Tara's Fate

Chapter 8

Time stood still, Martin was sure of it. He froze in place with the woman still held in his arms. When her head had first turned, he hadn’t been sure what to expect, but teeth sinking into his flesh had most definitely not been on the list of his wildest imaginations.

The facts about what had just happened registered in his brain painfully, slowly. She had bitten him through the t-shirt he wore. The material should have offered some form of barrier. Especially against her very short and normal human teeth. Alas, it was either the t-shirt was made of a very thin material or the woman had been very determined to get her point across. Martin suspected it was the latter.

He felt the edge of each tooth as it made contact with his skin. Then she bit down hard, like her life depended on it. Inevitably, her canines pierced his skin.

Martin yelped more in shock than pain and immediately let her go. As she fell to the floor, her teeth still held on to his flesh. With the backing of her weight and gravity, and the sudden jerking motion, Martin finally registered a significant amount of pain. He felt his skin tear and blood slip out of the small puncture wounds.

Thankfully, he didn’t have to pry her mouth away from his body. Just as suddenly as she had latched on to his skin, she opened her mouth and let go.

When Tara hit the floor, she was as shocked as the man she had bitten. She slowly became conscious of a very serious ache in her jaw and a metallic taste in her mouth. Tara brought up her hand and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. When her hand came away covered in blood, her eyes popped wide in horror.

She looked up at Martin, who had been standing in front of her. Her insides already cringed as she imagined what she would find. But it wasn’t Martin she saw standing in front of her.

Fear like she had never known ran through her veins and she shuddered. The air in her lungs escaped in a shaky gasp, barely audible above the beat of her heart. In front of her was an animal. And not a cute, fluffy rabbit, but a black wolf or a very big black dog, she guessed with what little of her brain cells had not been paralyzed with fear.

Tara opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came from her throat. She choked on air. She wasn’t sure she was even breathing anymore. Her body broke into violent tremors.

In front of her, the wolf growled and snarled at her. The sight of its sharp canines jolted her out of her temporary paralysis and she finally screamed. The sound that left her mouth was a cry for help, filled with fear from the pit of her stomach.

She then closed her eyes and placed her hands over her ears. She didn’t want to see the animal or hear it. Another scream left her lips, just as deafening as the first one. It was ripped out of her sore, dry throat. A desperate cry for a miracle to save her from the black beast. Then her body just gave up, and she blacked out.

Martin was just completing a shift back into his human form when Kent stepped into the room. His beta looked around with a glow in his eyes, his wolf close to the surface and ready to leap out and rip apart the threat. Martin had no doubts that one or five of his enforcers were right outside his house, ready to storm in at the drop of a hat.

While his friend looked around, trying to understand what had happened, Martin forced himself to draw a breath through his clenched teeth. The cocktail of fury, shock and something else he couldn’t place; needed to be caged and locked away so he could think rationally about what he had just done.

When Kent was satisfied there was no threat in the room, he visibly relaxed and returned his eyes to Martin, who now crouched naked next to an unconscious woman on the floor.

“I would assume something else, but the shredded clothes behind you tell me I would be off the mark by a mile,” Kent said in a surprisingly calm tone.

Martin pressed two fingers on the woman’s throat to check for a pulse. Satisfied she was alive and had a strong heartbeat, he lifted her off the floor and gently laid her on the bed. He took extra care to make sure the robe did not fall open and expose her body to Kent.

As an extra precaution, Martin picked the folded blanket at the foot of the bed and covered her. Then he walked to the bathroom and retrieved another robe for himself.

When he returned to the room, he found Kent had stepped closer to the bed and gave Tara a puzzled look. He then looked up and turned to Martin. “What happened? She has blood in her mouth. Your blood,” he whispered. His nostrils flared as the scent hit him. He could clearly smell whose blood it was.

Martin bent down and picked up the shredded remains of his clothes. When he stood again, he pulled away one side of the robe to show Kent the bite mark that was already healing, but still very visible and had a telling smear of blood still covering it.

The shock on Kent’s face was almost comical. He looked back at the woman and took a step away from the bed as though he was afraid she would suddenly wake up and bite him as well.

“She bit you?” he asked incredulously.

“Imagine my shock,” Martin answered as he approached the bed. He paused, frowned, and then turned back to the bathroom and returned with a wet washcloth.

He then proceeded to wipe Tara’s mouth and the hand she had used to wipe at her mouth before passing out, terrified for her life. He wiped away every trace of blood he could see. Then he took the washcloth and the shredded clothes and left the room.

Kent was right behind him. “Martin? What exactly happened?”

Martin kept walking. He reached the kitchen and retrieved a bottle of alcohol and a lighter before he stepped outside into the night. He gave a nod to one of his enforcers, Robert, who had taken position right outside the kitchen door.

“You can leave, Robert. Tell the others too.”

Kent waited until the enforcer left and the others followed before he gave Martin an expectant look that said he wasn’t leaving without an explanation.

Martin sighed and shrugged. “She bit me… I shifted… then she fainted.” He said it only loud enough for Kent to hear it.

His beta blinked, then grimaced as he tried to make sense of the short, summarized statements. He moved closer to Martin, where he was crouched and preparing to burn the remains of his clothes and the washcloth.

“You shifted in front of a human?” Kent asked in a very low voice to avoid anyone else hearing their conversation.

Martin adopted the same volume as he responded. “That is what I said.”

True, but he still didn’t understand how that could happen. “How?” Kent sounded just as shocked as he felt.

The Alpha grimaced as though it pained him to say the next words. “I snapped. I was shocked. My self-control slipped…”

“Slipped?” Kent interrupted, then shook his head. “I would say you lost your bloody head.”

Martin did not appreciate being spoken to that way, even if it was from his oldest friend and beta. He knew he had messed up big time. It was their most emphasized rule; they never exposed themselves to a human.

Such an act could risk the exposure and destruction of their kind. Werewolves were taught this rule until it was engraved in every cell in their body. On rare occasions when a human had accidentally discovered their secret, measures were taken to ensure the human never told the tale.

Martin looked back at the house over Kent’s shoulder. He knew if word got out that he had just exposed himself to a human, Tara would be taken care of. It was the law.

Martin was not above the law. He had to lead by example and show that the rule applied to everyone. But he couldn’t let anything happen to Tara.

He looked at Kent. “I will take care of it.”

Kent frowned. “Something tells me you don’t plan to do what the council would do if they were made aware.”

The fact that Kent was still whispering very low told Martin that he could trust his friend. “No one gets to know about this.”

Kent regarded him a moment, then nodded and started walking back into the house with Martin. Leaving a pile of ashes behind them. “What about the screaming? Everyone heard it. Hell, I would think the woman was related to a banshee.”

Martin paused and frowned for a moment. Then he shrugged. “She saw a spider.”

“A spider? Are you serious? That is the best you can come up with?”

“She’s human. I bet even an ant would scare the s**t out of her. Besides, it doesn’t need to be a grand story, just something to explain why she screamed,” Martin explained calmly as he grabbed a bottle of water from his fridge.

Kent grabbed a bottle of water too and took a long drink before he responded. “How about a rat?”

“We can smell rats. How could a rat be within the settlement and nobody caught its scent? You know how crazy the younger pups get at the opportunity to chase and hunt a rat.”

“You are giving this lie too much thought,” Kent murmured thoughtfully.

Martin shook his head. “No, you are. A good lie is simple and straightforward. The more elaborate the lie, the more complicated it gets and the easier it is to catch. And remember, deception has a scent. Let’s just keep it simple… I actually think I saw a spider earlier in the guest bathroom.”

“How convenient.”

“Very,” Martin answered with a smirk. He finished his bottle of water and raised his brows at Kent. “Planning on spending the night here?”

“And risk getting spooked by a spider with teeth? No, thank you.” He finished his bottle and left.

Martin chuckled and shook his head. He closed the door and headed back to the guest room. A quick check confirmed Tara was still asleep exactly where he had left her.

He stood in the doorway and watched her for a few minutes. Convincing the pack the human had screamed because of a spider was going to be easy, he was sure. However convincing the human that what had petrified her was an eight-legged tiny creature, he wasn’t very sure. Especially if she woke up with a vivid memory of what happened. He could only hope she wouldn’t.

Martin sighed and locked the door before heading to his own room. There was nothing to be done until the woman woke up, and he doubted it would be soon. He had the entire night to think it through. If indeed the woman was a spy, then Martin knew he had committed the biggest error of his life.