Chapter One: Kenzi's Nightmare
The yellow-gold eyes stared at her, and she dared not move under their fierce gaze. She dared not breathe. She didn't know how this could be happening again.
Not again, her mind wailed.
Not again.
Not again.
Please with all that's holy in this world, not again.
Kenzi blinked, and the yellow-gold eyes blinked too. She wanted to scream. That wouldn't do any good though. It did no good the night it happened, and it did no good in each of her dreams for the last week. She choked the scream off, and fought the tears which came like little soldiers to die on her cheeks.
The yellow-gold eyes closed too, and the mirror showed Kenzi as she jerked her head away from it. The truth was out there. Kenzi is a werewolf to be. She covered her ears and dropped to the floor, her knees folding under her. She had stopped the scream, but couldn't stop the tears. She could never stop the tears.
Now, if dreams, or nightmares, followed the same flow as reality, then Dyson would come running in to save the day. He would kneel down beside her, look her in the eyes, and ask what was wrong.
That was the problem. By the time Dyson came to the rescue the wolf eyes had vanished, leaving her teary hazel orbs behind. When she opened her mouth to tell the truth, nothing would come out. Even then she knew what the truth meant.
She knew what the fae would do.
Her shoulders shuddered, but she shook her head and dried her eyes. This dream was different from the others.
Dyson didn't come rushing in because there was no scream. She knew she wasn't alone though. There was another presence in the Dahl's women's room with her. She could feel it. She could smell its vile blood soaked stench. She could hear the beating of its heart as though it was her own. There was a pounding in her ears. She realized she was hearing two heart beats. Her own, and the other, and they were beating right in time with one another.
Breath filled her lungs and her ears. Their hearts beat the same. Their breathing was the same. Kenzi wondered if her unwanted company had the same chill creeping up its spine.
Fear clenched tight in her stomach. Fear of what would be there when she turned around.
It's just a dream, she told herself.
"Oh, it's far more than a dream," a deep voice said. The voice sounded like gravel grating together, and the air from those lips came out with something resembling a growl. "It's far more than a dream, and it's about time you fessed up to it. Turn around."
Kenzi couldn't stop herself. Her feet moved under the other's command. Right then she knew far more of her life than she wanted was going to be controlled by that gravelly voice.
"Come now, Kenzi. You shouldn't think so negatively of me. After all, you and I are going to be spending quite some time together."
Her turn complete, Kenzi found a man standing behind her. He was taller than she was by two full feet it seemed, and his facial structure was remarkably similar to Dyson. Only Dyson lacked the yellow-gold eyes that stared out from his sockets. He lacked the shaggy black hair. Though the scruff of a five o'clock shadow was common between them. He smiled, and his teeth were like steak knives.
He wore only a pair of loose fitting black pants. His chest was covered in thickly corded muscle, every one of which seemed like a tightly wound coil, and black hair almost hid his skin. His feet were bare. The toenails were thick and dark, ending in a dagger like point an inch away from the tips of his toes. He held his hands behind his back.
"Who are you?" Kenzi asked, her voice sounding small in the air of her dream. Nothing like his.
"You know me."
Lykos.
"We've met before."
Claws and blood flashed through her mind. Dyson lying dead with his intestines spilled out on the ground. Bo and Hale were crucified on the stone walls, each of them partially eaten. Trick's head was laying in one of the sinks.
Lykos.
A scream rose to Kenzi's lips. Lykos' hand was there in a flash, clamping tight over her jaws. She felt his fingernails, like claws, digging into her skin. Her eyes went wide as she stared up into his darkly familiar face.
"Do you want to see it again?" Lykos asked. He was on the floor next to her. Holding her tight. Whispering in her ear like a lover. "Do you want to watch them die again?"
She tried to shake her head. Lykos' hand held her head steady, but he flashed her a deadly smile.
"See, I thought you had some sense." Lykos said. "I'm going to let go now, and stand up. If you scream, you'll be the one killing them. Not me. Do you understand?"
She nodded.
Lykos looked at her for a moment, those yellow-gold eyes boring deep into her soul. Deeper even, than Kenzi had ever seen in any mirror. What he saw there must have been funny. He flashed her a fang filled devil's grin.
His hand left her mouth, while the other encircled her wrist. He shifted his weight, rolling on the balls of his feet, into a crouched ready to spring position.
Kenzi's breath caught in her chest.
Lykos raised a hand, splayed out into a fan, to his lips.
No!
That smile disappeared with some reluctance and his lips came together, like he was puckering up for a kiss.
God's no!
He took a deep breath, and then it began.
"Don't!" Kenzi screamed as she jerked forward, trying to cover his lips as he had covered hers.
"Aaaaaooooooo," Lykos howled. The sound seemed to make everything in the bathroom vibrate. It sang to every bone; every muscle; every drop of blood in Kenzi's body. She stopped mid motion, like she'd forgotten what she was going to do, and she was compelled.
No.
Not compelled.
She wanted it.
Kenzi raised her voice in a howl right alongside Lykos.
The door to the bathroom banged open and four people rushed into the room. Dyson leading the charge, followed by Bo and Hale—both were already dead; their bodies sitting cold in the county morgue—and Trick brought up the rear.
Now Kenzi realized what Lykos had meant to do.
She was going to kill them.
Pain lit every nerve ending in Kenzi's body on fire. The transformation and all its horrors rippled through her. Arms and legs grew longer, gaining god only knows how much muscle mass. Her hands and feet became paws, each with six-inch daggers in place of nails. Her jaw pushed out, and her face became the monsters muzzle, and fangs filled her mouth. What her four friends found when they entered the bathroom was death on four legs. Dyson stared into Kenzi's eyes, her wolf's eyes, and all the yellow-gold orbs showed him was damnation.
Kenzi's lips curled back in a snarl. Her heavy back fur covered body was primed and ready to spring.
Dyson stared.
The real horror of the situation was simple. Kenzi wanted to kill them. She wanted to bathe in fae blood. She wanted to rip the precious life giving flesh from their limbs.
Kenzi snarled, and have a single bark of warning before she tore into them.
Lykos laughed, deep laughs filled with the purest distillation of joy possible. Lykos laughed while Kenzi killed.
Kenzi jerked awake in bed. She heard the tear of cloth, and realized she had a piece of her pillow stuck between her teeth. Her stomach lurched. She could taste blood.
She spit the piece out without looking at it, and ran for the bathroom. She took the steps two at a time, and used the door to get in. Even though there was a human shaped hole much closer to the stairs.
Her stomach emptied itself. Everything she'd eaten that day, which had been very little, floated on the surface.
There was no blood. No chunks of human flesh.
She sighed.
Then heaved again.
When her stomach was completely devoid of matter, she curled up beside the toilet and began to cry.
Part of her wondered if she had woke Dyson up.
The other part of her saw the irony of the situation.
Three weeks ago she'd been curled up in nearly the same position, crying as the morning light crept through the window. It was apropos that her tears now fell in the pale moonlight.