them. “Stop!” I screamed uselessly. As if they would listen. “Derek, stop! Lucas, I mean it!”