Pack Dynamics by Julie Frost

Author:Julie Frost [Frost, Julie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fantasy, Paranormal & Urban
Amazon: B0153M1UKI
Publisher: WordFire Press
Published: 2015-09-28T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Ben’s eyes blinked open.

Breathe.

Or … not.

Shit, he was dead. Apparently other people thought so too, because a blanket rested over his face and he wasn’t strapped to the table anymore.

His brow creased. If he was dead, he shouldn’t be feeling, well … anything. Right? And the blanket was soft and the table was cold and he was incredibly hungry and he had really sharp fangs—

Um. What?

He ran his tongue over his teeth. Fangs, upper and lower. He tried to get rid of them, told the wolf to go away and lie down, but it just panted at him in an amused fashion and sat there with its tail wrapped around its feet.

He cast backwards into his memory.

Vampire. Blood. Tubes and machines and McFoucher’s expression, which hadn’t been sad, exactly, but she hadn’t looked too happy either. And he recalled thinking that vampire blood in his own veins probably wasn’t the best idea ever.

Right before he died.

Except—he ran his tongue across his teeth again—he wasn’t dead, per se. And he’d grown a set of fangs, which had implications he wasn’t entirely comfortable with, but he was apparently going to have to deal. Because life wasn’t tired of flinging curveballs at his head yet.

Okay, so, vampire fangs. Fine. He hadn’t noticed Idna having them, so there was a way of making them disappear somehow. Frowning with concentration, he flexed something in his mouth and twitched when they snicked back to lie flush against his gums, inside grooves apparently made for them. Another flex, and they snapped forward. Awesome.

He was taking this a lot more calmly, he thought, than he ought to be. Where was the panic that always bubbled under the surface, waiting for the most inopportune moments to erupt?

It had been replaced by an uncanny quietude. For the first time in … forever, he was on an even keel. And that was almost as disturbing as waking up from the dead with quadruple fangs, along with a severe hunger that he intuitively knew wouldn’t be satisfied by anything less than hot human blood flowing down his throat in deep gulps fresh from a vein or, preferably, an artery.

Okay, that was just wrong. He closed his eyes for a minute and gripped the sides of the table, and his autonomic nervous system decided that breathing could commence again, even if he didn’t actually have to do so to keep from passing out.

And that made him aware of certain scents. The big bald tattooed werewolf—Nick, that was his name—was still in the room, along with a couple of other people, who were plain old everyday humans. McFoucher was gone, as were Ostheim and his wife.

Before waking up as a vampire, Ben would have hesitated. His wolf was smaller and not nearly as strong as a wolf created by whatever passed for “normal” among lycanthropes.

Now? He flexed his hands and bared his teeth. The steel of the table bent under his fingers. Nick had hit Janni.

And Ben was starving.

O O O

Alex pulled his ‘68 Mustang Fastback into the parking lot just as two other cars were heading out.

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