Wolf Pact: A Wolf Pact Novel by Melissa de La Cruz Page A

slow—not a vampire anymore, she’d told him. Lawson snarled, bared his teeth, and ran as fast as he could.
    Bliss had fallen and her leg was bleeding. She was cringing away from the hound—Lawson could see its shape as it loomed large above her, casting a huge shadow. Its crimson eyes were brilliant with hatred.
    He roared at the hound, and the monster turned to him.
    The hellhound growled and leapt to attack, its claws tearing into Lawson’s body, from neck to stomach; then it sunk its teeth into Lawson’s neck and began to shake him like a rag doll.
    “REVERTO UT ABYSSUS! REVERTO UT OBSCURUMI”
    Lawsonturned to see Bliss holding aloft the knife from the butcher shop. Her eyes were blazing, her voice ringing with the tone of command. He held his breath, waiting for the hound to mount another attack—a human girl with a kitchen knife as her only weapon was no match for a hound of Hell—but instead the beast cringed before Bliss, yelping and turning tail, whining as it retreated, disappearing into the night.
    He turned back into his human form, and Bliss helped him to his feet. He was bleeding from the cuts in his neck, on his torso. “Who are you, Bliss Llewellyn?” he asked weakly. “The hound feared you.”
    There was a heavy silence, broken by another pop—Rafe and Edon appeared, as humans. Both were bleeding from cuts and breathing heavily.
    “Where’s the hound?” Rafe asked, spitting out a tooth.
    “It left,” Lawson said. “Bliss told it to go away.”
    Edon scratched his head. “Curious.” The boys all looked at her then, fear and suspicion in their eyes.

PART THREE

     
    I change shapes just to hide in this place But I’m still, I’m still an animal.
    Mike Snow, “Animal”

N INETEEN
     
    “S hespokethesacred language,” Lawson said. “I didn’t recognize it at first, it had been so long since I’d heard the language of the masters.”
    “You seem to have a great talent for languages,” Edon said drily.
    Bliss shrugged and tossed away the knife, dark with the hound’s blood. She wasn’t going to answer their questions.
    They stood in a tense circle until Arthur came out of the darkness. The old man was breathing heavily, and he had a cut on his forehead where the hound had hit him, but he was all right. He nodded at the group. “You got them all? Good.” He nodded to Lawson. “We’ll have to do something about that wound or you’ll bleed out,” he said, motioning to the gaping wound in Lawson’s belly.
    “It’s notthat bad,” Lawson said.
    Bliss grimaced, noticing for the first time the Swiss-cheese pattern of wounds that littered his torso. His shirt was steeped in blood.
    Lawson began to protest, but Arthur would hear none of it. “Malcolm, collect the healing ointments. Rafe, Edon, reinforce the wards around the cave.” The boys left for their tasks.
    “What do you need, Arthur?” Bliss asked.
    “Help me get his clothes off first. I’ll get some warm compresses,” Arthur said, leaving them together.
    “You don’t have to stay,” Lawson said. “I can take off my own clothes.”
    “It’s fine,” Bliss said. “Nothing I haven’t seen before,” she snapped.
    “You might be surprised,” he said.
    She pulled off his shirt a little roughly, and the fabric scraped the open wounds.
    “Ouch!” he yelped before he could help himself.
    “Sorry,” she said. She struggled to conceal the horror on her face when she saw the extent of his injuries, continuing to undress him until he was naked underneath a cool sheet to cover the terrifying sight of broken bone and skin and muscle, the blood congealed into a purple cake.
    Arthurcame back and lifted the sheet, examining the wounds. He nodded, muttered a few things to himself, and then put the sheet back down. “Clean him up as well as you can,” he told Bliss. “I’ll need to collect a few other things before we begin.”
    “You gonna make it through this?” Lawson asked, challenging her.
    “I’ll be