Blood splashed the marble. Derek grasped the sphinx by her hind foot and swung her at the nearest column. Her back smashed into stone with a crunch.

Outside one of the wolves snarled. Hopefully, it was nothing. If they snarled again, I’d have to go and check it out.

The sphinx broke free and leapt at Derek, sinking her claws into Derek’s shoulders and kicking, trying to disembowel him with her hind legs. He grasped her by her throat, tore her free of him like she was a feral cat, and bit her neck.

Blood washed over them, spurting out between his teeth. He chewed on her, carving through flesh with vicious focus. She raked him with her claws, but he kept biting.

The sphinx sagged. Her strikes lost their power. She went limp. The light in her eyes dimmed.

Derek let go. She fell to the floor in a crumpled heap. He drove his hand into her chest and ripped her heart out.

She shuddered one last time and went still.

Derek dropped the heart. He raised his bloody face to the moon and howled. It wasn’t triumphant, it was mournful. It gripped your heart and squeezed it, telling you that life was not forever.

The last notes of the howl died, melting into the night.

Derek turned. His warrior form condensed in on itself, folding into a human shape. His eyes were full of golden light.

Uh oh.

He started toward me, naked, bloody, his eyes on fire.

I stood up.

He kept coming.

“Earth to werewolf, mission complete.”

He lunged at me. I had no time to dodge. He pressed my back into a column. His face was inches from mine. An electric thrill dashed through me, fear and excitement rolled into one.

He was looking at my face, at my eyes, at my lips…

“I get that killing her was very exciting…”

He leaned close, resting his forehead on mine. No rational thought remained in his eyes. Only hunger and need. Mayday, mayday.

“Stop.”

He took a deep breath, sampling my scent.

“Stop! Derek!”

Oh shit.

He leaned back an inch. A slow smile stretched his, lips but there was no humor in it. It looked harsh and bitter. “Well, look at that. The illustrious Julie Olsen remembered my name.”

Cold drenched me. “You knew.”

“Yes.”

It had to have been the blood armor. “Since when?”

“Since the beginning. I saw you ride into the city.”

“How? My face is different; my scent is different.”

He leaned closer, his lips almost touching my ear. “I don’t need to see your face or smell you. I could tell it was you by the way you rode your horse.”

My brain screeched to a halt.

He straightened, giving me more room, and I saw his eyes. They brimmed with cold fire. He was pissed off beyond all reason.

Really? He was mad? He had some nerve.

“You knew and you didn’t tell me. Was it fun?”

He pondered me. “Not sure. Let me think about it.”

“I sense some hostility.”

He pretended to ponder it. “Really? Now what could’ve caused that, I wonder?”

“Why don’t you tell me? Just lay it all out.”

He bared his teeth. His voice was a snarl. “You left. No goodbye. No explanation. You fucking left me behind like an old knife you didn’t want.”

“You could’ve found me any time you wanted. I called home. I told them exactly where I was. If you wanted to talk to me, all you had to do was pick up the phone.”

“And said what? Please come back? You made your move, I made mine. I waited for you to come back. You didn’t. You made it plain you didn’t want anything to do with me. Was I supposed to wait for you here forever like a good boy?”

“Was I? I was in love with you for five years and you couldn’t even be bothered to look me up.”

“You were a little kid!”

“And if I hadn’t left, I would’ve stayed a little kid in your head forever. I grew up. I thought that if I left, eventually you would track me down. Things would be different.”

“Things were fine! We were a good team.”

“I didn’t want to be a team! I wanted to be a couple!”

He stared at me.

“My gods, how can you be so dense? If I stayed here, we would still be ‘a good team.’”

“That was enough for me. I liked having you close. I liked knowing where you were and what you were doing.”

“It’s not always about you. If I hadn’t left, we would still be right where we were before, with me hoping and hoping and you never making up your mind. Nothing would’ve changed.”

“You didn’t give me a chance,” he snarled. “You left.”

“I left because I had a gaping hole in my soul from the severed binding. I didn’t ask you to come with me, because for once in your life, I wanted you to show me that you loved me. I wanted you to fight for me. I wanted you to do the ridiculous werewolf mating thing, where you bring me food, and flirt with me, and growl at any other male who tries to hit on me. I had these ridiculous fantasies of you dramatically showing up out of nowhere. When you left Atlanta, I thought you were coming to find me. I waited by the fucking window like a moron every morning for three weeks.”

“I left Atlanta because I had to figure out what I was. It had nothing to do with you.”