Something was happening in a big way, and I doubted it was anything good.
Creeping along the back of the building, I crouched in the shadows to peer out over the parking lot and felt my heart sink. Red and blue lights danced in my eyes, blurring with the bright lights of news cameras to form a dizzying kaleidoscope of light. In the center of the crowd was a face that pulled a bubbling growl from the back of my throat.
Jessica Chrismer.
She was perfectly polished and styled, the artfully applied makeup and coiffed blonde hair hiding the truth of what she really was. She was cold, cruel, and merciless when it came to getting the story she wanted. She had a talent for making the victim feel like the perpetrator, and had made my life an absolute misery throughout Samson’s trial. The fact that she was a Day Servant, a vampire’s daytime guardian and errand-girl, didn’t help inspire warm, fuzzy feelings towards her either. Her presence at the hotel didn’t bode well, and dread crept into my veins, chilling me more than the freezing wind.
As I remained hidden in shadow, watching the crowd, I saw her stiffen almost imperceptibly. The set of her shoulders hardened and her eyes narrowed. Giving her head a seemingly casual toss, she surveyed her surroundings with a sharp gaze, the blazing lights flashing silver in her eyes as she pulled on the abilities of her vampire master.
The bond that existed between their souls and minds leant her the strength and perception of her master, but I didn’t think that outweighed the creep factor of having someone else living in your head. Why anyone would want to have their soul—their life essence—bound to that of a walking corpse, I’d never been able to figure out. My grandmother had always said “to each their own,” but I don’t think that sentiment had extended to the undead and their daytime watchers.
Chrismer’s gaze inched closer to my hiding spot before eventually sliding away. She had sensed my presence, but thankfully wasn’t able to pinpoint my location.
I waited until her searching gaze moved in the opposite direction before quietly slipping back from the corner and circling around to the back of the building, all the while cursing my craptastic luck.
Shit. What is that walking blood bag doing here?
Pacing back and forth in a tight circle, I huffed in frustration, my breath shimmering in the freezing air. Watching its ascent, I felt a flicker of hope as I spied the small bathroom window on the wall. It wasn’t very big, but the thought of trying to wedge myself through the small opening was a lot more appealing than facing the media frenzy out front, or worse yet, the firing squad I’d face for shifting in public.
Crouching low to the ground, I closed my eyes and focused on making the shift back to human form, gritting my teeth against the pain. Shifting from wolf to human while under duress always seemed to be comprised of less pleasure and more pain as if the wolf didn’t want to be pushed back down and fought against the change just enough to make it unpleasant.
Biting down on my tongue to keep from crying out, my mouth was filled with the familiar sweetness of blood before all conscious thought fled. I hovered somewhere in the ether, in the crystalline moment between wolf and human, some horrifying mix of woman and beast.
A bone rattling shudder rippled through me as I shook off the last traces of the wolf and immediately cursed the absence of fur as the wind rained dozens of tiny icy shards down on me from the roof, each one stinging my skin like tiny biting insects. Goose bumps rose along the lengths of my arms and my thighs, my knees shaking as much from the cold as from the last tremors of the change.
Glancing around, I found a broken tree branch that looked like it might be sturdy enough to use as a pry bar on the window. Armed with my make-shift crow bar, I paused beneath the unlit window, funneling all of my focus down to my hearing, listening for any sounds within the room. After hearing nothing for the count of ten, I reached up on my tiptoes and wedged the end of the stick into the window frame.
My heart lurched at the sharp sound of groaning metal, the noise seeming to ring out in the darkness like a bullhorn. When no one shouted an alarm, or came running around the building with an arsenal of guns pointed at my head, I figured that the sound had gone unnoticed and I was safe to proceed with my first foray into breaking and entering.
Biting my lip—because that totally helps with concentration—I wiggled the stick back and forth, trying to lever the small pane of frosted glass out of its metal housing. A second later the glass popped out of the frame so easily I almost didn’t catch it before it hit the ground.