Free Last Wolf Standing by Rhyannon Byrd

after this.”
    “You’re not alone, Torry. Max and I aren’t going to abandon you.”
    An ornate grandfather clock began chiming in the far corner of the room, signaling the hour. Realizing the time, Torrance cast a questioning glance at Max. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work right now?”
    He shook his head, a small grin playing at the corner of his mouth. “Naw. I’ve got the night off, remember? Good thing, too, because now I can keep an eye on things around here.”
    “Oh, God,” Torrance groaned, shutting her eyes as a wrenching thought suddenly sliced its way through her brain, battering past her fear. What the hell had she been thinking? She couldn’t stay here! If Simmons could find her one time, he could find her again. She was putting both of her closest friends’ lives in danger by coming to them for help. Why hadn’t she realized that when she’d run to them?
    Why? Because you weren’t thinking, you brainless, stupid, terrified little idiot!
    “What? What’s wrong?” Mic asked.
    Feeling sick inside, Torrance opened her eyes. “I just realized how stupid it was to come to you. I wasn’t thinking straight, and now I’ve put you both in danger. What if he tracks me here?”
    “I’d like to see him try,” Max growled, making her blink in startled surprise. It seemed that just yesterday Max had been graduating from high school, but the boy sitting across from her had somehow grown up and become a man without her noticing. One who was tall and broad and lean with muscle. One who looked as if he could handle himself, and would relish the opportunity to get his hands on Simmons. Of course, Torrance wasn’t about to let it happen.
    She knew she needed to leave, and told them so, but the Doucets weren’t having it.
    “I don’t want to hear another word about it,” Michaela ordered, her chin set at that stubborn angle that meant she’d made up her mind and was done listening to arguments. She stood and took the empty teacups into the kitchen, then came back a moment later with a glass of water and two small blue pills on a napkin. “You’re staying right here. Now come on and let’s get you set up in the guest room. You look like you’re about to keel over from exhaustion.”
    After ten minutes of arguing, and another ten minutes of getting settled in, Torrance found herself standing under a hot, steady stream of water in the guest bathroom. The air was heavy with steam while she let the soothing heat run over her body, washing away the grime of the day, if not the strain. But the sedatives Michaela had insisted she swallow were helping with that, easing the tension as a smooth warmth poured through her veins, relaxing her muscles. Leaning her head forward, the water spilling over her neck and shoulders, Torrance finally admitted to the other, more disturbing reason she had run from her apartment. The one she had refused to think about, until now.
    She’d wanted to stay with him.
    It seemed illogical, impossible, considering the sheer force of her terror, but the desire to go with Mason Dillinger had been frighteningly strong. The very depth of her extraordinary reaction to him had sent her running even more than the panic over what he was—and God only knew that she was terrified by the idea of what he could…become. She’d seen those lethal claws firsthand, and knew exactly what they were capable of.
    You’re losing it, woman, she thought, lifting her face to the spray. Completely losing it.
    There was no other explanation, because even knowing what he was…Torrance still wanted him.
     
    Hidden within the murky black shadows of the night, Mason rested his back against the rough bark of a giant elm tree and took a deep breath of the crisp autumn air, searching for the scent of Simmons. His keen eyesight zeroed in on the picturesque house before him—the same house he’d been watching ever since Pallaton had called him with the address, after following Torrance from Michaela’s