Chapter 92

Chapter 92

“I’m not,” I said, moving farther down the booth from him. “My date went to get us drinks.”

I pointed Andrew out at the bar. The man in the fox mask frowned.

“That loser? You deserve better than him.”

I nearly choked on that remark. I didn’t know what he thought would be “better” than Andrew, but I doubted that it was him. The man in the fox mask was burly, but I would not have called him handsome..

He certainly was not up to Andrew’s standards physically, and I was getting the feeling that his personality was no better.

“Would you like to dance?” he asked. “I saw you out there before. It looks like you could use the practice.”

I shook my head, partly to indicate “no” and partly to show how appalled I was by his insult.

“No, thank you.”

“Why not? It’s boring over here on the sidelines.”

“I’m quite comfortable waiting for my date, thank you very much.”

“Waiting can get awful lonely, you know. I could keep you company…”

The man reached over, moved my hair out of my earring, and tucked it behind my ear. In the process, he lightly traced the edge of my ear and my jawline, sending chills down my spine. I tried to slide farther down the booth, but he planted his hand hard on my thigh.

“Where e you

I swallowed.

going?” he asked, his voice low and gruff.

“I–I told you, my date is going to be back any minute with drinks. He won’t like it if I’m with someone else.”

“What-” he scooted closer to me so that our legs were touching- “is he the jealous type?”

I nodded. When I tried to move again, the man tightened his grasp on my leg.

“Very jealous. And protective. And violent.”

He grinned maliciously.

“Don’t worry. So am L

The man wrapped his arm around my shoulders and tried to pull me close to him. I resisted,

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Chapter 52

but the man’s grip was strong. My breathing raced.

“Let go of me,” I said as firmly as I could.

“Come on, sweetheart,” the man said as his hand sl*pped down to my breast. “I’m just trying to have a little fun.”

When his hand squeezed my breast, something snapped inside of me. Images of Bob’s assault flashed in my mind. Bob’s callous touch melded with this man’s; Bob’s face, obscured by darkness, overcame the man’s masked visage.

My b*dy trembled. My hands clenched and unclenched. I immediately gave access to Susan, and everything else happened in a blur.

My fangs

and my claws extended. I grabbed a hold of the man’s arm and bit deeply into it. His blood flooded my mouth; the primitive side of me relished the taste.

The man howled in pain and released me.

I made to move out of the booth, but the man grabbed me. I poked him in the eyehole of his mask, forcing him to let go of me again. Then I kneed him in the gut and kicked him in the groin, sending him to the ground so that I could run out of the booth.

Once I was safely away from the booth, my fangs and claws retracted. I panted as I watched the man groan and grab at his groin. I got an odd sense of satisfaction out of seeing my attacker in such pain, but I knew that I had to find Andrew and tell him what had happened.

When I turned to run to the bar, I found Andrew standing behind me, clutching a pair of wine glasses. I opened my mouth to explain myself, but his dark gaze was not on me. It was looking past me, burning a hole in the man in the fox mask.

A low growl erupted from Andrew’s chest. His b*dy shook. The wine glasses fell to the floor, shattering into a hundred pieces.

“Are

you okay?” I asked him.

His fangs and claws elongated. The wolf mask discarded, his nose and mouth stretched into a snout. His muscles and bones grew, and fur sprouted all over his b*dy.

In seconds, Andrew was replaced by his wolf–man form. Not quite human and not quite wolf, this in–between state was more feral than either, more powerful–more Alpha.

Andrew leapt at the man in the fox mask. The other man barely regained his wits from my crotch–kicking in time to discard his mask and transform into his own wolf–man form to defend himself.

A crowd began to circle around us, making sure to give the fighters a wide berth, but no one, not even the security guards, dared to intervene. Fur and blood flew as the two wolf–men tumbled across the floor, Andrew–as the larger of the two–having the upper hand more

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Chapter 92

often than not. Snarls and growls filled the air as the two males challenged each other and each tried to get a bite out of the other.

I should have been appalled. I should have wanted to run away or to tell Andrew to stop, but

a part

of me felt avenged, as though every wrong that had been cast at me since being thrown in jail for Bob’s crime were being taken out of the masked man’s flesh. My knight in shining armor, none other than Andrew Dubois, Alpha King

Then I saw Andrew rip out a piece of flesh from the masked man’s arm with nothing but his teeth. At the sight of the man’s exposed bone, even I vomit. I knew I had to stop Andrew, somehow, before he killed the man.

“Stop!” I cried out, careful to not use him so that the others gathered around us would not recognize him. He did not so much as turn his head to me. “I said stop!”

Andrew pinned the man on his back. He dug his claws into the man’s chest, drawing rivers of blood. The man was barely able to hold Andrew off as the Alpha King lunged for his throat, fangs snapping.

My heart beat out of my chest now. Murmurs and screams rose from the crowd, but still no one tried to interfere, all too afraid of–or, twistedly, entertained by–the spectacle before them. There had to be some way to stop them.

Susan gave me an idea, an instinct, but I resisted it at first. It was foolish, suicidal, but it was also the only hope that I had of getting Andrew’s attention.

With a deep breath, I jumped onto Andrew’s back and clung to his shoulders for dear life.

“Stop, Andrew,” I said in his ear, only for him to hear. “It’s me, Crystal. You have to stop!”

Andrew growled beneath me. For a moment, I thought that, at best, I would be thrown from his back or that, at worst, he would turn on me. Then he sniffed my arm, and a sense of recognition seemed to sweep over him.

He shifted under me, slowly returning to his human form. Before anyone could see him, I located his mask and shoved it back onto his face just as his snout disappeared. He grunted and adjusted the mask as he started to come to his senses.

“Crystal?” he whispered my name. He looked at the mangled man that he still straddled and then back at me. “Oh Goddess, are you all right?”