Chapter 6

Chapter 6

They’d long past run out of time, and he was the idiot bantering with the captivating woman who’d fallen through his ceiling. He didn’t have time for this, and yet, he had made time like the fool he was.

Now, she had to deal with the consequences. He couldn’t let her see him change, but he also couldn’t change without her seeing him. It was a horrible situation that he knew would only end in blood and screaming. But at least she wasn’t anyone of note. If she ran through London screaming that she’d seen a monster in Dead Man’s Crossing, no one would take her seriously.

After all, Dead Man’s Crossing was known for making monsters out of men. The story was nothing new or unusual.

He tightened his arm around her throat, trying to keep the right pressure so he wouldn’t kill her but also so she would pass out in his arms. He needed her to pass out. This would all be so much easier if she would just... let... go.

Damn it, she wasn’t going to pass out. The woman was too strong and her hands turned into claws as she desperately tried to get him off. He’d have to do this the only way he didn’t want to do it.

She’d come down into the dungeon with him. The basement. The nightmarish room that haunted his every waking second.

And now it would haunt her, too.

“Walk forward,” he growled into her ear. “You’re coming with me.”

“What are you going to do with me?” she asked, her voice a mere wheeze through the pressure on her throat. “I’ll fight. I’ll fight every step of the way.”

Did she think he would do something untoward? Luther wasn’t a killer, and he certainly wasn’t a rapist. But she had no way of knowing either of those truths with his arm wrapped around her neck like a vise.

Well, she’d have to get used to this fear because it was only going to get worse the longer she was around him.

“The painting,” he snarled in her ear. “Move it.”

He had to keep her trapped against his chest, so he couldn’t move the damned thing himself. His father glared at him through the painted strokes, and he already knew what the old man would say. This mistake would cost them all, and he’d put the family name in grave danger.

When she didn’t move, he squeezed his arm tighter. Just enough so that she’d feel the bulge of his muscle behind her head. Although he hoped she didn’t feel how much larger it already was. Because it would get even bigger if she didn’t hurry, then he’d walk out into the wild.

She lifted her arm toward the portrait, and it took so long. He felt as though he watched her move in a slower time than the one he existed within. She barely even moved at all. But finally her fingers touched the edge of the painting and she shoved.

He thought for a second the painting would only swing on the nail. He’d have to tell her to touch it again. To push harder. The golden ornate frame caught, twisted, and then tumbled onto the floor with a loud clap that echoed through the ballroom.

The door to the basement was open, as it always was on nights of the full moon. Ready for the master who would descend into the darkness and let his madness free.

A small sense of relief came with the dank, stale smell of the basement air. At least he knew he was close. He would make it this time, although it had been a trial to get here. Never again. He’d ignore the next thief, so he didn’t put anyone in danger like tonight.

“Move,” he growled in her ear. “You’re coming with me.”

“I am not going into the dark.” Her angry tones matched his own. “You can’t make me.”

She planted her feet on the frame of the door, swinging up her legs so quickly he didn’t have time to brace himself. The thief shoved hard and sent them both toppling backward.

She landed on top of him. All the air in his lungs whooshed out and his chest stung as she drove her elbow into his ribs. If he were still just a man, she might have broken the rib, but already the beast wanted to be let out. It clawed and howled within him, and if he wasn’t lucky, he wouldn’t control this situation any longer.

The thief rolled, wheezing, as she crawled away. Maybe she was hurt. Maybe they’d both done something that they couldn’t come back from, but he needed her to get to safety.

Shadows clung to his vision, threatening that he was about to lose consciousness.

“No,” he muttered, and his voice was guttural. Too deep even to his own ears. “You can’t.”

“You tricked me once.” The breathy reeds of her voice weren’t right, either. “Touch me again, and I’ll kill you.”

The beast rose to the challenge. It knew exactly what kind of woman stood in front of it, and the beast had always loved the hunt. This woman would be difficult, yes, but she would bow to their desires. No matter how hard she fought.

With one last desperate cry, he threw himself at the woman. Luther fought every instinct in his body that wanted him to let go. To give the beast free rein because the full moon was out and he could see the silver rays of moonlight coming through the cracks in the glass.

Too late.

He was too late.

But not for her. He could still save her, if he was brave enough, if he fought hard enough. And he would. Luther would not give the beast this woman who didn’t deserve to die, even if she had broken into his house and tried to steal from him. She still deserved a long life.

Her words rang in his ears. I won’t sit in a gutter and die simply because my existence makes people feel uncomfortable.

He knew what that life felt like. She’d been tossed aside by everyone because she was different, and that wasn’t right. The words tugged at his very soul until he couldn’t stand it. He had to fix what had been broken, and the first step was not feeding her to the jaws of his beast.

Luther caught her by the arm, hauling her up and forcing her to stand. One last desperate, wrenching movement was all it took to throw her toward the door.

The thief fell through the opening. She wouldn’t know there were stairs, and he heard her cry of shock as she tumbled down them.

Please don’t break your neck, he thought, sending the prayer up to whatever god in their heavens would listen to a beast like him. He’d chain himself up, and she’d be terrified of that. But then he’d wake again. Tomorrow, when it was safe for them to come out. She would live to see another day. Enraged, perhaps, but alive.

Maybe he wasn’t thinking right. His father’s voice wasn’t in his head any longer, telling him what to do. How to act.

Luther closed the door with a slam, and that sense of relief washed over him again. He could finally relax. He was in the basement, and the beast couldn’t hurt anyone else. It would remain trapped, forced to pace from wall to wall while the chains bit at his wrists.

Except... He looked down at his hands and watched claws erupt from his fingertips. Claws that were still in the moonlight.

His eyes trailed up, and he realized he’d slammed the door shut, yes. Locked for good. But he was on the wrong side.

He’d left the woman in his safe room, completely unaware that while she was in the only place that could contain the beast, she was also in the only place it now couldn’t reach.

“Oh, no,” he whispered.

Luther pressed his hand against the ancient wooden door and closed his eyes. His father would be so disappointed if he were alive, and not the kind of disappointment that came from years of living with a son who never quite lived up to his expectations. This was the worst kind of betrayal. Luther had done what they all worked so hard not to do.

He’d released the beast upon the town of Dead Man’s Crossing, and he couldn’t stop what would come on this night. Not now.

The wolf awoke in his chest as though it had been waiting for this moment its entire life. And maybe it had. The creature had spent so many years locked up and away from the moonlight and the forest that called to it.

Luther let out a low groan as the first crack echoed through the ballroom. It was the sound of bones snapping and realigning. His spine rippled, not only the muscles, but the actual bones as they shifted and became something entirely new. His arms twisted, shoving his entire body back a step with the pain and anguish that came from it.

He dropped his head back, staring up at the moonlight through the broken glass as his vision blurred. That meant his eyes had changed now, and he swore he could see more than what he could in his human form. The moonlight became something like magic. Glimmering in the sky with a thousand sparkling diamonds.

Blistering pain rocked through his skull until he couldn’t think of anything but the white hot heat as though someone had smashed a fist into his face. His nose was broken, surely. And then it did. Snapped and spurted blood all over the floor in a bright spray of crimson. He would have lifted his hands to the wound, pressed his fingers to the flow of blood, if he could think straight. If his hands weren’t anything other than claws that ripped any flesh they touched.

His nose elongated, his cheekbones growing underneath his skin until a sudden unfurling of fur covered him from head to toe. He towered over all those who would have stood before him. Easily eight feet tall and rippled with muscle, hide, and fur. He was a monster from the old ages. A monster that made mortal men and women cower when they saw his true form.

Yes. This was how he should be. Always.

Luther lifted one of his clawed hands and turned it in the moonlight. He’d never seen them like this before. The only time he’d ever had a good look at this form was in the basement with chains holding his arms back and silver burning into the beast’s skin.

Not once had he ever felt so free. So powerful. And now he knew there was a life outside of those chains and he would never, ever return to those bindings.

He lifted his face to the moonlight and let out a long, aching howl. It bounced off the walls and fled out into the night, though the low sound was a cry of hope. He listened intently. Waiting. Hoping. Praying that someone would respond to him. That another wolf still existed out there, so he wasn’t the only one here.

But no howl returned through the night sky, and Luther knew without a doubt that no one would ever howl back to him. He was the lone wolf in London these days, as all the others fled for deeper woods and fewer mortals to hunt them.

He took a staggering step forward, toward the door, behind which he thought he heard movement. A door? Yes, that’s right. He usually would enter that room through the door and then the chains and pain would begin.

With an angry snarl, he clawed the wood with a heavy paw, leaving three large scratch marks behind. If the person was too afraid to face him, then so be it. He refused to stay in this prison any longer. Not when there was a hunt outside and he’d never hunted before.

Oh, the hunt. He could feel it boiling in his blood as he turned toward the windows, where he could finally be released into the woods beyond. Though no one had ever taught him how to take down an animal, how to devour their flesh and rip and rend, he knew how to do it. His claws already ached and his teeth chomped at the air.

He’d return for the person in his basement. If only because he wanted to know who had suffered his fate on this night.

But he wouldn’t return until he felt blood on his tongue and gore underneath his nails. As he was due.

Luther spared one last glance back at the room, then tore through the painting of his father in one last show of rebellion. Let the old man rot in his grave.

He’d been too afraid to let his beast out.