How to Flirt With a Naked Werewolf - Molly Harper [117]
Eli and I ran for the barn. Eli grabbed a rusty pipe wrench lying near the concrete pad and bashed the padlock off the door. I blinked into the dim light of the barn, assailed by dust and the faint smell of motor oil. Eli tossed the wrench onto a workbench. I squinted, my eyes adjusting enough to take in the blanket-covered form on the wooden trestle table. I stumbled toward it. Eli pulled back the blanket, and I cried out, wanting to shield my eyes but unable to look away.
I covered my face with my hands, muttering something like “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” The fur was too light, the body too lean. It wasn’t Cooper.
I was flooded with simultaneous waves of relief, confusion, and embarrassment at dragging Eli all this way. I wiped at my eyes, wondering again where Cooper was and whether he was OK.
Eli stared down at the body, his pupils tight little pinpricks in eyes that were growing increasingly golden. His mouth was set in a grim, unhappy line.
“Is it anyone you know?” I asked, instantly ashamed of my insensitive reaction. “Is it a werewolf?”
“No, it’s just your normal, run-of-the-mill wolf,” Eli said, his voice flat and unaffected.
“Eli?”
“Sonofabitch!” he screamed, tossing the trestle table over. The wolf’s carcass fell to the ground with a soft thud.
“Eli, what are you—”
“If you want something done, you can’t trust anyone to do it for you!” he raged, his face flushing purple. “Do you have any idea how long it’s taken me to set this up? And these dumb fucking roughnecks kill a real wolf?”
Eli’s eyes were now completely yellow, his cheekbones protruding sharply. He was starting to change, a shadow creeping over his skin instead of the light of transformation I was used to from Cooper. This was something primal and scary. And as I finally processed what Eli was saying, I realized I was in deep, deep shit.
Eli drew back and slapped me with an increasingly pawlike hand, sending me flying across the room and into a tool chest.
Jennifer Garner totally would have seen that coming.
I sat up carefully, my hand curving protectively around my belly. “Why, Eli? Why are you doing this?”
Eli rolled his neck, stretching his body in a long, lean line, willing the change to withdraw as he shrugged out of his clothes—which was, I will admit, disturbing. He was fully human again, his eyes a bitter chocolate color. He smirked. “Would you believe . . . I just enjoy screwing around with short-order cooks?”
He sat down in front of me. My only comfort at this point was that the concrete had to be extremely rough on his bare ass cheeks.
“Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for this?” he demanded. I tried to look away, because of the nudity issue, but he grabbed my jaw and forced me to keep eye contact. “I’ve worked for years to get where I am today. Cooper was weak. He was too worried about being fair and equal when what we needed was strength. I’m a leader, Mo. I was born to lead my pack. And they’re too damn stubborn, too stuck in the Dark Ages to realize it. Do you know what it’s like to know your potential and have no one else recognize it? Because of Cooper. As long as Cooper was around, I would only be the second best, the substitute.”
Just over Eli’s shoulder, on the opposite wall, I spotted a tranquilizer gun. There was no way to make a direct grab for it. My only hope was that Eli would keep talking, allowing me to shift positions and get to it.
“That rival pack was strong, though, as it turned out, not especially subtle,” he said, looking annoyed. “They bungled the whole thing, after I’d been sending them information for months! I mean, really, if you can’t trust the people you’re staging a coup with, who can you trust? That turned into a total fiasco, and I had to act just as surprised and shocked as everybody else.
“But it did get rid of Cooper, which was the point. I stepped