Free Sassy Ever After: Wise Sass Mates (Kindle Worlds Novella) by Tasha Black Page A

that perhaps the journal wasn’t missing after all, she’d been sad to see an actual hinge at the back of the step when she removed it. Sure it would make it easier to open now, but it meant that the journal had probably been found in the seventies when the new runner was installed.
    She tried lifting it, but it was stuck. She had just begun to pry her knife under the tread when she sensed someone on the back porch.
    Fighting panic, she tried to use her newfound senses.
    Her ears told her only that someone was there.
    Her nose told her that the scent was… familiar.
    Maybe it was Mei or Addison, just covering their bases, or trying to help her since it was taking so long.
    Bianca hurried in her work.
    The knife slipped, and she cut her thumb. A tiny bead of blood welled up on her skin.
    She sucked it off, and tried again.
    The tread lifted with a pop just as the back door opened and someone entered the kitchen.
    Torn between running and trying to grab the journal, her brave side took the reins for the second time that night, and she lifted the tread.
    It squealed in protest.
    She thrust her hand into the dark space, trying not to think about the dust and spiders that were surely lurking there.
    She felt the leathery shape and grabbed it as footsteps headed her way.
    This wasn’t Mei or Addison.
    The scent was masculine.
    “Bianca,” a deep voice said.
    Oh, god.
    Zach.
    She dashed up the back stairs, hoping she could make it to the main staircase before he got to her. Thank god these old houses always had plenty of ways in and out.
    She heard him behind her, running up the back stairs, only a few feet away.
    Suddenly there was a crash and a stream of terrible curse words.
    The step. She’d left it open and he must have stepped into it and fallen.
    There was silence for a moment.
    She remembered herself and kept moving, finally reaching the second floor hallway.
    A roar sounded behind her, and claws skittered across the pine floor of the hall.
    No .
    She knew she didn’t have time to turn and look, but she did anyway.
    As if in slow motion, the brown wolf glared at her with yellow eyes as is gathered itself and leapt at her.
    Bianca screamed as she flew through the air. She landed at the edge of the main stairway and teetered for a moment.
    For one glorious instant she thought she had regained her footing.
    Then she felt her ankle give out.
    Bianca fell onto her back and slid down the stairs until she landed in a crumpled pile in the center hall, the journal slipping from her grasp at some point along the way down.
    She stayed conscious long enough to see the front door open, upside down.
    “Bianca?” Mei asked.
    A furry streak flew down the steps and attacked.
    The last thing Bianca saw as the darkness blurred the edges of her vision was the brown wolf tackling her friend.

Chapter 18
    I an had just arrived home and was headed up the steps when a screech of tires on his quiet street roused him from his dreamy plans for the evening with Bianca.
    He turned to see a yellow VW pull up and Bianca’s friend Addison leap out. The tall African-American girl looked terrified.
    “Ian,” she cried, her voice hoarse.
    Bianca.
    “What happened?” he asked.
    “Please, you have to come with me, now,” she said.
    “I can’t leave Bianca,” he said. Though as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he knew to his bones that she wasn’t here.
    She had left him a third time.
    And now there was danger, real danger.
    Without another word he ran to the car with Addison.
    “We went to find the journal, it was stupid and I’m so sorry. She went in, and he must have been there already. We heard a scream. Mei went in and when I heard the growling, I ran…” Addison began to sob.
    “Don’t talk, just drive,” Ian said, fighting the urge to shift and run to protect his mate. He needed to know what was going on first, or he could be putting her in more danger.
    They pulled up outside the house. It was almost full dark