Free Fallen Stars (The Demon Accords) by John Conroe

and tilted it at her.
     
    “And you just threw it like a bag of garbage. This impossibly good-looking man just shows up and yanks it away—and then dives into the darkness after it.  I heard your fight… it was insane.  Even now, knowing everything I know, able to do what I can do, and I still panic at the memory.  A couple minutes of all hell exploding around me, and it stops. You walk back into the campsite like you’re there for a beer.  Your clothes are shredded and bloody, but you’re cool as a cucumber.  You check Dan, you check me.  You actually look me in the eyes—do you know how many men actually look me in the eyes and not at my tits?  And I was just about buck naked.  Then you see the wound on my leg and you’re, like, totally concerned about it.  Covered in your own blood and you’re more worried about me.  And somehow, you heal it!  With your bare hands.  Then you tell me about my future – the one where I’m gonna be a werewolf.  But before I can even freak out you’re reassuring me that it will be alright.  You put me on the phone with Afina, who invites me to New York City along with my mom for a new life.”
    She stopped and shook her head, blonde hair whipping.
     
    “How cliché can you get?  Poor girl rescued from a fairytale monster by a superman who promises her a life of opportunity!  Part of me didn’t really believe it, but then again, there was a dead werewolf lying thirty feet away and the man who killed it with his bare hands is standing in front of me, so maybe, just maybe the rest is real, too?  Then the feds show up along with the police, including my uncle, and everything goes down just as you said it would.  And you’re standing there with your shirt off and Gina is cleaning you up.  I wanted to fucking kill her.  She’s touching a body that makes every celebrity I’ve ever seen look anemic, and she’s all doctorly about it.  She even slapped you, which actually made me a little happy, because I was jealous as hell up to that point.  You disappear, but everything you promised happens, even better than you said.  Do you understand, Chris?  My life was empty dreams and broken promises and you twirl it all around a hundred and eighty degrees.  I go to freaking Columbia University now!  I have a job a thousand people would kill for.  I won’t ever get sick, I’ll look twenty for a hundred years, and I’ll never be afraid of men again!  I wasn’t even afraid of the Loki Spawn at my induction because I knew , just knew you were going to stop them.  I was scared to shit when you fought them, but that was a joke. It was like they hit a living Cuisinart!”
    She stopped to take a breath, petting the heavy wolf head nestled by her side.
     
    “So I want you.  I’ve wanted you since you saved me.  I know it’s like a white knight fairytale thing, but that doesn’t matter.  But you’re bound to her. Even as you’re bound to me.”
     
    “Er, what?  What do you mean I’m bound to you?” I interrupted.
     
    She smiled.  “The Pack has its own doctor—Dr. Arcos.  He’s a very old werewolf, from Europe.  Afina took me to him my first day in the City.  Dr. Arcos is absolutely fascinated by you and more than a bit by me.  He did blood tests and things.  Told Afina and I that the LV virus had spread through me faster than any bitten were he’d ever seen.  Also, the virus is a bit different in my case, a different strain.  He thinks your blood mingled with mine—just before you healed me.  He thinks you and I have a bit of a bond, which is why I can almost always find you in the City.  Not like the chosen bond you have with her —more like an offshoot of a Pack bond, but more… personal.”
     
    She was looking at 'Sos as she rubbed his head. Now, she raised her liquid emerald eyes and started straight into mine. 
     
    “So to be perfectly honest with you, Chris, my goal is to win you away from her .  I’ve thought about the