CHAPTER 2 – Anna

“Dude, you need to stake her. She doesn’t belong with the pack, and we can’t have a rouge lurking around town.”

“I can’t stake her,” another voice grumbled. “Look at her.”

Awareness pricked my consciousness, and I began to hear and see the things around me. I was in the back seat of a car. My blood stained prom dress was still on my body.

Jimmy.

Ah, shit, damn, and hell. I ate Jimmy.

“I can’t kill her,” the other voice replied. “It would be like taking out a baby. Did you see those doe eyes? She doesn’t know what she is.”

But I did know. I was a monster. One who craved the blood of other living creatures, and had hair all over their body. Was I am vampire? Was I something else? I had no way of knowing. But one thing was certain—I was awake enough to feel the burning need of an empty stomach.

“Did one of you have a steak?” I croaked and tried to sit up.

They jumped in their seats if you could call it a jump, but I had clearly startled them.

The one with the long shaggy dark hair was driving and he gave the other boy a dark look that clearly said what do we do now?

The one in the passenger side had lighter hair and the greenest eyes I had ever seen. They were both far too good looking for local boys. It was then I noticed the piece of flat board in the passenger’s hands.

“Why are you carrying that around? And where are we going?”

The driver frowned. “You are supposed to be asleep.”

“Drugged,” I nodded as if this was an everyday occurrence. “Right, I have a fast metabolism. I must have burned through whatever you stuck in me. I get it, I mean I won’t hold a grudge or anything. I know I am a bloody mess and that I freaked you out. I don’t suppose the drugs were the reason behind the inordinate amount of body hair?”

The dark-haired boy scowled at me, but the other one’s expression softened.

“My name is Luke.” The second boy said. With a crooked smile he pointed toward the dark-haired boy. “This here is Roman.”

Roman took his eyes off the road for two seconds to glare at Luke before returning to his driving.

“Okay, not a talker,” I mumbled. Then I faced the boy named Luke. “Erm, hi there Luke, I am Anna.” I broke off when a large yawn overcame me. “Sorry, those drugs were something else. Anyhow, did you say something about Jimmy back there before you, um…”

“Picked you up?” Luke supplied.

“It’s better than kidnapped,” I added. “But yeah, Jimmy was my date to the prom?”

Roman’s scowl deepened as he spoke to Luke alone as if I wasn’t there. “Excellent hearing for a fledgling.”

I had no idea what that meant, but I hoped it was a compliment.

Luke answered my question, ignoring Roman. “They were able to save him, but it was a close call. I am afraid that he had to have his memory wiped so he won’t remember the incident.”

Luke waved toward my bloody dress with a wrinkle of disgust on his face.

I flushed feeling gauche and stupid.

“Can you tell me where we are going?” I asked trying to take my mind off of the night’s unusual activities.

“I don’t really know,” Luke said. “You see, Anna, you are something of an anomaly. We were supposed to get rid of you.”

Fear crept up the back of my spine. “What do you mean?”

“Do you know what you are?” Luke asked.

“Some kind of monster, I think. Although thanks to trigger happy there, I don’t know how much of the last hour was real and how much to equate to the drugs. But you weren’t there for the Jimmy thing. That’s on me. I didn’t mean to hurt him. He got a cut and the next thing I knew I was drinking from his neck. It was involuntary; I swear I would never intentionally hurt anyone.”

“You are a Lycan rogue,” Roman interrupted. “It is far more important to learn who changed you and why. It’s strictly forbidden. Who are your people?”

I swallowed, “Well, my parents are Bill and Susan Browning. But I was adopted, so I don’t know much beyond that. What do you mean Lycan? Like a wolf?”

I had expected them to tell me I had heard wrong. They weren’t talking about imaginary werewolves. But instead Like said, “Bill and Susan Browning? That is fucking fantastic.”

By the way, he said it; I knew it was anything but fantastic. I felt my hackles rise. What was wrong with my parents?

“They are nice people!” I insisted.

“Look, sweetheart,” Luke said with a sigh. “I am sure they are. But they are also Lycan hunters. How could they raise a Lycan under their roof? It doesn’t make any sense.”

They had it all wrong. My parents worked for the government. They didn’t hunt Lycan. They ate vegetables and did yoga at sunrise. You couldn’t find a more granola version of adults if you tried. I couldn’t help the laugh that shook my body.

“You have to be wrong; my parents are too old and stodgy to hunt anything! Besides, I sucked Jimmy’s blood. Werewolves don’t suck blood in the movies.”

Roman rolled his eyes, not even attempting to keep his irritation out of his face. “Look, you are a Lycan, part of an ancient race that is indeed part wolf, and part blood sucker. Our heritage goes back thousands of years. We have a longer life span than regular wolves and vamps, and we are also stronger. However, we are not sparkly, nor do we war with the other races. This isn’t a book or a fairy tale.”

As Roman went back to driving, Luke frowned and pulled out his phone. He opened up his pictures and began sorting through them. When he came to one, he handed the phone over to me. I could hardly believe what I was seeing.

The image was of a younger version of my father was jabbing a wooden stake into some man’s chest. Suddenly I felt ill. I could have denied it until the cows came home, but there was a hatred in his face that I have seen a few times before. I never understood it, but it terrified me.

“I am going to throw up!” I warned.

But before they could pull the car over, I was vomiting up Jimmy’s blood.

“Fucking hell!” Roman shouted. “Now we need to steal another car!’

“You stole this car?” I said in horror, all the while trying to wipe my mouth with the bottom of my dress.

“If we killed you like we were supposed to, we wouldn’t have needed to take a car!” Roman yelled back.

I felt tears welling up in my eyes; nobody yelled at me—ever.

Luke stepped in. “We aren’t going to kill you.”

Roman growled. “Yet.”

I hated showing my emotions. My mother said that I should always show a strong face to the world. They would never take me seriously if I didn’t. And yet, as great hulking tears raced down my cheeks. I couldn’t do anything to stop them. My emotions felt completely out of control. I was likely making a huge mess of my already horrible state.

“I just want a shower,” I hiccuped. “And a change of clothes… And my life to go back to normal again! Can you do that?”

Roman’s jaw clenched. “Sorry, Princess, but there is nothing normal about being a Lycan.”

Luke motioned for Roman to pull over into a no-tell motel that looked horrifying.

“You can’t expect me to go in there,” I said with a whimper.

Roman growled at me. “We need to go somewhere to clean you up with no questions asked. So, before you get off on your high principals on what you can stand, remember it would be easier for us if we just got rid of you.”

Luke winced. “Stop being such a douche, Roman. She gets it.”

Like the turning of tides, suddenly my anger flared again. But rather than let him have it, I swallowed it deep inside and entered the hotel room and went straight to the shower. Undressing, I stepped under the warm spray. As water and the cheap hotel soap rinsed away the blood and dirt from my day, I scrubbed and scrubbed until my skin felt raw. I didn’t leave until the water was completely clean.

I had to wear my heels in the shower because I wasn’t about to get some cruddy toe fungus. Luke tried to reassure me that I wouldn’t get it anyway because Lycan didn’t carry bacteria. I didn’t understand it, not even a little bit.

But I still wasn’t convinced I was one of them. Maybe it was a one-off thing, and I was over it. I had no desire to bite either of them.

Well, maybe that stupid Roman who continued to send hate vibes at me. I could have ripped into him, but not because I wanted to suck his blood.

It really was unfortunate that the moment I got out of the shower, a maid stopped in to see if we needed more towels.

One minute I was holding a questionably clean towel around my body and the next I was lunging at her throat, towel forgotten.

The maid screamed, and Roman dove for me just as Luke caught the woman from falling and doing serious damage.

Roman and I landed on the coverlet, and I cringed when I realized that I was naked. I was buck ass naked underneath a smoking hot male that hated my guts.